by D. K. Wall
“It’s hard enough getting a job around here and no way you do it without at least a GED. To do any of the specialty stuff like welding, you really need a technical degree.”
“Oh.” Jaxon upturned the bag, but nothing fell onto the tray. He shook it then wet his fingers to pick up the crumbs on the tray. He crumpled the bag and settled back onto his pillow. He opened his mouth and belched, the sound echoing off the walls.
Connor burst out laughing. “Dude, Mom hears you do that, and she’ll kill you.” Jaxon paled and shrank back. Connor leaned forward and grabbed his brother’s hand. “No, I didn’t mean it… not literally. I meant she lectures me that stuff like that is rude.”
“Really?” Jaxon’s eyebrow rose. “You can’t burp?”
“Nope, and don’t even think about farting, either.” He settled back into his chair. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll go easy on you. It’s weird, realizing how little you remember.”
“I want to, though. I want to remember all the things you remember.”
Connor sat up and snapped his fingers. “You remember Duke, don’t ya? Helping us with the mud pit?”
A smile crept across the boy’s face, and he nodded. “Yeah. A yellow lab. Big and furry.”
“He passed away, but I got a new one from the pound. You’ll really like Trigger, ’cause he’s a lot like Duke. Even kind of looks like him, at least to other people, but I know he’s different. I can’t wait for you to come home and meet him as soon as you get out of here.”
“Wow.” Jaxon licked his lips. “Home. I don’t know—”
Connor thought Jaxon would be eager to get out of the hospital and go home, so he was surprised to hear him hesitate. But before he could ask, the door opened, and Heather entered the room. She sniffed the air and glared at Connor. “Do I smell french fries?”
The boys looked at each other and laughed. Connor raised his hands and grinned innocently. “Delivered special by the cafeteria.”
“Don’t give me that cafeteria BS. I work here, remember, and the fries never smell that good. You went to Abe’s, didn’t you?” She placed her hands on her hips, a stance Connor knew well as the ain’t-buying-that stance. “You know junk food isn’t good for your brother right now. He needs nutrition.”
With a finger pointed at Jaxon, Connor replied, “I don’t care what the docs say. Anything that puts weight on him is good.” Seeing the retort building in his mother’s eyes, he stood and wiped his hands. “Love to chat more about this, but I’m going to be late for work. And you know how you taught me to always be on time. Always do what your mom says, Jax. That’s my motto.”
Heather crossed her arms and stared at him, but she didn’t stop his retreat.
“Don’t worry, little bro, I’ll stop by first thing tomorrow morning. Maybe I’ll bring sausage biscuits from Abe’s.”
The last sound he heard before the door latched shut behind him was Heather saying, “Don’t you dare.”
35
David waited impatiently as the visitors settled into leather wingback chairs under the arching timber-frame ceiling of Buck Sawyer’s cabin. A fire crackled in a massive stone fireplace on the far wall of the large main room. The dogs trotted across the wooden floor and curled up on a pair of wool rugs on either side of the mantel, their alert eyes monitoring all movement. Buck went into the adjoining kitchen and prepared four cups of steaming-hot coffee. After delivering the drinks, he tossed a log onto the fire and settled into his chair. “Talk.”
David recapped the story of finding Jaxon on the highway and his tale of escape. When he finished, he paused for a second and locked eyes with Buck. “Now, a falling-down farmhouse with a trailer behind it describes a bunch of different places around here. I can even think of a few sex offenders in the county who live in a place like that. But I can only think of one person who lives in a place like that in Wattsville and who has a history of messing with a little boy.”
Buck grimaced. “Matt McGregor.”
“Yep, his old man, Rick, beat the ever-living crap out of him in front of the high school for touching that kid. Matt got expelled, and his younger brother, Mark, dropped out. I didn’t see much of either one of them for years.”
“Until Mark blew up the house.”
