Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

“Ruthie, I was actually waiting for you,” he said, like it was some big revelation. “At the hospital.”

  “Yeah? You knew we were there?”

  “Mm. I saw you sitting in the yard at your house – what’s left of it. I buzzed around the block and came back but by then Dale was there. So I parked around the corner. When I saw you head for the hospital, I just waited.”

  “Yeah? So-o-o . . . was there something you wanted?”

  It took him three tries, just to get started.

  “I just wanted to . . . ! Look, I know that . . . ! I’m sorry about your house.”

  “Thanks, Hoggs. Us too, I suppose. It wasn’t much but it was home, you know?”

  “Yeah. Look, Alf Caletti come in the bakery this mornin’ an’ he tol’ me about you lot seein’ my ol’ man there last night – at the fire, like. An’ what with him bein’ pissed and ma havin’ told you the silly ol’ fart was missin’ just before that . . . Alf reckons youse took it into yer heads that it was maybe him started that fire! An’ I just wanted to tell you that it definitely wasn’t him, okay? Whoever done it, it wasn’t him!”

  “No! No! Course not! We were just upset, Hoggs. You know . . . trying to figure out how it started! No, I know I got up the mayor’s nose a bit these last few days, but I surely wouldn’t expect him to get about burning people’s houses down every time they annoyed him! That’d be a hell of an electoral strategy, wouldn’t it?”

  We both laughed, ha-ha; both of us knowing there was nothing funny. I pictured the mayor as I’d seen him the morning before, standing in the street in front of Alf’s Ute, shaking his finger at me and stuttering with rage. How big a jump would it be, from that to, a few hours and a few litres of beer later, wandering past an empty house and dropping a match?

  “So where was he?” I asked casually. “When he went missing, I mean!”

  “Where? Oh, nowhere! Just walkin’. He does that sometimes when he’s got council business on his mind. Doesn’t go anywheres; just up and down.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I didn’t intentionally sound sceptical but a man as drunk as the mayor was when I last saw him was not doing any deep reflecting on council business! And now that I was thinking about it, I was more than ever mystified by the fact that it was rage that had possessed him in the street. I could have understood regret or embarrassment or even dismissiveness – but to be so angry? It was almost like he’d found himself, unexpectedly, in a cage! I tried to picture him, the dapper little drunk, being involved in sexual assault on a young girl. It was a stretch, but doable!

  “An’ Kev’ tol’ me ‘bout someone doin’ for that goat,” Hoggs was saying. “That’s jus’ bloody wrong, innit?”

  Asael had to start in, then, on how Queenie’d woken him up with her wailing and how Rosemary had tried to get home, even with her back legs crippled. Most times, Hoggs was pretty patient with Asael’s ramblings but he was too worked up to listen that day. He just bowled over top of As’.

  “Were you talkin’ to Dale about that knife?” he demanded of me.

  “How’d you know?”

  “I knew you’d recognise it from the other day. Dale stole it, you know. From Mister Williams. I’m not one to dob on me mates, ye know, but that Dale! Him an’ his brother both . . . they’re a pair o’ bastards when they get a few in, ye know what I mean?”

  “So-o-o, you’re saying it was Dale who cut Rosemary?”

  “No way! All I’m sayin’ is, he stole that knife. Other’n that, you weren’t with him an’ I wun’t with him so we can’t know what he got up to las’ night, can we? You have to make your own judgement on that! I’m jus’ sayin’ he can be one scary mongrel, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I do.” For someone who wouldn’t dob on his mates, Hoggs was doing a pretty focussed job of feeding my suspicions. “Well, you’re right about me asking him, Hoggs. I asked him straight out if he did it.”

  “Yeah? Wha’d he say?”

  “He said no.”

  “No kidding, eh! Surprise, Surprise! You believe him?”

  “Dunno! I mean, it’s not that I don’t think he’s capable. It’s just, I can’t figure why! If I could figure that out, I’d be a lot happier!”

  “Whoa, you must be thick, girl! Think about how stupid you made him look lately! Them black eyes and them big red ears! Dale don’ like bein’ made a fool of, ye know! Ever think maybe he’d want to get back at you?”

  That was the mock-laughing explanation and it was followed quickly by a more serious one – one delivered kind of shiftily, as though Hoggs had been practicing making it sound unrehearsed.

