The Sweet Spot

by Joan Livingston

  “I believe she looks just like her mother,” he told her.

  Misguided by Dean’s directions, Edie now wandered down a dirt road until she came to a farm at its dead end. A crew of men hoisted hay bales onto a wagon. When Pop was younger, he worked summers on a hay crew, one of the many seasonal jobs he did to support his family. It was awfully hard work, but Edie remembered how clean Pop smelled when he came home, sunburned, dusty, and his clothes stuck with hay.

  She backtracked to a general store. Three police cruisers were parked in front, and when she paid for sandwiches and cold drinks for her and Walker, the woman at the register said a man was beaten to death outside his bar.

  “A logger found him this morning,” she told Edie. “The cops aren’t talking, but I heard someone say his head was so bashed in, you could see his brains. I don’t believe anything like that could happen here. Do you?”

  “Wow, that’s awful. Who could’ve done something like that?”

  “The cops say somebody must’ve had it in for him.”

  The woman handed Edie her change.

  “Did he have family?” she asked.

  “His boy lives in Arizona. He’s on his way back. Where you headed? To the lake? Be careful. They haven’t caught whoever did it.”

  “I hope they find him soon. What an awful thing to do.”

  Edie sat in her car. She should go home. She should be glad Walker was leaving her alone. But she steered her car past the cruisers in front of the store.

  Using the directions the cashier gave her, she got her bearings on the lakeside road, where trees hung in a thick canopy. She caught familiar glimpses of the gray lake through the forest until she found Walker’s driveway. She wound the car toward his camp and parked behind his pickup truck.

  Edie clutched the bag containing the food and cans of soda as she made her way toward the cabin. She listened and looked for some sign of Walker. Her steps were slow. She stopped once but kept going until she found him, sitting in a high-back chair positioned in the middle of the dock. His eyes were closed. He held a revolver and a can of beer on his lap. She thought to leave without him knowing, but Walker sputtered awake. He grabbed the gun and blinked at Edie.

  “It’s you, baby.”

  His face was unshaven, his body unwashed.

  “I brought us food and something to drink. See?” Edie raised the bag then set it on the dock when he didn’t respond. “How are you, Walker?”

  “Never better.” He hummed through his nose. “You sure look real pretty in that dress. Shit, where are my manners? Take my chair. No? Then sit on my lap.” He slapped his thigh. “Shy? That’s not like Edie, the queen of the Do-Si-Do. Or is it the new Edie?” He raised the beer for the last swallow and chucked the empty onto the pile near the shore. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. Honey, I’ll take you any way you are.”

  The wind rose off the water, raising the hem of her skirt above her knees. Speedboats whizzed across the lake behind her.

  “I’ll sit on the box.”

  “No, no, the chair’s for you.”

  Walker was on his feet, giving her his seat. His boot heels knocked against the dock as he paced. She sat back, gauging the tension of his hand on the gun. He grinned big for her. Why did she ever listen to Dean?

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinkin’. About you mostly. Sorry. Can’t help it. About Gil, too.” Walker held his head sideways. “Who sent you here? Never mind. It was that pest Dean. He’d make a better mother than my own dear mother. It don’t matter. You came.”

  He resumed his march.

  “Walker, how about putting that gun away?”

  He laughed.

  “I like guns. I like the feel of them, the way they sound when they go off. Gil never liked guns. It’s why he died over there in Vietnam. It’s the God’s honest truth, Edie. He didn’t have the fight in him.” Walker waggled the gun. “If I’d gone, I’d have shot every gook I saw. I wouldn’t have left a beautiful wife behind. I would’ve fought my way back.” He shook his head. “Tell me, babe. Did you really feel anything for me? Did you give me any of the love you gave my brother?”

  “Course, I did,” she said quietly.

  He raised his gun in triumph.

