Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  “You got your daddy’s hair,” she said, smiling, “and his eyes, too. Thank the Lord, he took those ears of his to the grave.” They both laughed.

  “Your daddy and I got married just out of high school. Seems like most everybody did back then—that was June of ’63. Just a year later his number came up, and he was off to Vietnam. I was worried sick, but he said not to go on about it. They was gonna make short work of it; they was gonna march right up the Ho Chi Minh Trail to China, and he’d be back before I even knew he was gone.” She stared vacantly into the darkness as she spoke. “I knew he was gone all right. I was worried sick for three years.”

  “Andy says we got them outgunned and outmanned and outsmarted. We got the whole United Nations on our side! Andy says it’s not like Vietnam.”

  Her mother smiled and studied her eyes. “Andy says this and Andy says that! How come it’s never ‘Jimmy says’ or ‘Peter says’ anymore?”

  Kathryn grinned and bent forward, flipping her hair up over her head, then straightened again and tossed it back. Her mother leaned forward and kissed her forehead, then stiffly rose, creaking and groaning like the weathered floorboards beneath her feet. She paused at the door and gave the porch light another thump.

  On, then off and on, then off again.

  “You be smart,” her mother said from the darkness. “Most girls don’t get to choose.”

  Kathryn sat rocking in the quiet blackness, pondering her mother’s words, when she heard a sharp crack from the woods in front of the house. She stared hard into the darkness, and a moment later a lone figure emerged into the clearing and headed straight for the porch.

  “Who’s that?” Kathryn called out.

  “Who you think?” the figure replied. “Who you expecting?”

  “Jimmy!” She bounced down the front porch steps to meet him. “Where you been so long?” she scolded. “I was about to die of loneliness here!”

  “Like I believe that,” he said, laughing. He slid his arm around her waist, but she pulled away and ran to the porch swing, beckoning him to join her.

  “What’s goin’ on?” she asked eagerly. “I hardly seen any of you.”

  “Miss me?”

  “I miss all of you. Now tell me—what’s the word at the Fort?”

  “It’s gonna happen, Kath,” he said solemnly. “Word is we’re goin’ in. Nobody knows for sure, but everybody thinks so.”

  “When?”

  “A month. Maybe less.”

  She sat in stunned silence. “All of you?”

  The yellow porch light fizzled and switched on again, and for the first time Kathryn could see clearly into Jimmy’s face and eyes. There was something there that she hadn’t seen before—something her mother had tried to warn her about, something she had denied, something she secretly dreaded and hoped would never come. But it had come. It was here. Jimmy picked up her hand and held it tightly.

  “I’ve known you for a long time, Kath …”

  The words made her heart feel suddenly sick, and she longed to pull away and run into the house, to keep the words from ever being spoken. But she knew that if Jimmy could summon the courage to speak them, then she owed it to him to listen. She steeled her eyes against the flood of emotions she felt within and waited for the words that would most certainly follow.

  “We been friends for a long time. We been more than friends. I been more, that is,” he stammered. But there were too many thoughts and too few words, and he jumped up in frustration and slammed the porch post hard with the butt of his hand. The porch light sizzled and went out.

  He stood silently in the darkness, then suddenly spun around. “You remember that day we drove way over to Asheville? You was maybe sixteen, no more.”

  “I remember.”

  “The day went long, the traffic was bad, we got on the road real late.”

  “And it was pouring rain. A hurricane, I think. We couldn’t see a thing.”

  “So we pulled under an overpass just outside Greensboro to wait it out.”

  “And we fell asleep!” She laughed. “We didn’t get home till the next morning! Did I ever catch it from Momma,” she whistled. “Who knows what she must have thought—what everybody thought!”

  Jimmy sat down beside her again. “You fell asleep. You put your head back against my shoulder, and you fell asleep. But I watched. I watched you all night long.”

  They sat in silence.