“Exactly.” David turned to Roxanne. “The McGregor clan dates back a long ways in these mountains. Certainly before the Civil War and probably even before the Cherokee were evicted with the Trail of Tears. They struggled as lumberjacks and farmers, but they hit their stride with moonshine. McGregor shine was known as some of the best around, and they made a bunch of it. Except they lost the touch.”
Buck stood and stirred the fire. “When their grandpappy died, the recipe must’ve gone with him, ’cause Rick’s shine was crap, and his kids didn’t do much with it, either. Matt made some small batches from time to time that weren’t bad, but Mark didn’t think there was enough money to be made, not with all the tourist stores selling their version of moonshine. Though how the hell anything legal can possibly be called moonshine escapes me.”
David continued the story, “Mark was the smarter of the brothers, though that isn’t saying much because Matt could barely read and write. Mark figured out how to make meth, and Rick used his old moonshine distribution network to sell it. Great plan right up until Mark screwed up the lab and blew up the house. Killed himself in the process. I was out here the next morning as they pulled his body out of the house.”
Roxanne asked, “Matt wasn’t hurt?”
David shook his head. “Matt was living in a trailer behind the house. Turns out Rick had banned him from the house after the high-school incident. Said he was no longer allowed to live under the same roof.”
“And Rick?”
“Wasn’t home. Maybe he was delivering product. Maybe he was with one of his girlfriends or a hooker—the two boys had different mothers. Anyway, he came driving in the next morning… in a two-tone brown-on-tan van. The same damn van they’ve had for years.”
“Where’s Rick now? He still alive?”
Buck shook his head. “No clue. I haven’t seen or heard anything from either one of them since I moved back here. Rumors bounce around, and people claim to have seen Matt from time to time, but that’s really it. People avoid him.”
Roxanne spread her arms. “Because of the incident with the boy back in high school.”
Buck leaned back in his chair. “Some, but Matt’s always been strange. A nasty mean streak. No one’s ever liked being around him.”
Roxanne counted off the connections on her fingers. “So you have a falling-down farmhouse blown up by a meth lab, a trailer behind the house, and a two-tone van. All things Jaxon’s described. What about the house with a cellar? That’s the thing we need to find.”
David turned back to Buck. “I’m hoping you can fill in the blank, because I don’t know anything about an old house with a stone cellar. Nothing shows on the property records. I could call in a chopper to fly over and tell me if something is there, but I’m hoping you’ll save me the time. We need to get up there.”
Buck stood, leaned on the mantel, and stared into the fire. “His great-grandpappy’s house is back up in those woods. I was up there a few times as a little kid, and it sure sounds like the same place.”
“Stone cellar?”
“Yep. They stored moonshine in there ’cause it was nice and cool. Used to buddy around some with Mark when I was eleven or twelve, and his daddy would make us haul that stuff up and down those steps. I did it because Rick would beat the tar out of me as fast as he would one of his own.”
“The house still there?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t been there since middle school.” He turned to face them. “Look, hanging around Mark was okay, but I didn’t like his daddy. And I sure didn’t like being near Matt, ’cause he was so weird.”
Roxanne leaned forward. “This was before the incident in high school?”
“Yeah.”
“So what made h
im so weird before that?”
Buck paused and looked into the air. After a few seconds, he said, “The boy was just cruel.”
“Like how?”
He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “People up here hunt, but it’s for food. No one takes pleasure in killing animals just to kill them. But Matt was different. He would torture the hell out of little animals just to hear ’em scream. I couldn’t stand it. So I stopped hanging around.”
Roxanne and David exchanged knowing glances. What Buck described was classic early-serial-killer behavior. David asked, “Can you draw me a map to the house? I’ve got a SWAT team on standby, but I need to understand how far up in there it is.”
“Sure.” Buck collapsed into his chair and stared at the ceiling. “But you need to know something else about Matt. High school wasn’t the last time he touched a kid.”
David slammed his coffee cup down and leaned forward. “He did it again?”
