Promises of Home

by Jeff Abbott

  Hart stood and I motioned him back down with the rifle.

  “No!” he yelled in defiance. “Go ahead and shoot me. Do it for me. You don’t think that I’ve wanted to kill myself? For God’s sake, I didn’t enjoy killing Rennie Clifton! I didn’t even mean to! And killing Clevey was horrible—I used his own gun on him. He begged me not to, he said he was sorry, he cried for his mother, and I still forced myself to shoot him!

  “I’m a Quadlander, for God’s sake! I killed a girl and paid money to a scumball because I didn’t want anyone to know that a Quadlander was gay! But I’ve made myself into something truly awful, a murderer, so just shoot me now. Shoot me now.” He sank back onto the couch, broken.

  I lowered the rifle. He was right about Trey. His motive to kill him had vanished with Trey’s forgiveness.

  “Look at me, Hart.”

  He glanced up, seeing me and the rifle lowered. “You believe me.”

  “Yes,” I managed.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry about the girl. And I’m sorry about Clevey. I’m glad you know I wouldn’t have hurt Trey.”

  I didn’t answer. Motive, opportunity—think. And a collage came to me, like the lightning that’d thundered over Mirabeau the past week, cracking through the veiling clouds. Fragments of repeated conversations. Photos passing through my hands. A cryptic message scrawled in blood that I had placed far too much reliance on. And Trey’s begged request to my sister before she fled his house. It pointed, horribly, to one person.

  Realization hit me with the brute force of a punch. I nearly dropped the rifle. Hart looked at me like he thought I was having a heart attack. Oh, God, let me be wrong.

  “Jordy?”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  He pointed. I dialed home. Two rings. Three. My heart stopped and started. Four. “Hello, Poteet residence.” Clo’s voice, moderately cheerful, a little breathless.

  “Clo. Where’s Mark?”

  “He and Bradley took off with Scott.”

  I forced breath into my lungs. “Where’d they go?”

  “Over to Scott’s, I believe.”

  “Clo, listen, this is very important If they come back, make sure they stay put. The boys must stay where they’re at.”

  “Okay, Jordy, sure.”

  “Fine, I’ll be home shortly.”

  I hung up and dialed information. Please, God, let Nola have a phone already. The operator had just come on when I heard a knock at Hart’s door, and a timid, “Hello? Hart sweetie? It’s Nola.”

  I slammed the phone down. Hart and I looked at each other. I kept waiting for him to scream out a crazy man was holding him at gunpoint. He stayed quiet, watching me with old eyes.

  Nola bounded into the den, smiling at Hart, not seeing me and the rifle at first.

  “Hey there, sugar pie, you don’t mind a little company for a while….” Her voice faded as she saw me with the rifle hooked under my arm, the haggard Hart, the bulleted vase. “What the hell’s this?”

  “Nola. Where are the boys?”

  She pointed at my rifle. “You answer me first. What’s that for?”

  “Never mind! Where are Mark and Scott?”

  She pointed over her shoulder. “They wanted to go down by the creek … down by the graves.”

  I bolted past her, shoving her out of my way, and dashed into the dark night.

  CLOYING MUD PULLED AT MY BOOT HEELS AS I ran from the house. “Mark! Mark! Get to the house!” I screamed, hoping he could still hear me.

  The clouds scudded over the moon, darkening the night into pitch. The porch light from Hart’s house provided hardly enough illumination to see my own legs as I tore across the gravel road, down the creekside to where two generations of Slocum men lay in eternal slumber, one in murdered sleep. I couldn’t let it happen again.

  Branches tore at my face as I ran through the woods down to the creek. I stumbled over a ropy mass of roots, and cussing, skidded into the mud, tumbling head over heels. The rifle flew out of my hands and slid into the darkness. Still yelling Mark’s name, I pulled myself to my feet, trying to spot the rifle. And a bullet exploded into the tree next to me, spraying bark and oak.

  I went back down to my knees and scrabbled behind the tree. I could see vague outlines near the graves of Louis and Trey: two, maybe three boys. Who else was there?

  “Uncle Jordy!” Mark hollered. “Stay back, stay back! Scott, you asshole, don’t shoot, it’s Uncle Jordy!”

  “Scott, listen to me! Listen! You don’t have to do this, let’s talk.”

