by Billy Coffey
Lucy stood at the open door and paused at that last thought—back to my life. The black confronted her like a wall. One perhaps not there to keep her in, but to caution against her going.
Out there is my best chance.
Of getting back to my life.
Yes. But what was the life to which Lucy Seekins would return? The one waiting for her in the big empty house on the hill. The one of loneliness and searching. The days of playing party girl at school and nights poring over her books, playing philosopher in her own thoughts as she searched for answers she knew would never satisfy her pain. The life where classmates called her cool to her face and whore when she turned away. The mother who was gone
(And that’s because of you, Lucy reminded herself, don’t forget that)
and the father who smelled of corn mash and who was about to send her away forever.
That life.
Lucy’s hand went to the crooked ends and patchy tufts of her hair. She swayed on her heels. Something inside her broke away as the great truth of what had caused her troubles came to bear. She had arrived in Happy Hollow not because of the man on the cot, but because of the very life she was about to run back to.
She looked at the man and thought, I want to be awake. I want to be like you.
At the time, Lucy hadn’t known if that had been the right thing to say (or, for that matter, if there even was a right thing to say). And yet she knew she’d spent the better part of her life asleep. Her every day felt like a nightmare in which she flailed in quicksand, sinking ever deeper the more she struggled for freedom. And she wanted nothing more than to have those dreams end, even if it took a madman to do it.
Lucy Seekins rested the shotgun against the wall and eased the door closed. She returned to her spot at the table, where she watched the man sleep until the last candle died.
12
I was in my office when Kate called to say they were home and Zach was asleep. She offered no reason why it had taken so long to call, and I didn’t ask. I knew she was bound for the cemetery when she kissed me good-bye. It had been the weight of her lips and the sadness with which she’d pressed them against mine. There had been times over the years when those trips to Phillip’s grave (which ran at least monthly and sometimes once a week, if the names to Kate’s notebook came quick enough) became too much for me. I said nothing, though, neither that time nor all the others. Some pasts exist as a fog that rolls in and out of the present, formed not by air that condenses into mist but memories that condense into tiny doors that open to forgotten moments. Maybe you glance at a stranger on a crowded street who reminds you of a childhood friend or hear a song that was popular the first summer you fell in love, and in the space of that single beat of time you are flung backward to a who or a when long past. And yet it is only for that one beat. Those tiny doors never remain open for long for most of us. They ensure our former times are kept as relics, and the dust upon them is wiped clean only occasionally.
Yet the door to Kate’s when was forever propped open. Her past existed as a light that shone upon her every day, blinding her to all else. Everyone else could see that past as well. All you had to do was drive through the gates of Oak Lawn and climb the knoll.
I told Kate I’d meet her and Zach at church and then called Alan Martin with Taylor’s last name. Alan said he’d get in touch with the Camden sheriff and be down to collect Charlie. I hung up, leaned back in the chair, and put my feet atop the desk.
From the hallway came, “Sheruff, you still there?”
“I am,” I yelled. “Go t’sleep, Charlie.”
Charlie wept. The dark outside the windows and the faint hum of the office lights brought that familiar heaviness, and I felt my body draw away like a low tide. I stood before sleep could take hold, not wanting to be found dozing when Alan arrived, not wanting to see Phillip more. Doc March’s pills sat next to the phone. I couldn’t remember if they were to keep me awake or put me so far under I wouldn’t dream of anything, so I let them be. I moved to the bookcase instead and brushed aside the uniform Mayor Wallis had presented to me along with the pistol. The thick plastic bag with Kimball’s Dry Cleaning—Stanley, VA stenciled across the front had never been unzipped. I watched the office lights flicker at the edges of the silver name tag above the pocket—it read BARNETT, nothing else—and remembered what I’d said to Kate and the mayor that day:
“I don’t need a uniform. Everyone knows who I am.”
