by Aaron Gwyn
“I don’t know,” he said. “Start of December.”
“This last year?”
“Yeah, this last year.”
“And he just quit.”
“Yes,” said Dresser, snapping his fingers. “Just like that.”
“And he didn’t give you a reason?”
“No,” Dresser told him, “he didn’t. He just walked in that door and told me that’s it.”
“You try and stop him?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t try and stop him. How the hell would I have stopped him?”
“You could’ve asked him why. You could’ve—”
“Could’ve,” said Dresser, shaking his head. “Could’ve. He walks in, tells me he’s quitting, turns around, and walks out the door. What am I going to do? Tackle him?”
Martin looked at him a few moments. He scribbled on his pad. “Why do you think he left?”
“I already told you why he left.”
“Why’s that?”
“I already told you.”
“Tell me again.”
“J.T.,” Dresser said. “All of them.”
“The kids he supervised?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you were their boss.”
“I am their boss,” said Dresser. “I’m all of their boss. I was Hickson’s until he up and quit.”
“And he was over J.T.?”
“Yes.”
“Like in a managerial position?”
“Exactly in a managerial position. Exactly.”
“I’m taking it J.T. didn’t like him?”
“No,” said Dresser, “what I been saying.” He pointed to the doorway. He seemed to be gesturing to the course beyond the windows, beyond that, the town. “Hickson had to watch all of them. He took care of those greens like it was his own backyard. Fucking hoodlums ganged up and—”
“You think they did this?”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t think anything,” said Martin. “We haven’t even found the boy.”
Dresser snorted. He slumped farther in the chair.
“Something funny?” Lemming asked him.
“You haven’t found the boy.”
“No,” said Lemming.
“How ’bout that,” Dresser said.
They pulled into Hickson’s subdivision half a mile up the highway, turned onto Maple, and then Scrimshaw, and then into Hickson’s drive. Martin killed the engine. He and Lem sat studying the house. The oaks lining the street were bare now, a tangle of black limbs against the sky. It was overcast. Cold. You could see red tile from the roof of the Malcoz Estate behind the row of trees. Martin radioed Nita their location, then hung up the receiver. He looked at Lemming and then stepped from the car.
They went up the cobblestone walkway and over to the front porch. There were weeds in the flower beds. Weeds in the yard.
“Home of a greenskeeper,” said Martin.
“Used to be,” Lemming said.
They came up the front walk and knocked on the doorjamb. As soon as Martin did it he was sorry. He tried the door handle, but it was locked, and he stepped over and glanced in a window. He could see, through the curtains, a small section of carpet. A plant. It was a ficus and it was healthy. They could live a long time. He checked another window, then motioned to Lem. They walked around the side of the house.
“You ready to contaminate a crime scene?” asked the sheriff.
“I was born ready,” Lemming said.
There was an eight-foot privacy fence, and the gate was bolted. Martin tried to work the mechanism from outside. He glanced over and Lem was already squatting with his shoulder against the fence and his hands cupped to make a stirrup.
Martin placed his boot in Lem’s palm and the man boosted him to the top. He got a good hold, got a leg over, let himself down to the grass on the other side. The gate was padlocked. Martin thought about breaking the lock and then he stared at Lemming through a gap between one of the wooden planks. The deputy gave a shrug, then jumped, grabbed at the fence, and hoisted himself up. Martin watched the boards quiver under the man’s weight. Then his other leg was over and he climbed down. Martin nodded and they walked around the backyard.
A lean-to. Flower beds. The lawn slightly sloping, the grass immaculate, dead. There was a shed standing in the yard’s center. There was a wheelbarrow leaned against its side. Martin went around and ascended the steps of the rear deck and walked over to the sliding glass door. He pulled on the handle and the door skated backward on its track.
“That,” said Martin, “was luck.”