  “But even more ‘n that, maybe he’s tryin’ to get youse – you ‘n’ the goat lady – to back off a bit. You know? From all the questions and pryin’ about stuff that went on in the past? Bad enough all this shit’s come out without youse, you know, pushin’ it further. Carryin’ on, like! Nothin’ to be gained from that shit, ye know? I mean, you can’t un-do sump’m like that, can you? Done is done! So, maybe . . . you know . . . just in the way of lookin’ out for yourselves, youse should give it a miss, whaddya think?”

  I was momentarily stunned by Hoggs’ strange logic. Why would it matter to Dale if ‘all this shit’ came out? He wasn’t involved in it! He was five years old when it happened!

  “But Rosemary belonged to Amalthea! It wasn’t her who was asking questions!” I said.

  “It was her askin’ las’ night! At the fire, about the mayor! She got no call puttin’ her nose into Sugar Town’s business like that, Ruthie! Makin’ up shit! Bein’ mayor o’ this town’s the most important thing in the world to that ol’ bloke an’ she’s got no right to . . .!”

  He was getting way ahead of himself and seemed suddenly to realise it. “I dunno,” he finished more softly. “Maybe we jus’ don’ need outsiders pokin’ their bibs in, eh? Anyways, I keep thinkin’ o’that poor little goat, havin’ to suffer like that, jus’ so’s someone could make a point. Jus’ as well the ol’ fella was there to put her out of her misery, that’s what I say.”

  It took a minute for that to register and another for me to catch my breath. The old fella? Meaning Isak? How would Hoggs know about Isak? We’d all promised before we split up that morning to keep mum about him! And even if one of us had let that slip, how would he know that Isak had ‘put Rosemary out of her misery’? How could anyone know? Unless they were there to see it!

  “Ah! Yah, good,” I managed to blurt. And then, “Hey, you haven’t seen The Space Thing yet have you, Hoggs? Why doncha drive on down to the house and let As’ introduce you?”

  “Man, yeah! Far out, girl scout!” He was suddenly all sunshine, as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he turned his attention to Asael. “I heard you got a way with this thing, Big Guy! Like you an’ it, you got powers, Man! Brought that other goat back to life an’. . . !”

  “And a dragonfly!” Asael crowed. “And Bridie!”

  Hoggs spun the tires and swerved out onto the road. The two of them started jabbering about ‘powers’ and I reeled off a text to Kevin. ‘Did u mention Isak 2 Hoggs?’ And I got an answer back straight away. ‘Not 2 any 1. No 1 nos where he is’.

  Yes someone does, I thought to myself! So the question is, how!

  * * *

  The noise of Hoggs’ car brought Amalthea to the door.

  “Look!” I said cheerily as we tumbled out. “Hoggs gave us a lift from the hospital! We thought we’d show him Queenie as a reward.”

  “Oh! Great!” she said in a tone that would have ripped the welcome mat out from under a more sensitive person than Hoggs. And she followed it with, “How’s Bridie? Did you get to talk to her, Asa’?”

  “Yup! Ruthie went to look at the house but I stayed and some ladies came to visit. Your mum came, Hoggs! She was very worried about Bri’ but I told her everything was okay now ‘cause Queenie was involved.”

  “Yeah? Slick!”

  We filed into the house behind Amalt
hea; first Asael, then Hoggs, then me. Hoggs jolted to a stop just inside the door, though, and I bowled into him. Amalthea’d left a sheet over Rosemary to hide the grotesque wounds on her throat and legs, but her head was exposed. Garlic lay beside her, in almost the same spot as when he was dead.

  “Go on in!” I put my hands on Hoggs’ back and shoved him forward. There was no way he was getting out of this! “You’ll never guess what, Amalthea! Hoggs thinks he knows who killed Rosemary! Don’t you, Hoggs?”

  He shifted on his feet and glanced at each of us, his head shaking minutely. In all the hours I’d spent around Hoggs at the bakery, I’d never noticed how narrow and nervous his eyes were.

  “Yes!” I babbled on. “He thinks it was Dale Sutton! Remember Dale had that knife here the other day, when they came for Garlic? Hogg’s reckons it was the same knife! Actually, I had the same idea! And I texted Dale at school this morning and got him to come to the house, or what’s left of it, which isn’t much, by the way, and I asked him if he did it. Asked him straight out and mentioned that knife and he said he knew about the knife but nothing else! I mean like he really didn’t know! But of course, as Hoggs pointed out, what else is he going to say? So Hoggs thinks it was Dale! But you know what else in interesting?”

