Inheritance

by Joe McKinney

  “Not really,” Anderson said. “He told me about the same thing he told Garwin.”

  “But? That sounds like you think there’s something more.”

  “I do. He saw something in that boxcar. I don’t know what he saw, but he did see something. I think he got scared. Maybe he froze, maybe there’s something else going on. I don’t know yet.”

  Anderson had just scaled a small embankment that led up to the tracks. He got to the top and stopped, waiting on Levy to catch up. The poor guy was dying out here in this heat. He was wheezing and his suit was soaked through with sweat.

  He held out a hand and Levy took it. Once Levy made it to the top, Anderson said, “There’s one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Can you get me access to Henninger’s personnel records? I don’t think he’s directly involved with what we’ve seen out here, but I know he saw something he’s not telling us about.”

  “And why do you think his personnel records will help you with that?”

  “Maybe they won’t, but I need to start someplace.”

  “I’ll have to clear that with Deputy Chief Allen. He’ll want to know why.”

  “Tell him I don’t know why,” Anderson said. “It’s just a feeling.”

  Chapter 8

  Rachel sat at the little card table in their kitchen where she and Paul ate most of their meals. She was angry. She was angry at Paul because he was late and hadn’t had the decency to call and tell her why. It wasn’t like him to make her worry like this.

  But her anger wasn’t directed solely at Paul. He was probably fine. Maybe he stopped off for drinks with his new buddies or something. But his little bit of choir practice meant that she was left here in their apartment to deal with a busted air conditioner. It was the second time since they’d moved in that the thing had gone out, and now their place was so hot she felt she was about to scream. The hottest month of the year and she had to sit here, roasting, the landlord nowhere to be found.

  She sipped a glass of milk and stared out the open window at the backyard of the house next door. There was a sorry-looking white and black dog tied to a corner of a crumbling shed out there, its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth and a rheumy, beat-down look in its eyes. Rachel wiped the sweat from her neck and thought that poor dog looked about as miserable as she felt.

  And then Paul’s truck finally pulled into the drive. He pulled into the slot under the carport and shut off the truck. Rachel sighed in frustration, waiting for him to get out, already thinking of what she was going to say to him.

  She watched his truck for a long time, but he never got out.

  Most of the back glass was a bright, reflected splash of sunlight, but from where she was she could see through the lower edge of the back windshield to his hands in his lap, the Barber fifty cent piece moving back and forth, catching and flashing in the sunlight.

  She thought back to the little house on Huisache where she’d lived for a time back in college, to a day in late September of her junior year. She’d been hired by the English Department the semester before to be Paul’s tutor in Intro to American Lit, and she was all prepared to hate the stupid jock they were sending her, imagining what it would be like to sit there while some steroidal, lumbering dolt muddled his way through Emily Dickinson and Henry James and then tell her that “this stuff is stupid” and that he “just didn’t get it.”

  And then she’d met him, and surprised herself because she found him cute and sweet and kind. They started dating midway through the fall semester of their sophomore year. And then, near the beginning of their junior year, she gave him that Barber fifty cent piece for his birthday.

  She remembered handing it to him, explaining what it was and the history behind it, and then telling him how her literary hero Neil Gaiman had just written a great book called American Gods that she loved because the main character, an ex-convict named Shadow, reminded her so much of him. She also told him how Shadow stumbled through the book doing coin tricks, and maybe, she suggested, with what she hoped was a mischievous little spark in her eyes, he could learn a few of his own.

  Well, he had learned a few coin tricks—had become damn good at quite a few of them as a matter of fact. But more than that he had gone out and read the damn book, too, which was something she hadn’t even hoped he would do because she knew that reading a book for him was about as much fun as passing a kidney stone was for other folks. That impressed her more than the coin tricks ever could because he had done it for her, because he did something just because it interested her.

  But now, as she stood at the open kitchen window, watching her husband work that coin back and forth, she realized that her life had grown far more complicated since those easy days in the little house on Huisache.

  She looked down at her husband, oblivious to the heat and the dust in the air, wondering what he was thinking. He wasn’t dumb, even though he did his best to seem that way. He just thought differently than she did. His mind was like a giant set of clock gears that you had to nearly break your back to get turning. But once those gears did begin to turn, they did so with a force that was like a rockslide coming inevitably down towards a decision.

  She had come to an understanding about him, and seeing him down there, the gears starting to turn, made her feel a little afraid—not of him, but of something that she knew, or sensed, or felt, was coming for them.

  ***

  From the front, their house looked like a quaint, Craftsman-style two story bungalow slowly being swallowed alive by ivy and chinaberry bushes. When they first found it, Rachel went crazy with excitement. She studied the architectural theory behind it. Paul remembered her trying to explain it to him, why it was such a cool place.

