by Tim Johnston
“Marky . . . are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes Momma.”
He held the phone to his ear, listening. Finally she said, “I’ve been trying to call him and he won’t pick up,” and Marky put his other hand flat on the counter, because everything had just gone a little bit crooked, like after you’ve been spun around and around.
“You always say turn off your phone when you’re driving Momma,” he said.
“I know it. Has he called you?”
“No Momma.”
Jeff began banging on something under the Impala, banging away until whatever it was fell clattering to the concrete, and she didn’t speak again until the noise had ended.
“If he calls you,” she said, “will you tell him to call me, please?”
“Yes Momma.”
“I’m serious, Marky. I need to talk to him.”
“I know Momma I’ll tell him.”
2:15 and he didn’t call.
2:45 and he didn’t.
At 3:05 Mr. Wabash drove off in the wrecker and at 3:35 a white four-door pulled into the lot, and Marky watched through the windows in the bay doors as a girl got out of the car and walked toward the office, and he said, “Jeff.”
“What.”
“Customer in the office.”
“So go talk to him.”
“It’s a her Jeff.”
“So go talk to her, man, I’m kinda up to my elbows here.”
“OK Jeff.”
She was standing at the counter and when she saw him she smiled and he knew who she was—he’d seen her picture on the news, hers and her friend’s, after they went into the river. She was the old sheriff’s daughter and her name was Audrey and his heart began to pound again, and the girl looked at his chest, at his pounding heart and said, “Are you Marky Young?”
It was the name patch she looked at, that was all.
“Yes ma’am that’s me.”
“My name is Audrey Sutter,” she said and put out her hand for shaking, but there was a purple cast on it and he held up his own hand to show her the oil stains and she said, “I don’t care about that,” and she held the cast out and finally he took it and gave it a shake, and it felt funny in his hand.
“Yes ma’am I saw you on the news you and your friend Caroline,” he said, and he watched her face to see had he said it all right or would she make the face of not understanding and start looking around for someone else who could speak to her like a normal person. But she did not make the face.
“Yes,” she said. “That was me.”
“I was sorry about her,” he said, “I was sorry about Caroline.”
“Thank you, Marky.” She stood looking at him, her eyes so blue and so light, and finally he looked away, toward the parking lot beyond her, toward the white four-door in the sunlight.
“Two thousand five Ford Taurus,” he said, and she turned to look, and turned back again.
“Good call,” she said.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. Well, probably all kinds of things. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“You’re here about Danny,” he said, and she nodded.
“Your mother called you?” she said.
“Yes ma’am she called me a while ago.”
“And told you I talked to her?”
“No ma’am she didn’t say anything about you.”
The girl looked at him. Her eyes moving around his face like something was flying in front of it. Then she said, “Marky, I was hoping . . .” and stopped, and he waited while she got the words together in her head. “I guess I was hoping you might tell me where your brother went. If you knew where he was heading. I need to talk to him about something and I don’t have his number and your mother . . .”
He waited again.
“I don’t think your mother wants me to talk to him, not before she does anyway, and that’s fine, I understand that. But really, Marky, I just need to let him know that I need to talk to him, and then if he wants to talk to me, if he wants to hear what I have to say, then we can just go from there. I know how vague that all sounds but . . . Am I making any sense?”
“Yes ma’am but I don’t know where Danny is he didn’t say he just went.”
“So you talked to him—before he left?”
“He woke me up but it was just to say good-bye that’s all,” Marky said, and the girl stood watching him, and he saw suddenly how young she was—young like Katie Goss had been back then. Young like Holly Burke had been before she went into the river. Young like Danny and Jeff and himself and even Wyatt had been, before Holly Burke went into the river and nobody was the same anymore.
“And you don’t know where he was going?” the girl, Audrey, said, and Marky shook his head, and she stood watching him again. In that silence he heard the wrecker first, then looked beyond her again to see Mr. Wabash pulling into the lot towing a green Toyota Camry with a smashed front end. The girl looked too, then turned back to Marky.
