by Ben Farthing
Gordon pulled the mask off. “Dadgum, is that you, Cessy?”
Cessy hesitated. She’d only briefly interacted with Jackson, let alone his father. She knew of him through Kate’s sobbed stories of their messy relationship. Yet here Gordon was, acting like Cessy was his favorite niece he hadn’t seen in years. “It’s me. Do you have a minute? I’ve been trying to track down my sister, Kate.”
His shoulders slumped. Sawdust trickled down from a pile that had formed in the creases of his shirt. “Oh lord. Does this have something to do with Jackson? Let me finish up with a few things, and we’ll talk.”
Cessy felt a twang of satisfaction as she pulled the investigative thread. “You know where she is? Is she with Jackson?”
Gordon returned his focus to his board. “I can’t leave my shop dirty, and then I need to set some red oak to drying. Please don’t get angry with me.”
Cessy bit her tongue. He could be making a dig at her teenage reputation, or he could be a small town Baby Boomer who believed all women with careers had attitude problems.
She could work with that. Benevolent chauvinism could be exploited.
“It’s just,” Cessy sniffed, “I’ve been so worried about her. If you know anything, please don’t make me wait.” The faked emotion threatened to become real. She really hadn’t seen her sister for two weeks, and if something had happened to Kate, especially after Cessy had waited until two missed lunches to check on her...
Pity showed in Gordon’s eyes. Not sympathy or empathy. Pity. “Okay then darling, we can talk while I finish up in here. Grab you a dust mask from the wall there. I’ve been planing black walnut. Walnut sawdust is poisonous.”
A row of white dust masks hung next to the door. Cessy stretched one around her face, then pinched the interior wire over the bridge of her nose.
“Shout if your eyes itch. Some folks are more allergic to it than others. I’ve got some extra goggles if you need them.”
Gordon’s phone dinged. It rested on a shelf in the corner. Gordon only spared it a glance before setting the planed walnut board on a workbench. He brushed his fingers across its face once more, like he was admiring a newborn grandson. “Smooth as glass. It’s gonna be the tabletop for a nightstand. Part of a pair I’m making for the Watkins.”
Cessy made a mental note to ask him about the holes on the underside of her parents’ coffee table. She’d ask now, but if it was an unintentional flaw, she didn’t want to attack his ego before she got answers about Jackson’s location. “That’s a lovely board. Where’d you get it?”
“I mill all my lumber myself. From my own property, or natural falls from my neighbors, or sometimes if I love a tree, I’ll offer the homeowners a fair price to cut it down. I bought a wormy maple tree from one of your father’s properties.”
“I never knew my parents were sitting on valuable lots.” Cessy emphasized parents. Mom and Dad owned those rental properties together.
“Coal’s not the only thing of value that’s naturally occurring in Hamlin,” said Gordon.
Again, Cessy bit her tongue. Of course coal was the only thing of value. That’s why the town began. And why it was now only surviving on food stamps and federally funded elder care. But if Gordon was like the rest of her parents’ generation in Hamlin, he loved his hometown as much as he loved his family.
Gordon procured a push broom from a closet to sweep the sawdust across the cement floor and out the door. It stirred up a dust cloud that amplified the burnt cinnamon smell.
“I’m looking for my sister,” Cessy reminded him. “Your son, Jackson, asked her to come to Hamlin.”
Gordon put away the broom. He took a rag to the cast iron top of the table saw. “Bullshit.”
Cessy jolted at his sudden terseness. She felt her investigative thread start to go limp.
Gordon focused intently on wiping down the tabletop.
“I can show you the text messages. He was begging her to come.”
“Don’t need to see them. Jackson didn’t message nobody.”
“How can you be sure?”
Gordon threw the rag down. His cheeks shook with anger. “You drove here from your dad’s place? Down Main Street, then north on Ulton Road?”
“I did.” She wasn’t sure where he was going with this.
“You saw the collapsed house on the corner there, when you turned?”
“Looked like a sinkhole. Is there a cave system below the town?” She thought of the tunnel she’d seen through the collapsed bedroom.
