The Current

by Tim Johnston

  Either that, he said, or you get in this cruiser with me and we go back to the station and we take it from there, by the book. That how you want to do it?

  No, sir.

  All right then. We’ll do it the easy way. Come on back to the cruiser with me.

  You said . . .

  We’re not going anywhere.

  And she got out and he walked her to the passenger side of the cruiser and opened the door for her and shut it again once she was in. She watched him walk around the front of the cruiser and then she just stared at the back end of her car—Ginny’s car—as he opened the driver’s-side door of the cruiser and got in, rocking the car with his weight. He shut the door and the dome light went out. He took off his hat and put it on his knee. He looked up and down the road again but there was no one, no lights, and there never would be on this road at this hour, and if someone did drive by they’d see the cop-lights and keep going—they’d be drunk or part-drunk themselves and they wouldn’t even look at those colored lights, they’d just drive on by—and she thought of her father and her mother and she thought of Danny Young and she thought of college and she thought of the whole town and she even thought of Holly Burke or some girl like her who would do such things, for whom such things were normal, and then she was doing it . . . his hand was in her hair and she was doing it and it wasn’t real and it was, and it was the only way and no one would ever know and when it was over she’d go back to Ginny’s house, back to her sleeping bag and no one would know and she would be the same person she’d been when the night began.

  But she wasn’t the same, and Danny knew she wasn’t, and that was the end, really, that night. And two months later Holly Burke was found floating in the river.

  46

  The wine was gone. The water was gone. The music that had been playing earlier had stopped and they could hear the TV from the apartment below, a constant mumbling broken only by bursts of muffled laughter.

  Audrey sat drawing her fingers under her eyes, one side and then the other. No tissues in sight. Her mind was racing ahead but she said nothing. She wiped her face dry and waited.

  “When I got back to Ginny’s house,” Katie said, “she was the only one up. She was sitting there on the porchswing in the dark. She’d woken up and had seen from the bathroom window that her car was gone. Worried to death, she said, just about to wake up her parents . . .”

  Katie told her she was sorry, she shouldn’t have taken her car, and Ginny made her sit down. She took her hands—Hey, she said, hey . . . what happened?

  Nothing.

  Did you see Danny? What did he do?

  Nothing. I never got there. I got pulled over.

  Oh, shit. Shit. Did they make you blow?

  What—?

  The Breathalyzer machine.

  No.

  There was a long silence.

  They didn’t bust you or you wouldn’t be here.

  They didn’t bust me.

  What did they say?

  Said go home.

  What about the car?

  What about it?

  Did they ask you about it?

  This cop, this guy. He said he knew it. He recognized it.

  The two girls looking at each other, their faces close, their eyes locked in the dark.

  Was it Moran?

  Who?

  Deputy Moran. The sheriff’s deputy.

  I don’t know.

  What’d he look like?

  I don’t know. He looked like a cop.

  Did he have big eyes, like bugged-out eyes?

  Maybe. A little. Yes.

  Yeah, shit. That frog-eyed goon stopped me one time for speeding. Wanted me to step out of the car. I said, Step out, my ass, Officer, you haven’t even asked for my license. I put it in his face and he took a good long look at it and handed it back. Yeah, I said, that Ginny Walsh. I believe you know my mother?

  What’d he say?

  Said, Get your ass home.

  Did you tell her—your mom?

  Tell her what? There was nothing to tell her. And nothing she could do about it anyway, except get herself fired.

  You can’t tell her about this, Ginny.

  Katie, what happened? What did he do?

  He let me go.

  Katie . . .

  Promise me.

  Katie, the guy’s a piece of shit.

  He’s a deputy sheriff piece of shit.

  So?

  Katie said nothing.

  That’s exactly what he’s counting on you thinking, Katie.

  So, what—just go in there and tell the sheriff?

  Why not? Why would you make something like that up?

  No. No way. I’m going to college in the fall. I’m going to college, Ginny. This is not going to be my story. This ass-backwards little town. Everybody knowing, everybody talking? My parents—oh God. Danny?

  You didn’t do anything wrong, Katie.

  Katie hanging her head. Crying again. She’d stopped at a gas station and had bought a big Coke and washed out her mouth and chugged the rest until her throat burned, and still the taste was there.

  Can we just go to bed now, Ginny? Can we just go to bed and never talk about this again, ever? Please, Ginny?

  Audrey had seen tissues on the bathroom counter. She got up and went down the hall and found them and brought them back and they both took the tissues and blew their noses and wiped their eyes and set the damp wads on the coffee table at the feet of the toy horses. Down the hall the little girl slept, dreaming a little girl’s dreams.

  “Katie,” Audrey said. “He would have believed you. My father. He would have.”

  Katie looked at her red-eyed, and smiled. “Audrey, why are you here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Gloria Walsh.”

  “Gloria Walsh,” said Katie. “Ginny broke her promise. She told her mother, and her mother told your father.”