“OK, well . . .” she said. And Marky said, “But he’s going to call me today and tell me and then I can tell him something if you want me to.”
“He’s going to call you today?”
“Yes just to say he’s OK.”
“That he’s OK?”
“Yes.”
There was the beeping of the wrecker backing up, and the girl turned again, and when she turned back she said, “Marky, you remember Sheriff Sutter, who was the sheriff ten years ago?”
“I remember Sheriff Sutter he went and got Danny at the cabin and then he let him go. I saw him on the news too.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” Marky said. “My poppa died when we were just little boys Danny and me.”
She looked at him with her blue eyes. “I’m so sorry, Marky.”
“He smoked too many cigarettes.”
“Yes. Mine did too.”
The beeping stopped and Mr. Wabash stepped out of the wrecker in his black jacket and began working the levers, lowering the Camry.
The girl was watching Marky. “Marky,” she said.
“Yes?”
“My dad let Danny go because he knew he didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Holly Burke.”
“Danny didn’t have nothing to do with that.”
“I know. That’s why I need to talk to him. I think I can help him.” She waited, like he was supposed to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. Finally she picked up a pen from the counter and began to write on one of the Wabash Auto notepads. “I’m writing my name and phone number,” she said. “Your mom already has it, on the machine, but I’m giving it to you too.”
Mr. Wabash was walking toward the office.
“All I’m asking is that you give it to Danny when he calls and tell him what I told you, about helping him. You don’t have any reason to trust me or believe me, but I hope you’ll just give Danny my name and number. Is that OK?”
“That’s OK,” Marky said, “I’ll give it to him when he calls,” and he stripped the paper from the pad and folded it once and tucked it into the breast pocket of his shirt just as the glass door swung open and Mr. Wabash walked in.
“Thank you, Marky,” the girl said.
“You’re welcome.”
Mr. Wabash stepped behind the counter. He gave Marky a look and turned to the girl. “Is there something I can help you with, miss?”
“No, thank you. I’m all set.”
“Something wrong with your car, there?”
“No, sir. I just came in to talk to Marky.”
“Talk to Marky.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What for?”
“Sorry?”
“What did you need to talk to my employee for?”
“I’m sorry—I think that’s between him and me.”
Mr. Wabash looked at her. He ran his finger over his mustache like a comb. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be talking to him on my time, hey?”
“Sir?”
“I pay my guys to work on cars, not stand around answering your questions. Like this boy could tell you anything anyhow.”
She looked at Marky and he saw that she felt bad that she’d come in, saw that she wanted to tell him how sorry she was to get him into trouble, and he wanted to tell her it was OK, but he couldn’t say anything as long as Mr. Wabash was standing there.
“I know who you are,” Mr. Wabash said. “And I got a pretty good idea this has to do with this boy’s brother. Am I right about that?”
“I’ll just go now,” the girl said, still looking at Marky, giving him a smile, and Marky raised his hand slightly but that was all, and the girl turned and went back out the door, and he and Mr. Wabash watched her get back into the Ford, and they watched as she pulled out of the lot and drove away, and then Mr. Wabash turned to look at Marky.
“Well?” he said. “What the heck did she want with you? Was it about your brother?”
He didn’t want to lie but he didn’t want to tell Mr. Wabash something that wasn’t any of his business either.
“I better go help Jeff Mister Wabash.”
Mr. Wabash frowned. He shook his head. “Yeah, you go do that, Marky.”
And Marky did that, and now it was 3:45 and Danny hadn’t called.
51
She was reaching for the doorbell button when the inside door swept open and he appeared in the window of the stormdoor, his face clear for just a moment before the glass began to fog. Rachel raised her hand to him and he opened the stormdoor and she knew before she got a good look at him that he’d not bathed or put on fresh clothes that day, though it was nearly sundown.
“Gordon,” she said, “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“No, bother,” he said, and stood looking at her, his face pale and bristly. A redness in his eyes. Her heart was beating. It was too much like it had been ten years ago, when he did not even seem to recognize her.
