by Billy Coffey
Tears sprouted from the dull whites of Charlie’s eyes. His chin quivered. “I dint know he’s your kin, ma’am. I . . . I’s tryin’ t’get his money’s all. I’m just a poor hurtin’ man. Please stay. I don’t feel so good. Your brother did most of the beatin’, if that settles you. Show me kindness.”
Kate winced. Of all the things Charlie could say, he’d chosen that. Kindness had been asked, and now she was bound to give it. But with that burden came a flicker of something else that chased thoughts of Eric and Andy and even her own brother away, and that was the open notebook on her desk. In that moment, Kate saw Charles Earl Givens as neither man nor monster, but as a name. One she could write just below Lucy Seekins’s and take her to page 212. One more step along the road.
“Sit in the rocker,” she said.
Charlie rose from the corner. He sat rubbing his left arm.
Kate kept her back to the wall. “What brought you here, Charlie Givens? How’d you grow up to get inside that cell?”
Charlie shook his head, freeing a tear. It struck the floor in front of him. When he spoke, Kate thought he’d used what time he’d spent not cowering in fear inside the softball equipment locker to ponder that very question.
“I dunno, ma’am. I reckon we all set upon a trail. Sometimes there’s paths that’re good or bad shootin’ off it, an’ you either take ’em or you go on your way. But there ain’t no more paths after awhile, an’ that trail narrows. The trail’s all you got then, an’ it’s just a straight line to heaven or hell.”
The front door opened and closed. Kate turned toward the sound. “You sit there,” she told Charlie, and then left him weeping and hugging himself in the rocker.
She found Jake on the sofa facing the door, hatless and still. His hands covered his face, though whether he was trying to hide from something or wipe something away Kate did not know. A videotape sat on the cushion beside his hat. She put her hand aside Jake’s face. He gripped it in his own.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He wasn’t, Kate saw that much was plain. But she also saw that Jake was trying, and she would let him.
“It was bad, Katie,” he said, and with those words came a smell on Jake’s breath that rocked her on her heels. “Worst thing I ever saw in my life. Had to show Alan I could handle it, though.”
Kate said, “Of course you can handle it,” but the look on Jake’s face was much the same as what Kate had seen on Charlie’s. For the first time, she thought maybe her husband couldn’t handle it at all. Maybe this was just too much.
“I’m gonna have to sit here with Charlie Givens,” Jake said. “Alan’ll be covered up at Andy’s for a while, then he’s gotta get to Timmy’s. Why don’t you take the Blazer. Go get Zach and head home.”
“What about the other guy?” she asked. “Taylor. Charlie’s scared to death, Jake.”
“Alan says Taylor’s long gone.”
“What do you say?”
“I expect he is. Town’s surrounded by police. Road past Timmy’s leads straight on to Camden. That’s where Charlie hails from. I think Taylor too. You’ll both be fine. Just call me when you get home.”
“You sure?”
“If he was still in town, Alan’d—I’d—have him by now.” He looked down the hallway. “Charles Earl been any trouble?”
“No. He’s too drunk and too scared to be trouble. I think he’s sick too.”
“Maybe I’ll get Doc up here to take a look at him.”
Kate nodded. “Will you be okay, Jake?”
“Sure.”
Kate saw his smile as valiant if not true and kissed him for it. She gathered her notebook from the desk and paused at the door, unsure if she should tell Jake of Justus. She decided no. There’d been enough trouble for one night.
“Taylor’s looking for someone,” she said. “A girl. Charlie says he doesn’t know who she is, but I’m not sure about that.”
“I’ll get it from him.” He lifted the videotape. “Caught them in the act at Andy’s.”
That must have been a horror, Kate thought. She realized how the stink on his breath had gotten there. “I love you, Jake Barnett.”
“Love you too, missy. I’ll meet you at church in the morning.”
Kate left Jake to Charlie and prayed for his sleep. She thought of Timmy and Andy and poor Eric as she drove the downtown streets in the direction of the Boyds’ house. She thought of the notebook beside her and of Charlie Givens, that monster who deserved a place at Lucifer’s table no more and no less than she. Her mind stalled there until the road in front of her rose up in a wall of iron bars. Kate stomped on the brake and let out a cry. She sat there, arms straight against the steering wheel, as the headlights shone off the metal sign above the gate:
Oak Lawn Cemetery.
