A Quiet Belief in Angels

by R.J. Ellory

  “We’ve got a blanket,” she said after a while.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I wasn’t asking, Joseph, I was saying.”

  I shrugged. “So we got a blanket.”

  “We’ve got a pickup with a flatbed in back. We’ve got a blanket. We’ve got an open road with no one in sight.”

  “What’re you saying, Alex?”

  “Whatever you think I’m saying, Joseph.”

  I turned and looked at her, mischievous smile and all. “You’re saying you want to get in back of the pickup and break a sweat—”

  “So romantic! God, let’s just call it the way it is.”

  “Well, hell, Alex, you were the one who thought it.”

  She shrugged. “So it ain’t complicated . . . put the blanket in back of the pickup and come fuck me, okay?”

  “Christ, Alex, you just can’t get in back of a pickup truck right in the middle of the road and fuck someone.”

  “Why not? Where the hell does it say you can’t do that?”

  I was amazed. “Alex, this is not the way you’re gonna get pregnant.”

  “Joseph, this isn’t about getting pregnant, this is about wanting to have sex in the back of a pickup.”

  “You really want to do this? You really want me to put a blanket back there—”

  “And fuck me. Yes, that’s what I want. I want you to do that right now, before I change my mind, before you manage to kill every ounce of spontaneous romance, okay?”

  I put the blanket in back of the truck.

  Alex came around and tugged her underwear down from beneath her skirt and threw it at me. She clambered up onto the flatbed and lay down. I was laughing by then, laughing so hard it took a while for me to get arranged sufficiently to undertake the task at hand.

  I was conscious of open air and birds in the trees, as Alex wrestled me onto my back and straddled me. I was laughing too much to take her seriously; it seemed remarkable that I was there at all, that Alex Webber—my schoolteacher—was with me.

  “What?” she asked.

  I frowned, shook my head. It was difficult to breathe with her entire weight pressing down on me.

  “Tell me?” she said. “Tell me what you’re laughing about?”

  “I’m not laughing,” I breathlessly replied. “Jesus, Alex, you gotta get off me before I suffocate.”

  “Suffocate? I’m not suffocating you. I don’t weigh anything at all.”

  “Nothing at all? Okay—”

  “You’re saying I’m heavy? You’re saying I’m too heavy. Is that what you’re saying, Joseph Vaughan?”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “Why not, that’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “It’s my name, yes. Hell, Alex, you say it like I’m in school.”

  She laughed raucously. “Joseph Vaughan! You better turn your homework in on time else you’re gonna be washing blackboard rags.”

  “Alex!” I said. “Seriously . . . you gotta get off me before I die.”

  She shifted sideways, took the weight off my chest, and then she eased backward, her hand beneath her, finding me, guiding me, laughing even as she lowered herself down.

  I reached out and held onto her waist, looked up at the tent of blanket draped over her head.

  She looked down at me, held her hands out sideways. I took them, our fingers woven together, and she started rocking back and forth.

  It seemed to be an encapsulation of everything I had ever wanted in someone. Was the first one you ever loved always this way?

  I was conscious of her scent, the pressure of her over me, the feeling of being nearly consumed by something extraordinary.

  Conscious finally of the sound of an approaching car, of lying flat on my back with Alex pressed close on top of me, covered with nothing but a blanket and trying not to laugh. Conscious of my hand on her ass, her skirt up around her waist, my pants around my ankles, and the way the car drew to a halt alongside us.

  “Oh Jesus,” I whispered.

  “Shhh,” she whispered back.

  My eyes were bug-wide. The car drew to a halt. I had never felt so vulnerable. The sounds of the car door opening, slamming shut, the sound of boots on the road, the kick and skid of loose gravel scattering beneath the chassis.

  “Cab’s empty,” a voice said. “Cab’s empty, and sure as hell don’t see no one in the road or amongst the trees. Better come on out from beneath that horse blanket and show your faces.”

  Alex shifted sideways, just a fraction, but I felt myself draw out of her. The spontaneous romance of the moment died an abrupt death. Like Cupid got a bullet.

