Part Three
Bad Things
Thirty Eight
The drive back from Anchor Bay State Prison was cold. Colder than it should have been. The rental’s heater had died just outside the parking lot.
Dooley stared vapidly past the wipers that beat back and forth in a rhythm that grew increasingly annoying with each and every mile rolling off the odometer. He dreamed of summer. Summer in a warm place, a place where bronzing one’s self on a beach was possible.
Mostly, though, he dreamed of Mary. He had dreamed of her last night after waking from a nightmare about having Michael Prentiss biting his fingers off. Maybe the guilty sought revenge in the dreams of their convictors.
Dooley reminded himself that he was not a convictor. He was a catcher.
The Kiddie Catcher.
The dream after the nightmare had not been violent, but it had been strange. It was he and Mary naked in an airplane restroom, joining the mile-high club with a vengeance.
He woke with a hard-on to rival any he’d been cursed with in junior high. Those were awful, especially in the morning. His mom opening the door to wake him and he’d flip hard over to one side, nearly snapping the damn thing off in an attempt to hide it.
Once his mother actually saw the thin bulge in the sheet before he could wake and roll away. She heard him wince, and had joked him about his ‘kick stand’ until eleventh grade.
Thinking back to the dream, he wondered why that place, that scenario. What was that, and where had it come from? He was not a present member of the mile-high club. The closest he’d come to that was copping a feel from Karen when they were flying down to Cabo one summer.
There they had made love on the beach. Two policemen watched, Karen later told him. She had watched them watching and had climaxed like never before, or after. He just wasn’t into voyeurism. He thought it like watching a crime and doing nothing about it. Either get involved or look away.
So what was the damned airplane? A combination of the flight with Karen and the night with Mary? Or just a faint remembrance of some bad porno flick?
To hell with it, he thought, and turned on his street. He pulled into the driveway as the light was fading. The wipers went off as the engine died, the rain sheeting over the windshield blurring the garage door.
A dark, erect something on the porch stepped in front of his car. He turned the key back one click and the wipers threw the watery film clear.
Mary stood there, a peaked hood dividing the rain to each shoulder. Her face was almost lost in the deep shadows of the hood.
Dooley got out of the rental and met her beyond the hood. “Hi.”
She was facing the car, not him, but her eyes moved to meet his. “Michael Prentiss could no more kill Bryce than you could.”
“Maybe I could kill Bryce,” Dooley countered. “You know me biblically, Mary. You don’t know who I am, or what I am. Or what I’m capable off. Just like you don’t know those kids as well as you think.”
“Bryce was his best friend,” Mary said.
“Jimmy Vincent shoved a broom handle up the ass of his next door neighbor’s little boy and hammered it into his brain. People kill people they know all the time. People they love.”
“He wouldn’t do it.”
Dooley stepped close to her. He wanted to pierce the shadow and make her see the light. “Mary, listen to me. Michael Prentiss was the only one of the kids to fight back against Guy Edmond. Wednesday the eighteenth of October they got into it again, only this time Mr. Baseball has a bat and uses it. His friends see it and they all get into the cover-up. Then you ask them about it on my behalf, and let them know where I’ll be the next night, and mechanic Jack Prentiss’ little boy does a job on my brakes. Now his friends are really in on the deal. Then Friday, Bryce is seen talking to Michael in the cafeteria at lunch. Neither of them look happy. The food service people remember Bryce looking scared. Bryce leaves. That night he’s strangled in his bedroom. Michael’s prints are all over the place. The Hool’s say that a couple times in the past they’ve caught Michael in there with Bryce after their son’s bed time. He had come in the window then, too.”
Dooley pulled back and took a breath. Rain streamed down his face and soaked his hair. He’d left his hat in the car.
“No,” Mary said clearly, slowly.
Dooley put the tip of his finger to the center of her chest. “The heart is a muscle, Mary. That’s it.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then followed the walkway down to the sidewalk and crossed the street to her car.
