by Allen Eskens
In her letter, she didn’t bother to ask how Jeremy’s eye was doing. That would step on her narrative. She kept the fact that Larry punched Jeremy in the face out of the letters, as though by not putting it in she could deny that the punch even happened. I don’t think I ever felt more rage in my life. She didn’t care about Jeremy. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything except getting money from me—as if Jeremy’s disability checks weren’t enough.
I refused her demands, of course. I took pictures of Jeremy’s eye, and both Lila and I wrote detailed accounts of what happened that night, in case we would ever need to recount the events in court. Kathy could threaten to call the cops all she wanted to, but I knew that Larry had a criminal record, and they would never risk the tables getting turned on them by bringing in the authorities.
Kathy’s threats, veiled or otherwise, fell on deaf ears until the day came that she threatened to take Jeremy back—legally—if we didn’t pay her some money. That’s when Lila and I took our first hard look at fighting for guardianship of Jeremy. Even with my mother’s many problems, getting guardianship of him seemed an uphill battle—that is, until she got arrested for possessing meth.
On a particularly hot July night, Kathy’s neighbors called the police because she and Larry were screaming at each other again, the caller telling 911 that it sounded like someone was getting murdered. I know this because I read the reports and attached them to my guardianship petition. When the cops entered the house to break up the fight, they found thirty grams of methamphetamine on a coffee table.
Of all the adjectives I’d conjured up over the years to describe my mother, meth-head had never crossed my mind. Kathy had always been volatile, but in those years with Larry, she had vanished inside the husk of someone that I didn’t recognize. It was as if she wore her demons on her skin, the crazy no longer content to swing on vines in her head. On those few occasions when I saw her, she looked like she hadn’t slept for days, and she would pace around, picking at her arms and face. Looking back now, I should have known that she was using meth; but who would think that of their mother?
Even after that arrest, I held off filing for guardianship, waiting to see if things might finally change. They didn’t. The court released her from jail into a treatment facility. She wrote me a letter from there, demanding that I return Jeremy to her once she finished treatment. She didn’t make this request because she loved her son, but because “no one would send the mother of an autistic boy to prison.” I couldn’t believe that she would actually admit her scheme in writing. Instead of responding to that letter, I called my lawyer and told her to proceed with the guardianship petition.
When they served the papers on Kathy, she went nuts, absconding from the treatment center and showing up at our apartment. Lila was the one to answer the door that day and was so stunned when she saw my mother that she lost the presence of mind to shut the door in Kathy’s face. My mother tried to push past Lila, which caused Lila to scream my name.
Kathy was tiny and frail by this point, and I had little difficulty pushing her into the hallway, sending her stumbling to the floor as I closed and locked the door. Lila took Jeremy to his bedroom and sang to him while I called the police. As we waited for the cops, Kathy remained outside our door screaming at me, accusing me of assaulting her, and demanding that I hand over Jeremy.
I didn’t know this at the time, but leaving treatment, when you’ve been furloughed there from jail, is considered an escape, another felony to add to her list. The officers who came to haul her away had been in touch with the courthouse in Austin and knew her status. They dragged Kathy out of the building, her insults echoing off the walls.
That was the last time I would see her until the hearing, but I did receive one more letter from my mother, this one sent with the return address of the Mower County Jail. I didn’t have to read it to know what it would say. My mother made her hatred of me perfectly clear as the police officers dragged her away in handcuffs. That would be the first letter I would throw into the garbage unopened.
Looking back now, I was naive to think that storming into my mother’s apartment and pulling Jeremy out would have been the end of it. Even having her arrested and dragged away from my door did little to get her attention. Those were but the first salvos in a battle that would scorch the earth between us, our fight devolving from shots fired across a desolate no-man’s-land to a hand-to-hand slog. In the end, I would be the one to deliver the blow that would destroy what little remained of our relationship.
Chapter 10
I did my best to brush the bad memories of my mother aside and refocus my attention on the life and death of Toke Talbert. Deputy Jeb said that everyone knew who killed Toke. If that was true, then I knew where to look for that answer. Having spent much of my life around bars, either working in them or hauling my mother home from them, I knew that the best place to learn local scuttlebutt would be the town’s watering hole. The bar I saw when doing my short tour around the town square wasn’t far from my motel, so I left my car at the motel and walked.
The bar, the Snipe’s Nest, had very few windows along its century-old exterior. Dark, huddled on the street corner like a stubborn vagrant―I knew that place. I could have sketched the floor plan on a napkin before I walked through the door: a bar running half of its length, stools bolted to the floor, and a brass foot rail. There’d be booths running down the long wall and high-tops in front, a black tin ceiling and sticky floors. It was the kind of place where town gossip would float through the air like dust motes.
It was just before the lunch hour, so the place stood mostly empty. One man in his late forties, wearing a suit jacket and khakis, sat at the end of the bar typing on a laptop. On the other end, two old-timers complained loudly about some chicken operation that was bringing “all those damned Mexicans” to town.