“Yeah. This was after Mark was killed. I was home on leave when my dad had cancer, so I guess this would be about seventeen years ago. Daddy told me rumors were flying around that Rick was fuming ’cause he had caught Matt again. People were mad and threatening to string him up, but Rick told them not to worry, that he was gonna cure the boy good. Fix him once and for all.”
“Cure him? How?”
Buck could only shrug. “I’m sorry, David, but I don’t know. I was dealing with my daddy dying, not the McGregors.”
David squeezed his hands until his knuckles turned white. “No one thought to report it to the police?”
“That’s not the way things work up here. We handle things ourselves.”
Roxanne piped in. “Doesn’t sound like it got handled at all. No one thought he might do it again? Particularly since he had already done it before?”
Buck’s face grew red. “We screwed up, yeah, but don’t act like we’re the only ones, and don’t go blaming the people up here. The high school didn’t report it way back when the first one happened. And it’s not like the Catholic Church didn’t keep moving pedophile priests around. Or the Boy Scouts didn’t maintain a secret list of banned volunteers but didn’t bother to share it with other youth organizations. Hell, schools all over the country transferred teachers rather than dealing with it. We all keep burying the crap and hope it stays buried. So, yeah, we made the same damn mistake.”
David raised his hands to calm them. “Yeah, and I questioned him ten years ago and let him go. So let’s just fix this today and stop him.”
36
Connor whistled as he walked out the exit door of the hospital parking lot, his house keys jangling in his hand. His brother was home, and his mother was happy—what could make the day any better? The warm sunshine hit his shoulders in answer, a beautiful day following the stormy night. He stepped out to the curb, looking for his ride, but a glance at his watch confirmed he was a few minutes early. He tilted his head back and savored the sun.
“Need a ride, Con?”
He opened his eyes and saw his father leaning against a pillar, his cigarette smoke curling around the no-smoking sign. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight, but he declined the offer. “Got an Uber coming.”
Harold looked around the parking lot. “Uber? In Millerton? Thought that was a city thing.”
“It’s a job, Dad. Anyone with a car can do it.”
“Why you need an Uber, anyway? Your truck running okay?”
“It’s fine. I just rode in with the sheriff.”
“Oh.”
They watched a crew raising a satellite dish on a TV truck near the emergency-room entrance. The cameraman was running a cable and setting up his equipment. A reporter was brushing her hair.
Harold swept his hand toward them. “Vultures. Be careful of them. They made me look so bad back then.”
“I think they just followed the finger the sheriff was pointing.”
“Yep.” He glared at the crew. “Still, be careful.”
“I don’t think they recognize me. I was a little kid back then.”
“They’ll figure it out.” Harold looked up at the wall of windows of the hospital. “How is he really? Jaxon?”
“Tough kid. The stories he tells…” Connor shuddered. “He’s doing better than I would be, considering what he’s been through. Struggling with everything. And he’s so different than I remember.”
“I expect he is different. A lot different. I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know how hard it is to overcome things when you’ve seen horror. And he’s seen a lot worse than I ever did.”
“Yeah, I guess you do know.” Connor squinted against the sun and avoided his father’s eyes, wondering how the man always managed to turn a conversation back on himself.
Harold took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke high in the air. He returned the glare from an elderly couple coming up the walk from the parking lot, as if daring them to say something. After they passed, he said, “You’re a good brother, and that’s what he needs right now. Love, support, time, and being there for him. Give him that, and he has a chance.”
Connor looked toward the entryway by the main road but didn’t see his ride coming in yet. He turned back to his father. “That wasn’t enough for you.”
Harold dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his foot. “That’s on me, son, not you. I was weak, already dabbling with drugs and drinking too much before I even came home. So, no, I was a lost cause. Y’all did what you could, but nothing could have saved me then.”
“And now?”
“I’m working on it. For your brother up there. For your mom. For you. All I can do is one step at a time.”