  Scott’s voice, when it came back, was petulant. “I don’t want to talk. Don’t run at me in the dark, you scared me.”

  “Sorry,” I called back. Of course I wasn’t, but while Scott Kinnard was blasting away at trees he wasn’t hitting human flesh. “Let’s talk, okay?” Tentatively, I stood and began to walk down toward their voices. Wondering if each step would be met with a bullet. I needed the rifle, but I couldn’t spend minutes searching for it. The night held quiet.

  Scott let me within ten feet of him, and as moonlight dimly slid along us as a cloud parted I saw Mark standing over his grandfather’s grave, keeping a trembling Bradley an arm’s length behind him.

  “Go away, Jordy.” Scott’s voice was toneless. Not scared—not crazed—and that was more chilling. He sensed his control and he had a child’s smugness. The .38 in his hand was rock still.

  I kept my voice steady and assured. “No, Scott. I won’t go away. If you’re going to kill Mark, you have to kill me, too. And your mom and Hart are up at the house. I don’t think you can make this look like an accident.”

  “Kill me?” I heard Mark repeat softly. I couldn’t see his eyes, but the realization charged the air between us. “He wants to kill me?”

  “Scott. Listen to me. This won’t work. I know you killed Trey.”

  “What?” I heard Mark sputter.

  “That’s a lie! I loved Trey!” Scott shrieked. He was pointing a gun at me; he’d killed a man, but he still sounded like a child. An angry, temperamental boy who’d lashed out with rage at a wish denied.

  “You loved him too much,” I started, hearing Nola and Hart rushing toward us in the undergrowth, Nola calling her son’s name. “You loved him, but he wasn’t going to stay. He wanted to go back to my sister and Mark. And you couldn’t stand that. You couldn’t stand that he was going to be like your mom’s other boyfriends and leave you. So you shot him dead.”

  Scott didn’t speak. Mark seemed frozen in horror. Nola, breathless, managed to grab at my arm.

  “You’re lying, lying! Scott wouldn’t hurt anyone!”

  “Then have him give you the gun,” I said calmly. “And we’ll go back up to the house and talk about it.”

  Nola’s fingers tightened on my arm. The moon glimmered from behind a wall of cloud and I could see her weathered face staring at her son in abject shock.

  “Scotty, honey, give Mom the gun.” She took a step forward.

  “No. Stay back, Mom, please. Go back to the house.”

  “Honey—”

  “No! Not after I did it for you, for us!” He waved wildly with the .38 pistol that seemed too big for his hands.

  “For us?” Nola repeated, cold shock edging her voice. “Scott, hush up right now! You don’t know what you’re saying!”

  “Scott!” Hart’s voice, solid, commanding, the voice that had lectured Trey and me on shooting guns and riding properly. “Stop this foolishness, right now, son. Put that gun down.”

  “You shut up!” Scott demanded. He turned entreating eyes back toward his mother. “I had to, Mom, I had to. He didn’t want us no more, he wanted Arlene and”—he moved the gun in a vicious swath toward Mark—“and he wanted you. You. I was the one that was supposed to be his son, not you!” Anger made his voice ragged.

  “Baby, please,” Nola entreated. Scott ignored her.

  I glanced at Mark, He still seemed transfixed by Scott, like the injured bird gazing steadily at the slitherin
g cobra. He attempted to step back and stumbled into Bradley, who cowered behind him.

  “Stay put!” Scott ordered him. “You stay right there.”

  “Scott,” I said quietly. He swung the gun back toward me, quick and sure. If only one of us could get at him—I prayed we’d still be able to talk him down.

  “You tell me. How did you know?” Scott demanded.

  “Why? So you can shoot me, too? You’ll have to shoot us all, Scott, and I don’t think you want to do that. I don’t really think you want to hurt anyone anymore.”

  “I will.” His voice broke with tension. “I have and I will. Why don’t you ask that stupid police chief of yours?”

  I swallowed. “You were the only one who heard Clevey and Trey argue. You were the only one—besides Hart— that knew they shared any sort of dark secret in their lives before either of them died. And that Saturday morning, you came home early from the basketball court. So when you heard Trey pledge his undying love to my sister, and say he wanted her and Mark back, you decided to kill him. And you decided to make it look like he’d died because of some connection to Clevey. You heard the conversation between him and my sister, but they didn’t know you were in the house—at least my sister didn’t. And when she left, you got Trey’s gun and shot him in the back. Then you painted that 2 DOWN in blood to suggest that Trey’s murder was part of a pattern that started with Clevey’s death. Then you shot Junebug to keep the pattern going. No one would look twice at you that way, although a man you loved as your daddy was about to drop you and your mother.”