  Audrey’s heart slipped. She shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Audrey, but she did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he came to see me.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know, a few days later. I was home by myself. I saw that sheriff’s car and just about pissed my pants.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He wanted to know did I have anything I wanted to talk to him about, and I said no, not that I was aware of. And then he stood there for a long time just turning his hat in his hands.”

  Audrey waited. Her heart pounding.

  “He said, ‘Miss Goss, if you don’t tell me I can’t take any kind of action.’ I said, ‘What kind of action?’ and he said, ‘Legal action,’ and that was the end of it. I said, ‘I’m sorry, Sheriff, but I just don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And then he got back into his car and drove off.”

  Audrey sat staring at the toy horses. They all seemed about to turn and run, to stampede.

  Katie took a breath and sighed. “He knew, Audrey. I’m sorry, but he did.”

  “But,” said Audrey. She swallowed, with difficulty, some rawness in her throat. “He didn’t know enough. If you’d told him more, if you’d come forward, then maybe . . .” She couldn’t say it. She could hardly bear to have it in her mind.

  “Then maybe what? Maybe Holly Burke might be alive?” Katie looked at her with her red eyes. She shook her head. “No, ma’am. Nobody knows what happened that night, least of all you. A deputy sheriff runs over some girl in the park, throws her body in the river, then tries to pin it on some poor schmuck who just happens to be driving by? I never would’ve believed it even back then, when I knew what he was. And now, ten years later, Danny Young starts waving around a piece of cloth and telling this story and—what, I’m supposed to corroborate that or something? Just hop up suddenly and start yelling rape? Against a sheriff?”

  “But there were others,” Audrey said. “Gloria said there were other girls.”


  “Oh, really? Where are they? Why haven’t they come forward? Why aren’t they responsible? Why didn’t they say something before it happened to me?”

  “They’re scared too.”

  “Scared?” She spat a piff of air from her lips. “You think I’m scared? I’m taking care of one hundred old people, including my mother who doesn’t even know my name, and I’m raising my four-year-old daughter on my own. I left scared behind a long time ago.”

  Audrey was silent. Staring at the toy horses on the table. When she looked up again Katie was watching her, but her eyes had gone away somewhere, and in a quieter voice she said, “He came to see me again, your dad. After they found Holly Burke.”

  Audrey said nothing. Waiting.

  “He wanted to know if I’d seen Danny,” Katie said. “I hadn’t. He wanted to know if Danny had called me. He hadn’t. He wanted to look at my cell phone just to be sure, and I said, ‘Don’t you need a warrant for that?’ and he said he hoped he wouldn’t need one and I said he would.”

  Audrey thought about that: ten years ago . . . Even back then he wouldn’t have needed the phone itself; he could’ve just subpoenaed the records, same as a landline.

  She said as much to Katie and Katie nodded.

  “Yes, I know that now. Back then I just, you know . . .” She began tapping with her forefinger at something in her opposite hand.

  Audrey looked up from the empty hand and into her eyes. “You deleted the call history?”

  “I did,” Katie said, and said no more. As if this said everything. Then finally she added: “Danny never called me, but I called him. I called him that night and he was in the park. Chasing his dog, he said.”

  Audrey’s heart was beating in her temple again. “Why did you delete the call history?”

  Katie didn’t answer. She sat staring blankly at Audrey.

  “Because you believed him,” Audrey said. “Or because you didn’t.”

  “It didn’t matter what I believed.”

  “It might have to him. It might have to my father.”

  Katie shook her head. “After everything that happened . . .” She took a breath and let it out. “I just couldn’t do it, Audrey. I just couldn’t be a part of it. Then they let him go, and he never tried to call me again, and I never called him. We never spoke again.”

  Audrey sat looking into Katie’s eyes.

  “What?” said Katie.

  “I just,” Audrey began, and stopped.

  “You just what.”

  “I just wish you’d given my father a chance, that’s all. About Moran.”

  Katie reached and tucked Audrey’s fallen hair behind her ear, then returned her hand to her lap. “Sweetie, it wasn’t about that. If I’d told him, it would’ve meant telling everyone. I was eighteen years old. I just wanted to live my life. I didn’t want to be Holly Burke.”

  47

  “Hey, buddy. Buddy . . .”

  The shoulder twitched under the blanket and there was a low groan and Danny shook him once more, “Buddy, come on, wake up,” and at last Marky rolled over and opened his eyes and lay blinking up at him in the dark.

  “Danny . . . what are you doing?”

  “I’m waking you up. It’s like waking up a dead man.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Keep your voice down. It’s two o’clock.”

  “Danny tomorrow is Monday.”

  “It’s already Monday.”

  “Danny . . .”

  “Just—hey, Marky, come on. I gotta talk to you for a second.” He’d been sitting there awhile in the chair and he could see his brother well by the light from the farmlight where it shone through the curtains. Marky dug his knuckles into his eyes and then got himself up on his elbows. He swallowed thickly and opened his mouth to yawn.

  “Here, drink some water. Your breath could strip the paint off a car.”

  “Your breath could strip the paint off a car Danny.”