Of course what I’d meant was, I’ll store the softball equipment in the cell and take the Widow Cash to market every Monday and I’ll ride in the parades, but don’t expect anything else from me because the only reason I took this job was so I’d never find trouble again.
The uniform made a soft swooshing sound when I brushed it aside. I reached onto the shelf behind and brought Hollis’s jar to my desk. The tide in me retreated further, building, making me sit. I couldn’t remember if Hollis had said Jenny was good for remembering or forgetting. I didn’t care as long as she kept me awake. The lid hissed and popped as I wedged it open. The scent of peach filled the air.
I toasted dead boys and living burdens and turned the jar upward. Cold fire washed over my teeth and gums. My throat clenched and let go, forming a vacuum that sucked most of the moonshine down. Every nerve in my body protested. I bent over, gagging as tears wet my eyes.
From down the hall: “Sheruff? I need you, Sheruff. Something’s goin’ on.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, but my voice was clipped and hoarse and barely carried beyond the door.
“Sheruff, help me, Sheruff.”
The tide rushed in. It was a roaring wall of sleep that turned my bones to liquid. I fell back into the chair and tried to push myself up—
“Sher . . . huff . . .”
—but couldn’t. The tiredness held. So tired. Of that weight, of that everything. My eyes fell on Bessie. I’d need Bessie, Charlie needed help and he was scared. I moved my hand and stretch for another heavy stone to place upon the ever-growing mound of rocks beneath my feet. The cliffs tower over me, framing a dying sun. White butterflies fill the trees around us. I look down, but Phillip isn’t there. He stands along the riverbank now, peering out from beneath the drawn hood of his sweatshirt. I place the rock atop the mound anyway, trying to cover the place where he doesn’t lie, hoping I can still hide him, that I can still make him go away.
It won’t work, Jake, he says. Do you know why?
“I need to go back,” I scream.
No, Jake, he says. There’s no more back. Back is dead. You’re all dead.
I lift another rock, place it down. The mound grows high against the drawing sky. My own Tower of Babel.
“Charlie’s in trouble.”
He’s no paths left, Jake. Just as the boy Eric. I was there, Jake. Do you know that? I stood with him as the angels bore him away. Do not mourn him. Mourn Charlie. He’s come to the end of his choosing. He’s met his end.
Phillip raises his fist the same as before, the same as always. His bloody fingernails gleam in the evening.
Do you remember, Jake? I’m coming. I’m coming to give you this.
“No,” I scream. “I don’t want it I just WANT YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE.”
I’m coming, Jake. I’m coming for you all.
Phillip inches his fist closer, lifting it to me. The Hollow seems to lengthen and widen around us, as though taking a deep breath. Phillip’s fingers begin to loosen, and I screamed and jumped from the chair, toppling it into the wall. Silence filled the office. There were no calls for Sheruff. I reached for Bessie (knocking over both Doc’s and Hollis’s medicines in the process) and raced down the hall.
The figure inside the cell was still, mouth open to his chest in an expression of frozen surprise. Vacant eyes stared out at nothing.
Charlie Givens was dead.
Standing there staring at him, not knowing what to do and wanting nothing more than to wake up, I believed Phillip McBride had come for him.
And I believed I was next.
13
The Sunday edition of the Mattingly Gazette was the week’s largest and most important. As such, it took the longest to compile. That night it had taken even longer than usual, because Trevor Morgan kept having to answer the phone.
At first he counted the calls as the very sort of breathless speculation that had sold many a Sunday edition over the years. And yet the calls had kept coming, and from all over. Saying that something—that was what they always said, people never used the precise nouns and detailed verbs Trevor Morgan had built his life upon—had happened down at the BP, and that something else had happened up at the Texaco, and Jake Barnett had been seen driving with his flasher on. None of this was enough to take Trevor away from his assigned duties, however. He’d chased late-night phone calls before, only to find the vague something nothing more than a wayward cow or swamp gas or someone dipping into Hollis Devereaux’s moonshine.
