“He came back to see Grayson and I’ll tell you why,” Jordan said in a low, deliberate voice. “Your son was in love with Grayson Burdette.”
Royce lurched forward as if to throw himself upon his prisoner. Even in the darkness his face was purplish with rage. But he stopped short of striking Jordan. “You lying scum,” he exclaimed.
Jordan could feel the sheriff’s breath on him but he did not draw back. “I found out at the school. Tyler loved him. He would do anything for Grayson. I think Tyler was protecting Grayson.” Jordan stared into Royce’s blazing, tormented eyes. “I think Tyler admitted to murder for Grayson.”
“Goddamn you,” Royce growled. His face was darker than ever, his voice hard. But Jordan could hear it in his voice. A hopeless note of admission.
“You know I’m right,” Jordan said. “You know this is no ordinary boy.”
Royce wheeled away from him and stumbled forward in the rutted road like a wounded bear. Jordan followed after him, seizing his opportunity. He began to say aloud all the things that were buzzing in his head. “Don’t you ever ask yourself,” he rushed on, “how come Grayson never took any blame for Michele’s death? How come, if he was there, he didn’t try to stop your son? It was his own sister. Did it really happen too fast? I don’t believe it.” ‘They said so,” Royce bellowed. “Tyler said so.” “Now,” Jordan said softly, “Grayson claims his sister took off her blouse, and he put it back on after she was dead.” Royce stopped in his tracks. “He said that?” Jordan nodded. “That’s what he told Lillie.” Royce continued to walk on. He reached the bank of the river and stood still, gazing across the Arches.
Jordan stepped up beside him. “You saw the body,” Jordan said urgently. “She was face down in the mud. And he says he put her blouse on. What, and left her like that? I say she never took her blouse off. It’s another of Grayson’s lies. What kind of person leaves his own sister lying face down in the mud?” The two men stared across the riverbank, one remembering the sight, the other imagining it with the familiar horror.
“Why did he run?” Jordan went on. “Why did he agree so readily to protect a boy who beat his sister to death? I don’t buy it. And what about you? Why were you so ready to believe that your son was the guilty one? Is it easier to believe that than to admit he might be protecting another boy, a killer, because he’s in love with him? Is it?”
“You son of a bitch,” Royce muttered.
“Only Tyler knew who really killed Michele. As long as Tyler stuck by their story, Grayson was safe. When I went after Tyler, Grayson realized that the lid might come off,” Jordan cried. “And then Tyler played right into his hands. He showed up here, probably seeking Grayson’s help, and Grayson saw his chance to silence him. To protect himself.”
“No,” Royce said furiously, turning on him.
“Yes,” said Jordan. “Think about it.”
“No, that would mean Grayson killed her. His own sister. She was just a sweet, harmless girl. Why would he kill her?”
“Because she stumbled onto the truth that night. I’ll tell you what I think,” said Jordan, staring defiantly into the sheriff’s anguished eyes. “I think your son lied out of love. But Grayson…well, I think Grayson would do anything to avoid humiliation. Anything.”
Chapter 30
LILLIE CLASPED THE BOY’S JACKET to her chest as if it were a shield and stared at her son.
“Come over here to this chair,” he said, “and sit down.”
Lillie did not budge from the spot where she stood. “Grayson,” she said in a quavering voice, “put that gun back where you found it this minute and I will try to forget this ever happened. This minute.”
Grayson smiled but his eyes were cruel. “Sorry, Mom,” he said. “You shouldn’t have left it there.”
A white-hot rage erupted in Lillie and she started toward him. Grayson leveled the gun at her chest without flinching.
“Get back,” he cried. “Do you think I’m kidding?”
Instantly she knew that he was not. There was no uncertainty in his eyes, no inclination to retreat, to pretend that it had all been a game. Lillie’s stomach tumbled over and the floor felt like sand beneath her feet. She sat down in the chair he indicated.