  “I don’t know what everybody else thought,” he said with gathering momentum, “but I’ll tell you what I thought.”

  “Jimmy … wait—”

  “I thought it was the best night of my whole life. I thought that for the first time I was that close to what I wanted. And I knew I wanted a whole lifetime of nights like that.”

  He took her hand again. It was strangely limp.

  “I got to go. But I don’t want to leave without telling you … I want to … I want to ask you to …”

  The porch light suddenly switched on again and in one terrible instant Jimmy saw what was in Kathryn’s eyes—he saw everything: fear, remorse, compassion, pity—and the unmistakable answer to his unvoiced question. He saw it all, and there could be no more mistake than if it were painted on the side of a barn.

  He dropped her hand.

  “I want to ask you to write to me,” he said softly. “I’d kick myself if I left without reminding you.”

  Kathryn closed her eyes, knowing that they had surely betrayed her. She prayed for the light to go out again so that she could hide, so that they could both pretend that the words had never been spoken and go back to the way they had always been. A thousand explanations and excuses ran through her mind, but she knew that there was absolutely nothing she could say. Her traitorous eyes had said it all, and now things could never be the same again.

  Jimmy slowly rose, his stance less confident than it was just a moment ago.

  “Don’t go,” she pleaded, tugging on his hand.

  “I better.” He pulled away.

  “I will write, because I care about you.” Good words, kind words, but only fossils of the words he’d hoped to hear. They stung him as he turned and headed down the steps toward the woods.

  “Jimmy!” she called after him in tears, “you be careful! I’ll write to you, and you write back, okay? Jimmy!”

  The light sputtered out.

  Kathryn saw herself back on the porch swing, her legs folded and her face in her hands, crying gently in the darkness. Now she understood her mother’s words: Most girls don’t get to choose. Most girls are lucky, she thought. She didn’t want to choose. She only wanted to say yes, but never, ever no. She wanted to be chosen and never have to shatter the hopes of someone who was so close … but not quite close enough.

  A moment later Kathryn heard another sound from the woods. Why was he coming back, and what in the world would he say this time? But another silhouette emerged into the clearing with a different manner and a longer gait.

  “Who’s there?” Kathryn called, but there was no response. “Call out, or I’ll set loose the dog!”

  “Turn that old cur loose,” came the reply. “I haven’t had a good laugh all day.”

  Andy!

  Kathryn bounded down the steps and met him halfway, throwing her arms around his neck and almost knocking him over.

  “I have been away too long.” He laughed, pulling back and looking into her emerald eyes.

  “Oh, Andy, it’s been the worst evening! But I don’t want to talk about it—come sit with me.” She took him by the hand and led him to the porch swing.

  As they passed the porch light, he reached out and gave it a thump. The amber light cast deep shadows across his chiseled face and made his bottomless brown eyes black as the night. Kathryn watched the shadows cut deep rivulets through his wavy bronze hair. His arms were long and muscular, and he was broad-chested. He had the stature and physique of a man, but whenever he faced her he always dropped one shoulder like an awkward boy. His smile was the bes
t of all; when Andy smiled his face lit up like a torch.

  “It’s happenin’, Kath,” he said with excitement. “They say the division’s gonna be called up any time now—I mean the whole 82d Airborne! They say we’re heading for a base in Saudi Arabia.”

  “I know,” she said glumly.

  He looked at her. “Who was that I passed coming back through the woods?”

  Kathryn said nothing.

  “I see.” He smiled. “There’s been another rooster in the henhouse. Well you know what they say”—he nodded toward the flickering porch light—“where there’s light, there’s bugs.”

  “It was just Jimmy.”

  “And what did Private James McAllister want this evening?”

  “Maybe it’s none of your business.”

  “Just wanted to drop by and set a spell with the two old spinsters?”

  “He just wanted to marry me, that’s all. Oh, Andy, it was awful. I love Jimmy—I’ve always loved Jimmy, but—”

  “But not that way.” He finished the sentence for her, and she was glad, because the words sounded so hollow and cheap. “So he asked you to marry him?”

