Let the Guilty Pay

by Rick Treon

  The strongest indicator of love Summer ever got was Ruth Ann’s decision to attend a nearby community college. Ruth Ann graduated second in her class and, while her parents weren’t extremely well off, she easily could have gone to a major university. Instead, Ruth Ann wanted to stay close enough to drive home on the weekends. Though she told her parents she wanted the ability to visit them frequently, Ruth Ann told Summer the decision was to keep them together.

  Things had been going well before Ruth Ann returned for her first winter break.

  Ruth Ann had chosen to stay in the dormitories, despite being close enough to live at home. She told Summer she wanted to have a “real” college experience. Staying close enough to visit seemed like a fair compromise. But when Ruth Ann returned home in December with a boyfriend, Summer wanted to scream. She wanted to throw that short, weak little shit through Ruth Ann’s front window.

  But she couldn’t do any of that. Forgetting for a moment that her relationship with Ruth Ann was a taboo, Summer had no right to be angry. She was still living with Butch, and most considered him her common-law husband.

  It was difficult to get a moment alone with Ruth Ann while she was home. But when they were finally able to talk, Ruth Ann said her relationship with the boy had nothing to do with how she felt about Summer. And, as expected, Ruth Ann compared it to Summer’s relationship with Butch. It made sense, but logic had little to do with how Summer felt about Ruth Ann.

  Much to Summer’s delight, the boy had to return two days early to rejoin the school’s basketball team. That allowed Summer, on the last day of Ruth Ann’s stay, to finally let go of her most closely kept secret.

  The adrenaline rush from putting those three words out into the universe made Summer’s hands shake. They left Ruth Ann speechless. She gave a rushed goodbye hug to her parents and practically threw her bags into the bed of her father’s rusty pickup.

  Summer walked out of her house with a bowl of coleslaw. Butch was putting his first batch of hot dogs, burgers, and barbecue chicken into a tin pan. The annual Fourth of July feast was about to start, whether she was ready for it or not.

  She needed to forgive him. Her heart would never stop aching over the loss of Ruth Ann, but Summer also knew she could never get that love back. And after all the terrible men she’d been with, only Butch had never wavered in his love and commitment for her. And if she was wrong, if he had cheated, Butch had the damn good sense not to tell her.

  They met at the last remaining space on the tables. He paused to let her place the glass bowl on a crowded buffet table.

  “Look, I will always be upset about what happened,” Summer said. “But I can’t go on like this forever. So, I forgive you. You need to stay sober, but I’m ready to move on.”

  Summer looked up and was greeted by Butch’s smile. “I love you so much. I won’t disappoint you again. Not if I can help it, anyway.”

  She leaned up and in and kissed Butch lightly on the lips while taking the food he was still holding. “I love you too.”

  Summer spent another minute getting the buffet exactly how she wanted it. She looked down at her watch and smiled. One minute until 2:30 p.m. Just in time.

  She turned around to see her son coming through the side gate with a pack of friends in tow. Sammy was the quarterback and the group’s leader. He’d inherited the combined athletic abilities of his parents, and expectations were high this season. Summer waved to the boys as they passed through the gate.

  She fought the urge to change her expression as Paul ran up to join them. He, too, was smiling and obviously trying to avoid eye contact. But, like most men, he couldn’t help himself.

  Summer tried to hold her own smile when he looked at her, but she turned away after just a fraction of a second and began looking for the quickest way out of her yard. She’d expected to see remorse for what he’d done that morning. She’d found something much darker.

  It made Summer want to run.

  23

  I woke to the sound of the shower running. I found my phone and checked the time: 5:30 a.m., an hour until we had to leave for Jorge’s house. Veronica would learn to skip the shower and get the extra forty-five minutes of sleep.

  I rolled toward the bathroom. A large mirror hung above a spacious sink area. In the reflection, I could see that Veronica hadn’t closed the door to the shower room, allowing me to see inside.