“It’s your own fault,” he said. “You brought this on yourself. You came back here pretending that you wanted everything to be fine, to get back to normal. But the fact is that you wanted to make trouble for me. Admit it,” he demanded. “You were looking for something to get back at me. The first chance you got, what do you do? You can’t wait to drag me to the police. Drag me through the mud.”
“Drag you through the mud?” Lillie repeated incredulously. “Grayson, I was afraid for your life. I don’t want to see you hurt. Grayson, put that gun down. You don’t mean any of this. Put it down and we’ll talk this out. Please.”
“Talk!” Grayson exclaimed. “That’s all you’ve been doing, all night. Lecture is more like it. Interrogate me. Michele this. Michele that. What happened? Where were you? Who was there? How many times did Tyler pass wind? I mean, what difference does it make? Who cares? It’s over. Done. Forgotten. But no. You have to talk about it, talk about it, talk about it. God.
“And now you want to talk about Tyler, right? What happened to poor Tyler. You want to talk to the whole world about it. What did mean old Grayson do to poor little Tyler? You’d think he was your son instead of me.”
My son, she reminded herself over and over. As if that thought were a mantra that could protect her from his hail of words that were like stones he was pelting her with. My son. She shook her head helplessly. “It’s you that I’m concerned about. Only you. I was trying to help you. I know you don’t see it that way but it’s true.”
“You’re a liar,” he said. “I knew we could never trust you. I told Dad that from the beginning. He wanted to tell you everything about Michele. He was ready to come home and blurt it all out to you. It was just because he was all worked up, he wasn’t thinking clearly. I had to warn him. I knew you would take her side against me because you always did. She was like your little lapdog, always yapping at your feet. Well, I’m not anybody’s lapdog. I am not going to buckle under and be told what to do by people who are not as intelligent as me. People who don’t have the looks and the class in their whole bodies that I have in my little finger. It’s not right that I should.’.’
Lillie stared at her son. His words made her cringe inside and she wished she could shut the sound of the injured, remorseless tirade she was hearing. Where did this come from? she wondered. Was it always there?
He saw the despair in her eyes and nodded slyly. “I know what you think. You think I sound conceited, don’t you? Naturally you think that because you are too limited to admit it might just be the truth. It makes sense that you preferred Michele, now that I think about it. She was more ordinary and simple-minded. More your type.”
He waved the gun as he spoke, and Lillie kept her eye on it as if it were an undulating snake. He was enjoying holding it, enjoying having a prisoner and tormenting her. She had to ignore his words and maintain her composure. Be the adult. Try to soothe him. “Grayson,” she said as calmly as she could, “I’m sorry that you thought that I favored your sister. It was only that she was sick. I love you both more than you know, and now you are all I have left—”
“Oh, I don’t care,” Grayson said impatiently. “I don’t imagine it was any great privilege to be preferred by you. More of a burden actually.”
“Do you hate me so?” Lillie blurted out, although as soon as the words were out of her mouth the answer seemed ridiculously apparent to her. He was holding a gun on her. He was threatening her life.
Grayson looked at her in surprise. “No,” he said, as if genuinely desiring to reassure her. “You’ve been pretty good as a mother, all in all. I would say you haven’t been exceptionally good, but you haven’t been exceptionally bad either. I’d say you did a fairly decent job. You’ve been a good cook, and the house is pre
tty clean, and you still look quite young for your age.”
His indifferent assessment landed like a cold blade in her heart. She would have preferred hatred. It was becoming undeniably clear to her, although she could not really grasp it, that no emotional appeal would move him. She might have been a stranger he encountered in an alleyway.
She shuddered and took a deep breath. “Grayson,” she said. “What is it you want from me?”
Grayson pressed his lips together and shook his head sadly. “Something I’m afraid I just can’t have. Your loyalty. I need to know that I can trust you. But I just don’t see that as possible.”
Tears sprang to Lillie’s eyes in spite of herself, and she wiped them away angrily. “How dare you?” she said. “I only tried to do what I thought was best out of love for you.”