“Do you think I might come inside, for just a minute . . . ?”
“Oh,” he said. “Sure,” and he opened up the door, and she wiped her bootsoles carefully on the welcome mat and stepped in.
No lights on in the kitchen but light enough from the window to see it all as it had been: the yellow-and-blue-tiled counter, the same coffee maker, the deep sink where she and Meredith had stood rinsing dishes and looking out at the summer dusk; the round oak table where they’d sat drinking coffee or sometimes wine while the men watched football and the kids thumped about upstairs in Holly’s room.
“Sit,” he said, and as she moved to the table something crunched under her boots, bits of cornflake maybe, or cookie crumbs. The broom stood leaning against the counter, as if he’d begun to sweep but had become distracted, perhaps by her arrival. The garbage had gone sour, and there was the smell of woodsmoke too. From where she sat she saw the coals pulsing in the darkness of the living room, the curtains drawn, the face of the TV black and empty.
He went to the counter and began to set dirty plates into the sink. He poured out the old coffee and she said, “Please, don’t bother. Could you just . . . ?” and she looked at the broom again, and then she looked at the space beside the refrigerator where it had always been kept and there was something else there, set back into the recess but not far enough that it could not be easily reached. It was a hunting rifle. She never knew he owned one.
She looked away and found him watching her, the empty coffeepot in his hand.
“Can you just sit down with me for a minute?” she said. “Please?”
It was darker in the kitchen when she’d finished. The coals in the living room had gone black and there was no sound in the house other than the sounds she and Gordon made themselves, clearing their throats, shifting in their chairs. The three sheets of stationery lay faceup on the table and beside them lay the white square of cloth. Gordon’s hands rested on the edge of the table, one hand folded over the knuckles of the other.
“Well,” he said at last. “It wasn’t me who shot at him. If that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No,” she said. “That never even occurred to me, Gordon.”
The refrigerator was in the corner of her eye but she would not look at it; would not look away from his face.
“Where has he gone?” he said.
“I don’t know. As far from here as he can get, I suppose. He’s not answering his phone.”
Gordon nodded. “Don’t worry, Rachel,” he said, but it sounded to her like something one was expected to say at such times. He was staring at the piece of cloth.
“Do you recognize it?” she said.
“I saw it when he showed it to me. Last week, I guess that was.”
“I mean before that. From back then.”
Gordon frowned. “The better question is, do you?” he said. “It was you who bought the blouse.”
She stared at the cloth. “When I first saw it I was so sure. Now that I see it again here . . . I mean, it’s a silk pocket.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t swear to it, Gordon.”
“You wouldn’t have to. That blouse is still in a bag somewheres in the sheriff’s evidence room. Wouldn’t take much to match it up.”
“There could be DNA on it,” she said hopefully.
“Yes,” he said. “Could be. Could be Danny’s. Could be yours. Could be mine.”
“Could be that deputy’s.”
He stared at the silk cloth. As if to see the DNA himself.
“There’s something else,” she said. “Something not in the letter. Something Danny didn’t even know about.”
Gordon was silent, watching her with eyes that had seen too much, knew too much, and that now waited to know a little more, and she stopped herself. Did she have to say it? Did he have to know this too?
“Do you remember a girl named Katie Goss?” she said.
“I remember that name.”
“She was his girlfriend at the time. Danny’s girlfriend.”
Gordon said nothing, and Rachel went ahead in a rush—telling him about Audrey going up to Rochester, telling him what Audrey had not told her, Rachel, not in so many words but which anyone—any woman—would know just by looking at the girl. That Moran had raped Katie Goss.
Gordon looked down at his hands.
She watched him, her heart pounding.
“Gordon . . .”
He looked at his hands—at one fist wrapped in the other, a great tight ball of knuckles.
“Gordon,” she said again, but he would not look up. “Gordon, we have to try, don’t we?”
He said nothing. Staring at those fists.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” he said at last, without looking up. “But you won’t like it.”
“Tell me.”
