Slim Jim was the same as Katie and Ethan in that way.
But who would leave a letter at Slim Jim’s grave? He had no family or friends here to read it. Nobody cared about this child killer.
Except maybe for whoever paid for him to be buried here.
I bend down and pull the letter out from under the rock. It is unaddressed and unsealed. Feeling a little guilty for what I am about to do, I look around and make sure that I am still alone in this death field. I see that I am but still feel like I am not. A chill runs through me. Is it Katie or Ethan watching over me here? And have I somehow disappointed them?
I slide the letter out of the unsealed envelope and unfold it to see a single word on a single sheet of paper. A single word that instantly spawns a million questions about the past.
Innocent
Later that night, I sit alone in the kitchen staring down at that one-word letter. I flip it over, turn it upside down, but there is just that one word. I delicately press out the creases, but find no answers in the folds and wrinkles. I hold it above me and let light shine through, but nothing is revealed. It’s just one word, but it carries the heaviness of certainty.
Did Charlie write this? It seems unlikely. He had been willing enough to discuss his theories with me at Mustang’s even though we hadn’t seen each other in years. Why get all ‘Deep Throat’ all of a sudden?
But if not Charlie, then who? Who else believed that Slim Jim was innocent and why would they wait until now to share this belief? And why in this manner?
Innocent.
That one word was secretive and cryptic. Inked by someone compelled to speak out, yet too frightened to step forward. And understandably so, I suppose. They would have a lot to explain. Probably more than they would be able to. For starters, how could you explain waiting twenty years?
This was a real Pontius Pilate move. Launching this letter into the world and then washing their hands of the matter.
All I know for sure is that after years of thinking that some random hobo had murdered Katie Cooper there are now two people declaring his innocence.
Moose and Charlie had sworn each other to secrecy and assuming they kept that promise, the letter-writing candidates seemed pretty limited. It could have been some random prankster, but that seemed pointless. It could have been someone who—for whatever reason—believed that Slim Jim was innocent. Still the question remained—why now? Perhaps the author of the letter had been afraid to come forward back then. Perhaps the real killer was still alive.
Or perhaps the author himself was the real killer.
When One Child Dies
In my back pocket was the poem I had written for Katie the night before. The thought of giving it to her made my knees wobble, so I promised myself I would do it right before I had to go home so I didn’t have to talk to her afterward. We bounced my basketball up to the playground where we first played Around The World and then a couple games of HORSE. Interrupting our third game of HORSE came a call from the street corner.
“Hey there, Sassafras.”
The voice belonged to Edie Dales and without even turning around I knew that Son Settles was with him because Son Settles was always with him. Edie and Son were only a couple years older than me, but it seemed like dog years. And being around them was a reminder of all the places where I didn’t have hair or muscle. More than that even, they had a way of smiling that made me think I was going to learn a lot about the world in the next two dog years of my life.
Edie and Son were best friends, though by appearance alone you’d never match the two of them together. Whereas Son came with all the accoutrements of a small town redneck kid—John Deere hats, t-shirts that were only sold at rock concerts and flea markets, and blue jeans with circular faded spots on the back pockets from cans of chewing tobacco—Edie always had a country club polish to him. He only wore shirts with collars, many of them with a small alligator or horse or something embroidered on the front. What’s more, he never wore blue jeans—always dressy-looking slacks. Somehow, those pants never sullied or stained, even when playing tackle football.
The only thing more perfect than his clothing was his hair, which I never once saw mussed or tussled. That fleshy white crease down the center of his head parted his hair perfectly even, like a Bible opened to Psalms, giving him a veneer of innocence that he didn’t deserve.
It was beyond disturbing how out of place Edie Dales looked in this town. Like seeing a clown anywhere outside of a circus or a children’s party, it was equally bone chilling to see Edie Dales anywhere inside of Willow Grove.