  “All right.” He rubbed his face with his free hand. He gave her a long, sad look. “How about you and your little girl coming to live here with me? Our own little family. Huh, what do you think?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Walker dropped to his knees before her. He set the gun on the dock. Edie thought to kick it into the water, but she didn’t think she could move fast enough. Walker touched the buttons on the front of her dress, rolling the edges between his fingers. She clamped her hands over his as if they were praying together.

  “Baby, last night, I beat a bartender who wouldn’t let me use the phone to call you. Can you believe it?”

  “Walker, it’s you?”

  The corners of his mouth turned up.

  “You got that right. It’s always been me.”

  He silenced her by placing his lips on hers, giving her a kiss, half-chaste, half lustful. Her chest moved in a heavy whirl.

  Walker aimed his gun at her. His darting eyes were the only part of his face that moved. She began to cry for Amber, for Pop, and Aunt Leona, who’d be left without her.

  Her heart beat hard.

  “Please, Walker, I’ll do whatever you want. I have a little girl I love.”

  “Sure you do, Edie. Sure you do. Now say you love me.” He cried, too. “Say it. Say it and mean it.”

  Edie saw the black hole at the end of the revolver, and she knew how Gil felt when his chopper rushed to the jungle floor. He wanted to live. She flew to her feet, screaming, as Walker fired. Then he put the gun in his mouth and took a second shot.

  Twisted And Tragic

  Edie paced the dock near Walker’s body. She used her trembling hands to shield the sunlight. The shots were in her ears still, and she could see Walker’s face, twisted and tragic, before he stuck the gun in his mouth.

  She moaned his name.

  A boat sped from the middle of the lake, and two boys yelled, but she felt too dumb to call or wave. Instead, she touched her forehead, the spot where it stung, and came away with a palm filled with blood. She tried to swipe her hand clean along her hip, but blood and something else was on her dress. She cried aloud, her breath coming from her chest in deep, hard shudders when a shirtless boy bounded onto the boards.

  “We heard the shots. You screaming.” He glanced at Walker and took a quick step backward. “Shit, look at that. What happened?”

  “He shot himself.”

  “Christ, this is bad. You got a phone here? No?” He shouted to his friend. “Go call the cops. Tell ’em there’s a dead guy here, and she’s been hurt.” The other boy talked. “What’s the address here?” Edie didn’t answer. “Tell ’em we’ll wait on the side of the road.”

  Edie cried harder. Everything around her was blocked away, and she barely heard the boy’s shout or the motor’s roar when the boat took off. The boy who stayed, his face tanned and hairless, just a high school kid, checked her forehead while she watched Walker’s blood soak into the dock’s floorboards.

  “He tried to shoot me.”

  The boy took hold of her upper arm, leading her from the dock to the road.

  “Jesus, don’t look at him. Come on. We’re gonna meet the cops.” His hand tightened. “How bad are you hurt?”

  “I dunno.”

  The boy shook his head and pulled her forward.

  Edie sniffed. Walker wanted her to die with him. It was that simple. The police were coming, and she’d have to answer their questions. Then there were Fred and Marie, Sharon, and Walker’s two boys. Everything fell over her in a thick, gummy web.

  Edie glanced toward the cabin, but the trees
obscured the dock. The boy jumped in front, startling her.

  “What’s taking ’em so long?” His voice broke high. “Wait a minute. I hear ’em.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance, and when she shifted her eyes toward that direction, blue cruiser lights glimmered like broken glass though the forest.

  “Over here.” The boy waved his arms in sweeping motions to the cruiser rushing toward them. “Over here.”

  The cruiser braked for the boy, who stuck his head into the open window. The cop’s car continued toward the camp, followed soon by two more. The boy signaled for Edie to follow him.

  She wiped her hand across her face, then her dress. She wiped again. There was so much blood.

  Not With Us

  Edie sat in the back seat of a cruiser with the door open. The air was warm, but she wore a blanket around her shoulders while an EMT cleaned the blood from her face. Someone found a shirt and shorts in the trunk of her car. They let her use the boathouse to change, shivering all the while, as a trooper kept guard. He packed her clothes and sandals in a plastic bag for evidence, he explained, but she didn’t want them anymore. They took other things from the cabin.