“You see,” he said. “We just don’t see eye to eye. You’ll always be getting in my way. Always trying to drag me down in the name of mother love. I have to get rid of you.”
Get rid of you. The matter-of-fact threat jolted her like a live wire, but when the jolt subsided it was not so much fearful she felt, as piteous and ashamed. Her own son. He’s mad, she told herself.
Part of her did not want to live another moment with this knowledge, but the will to survive surfaced and guided her. Fear returned, making her alert. Say something to him, she thought. Keep him talking until Pink arrives.
“Your father will be here any second,” she said.
“That’s what I’m waiting for,” lie said equably. “Then I can say that he killed you.”
Lillie stared at him.
“Well, everyone knows that you’ve been fighting. Everyone in town has seen that shiner he gave you. We’ll say it was an accident, more or less. I’ll say I tried to stop him, and I’ll come out looking pretty good. Dad will take the blame,” he said. “He’ll do anything for me.”
She could not look at his face. There was a roaring in her ears, like the ocean. She looked at the gun. Stand up and lunge for it and take it from him. If he kills you, so what? What is there to live for?
But she was frozen to the seat, paralyzed by trying to select the last moment of her life. Grayson was looking out the front window. “Look who’s here,” he said. He opened the front door a crack and held the gun low. “Come on in.”
Grayson stepped back and pulled the door open, and Pink walked inside the house.
“Close it,” Grayson ordered.
Pink shut the door, turned, and saw Grayson holding the gun on Lillie. For a minute his face sagged, his eyes widened, and he jumped back. But immediately he collected himself and acted as calm and disinterested as if he had just come home from work and this was the most natural thing imaginable, to find his son training a weapon on his mother. The only sign that betrayed him was the sweat that broke out all over his face.
Lillie saw and understood that Pink was making a terrific effort to maintain that unflustered posture, and she felt a stab of appreciation for him. At the same time, Grayson’s words ran like an awful jingle in her mind. Dad will do anything for me.
“What’s going on here?” Pink asked his son. “What is this?”
“She started it,” said Grayson. “Ask her.”
“I asked you,” Pink said irritably. “Where’d you get that gun?”
“It was over there,” Grayson said, nodding toward the mantel.
“Well, what was it doing there?” Fink demanded, as if the gun itself were at fault.
“I don’t know,” said Grayson.
“It’s Brenda’s,” Lillie whispered. “She put it in my bag.”
Pink shook his head and sighed. “Brenda,” he said. “I might have known. All right, Grayson. Give that thing to me. And tell me what this is all about.”
Lillie saw a flash of anger in the boy’s eyes, a contemptuous sneer at his father’s authority, and then he seemed to think better of it. He held on to the gun but his tone was confidential. Here was his ally, his friend. “She thinks I killed Tyler. She threatened to go to the cops and tell them that.”
“What?” Pink said incredulously. He turned on Lillie. “I’ve never heard anything so crazy.”
“He told me he did it,” Lillie said. “I caught him in a lie and he admitted it.”
“I did not,” said Grayson. “She made it up.”
“Lillie, you must have misunderstood what he said. That’s just plain outrageous. Everyone knows who the guilty party is.” Pink looked at Lillie with disappointment in his eyes. “Why did you start this, Lillie?” he asked. “We’re just getting this family back on the right track and you go and say something like that. What does he have to do to prove himself to you? Why must you always think the worst of this child?”
The small hope that Lillie had felt at her husband’s arrival dissolved inside her. He was chiding her for her transgressions, meanwhile apparently accepting the idea that Grayson had turned a gun on his mother. She looked helplessly at her husband. It was almost as if he were enchanted by his son. His faith was leaden, impenetrable. He would rather believe that his wife was a liar than disturb that magical glow around his son.
“Pink,” she said stubbornly, “when you called he already knew that Tyler’s body was in the well. When I confronted him, he said he had killed Tyler for revenge.”
Pink’s brow furrowed, and he bit his lip. “Revenge. Well, that I could understand.” Pink turned to Grayson. “Is that what happened?”
