by Billy Coffey
“Always thought there was something wrong with you,” Raleigh said. “Now I guess I know for sure. Where you running off to, Hays?”
“You have to let me pass, Principal Jennings. You gotta let me go. They’re coming.”
“Who is?”
“Them.”
“Well, the mayor says nobody comes in or out. He’d like to have a few words with you.”
“Don’t take me back to town,” Hays said. His voice cracked. “They’ll kill me.”
Raleigh smiled. “You don’t get in my car right now, boy, I’ll kill you first.”
“You can’t.”
“Can’t?” Raleigh said. “You ain’t in no position at all to tell me what I can’t. Playtime’s over. Order’s gotta come back to this Holler, and I’m the one to do it. Time to put things right, and that means taking you back to town. You think of a reason why I can’t do that, you better let me know now.”
Hays had one.
“I know who killed Ruth.”
-7-
No one was home at the funeral parlor, or at least no one answered the door. John David said they couldn’t go in without a warrant. Bucky told him that was a good point but not to go getting a big head about it, because all that was just an easy excuse to go against Wilson’s orders.
“Whose side you on here, anyways?” Bucky asked.
“Side where everybody lives.”
They tried the grocery next. Hays wasn’t there and neither was Cordelia, but Landis and Kayann were. They didn’t know where their boy was. Kayann asked what was going on, and that’s when Bucky told them the mayor and the Reverend wanted Hays at church that night for questioning. John David tried answering when Landis asked what sort of questioning that might be, but Bucky held up a hand and shushed him. Concerning the witch, our sheriff said, and then he said Wilson had a list of people, one of which happened to be their boy, who’d been seen or heard doing some awful strange things in the days since the Curse.
Well, I guess you can imagine what happened next. Didn’t matter Bucky was still carrying Chessie’s old shotgun or that John David was there and had seen war. Landis said he’d sooner die than see his son brought up to some kangaroo court over something he didn’t do. Bucky tried saying it wouldn’t be a court at all, it’d be in the church and only a couple questions, but he never got that out because Kayann started throwing things at him. Boxes, busted bottles, half a head of lettuce that had somehow gone unclaimed during the run on the grocery and had since rotted, anything she could reach. Bucky had one hand over his face and the other trying to hang on to his gun, yelling for Kayann to stop before he ran her in on a charge of assaulting an officer of the law. Landis started screaming that Stu Graves had been there the night before, right there next to his office, and if Bucky and John David should be looking for anybody, it was what Alvaretta had raised up. Took John David every bit of muscle he had to drag the sheriff out of there. He told Bucky maybe he should do the talking next time.
Neither of them was too fired up about going to Chessie’s, so Bucky decided to try the clinic next. They were nearly there when Angela called. Cordelia had walked all the way home from Hays’s house. She’d cried herself into such a fit that it took Angela near half an hour to understand what had happened. Somehow (Cordy wouldn’t say exactly, though Angela said she believed Kayann had gotten word to her son), Hays had found out he was wanted. He’d gone, and Cordy didn’t know to where.
Bucky hung up and repeated all that to John David, who just sat there staring out the window. Bucky said aloud what he knew his new constable was thinking: “I don’t see a good end to any of this.”
It was quiet at the Sullivans’ place. Nothing at all in the lot and no patients lined up outside, as that part of Alvaretta’s curse seemed to have ended so a worse one could begin. Danny’s car wasn’t in its spot, but the sign on the door said Open.
Before they got out of the car, John David said, “You let me try this one, Bucky.”
“Well, I got to do something, John David. I’m the sheriff, you’re just the constable.”
“Be my backup, then. Stand there and look pretty. And keep that scatter-gun down. Makes me nervous.”
Bucky looked through the windshield, watching the door. “You want a pistol? Got one in the backseat. It’s a beater, but it shoots straight.”
John David opened the door. “I don’t like guns.”
Bucky followed. He let the shotgun lay in the seat but reached back for that old pistol anyway, tucking it in his belt at the back. John David could say all he wanted about keeping things calm; after hearing what Angela had said about Hays, Bucky didn’t have a good feeling about whatever would come next.