  “This here is the sheriff of Clinch County, Burnett Fermor, talking, and whatever you’re doing in the back of your pickup . . . well you’re doing it right here on one of my roads. I’m gonna ask you to come out from under there, whoever you are, and show your faces, or things ain’t gonna stay friendly.”

  My eyes wider, Alex’s expression something close to sheer terror, my heart making a break for the trees.

  “I’m counting to three now, people. Three’s all I got. So here we go . . . one . . . two . . .”

  “Okay!” I shouted. I reached up and pulled back the blanket, peered over the edge and looked down the length of the flatbed, looked down the length of Alex’s shrouded body, aware of my pants around my ankles, her skirt around her waist, that if I pulled the blanket back any farther her ass would be right there for the world to see.

  Sheriff Fermor, tough-looking, face like a sack of awkward angles, thumb of his left hand tucked neat in his belt, heel of his right hand resting on the handle of his revolver.

  “Well, howdy there, boy,” he drawled. Muscles along his jawline twitched when he spoke. His eyes squinted against the sun, and gave him the appearance of someone coming out of the cellar into daylight. “You under that blanket alone, or we got company this morning?”

  Alex shifted. Her fingers appeared along the edge of the blanket and she drew it back a fraction. She smiled uneasily.

  “Well, hello there, miss,” Fermor said. He took a step closer to the back of the pickup.

  Alex leaned up slightly. She smiled weakly. “Hello, Sheriff,” she said.

  “Well, we ain’t kids here, are we?” he said. “Think there’s very little being left to the imagination this morning. I’m gonna have to ask you fine people to come out of there and stand by the side of the road.”

  “Could you give us just a moment?” I asked.

  “A moment, son? What would you be requiring a moment for?”

  I felt the tension of nerves in my stomach. “To get ourselves smartened up a little before we come out of here.”

  Sheriff Fermor squinted at me. “Seems to me we have us a difficult situation. I wouldn’t want to be embarrassing you folks, but at the same time I wouldn’t want to be looking the other way while you come out of there. I don’t have any idea who you people might be, and I’m sure not likely to turn my back on you until we have a chance to get acquainted.”

  “I can assure you, Sheriff—”

  Sheriff Fermor raised his hand and smiled. “Excuse me interrupting you there, son, but I don’t see how you’re in any kind of a situation to be assuring me of anything. I’m gonna avert my eyes a little, just to save you as much embarrassment as I can, but the truth of the matter is that I’m gonna be needin’ you to come right on out of there and stand by the side of the road.”

  “But the lady—”

  Fermor shook his head. “Son,” he said, in his voice a tone of resignation, a little exasperated. “Once again, I’m not gonna be playin’ word games with you. Let’s not talk about the lady, huh? Seems to me that any young woman who finds herself in back of a pickup truck in broad daylight involved in some kind of bedroom activity . . . well, I don’t think we’re gonna be discussing the finer points of decorum and etiquette, right? Gonna ask you just this one time now, and then I’m gonna be making a call to my office for a deputy to come out here—”
>
  “We’re coming out,” I said. I looked down at Alex. She closed her eyes, shook her head from side to side.

  I moved awkwardly from beneath her, turned the blanket aside and scooted down to the end of the pickup on my ass. I dropped over the end to the ground and pulled up my pants. Fermor just watched me coolly. Alex did the best she could to conceal herself behind the blanket, tugging her skirt down and making her way to the back of the truck on her knees. She looked harassed and humiliated with her bare feet and her hair tousled up on one side.

  Fermor glanced at his watch. “Ain’t even eleven o’clock, and you pair are out here cavorting and fooling around in the back of this here vehicle. What the hell kind of way is that to behave?”

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  Fermor shook his head. “Tell you the truth, I don’t wanna hear nothin’ but your name, son.” He took a notebook and a pen from his shirt pocket. He looked up at me, and nudged the peak of his hat back from his brow.

  I said nothing, but glanced at Alex.

  “Your name?” Fermor repeated.

  “Vaughan,” I said. “Joseph Calvin Vaughan.”

  Fermor printed my name laboriously in his book. “And where are you from this morning, Mr. Vaughan?”

  “Augusta Falls,” I said.