Kate didn’t know how she’d gotten that far on the other side of town, other than by means of some internal compass. She thought that might be true enough. Sooner or later, Oak Lawn was where all of Kate’s roads led.
The gates were closed each night at sundown, but they’d gone unlocked ever since the padlock had gotten lost three years earlier. Kate got out and swung the gates open. The Blazer eased its way through three centuries of Mattingly’s dearly departed until it reached the top of a small knoll. Kate parked there and carried her notebook among the silent dead until she came to a simple headstone. The white candle by the marker was the latest in a long line of many she had burned through the years. She struck a match from a small container and caught the wick. Light flickered upward, revealing the single name etched into the stone face.
MCBRIDE.
She knelt by Phillip’s grave as the hard night swallowed her sobs. Just as with Charlie, there was no going back for Kate. There was only a straight line to heaven or hell paved with guilt and remorse. And try as she had all those years, Kate supposed she’d known since Phillip died where her own narrowing trail led.
10
I remained on the sofa and didn’t answer when Charlie’s voice called, wanting to know where Kate had gone. I kept my hands over my face, scolding myself for not thinking of Andy or Timmy or that poor boy Eric. What consumed me instead was the way I’d acted when Zach found that white butterfly; the way I’d flinched—twice—in front of Timmy at the Texaco; the few bits of Abigail’s barbecue and slaw that currently stained the BP’s parking lot.
Those hands over my face weren’t there to wipe tears but to hide myself. I’d always been so careful, keeping all that in. Being tough. What was I doing, acting like that? Letting people see me like that? And I knew it wasn’t because of anything that had happened that night, it was Phillip. It was Phillip keeping me from sleep, stripping me down until I broke like a twig rotted from the inside out, which was crazy because Phillip was a dream, Phillip was the past, and the past is something that’s gone and never rises up again.
I was embarrassed, and that embarrassment gave way to an anger against Taylor and Charlie (who was still in the back squealing through his tears for Kate). It was against a God who allowed old men to be burned and young boys to be gutted and the peace I’d worked so long to build to be shattered.
But most of all it was an anger against myself. The town would need a hard man in the coming days. It would need a sheriff worthy of the name Barnett. And I decided then and there that if I couldn’t be that sheriff, I could at least pretend. I grabbed the videotape and my hat and went to my office, where I fished through my keys until I found the one that unlocked the top left drawer of my desk. Stale air filled my nose as I pulled out the handle.
The 9mm Glock inside stared up at me. Official issue, Mayor Wallis had said on my first day. I’d opted for Bessie instead. But she would be of little use now, especially with a man who’d already called me a dumb hick cop. I inserted the magazine and tucked the gun at my back. The small color television with a built-in VCR Zach sometimes watched stood on a table in the corner. I put the videotape in and forwarded it, then unplugged the TV and set it on the vin
yl chair. I slid both that and the chair behind my desk down the hallway.
Charlie stood as I arranged the chairs in front of the cell and plugged the cord into an outlet along the wall. I pushed a button. The screen glowed a snowy white.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Got some questions for you, Charlie Givens. And you’re gonna answer them.”
I sat in the empty chair and pushed Play. Charlie leaned forward as the pixels took on the shape of him and Taylor walking into the BP.
Bent over heaving in Andy’s parking lot, I swore I’d never look at that tape again. That was a promise I meant to keep. I watched Charlie instead as his mind sputtered and jerked to sort out what he saw. His head lolled to the side as though the people on the television were both familiar and not. Kate was right—the man didn’t look well.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked. “I ain’t watchin’ this. You hear me, Sheruff? Turn that thing off.”
“No,” I said.
“Turn it off.”
I shook my head. When Charlie covered his eyes, I kicked the cell bars with a boot, making him jump.
“You look, Charlie Givens,” I said. “You don’t turn loose your hands, I’ll come in there and tie them down. You understand me?”