Maris stepped out onto the cement porch as they got out. She put a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun and parted her lips into a grin.
“Angela told me you went and got yourself some help, Buck,” she said. “Where’s your badge, John David?”
John David smiled. “Didn’t think I’d need one to come visit the doctor, Maris.”
“That what y’all are doing? Visiting? Because I just got off the phone with Belle, and she’s gone half mad because the Reverend’s got it in his head to round up half the town and set’m up in front of the church tonight. You two wouldn’t know anything about that now, would you?”
John David let that be. “Doc around?”
“No, and I don’t know where he went. What’s your business with him?”
“Just need a word.”
She nodded and grinned again. “Buck, you want to add anything to this conversation?”
Bucky shrugged. “I’m just standing here to look pretty.”
“Maris,” John David said, “truth is me and Bucky don’t want to be out here at all. Mayor’s orders, though, and Bucky’s just loyal enough to say Wilson’s orders are what we gotta carry out. Everybody in town’s scared, sure you know that. Scared of the witch, scared of Stu. But they’re scared of whoever it is that’s been visiting Alvaretta most of all, because we don’t know who that is.”
“What’s that got to do with Danny?” she asked.
“Well, somehow his name’s come up. Just people talking. But there’s been some question of why he ain’t been out to church all week and why he’s the only one seems to think whatever’s wrong with my sister and the others is something other than the witch. What we’d like Danny to do is come down to the church tonight, talk to everybody. Just put folks at ease. So if you know where he’s gone, we’d be obliged if you’d tell us.”
“I only got a quarter tank in the car, Maris,” Bucky said. “I can’t be running all over town looking for anybody. I ain’t got paid yet.”
“I don’t know where Danny went, if you got to know. And shame on y’all. Wilson’s my own brother.”
“I know,” Bucky said, “and I’m sorry, Maris. Like John David told you, we don’t really want to be out here.”
“Well then, you go tell Wilson if he wants Danny, he can come out here and get him on his own instead of sending his flunkies.”
“We ain’t flunkies, Maris,” Bucky said. “We’re the law.”
“Law was better when we didn’t have any, and I ain’t the only one to think so.”
John David looked about ready to remind Bucky he was just supposed to be looking pretty when they all saw Danny Sullivan’s car leading a cloud of dust up the road. The doctor pulled in with a grin and popped the door open with, “Morning, gentlemen. What brings you out? Not more trouble, I hope.”
“Trouble enough,” Maris said.
John David asked, “Where you been this morning, Danny?”
“Oh, just about. Had to check on some patients. Congratulations on your new employment, by the way. I’d dare say it’s more honest work than what Chessie can offer.”
“Not by much,” John David said, “and not by choice. These patients you seen. Anybody we know?”
“I expect so. Why?”
“Because Wilson
thinks you’re Alvaretta’s spy,” Maris said.
The doctor stood there like Maris had spoken in some kind of foreign language. He chortled and said, “That’s absurd.”
Bucky kicked a rock at his feet and watched it go tumbling. I don’t expect this was how he’d thought being a policeman would work, too much worrying and having to do things you didn’t think should be done at all. Danny went on about how Wilson had never liked him and all the power had finally rotted his brother-in-law’s brain, and Bucky kept looking at that rock that had come to a stop right behind the doctor’s tire, right in the groove of one of the treads, and wasn’t that tread a funny-looking one? Didn’t it look familiar somehow—
Wasn’t it—?
He reached for the pistol he’d stuck in the back of his pants, this time remembering to free the safety. Maris screamed as Bucky’s trembling hands tried steadying the barrel. Danny Sullivan backed away with his hands held high. John David came forward with his hands the same, asking Bucky what in the holy hell he was doing.
“It’s you,” Bucky said. “Doc? It’s you, ain’t it?” The barrel went from Danny’s chest to his head, to his leg, back to his chest. He was scared, sure enough (and wouldn’t you be, friend?), but it was more than that. I think Bucky couldn’t find his aim because his eyes had started to tear up.