  But Paul knew almost nothing of architecture, and cared even less, and to him the place just seemed old and overgrown. It might have been classy once, he supposed, but it wasn’t much to look at now, especially from the back, which was made of sagging wood paneling, the white paint coming off in dry, feathery flakes. It was just a straight up and down wall with a few windows, the kind of feature that made you think that maybe the architect had gotten bored, or simply ran out of money and had to finish the thing on the cheap.

  The only break in the monotony was a plain, unpainted wooden staircase that started at the corner of the house next to the driveway and went up to a door in the middle of the house on the second story. It was clearly an afterthought, added on at the same time the owners figured they could make more money carving the house up into separate apartments.

  Paul trudged up the stairs one at a time, head bent down, each footstep bursting into a cloud of yellow dust that followed him up the stairs.

  He slid his key into the lock, and stepped inside.

  He headed for the kitchen, got a glass from the pantry, filled it from the tap in the sink, and then drank it down in one gulp. He filled it again, this time only downing half of it before he stopped and wiped his lips with the back of his left hand.

  “Hi,” Rachel said, though her tone said, “What the hell, you can’t even acknowledge me?”

  His eyes rolled towards her with a motion that was like an old door swinging on rusty hinges.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She waited for more, but when it didn’t come, she crossed the kitchen floor to the phone that was mounted there on a pillar, removed it from the cradle, and showed it to him.

  “You know what this is?” she said.

  Again that slow roll of his eyes that was like an old door on rusty hinges, this time from her face to the phone in her hand.

  The dial tone echoed from the phone.

  “It’s a phone, Paul. Some men use it to call their wives to let them know they’re gonna be five hours late from work. Five hours, Paul. Two days in a row. What the hell?”

  He drank the rest of his water. He wiped his lips again with his wrist, and this time a smear of dust appeared across his face, d
ark against his skin. His tongue tested the grit on his lips and he could feel the greasiness of it. For a moment, he thought he might get sick.

  “What time is it?” he said.

  “Time? What time...Paul, it’s past noon.”

  He nodded to himself.

  “You didn’t call, Paul. What’s wrong with you, you can’t check your messages? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  He put the glass down in the sink, then undid the top button on his uniform jersey and pulled the top edge of his body armor away from his chest. He could feel the heat rising off his soaked t-shirt.

  “It’s hot in here,” he said.

  That made her laugh, but it was the kind of a laugh that you hate to hear from a woman, because you know that what follows will be angry and indignant.

  “You know why it’s hot, Paul? You wanna know why? I’ll tell you why. It’s so damn hot in here because the air conditioning went out in the middle of the night. I woke up at four a.m., Paul. I wake up, and I’m covered in sweat. The sheets are soaked. I can barely breathe. It’s like I’m trying to breathe the air coming out of an oven. And of course the fans don’t do a damned thing.”

  “Did you call the landlord?”

  “What do you think? Of course I called him. I’ve been calling him all morning. He’s nowhere to be found. But then, if you had bothered to check your messages, you would have known that.”

  He looked past her, at the apartment. She’d been busy changing things around again. She was always in the process of changing things around, trying to match them up to the ideal that was in her mind.

  “Did you hear me? Paul?” He looked at her again. “Jesus,” she said. “You weren’t even listening to me, were you?”

  He let out a deep breath. His chin fell to his chest.

  “Well?”

  “I’m being investigated for the death of sixteen year old kid,” he said.

  That stopped her.

  “What?”

  “A boy died last night. Mike and I were chasing him. The car he was in crashed and the kid took off running through a train yard. He was murdered right before I caught up with him.”

  “Murdered? What do you mean he was murdered?” Her tone had changed. She was no longer angry. She sounded confused and frightened. “Why are they investigating...Paul, tell me what happened.”

  She crossed to the kitchen table and pushed a chair out for him. She patted the floral-patterned cushion on the chair and said, “Sit down, Paul.”

  He nodded, then sat, then went through the whole story all over again. He told her about Garwin’s orders to interview heroin junkies in their district and about watching the three junkies from the alleyway and about the shooting and the car chase and the kid running and the kid turning and pointing the gun at him and him coming out and seeing the dead goat and…

  ***

  …she could tell he was leaving something out. It was obvious. He normally used his hands when he told her stories. Sometimes he even added sound effects. He was like a kid that way, animated.

  But something was different this time. Something had come inside, clung to him like the dust on his boots and taken a piggyback ride inside their marriage. She could see whatever it was moving around inside of him, swimming in the depths of his eyes.

  “But what does it mean that you’re being investigated?” she asked. “Are they accusing you of something?”

  He shook his head.

  “Paul? Do they think you have something to do with this?”

  “No.”

  “Then...I don’t understand. Why are you being investigated?”

  “It’s standard procedure.”

  Now it was her turn to shake her head.

  “You say that like I’m supposed to understand what that means. Standard procedure means what?”

  He closed his eyes and she could see the air bleeding out of his chest.

  “Paul?”