  I knew I shouldn’t keep looking when I heard the shower stop. Peeking at Veronica naked without her knowing was wrong. But I couldn’t look away. As she stepped out, I was surprised by her beauty. Nobody on the job had given her the title of new hot girl, and she was not classically beautiful like Sylvia had been. But her curves were truly that, not a product of being overweight, as evidenced by a flat stomach that hinted at the abs underneath.

  After drying herself, Veronica pulled up her towel and looked out the door to see if I was still asleep. I closed my eyes until she was ready to wake me up.

  “Hey, it’s six o’clock,” she shouted from her side of the room.

  I opened my eyes slowly. She was fully dressed in her sloppy work clothes, her dark, wet hair pulled back into a ponytail, her transformation into pipeliner complete. I was about to get out of the bed when I realized I’d slept in nothing but my boxer-briefs. I’d made a stand and ditched the undershirts. I wasn’t shy, but my voyeurism had caused a physical reaction she would not appreciate.

  I rolled over to face her. “Why don’t you run down and get us some free muffins and Danishes while I get ready?”

  “Do I look like your personal assistant?”

  “I figured you’d want to be out of the room while I got dressed, that’s all.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  “Listo?” Jorge asked.

  “Vamonos.”

  As Jorge and Paul finished a thirty-inch weld, Zak walked up to me and leaned in. “Hey Beck, y’all come holler at me when you’re done.”

  I nodded as I heard Jorge yell for another rod.

  “Sorry.” I popped a rod into his glove. “Zak was talking to me.”

  “What’d he say?” Jorge’s voice was muffled through his red bestickered pancake, a thin, round, face shield with a dark slot for viewing damaging UV blasts.

  “We all need to go talk to him when we’re done here.”

  Jorge nodded his head before striking an arc. “Did he sound pissed?”

  I held up my right hand to shield my eyes before turning toward him. “No.”

  “X-ray has been out here the last couple of days. I hope we didn’t bust a weld.”

  “I doubt that. You two are the best out here.”

  Jorge shook his head. “Hey man, you never know. If welders start getting cocky, they start making mistakes. And after all the shit Jillian did, they’re looking for reasons to run us off.”

  There are several ways to bust a weld. We’d already seen examples of the most common: insufficient penetration and slag. Insufficient penetration, or IP, happened when a welder didn’t lay his first layer of metal deep enough into the bevel between pipe ends. Or, as the term suggests, they didn’t penetrate the gap deep enough. Almost as a reminder, one of the machines on the job site featured a custom sticker depicting a welder above the suggestive phrase Welders Penetrate Deeper!

  Another common way to bust a weld was leaving slag on the freshly laid metal in between passes, or trips around the circumference of the pipe. Slag is a byproduct of stick welding’s chemical reaction—or, as Veronica and I knew it, the crap we buffed out of the weld using the grinder after every pass. If a helper didn’t clean the weld well enough—and the welder didn’t burn out any remaining slag with the tip of the rod during the next pass—it would get stuck in between the metal layers, leaving the weld weak and prone to bursting when oil was sent rushing through the pipe.

  The people who can see insufficient penetration or slag in a weld were known as X-ray. They are inspectors who drive in pairs from
site to site in small pickups with tall campers over the beds. Inside the campers are X-ray machines that show any defects in a weld.

  The previous day, a team had walked up to a weld with a thin, inch-wide black strip. It was a film of the X-ray they’d taken of the weld. One of the men wrapped it around the pipe and made large brackets next to the weld with paint markers, then wrote SLAG in large letters. Someone had busted a weld, which meant he had to repair the defect.

  Three repairs—whether from a busted weld, grind mark, or errant arc burn—and Zak had to run a welder off the job. That was rare. For more than a couple of welders to get fired mid-job bordered on disastrous.

  That three-strike rule only amplified the weight of Sylvia’s mysterious actions.

  Veronica looked at me nervously as we walked toward Jorge and Paul, who were already standing next to Zak. “Do you think we’re in trouble?”

