by Thom Whalen
* * *
“Stop right there!”
I stopped and looked at Randal. He looked back at me. Then we both looked at the house.
“I’ve got a gun and I’ll use it!”
We were looking at a small, clapboard-clad box. Before the Second World War, this section had been a farm and this had been the farmhouse. Twenty-five years ago, soldiers returning from overseas had needed housing. Some entrepreneur had bought the property, covered the fertile fields with asphalt, and erected a stand of cheap stucco-clad houses. To save a few bucks, he’d left the original farmhouse standing and sold it as one of the new residences – the only wooden box in a sea of stucco.
Its location had not fit the plan for the rest of the subdivision so the house had an extra long driveway and looked to have no backyard at all.
I couldn’t tell for certain, but a glint in the shadow behind the screen door could have been a rifle barrel.
“We just want to talk, ma’am,” Randal shouted. “We don’t have any guns.”
“If you had guns, you’d already be lying dead in the dirt,” the woman shouted back.
“We’re looking for Mr. and Mrs. Paul.”
“You can go look for some other Mrs. Paul somewhere else. There’s plenty about.”
Randal took a slow step forward. “Are you Mrs. Paul?”
“That’s none of your business.”
My heart was pounding, but being shot to death would be less humiliating than Randal thinking me a coward so I followed his lead. I told myself that she would surely shoot him first and give me time to hit the dirt. I could only hope that she was a good shot and wouldn’t hit me by mistake when she was aiming for Randal. As I walked slowly toward the house, I kept both hands visible at my sides, and listened intently for the report of rifle or shotgun.
“Stop, I say!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Randal stopped and so did I. “It’s just that I don’t want to shout your business to the whole neighborhood.”
“What business?”
“Business having to do with Will and Barb,” he shouted.
There was a long pause, then the woman’s voice shouted back, “You can come closer, but don’t set your foot on my stoop or I’ll shoot it off. I’m warning you.”
“You know, if you shoot us, the police are going to arrest you.”
“I got a right to defend my property.”
“Not from an unarmed man standing outside in broad daylight.”
“I was just cleaning my gun and it went off accidental.”
“It’d be a pity to shoot a hole in your screen door. It’ll cost you to have to replace it.”
“I don’t care about the screen.”
“Flies’ll get into your house if you leave a hole.”
“There’s already flies in my house. Maybe they’ll fly back out if there’s a hole in the screen.”
We were at the base of the steps leading up to the porch. Randal stopped. So did I.
“That don’t seem likely, ma’am,” Randal said.
We could hear the woman sigh. “No, I guess it don’t. So what’s your business with my grandchildren?”
“We’re sorry about your son, Billy.”
“What are you sorry about?”
Randal looked at me, then back into the dark behind the screen door. “Have the police been by, ma’am?”
“What’s Billy done now?” she asked.
Randal paused, then said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have to tell you that Billy is dead.”
After a long moment of silence, she said, “I don’t believe you.”
“The police should have told you. He died over in Wemsley more than a week ago.”
“How’d he die? Drugs?”
“He was stabbed. It was quick, ma’am. The first stab pierced his heart. He’s at peace now.”
Randal was making that up. He had no idea if Billy had been stabbed in the heart or if he had bled out over the course of an hour, screaming and moaning. All we knew was that Albertson said that Billy’s guts had been chopped to hamburger. But Randal was saying what Billy’s mother should hear.
It occurred to me that this may not be the first time that Randal had lied to a mother about the circumstances of her son’s death. He’d been in Vietnam for a year and a half. It was likely that some of the guys he’d known over there had come home in body bags.
“Who did it?”
“We don’t know, ma’am. But we are trying to find out.”
“You’re not the police?”
“No, ma’am. We were his friends.”
“You better come inside.”
When we opened the screen door, we could see that the glint of steel in the darkness was not a rifle barrel. It was the screw on a large embroidery hoop.
I glanced at her work-in-progress, expecting to see birds and flowers. Or maybe Pinky and Blue Boy. Instead, she was embroidering a rattlesnake entwined in a motorcycle wheel – its head raised and its fangs dripping venom.
Interesting old lady.
“You said that Billy died in Wemsley?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Randal said.
“What was he doing over there?”
“Camping.” Randal didn’t mention that his wife and children were there. Gwen didn’t want this woman to know where she lived and Randal was respecting that.
“Camping?” The woman’s voice echoed disbelief.
“Yes, ma’am. There’s a campground there called Smoke Pond Campground. He had a tent set up and was staying out there for a few days.”
“I never knew Billy to camp out. He was no boy scout.”
“I’m sure that he wasn’t. But he was staying in a tent at Smoke Pond when he was killed. I’m sure of that.”
“Was he robbed?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. The police didn’t say that anything was missing.”
“They wouldn’t know what he had if someone already took it, would they?”
“I don’t believe that they would.”
Billy could have been robbed of a fortune in heroin, for all anybody knew. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would have a fortune’s worth of anything, but he wasn’t the kind of man who paid for everything that came into his possession, either. He might have acquired a fortune without being able to afford it. Which might have got him killed.
I remembered the opening scenes of Easy Rider and wondered if Randal had searched the gas tank of Billy’s chopper for contraband.
“I’d like to know who could tell me about Billy. What he was doing in Wemsley. What he might have had on him when he died.”
“You are a curious fella, ain’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. Like I said, I was Billy’s friend and it eats at me that I don’t know who killed him. Somebody owes some payback and I’m going to find out who and cash Billy’s last check.”
“You go find Johnny. Johnny Paul. He’s Billy’s closest brother. Maybe he can tell you more than me. He’s a mechanic in a garage in Russo. Dino’s Service Station. It’s on the highway. You can’t miss it.”
“Okay. Thanks, ma’am.”
“But one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t give him any guff about being Billy’s friend. He won’t believe it any more than me. Tell him that Billy owed you money and you’re going to collect it from the guy who killed him. Johnny’ll believe that. Hell. For all I know, it might even be true.”
“One thing is true, ma’am.”
“What’s that?”
“Billy’s dead and I’m going find out who did it. I got my own reasons, but I got a mighty strong determination to see justice done. You can count on that.”
“Good luck, then.”
Russo was another thirty miles further in the direction of Canada. Randal and I didn’t waste any time. We hit the road in his little Japanese pickup.
As we climbed into the cab, I wondered about Billy’s father. Most likely he was at work on a Wednesday afternoon. But, if Mr
s. Paul wasn’t concerned about him, I wouldn’t be, either.