  The EMT grew up in Conwell and knew her family. He was in Vietnam, too, a medic in the Army. His voice was warm and his hands gentle as he touched her.

  “It’s too bad about Walker. He was an okay guy.” The EMT examined the wound on her forehead. “It appears the bullet sliced you right here. You got outta the way just in time. You’re real lucky about that anyway.” He wiped her skin with gauze. “You’re shook up, but you’re gonna be all right. Head wounds are always bloody. You should go to the hospital and get this stitched properly, or it’ll leave a scar.” He paused. “They finally got a hold of your father. He’s on his way. He has somebody with him.”

  Edie nodded. Maybe Pop was bringing one of his drinking buddies. Somebody would have to drive her car back home. The cops wouldn’t let her.

  The local police chief, his body packed tightly in his uniform’s shirt, stepped toward the cruiser. She spoke with him once already and with two state troopers, but he was back, leaning over her. The ends of his fingers made tapping noises on the cruiser’s roof.

  “How’s she doing?” the chief asked the EMT, and then he dropped his face toward Edie. “Miss, you look a little better. Mind if I ask a few more questions? He can finish up later.” The chief came forward as the EMT moved to the right. “We had another incident here in town. A man got killed, and we’re figuring there might be a connection to Mr. St. Claire.” He cleared his throat. “Do you have any idea what he might’ve been doing last night?”

  “He called my home. It sounded like he was at a restaurant or a bar.”

  “When was that?”

  “I remember it was still light out. He didn’t say much.”

  “How’d you know it was him?”

  “I know his voice. He was crying. I told you before he was upset.” She paused. “He’s been calling a lot.”

  The chief’s belly rose as if a pulley rigged it. A sweat spot shaped like a delta was on the chest of his blue shirt.

  “Was there anything he might have said?”

  Edie saw Walker kneeling before her. He kissed her. How could she have stopped him? Could she have kicked the gun away? She raised her head.

  “He said he tried to call me at another place, but a man wouldn’t let him. Walker said he beat him.”

  The chief’s eyes closed in tight creases.

  “You might like to know we sent someone to tell his wife and parents.”

  “Am I in trouble?” she said faintly.

  “Not with us you ain’t.”

  She blinked slowly. On the dock, EMTs zipped Walker’s body into a black bag. The police took photos and measured the area. They searched his camp and truck, taking whatever they needed. They knew everything about her and Walker, and the tears came again as the chief gestured with his hand, so the EMT could finish.

  A Smile So Sad

  Harlan drove his pickup slowly over the dirt road. Beside him, Benny Sweet chain-smoked and talked about Edie. Benny had been keyed up ever since he barged into Harlan’s workshop, yelling like a madman.

  “Harlan, I need your help,” Benny said. “You gotta come. That fucker Walker tried to kill my Edie, then he offed himself. Shot himself in the head, the stupid bastard. She got away, but they say she’s hurt. I fuckin’ can’t believe it.”

  Benny talked nonstop during the ride. He flicked the spent butt out the window.

  “I’ve got three girls, but the other two won’t have nothin’ to do with me,” he told Harlan. “I haven’t seen them or their families for years. They’re too good for their old man, shamed of me cause I run the town dump, but not my Edie. I did right raisin’ her. Her mother’d be proud.”

  He fished in his shirt pocket for his pack.

  “I never trusted Walker St. Claire. Never. His brother, Gil, was nothin’ like him. An awful shame he got killed. But Walker?” Benny spat out the window before he lit another cigarette. “I’m not the kind of father to stick my nose in my daughter’s business, but I should’ve, especially after he beat her. You saw the bruises.” He winced. “Walker knew how to work her to get what he wanted. What she got out of it, I dunno.”

  Harlan touched a scar that ran from the ridge of his cheekbone to the jaw line on the right side of his face. The skin was dry and rough as if it were a dead thing. He squinted at Benny. He knew why. Edie was lonely.