Edie’s real name was Andrew and that’s how you were to address him. Never Andy, never Dales. Behind his back, though, everyone called him Edie. That started one day after Edie had said in a not-so-joking manner that after resting on that first Sunday, God went back to work the next day and made him. And thus was born the nickname Eighth Day Dales. Eighth Day begot E.D. and E.D. begot Edie. Andrew Dales had a grand and fragile ego and did not like being called Edie, which, of course, was precisely why the nickname stuck.
Edie had a ticking time bomb personality. Once, when playing catch with Johnny Swanson, the baseball skipped over the top of Edie’s glove and it hit him smack in the mouth, knocking out a front tooth. He calmly dropped his glove and put a hand to his lips which were bleeding and swollen. Edie looked up at Johnny, casually walked over to him, and punched him in the mouth, knocking out a front tooth of Johnny’s. Pronouncing them “even,” Edie walked back to his spot and picked up the ball and glove.
“Now, don’t throw it so damn hard,” he told Johnny. “And don’t throw it at my face.”
Then he threw the ball back over to Johnny who—not knowing what else to do—caught it and threw it back.
Compared to what he’d done to Johnny Swanson, Edie was downright cordial to me, though it was still bullying. For some reason, he’d taken to calling me “Sassafras.” Not for anything I had ever said to him, to be sure. These episodes with Edie usually occurred whenever I failed to not be in the same place as he and Son were when they were bored and there was nobody else around to capture their attention. He’d put me in a headlock and toss me to the ground, throwing “Sassafras” at me, perhaps in hopes of getting me angered enough to challenge him. But I was so grateful that he didn’t actually beat me that I never really questioned him or his motives. That kind of gratitude can easily be confused with actually liking someone.
So here we were again, the two of them bored and me lacking the foresight to not be present and accounted for. I reached behind me and stuffed my poem to Katie deep down into my back pocket.
“I said ‘hey’, Sassafras,” Edie repeated.
“Do you want to go,” Katie whispered
“Won’t do any good,” I whispered back.
Then, turning around to face them, I said, “Hey, Andrew. Hey, Son.”
“What say we play a little two-on-two there, Sassafras?”
“Actually, we were about to leave, Andrew.”
“Oh, come on now, Sassafras. You weren’t going anywhere.”
The two of them had been walking toward me as we talked and now stopped just in front of me. Edie put his hands up, wanting me to pass him the ball.
“You guys will kill us,” I said. “You’re older and bigger. Plus she’s a girl.”
“Tell you what, Sassafras,” Edie said. “You can have Son on your team and I’ll take your little girlfriend. Me and her against you and Son. That’s fair. You can even have the ball first.”
Darkness beamed from the hole that Johnny Swanson’s fastball had left in Edie’s smile. Like Johnny, I wasn’t sure what else to do. There wasn’t a way out of this. Edie wanted to play so we were going to play.
“Okay, Andrew,” I said. “One game to seven, then Katie’s gotta go home.”
“We’ll see,” he said. Then he put his arm around Katie and walked her away from me and Son, saying, “Over here, Pretty Girl. We’ve gotta figure out our game plan, you an
d I.”
Katie scrunched her shoulders together, avoiding his touch, but Edie just held her tighter. As I watched them, I felt something rise up inside of me and then sink right back down again. There was nothing I could do. Nothing makes a man hate himself more than helplessness. Except maybe cowardice.
Edie passed the ball to Son and told Katie to guard him. “I’ve got Sassafras.”
I wanted the game over quickly. As soon as Son passed me the ball to start the game, I shot and made a jumper from the free-throw line.
“Nice shot, Sassafras. First one’s free.”
“Make it, take it—right?” I asked with as little Sassafras as possible.
Again Son passed the ball to me. This time I faked the jumper and drove to the basket. Edie jumped at the fake, bellowed something unintelligible from the air, and looked down helplessly as I dribbled past him for a lay-up.
“Two-zip,” said Son.
Edie shot him a look. Son shrugged his shoulders and quietly mouthed, “What?”