Dooley watched her drive away fast. Did she hate him, or did she hate herself for not hating him? He thought on that until her tail lights were lost in the rain.
* * *
They met in the rain in Bigfoot Woods, under the nose of Old Woman Rock where Henry Cullison had supposedly seen the elusive Sasquatch in 1970.
Bryce’s house was just down the hill, a ten minute walk at most.
Joey had brought a flashlight, as had Jeff. PJ huddled against the big rock and pushed the beam in Jeff’s hand away when he shined it in her face.
“Watch it.”
“Sorry,” Jeff said. “Man, I can’t be out here long. If my cast gets wet my mom will kill me.”
“We’ve got to talk about this,” Joey told his friends. He felt strange talking to only two of them. Bryce should be with them, but he was gone. Mike should be there, but he was in jail. And Elena. Her parents kept her so close that they’d hardly been able to get a word with her.
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” PJ said, the rain that had collected in her hair on the hike in now trickling over her face, mingling with the warm, salty tears. “I can’t believe Bryce is gone.”
“Believe it,” Jeff said, pulling his cast and sling close, his words intentionally cold. His defenses were kicking in, summoning adult coarseness to protect a very scared little boy who had just lost someone inexorably tied to him. A friend, despite their recent confrontation.
“Mike wouldn’t do that to Bryce,” PJ said doubtfully. “Would he?”
“Bryce was his best friend,” Joey answered, harsh because of her doubt. “No way.”
“Then what happened?” Jeff asked.
Joey looked into the black woods as lightning flashed and thunder cracked. PJ shuddered and pressed her hands to her ears.
“That was close,” Jeff commented, shining his light into the trees.
“Point that down,” Joey ordered him. “Someone could see.”
“So what happened then?” Jeff repeated his inquiry.
“I don’t know,” Joey answered. He looked wanly back to Jeff and PJ. That was all there was, now. Without Elena it was just them. And with her, or without her, he knew that they would have to stick together now more than ever. He knew that, but seeing it be that way was all but impossible now. All he could think of, all any of them could really think of, was Bryce. Their friend. Dead. “We’ve got to try...to...”
He looked away, his own tears now adding to the rain streaking down his face. All because of Guy, he thought. This was all because of him. He was dead and buried and still they couldn’t get away from the hurt he’d brought them.
Joey cast his desperate gaze at the puddling, muddy earth, and said, “We’ve got to try and stick together.”
PJ nodded to herself, and so did Jeff.
Joey looked back down the hill toward Bryce’s house, then up to the sky, rain peppering his cheeks. Lightning flashed again and made his face as white as bleached bone.
“We’ve got to stick together,” he said again, this time to the sky. Thunder rocketed through the woods.
When Joey looked back, PJ was running for home.
Thirty Nine
He just stood there, staring at the one-legged guardians of his most terrible secret.
When the breeze picked up their branches waved, beckoning him in.
Joey walked slowly across the street and stopped very close to Galloway’s orchard. He l
istened to the chatter of the last few leaves not beaten to powder skitter and scrape across the ground.
Some motion high in one of the pear trees caught his eye. A single leaf, dry and brown, fluttered in the wind on a fragile stem. It waved back and forth and succumbed to the elements, tumbling through the desiccated branches to the dirty floor.
A gust picked it up and sucked it deep into the orchard.
A kid in fourth grade had told Joey once that there was no person named Galloway. That it really used to be Gallow Way. The path to the gallows where prisoners at the old penitentiary were executed.
There were six thousand four hundred trees in the orchard. Ten for every prisoner executed over the years. That was the story Joey had heard.
Gallow Way. Where the guilty traveled to meet their fate.
Joey looked over his shoulder at the morning sun. It was hot and yellow, a shimmering half lemon resting on the Coogan’s roof.