Charlie’s body shook. “I don’t wanna see it.”
I kicked the bars again. “Look.”
He lowered his hands slow, fingers digging into his cheeks. Charlie watched himself finger the cans of bug spray and Taylor roam the aisles, saw Andy and Eric enter through the side door. He watched as Taylor disappeared and Charlie’s argument with Eric began and Taylor came back. He watched as they killed and tried to kill. And when it was over, Charlie said, “I want a lawyer.”
I chuckled. “Only lawyer in this town lives four houses down from the man whose head you lit on fire. He sits beside that man in church every Sunday and buys that man’s gas twice a week. Trust me, Charlie Givens, that man finds out what you did, he’s gonna want you just as dead as everyone else will.”
“I ain’t sayin nothin’.”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “You’re going to sit right there and answer every question I ask.”
“You don’t scare me,” Charlie said. “You don’t even act like no real sheruff.”
I leaned forward and pulled the pistol from behind my back. Charlie’s eyes bulged as the barrel fell level with the bridge of his nose.
“You’re right there, Charlie Givens,” I said. “I’m no real sheriff at all. I’m just a tired man fighting his own ghosts. Nothing more.”
He was crying again. I’d never seen a man cry so much.
“You’re from Camden, right?” I asked. “So you know of country folk? We’re a law-abiding people, Charlie. ’Course, some say we’re backward. Unenlightened. They say we cling too much to our guns and our God. I suppose that’s all true. But you know, maybe that doesn’t make us the backward ones. Maybe it’s everybody else who’s all turned around. Could be that’s why we don’t always accept justice as the law applies. Sometimes our own’s better.”
Charlie’s voice shook. “Your badge says you cain’t touch me.”
“You see a badge on me?”
He shook his head like a dog just out of a bath.
“You and me, Charlie, we’re gonna talk. Not sheriff to prisoner. Man to man. You’ll answer me straight. You lie, you’re done. Understand?”
Charlie nodded.
“Good.” I pointed to the television screen, which had gone back to snow. “Why’d you two do that?”
“All’s I wanted’s that ol’ man’s money, ’cause I cain’t be no trash man no more. Taylor woke that boy. Not me.”
“What’s that mean? ‘Woke.’ ”
“I dunno.”
I thumbed the trigger back.
“No,” Charlie screamed. “I swear, Sheruff, I dunno what that means. That’s just Taylor’s word. He’s always tellin’ me I’m sleepin’ an he’s awake, but I dunno what that means.”
“What’s Taylor’s last name?”
“Hathcock.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Camden.”
“You got an address?”
Charlie laughed. “Ain’t no mail deliv’ry where Taylor lives. Ain’t no nothin’, ’cept eyes.”
I didn’t know what that meant and gave Charlie’s nonsense over to either fear, alcohol, or whatever fever was running through his body.
“Why’d you two come here?” I asked.
“Taylor said he’d get me money. He’s trackin’ somebody.”
“A girl?”
“No. Somebody Taylor thinks knows where the girl is.”
“Who?”
“I dunno.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“I dunno,” Charlie said. “Taylor never tole me. He’s always lookin’ for Her, ever since I knowed him.”
“And how long’s that been?”
Charlie scrunched his eyes and rubbed his arm. His breaths came in short pants. “Twenty years, near. Got lost in the woods one day. Taylor found me. I go see him every month as payment an’ bring him groceries. He gives me ginseng t’sell in return.”
“Where you take these groceries?”
He shook his head and pleaded, “He’ll kill me.”
“I’ll beat him to it if you don’t talk,” I said. “Where’s Taylor? You tell me now.”
Charlie winced. His eyes were on the gun, but I know he was seeing Taylor. He felt trapped. Not because he was surrounded by concrete and iron bars, but because the sands in his hourglass were quickly spilling away and there was no way for him to turn it over and start again. I had no doubt Charlie was sure Taylor would kill him if he told. I also had no doubt he was equally sure I would kill him if he didn’t. In the end, I supposed he based his next words on whose hand he’d suffer by more.
