by Ron Rash
“Okay,” Bill sighs. He pushes himself deeper in the chair and settles his hands on the armrest. “That afternoon when I went to the bank for the money, it almost emptied my account. Mr. Ashbrook didn’t say anything to me but while his teller was getting the money from the vault, he called Grandfather, who told him not to give me a penny, so Ashbrook didn’t. When I went outside, Nebo was waiting for me. He took me straight to the old man. Patients were there, but Grandfather took me to his office and shut the door. I made something up about moving my account to Wake Forest but he could tell I was lying. Then I said it was my money and I could do what I wanted to with it. You know how that went over. I finally told him the truth and of course he knew the scuttlebutt on Ligeia, and not just from her uncle. You know how Grandfather was. He knew about everything and everyone in town. He asked if Ligeia’s uncle and aunt knew and I told him no, that she had promised not to tell anyone and I believed her. Then he came around the table and slapped me in the face, hard, and sat back down. For a while he just glared at me. Then he said hadn’t I the sense to wear a condom and I told him I had, every time. Grandfather asked how I knew she was really pregnant, and I said she had gone to the clinic in Asheville. Then he told me he’d be the one paying Ligeia, and with his own money. The money in the bank was still mine but I’d better spend it wisely, he said, because I’d never get a penny more from him. Taking care of this mess was my inheritance,” he said.
Bill pauses. An ambulance approaches the hospital, getting steadily louder. A wash of red light crosses Bill’s window and then the siren shuts off. Bill closes his eyes a moment. The furrows in my brother’s forehead deepen, as if the light and siren have triggered a migraine.
“Go on,” I say.
“The next morning Grandfather told me to go out to Panther Creek first and park the truck where he’d see it. When he showed up, Nebo was with him. Maybe I should have realized something then, but you know he sometimes drove the old man places. When Ligeia asked for the money, Grandfather told her he’d called the women’s clinic and said he was sending over a medical chart for Ligeia Mosely, but they told him they had no patient with that name. Ligeia claimed she’d used a fake name but Nebo grabbed her arms and jerked them behind her. Grandfather pulled up her T-shirt and prodded her stomach, then pushed his hand under her jeans and felt there too. He told me that I’d fallen for the oldest trick a bitch had.” Bill’s voice softens. “Maybe that would have been the end of it, but Ligeia said that even if she wasn’t pregnant, she’d sold drugs his own grandson took from his office. If he didn’t give her the money, she’d go to an SBI agent who’d been hassling her and her friends. She said she had empty sample packets to prove it. Grandfather looked at me and knew it was true. If Ligeia hadn’t said that. If she just hadn’t . . .”
“Nebo killed her?”
“Yes.”
“While you just stood there and let it happen?”
“No. Grandfather sent me to get the money. He said it was in the Cadillac’s front seat, but there was no money. I turned just as Nebo’s right hand came around and brushed across her neck. It was so fast, like he was wiping off a bit of dirt. Then Nebo grabbed her by the hair and jerked her neck back and I saw the razor.”
“Ligeia died right in front of you?”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing?”
“She’d fallen, so I kneeled beside her,” Bill says. “I pressed my palm on her throat, trying to stanch the bleeding as I screamed at Grandfather to help me. I could stop it for a few moments, but there was so much blood. My hand, it kept slipping . . .”
Bill presses a palm over his eyes, leans forward so his elbow settles on the table.
“Then you and Nebo buried her and you all left?”
“Close enough to that.”
“I don’t want close enough, Bill.”
“Nebo drove back to town to get two shovels.”
“Grandfather didn’t leave with Nebo?”
“No,” Bill says, and looks up. “Nebo came back and wrapped her in a piece of tarp. We dug the grave and filled it, then covered the ground with leaves.”
“You stripped off her clothes and her beads.”
My brother nods.
“What did you do with them?”
“Nebo put them and the suitcase in the Cadillac’s trunk.”