The bartender was an attractive woman, my age, maybe a little younger, with long cinnamon hair and deep eyes that held steady on me as I walked up. She wore a black T-shirt, its short sleeves revealing toned arms, a small tattoo of a candle decorating her left biceps. Beneath the candle I could see some cursive writing, but I couldn’t make out what it said.
“What can I get you, stranger?” she asked.
“Just a Coke,” I said.
She poured my drink and turned to go talk to the old-timers.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I was wondering if you could help me out a bit.”
She returned her attention to me. “Whatcha need?”
“I’m in town doing some research on that death that happened two nights ago.”
The guy in the khakis sat up and made no bones about turning his attention to my conversation. The old men to my left also stopped jabbering and listened in.
I said, “His name was Toke Talbert. Did you know him?”
She looked at the old-timers and then back to me. “Everyone around here knew Toke.”
“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.
“Who’s asking?”
“My name is Joe. I work for the Associated Press.”
“Associated Press, huh?” She held out a hand to shake. “How do you do, Joe? I’m Vicky Pyke—shortstop for the Minnesota Twins.”
I shook her hand and accepted her jab. Then I pulled out my wallet, and for the second time that day, crossed a small ethical line by showing my AP credentials. This time I covered my last name with my finger. “So what’s it like playing for the Twins?” I asked.
“You really are a reporter.”
I returned my card to my wallet. “Is your name really Vicky Pyke?”
She smiled. “Yes, it is.”
“Well, Vicky, I’m looking for a little background.”
“Shouldn’t you be at the Sheriff’s Office asking those kinds of questions?”
“I find that I can get better information by talking to people without badges, people like you. I bet you know everything that goes on in this town.”
“Ain’t much to k
now, but I hear stuff,” Vicky said.
“Tell me what you know about Toke Talbert.”
“Toke Talbert was an asshole,” she said, dropping her smile. “He’s dead and it ain’t a bad thing.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but her candor surprised me. I found myself wanting to defend the man who had once punched my mother in the gut, but I resisted. “Did you know him well?”
“You didn’t have to know Toke Talbert well to know that he was an asshole.” Vicky turned toward the old-timers. “Bill, what did you think of Toke Talbert?”
“He was an asshole,” one of the men said. The other guy nodded in agreement.
“See?” Vicky said. “I’m not speaking ill of the dead, I’m just giving you the facts.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked.”
“No, why was he an asshole?”
“Born that way would be my bet.”
I paused to put together a more coherent question. “What I mean is: what kinds of things did he do to make people believe he was an asshole?”
The guy that Vicky referred to as Bill spoke up. “He cut down two of Connie Alber’s walnut trees five years back. Just cut ’em down in broad daylight. Didn’t like the nuts falling on his property. Told the sheriff some cock-and-bull story that he thought those trees were on his side of the property line. Never got charged with nothin’.”
The second guy leaned into the bar so that he could talk past Bill and said, “Yeah, and last year he shot Karen Halverson’s cat. Saw it crossing the street toward his property. Shot it with a twenty-two.”
“Kill it?” Bill asked.
“He shot it with a twenty-two.”
Bill said, “That don’t mean nothing. I shot a cat with a twenty-two once. Still see it running out my barn every now and again.”
“That’s because you can’t shoot worth shit,” the other man said with a laugh.
They then began a debate on their respective shooting skills, and Vicky turned to me with a smug expression, her opinion vindicated. “I don’t think there’s a person in this town that he hasn’t pissed off at one time or another.”
“How about you?” I asked. “What did he do to piss you off?”
Vicky looked at me as though I’d crossed some line. “What business would that be of yours?”
“None, I guess.”
“What kind of story are you writing anyway? Why would a reporter care about a dead man out here in Timbuktu?”
I gave her question some thought before pulling out my AP card again, this time showing it to her with my last name uncovered. She looked at the card and then at me.
“Talbert? Are you related to Toke?”
“I’m pretty sure that I’m his son.”
The man in the khakis coughed and then closed his laptop. I could feel his stare without having to turn to look. The two old-timers stopped their bickering and fixed their eyes on me as well. Vicky laid my card on the bar. “I didn’t know Toke had a son,” she said, her tone not as harsh as it had been a few seconds earlier. “He never mentioned you.” Then as an afterthought, she added, “I’m sorry for calling him an asshole.”
“Don’t be. I’m not sure that I disagree with you. He kind of disowned my mother and me.”
“Is that why you’re here? Looking for your father?”
“Honestly, I’m not a hundred percent sure why I’m here. I guess I’m just curious. You have any idea who might have killed him?”
She glanced at Bill and his friend as if looking for permission to share a secret. Then she said, “They think Moody Lynch killed Toke. They’ve been looking all over the county for him.”
“Who’s Moody Lynch?”
“That’s…wait, you know about Angel, right?”
“Toke’s daughter. Yeah.”
“Moody is Angel’s boyfriend. He’s got a bad reputation with the cops. They think he’s trash, so they pull him over every chance they get, always looking for drugs in his car or something.”
“They ever find any?”