“I ain’t,” he said. “Kill me if you wanna, Sheruff, but I ain’t tellin’. Taylor, he’s the devil, plain an’ true. Devil sees everything.”
We stared at one another in what became little more than a playground dare to see who would blink first. Charlie’s eyes never budged. I thumbed the trigger back and lowered the gun.
“Get some sleep,” I said. “You’ll be getting a ride to county soon. There’s covers on the cot. I’ll be down in my office.”
Charlie said, “Don’t leave me, Sheruff.”
I got up and moved to the light switch.
“Leave that light on, Sheruff? Please?”
My hand lingered. Half of me wanted to leave Charlie Givens in the darkness he’d given himself over to. The other half begged to offer him a mercy I’d never offered myself.
I left the lights buzzing and pushed the desk chair back to my office. The anger in me had burned out, leaving only pity. The pistol went back where I found it. I ejected the magazine before closing the drawer, just in case Zach ever found the key and his boyish curiosity got the best of him on some rainy afternoon. Not that it would matter. Mayor Wallis has always been a skinflint. Admitted it himself my first day on the job. That was why the magazine was empty. The pistol might have been official issue, but the bullets were my responsibility.
11
Lucy waited until the man’s breathing took on the slow rhythm of sleep before freeing her shoulders. It was not a difficult job. His hands had been quivering such that the knots held about as well as a child’s when first learning to tie his shoes. She shimmied her shoulders and lifted her hands free. The knots around Lucy’s feet were tighter and more difficult to see in the fading candlelight, but they didn’t take long to loosen. A thick runner of wax from the candle closest to her pooled onto the table. The flame flickered twice and then died, plunging the cabin into near darkness. The remaining candle hissed as though mourning the loss of its companion. Lucy knew she had to be gone before that last light went out. The thought of spending the night with nothing more than a sliver of moonlight through a filthy window was more than she could bear.
&nb
sp; But she had to wait until it was safe.
The man lay curled up on the cot no more than a dozen feet away, legs drawn to his chest, resembling nothing but a shadow of the person who had trekked her through a haunted wilderness. Now he appeared as a little boy, lost and alone.
His book lay on the table beside a worn stub of pencil. Lucy could see the faded glue marks where a cover had once been. The first pages were curled upward and torn. The page on top (Lucy believed it was the book’s table of contents, though the paper was so stained with dirt and sweat she couldn’t be sure) had been sheared halfway down the spine and repaired with a layer of peeling Scotch tape. She looked at the cot and slowly drew the book to herself, angling it to the fading light as she turned the pages. Chicken scratch covered them all. They had been written upon, erased, and written upon again so many times that tiny holes had been worn into the paper, obliterating the original words beneath. Twice she made out Charly and hole, but nothing more.
Yet deciphering what the man on the cot had written didn’t matter to Lucy nearly as much as deciphering why he had written it. Page after page, scrawl after scrawl, with little regard for spelling or punctuation. Almost, she thought, like some sort of stream of consciousness. Lucy looked at the body on the bed and thought this was a man trying to make sense of his life. Trying to find his answers.
Only a single page near the back had been spared, but before Lucy could read it the man released a torrent of sleep-filled cries that sounded as if death itself had him. She shut the book and pushed it across the table, where it fell and crashed onto the floor with a sharp bang. Her muscles tensed into a ball. The candle flickered. The man fell back into slumber. Lucy decided she could wait no longer.
No more than an hour had passed since her captor had warned her not to run, but now Lucy decided it was time to do just that. She stretched out her legs and winced. Her muscles ached from the long walk and her knees burned from the deep scratches left by her stumbles. Lucy raised herself as quietly as she could and walked to the door.
The moon would help her, and her ears. She’d heard the river as they’d climbed the last big hill to the cabin. If Lucy could find that, she felt sure she could be saved. Rivers always led to civilization, and that particular waterway cut straight through town. She reached for the shotgun beside the crates. It was heavy and loaded and felt like death. Lucy eased the door open, careful not to squeak the hinges. The memory of the dark shadow they’d met in the field gave her pause, as did the Hollow’s deep night. But there was no other choice. Leaving would be a risk, but out there was the only way of getting back to her life.
