The Line That Held Us

by David Joy

  “That’s right. I fix those up and sell them. You’d be surprised what folks throw away down there at the recycling center. I pick it up, I fix it, and I sell it.”

  “So when I run the serials on all those televisions and all those chainsaws not a one of them’s going to come back stolen? Those two items seem to come up missing at B-and-E’s a lot more often than toaster ovens.”

  “I don’t know where any of it come from before it wound up at the dump, but you can certainly ride down there and ask the attendant and she’ll tell you. Her name’s Martha. She talks funny. Kind of harelip or a cleft palate or something. And the strangest thing, most them TVs don’t got serial numbers when I find them.”

  “Here’s the thing, Dwayne. I’ll cut the bullshit.” Stillwell cracked the top on his soda and took a long swig. “That phone you had, that phone belongs to a woman named Angie Moss, and the thing is, she’s come up missing.”

  “Well, I told you where I found—”

  “We can run the cell tower pings and see where that phone’s been, and we’ll get to that, but right now I want you to listen.” Stillwell cut him off. “What makes that cell phone so damn interesting is that Angie Moss is Calvin Hooper’s girlfriend, and Calvin Hooper, well, that’s Darl Moody’s best friend. So you see, you having that particular phone is awfully, awfully suspicious in that it has a direct line to why I came looking for you in the first place.”

  “I already told you that, too,” Dwayne said. He reached across the table and grabbed Stillwell’s drink, kept his eyes on Stillwell as he raised the can and took a sip. He sighed heavily with satisfaction, watched that son of a bitch’s face turn. “I don’t know anybody named Darl Moody, and I don’t know anybody named Calvin Hooper.” He slid the can back in front of Stillwell. Stillwell shook his head.

  “You can have it,” Stillwell said. “You enjoy that Coke and I’ll enjoy getting the blood results off that knife we found in your pocket tonight.”

  “Blood.” Dwayne laughed. “You ain’t going to find any blood on that knife except maybe some squirrel blood or rabbit blood, something I cleaned and et.”

  “I kind of suspect I’m going to find Darl Moody’s blood. I kind of suspect that might’ve been the knife you ran right straight across his neck.”

  “You know you keep talking about how you think I killed Darl Moody, but the one thing you still haven’t ever mentioned is why. What reason would I have had to do a thing like that? I didn’t even know him. So what, you think I just upped and decided to go kill some fellow I don’t know for shits and giggles? I think we both know how that’ll play out in a courtroom.”

  “What I think is that all of this, every bit of it, is tied to your brother.”

  That word brother came like a match tossed into a cup of gasoline. His fists tightened and he clenched his jaw, his eyes held open and unblinking.

  “Let’s talk a little bit about your brother,” Stillwell said. He seemed to notice the change in Dwayne’s demeanor and latched on. “You know I went to school with Carol. Sissy. Me and him were in the same grade.” Stillwell stared into Dwayne Brewer’s eyes. “He had a pretty rough time growing up, didn’t he? I remember how everybody used to pick on him about that birthmark on his face. Used to make fun of him about his clothes, the fact his shoes wasn’t any good.

  “I remember one time we were in, I don’t know, sixth grade, seventh grade, but Sissy was sitting there at his desk and he had this old book bag sitting on the floor, this old yellow satchel, and the top of it was open. Well one of the boys sitting next to him said he saw a roach come out of the top of his book bag and run across the floor. He started yelling and laughing and telling everybody what happened, and the teacher turned around and Sissy was red in the face, looked like he was about to cry. I don’t know if there was really a bug came out of his bag or not. I didn’t see it. That’s just what that boy said he saw. I remember feeling bad about that. Kids can say a lot of horrible things.”

  “You don’t know a goddamn thing about my brother,” Dwayne said calmly. “You don’t know a thing about how we came up or what we went through. Now, you can sit there and pretend that you do, pretend like you care, but you don’t. Deep down, you know that. I’ve seen people like you all my life. You see somebody suffering and you don’t do a thing in the world to help them. You sit there and you watch it and you keep quiet, don’t say a word, just go on about your business. Maybe you laugh about it. Maybe you don’t. But either way you go right on about your life without thinking twice. So don’t talk to me about suffering. And don’t you dare try to tell me you knew my brother or you understand how we came up. You don’t know a goddamn thing about it.”