He turned back to the orchard and waded in between the trees, the wind rising at his back. Hate drove him. Thoughts that had burned the night before in the rain in Bigfoot Woods drove him. Bryce dead drove him. Some impossible dream of vengeance drove him. Drove him deeper and deeper into the orchard.
Leaves trailed him, jumping at his heels. The pear trees leaned noisily away from the blow, laughing at the trespasser.
* * *
PJ puffed air purposely as she walked, watching her misty breaths wash away in the breeze. She swatted at a twig that poked out at her and continued on through the orchard.
The buttons on her coat pockets wobbled with each step. There were three. The day before there had been four.
As she got deeper into the orchard her eyes searched the path for the lost button. She could find thread and a needle at home. Buttons, too. But none that would match. And the one thing more noticeable than a missing button was one mismatched.
She scanned the uneven floor of Galloway’s Orchard, her blank and bloodshot eyes making the attempt, but she likely would have walked right past the button if it were as big as a garbage can lid. More important matters held sway over her thoughts this Monday morning. Thoughts still of the friend she would see no more.
Near the halfway point through the orchard she heard something ahead. Small and indefinable, maybe a particularly old and surly tree weakened by constant wind and sounding its death throes before this stiff but gentle breeze toppled it. Or maybe one of the mangy mutts that roamed the orchard had winged a bird or maimed a squirrel and that tiny, dying creature was spitting out its last cries of life. It could be either, or neither. But it was something. Just up ahead now. PJ slowed and looked that way.
As she neared, she figured first that it was no wounded animal, then that no dried and dying old pear tree could utter what she was hearing. No, there was a person out there making the sound, a sound that became clearer, a sound that became words, a diatribe made soft by the distance.
“Damn you! Damn you! I hope you’re in hell! Bastard! God damn bastard, asshole!”
The voice, angry, almost desperate, was one she knew. She began to run toward it. The hateful cries were getting louder.
“I’m glad you’re dead! I hope it’s hot in hell! I hope you’re burning!”
PJ ran, ran fast, her hair trailing, and continued to run toward the sound. Toward her friend. Toward...
When she saw him, a dozen yards ahead in the path between the trees, PJ stopped fast, her feet digging into the earth.
“God damn fucking shithead asshole bastard! Take that!” Thud. “And that!” Thud. “You like that?!” Thud. Thud. “Huh?!” Thud. “How’s it feel?!”
He didn’t see her, and PJ made no attempt to change that. She simply stood there, scared, and watched Joey slam his fists into the ground, again and again.
* * *
Mid-morning on a very somber Monday, Mary gave the class a worksheet on the nations of South America and asked the council to come to her desk. Where there should have been five, there were three. That was partly the reason for this conference.
“This is a difficult day to have to do this,” she began. Joey, PJ, and Jeff agreed with somber, inquisitive eyes. “With the conference at Camp One Wing starting this Friday, the class needs to have four officers on the council in attendance. Without four officers, our class won’t be able to attend.”
Joey straightened a bit, understanding.
“I don’t feel it is right to replace Michael as sergeant at arms. Despite what...happened...he is innocent until proven guilty.”
“He wouldn’t do it,” Joey said, speaking authoritatively, unlike he ever had when addressing Miss Austin before.
PJ nudged him with an elbow.
“Joey, I know Michael would not do that,” Mary assured him. “I know that.”
“I’m sorry,” Joey said.
“He’s just tired,” PJ said in her friend’s defense.
“I understand.” Mary took a pencil in hand and rolled it continuously as she spoke. “What I am suggesting is that we need to have a replacement for the position of treasurer.” It would not have sounded right to suggest a ‘replacement’ for Bryce. “In situations where an officer’s position must be filled prior to an election, it is acceptable for the council to select a replacement.”
“You mean, we choose?” Joey asked.
“Yes. I do have something to suggest, though. Someone to consider for the position.”
“Who?” Jeff asked.