They stood together as a breeze flapped their jackets. A paper cup bounced across the parking lot. Connor asked, “You staying sober?”
Harold looked down at his feet. “One hundred sixty-three days. But I won’t kid you, Con, it’s hard. Every day is hard.”
Connor had seen Harold sober up many times, but it never stuck. His father had always been glib about it, pretending he didn’t have a real problem, saying “no sweat.” To hear him say every time they saw each other now that it was still difficult gave him hope in a weird way, because it told him how hard his dad was really trying. “Almost six months. I’m proud of you.”
“I can’t think about months, Con. I’m too weak for that. I don’t look further ahead than today. That’s it. It’s all I can focus on. Making it to one hundred sixty-four days.”
Connor nodded. “Then I’m proud of you for today.”
Harold looked away, but not before Connor noticed the moistening of his eyes. His father’s voice came out choked. “I’ll take that. It means more than you’ll ever know.”
They stood in silence for another minute before Connor said, “Guess the sheriff really knows now that you had nothing to do with Jax’s disappearance.”
Harold tapped another cigarette out of the pack in his hands. “I used to hate him for accusing me, for thinking I could ever do that to my own boy. But looking back, I get it. I might have been just sick enough to have caused actual harm to him.”
“But you didn’t have anything to do with Jaxon’s disappearance.”
“I had everything to do with it. I was supposed to be there that morning, watching you boys. Taking you to the park myself. All I had to do was show up, and I couldn’t even manage that. I was more in love with booze and drugs than my own sons.”
“Yeah, well, I was supposed to stay at the house. And I wasn’t supposed to leave Jax alone while I went off with my friends.”
Harold stared hard. “It’s my burden, son, not yours. Don’t you dare take it on.”
Connor leaned his head back and watched a cloud float through the sky. “Maybe we all failed him. Maybe that’s the only way to look at it.”
“Maybe.” Harold flicked the lighter open and let the flame touch the end of his cigarette. He inhaled deeply and blew a series of smoke rings. “Or maybe it’s just freaki
n’ bad luck it happened at all. Kinda like driving over an IED in the middle of a road.”
Connor watched the smoke float through the air, blurring with the cloud in the distance. He didn’t want to argue, so he changed the topic. “You ever going to quit those?”
“One bad habit at a time, son.”
They stood in silence for a few minutes, a father and a son still trying to find their way around each other. Connor said, “You said you used to hate the sheriff for accusing you. Not anymore?”
“Still working on that, won’t lie. I deserved to get arrested for the dumb shit I was doing, but I didn’t deserve him letting everyone think I would hurt Jaxon.” Harold stared off at the mountains in the direction of Wattsville. “Mostly, though, I’m mad about all that time he wasted focused on me, when he could have been out there searching for Jaxon. Not sure I can ever forgive the sheriff for that.”
A car with an Uber sign pulled up to the curb. Connor waved at the driver and stepped toward it. He looked up at the fifth-floor windows as he opened the car door. “You said we need to give him love, support, and time. Do you think that will really save him after all he’s been through?”
Harold studied the glowing end of his cigarette before answering. “I’m done BSing people, so I gotta say I honestly don’t know. But without that, he doesn’t stand a chance at all.”
“Then it’s what we’ll do for him. You and me both. Make up for failing him ten years ago.”
As the Uber worked its way out of the parking lot, Connor watched his father through the back window. Maybe, he thought, I’m getting my brother and my father back at the same time.
37
“Empty,” Lieutenant Teddy Gilman announced to the sheriff as he exited the mobile home. His team followed him in their heavy tactical gear then climbed back into their waiting armored vehicle.
David stepped into the trailer and glanced around. The air held a vague moldy smell. The stained mattress was stripped bare, the couch tattered, the sink empty of dishes. Rat droppings littered the floor. A dried snakeskin lay in a cobweb-covered corner. Matt McGregor hadn’t lived there in years.