  “No,” Nola moaned. “No, please, Scotty, no.”

  “Mama! I couldn’t let him hurt you anymore.” Scott’s voice broke tearfully. “We were gonna be a family.”

  “You decided you’d pretend to be friendly to our family, friendly in particular to Mark. Become his pal, spend time with him. You brought back those photos. You hinted that Trey’d corresponded with my mother, knowing full well that she’s sick now and couldn’t say she had or hadn’t written Trey. But there was no way in hell that she would have been writing Trey in secret. Not my mother. I should have seen through you then, but maybe I wanted to believe that Trey still cared about our family. You wanted us to trust you, like you. So maybe when you got your revenge on Mark, when you killed him or hurt him, it would look like an accident.”

  Hart coughed and I glanced at him. “You broke into our house, Hart, looking for those letters. You couldn’t take a chance that Scott was lying. You had to see if there was any written evidence about what Trey had seen between you and his father.” Hart nodded mutely. I turned back and my heart stopped. Scott leveled the pistol directly at Mark’s head. Mark pushed a crying Bradley back and stared at Scott with hate.

  “If Trey wants you so bad, you can just go to him now!” Scott shrieked, and I rushed forward, yelling at Scott. The cold eye of the .38’s barrel swung at me and a strong arm shoved me to one side, diving for the gun.

  Light exploded in the night. Nola screamed, Bradley screeched, birds burst from the trees in a spinning wheel of caws. I pulled my face from the mud, scrabbling madly toward Scott. He was on the ground, wrestling with Mark for the gun. Both had their hands on the weapon and I reached between them, yanking it away.

  “You killed him! You killed my daddy!” Mark screamed into Scott’s sobbing face, pounding him with his fists. Adrenaline powered me hard and I jerked Mark away with one arm, getting myself between him and Scott. Nola collapsed to her son’s side, cradling his sobbing form in her arms.

  “Oh, my baby, oh, my baby,” she cried. “Why did you have to do this?”

  I swung around, holding Mark tight to me. Bradley knelt by Hart, lying flat on the ground. I hurried to him and saw the blood gurgling out of the horrible wound in his chest.

  He looked at me, life ebbing in his eyes. I shoved Mark toward the house. “Call 911! Run, hurry!” Mark turned, wordless, and sprinted away.

  “Hart! Hold on! Help is coming!” I begged him.

  “No … Mark …”

  “Mark’s okay. He’s okay, you saved him.”

  “Mark … tell him sorry … his daddy … all these years … my fault …”

  “No, it wasn’t.” I squeezed his hand tight. “It wasn’t your fault. Now you have to hold on, you have to—”

  He pressed my fingers in answer. The darkness of the night became the darkness of his eyes. The breath ceased. I stayed kneeling in the mud by his side.

  Nola held Scott tight, knowing he would soon be pulled from her arms. He did not try to run. But he stared at me with eyes of ice.

  I sometimes hold it half a sin

  To put in words the grief I feel;

  For words, like Nature, half reveal

  And half conceal the Soul within.

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  In Memoriam

  THE JANUARY WIND BLEW COLD AS I STOOD ON the porch, staring out across the pasture and down to the river. Hart’s family had really planned right all those years ago, turning the house just the right angle so that on a gloriously clear day you had a panorama of shapeless woods and squared meadows and a ribbon of river. I leaned against the cold wood of the porch. The wind, gusting, moved the dry grass in the fields and carried the lonesome cry of a migrating bird far in the sky. They were familiar sounds, and I could nearly imagine that the wind also sustained the whinnying of excited horses, the thunder of hooves, the laughter of a young Trey Slocum and Jordan Poteet as they rode across the pastures of Hart’s farm.

  Mark’s farm, I corrected myself. The words sounded odd to me. I turned back to the door to see just what was taking the young squire so long.

  Through the door I could see him talking quietly on the cordless phone. I tapped and he held up a finger, just a minute.