“What did Nebo do with them?”
“Hell, I don’t know, Eugene. All I know is that he put them in the trunk.”
For a few moments, all is quiet. No words, no sirens in the distance, then a deeper quiet as the air-conditioning unit switches off. Silence can be a place. Those words come to me now. And it is where so much of my life has been lived, meaningless hours passed with the loudest sound the clink of ice cubes in a glass.
“Grandfather, he was a monster, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” my brother answers. “He was.”
“And you let him be one. You could have turned him in.”
“When Nebo left to get the shovels, I told Grandfather I was going to the law, not Sheriff Lunsford but the sheriff in Asheville. He answered that it wouldn’t matter because Nebo would take all the blame. He said Nebo couldn’t speak but he could damn well nod his head and that was enough.”
Please let me be dreaming this, I think, or hallucinating in a hospital detox ward. Another splash of red washes over the window, mute at first, then wailing as it leaves the hospital and heads downtown.
“You still could have told what really happened.”
“Grandfather told me something else,” Bill says. “He said he’d cut off every bit of money to Mom and you. He’d kick you out of the house.”
And it’s only now that I realize.
“You didn’t tell him, did you?”
“Tell him what?”
“That I stole the drugs,” I answer. “You didn’t even tell him I’d ever been with Ligeia.”
Bill shakes his head.
Why? I could ask, but I know the answer.
“How could Grandfather be so certain Ligeia wasn’t pregnant?” I ask instead. “It was so early, and she could have used a fake name for the test.”
“She wasn’t pregnant,” Bill says. “I’m positive about that.”
I hesitate, then speak.
“There’s something I never told you. One time I didn’t use a condom. It could have happened then.”
“I am telling you she was not pregnant,” Bill says harshly, each word more emphatic than the last. “What’s wrong with you, Eugene? Why are you wanting it to be worse than it already is? Isn’t it terrible enough for you? You’ve read what the news said. She was desperate, she owed people money, dangerous people, and she’d have claimed or said anything to get it.”
“No more dangerous than Nebo,” I answer. “But even Nebo, how could he do that? He’d probably never even seen her before.”
“Did you ever know him not to do what Grandfather asked?” Bill answers. “Can you remember anyone who didn’t do what that bastard demanded?”
“You,” I say, “when you married Leslie.”
“What else could he do to me, Eugene? He’d already cut me out of his will. The last time I ever saw him, that Christmas when I told him to his face we were getting married, I lied to him. I said if he cut off your and Mom’s money that Leslie’s parents had money, a lot of money, and that they’d help Leslie and me but also you and Mom. I told him then everyone in Sylva would see that for all of his big talk about ‘responsibility,’ strangers had to take care of his own son’s widow and child. That was the only lie I ever got past him. Over the years, I’ve thought about why he believed me. I think it was because he didn’t care if people knew he was a murderer or a sadist or a blackmailer, but being viewed as irresponsible, that was the one thing he couldn’t bear.
“I guess so,” I reply. “But him not supporting Mom and me, kicking us out of the house, I’m not sure he’d have done that. He liked controlling us too much.”
“We’ll ne
ver know though, will we?” Bill says. “We’ll never know about a lot of things. I mean, I can tell myself that I didn’t go to the law because I was protecting you and Mom, but telling myself that is all I can do. I’ll never really know. I had so much to lose, including med school, but most of all Leslie.”
“Leslie may have stuck by you,” I answer. “At the trial, I’d have said I was the one who stole the drugs.”
“I stole them the first time, and even if Leslie did stand by me, how could I let her?” Bill says. “She’d know I’d been involved with Ligeia. She’d know I was there when she was murdered, and if Nebo nodded yes to anything Grandfather asked, wouldn’t that include my being the one who’d killed her, or ordered Nebo to? It would be two testifying against one. And I did kill her. She wouldn’t have died unless I’d caused her to be there that morning.”
“I caused her to be there too,” I say.