  “Not quite. But he was about to.”

  “What stopped him?”

  “I think he just knew, and he backed off.”

  “No wonder he had his tail between his legs.” Andy whistled.

  “I guess he’ll get over it.”

  “Maybe. I know I wouldn’t.” Andy stepped to the light and gave it a thump. It flicked on. “Guess I can’t blame him. He’s always loved you—ever since we were kids.”

  “I never knew that!”

  “I knew. Pete knew. Even your momma knew. We could all tell.” The light blinked off, and he gave it another tap. “I wonder if they all know about me?”

  Kathryn felt a lump in her throat.

  “I wonder …,” he said, “I just wonder what you’d say if I was to ask you the same question?”

  “What question?”

  “Jimmy’s question. The one he never quite got out.”

  “Well,” Kathryn said indignantly, “you’ll never know unless you ask.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Jimmy knew without asking.” He wiggled his finger. “Come here for a minute.”

  Kathryn sat glaring at him. There was something about his arrogance and overconfidence that infuriated her—but there was something else about it that she couldn’t quite explain. She stamped over to him and stood, arms folded, nose turned upward.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and stared deep into her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” She arched away from him.

  “Looking for my answer—just like Jimmy did.”

  “How do you know what Jimmy did?”

  “Something tipped him off, and I’m betting it was your eyes. You say everything with your eyes. Always have. And they never lie.”

  “So what do you see?”

  He pulled her closer and looked again. “I see yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, you love me. Yes, you always have. And yes, you’ll marry me.”

  “You just might be mistaken,” she scolded.

  “I’m not.” He smiled.

  “What makes you so cocksure?”

  “ ’Cause when I look in your eyes this close I see my eyes—and I know what mine are saying.”

  She looked into his eyes, and he was right. It was all there, and there could be no mistake about it.

  He pulled her in tight and they kissed, long and deep.

  She slowly opened her eyes again—and Andy’s face began to somehow change. It grew longer and more angular. Not less handsome, just … different. She had never noticed it before, but he wore glasses. They began as tiny round spectacles like an elf might wear, but as she watched they began to grow to an enormous size, and Andy’s beautiful brown eyes began to soften and fade until they floated away like two gray orbs—then they disappeared completely. Still the spectacles continued to grow; now they were the size of windows. In place of the eyes a pair of tiny black-and-gold spots appeared, then two more, then more, until there were thousands crawling and wriggling and pressing against the glass. She frantically struggled to get away, but the arms still held her fast. At last she broke free, but the spectacled figure only laughed and tipped his glasses downward, and the thousands of angry black spots streaked toward her, swarming over her arms and legs, clinging to her face and neck, filling her eyes and nose and mouth …

  Kathryn shrieked and threw herself from her bed. The lamp from her nightstand crashed to the ground and shattered in a flash of blue light. She stood in the darkness, flailing at the air, trapped inside the black cloud that always hung so near.

  She scraped furiously at her legs and arms—and then stopped, panting, gradually recognizing the familiar walls around her and the fan still spinning overhead.

  She sank slowly to her knees and began to weep in long, hopeless sobs.

  It was just after dawn when Nick came jogging into the parking lot. He wore a gray Penn State sweatshirt torn off at the shoulders and a pair of sagging black running shorts that hung to his knees. He sported a spotless pair of Nike’s, the nicest article of clothing he owned. He stopped beside the Dodge and pulled off his cap—the Steelers this time—and tossed it through the back window.

  Parked beside the Dodge was a trim black sedan. Nick checked the license plate; in the upper left corner it bore a Holcum County sticker, and below the cherry red “First in Flight” insignia were stamped the words, PAX DEI. Nick headed for the lab.