But then the mayor had called, and what Trevor Morgan’s uncle said was fuzzy enough to excite and terse enough to frighten—“Get down to the sheriff’s office, and hurry up. Something’s happened.”
The foyer stood empty when Trevor arrived. He thought that odd, considering he’d parked behind Jake’s beat-up Blazer, the mayor’s Caddy, Doc March’s pickup, and two county police vehicles. He looked through the window into Jake’s office. Empty too.
“Hello?” he called. “Anybody here?”
A noise from down the hallway. Mayor Wallis walked around the corner. An unlit half of a cigar poked from the wrinkles around his mouth. Gone were the ramrod posture and unflappable confidence Big Jim had cultivated over the years. In their place were slumped shoulders that squeezed his swollen paunch into a rectangle between a pair of red suspenders and the top of his blue dress pants. He rubbed his sparse head, turning his comb-over into a push-down.
“Hey, Uncle Jimmy,” Trevor said. “What’s going on?”
“We’re on the clock, Trevor. It’s Mayor Wallis.” He fingered the gray stubble on his chin and winced. “Come on, boy. It’s all back here.”
Big Jim turned and disappeared back down the hallway. Trevor followed, mindful that the bottom half of his stomach had firmly pressed against his spine. He turned the corner to find the mayor settled next to a suited county man he did not know. Jake stood to the man’s left. His face held a milky pallor and his hair was slick with sweat, making what looked like dark commas plunge down over his ears.
Trevor said, “Hey, Jake.”
The sheriff nodded and made his way over. “Trevor, what’re you doing here?”
“Big Jim called me.”
Jake nodded and leaned in close. When he whispered, the small patch of space between them filled with the scent of peaches.
“Can I ask you something, Trevor?”
“Sure, Jake.”
“Am I awake?”
“What?” Trevor turned from Jake to Mayor Wallis, asked, “What’s going—” and then stopped as he followed Big Jim’s gaze into the cell, where a county coroner stood watching Doc March flash a small penlight into a dead man’s eyes. “—on?” he finished. “Holy cow, Jake, who is that? What happened?”
“That’s a good question,” Big Jim asked. “Evidently the whole town went to pot a few hours ago, and the sheriff never bothered to let me know.”
“Jake’s been a little busy tonight, Mayor,” the man in the suit said.
Trevor turned to him. “I don’t believe we’ve met, Mr. . . .”
“Martin. Alan Martin. County.”
“You shoulda called me, Jake,” the mayor said. “Dang it all, you shoulda called me as soon as you heard about Andy.”
“Andy?” Trevor asked, remembering the calls. “Andy Sommerville? What happened to Andy?” He reached into his back pocket for his notebook.
Big Jim slapped it away. “Leave that stupid thing alone, Trevor. We’re still trying to figure out what happened here.”
From inside the cell, Doc March turned and said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but could you continue this discussion elsewhere? There is grave work to do, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
“Sure, Doc,” Jake said.
Mayor Wallis led the way to the foyer and sat on the sofa. Trevor and Jake followed. Alan remained behind to survey the scene. Trevor supposed the county man smart enough to leave small-town business to small-town folk.
If the mayor looked older that night, Jake appeared almost ancient. Trevor knew the town had been whispering that something (that word, again) was wrong with their constable, though no conclusions had been reached. Some speculated Jake had taken to visiting Hollis’s backwoods, others that it was trouble with Kate. Nothing would please Trevor more than the latter. Most every red-blooded Mattingly male between twenty and fifty had crushed on the former Kate Griffith at one time or another. To Trevor’s generation, it was as much a part of crossing the bridge from boy to man as carving one’s name into the rusty gate, even after that nasty thing she did to the McBride boy became public knowledge those years ago.