  “Augusta Falls? That’s in Charlton County, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Augusta Falls, Charlton County . . . seems you would know my contemporary down there, Sheriff Haynes Dearing.”

  “Yes sir, I know Sheriff Dearing.”

  Fermor looked up, squinted beneath the brim of his hat. “You had words with Sheriff Dearing in Augusta Falls, Mr. Vaughan?”

  I shook my head. “No sir, I haven’t.”

  Fermor raised his eyebrows. “So how would you be acquainted with him?”

  “It’s not a big place, Sheriff. Pretty much know everyone around there.”

  “You do, do you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what do you do down there in Augusta Falls, son?”

  “I work on fences, felling trees, any kind of thing like that . . . some farm work when it’s harvest, whatever’s going.”

  “You gotta house down there, somewhere you live?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And how old are you, Mr. Vaughan?”

  “I’m eighteen years old.”

  “Is that so? All of eighteen years old.”

  Fermor wrote something else in his book, and then he turned his attention to Alex. “And now you, miss . . . your name?”

  “Alexandra Madigan Webber.”

  “Alexandra Madigan Webber . . . and you’re from Augusta Falls too, right?”

  “Yes, Sheriff, from Augusta Falls.”

  “And what would you be doing traveling out here this time of day?”

  “We were on our way to the Community Hospital in Waycross.”

  “Right, right,” Fermor drawled. “And why would you be going to the Community Hospital, Miss Webber?”

  “We’re going to see—” She glanced sideways at me. She looked strained and anxious.

  “To see?” Fermor prompted.

  “We were on our way to see Joseph’s mother.”

  Fermor nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving Alex. “And was there any particular reason you felt it necessary to stop over here, Miss Webber . . . instead of just driving right on through to Ware County?”

  Alex looked at me, then back at Fermor. He’d asked the question just to embarrass her further and she knew it. She shook her head slowly. “No, sir,” she said, and her voice cracked with emotion.

  I felt the lift of anger as it rose from my stomach to my chest.

  “Well, all right,” Fermor said, and wrote something else in his book.

  “We’re real sorry,” I said. “We were driving along, and we decided to stop for a little while—”

  Fermor raised his hand. “I don’t know that it’s real necessary for me to know all the awkward details of this tryst of yours, Mr. Vaughan, ’cept to know that this here is a public highway. Kind of highway where people come walking or riding horses, even folks in cars, and the last thing in the world they want to be witness to is two folks engaging in the kind of behavior that we’ve seen this morning. Fact of the matter is that it’s gonna be the violation of some law somewhere—”

  Alex opened her mouth to speak. She took a step forward. “Sheriff—”

  Fermor took a step forward himself. There was something menacing in the way he did it, a counterpoint to Alex, a challenge. “Let me ask you something, Miss Webber,” he said. “How old are you?”

  She frowned. “What does it matter how old I am?”

  “I asked a polite question, Miss Webber, and I expect a polite answer.”

  She shook her head. “Twenty-six, Sheriff.”

  “And what would you be doing down there in Augusta Falls?”

  Alex cleared her throat. “Schoolteacher,” she mumbled.

  “You say schoolteacher, Miss Webber?” Fermor asked, something of surprise in his voice.

  “I am, yes. I am the schoolteacher in Augusta Falls.”

  Fermor nodded at me. “And this young man here . . . this young man is one of your students, Miss Webber?”

  She laughed nervously. “No, sir, he’s not one of my students.”

  Fermor adjusted his hat on his head. “Well, thank the Lord for small mercies, Miss Webber, because that would be just about as interesting an abuse of one’s position and respectability as I could imagine.”

  “There is nothing in the law that says an eighteen-year-old—”

  Fermor smiled, took another step forward. “I am the law here, Miss Webber, and if anyone’s gonna be quoting chapter and verse on the law then it’s gonna be me. Truth of the matter is that you both have upset me with your lewd conduct, and I’m gonna take you in and book you for something or other, and maybe next time you drive into Clinch County on the ways to someplace else you’ll just keep on going ’til you get to that place . . . as opposed to pulling over on the side of my highway and doin’ stuff that should only happen behind closed doors when the sun’s gone down.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake—” Alex said.