  As he approached the office, Nick could see a figure seated inside. He was a black man, ancient in years and as thin and brittle as a reed. His head was large and seemed to dominate his body, and his magnificent brow overshadowed his sloe-black eyes like a mahogany cornice. He was dressed immaculately in a blue-black suit and a silver tie. Oversized hands projected from slender wrists and rested gently on either side of a large, open book. There was a profound calmness about him; his hands moved slowly and deliberately, with the beautiful economy of motion that comes only with age.

  Nick rapped on the office door and stepped inside. The old man looked up and smiled. “I do hope you’ll forgive the intrusion. The door was unlocked, and it was a bit muggy outside.”

  “No problem,” Nick said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Dr. Malcom Jameson.” He extended his hand. “Pastor of Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church.”

  “Nick Polchak, NC State University.” Nick returned the handshake and glanced down at the massive tome that lay open before him. The text was entirely in Latin. It was Jerome’s Vulgate, opened to the Gospel of Matthew.

  “Adtendite a falsis prophetis qui veniunt ad vos in vestimentis ovium,” Nick read aloud. “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing.”

  Dr. Jameson’s eyes brightened. “You read Latin? I can’t say I’m surprised. I was admiring some of your specimens in the outer office—especially the Pandinus imperator Koch.”

  “My Emperor Scorpion.”

  “A magnificent specimen, with an imperial name to match. But then, you know the old saying: Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.”

  Nick smiled. “‘Anything said in Latin sounds profound.’ No offense, Dr. Jameson, but what’s a smart guy like you doing in a town like this?”

  Now the old man smiled. “I am a fisher of men. The biggest fish is not always found in the largest pond.”

  Nick nodded. “I’ve caught a few in small towns myself.”

  A look of recognition spread across the old man’s face. “You are that Bug Man fellow, are you not? I believe I read about you in the papers. A fascinating discipline, this fo-ren-sic en-to-mol-o-gy of yours.” He pronounced the words slowly, delighting in each syllable. “I’m afraid a man of your—how shall I put it—breadth of experience may find life a little dull in a town such as ours.”

  “Things are picking up,” Nick replied. “I’ve been hired to in
vestigate the death of Jim McAllister.”

  Dr. Jameson seemed taken aback. “I understood that the young man took his own life. Do you have reason to believe otherwise?”

  “Let’s just say I’m looking for reasons. How did you hear about his death?”

  “I have been requested to preside at Mr. McAllister’s memorial service.” The old man pulled a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. “I received a call from a Kathryn Guilford asking me to meet her here today, to arrange any necessary details.”

  “We had a long day yesterday,” Nick said. “It might be best if I had her call you. Did Mr. McAllister attend your church?”

  “Mr. McAllister was unchurched,” the old man said. “That is, he was not a member of any local congregation. In situations such as this, I am often called upon to perform the services.”

  “In other words, you get the white trash.”

  Dr. Jameson looked at him sternly. “There is no such thing. Will you be attending the funeral, Dr. Polchak?”

  “Never had much use for them.”

  “Oh yes, I see. You only handle the clinical side of death. I suppose there’s nothing clinical about a funeral.”

  “Just a lot of fuss over a little shoofly pie.”

  “Shoofly pie,” the old man repeated thoughtfully. “An interesting euphemism. The body dies, it starts to decompose. What remains becomes food for other living things. And what happens after?”

  “After what?”

  “After you die.”

  “Your question has no meaning,” Nick said. “After you die is like saying after the end. If it’s the end, there is no ‘after.’”

  “You believe there is nothing after?”

  “What I believe is irrelevant. I’m telling you what I know. I see a body; it ceases to function; it decomposes. That’s what I know.”

  “Sometimes knowing is not enough, my young friend. Sometimes you have to believe. That is my business.”

  “Different lines of work,” Nick shrugged.

  The older man studied Nick. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We have more in common than you may think, Dr. Polchak. You seek guilty men to administer justice; I seek guilty men to offer grace and forgiveness. But it seems to me that, in our own way, we are both fishers of men.”