  “No. We’re the best team out here. Don’t worry.”

  They were cutting up as we approached. “Hey guys,” Zak said. “Okay, a few things for y’all. First, you’re kicking ass, and I really appreciate it. To show you how much I appreciate it, I’m going to send you all to Site Three starting tomorrow.”

  “What’s out there?” Paul asked.

  “It’s real small. One launcher. Easy stuff. But we’re counting on it being done quickly and correctly the first time. That’s why it’ll just be you two, with me pitching in when we need to. I’ve got a dozen other welders to finish up here and at Site One when all that bullshit gets figured out.”

  “Well we appreciate you,” Jorge said. “I was worried we’d busted a weld or were working too slow.”

  “Nope. You all are my rock stars. But, speaking of Site One, there is one other thing.” Zak pointed to Jorge and me. “Those Texas Rangers need to talk to you two again.”

  Zak turned his attention to Paul and Veronica. “You two come out here tomorrow morning. Jorge and Big Nasty will go to Site One. After they’re done, we’ll meet out here again and y’all can follow me out to Site Three.”

  Jorge started to speak but was drowned out by the whining of a grinder. He leaned in closer to Zak. “Sounds good. It’s almost break time. What do you want us doing after that?”

  “Sit on your nuts,” Zak said before realizing that Veronica was standing next to him. “I mean, go sit in your trucks. I’m probably going to let everyone go at four anyway.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Veronica said. “I’ve got bigger balls than these guys, anyway.”

  We all laughed at Zak, who was staring slack-jawed at Veronica.

  Veronica was energized as we walked toward our respective rigs. “What do you think the Rangers want to talk to you about?”

  Jorge and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. We stood in silence for a few moments until Paul spoke. “Hey Ronnie, since we’re not doing anything after break, would you go ask someone to help you find a sky hook?”

  “What’s a sky hook?”

  “It’s just what it sounds like. Find a labor hand to help you. I want to make sure we know where one is before we get here tomorrow.”

  Veronica nodded her head and started walking toward the parts trailer, her gait almost normal after a few days onsite.

  Veronica slammed the truck door. “Fuck you two assholes. I walked around on my sore feet for twenty goddamn minutes before someone finally told me.”

  Jorge and I could barely hear her over our laughter.

  “Hey, looking for a sky hook is a rite of passage,” Jorge said. “Beck did it last week. It means you’re one of us now.”

  “But I’m not one of you. I don’t want to be.”

  I took a deep breath to stop laughing. “We’re sorry. We won’t do it again.”

  “Good. Now, back to business. You two have some work to do tomorrow.”

  “Right,” I said. “What all do you need to know?”

  “Oh, you know, who was this Sylvia Davenport woman? Who killed her? Small stuff like that.”

  I let out an overdramatic sigh. “You know we’re never going to get that out of two Texas Rangers. How about something small and specific, something we can realistically find out that will help you.”

  Veronica thought for a few moments. “If you two can tell me the last place Sylvia Davenport worked, or maybe her age, that would help a lot.”

  I should’ve known both of those things, but I’d done a terrible job trying to get to know Sylvia. Sure, I’d gotten superficial answers—favorite color, music and movie preferences, eating habits—but I hadn’t asked anything substantive. That was probably by design on her part. But it was also my fault. I had told myself I was trying to learn about someone I could potentially care about. But I was discovering that, though not consciously or with malice, I had only been trying to get into her pants.

  “Okay,” I said. “We can work with that.”

  “Good. If I don’t have something for my bosses to run in a few days, something that’s a legitimate scoop, they’ll tell me to go home. Hell, since I’ve been basically MIA for a week, they might fire me.”

  “So?” Jorge said. “You’ve got a job. One that pays better, too.”

  “What did we just talk about?”

  Jorge laughed. “Wait till you get your first paycheck on Friday. Then let’s talk again.”