  “For Christ’s sake, Miss Webber? You a churchgoer down there in Augusta Falls? You responsible for the moral and religious education of your charges in that schoolhouse of yours? I would say you were, if that schoolhouse is anything like ours, right?” Fermor shook his head. “So I wouldn’t be taking anyone’s name in vain right now, least of all the Lord’s, considerin’ the position you people have found yourselves in this fine morning. I’m gonna ask you to get your shoes and clothes arranged properly, one at a time, and then step right over here to the side of my car and wait for me to handcuff you.”

  “Handcuff us?” I asked, now disbelieving, now beginning to worry that something vindictive and unjust was taking place.

  “Why yes, Mr. Vaughan, handcuff you. That’s what I’m gonna do, and you people are gonna cooperate, or like I said before I’m gonna make a call to my office and a couple of deputies are gonna come down here and we’re gonna make a party of it.”

  The heel that was rested on the gun shifted back an inch. I looked at Alex. Her eyes were wide, tear-rimmed. She looked like a frightened child.

  We cooperated. We put our shoes on and straightened ourselves up. We walked one after the other to Fermor’s car and he handcuffed my left hand to Alex’s right, and then cuffed my right to a bar that ran above the upper edge of the window.

  Neither Alex nor I spoke a word as we drove. As we neared a dip in the highway I glanced back at Reilly Hawkins’s pickup at the side of the road. I wondered if it would still be there when we returned.

  The Clinch County Sheriff’s Office was a featureless block at the side of the road on the outskirts of Homerville. It looked like something someone had dropped on the way into town, and deemed of insufficient worth to return and collect. Once inside, I began to think th
at perhaps this event was the high point of Sheriff Fermor’s week. Stationed at the end of the corridor was a deputy, no older than me, tight-lipped and serious-looking, overcome with the grandeur and sobriety of his task. He informed us that there was to be no talking. I looked through the bars at Alex. She sat on the bunk with her back against the wall, her knees drawn up, her chin resting atop them. It’s gonna be okay, I tried to communicate. It’s not a big deal, nothing’s gonna come of this . . . and no, I don’t blame you.

  She smiled back weakly, and then closed her eyes and lowered her head. I think perhaps she fell asleep.

  The commotion started after an hour or so. The door at the end of the corridor was flung open and Fermor stood there.

  “Let these deviants out of here,” he said matter-of-factly. “We got one helluva lot more important thing to be attending to.”

  The deputy seemed uncertain.

  “Go!” Fermor barked.

  The kid hurried toward us, with the keys jangling on his belt.

  Alex sat bolt upright. “Wha—”

  “We’re outta here,” I said, and stepped up to the cell door. My hands instinctively gripped the bars.

  Fermor walked down and stood beside the deputy.

  “You’re Joseph Vaughan from Augusta Falls,” he stated sonorously.

  I nodded. I felt the tension in my hands, felt my knuckles whiten.

  “You were the one that found the Perlman girl back in August of ’42.”

  I nodded again. “Yes sir, I was.”

  “Well, son, we got another one, out in Fleming, Liberty County. I’m going up there, taking Deputy Edgewood here with me, so I ain’t got time to process any paperwork on you people.”

  I felt my eyes widen. The blood retreated from my face. My heart missed several consecutive beats; my legs felt like they were filled with nothing but liquid. For a moment I couldn’t register what he was saying.

  Another girl. Three years after Virginia Grace Perlman, another girl had been killed.

  “You’re sure . . . sure it’s—” I stammered.

  “Not sure of anything yet,” Fermor said. He cleared his throat, tucked his thumbs in his belt. “I’m just gonna say one thing before I throw you people out. Don’t much appreciate that you came into my county to commit this misdemeanor. I looked it up. What you were doin’ was a misdemeanor, plain and simple. Exposin’ yourselves in a public place, and engaging in lewd and lascivious conduct. And the fact that you’re a schoolteacher, Miss Webber—” He paused to fix Alex with a steely and disapproving glare. “That you’re responsible for the edification of Augusta Falls’s young ’uns, well, I don’t wanna use the language I’d like to use ’cause I been better raised up than that . . .”