  I’d wandered across the living room as I was talking and had a look in the kitchen. As I’d hoped, Isak was there, sitting very still and quiet at the table where he and Amalthea had been having coffee. The rifle was leaning against the sideboard, just at the end of his reach. I put my hand on my chest where he could see it and pointed at Gramma G’s ring, which I’d taken to wearing. He looked up at me and furrowed his brow.

  “What else is interesting . . . !” It was as pregnant a pause as I could manufacture; “. . . is that Hoggs doesn’t think it was Dale who killed Rosemary. What was it you said, Hoggs? Lucky the ‘old man’ came by and ‘put her out of her misery’? Was that it?”

  He nodded, his mouth dangling open. The effect I was hoping for was him sensing that his foot was in a bear trap which, as soon as he tried to move, was going to snap closed on him. I realised I was going to have to rattle the chain a bit louder.

  “And by ‘the old man’, you meant . . . Isak Nucifora?”

  Again, the wary nod. Amalthea’s gaze turned from me to him.

  “We were under the impression,” she said, her voice low and dangerous, “that nobody knew where Isak was, Franz! That he’s wandered off from the hospital and disappeared into the scrub somewhere! So why would you think he was involved?”

  “Ahhh,” he tried. “Yeah, but . . . Kev’ told me he showed up here! Late, like! And he tol’ me what he done!”

  He looked at me in a pleading way, as though I could somehow help him out of this corner. Instead, I read out my text to Kevin and his answer.

  “We all agreed, this morning, Franz,” Amalthea explained carefully to him, “that IF any of us knew where Isak was, we wouldn’t be mentioning that to anyone just yet! Are you saying that Kevin broke that promise and then lied to Ruth about it?”

  “No no! It’s just . . . He musta let it slip! Maybe he forgot!”

  There was a scrape of chair from the kitchen and we all fell silent, turning to watch as Isak stepped into the doorway. The butt of the rifle thumped against the floor and he planted his hand over the tip of the barrel, as though only his palm was holding back the bullets. He looked larger than he’d seemed up until now; kind of swollen with anger, despite the fact that he was wearing a pink t-shirt of Amalthea’s with Who’s Your Daddy? emblazoned on the front.

  “Who’s this little tosser?” he asked quietly. “This Lyle and Frieda’s boy?”

  In a reflexive kind of way, Hoggs chirped out a bit of bluster, during which Isak lifted the rifle and cocked it, allowing it to swing in the general direction of Hoggs’ knees. Hoggs drifted to a stop. Then, like an old jalopy, he tried to start again.

  “You don’t scare me! No way you’re gonna . . .!”

  And the rifle went off. The bullet, as nearly as I could make out, must have passed between Hoggs’ legs. Every one of us in the room, except for Isak, jumped a foot and half in the air and Asael slumped to the floor, covering his ears and crying out.

  “Best you don’t talk, sonny,” Isak said softly. “Makes me nervous when people yabber at me.” He tapped his forehead. “Not all here, ye see. Me ‘n’ the boy there! Both a bit strange!”

  He folded himself into a chair and, “Ahhh, now!” he sighed. “Reckon we best sit down for this!” But when Hoggs moved tentatively toward one, Isak said, “Not you.”

  I went to Asael, who was sniffling and crying lightly. When I tried to pick him up, he turned wide eyes on Queenie.

  “’S okay, youngster,” Isak said to him softly. “She’ll be okay. She knows me.”

  I could barely hear him, what with the echo of the gunshot ringing in my ears. But I understood exactly the fear that Asael was feeling. What had we done? What had I done? I pulled Asael onto the couch between me and Amalthea, who had lifted Garlic in close to her. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected from Isak but, despite his having talked about shooting Roger Dabney, the reality of gunshots hadn’t properly registered in my head. And despite how disgusted and disappointed I was in Hoggs, I didn’t see shooting him as a sensible option.

  “Let’s get this clear,” Isak said, his voice as calm as a turtle’s. “I reckon you seen me put this little gal outta her misery las’ night. I reckon you was there! An’ I’m crappin’ meself with excitement to hear what you got to say about that.”