  “What I know is that your brother was back in there digging ginseng just like you said,” Stillwell explained. “But here’s what I also know. I know that Darl Moody was back in there hunting and that somehow or another he wound up accidentally killing Carol. I know that the same as you do. You went looking for your brother and the old man showed you those pictures off his game camera and that led you to Darl. That’s the connection. So when you ask me what reason you would’ve had to kill Darl Moody, that’s why. And that’s what led you to Calvin Hooper and that’s why Angie Moss up and vanished like smoke.”

  “That’s a whole lot of fine storytelling, but I don’t think you have a thing in this world to support any of that.”

  “What I’ve got is the end of the line, Dwayne. I’ve got the right thread and I might’ve hit a knot, but when I get this knot untied and pull that string this whole thing’s going to come unraveled, and right there you’ll be.”

  Dwayne’s expression did not change. There was a strange calm over him now, that same feeling he’d had right before Angie Moss came onto the porch.

  “You’re in a position right now that I can still help you. You tell me where she is and I can still help you, Dwayne. I can tell the DA that you were cooperative and that it was because of you that Angie Moss is safe and sound. But if you let this play out, if you wait till I have everything I need to prove what I already know, then it’s going to be too late. There’s not going to be anything I can do to help you then. You know what they’re going to do, Dwayne, they’re going to kill you. A jury of your peers will convict you of murder and they will sentence you to die.”

  “I’m not interested in pretending you’re here to help me,” Dwayne said. “That good-guy, let-me-help-you bullshit’s a waste of your time.”

  “They’ll kill you, Dwayne. That is not an exaggeration.”

  Dwayne looked down at his hands and he opened his fingers against the tabletop. He focused there for a long time before lifting his eyes. “Let me put this in a way that maybe you’ll understand,” Dwayne said. “You ever been standing at a campfire and all of a sudden the wind shifts and there you are with all that smoke and ash and fire blowing on you, and you got to move from where you were standing to keep from getting burned up, to keep from choking on all that smoke?”

  Stillwell nodded his head.

  “All my life I’ve been walking around that fire and all my life that smoke’s been following me. That’s the only truth I know. That’s how it’s been for me and my brother since we came into this world. When you’ve lived a life like that and a man looks you square in the eye and tells you you might die, like dying is the biggest chip he could lay on the table, it’s a goddamn joke. I ain’t a bit more worried about dying than I am about skipping a meal. You can take that for whatever it’s worth, boss man. It don’t make a damn bit of difference to me.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Calvin Hooper shared a holding cell with three men he’d never seen before in his life. The cellblock smelled like sweat: four cells on each side, a narrow corridor straight down the center, locked steel doors at each end. A small rectangular window with crosshatched wire through the glass centered the top halves of the two doors, the fronts of the eight cells were open with
bars.

  All but Calvin wore the same orange-and-white-striped uniforms. Sharing his cell, a scrawny man with a receding hairline lay with hands interlaced behind his head on one of the two bottom bunks. He wore a thin beard along his jawline and no emotion on his face. A young Cherokee kid with jet-black hair and wide eyes couldn’t sit still. He’d sit down on the bunk, scratch at his arms, stand up, pace the cell, sit back down, scratch his arms, his jaw working like he was chewing bubble gum. The third was an older man with salt-and-pepper hair cut close, had the slimy look of a pedophile. He smiled when they brought Calvin into the cell, and tried to make small talk. He said his name was Atkins and that he got picked up on an out-of-state warrant from Mississippi. “Headed back to the Velvet Ditch,” he kept saying. “I hope they’re holding my spot at City Grocery.” He stood at the bars with his elbows resting on the cross support, his hands dangling outside.

  Someone in another cell was beating on the bars, making a sort of two-tone rhythm and singing off-key. Another inmate kept yelling, “Shut the fuck up! For God’s sake, shut the fuck up!” but the drummer kept drumming and his singing never ceased.