They walked inside and stood. Television and recliner and sofa and shelves. Everything in order. Perfectly aligned. Martin glanced at the row of pictures along the wall. He called out and asked was anybody home. He walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. No milk. No lunch meat or cheese. There was a small container of yogurt, but it didn’t expire for three more days. He asked Lemming how long did yogurt last. Lemming didn’t know. He began going through cabinets, inspecting the shelves. He couldn’t find pasta. He couldn’t find bread.
“What,” he asked the deputy, “does this man eat?”
Lemming shook his head.
They walked around the house, looking through envelopes, bills. Martin walked to the telephone, picked up the receiver, and there was still a tone. He hit the redial button and there was ringing and then a voice said, “Lowe’s.”
Martin told the person wrong number. He motioned to Lem and they went down the hall.
In the master bedroom they stood next to the king-sized bed. Bare mattress. No blankets or sheets. They found the laundry room, but there was no bedding in the washer or dryer. They checked the linen closets: no bedding there either. Martin looked at Lemming and Lemming looked back at him.
“This make sense to you?” asked the sheriff.
“Not any I know about.”
“Get Bunker out here,” Martin told him. “Radio Nita. Have him do a knock-around. See did anyone hear anything.”
“We’ll get ahold of the buddy.”
“Hickson’s?”
“Yeah. Construction guy. Matt what’s-his-name.”
“Parks,” Martin said.
They went into the garage and there was a pickup inside it. Martin walked in back of the truck and took down the license number. He let himself into the cab. There was a hole in the console where the radio should have been and the dial that operated the air-conditioning was hanging from a wire. The plastic cracked and a vent caved in. Martin sat. He rifled through the glove box, then through a cubby beneath the armrest. There were receipts for building materials and kerosene lanterns, receipts for lumber and rope. There was one for a pickaxe and one for an entrenching tool. There was another for three emergency chain ladders. You could fasten them to a windowsill and escape from a second or third floor. Hickson’s home didn’t have a second or third floor. Martin passed the receipts to Lemming and the man shuffled through them.
“What was he building?” Martin asked.
“For the course, maybe?”
“For what on the course?”
“I don’t know,” Lemming said.
Martin took back the receipts, checked the dates. They all read December. The eighth, ninth, and thirteenth.
“Twenty-seven lanterns,” said Martin. “Why would a golf course need lanterns?”
“People are funny,” said Lemming.
“Yeah,” said Martin. “They’re worse than that.”
They walked back in the house. Martin let himself onto the front porch, checked the mailbox, but it was empty. He thought he might have a box at the post office. He went inside, tripped the deadbolt, and then he and Lemming walked out the back. They went down the steps and started across the lawn, and then Martin looked over at the shed. He glanced at Lem and gestured toward the building with his chin.
Martin walked over and opened the door. He stuck his head inside, but the shed was empty, nothing at all on the plywo
od floor. He closed the door and they climbed the fence and got in the cruiser. He’d just started the engine and was turning to back down the drive when he caught something in his peripheral vision.
“You see that?” he asked.
“See what?” Lemming said.
“The curtain,” Martin told him. “Right there.”
“Move?”
“Look like it moved.”
“You sure?”
Martin sat a few moments. He stared at the house.
“Maybe,” said Lem, “you’re a little weirded out.”
“I am a lot weirded out,” Martin said.
“You want to check it? We can go back in.”
Martin sat with the car idling. He thought about the lanterns and rope. Then he shook his head and ran a hand across his face.
“No,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah,” Lemming said. “Day ain’t over.”
NOVEMBER 2006
It takes them fifteen minutes to complete the three-minute trip. Hickson steadies his hands on the steering wheel and grips it tighter as he drives. It is past nine now and the highway fronting the subdivision is deserted but for Hickson’s truck. He keeps glancing into the rearview mirror. He keeps turning around and looking in the bed. His heart feels like an engine. It hasn’t felt that way in years.
“I don’t know why you did that!” he’s screaming. “What did you think you were trying to do?”
Parks sits beside him, gone, for the moment, mute. He still has the driver in his hands.