  I turned back and watched the bare branches of the tree’s sway in the wind. That night six weeks ago seemed horribly close, the cutting wind feeling like death’s finger on my face. The ambulance and police cars roared up the road—I’d sent Bradley to open the gate for them. But for Hart, it was minutes too late. The bullet had been too cruel.

  Scott had surrendered without struggle. He was in a nearby juvenile detention facility since he was only fourteen. Scott would be tried as a juvenile, since he was under fifteen and obviously a child who’d suffered terribly due to a lack of role models. I spat in the grass. He’d killed two men and nearly killed a third. Scott seemed hardly childlike to me. I’d gotten to where I could hardly stand to watch his grandstanding attorneys on the nightly news.

  Other adjustments weren’t easy either. Thomasina Clifton finally learned the truth about Rennie’s death. I’d sat with her while Junebug and I relayed Hart’s confession. Her eyes slowly had filled with tears and I wondered if it was the first time in many years that she’d wept for her lost daughter. Her other children had closed around Thomasina like human armor, and I’d stayed away, leaving her to her rediscovered grief. Knowing that her daughter didn’t have to die, that Rennie’s toying with Louis and Hart’s life had gotten her murdered, was a fresh agony. It’s a hard thing to hear that about your child.

  It was much worse telling Truda Shivers about her son. Davis, Ed, Junebug, and I had talked about it and we went over together to tell her what would come out at the inquest of Hart’s death. Junebug did most of the talking, and it was possibly the most horrible conversation I’d ever heard in my life as he detailed the moral and legal crimes of her son.

  “You aren’t talking about my boy,” Truda had finally said, her voice a faint whisper. “My boy wouldn’t do such things.”

  Her denial of Clevey’s rottenness was thickly impenetrable. After a while we gave up. She’s a woman I still care about, but I know better than to bang my head against a wall. In her mind, Truda’s constructed a heroic end for her boy as the dedicated reporter and none of us are allowed to edit it.

  I felt bad for both those mothers, losing their children. We sometimes forget that everyone was once somebody’s little
baby, cooing up at a smiling parent from the warmth of a crib.

  One person not cooing at me, at least for a week, was Candace. She didn’t appreciate me runmng off to confront Hart or my face-off with Scott. After she chewed me out thoroughly, I got a long hug where she made sure I was okay. I’m forgiven for the moment—and we’re heading out on a Caribbean cruise to patch up any existing wounds in our relationship. Part of my penance is letting her pay the way.

  Mark came out onto the porch, carrying one of the wreaths. “Sony, that was Bradley. He wants me to come over for dinner this week.”

  “How’s he doing?” Davis and Bradley had finally moved back into their home. Cayla was deep in treatment for her anger over Bradley’s condition and her tendency to beat the stuffing out of her husband. Davis claimed he wanted to make the marriage work, but I thought the statement rang hollow. A few weeks not walking on tiptoes around his wife had been nirvana. He’d seen there was a life outside of abuse.

  “Bradley’s fine,” Mark shrugged. “He says he’s supposed to go talk with Steven Teague this afternoon. He’s embarrassed, though. Some kid was teasing him about seeing a shrink.”

  Male pride never ends. It had kept Hart a slave to blackmail and turned him killer; made Clevey an avaricious criminal who fumblingly attempted to make amends for his own self-esteem; driven Trey away from a family that loved him; kept Davis in bondage to a sick woman; and made Scott believe murder was a solution. I didn’t have much male pride left, but I’d vowed not to let it shape my life.

  “I’m sure Steven will be able to make him feel better.” I pointed at the wreath. “I got the others here. Let’s go.”

  Mark followed me off the porch and I saw that, as always, he had to turn and look back at the house, “I still can’t believe it. That this is mine.”

  It had been the final shock after several days of catastrophes. Hart’s will was short and to the point: all his worldly possessions were left solely to Mark Slocum, grandson of his longtime friend Louis Slocum. Despite Hart’s claims that Clevey Shivers had bled him dry, Quadlander pockets still went deep. The land, the house, the horses, the equipment, stocks and bonds, and enough cash squirreled away in a Houston bank to make you choke. Mark was now, quite possibly, the wealthiest boy in Bonaparte County. Of course, my name was in Hart’s will as well. He named Sister and me cotrustees for Mark’s money, until Mark attained the age of twenty-one, when good sense would allegedly prevail.