  Calvin stood at the stainless-steel sink and cupped his hands under a running faucet. He brought the water to his face and wiped it over his eyes. The water was cold against his skin and he stood there letting it drip from his chin, his empty expression staring back in the smudged mirror glass. He had no clue what would come next. There was a short-lived moment standing there on Stillwell’s front porch while Calvin let go of everything he’d held, laying all of it right there at Stillwell’s feet, when he honestly believed that things were going to work out, that they’d bust down Dwayne Brewer’s door and find Angie there in a backroom safe and sound. But happy endings weren’t fit for shit but children’s books and PG movies. Here he was, in a cell, with absolutely no idea what was happening on the outside, no idea whether or not Angie was safe, no idea what would come.

  There on that porch Stillwell had explained how Darl covering up what had happened didn’t change the crime, that either way he was guilty of manslaughter. He told Calvin in the state of North Carolina that accessory after the fact was punished two levels below the principal felony and that meant he was facing a year, two tops. There was a chance with a clean record he might even catch probation, though Stillwell doubted a judge would be that lenient. Either way, Calvin wasn’t looking at much time at all for what he’d done to Sissy. Stillwell had told him this to try and ease his burden and convince him that everything was all right. But in truth, knowing that made it all the worse. A year of his life and he’d have been free. He’d risked everything he loved to keep from handing over a year of his life.

  A loud buzzing came from the far end of the jail, the lock clacked open on the door. Rubber soles squeaked against the concrete floor followed by the clap of footsteps. He wasn’t paying much attention to the noise until they passed in front of the cell.

  Two deputies marched at the sides of Dwayne Brewer, each having one arm hooked at his elbow. One deputy was a medium-built man with his hair shaved high and tight, the other a skinny middle-aged woman with greasy curls draping her shoulders. As soon as Calvin saw him, his heart felt like it was going to explode. He watched silent and dumbstruck like he was witnessing a miracle.

  Dwayne’s head turned and their eyes met. He smiled and spun so that he was facing Calvin’s cell and he lumbered toward the bars while the deputies tried their damnedest to turn him. When he was almost to the cell, he stopped. The deputies wrestled, but he was too big to be moved. Dwayne widened his stance and took root. He looked at the two bulls yanking his arms and nodded to the cell in front of him. “I’ll take this one.”

  The female deputy slapped out a collapsible blackjack and hammered the backs of his knees. Dwayne collapsed, his face cringing with anger or agony and the place erupted with men shouting as the two officers dragged him away. In a few seconds, Calvin heard the lock click on a cell and the heavy barred door slammed closed soon after. The two deputies marched back through the center aisle, glancing into Calvin’s cell as they passed. The inmates banged on their bars and yelled at the tops of their lungs. The door closed at the end of the hall. There was no one inside now but the prisoners, and they made their wildness known.

  Calvin felt dizzy standing there and he braced himself against the sink.

  The old man from Mississippi watched him curiously. “You all right?” he asked, but Calvin didn’t have anything to say.

  “Calvin Hooper,” Dwayne roared, the rest of the inmates cowering at the sound.

  There was a feeling in the air caught between fury and fear, a volatility like the room was filled with gasoline fumes and a single spark would burn them all alive. Calvin’s hands trembled and his ears rang.

  “You better pray you get out before I do,” Dwayne yelled.

  But praying wouldn’t help a soul.

  THIRTY-THREE

  In one way or another Dwayne Brewer had been thumbing for a ride all his life. That afternoon was hot as hell for the last of October and as he followed the edge of the road, stumbling backward as cars approached, nobody slowed down and nobody stopped.

  He’d walked out of the Justice Center without any boots and by the time he made it up Kitchens Branch the soles of his feet were black and raw. The front door of his childhood home was kicked in and he hobbled inside only long enough to grab a roll of duct tape and a bag of zip ties from a junk drawer in the kitchen, a butcher knife from a wooden block on the counter, and the Bible from his bedroom.