I look down at my hand and see a slight tremor. I haven’t thought of a drink in hours but my body knows.
“Nebo’s surely dead, and Grandfather’s dead, and so are Ligeia’s parents,” Bill says, “and her sister and her aunt and uncle.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because five years ago I checked.”
Bill’s desk phone rings. He reads the number but doesn’t pick up.
“That’s Leslie, wondering where I am,” he says, and looks at me wearily. “I want to settle this once and for all and go home, Eugene.”
“So Ligeia is murdered and no one’s ever punished. It’s all simply forgotten, again.”
“Forgotten?” Bill says. “Every night when I’d cut off the light to sleep, I would think about her being out there in those woods. Every night. Every day.”
Bill looks at me, seemingly about to tear up. I turn and nod at the Rembrandt print behind me.
“Grandfather willed you that because of what happened to her, didn’t he?”
“Yes, and I’m glad he did. It needs to be there.”
The phone rings again but Bill ignores it.
“What if Loudermilk or the SBI or forensics link us to what happened?”
“They won’t,” Bill says.
“She could have told another friend, or a relative?”
“She didn’t,” Bill answers and places a hand on his desk phone. “I need to let Leslie know I’ll be home in a few minutes.”
“You’ve lied to me twice about what happened,” I say. “How do I know you’re not lying now?”
“You don’t,” my brother responds, “but Carl Bassinger wasn’t lying. This will all blow over in a few days. Except for you and me, it will be forgotten.”
“And we do what?”
“We go on with our lives,” Bill answers. “We live with it.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You will,” my brother tells me. “Pour yourself a couple of drinks. If that doesn’t help, consider the good that will come because you do live with it. Think what you want about me, think the very worst—that I want your silence solely because I don’t want my life ruined. But think about what Bassinger said too.”
“You still should have told me when it happened,” I answer. “I’ll never think otherwise.”
Bill stares at me. When he speaks, the old familiar certainty is present in his voice.
“If I could have known how your life would turn out, Eugene, there would have been some mercy in having told you—it would have given you an excuse for the drinking and for everything else you’ve done to others and to yourself. But you didn’t even have an excuse. You fucked up your life all on your own.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I stop at the ABC store, getting inside just before the clerk hangs the CLOSED sign on the door. I pick out a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, hand him the remaining cash Bill gave me, and pocket the change. I ache to fill the empty paper cup in the holder. To see the whiskey’s amber glow is to be out in the cold looking through glass at a warm fire.
But I don’t crack the seal until I’m home. As I sit down and take my first sip, my almost-memory of my father comes, the sensation of being lifted and rising above the faces of my mother and brother. To wave good night to the moon, Bill had told me. I don’t remember my father saying that, or his face, or the moon, only the sensation of being carried, the weightlessness while moving from light into dark, adrift and unafraid. No excuse, Bill claimed, and he’s right, but if our father had lived . . .
I’ve just poured my second drink when there’s a knock at the door.
“I’ve been calling your phone for the last two hours,” Loudermilk says as he steps past me.
“I went to—”
Then I stop myself.
“You went where?” Loudermilk asks.
“Nowhere,” I stammer. “Just out.”
“Just out? Not to anywhere, just out?”
“Yes.”
“You make a habit of acting skittish as hell every time I show up, Matney. I find that vexing.”
Loudermilk walks over to the couch and sits down. He takes off his glasses and tugs his shirttail out enough to wipe the lenses, as if to say, Yes, I’ve got all evening.
“I checked out two of the guys Angie Wellbeck said Ligeia had drug dealings with, David Peeler and Tim Dickson. Did you know them in high school?”
“I knew who they were.”
“Peeler claims that the last time he saw Ligeia she wanted to get away from here quick because she owed someone money. She didn’t tell Peeler who, but she was real scared of what they might do to her. So what I want answered is whether Ligeia Mosely did or didn’t get you the drugs you gave her money for?”