Gordon put his hands on his hips. “Young lady, didn’t you go off and get a college degree? Are you playing stupid with me?”
The pieces fell into place. Cessy spoke without thinking. “Are you saying Jackson was in that house?”
Gordon widened his eyes and nodded. “You’re slow, but you get there.”
He walked past her, outside and around the side of the garage.
Cessy followed, taking off her mask and leaving the burnt cinnamon smell of the shop for the scent of recently-cut grass. Uphill from the garage was a leveled space as large as a basketball court. In the center of the leveled ground was a steel track with a horizontal band saw that rode along it. Two logs waited for their turn through the sawteeth.
Cessy fought to take back control of the conversation, as if she could talk Gordon out of what he was about to say. “That house has been rotting at least a month. Jackson was texting Kate two weeks ago.”
Gordon ignored Cessy to remove a tarp that covered a stack of wood slabs. Wind flapped the tarp and whistled behind her.
Cessy turned to see that against the back of the garage were what looked like two small shipping containers, but with tighter seals on the doors, and motors on top. One was locked tight, a bar and latch across the door. The motor hummed. The second container was open, its motor still.
Gordon went to the log-shaped stack of slabs. He stood at one end. “How about a hand?”
Cessy went to the far side. Together, they lifted the top slab. Her arms and back strained with the effort. The damn thing had to be a hundred fifty pounds.
Gordon walked backwards toward the open shipping container.
Cessy asked the question she didn’t want the answer to. “I’m sorry, Gordon. Did you mean that Jackson was in that house?”
She followed him into the container. The enclosed space deadened the wind. Even with the door opened, the air was dryer in here. They set down the slab on a bed of bone-dry two-by-fours.
“That’s what I said.” Gordon went for the next slab.
Cessy followed. She couldn’t think of a tactful way to ask a man if his son was dead. “Was he hurt?”
Gordon leaned on the mill. “His house done collapsed around him. He and his pretty wife were killed. I thought you stopped by your folks. They didn’t tell you?”
“No. Not even when I brought him up.” Cessy’s investigative thread fell limp, snipped in two.
She leaned on the wood, stabilizing her thoughts. Jackson couldn’t be dead. Cessy had seen his text messages. But she couldn’t deny Gordon’s genuine grief. Dad’s story made more sense, but Gordon’s felt more honest.
Cessy couldn’t accept it. Jackson was her only path too Kate. “In fact, my folks said Jackson was missing. Said you hadn’t seen him for a week.”
“What? You must be confused. They were at the funeral. They sent flowers. Your daddy kept me from drinking myself to death that first week.”
Cessy shrugged, a balancing act of being casual enough that she didn’t sound accusatory, but serious enough for his supposed grief. “It was just this morning.”
Gordon chewed on his lip. “Maybe they were protecting you from feeling sad. Your mother has some weird ideas with all that therapy she used to do. Or they were respecting my privacy. We try not to spread rumors around here.”
That was not the Hamlin Cessy knew, but she was staring the evidence in the face. Mom and Dad had gone past avoiding gossip, to fully covering up the truth.
/> Gordon was frustrated, but Cessy wasn’t ready to back down yet. Her gut believed him, but she still needed the logic behind it. “I asked Sheriff Miller about Jackson, and he didn’t mention it, either.”
Gordon looked at her suspiciously. He patted his pockets.
“What are you looking for?” asked Cessy.
“Nothing,” said Gordon. “Why were you talking to Sheriff Miller?”
“I’m searching for a missing person. So I went to law enforcement.”
“What’d he tell you?” He reached into his back pocket, came up empty.
“Your phone is on a shelf in the garage,” said Cessy, “if that’s what you’re looking for. I guess if you’ve been using those loud machines for a few hours, you would have missed any calls from my dad or the Sheriff.” It was a guess, that they were all trying to get their story straight to pacify Cessy. Except they hadn’t agreed on one single coverup story, and now Cessy had shown up to Gordon’s unexpected.
“Thank you.” Gordon walked back to the garage.
Maybe he was lying. Wouldn’t be the first convincing witness who turned out dishonest.
Cessy clung to that hope. Gordon was lying about Jackson. Cessy still had a lead to follow to find Kate.