Hickson looks back and forth between Parks and the road. He misses the turnoff to his addition, catches the next crossover, hooks a U, and then comes back down the highway slow. He turns in by the sign that says Summit Green, makes his way past the speed bumps, drives down the cul de sac on one side of which sits his home. He pulls into the driveway. Hits the remote. The light comes on and the door begins to scroll upward on its track. Hickson and Parks look at each other. Hickson pulls inside the garage.
He hits the remote again and the door closes behind them. It is a few seconds before he kills the ignition. Exhaust rises about the windows on either side. He can smell it and feel it down in his stomach. His heart going like mad. His pulse. Hickson draws a knee to his chest and kicks the console with the heel of his boot. Pieces of radio pelt the cab, pieces of plastic. Hickson kicks again, and when he kicks a third time something gives way and his foot sinks into the dash and gets wedged down inside it. He rips it free, his boot trailing stereo cable, wire.
The two of them sit a moment.
“I never thought I’d hit him,” Parks says.
Hickson glances over. He opens the door and steps out.
He walks to the lamp above his workbench, turns on the 45-watt bulb, and angles it toward the wall. He cannot get his breath. His torso feels constricted and there are prickles down the backs of his legs. Like a power surge or current. Hickson stands. His house will be gone. His job will be gone. His yard and the course and what’s left of his life. Accessory to murder before the fact and after. There is no backing out. He will be locked in a cinderblock cell with gang signs scribbled on the walls in feces and ink. Someone twice his size and functionally illiterate. It will be war, morning, noon, and night. He presses his palms against both temples and he presses them very hard. He tries to breathe and think. One at a time. One breath at a time. One thought. He reaches over and from a pile of old newspapers selects several sheets, doubles them, fetches the duct tape from a drawer, and begins measuring one-foot strips, tearing the ends with his teeth. He takes the sheets of newsprint to the garage door, looks out the two elliptical windows, then spreads the pages, taping them down. He stands a moment looking at the bed of the truck. It will be worse the longer he waits, but he waits regardless. Then he cannot wait any longer; he cannot bear it; and he lifts the handle and lets down the tailgate. Parks watches him, leaning against the wheel well on the pickup’s right side. In the bed, a five-foot bundle wrapped in a length of tarp. Hickson climbs into the truck and begins to unroll it.
“Don’t do that,” Parks tells him.
Hickson says to give him a hand.
He grabs the end of the tarp, pulls up, and Parks climbs into the bed of the truck and pushes against the body. The blue spread of vinyl unfurls, and at the edge, on his back, lies the boy.
His brown skin is paler. His lips are pale, his hands a light shade of blue. Hickson studies his forearms. The tops have an appearance of having just been waxed. All underneath, down to the crook of his elbow, his arms are a deep crimson. Hickson covers his nose. He glances up and sees Parks doing the same. He looks back down. The boy’s face is turned toward him, his eyelids open. There is a distended lump just above his temple, an abrasion of the skin. The pupil of his right eye takes up the entire iris. A number of flies buzz around the body. A dark trickle runs onto his leg. The tarp is wet with urine, sweat.
“My sweet Jesus,” says Parks, weeping.
“Shut up,” Hickson tells him.
“My sweet precious God.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hickson says.
Hickson climbs in back of the boy, turns his face, reaches, and underhooks both arms. He lifts him several feet, then lets him back down. He tells Parks they’re going to have to roll him up.
They tuck a corner of the tarp under the body and Parks pushes against it while Hickson takes up the slack. He climbs out of the truck, grabs the duct tape, climbs back in, folds the ends of the tarp back onto the body as one would a tortilla, then runs the tape three or four times around. He has Parks pull on the top so he can pass the tape around the body’s middle. This done, Hickson sits back onto a side panel of the truck bed. A dark fluid has settled into the reinforcement grooves.
“I was just trying to scare him,” Parks says.