“I didn’t give her any money.”
“So Angie Wellbeck is lying about that?”
“Yes.”
“No, she’s not,” Loudermilk says. “Angie told me to talk to Dawn Pinson. She saw you give Ligeia the money too.”
“She’s wrong as well, Sheriff.”
Loudermilk’s face reddens but his voice doesn’t rise.
“Look, Matney,” he says. “Can’t you just admit you bought the drugs and tell me about the other people that girl knew? Like I said, I can’t do a damn thing about you buying or selling drugs forty-six years ago. You did it and got away with it, just like you’ve gotten away with everything else in your worthless life. Do I need the Supreme Court to come and explain the statute of limitations to you? Are you that alcohol addled? All I care about is that the girl sold drugs and that’s probably why she’s dead. You damn well know something you’re not telling me. She was involved with some serious dealers in Daytona Beach. One may have come up here, and if you know anything about him—description, name, nickname—give it to me.” Loudermilk pauses. “Is it that you’re afraid of who did it, that after forty-six years they’re going to come after you and cut your throat? Are you that much of a coward on top of everything else?”
Loudermilk raises a forefinger and presses his glasses closer to the bridge of his nose. The finger slides slowly up on his brow, stops there briefly, as if probing for a thought. He leans back deeper into the couch and sighs.
“I knew her aunt and uncle, and they were fine people. I even went out with Tanya for a while when we were in high school. Ligeia was no saint, but she didn’t deserve what happened to her, and I know that girl’s disappearance caused her uncle and aunt a lot of guilt and pain. I know that for a fact, because I talked to Tanya yesterday. She said it tore her parents up, especially her dad, because his younger brother trusted him to take care of her. It was a responsibility. So here’s the thing, Matney. Can’t you do one responsible thing in your whole miserable life? Look, whoever killed that girl has gotten away with it all this time. They may be dead now, probably are, but at least we can show that Ligeia Mosely mattered enough to try and find out who cut her throat and left her out there to rot. Don’t we owe her that?”
Loudermilk’s shoulder mic crackles and a voice asks if everything is all right.
“Yes, everythin
g’s fine. I’ll be out there in a bit,” Loudermilk says, leaning toward the mic, before turning back to me. “So tell me, Matney. Don’t we owe her that?”
“I’ve told you what I know,” I answer. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Would you be willing to take a polygraph test? Peeler and Dickson said they would.”
“I don’t think—”
But Loudermilk suddenly is not listening to me.
“Is this about protecting someone you know, someone still alive?” Loudermilk says, each word sounding less like a question and more like an accusation. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Before I admit anything,” I answer, “I want to finish my drink.”
“How many have you already had?”
“One. If I finish this one I’ll still be sober.”
“Finish it,” he says.
I go to the table and lift the glass, slowly swallow, and set the glass down. I cross the room and sit in the chair across from Loudermilk.
“Wait,” he says, and takes a card from his billfold. He reads me my rights and asks me if I understand.
“I understand.”
“Go ahead.”
“I killed Ligeia Mosely.”
When Loudermilk speaks, it’s ever so soft and slow, as if he might startle me into silence.
“You killed her? Ligeia Mosely, you killed Ligeia Mosely?”
“Yes,” I answer. “If you want me to sign a confession I’m ready to do it. We can go now.”
I set my hands on the chair’s arms but Loudermilk nods at the Jack Daniel’s bottle.
“Two drinks, that’s all?”
“Yes.”
“I will give you a Breathalyzer test as soon as we’re at the station,” he says. “I’m making sure your brother and his hotshot lawyer can’t get you out of this.”
“Go ahead, Sheriff. I’ll pass this one.”
“Okay,” Loudermilk says, “and I’ll dot every i this time. We’re doing it at the station, and I’ll have witnesses.”
But Loudermilk doesn’t stand. He is studying me, perhaps searching for signs of drunkenness or insanity, or relief.