Follow the evidence, Detective. Don’t massage it.
“Shut up, Landis,” Cessy mumbled.
“What’s that?” called Gordon.
Cessy had to be honest with herself. Of her parents, Sheriff Miller, and Gordon Wilder, Gordon spoke the most openly. Cessy was a few ticks short of a human lie detector, but her gut got it right more often than not.
Besides, Gordon was off-balance, more prone to spilling the truth than her parents or Sheriff Miller.
If Jackson died a month ago, why had Mom and Dad lied about it? Who had been texting Kate two weeks ago? What would be Cessy’s next step to finding her?
Gordon retrieved his phone. “You didn’t tell me what Sheriff Miller said about Jackson.”
Cessy needed answers, wherever they led her. Even to a dead end. She’d found Gordon’s wound, so she pressed on it to see what confessions bled out. “He suggested Kate and Jackson were having an affair.”
“That sumbitch.” Gordon walked back to the stack of slabs. “He knows damn well Jackson would have never did that to Olivia.”
Cessy reevaluated her impression of Gordon Wilder. She’d expected him to be in lockstep with Sheriff Miller. She expected that of all the elderly Hamlin residents. Nobody loved a white male authority figure like small town old folks. Especially one like reelected Sheriff Miller, straight from the good old days.
Cessy eased off the wound. Didn’t want to press too hard and let the confession congeal. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t believe that my sister would do that, either.” She helped Gordon lift another slab.
“Bullshit. You came to question me. You thought something fishy was happening between them.”
Cessy responded without thinking. “My sister would never make that mistake again.” So much for playing nice.
They set down the slab atop the first, inside the container. Gordon lifted up one end, slid in a thin piece of lumber. He pointed at a stack of narrow, short lumber next to Cessy. Cessy slid in a piece on her side.
Cessy’s heart pounded. Her head throbbed. First an uphill climb had her panting, now some heavy lifting had her chest feeling like it was going to explode. She needed to spend more time in the gym.
Gordon headed back towards the milled log. He worked his jaw and avoided eye contact. She’d pissed him off.
Cessy abandoned pretense. Forget the evidence. She needed Jackson to be alive so she could find him, and make him take her to Kate. Gordon had to be lying. “So where are they?”
“Who?”
“Jackson. And Kate, if you know anything.”
The old man flinched. He sneered in disbelief. “I told you. I have no idea where Kate is. And Jackson is dead.”
Cessy sucked in air. “You’re sticking with that story? Even after checking your phone?”
“It’s the truth.” Gordon went for another slab. “Goddamn, it’s only been a month. It’s cruel, what you’re doing. What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“I’m looking for my baby sister! I’d accuse you of murdering the Pope if I thought it’d get some answers out of you!”
Gordon gritted his teeth. “The only reason I don’t throw you off my property right now is that your father is a great man.” He exhaled. Relaxed his shoulders.
He lifted his end of another slab. Cessy hurried to help.
“I wish I had something to tell you,” Gordon grunted. “You must be terrified. But it’s been a month since my boy passed, and before that he never said nothing about hearing from Kate.”
She strained with the weight, penguin-waddled toward the container.
Gordon dropped his end of the slab. It yanked free from Cessy’s fingertips. She narrowly pulled her toes free from being crushed.
“I’d offer to let you go through his things, but what with the sinkhole, there’s nothing left.”
Cessy lifted her end of the slab onto the stack. She wanted to feel pity for the old man. A shitty death for a shitty son, leaving behind a grieving father. But she needed Jackson to lead her to Kate. “My dad was crystal clear. He said Jackson was missing.”
“You’re either confused or lying. My boy and his wife are buried on the hill behind Morningstar.”
Cessy swallowed. That was too specific a detail to make up so quickly. Gordon wasn’t lying.
“You can see their headstones three rows over from the old pines. Polished granite. Cost me three thousand dollars.”
Against everything she hoped for, everything she needed to be true so she could find Kate, so she could fix her mistake of not calling sooner, of having the gall to be happy that Kate skipped lunch so she could work on paperwork, against it all, Cessy believed Gordon.