  “You’re awfully quiet there, Harlan.” Benny blew smoke through the corner of his mouth. “You okay?”

  Harlan nodded.

  Benny came to Harlan’s house from the dump, so his overalls were thick with the worst kind of dirt. The town’s police chief went there to tell him about Edie. Benny didn’t want to take the time to change. He had to see Edie right away.

  “I was just wondering why she’d come all the way out here to see Walker,” Harlan said.

  Benny flicked the cigarette’s ash out the window.

  “The chief didn’t say much, just about Walker being messed up,” he said. “I bet that damn Walker tricked her into comin’, or maybe she came here for his parents, you know Fred and Marie, to do their dirty work. I seen her before she left. She didn’t say where she’s going, but she acted like she was hiding somethin’. She knew I wouldn’t let her go. My sister, Leona, said the same thing when I called her.”

  Benny tossed the butt out the window.

  “Edie tried to keep that thing with Walker from me. Ha. I’m old, but I’m not blind. There was that time he hit her real hard. She said he was sorry. She said he didn’t mean to, but, shit, I knew what kinda guy he was. No fuckin’ good. A wife and two kids, and foolin’ around with my Edie. She deserves better. I called my sister, Leona, you know, the bossy one. She practically screamed over the phone. She wanted to come, but I knew she’d be useless driving. That’s why I asked you, Harlan. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “I’m glad to help.”

  Harlan continued to rub the scar. A smoky light came through the truck’s windows. This was far for Edie to drive alone. The forest was thick here, and there were fewer houses than in Conwell. He hadn’t seen any power lines for a while now. She could have broken down or something could have happened to her. Something did, and his throat got thick as he thought about it.

  Benny slid forward in the seat, guiding Harlan toward Walker’s camp. They were close, he said, as he spotted landmarks. Benny had been to the lake before to fish. He remembered the route. They came to a road on the left, and Benny pointed to its sign.

  “Turn here. This is it.”

  The blue bar of a cruiser flashed ahead on the road. An ambulance with its siren off passed slowly on the narrow road.

  “Told ya,” Benny croaked.

  A local cop commanding the road told Harl
an where to park after they spoke about their business here. His leg was stiff and useless, so he punched it a bit to get it moving before he stepped down. Benny was already on the ground. Harlan told him to go. He’d be right there. Benny leaned against the truck’s front fender.

  “What I said in the truck, I’m worried for Edie. She and Amber mean more to me than anybody in the world. Anybody. I’d give my life for them.” His eyes shined. “I think you like her. That’s okay by me. You seem like a real decent guy. But this ain’t over by a long shot. It ain’t gonna be easy for her when she gets back. You don’t know how hard this town can be until you make a mistake. Ask my sister, Leona, if you don’t believe me.” Harlan started to speak, but Benny raised his hand. “Let’s just find her. I wanna make sure she’s okay.”

  Harlan made his slow way past the line of vehicles. Benny was already with Edie. She gave Harlan a smile so sad, he felt like weeping with her.

  Keeping Up

  Edie stared straight ahead while Pop drove her home. Harlan was behind them in his pickup truck. She didn’t speak. Neither did Pop. He kept checking her though. His mouth opened and shut. He turned the radio’s knob on and off.

  They passed the Stakeout Bar and Grille, where she and Walker ate.

  “You hungry, honey? You want me to run in and get ya somethin’ to eat?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, Pop.”

  The front of his white hair fell over his eyes. He brushed the shock aside.

  She half-turned in her seat. Harlan kept up with them.

  “Edie, why’d you go to Walker’s camp? You could’ve got yourself killed.”

  Her eyes glassed with tears when her father’s voice broke.

  “I almost did, Pop.” She sniffed. “It wasn’t my idea. Dean asked me to. He said Walker was in a bad way, and he wanted me to talk him into coming back to his place. I almost went back, twice. I should’ve.” Her head was down. “Pop, I kept thinking about Amber and you and Aunt Leona. I didn’t want to die. Then he did that to himself. It was awful.”