  “It means there will be an investigation,” he said. “Detectives are going to look into the incident. It’s a murder. They’re going to take it apart piece by piece and they’re going to try to figure out who killed that kid. Until they do, I’m part of the investigation. I haven’t been charged with anything, but there’s going to be an Internal Affairs investigation at the same time, so...”

  “An Internal Affairs investigation? Why is Internal Affairs looking at you, Paul? If you didn’t do anything wrong, why would they be looking at you?”

  “It’s standard procedure in an In-Custody Death.”

  “Standard procedure,” she said, and huffed. “There’s that phrase again. Paul, would you please stop talking to me like a cop and tell me what the hell is going on. I’m your wife, for Christ’s sake, and I don’t understand what you’re telling me.” She stopped and waited, then said, “You tell me Homicide is investigating you. Now you tell me Internal Affairs is investigating you. I ask you why and all you can tell me is that it’s standard procedure.”

  She looked at him, really looked at him.

  “What does that mean, Paul? Tell me, please. You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She waited.

  The two of them sat there at the table, her looking at him, Paul looking off into space at something only he could see. She looked into his eyes, eyes that normally looked hazel, but seemed gray now in the late morning sunshine, and she wondered if she was merely looking at the shine off a shallow pool, like the sun reflecting off a grease puddle in the asphalt, or if the gray she saw there was some great and previously unknown and unfathomed depth.

  “Paul?”

  “It’ll be okay,” he said. “They’ll do what they do. It’ll all work out in the end. I want to go to bed. I’m tired.”

  “Okay,” she said. She was too stunned to say anything else.

  “Are you gonna read?”

  “No.”

  She wanted to reach out and shake him, make him talk to her.

  “I told Mary I’d meet her and her daughter for lunch. I figured it’d give you a chance to sleep.”

  He nodded.

  “Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Of course.”

  “I can cancel, Paul. I want to be here with you if you’ll let me. I want to be here with you. You know that, right?”

  He nodded.

  “I just want to get some sleep, Rachel. You go out with Mary. I’ll be fine. Really. Go on.”

  ***

  She showered, dressed, and did her hair and makeup. He listened from his chair in the kitchen as the hair dryer whined over the sound of Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue, and he knew that Rachel was feeling down. She always played that album when she got this way. The last time he heard it was when they were getting ready for the move from their apartment on Chase Hill to this place, Rachel wondering if they could afford it while she searched for a new job. She’d been frustrated and irritable all the time during that move; and now, with her listening to Dylan once again, he felt guilty. He wanted to reach out and touch her, tell her everything, ask her guidance in what to do, but he knew he couldn’t. Some things, they were just too much to talk about.

  When she was all put together, she came into the kitchen, paused when she realized that he hadn’t moved, and said, “If you want the shower now...”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll be back around five. Is that okay? Do you want to sleep longer?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Five’s fine.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Love you, too.”

  She paused, waiting.

  He stayed quiet, looking off again into nothingness.

  “Okay, I’m gonna go.”

  “Okay.”

  She waited again, then finally turned and walked out the door.

  From his seat, Paul could hear her opening the screen door, could hear its springs groaning, then the sound of her gently closing it again as it
settled in the jamb. It occurred to him then that he had never lied to her before. He was breaking new ground.

  ***

  Paul dropped his things on the side table next to his bed, his patrol car keys and his notebooks and nameplate and badge and Barber fifty cent piece. Next he stripped and threw his uniform in the laundry. And it was while he was doing that that he noticed yet another change Rachel had made to the apartment.

  The whole back wall of the apartment was lined by mismatched bookshelves. On the take home pay the two of them made, they couldn’t afford anything fancy, so they’d scavenged garage sales and Goodwill stores until they found enough shelving to create what Paul called their Frankenstein furniture. The shelves were different styles, different textures, different colors, and most of the time they were crammed with Rachel’s beloved paperbacks. But it looked as though she’d taken a small section of books down and stacked them up on the floor next to an old recliner near the foot of the bed. A few of Paul’s boxes were there, like maybe she had been planning to put up some of his stuff on the shelves.

  He went to one of the boxes with the word “House” scribbled on it in black Magic Marker and opened one of the flaps. “House” meant the house he’d grown up in, the old family goat ranch out in the Hill Country, and the items inside were mainly documents related to the sale of the house and the acreage that surrounded it.

  He had packed this box during the summer prior to the start of his freshman year at The University of Texas at San Antonio, gone through it again during tax time, and then packed it away, not ever planning on coming back to it. But here he was, looking into the box again. And this time, he saw something he hadn’t anticipated, for there was a blue pocket folder perched right on top. It wasn’t labeled, but it didn’t have to be. He could see the corner of an aging photograph sticking out of the top of the folder, and he knew what was inside.

  He took the folder out, crossed to the bed, and sat down on it, the folder in his lap. Without opening it he knew he was about to see ghosts from his past, those of his mother and his father, yes, of course those, but also of the land they lived on, the land that had been so much a part of who he was—the land that continued to live inside him, no matter the distance that he put between himself and that place and those people.