He unclenched his hands and flattened them on the table, one to either side of the piece of cloth. He looked up.
“I think just about anybody who isn’t his mother is gonna think there’s only one way in hell that boy comes up with this pocket ten years later.”
She watched him. “Is that what you think, Gordon?”
He didn’t answer. Looking into her eyes. Then he looked away, toward the window, as if he’d heard something, and she looked too, and listened, and for just a moment she heard them: The kids, chasing each other in the snow. Laughing, shouting. Any second now a snowball would thud against the house, trying to get them to come to the window, come to the porch, watch us, notice us!
“Doesn’t matter what I think,” Gordon said, and she turned back to him.
“Of course it does.”
“Not to the law it doesn’t.”
A panic began to rise in her. She had the urge to swipe up the cloth and hold it in her fist.
“Gordon—” She had to swallow. “Gordon . . . you sound like you don’t even want to try.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t that. I don’t want anything more in this world than to know the truth. It’s just . . . God damn it, Rachel.”
“What?”
>
“What if the truth isn’t what you want it to be?”
She looked at him. Was it possible this was the same man who’d held her as she sobbed against his chest? Who’d built the fire and thawed the ground and dug up the earth so she could bury the dog?
Then she saw her own hand moving slowly toward the square of cloth. Palming it up, replacing it in the folded stationery, fitting the stationery back into the envelope, and the envelope back into her purse.
“I’m going to the sheriff with or without you,” she said, her voice trembling.
Gordon nodded. “I know it,” he said. “I know it, Rachel. And I’d do the same, I were you.”
52
He didn’t call. 4:50 and he didn’t call.
5:00 and he didn’t.
Mr. Wabash was in the front office closing out the register, putting the cash and the checks into a zipper bag for the bank. Jeff had pulled the Impala out and was backing it into a tight spot. Marky stood watching through the glass.
“You OK there, Marky?”
“I’m OK Mister Wabash.”
Mr. Wabash looking at him, and Marky looking out the glass, watching for his mother’s car to pull in. Finally Mr. Wabash zipped the bag shut and said, “OK then,” and turned and went back into the garage.
Marky zipped up his jacket and stepped outside and stood in the cold wind. It was not dark yet because it was almost March and the days were getting longer, but everything still looked like winter. Smelled like winter. Jeff came back from parking the Impala, hurrying to get back inside, but then stopped next to Marky and stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood as if he would wait too.
“She’s running late, huh.”
“She’s running late Jeff.”
They watched. Jeff shivered and said, “Well,” and at that moment the wagon turned into the lot, and Jeff said, “I’ll see ya, Big Man,” and Marky said, “OK seeya Jeff,” and he got into the car, so warm and smelling like his mother—“Hi Momma”—and he shut the door and pulled the seatbelt across him, but then they just sat there.
“Momma?”
She seemed to be watching Jeff as he stepped back into the office.
“Yes?”
“Are we going?”
She turned to him, but it was another second or two before she really saw him, and he knew she hadn’t talked to him—to Danny—just as she knew he hadn’t talked to him either, because he would’ve told her already, he would’ve called her right away like he promised, but of course she had to ask anyway, and he had to tell her, “No Momma he didn’t call,” and she looked at him then for a long time, just looking at him, before she faced forward again and took her foot off the brake. And it was the longest drive home. Or not the longest because that was the drive home from the hospital after Poppa died, just the three of you now . . . and there was that drive out to the farmhouse after Danny had gone away the first time and you had to move and it was just you and Momma and Wyatt in the car, and this was like that again only without Wyatt, and the two of you just staying in your own heads and not saying anything, and it’s worse than if she just said Marky I know you’re not telling me something, I know Danny told you something, because that’s what she’s thinking but won’t say it because she doesn’t want you lying to her again . . . and you not saying what you know is just as bad as lying, but if you tell her, if you tell her everything then you break your promise to Danny and that’s even worse, isn’t it? And they were almost home before he looked at her again—he would say something, he didn’t know what, just say her name—“Momma . . .”