After Son passed the ball to me for the third consecutive time, Edie got right up on me, guarding me tight from a squat position, one arm on my waist the other out wide to keep me from passing. Eyes on my eyes like a dare. I couldn’t dribble where I wanted to with Edie’s hand on my waist, but I didn’t dare smack it away. I passed the ball to Son who dribbled right by Katie and toward the basket. Edie went over to stop him, leaving me wide open under the basket. Son made a good bounce pass that wasn’t quite sharp enough. As I caught it and went up for the lay-up, Edie came back to block the shot and knocked me hard to the ground.
“All ball!” he yelled.
Katie came running over. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, fine,” I said, standing up slowly, pain shooting up my tailbone.
“That was all ball, Sassafras. You’re not crying foul on that, are ya? I barely touched you—it ain’t my fault you’re so damn skinny.”
“Your ball,” I said.
Wiping the gravel from my forearms and elbows, I walked up to the top of the key to guard Edie.
“Ballgame,” he said. Then he faked left and came back right, lowering his shoulder into my chest and knocking me back on my butt again and dribbling right to the basket for an easy shot.
Back at the top of the key with the ball under his arm, Edie gave me and Son an ‘all is right with the world’ sort of look and said, “One-two. Ballgame.”
Edie and Katie scored the next seven points straight. Well, Edie did anyway. Katie did her best to stay out of his way and to ask me if I was okay after every basket, which began to annoy me. I ended the game with two baskets, zero rebounds, zero assists, two bloody knees, one gravel-scraped elbow, and one deeply bruised tailbone. I was glad it was over.
After scoring the last basket, Edie reached down and pulled me up from the ground. “Nice game, Sassafras. You’re actually not too bad. Not too good, but not too bad.”
Then he held up his hand for a high-five, which I gave him. Turning to Katie, he said, “Nice game, Pretty Girl.”
But when Katie went for the high-five, he grabbed her hand and held on to it tightly. “Nope. You got it wrong, Pretty Girl. High-fives is what two boys do,” he said with his grotesquely gapped smile. “This is what a boy and a girl do.”
He jerked her in close and kissed her on the mouth, his lips pressed hard against hers, smearing his face across hers. I lunged toward them, but Son grabbed on to the back of my shirt, holding me back. I turned around and looked up at him in anger, expecting to see his dirty devilish face. What I saw instead was helplessness. Cowardice. He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
Katie’s squeal brought my attention back to her and Edie. Her arms were pinned down to her sides by unworthy hands. Unworthy lips kissed her. When he finally let go, Edie shoved her back and then wiped his smiling face with a sleeve.
“Mmm, I like those wet ones.”
Katie spit and scrubbed at her face like it was on fire. Son let go of me and I lunged toward Edie with fist cocked. Edie did not flinch. Didn’t so much as blink. His complete lack of fear scared the hell out of me and stopped me in my tracks. There I stood, fist clenched, locked and loaded. My face not six inches from that filthy mouth of his. His lips slowly parted wider and the black hole in his smile widened broadly in front of me. I stared deep into the blackness, saw nothing there. Smelled the stench of his laughter, wanted to vomit.
“Who are you kidding, Sassafras?” Edie whispered. “We both know you ain’t gonna hit me.”
I felt the muscles in my face twitch and my fingernails dug deep into the palm of tightly fisted fingers. Edie leaned in close and spoke quietly into my left ear.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have done that,” he said with mocking sincerity, “but let me tell you something, Sassafras. She kissed back. Don’t let her tell you otherwise. She definitely kissed back.”
I had a reinvigorated hatred for Edie. It came with an intensity that cast a shadow over anything else I might have felt and I could feel myself changing in that very moment. Whatever fear I had of Edie was withering up and dying and I was evolving into something bigger. I felt it happening.
But just then, in the middle of my metamorphosis, Edie pulled back from me. He laughed again and said, “And she knew what she was doing, Pretty Girl did.”
He looked up at my fist, smiled broad again, and eased away. “Come on, Son. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
From behind me, Katie put her hand on my raised right arm and lowered it to my side, though my fist remained clenched. “Come on, Tuck, let’s go.”
I couldn’t look at her.