Hickson sits there, panting. He wipes a forearm across his face. He feels like striking Parks. He feels like wrapping him up with the boy. He can’t do that. One of them is going to have to think.
“Get up,” he tells him, “grab that end.”
Parks at the foot, Hickson at the head, they scoot the body out of the bed of the truck and walk it, stagger-step, to the doorway leading into Hickson’s house. They set it down and open the door. A cool blast of air strikes Hickson and sends a shiver across his flesh. They lift the body, walk it through the washroom, down the hallway, through the kitchen, then pause, again, while Hickson pulls the blinds away and slides back the door. They heft the tarp and walk onto the deck, Hickson turning and going backward now, backing slowly and taking the steps one at a time. They are on the lawn now and now at the shed. They lower the body and Parks steps over to the small aluminum structure and opens its doors. Hickson looks to the houses on either side of him, but the windows are dark and the only thing he hears is himself.
“Watch out,” Parks tells him. “It doesn’t have a floor.”
Hickson feels around and fetches up the ends of the tape. He pulls away each strip and rolls them into a ball. He grabs the tarp and rolls the body out of it. A muscle on the side of his back begins to spasm and then the spasm dies and he kneels there, sweating. Hickson reaches over and takes the boy’s heels.
“On three,” he says.
Hickson counts, and Parks takes up the arms of the corpse, and then he draws his hands back as if bitten. He walks over to the side of Hickson’s house and begins to retch. Hickson stares at him a moment. He starts to say something, but there is nothing to say. He moves over and half lifts, half drags the boy into the shed, to the edge of the hole. Looking back, he sees Parks leaning with his palms against the side of the house, heaving.
Hickson puts his fists into the boy’s back and pushes. The body slides across the grass, tumbles on itself, the T-shirt dragging. Hickson shoves harder and the body slips over the edge, and there is a wet sound, and then no sound, but his panting, and the flies.
Outside town, there is a superstore. Twenty-four hours. It is 1:58 in the morning. Parks a
nd Hickson are walking the aisles.
Hickson pushes a cart in front of him. Parks walks along at his left. They are passing Automotive. Kitchen Supplies is just up and to the right. Inside the cart is a bottle of ammonia, fifty-five ounces; a case of paper towels. There is a windshield scraper and a new length of garden hose, two bottles of rubbing alcohol, a case of industrial-strength air freshener, a can of insecticide, several rolls of flying-insect tape. Hickson selects three or four terrycloth hand towels, burgundy in color, then a couple packages of aluminum foil. He buys a new flashlight. He buys a box of D-sized batteries. He buys a roll of plastic sheeting, garbage bags. He buys a bottle of Pine-Sol and then they make their way toward the front.
“What do you think?” Parks whispers.
Hickson shakes his head.
At this hour, crates of boxes line the aisles. Hickson must maneuver the cart between them. He pays for his purchases in cash, one hundred eighty-five and sixteen, all totaled, and then pushes the cart to the truck. The mags are still wet from the car wash and when Hickson lowers the tailgate, several streams of water leak from the bed.
They drive back to Hickson’s, spend the next two hours cleaning, and then Hickson says that they should sleep. He lies atop the covers in the center of his bed and in half an hour he can hear Parks snoring. He walks into the living room and watches the man on the couch. Face upturned. Mouth open. His brow slackened and his wrists pulled to his chest and pressed together like a child’s. Hickson stares a moment. He slides the glass door open and steps outside.
Early morning and the sky is caught between daylight and dark. Hickson stands in the grass and studies the shed. He walks over and opens the door. There is a creak to its hinges that he will have to grease. He steps inside and pulls the door to behind him.
Hickson kneels on the grass. He muffles the head of the flashlight he is carrying and then turns it on. His hand glows red against the bulb. He aims the beam down the hole, leans over, and looks. Dirt for as far as he can see. Motes swirling in the shaft of yellow light. He clicks the flashlight off, rises to his feet, and goes back out the door.