Jackson was dead.
Cessy had lost the thread that could lead her to Kate. Now Kate drifted free, a missing person lost in the aether of missing persons.
18
Cessy drove back down Ulton Ridge Road. With no other leads to follow, she felt numb. She had to verify Gordon’s claims, but she already knew what she’d find. Jackson really had lived in that house, and he and his wife really were buried behind the Church of the Morningstar.
She passed out of the trees, still high up on Goat’s Jaunt. Across the valley, the white chapel was a squat monolith, perched high enough above the town to set itself apart, but not so high that it set itself above. A shepherd watching a flock from his hill, not a guard watching prisoners from a tower.
From up here, Cessy could imagine why her parents loved Hamlin. It was a painting out of the Saturday Evening Post. A colorful main street, surrounded by the green yards of the citizens.
Back on the hilly valley floor, Cessy passed a rolling brown pasture, eaten down to the dirt by cows or goats that had since moved on. The barbed wire fence surrounding it had collapsed in two locations Cessy could see. A manure scent filled the truck--normal for Hamlin--shortly followed by a smell of rotting death.
Cessy’s numbness turned to panic. She braked, jumped out of the car.
The stench hit her in rapid fire waves. She followed it to the ditch, into a culvert. A swarm of crickets chirped frantically. Water babbled out of a cement pipe which passed under a dirt road into the pasture.
Cessy wanted to go back to her self-pity at having no leads.
She saw Kate’s bloated and split hand, hanging out from the pipe. Fingers cut off before the first knuckle, palm risen in cracked pink boils.
Then Cessy realized it was a dog’s paw. Short toes, the pads on the bottom of its foot cracked and rotting.
It looked like a boxer had crawled into the pipe to die.
Cessy felt relief that Kate was still missing, even if she had no leads.
Holding her breath, she leaned in to check for a collar. She lost her balance, stumble
d, and knocked a rock down the embankment. It landed on the dog’s chest.
The boxer’s skin slopped down off its body.
A tidal wave of stench smothered Cessy. She scrambled back out of the ditch, sparing one more glance at the dog.
Blood red and puss yellow. Muscles and tendons and bones. Skin bunched at its side, like a quilt kicked off the foot of a bed.
Someone had skinned a dog, then left it wrapped in its own hide.
Cessy heaved, her throat muscles spasmed. She held down Mom’s tex-mex casserole.
From above, Hamlin could go on a Christmas card. From up close, Hamlin was a wretched-looking corpse, even more wretched underneath.
Cessy drove back to the collapsed house. She’d verify Gordon’s claims that Jackson was dead, and then she’d figure out what to do next.
Black Gold Peak leered over her. Maybe the librarian-in-hiding had more answers. Maybe Cessy’s answer was decaying somewhere in the mine.
Cessy wasn’t entirely out of leads.
She slowed at the sinkhole.
Although the house’s roof barely stretched above the ground, the white picket fence by the street was undisturbed. Reflective numbers tacked to the gate post read off the address. Cessy memorized it.
She drove through town, ignoring her surroundings.
She parked in front of the Church of the Morningstar. The church hadn’t changed since Cessy’s childhood. Wood siding painted white. Steeple over a bell. The same stained glass on either side of the front double doors, decorative colors around a brown cross. Like the rest of Hamlin, the old chapel was prettier from far away. The paint was chipped, and there was a crack through one of the glass crosses.
She used her phone to look up Jackson’s address on the online White Pages.
The address matched.
That was Jackson’s house.
Cessy walked around the chapel towards the cemetery up the hill.
Her yearly holiday visits home didn’t include much walking around the town. She’d forgotten how many hills there were to climb.
Behind the church, a leveled, paved basketball court to the left. The fenced-in cemetery to the right. The cemetery stretched up the hill fifty yards, and was thirty yards wide. The grass was well trimmed, although strangled by crabgrass and clover. The farther up the mountain, the harder the fence worked to keep back the forest. Young trees, vines, and bushes poked through and bowed the wrought iron. Older trees reached their branches above, offering shade to Hamlin’s Christian dead.