John David stopped at that question. He looked at Danny now.
“Doc?” Bucky asked. He took a deep breath and steadied the pistol. “You been going out to Alvaretta’s house?”
Faced with that, Danny Sullivan had no choice but to answer the truth.
-8-
Bucky shook so hard he had to lower the pistol before his finger jerked and he killed the doctor right there. It got awful quiet in that little parking lot. For a while, nobody even breathed. Doc still had his hands raised and Bucky looked about to puke. John David’s eyes had gone from warm to cold. And Maris? Well, Maris couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
“Danny?” she asked. “What you saying?”
“It was me. I did it.”
Then it got quiet all over again, all except Maris, who started saying No much like Hays had awhile earlier, over and over again. Bucky said she couldn’t ride with them into town because she’d have to bring Danny’s car as evidence. John David collected himself enough to suggest Danny going out to Alvaretta’s wasn’t a crime. Bucky said aiding the woman who’d both sickened his little girl and raised up the dead sure did sound like a crime to him. Maris looked to protest but didn’t. No way that woman believed her husband of near fifty years had anything to do with Alvaretta Graves. And yet all of what Danny had just admitted had put a hole in Maris’s heart, and out of it leaked every bit of moxie she held.
John David came up behind the doctor. He said, “Go on and put your hands down, Danny,” and helped him toward the sheriff’s car. Gravel crunched from up the road. Maris made her way to Bucky, wanting to plead with him, but Bucky’s attention had settled more on the car driving past. Didn’t nobody in town drive a black car but Medric, him saying it went with his funeral duties. Bucky saw the grill come into view through the trees, then the hood, and then there was Medric behind the wheel, staring straight into Bucky’s eyes. The car went on past before it stopped and backed up. Medric swung into the lot behind Danny’s car. He got out and raised his arms.
“Buck,” he said. “I need help.”
“Medric, me and John David been looking for you all morning.”
“I know it. Want to turn myself in.”
Bucky wrinkled his nose. “Well, I appreciate the offer, Medric, but there’s no need now. Doc here just confessed, so I guess we don’t need you.”
“Don’t know what Doc’s got to do with things,” Medric said, “but I’m the man you need. You just keep me safe, Bucky. I’ll let you take me in, but you and John David can’t let nobody get me.”
“He’s the one you want,” Maris said. She winced as she did. It was like a part of her realized this was a chance to get her husband back, but not before another part said she’d have to sacrifice Medric to do it and still another said that didn’t matter right now. “You let Danny go, John David. Turn him loose now.”
John David wouldn’t, not yet. “Why you the man we need, Medric?” he asked.
“Because it was me,” Medric told them. “I did it. I helped the witch.”
-9-
In the end, Bucky decided the only thing he could do was go on and arrest them all.
They left the clinic in a line of three cars—Bucky in the lead with Doc Sullivan in the backseat, followed by Maris in their car and John David driving Medric’s. John David had said he shouldn’t drive Medric’s car, specially with Medric so scared he wasn’t going anywhere. Bucky said no, that’s the way things had to be done now.
The former Marine-slash-criminal and current constable did as Bucky said. I’m guessing John David thought he’d take that time to have a word with Medric, try to figure out what the world the man had done. It didn’t work. Medric sat in the backseat and uttered not a word the whole way to town. Ended up, John David just said he’d be praying. Strange thing for him to say; most in the Holler thought going to the Lord was something that boy’d long given up. But I guess in times like that, praying’s about all you can do.
They all pulled into town that way, looking like some sad parade that drew folk not to cheer and clap, but condemn. I don’t know how word got out of what Wilson and the Reverend had sent Bucky to do. My guess falls to Angela and the way that woman always slobbered for a bit of attention, and I suppose that’s right. Cordelia had been so shaken by Hays that Angela had called Belle Ramsay for prayer. Belle, believing there was no better place to seek the Lord than an uncomfortable church pew, ran right out to haul them both back to town. They arrived just as Bucky and the rest entered town, and now Angela stood front and center at the doors of the council building along with about thirty others. Scarlett come running out when she seen John David in Medric’s car. Wilson even dared peek out of his office to watch it all. Belle come down the steps from the church with a worried look on her face. The Reverend followed right behind and nearly tripped.