  Hoggs opened his mouth to protest but Isak waved him into silence. “Not yet. You’ll have yer chance in a minute. First, I want to make sure you understand where I’m comin’ from. I want you to consider that what you done to this little goat las’ night with a knife, I could do to you with a bullet. Get me? If you was a hundred yards away, runnin’ faster ‘n’ Cobalt Joe, I could still take your knees out, neat as a pin, so you’d never walk again. Shootin’s what I do, ye see? How I make me livin’! Ye unnerstand?”

  Hoggs was trembling so hard he could barely stand, but he nodded.

  “Good. Now that’s not my intention, see? I might decide to shoot you later. I might even jus’ shoot you by accident! But it’s not the thing that’s in the front o’ me mind right now. She’s pretty unpredictable o’ course, this ol’ head o’ mine, but right now, I’m thinkin’ we’ll jus’ talk. Orright?”

  A small wet stain appeared on the front of Hoggs’ trousers.

  “That’s orright,” Isak said pointedly. “’S just fear. Everything does it. Done it meself once or twice. What’s yer name again?”

  “F-F-Franz.”

  “Franz. Okay. Tell me, Franz. You move that gas bottle on Bessie’s caravan las’ night? Or did Mayor Lyle do that?”

  Hoggs shook his head. “I . . . I . . . !”

  The rifle bobbed up and down in his direction and he whimpered, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Just . . . !”

  “Just what, Franz?”

  And Hoggs lost it. Tears and snot and noise came tumbling out.

  “It’s her fault!” he squealed, pointing at me. “Askin’ an’ askin’! It’s all in the past, fer Chris’ sake! Can’t you see that? Nobody can undo anything! Nobody can take it back! Everything was fine an’ forgotten ‘til she started up!”

  “Fine an’ forgotten?” Isak croaked, starting to his feet. His voice, which had been relatively mild, was suddenly thunderous, his eyes wide and wild. “Fine an’ forgotten sez who, you jumped up little toad’s dick? That gonna be your excuse for cuttin’ this little goat? For movin ‘at gas bottle an’ lightin’ ‘at fire at the Reverend’s house? All o’ which, I reckon you done! ‘Cause by the livin’ Jesus, let me tell you this for free ‘n’ all! Fuckin’ little is ‘fine’! An’ nothin’ ever gets forgotten! Everythin’ hangs on into the right now!” He shook his head as though someone had just slapped him, and he stepped back, raising the rifle. “That’s it!” he
roared. “Bloody miserable little pissant! You’re done!”

  I was on my feet, even as Hoggs fell off his.

  “No!”

  The action seemed to break something in my own resolve and I found I was crying almost as hard as Hoggs; wounded by his terrible killing of Rosemary and also, I think, by the blame placed on me, for making it seem necessary. Even so, like some mad woman in a cheap film, I thrust myself between him and Isak.

  “No!”

  “No? No, my ass, junior! This li’l pecker i’nt man enough to own up! An’ this town got two shitloads too many like him awready! Now get outta the way, an’ let me fuckin’ finish ‘im!”

  “No, Isak! Stop it! We can’t!”

  Hoggs slumped even lower on the floor behind me, adding his blubbering and pleading to mine, while Asa’ contracted back into his foetal position and Amalthea edged forward in her seat. The stand-off lasted only a few moments as Isak, his teeth bared, shook the rifle at me, stomped his feet and growled down on the snotty, piss-stained, cringing mess that was Hoggs.

  “Grrraaaahhh!” Then, swinging his eyes back to me, he waggled his bows mischievously and allowed one weepy eye to perform a slow, unmistakable wink. At which point, I realised how close I’d come to wetting my own pants!

  So! It was a fishing expedition! A game! And though it doesn’t say anything very nice about me, it was a game that I immediately knew and just as immediately wanted to play. I virtually lunged at Hoggs, putting my own spurs into his terror.

  “You see what you’ve done?” I howled at him, smacking the hair on the top of his head. “He’s ready to kill you, right now! To shoot you dead as a nail! And I’m having trouble thinking of a reason to stop him, Hoggs!” I smacked him a second time. “Because you are the world’s biggest disappointment! You know that?”

  He buried his face in his hands, stifling his own nod and I slapped him a third time.

  “Don’t you dare agree with me!” I grabbed his ear and jerked his head up. “Look at her!” I cried, sniffling and pointing at Rosemary. “She was a living, breathing creature, Hoggs! And you slashed her with a knife and left her to die, on the side of the road! All alone! At night! So close to home!” Each piece of it seemed a horror on its own. “How could you do that, Hoggs? What kind of a person could do that?”