“Elena Markworth,” Mary answered. The idea had come to her that morning. Out of the blue, as if a little voice had planted the seed in her brain. But there had been no little voice. No big, angry voice. No quickspeaking voice. There hadn’t been any voices in days. “Elena is very good with math, which is important for a treasurer. She’s very trustworthy. I believe she would be a good choice.”
PJ glanced back at Elena, her pencil attacking the worksheet.
“I’d need to talk to Elena’s parents first,” Mary informed them. “If you’d like me to, I will.”
PJ and Joey looked to each other, both shrugging facially.
“It’s okay with me,” Jeff said. Actually it was more than okay. It was great. But excitement seemed grossly out of place right then, like clapping at a funeral.
“Me, too,” PJ concurred.
“Joey?” Jeff checked.
“Sure,” the class president approved.
Mary nodded. “All right. I’ll talk to her parents this evening, and if everything is all right with them then you can inform Elena when class starts tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Joey said.
“All right. You have worksheets to do.”
Joey and PJ and Jeff waded back to their desks, quite sad still on the outside but relief coming now inside. Bryce was gone, but Elena might now be a lot closer than she had been. It wasn’t worth what had happened to Bryce. At least Joey and PJ didn’t think so.
Jeff was another story.
* * *
Half of Dooley’s butt was on the table, one leg dangling, the other on the floor. “Mike, what happened with the bat?”
Michael’s attorney held his hand up, preventing any answer.
Dooley shot a sneer at the lawyer. “You’ve done that little hand thing like a hundred times now. Are there any questions you will let him answer?”
“His name,” the attorney replied.
Michael rolled his eyes up at Dooley. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Michael...” The attorney leaned close and whispered something to his young client, then returned his attention to Dooley. “He’s done answering questions.”
“Wait a minute,” Dooley said with irritation. He bent over and stuck his face close to Michael’s. “What’s your name.”
“Michael Prentiss,” he said, nearly spitting, on the verge of tears.
Dooley stood now and smiled at the lawyer. “There. I didn’t want to leave empty handed.”
He grabbed his coat from a hook on the door and went into the ha
ll. Joel was coming his way.
“He’s going home,” Joel said.
“What?” Dooley hissed.
Joel showed Dooley the court order. “Into the custody of his parents until physical evidence beyond the fingerprints is developed.”
“That’s bullshit,” Dooley complained.
“He was Bryce’s friend, he snuck in there before. There are reasons for his prints to be there.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I’m not the one his lawyer had to convince,” Joel responded.
Dooley stalked back and forth. “The fucking snow you had— when was it? —two weeks ago Friday would have iced any prints off the outer sill. Those had to be made after then.”
“The prints from the outer sill were inconclusive,” Joel reminded Dooley. “Too much distortion from the moisture.”
“So what? Are you saying we’ve got nothing?”
Joel shook his head and moved the paper behind the court order to the front. “The coroner’s report on the instrument of murder. He was strangled with a wire that had a twisted outer wrap.”
“A twisted outer what?”
“Wrap. Like a cable.” Joel’s brow raised suggestively. “Like a throttle cable from a car. Or a clutch cable.”
Dooley’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know, Joel?”
“I know that I have people going out to Jet Motors right now. Maybe it’ll be a short stint of freedom for him...”
Dooley stabbed a finger at Joel’s nose. “Make it that way.”
“You really want this,” Joel observed.
“The doggy wants his biscuit,” Dooley confirmed.
Joel had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
Forty
It was cool and crisp, and the wind gusted in spurts so unpredictable that Elena twice had to hold the front of her skirt down, but they had nonetheless opted to eat lunch together where they could talk privately. The new class council together for the first time.
They chose a bench by the number 4 backstop, a wiry sort of half clamshell that was still twisted askew at the top from the time the old tree next to it shed a large limb in a wind storm. That damaged tree still stood, defiant less its biggest member.
All For One Page 34