Bucky got out and told Danny it’d be best if he just stayed in the backseat a minute. He turned to tell Maris the same, but she was already out of her car and running toward Wilson with hell itself in her eyes. Screaming at her brother, telling Wilson he should be ashamed. Believe you me, Wilson was. Fear can do that to you.
What got Maris calm enough to set aside the murder in her heart was the Reverend. He told Maris they’d straighten it all out soon as they talked to Danny, and then he had Scarlett take her on inside. John David brought Medric up. I’d say close to thirty people stood by then, wanting to know what was happening. John David saw no need to cement the idea that Medric had done something wrong. Keeping his back to the man they’d brought in gave the impression Medric could just turn around and walk off if he wanted.
Bucky motioned for the doctor, who got out of the car slow. That crowd pressed in. Angela had in the last minutes managed to squeeze through everybody and stood close enough to smell Danny’s sweat as he passed. He went inside to where Maris waited. Medric trailed behind like a lost puppy.
Wilson asked John David, “Medric say anything to you on the way over?”
“No. But he knows something. Bucky says Hays took off.”
“Took off after he broke my girl’s heart,” Angela shouted.
Kayann Foster shouted back, “You wait right there, Angela. Hays is guilty of nothing, and you know it.”
Angela spun around. “Don’t you give me that. Everybody in this town knows that boy’s half crazy, and they know you’re the one who turned him that way.” Saying it with venom in her words. “Bout time you get knocked down a notch, Kayann Foster. That boy got my Cordelia pregnant.”
Bucky winced as everybody’s jaw dropped. Doc Sullivan bent his head.
“Pregnant?” Landis asked.
“Stop it,” the
Reverend said. “Both of you. Landis, if you know where Hays is—”
“I don’t know,” Landis said. “Can’t you people see that? I don’t know where he is. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. He’s my son.”
“Son or not, he needs to be found. We just want to talk to him, Landis. That’s all.”
“He couldn’t’ve left town,” Bucky said. “Raleigh’s got everything blocked.”
“Raleigh took the roadblock off,” Wilson said. “Called me a little bit ago. Said nobody’s seen nothing all day, and he was just wasting time he could be spending looking for whoever killed Ruth.”
“Do you think Medric did it?” Angela asked. “Or Danny? They’ve already confessed to being spies.”
“They confessed?” Kayann asked. “See? Hays is innocent.”
Wilson said, “Right now, nobody’s innocent. There’s two, there could be more. Bucky, you and John David find Hays. But the first thing you need to do is go out to the Hodge place and bring Chessie back.”
Now believe me when I say that was something Bucky had no mind to do at all, and neither did John David. They’d sooner go to Alvaretta’s and drag her to town than try the same with Chessie Hodge. If Hays had found out people were coming, surely Chessie had found out first. So it wasn’t with no small measure of gratitude they heard a rumbling come from the other direction just then, and seen Briar’s truck making a slow crawl up the road. He stopped in the middle of the street in front of the council building and got out to open the passenger door. Chessie parted the gathered like Moses through the Red Sea, that red hair of hers wild and her jaw set hard. She walked up to Wilson and offered no fear at all.
“Heard you were looking for me,” she said. “Well, here I am.”
XIII
The Circle. Confessions. Wilson tells his secret. Hays makes a plan.
-1-
Hays could see nothing with the rag tied over his eyes. He gauged that Raleigh had driven nearly twenty minutes, putting them somewhere on the other side of town. They’d been walking at least twenty minutes more. Walking in the woods. He could tell because of the leaves crunching under his feet and the fresh smell of the pines and the way Raleigh kept steering him to the right or left, dodging trees.