  Smash-and-grab dipshits and frat boys fighting DUIs chose lawyers with billboards mimicking Better Call Saul, sleazebag attorneys with coffee-stained teeth who ran TV commercials with spaceships and cheesy special effects. But this wasn’t Dwayne’s first rodeo. Irving Queen was as filthy as they came in the courtroom, but the difference was, he usually won. Queen came from Caney Fork like the Moodys and the Hoopers, and most Queens were great people, one of the most talented bluegrass families to ever come out of Appalachia. Irving’s side, though, was questionable at best, shady if you wanted to get right down to it. Starting with his great-grandfather, four generations had all run shine, so being a snaky-ass lawyer was an honest-to-God step in the right direction.

  Before the guards even had time to get to lunch, that greasy little potato of a man waltzed into the Justice Center with sweat oozing from his bald head and he slapped a writ of habeas on Sheriff John Coggins’s desk. Coggins wore a silver flattop and a jet-black Magnum, P.I., 1970s porn ’stache that looked like absolute shit. His face turned sour at the sight of Queen, at the sight of what lay on his desk that morning. Knowing what his detective had pulled the night before was questionable at best, borderline illegal, he cut Dwayne loose rather than wait around for a judge to smack him in the back of the head.

  Crossing the yard, the way the brittle grass crunched underfoot, the clay damp and cold, reminded Dwayne of childhood, the way they’d never worn shoes outside of winter. There was something strange about having been in a single place his entire life, growing up right there in that house and having never left. There was no telling how many times in his life he’d hiked this trail between his parents’ and grandparents’ houses. But yet there was no sentimentality tied to this place. There were no mixed feelings about leaving. In fact, he was surprised it had held together this long. He had always figured the time would come to run, and now that it was here it seemed like an overdue day of reckoning.

  The buzzards no longer sat in the trees, and their absence made the world seem strangely empty. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, why they’d come and where they’d gone. There was a sunken feeling in the pit of his stomach like he was nearing a moment of inevitability, like this hallowed hour was exactly what he’d always been headed toward.

  All morning in that holding cell he’d racked his mind with where they’d go from here. There wasn’t time to bury his brother and he
wasn’t ready for that anyways. Lying on that thin jail mattress, the wool blanket itching his bare back, he was almost thankful. If he’d been let out right then, turned loose after seeing Calvin Hooper pissing himself behind those bars, Dwayne would’ve acted in a moment absent of thought, and those types of decisions were almost always mistakes. The morning had given him time to think and now he had a plan. He’d take Carol’s body with him and disappear to a place their grandfather had taken them when they were kids.

  Dwayne was eleven or twelve when they paddled across Fontana in a fiberglass canoe with a hole crudely patched in the hull. It was late summer, something he had always remembered because there was jewelweed flowering all over the banks. Orange horn-shaped flowers spotted bloodred on the petals dangled like ornaments from stems fine as thread. As a kid, Dwayne believed the plant was magic, the way the seedpods exploded like fireworks if you brushed them with your fingertips, the way the backsides of their leaves lit silver when his grandfather held one underwater, a leaf turned to metal by some sort of Appalachian alchemy.

  They followed the creek from where it emptied into the lake, catching horny heads and speckled trout on Little Cleo silver spoons for supper, wandering settlements long since abandoned, with names like Proctor and Cable Branch, Bone Valley and Medlin. Nearly a week in the woods away from home and their father, that trip might’ve been one time in their lives when they actually felt completely safe. When they were grown, he and Sissy ventured back to that place many times to walk in the footsteps of their past. Steal one of them boats at the Fontana Village marina, he thought, and that’s where we’ll go.

  The land between Kitchens Branch and Allens Branch rose to a crooked spine of ridgeline that continued north through hard timber toward Indian Camp Gap. The trail to his grandparents’ shack wasn’t so much worn into the land as a path carved by memory. The terrain steepened and the wet leaves felt like leather under his feet. A laurel thicket dropped off one side. Dwayne hugged an outcrop of lichen-covered granite and when he came around the bend a young cane-legged deer lifted its nose from the ground and stared with wide, unblinking eyes black as his own. Sunlight shone through the deer’s raised ears, turning flesh to soft pink stained glass, his tall vertical antlers still in velvet.