“No,” Grayson said after a moment’s hesitation. “She made it up.”
Pink looked from one to the other. “Somebody’s lying here. Are you sure, Lillie? Are you sure you didn’t just imagine this?”
“Oh, God, Pink,” Lillie cried, turning away from him.
“Well, don’t act like it’s my fault.” Pink bristled. “I walk in on this and get two different stories. I’m just trying to figure it out.”
“Do you see what he is doing?” Lillie cried.
“He is defending himself,” said Pink. “Look, why don’t you get out of here, Lillie. Go take a walk or something. Grayson and I will talk it over among ourselves.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Grayson. “Hold it. She’s not going anywhere.”
“Hey,” Pink said. “We don’t need her here. We’ll put our heads together. Talk this thing over.”
With anyone else, Lillie thought, it might have been a clever ploy, a virtually heroic way to obtain her release. To set her free and take the burden on himself. But she knew better. It was no such thing. It was the all-too-familiar pattern of their lives. She studied Pink’s bland face, wondering what gave him such blessed blindness. One thing was clear though. Grayson was not about to agree to this plan.
“No,” said Grayson. “She stays here.”
“Look, son,” Pink said patiently. “I don’t blame you for being upset. Being accused like that. It stands to reason. But you also can’t just pick up a gun and hold it on a person. Number one, it’s dangerous, and number two, it really gives the wrong impression.”
“Dad, I can’t let her go. She’ll run right off to the sheriff and tell him I killed Tyler and that I held a gun on her.”
“She won’t, I guarantee you,” said Pink. “This is family business, strictly between the three of us. Isn’t that right, Lillie?”
It frightened her to speak, to defy that loaded gun, but she could not let it go. “Not anymore,” she said.
“You see?” said Grayson.
“Goddamnit, Lillie. Hasn’t there been enough damage done to this family? Do you have to create more? I thought we had agreed that we were going to handle our own problems in our own way.”
“That was before,” she said in a dull voice. The two of them were aligning against her, preparing to mow her down. Somehow, she did not care anymore.
“Wait a minute,” Pink said suddenly, his eyes narrowing. “Wait a minute. I think I am beginning to understand something now.” He looked balefully at his wife. “Tell me I’m wrong about this. Tel
l me this can’t be. Oh, my God. No wonder…. This is about Jordan Hill, isn’t it? You’re figuring that he’s going to get nailed for this, so you decided to come up with another solution. God, is it any wonder Grayson is acting like this?”
“For pity’s sake, Pink,” Lillie cried. “Do you think I would accuse my own son…to protect anyone?”
“Look, Lillie,” said Pink, pressing hands to his chest. “I don’t know what you would do. You’re a mystery to me. All right? But this is my son. My own boy. And I won’t have you or anybody else slandering him and accusing him. If you don’t love him, well, that’s your loss.”
“It’s not a question of love…” Lillie cried, but he turned his back on her. He waggled his hand like a traffic cop, as if to call Grayson forward.
“Okay, son. Give me the gun. Everything is going to be fine.”
“She’s going to tell them I did it,” said Grayson. “She’s going to tell the sheriff.”
“Don’t worry about her. She’s not going to tell anybody anything. Believe me.”
Grayson shook his head. “No, we can’t trust her. She’ll go to the sheriff.”
“And we’ll tell the sheriff she’s lying,” Pink said patiently. “He’ll know she’s lying. No matter what she says, I’ll take care of it.”
“Dad,” Grayson said almost gently. “We can’t take the chance. It’s going to be her and Jordan Hill against me and you. Jordan Hill is important. He’s on TV. You just have a little rinky-dink business. Who do you think people are going to believe? They’re going to listen to him. And he’ll say whatever she wants him to. You know they’re just looking for a way to screw both of us.”
“Well,” Pink blustered, “I may not be on television but I guess I have some influence in this town. Anyway, I don’t see what else we can do.”
“Well, I don’t think we can just let them get away with it. I think the best solution might be if she could accidentally be killed. By this gun.”
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