  Veronica was about to respond when someone knocked on my window. I turned my head and saw Zak, who motioned for me to roll down my window.

  “Go home with ten. And remember, Jorge and Beck are going to Site One to talk to the police tomorrow.” Zak looked at Veronica. “Do you have a way to get out here without these two?”

  “Yep. Paul’s going to be nice and pick me up at my hotel.”

  Zak nodded and began walking toward the next truck. After we pulled out of our spot, a line formed behind us. Jorge was flooded with calls asking where the welders should spend their free time and money that evening. They settled on Bennigan’s in Borger.

  Jorge looked back at Veronica. “I know Beck’s not in, but how about you, Ronnie?”

  “Sure. Why aren’t you coming, Big Nasty,” she said, putting an obnoxious emphasis on my nickname.

  “Big Nasty doesn’t ever go out and drink with us,” Jorge said.

  Veronica poked her head into the front half of the cabin. “You don’t ever drink any beer in the room either. Are you an alcoholic?”

  “No,” I said. “I just like getting my rest, and I drank enough for a lifetime in college, thanks to this guy.”

  Jorge smiled. “Yeah, we did tear it up. But I always kept us out of trouble, didn’t I?”

  “Always.”

  Jorge had brought me out of my shell. At least, that’s how it seemed from his perspective. The truth is I let him, but only after I’d decided to trust him as much as I’d once trusted my older sister.

  Ruth Ann had given me my first drink. She’d come home late from a party one night and tried sneaking in through her bedroom window. Though she was as athletic as anyone in town, the beer had proven too much that night. She made enough noise to wake me. As it turns out, it wasn’t only the beer that she’d consumed, but the can she was trying to hold as she attempted her less-than-stealthy ingress. She’d put her index finger to her lips for a sloppy shhh before breaking out into laughter. I was only thirteen, so I just stared at her. I’d never seen her drink or sneak out, so I had no idea what my brotherly duties were in that situation.

  Ruth Ann read me like one of her friends’ diaries. She convinced me she was okay and urged me to not tell our parents, for fear of angering them for no good reason. That relaxed me. She then offered me the rest of her beer, the Texas sibling’s version of initiating a blood oath. From then on, I only drank in her company.

  After she died, I hadn’t touched a drop until I dubbed Jorge my surrogate older sibling. When we went our separate ways after graduation, I cut myself off again. I could’ve had some beers with him after I became his helper, but it rarely seemed necessar
y or appealing, except perhaps to dull the soreness. But that would be too temporary to justify the next day’s cramping. The one exception had been during the strip club outing, where being a drunken fool was not only expected, but encouraged.

  If I were to get drunk with him again, I’d have to stay over on his couch. That, or let Drunk Beck loose on Veronica.

  24

  Excerpt from Cold Summer

  The last person to see Summer in public was Simon Winkler, the afternoon cashier at Hinterbach’s Sinclair station. She walked into the station at about 2:40 and bought a hard pack of Marlboro Lights. She did it with some regularity, according to Winkler.

  She laughed while telling Winkler how she remembered at the last second to grab some cash before beginning the short trek to the green Brontosaurus, which only took about five minutes when she cut across Louisa Park.

  “By that time, it was hot outside. I mean hot. She was wearing a short, sleeveless dress, but she was still sweating when she walked in,” Winkler said. “She had exact change for me. Two dollars and eighty-nine cents. Of course, she was in there maybe once a week or so to tide her over between buying cartons in Kerrville, so she knew how much they cost.

  “I remember she wiped her brow and said how mad she’d’ve been if she’d’ve had to walk all the way back, get money, then come here again. And all for one lousy pack of cigarettes. I told her that since she was such a regular and everyone in town knew her, I’d’ve paid for them this time, long as she paid me back the next time she came in.”

  The conversation lasted about four minutes. Adding the five-minute walk back, Summer Foster was in her back yard, celebrating Independence Day with neighbors and friends, at roughly 2:49 p.m.