“No. Moody’s too smart. He may be the son of white trash, but he’s no dummy. Just the opposite. I heard that he was a decent student in high school before he dropped out. Never saw the need for a diploma if all he wants to do is hunt and fish.”
“Why do the cops think Moody killed Toke?”
“Bad blood between them two.”
“How come?”
“Moody was dating Angel. I guess that was reason enough for Toke.”
“How is Angel? I heard something happened to her the same night Toke died.”
Vicky looked at me as if she were about to tell me that my dog got run over. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“I live across the road from Toke. He and Jeannie and Angel moved into the farmhouse after Jeannie’s old man died. That’s where Toke was killed—in the barn. Someone bashed his skull in. I was across the road watching when they carried Angel out of the house. She was on one of them gurneys.”
“Did someone attack her too?”
“Word around town is that she tried to commit suicide. That might be true or it might not. You hear a lot of stuff. But I can tell you that they took her off in an ambulance because I saw that with my own eyes.”
Bill said, “My daughter’s one of the EMTs that took her up to Mankato. Said that girl was in pretty bad shape. Died a couple times on the trip up there.”
“Do you have a library in town?” I asked.
“It ain’t much, but we got one. Go down to Oliva’s Antiques,” she said, pointing south. “Take a right and you’re there.”
I stood and tossed a five on the bar. “This cover it?”
“Yeah,” Vicky said. “Stop by any time.”
I walked to the front door, and as I passed the man in the khakis, he stood up and followed me.
Chapter 11
I stepped into the midday sun, paused to get my bearings and let my eyes adjust. I had seen Oliva’s Antiques earlier and thought it to be to my right. I was about to head that way when the man in khakis came out of the bar behind me.
“Excuse me,” he said. “You got a second?”
I turned and squinted at him. He was about my height, five foot ten, but heavy and thick like a tree trunk. I would put him around twice my age, with a touch of gray in his tight, curly hair. His white teeth and tanned skin suggested that he worked hard on his appearance, though he had a crooked nose and a flat face that looked like he’d been hit hard with a shovel.
“Sure,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop in there, but did you say that your name is Joe Talbert?”
“That’s correct.”
He began eyeing me up and down as if studying me for a test. We stood on the sidewalk in an awkward silence, him with his arms folded across his chest, me with my hands shoved in my pockets, enough room between us that anyone looking at us from a distance could see the discomfort that filled that space.
“I don’t think so,” he said finally.
“You don’t think so, what?”
“I don’t think you’re a Talbert—at least you’re no relation to the Joe Talbert who died here two nights ago.”
“Is that a fact?” I said.
He pursed his lips and nodded his head as if satisfied with his answer. “Yep,” he said. “I can see right through you.”
“And who are you again?” I asked.
“I’m Joe Talbert’s brother.”
“Uncle Charlie?” I said.
“I’m not your uncle anything and you aren’t Joe’s son. My brother didn’t have a son. He only had one kid. I don’t know what your angle is here, but your con won’t work. They have ways of testing those things nowadays. You ever heard of DNA?”
“You ever heard of Kathy Nelson?” I said.
The expression on his face flipped from smug to confused, and he eyed me up and down again, this time probably looking for traces of my mother in me. Then, as if some
slot machine in his head finally stopped spinning, he took half a step back, and said, “Bullshit.”
“So you know her.”
“Yeah, I know her,” he said. “I knew her real well back in high school―all the boys did. If Kathy Nelson’s your mother, then there’s no telling who your father might be.” He laughed, and I found myself in the bizarre position of wanting to defend my mother’s honor, a task for which I was wholly unqualified. “If you think you’re Joe’s kid because Kathy Nelson says so, boy, have you been duped.”
“Look, asshole, I hold no illusions that my mother—”
“Hold on there, boy.” His smile fell away, and he stepped toward me with stones for eyes. “I don’t take kindly to being called names. I don’t care who you think you are, and I don’t care what kind of game you’re playing, but if you go to insulting me like that, we’re going to have a problem.”
His attack caught me off guard, and I lost my voice.
“I didn’t say anything about your mother that wasn’t the truth. Now you may think that her lies give you some kind of standing to stake a claim, but her words don’t mean shit. I’m here to take care of this family—my family. I got this under control, so you may as well go back to whatever hole you crawled out of because there’s nothing for you here in Buckley.”
“I didn’t come here to stake any claim.” My words sounded overly apologetic, so I summoned a touch of anger into my chest. “I’m just trying to figure out who my father was. You got a problem with that?”
“Your father wasn’t Joe Talbert.” He took another step closer and pointed his finger at my face. “Get that through your head.”
I hadn’t noticed the squad car that rolled to a stop across the street until I heard the door close. I turned to see Deputy Jeb Lewis making his way toward us. Charlie saw it too, and in a flash, he had slapped a salesman’s smile onto his face.
“What’s going on, boys?” Jeb said.
“Nothing, Deputy,” Charlie said. “We were just having a friendly chat.”
Jeb said, “It didn’t look like a friendly chat.”