  Marky drank the water and smacked his lips and handed back the glass. He piled his two pillows against the headboard and drew himself up into a sitting position. He wore a dark T-shirt and his biceps were white as milk. Danny poked the near one with his finger. When they were teenagers they’d had barbells in the garage—Marky so weirdly, so effortlessly strong that Danny had begun working out in the gym at school to catch up.

  “You been working out, buddy?”

  “No Danny just working.”

  “They got you lifting cars down there, or what?”

  “No we got the lifts for that.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  Danny glanced around the room, at the dark shapes of the desk and the dresser, the gleam of the picture frames on the desk, pictures mostly from long ago when they were boys and their father was still alive. Missing was the picture of the two married couples, the Youngs and the Burkes, standing before a storefront with their arms all around each other and grinning, that picture lost somehow in the move from the old house to the farmhouse, or so he’d thought until, home for Christmas two years ago and digging in Marky’s dresser for wool socks, he’d found it at the bottom of the drawer.

  “You like working at the garage?” he asked Marky.

  “Sure I do but not as much as the Plumbing Supply though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Cause you’re not there Danny.”

  “Yeah. Jeff’s there, though.”

  “Jeff’s there.”

  “Jeff’s been a good friend, hasn’t he.”

  “Jeff’s been a good friend Danny we’ve been friends with Jeff since we were all little boys.”

  “I know it. How about Mr. Wabash. You like working for him?”

  “Sure I like working for him. He could give you a job too Danny.”

  “Yeah, I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

  “He likes you Danny everybody likes you.”

  “No, they don’t, buddy. You know that’s why I went away. Why I always have to go away.”

  Marky looked down at his hands in his lap. “It’s because of Holly Burke.”

  “It’s because of Holly Burke.”

  “That was a long time ago Danny.”

  “I know it.”

  “And it wasn’t your fault you didn’t have nothing to do with Holly Burke going into the river.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I know that Danny,” Marky said, “we used to play with her when we were little she was our friend.”

  Danny sat looking into his brother’s eyes in the light of the farmlight, Marky looking into his. And then Marky looked at Danny’s clothes, his heavy winter shirt and his jeans and his socks, and he said, “You’re leaving again aren’t you Danny.”

  “I’m leaving again. I’m all packed up. I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  “What about Momma?”

  “I don’t want to wake her up—she’ll just start crying and she’ll be up all night worrying. You can tell her for me in the morning. All right?”

  “All right but she’s gonna cry anyway Danny she always cries.”

  “I know it.”

  “I wish I could go with you Danny.”

  “I do too. But you got your job, and you gotta take care of Ma.”

  “I know it,” said Marky.

  They were silent. Marky’s eyes gleaming in the dark. Danny leaning forward, his forearms on his knees and gripping one hand in the other.

  “What?” said Marky.

  “What what?”

  “You’re gonna say something Danny.”

  Danny smiled. “Yeah, all right. I’m gonna say something. But it’s just between you and me, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “I don’t want you telling anybody else I told you this.”

  “I won’t tell anybody Danny.”

  “Especially Ma.”

  “OK Danny.”

  “Swear on a monkey’s uncle?”

  “Swear
on a monkey’s uncle.”

  “All right then. I’m going to call you tomorrow, Marky. Or later today, Monday. I’m gonna call you on your cell phone later today and I’ll be far away by then.”

  “Where you going Danny?”

  “I don’t know but I’ll call you when I get there.”

  “OK Danny.”

  “But if I don’t call you . . . Are you listening?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “But if I don’t call you by tomorrow night—by tonight—it means something happened to me, Marky, and—”

  “Danny don’t say that.”

  “Keep your voice down, will you? Marky, I gotta say it so you know. I can’t tell Ma because she’ll just start freaking out. You’re the only person I can tell. You’re the only one. All right?”

  “All right Danny.”

  “And if I don’t call by tonight, if you don’t hear from me, then I need you to do something for me.”

  “All right Danny.”

  He reached for the envelope on the desk. It was one of his mother’s envelopes, light blue and birthday-card-shaped, but it was never a card when you saw it in your mailbox, whenever you’d stayed somewhere long enough to have a mailbox, it was a letter, two or three pages of her neat handwriting on matching stationery. On the envelope she’d write your name formally and with a kind of flourish, Mr. Daniel P. Young, and seeing it written that way on that blue envelope always made your heart stumble a little.

  “What’s this?” Marky said, taking the envelope.

  “It’s a letter, you knucklehead, and it ain’t for you.”

  “You’re the knucklehead who’s it for?”

  “You can read, can’t you?”

  “It’s dark in here.”

  Danny picked up the cell phone from the desk and thumbed the button and held its light toward the envelope and Marky’s face. Marky held the envelope close to his face and bunched his brow as he read it.

  “Sheriff Wayne Halsey.”

  “Sheriff Wayne Halsey. You know him, right?”

  “Sure I know him Danny we service the sheriff department’s vehicles every spring they got three Chevy Tahoes and one Chevy TrailBlazer and—”

  “All right, all right. That letter’s for the sheriff and the sheriff only—and only if I don’t call you by tonight. Are we clear?”

  “We’re clear Danny.”