Walking away, Edie turned around and yelled back at us. “That was nice, Pretty Girl. Real nice. We’re gonna have to do that again sometime soon.” Then he blew her a kiss and headed down 4th Street.
Humiliated, I took off running and left Katie by herself at the park. A forgotten poem in my back pocket, I streaked right past Slim Jim who was walking toward the playground.
“Vicky, hi. Have you seen Katie? She’s been gone for hours. It’s not like her.”
“No, I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her. Maybe she’s at the Welp’s?”
“No, I saw them all drive off somewhere together. I was hoping I could talk to Tucker. Even if he hasn’t seen her, maybe he’ll have an idea where to look.”
“Sure, Betty. Sure, you can ask him. But Tucker’s been gone most the afternoon. The kids went shopping in town with their Grandma.”
“Can I ask him at least? I’ve been everywhere, I’m running out of ideas.”
“Of course, Betty. Tucker, come here please.”
I hadn’t yet come up with a story to replace the real one, in which I had been unable to protect either Katie or myself from Edie and Son. I made a slow walk to the door. “Hi, Mrs. Cooper. I was in town with my Grandma all afternoon.”
Mom and Mrs. Cooper exchanged glances.
“Tucker, do you know where Katie is?” my mother asked with that tell the truth and stand up straight while you’re doing it tone of hers.
“She might be at the playground. She likes going on the swings. Have you looked up there?”
“Yes, Tucker. There’s nobody up at the playground.”
I looked down at my feet and scrubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Hmm.”
“Tucker,” my mother said. “What is it you’re not telling us?”
“Nothing,” I said with mustered sincerity.
“Tucker?”
“Well, it’s just that …”
“Yes?”
My mother grabbed me hard by the ear and twisted.
“Tucker Merrill Gaines! You stop fiddling around right now and you tell us if you saw Katie with that lowlife.”
I came up for air. And the truth. I told them about our encounter that afternoon at the basketball court with Andrew Dales and Son Settles. How I had run away without looking back, leaving her there. I also mentioned how I passed Slim Jim on my way home. And as I told them th
e story, my right hand wandered to my back pocket where it flicked at the corners of the poem I had written for Katie. A poem that she would never read.
I went looking for Katie myself and ran into Charlie down at Moose Thornton’s place, sitting on the front steps with Moose, Edie, and Son. Bob and Woody James were there, too—a couple of hyena brothers whose only purpose in life was to laugh at Moose Thornton’s jokes. As I approached, they were already laughing in their usual up-to-no-good sort of way.
Hey, look! Here comes Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes!” Moose had probably said.
Yeah, Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes! Good one, Moose!” Bobby and Woody had probably said in back-alley accents like the backup muscle in old tough-guy movies. And then the cackles and howls, laughing open-mouthed and staring wide-eyed at each other and competing to see who could laugh the loudest.
“Well hello again, Sassafras,” Edie said. He was flicking dried paint chips off the porch steps with a jackknife and didn’t bother to look up at me.
I ignored him and turned to Charlie, who smiled at me through cheeks swollen with tobacco. He gave me a truth-or-dare stare as he lifted a can of RC Cola and oozed thick, brown tobacco spit into it, squeezing it through tightly pursed lips. Still, somewhere inside his look I saw a hint of uncertainty. Like he hadn’t entirely settled upon becoming this new Charlie, but was trying him on for size.
“Hey.” I said.
He spit again into the RC can, looking more like Son Settles than I ever would have believed possible.
“Hey yourself,” he tossed back.
“Have you seen Katie?”
Again it was Edie who spoke up, lifting his eyes to look at me this time. “Oh, we seen her, Sassafras. You know that. You were there.” Then with a long serpentine lick of his lips, he asked, “Why? She looking for me?”
I turned to Charlie.
“How about you?” It came out like an accusation.
He kept his eyes on me as he spit into the can again and in that moment he seemed miles and years away from me. I felt like I was witnessing a new birth and that my once best friend was fading into the background of this new Charlie.
Where the Broken Lie Page 7