Yet Trevor had never defined what he felt for Kate as mere infatuation, nor was it a boyhood crush. Some people were for the fairy tale. Trevor always thought Kate was his destiny, but he never got that chance. The thin gold ring on her finger had been put there by Jake instead, and the only thing that grated on Trevor Morgan more was that the man who’d stolen his love had slid into the job of sheriff simply because of his last name. That Trevor’s own uncle had handed over the keys to the Gazette just after being elected never entered into the equation. The difference was that Trevor did his job well, and Jake never could.
“Who’s that man in there, Jake?” Big Jim asked.
Trevor reached into his pocket again. This time the mayor didn’t slap the notebook away. Jake began with the call from Timmy and ended with finding Charlie dead. Trevor scribbled with passion, not believing his luck. Murder. Mystery. Mayhem. It was perfect, the story of a lifetime.
Big Jim shook his head. “This is gonna be hard on the town, Jake. Hard on all’us.”
“It will,” Jake admitted. “But the storm’s passed, Jim. We just have to try and clean up so we can all get back to normal.”
Trevor thought that made a good quote and wrote it down, then reconsidered. Even a rookie journalist knew the difference between a source who said what he knew to be true and what he wanted to be true. Trevor thought the good sheriff was engaging more in the latter. He also thought Jake had left a good bit out of his story. If so, then maybe the storm hadn’t passed at all. Maybe this was simply the first head winds.
Doc March, Alan, and the coroner made their way up the hallway.
“What’s the verdict, Doc?” the mayor asked.
The doctor looked at Jake, who offered a weak nod.
“The preliminary examination is that the poor man died of natural causes,” Doc said. “I’d say a heart attack.”
“C’mon, Doc,” Jake said. “That guy was my age.”
“Can happen to anyone, Jacob, not just old fogies like Jim and me. Tell me, what was his emotional state?”
Trevor poised his pen above a fresh sheet of paper.
“He was drunk,” Jake said. “Mad. Scared. I don’t know, Doc. Mostly scared.”
“Of what?”
Jake said nothing, only looked at them. It was enough time for Trevor to set aside his bias and believe on the facts alone that Jake Barnett had gotten into something he couldn’t get out of and was trying to cover himself.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Charlie thought Taylor Hathcock was coming after him. Said he was the devil. He was pretty worked up.”
“Well then, there you are.” Doc folded his wrinkled hands behind his back as though waiting for applause. “It’s fight-or-flight, of course. The body’s natural way of protecting itself. If one is faced with a life-threatening situation—and from what you say, Jake, Charlie Givens certainly believed he was in one—the body responds by supercharging itself with adrenaline. That
chemical is extremely dangerous in large amounts, especially in unhealthy people. Most deaths are due to damage to the heart. My opinion, and this good man beside me concurs, is that’s what happened here. Charlie was in a cell, so he couldn’t flee. Fear was all he had, and that was his end.”
“Wait,” Trevor said. He’d written all of that down, but he needed Doc to say the right words. “You’re saying the man in there was . . . scared to death?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Jackpot.
Alan spoke up: “Your doc’s findings line up with the coroner’s prelims. I’m gonna get this guy outta here for you, Jake. I’ll need that tape too.” He turned to Big Jim. “We have roadblocks set up all through the area, Mayor. We’ll find Taylor Hathcock. Just a matter of time.”
Trevor excused himself. He had to get back to the office, make some calls. Vicki Chambers, the Gazette’s receptionist, then Steve Ramsey, the cub reporter. The Sunday paper would be late, but it would be worth it.
Jake met him at the door and held it closed by pressing his hand against the fresh paint.
“Listen, Trevor. This all might make you giddy inside, but it’s gonna put a scare in people come morning. I know you have to write something, and I won’t stop you. But you do it right, you hear me? Just the facts.”
“Sure, Jake. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Trevor smiled on the outside, hoping Jake couldn’t see the cackle oozing up from behind his teeth. Unlike most everyone else in town, Trevor Morgan knew the sheriff was not his father’s son, at least when it came to temperament. That almighty Barnett name only carried so far. This was the story he’d always prayed to catch, and it was one he could milk for weeks.
