I had told her years ago the story of Katie Cooper and Slim Jim, but I had told it with the detached objectivity of a court report. A detective assigned to the case—just the facts, ma’am. But this night, I told the story in a voice that cracked and creaked like Grandpa and Grandma’s front screen door. I told her all the me-and-Katie stories I could remember—our secret spot, the pennies on the tracks, the flowers I had given her—all of it. I had cared deeply for that little girl. Tammy sits quietly and just listens. I can see that she is learning to love Katie herself—through me.
“And here I thought I was the only girl you had written poetry for.”
“Well, I’m not sure that what I’ve written for either you or Katie could really be classified as poetry. Just a bunch of sappy words I made rhyme.”
She gave me a look.
“I mean, it wasn’t just sappy,” I scramble. “My love for you moved me to write you those poems. I’m just saying that nobody is going to confuse me with Shakespeare.”
“Right. And your love for Katie moved you to write her that poem, too.”
“I suppose. But I was just a kid. You can’t call it love.”
“Yes, you can. I can.”
I reach across the table and grab her hand. “I’m sorry. That bothers you, doesn’t it?”
She squeezes back.
“Maybe a little. Mostly I just think it’s sweet. You’ve always been sweet.”
I smile.
“And Katie sounds like a very special little girl,” she adds. “I can’t even imagine what losing her must have felt like to you at that age.”
I start to respond, then something inside stops me. I was going to tell her how sad it had made me—sad for Katie, sad for her parents, sad for myself, but I realized that it was even more than that. Maybe for the first time, I was understanding the impact that Katie’s death had on me. My eyes search the table between me and Tammy, seeking and finding more emptiness there.
“When Katie Cooper moved to town … I don’t know if what I felt was love or not. But if it wasn’t, then it was a sneak preview into what love is. And maybe just knowing that life offers something like love is even more powerful than the love itself. Katie brought some kind of beautiful awareness to me when she came into my life. And when she left … how she left … well, I had another kind of awareness.”
I looked up at her.
“Tam, the world as I knew it … it died. You know?”
She nods, an offering of tears rolls down her cheeks.
“That’s how it is with Ethan, isn’t it? Nobody ever met him or even saw him. All he ever was to this world was a possibility. But he was our son, Tucker, and we know he was real. Right, Tucker? He is real?”
I hand her a cocktail napkin and she dabs at her tears.
“Yeah, Tam, he’s real.”
“People know what it’s like to love a child and they can imagine the possibility of losing one. But they don’t really feel it. They can’t, because feelings aren’t feelings until you feel them.”
When Tammy returns from freshening up in the ladies room, I tell her more details about my exchange of letters with Mr. Innocent and my plan to go to the cemetery that next morning and stake him out, which concerns her.
“I don’t know. Are you sure that’s wise?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s say you do catch this guy and let’s say it turns out he did kill Katie. You really want to be alone at the cemetery with a murderer?”
“Oh, that doesn’t seem likely, does it? Anyway, he’d probably deny everything. I mean, you think he’s going to confess to murder because I catch him picking an envelope up off the ground at the cemetery?”
“I don’t know, Tucker. It just doesn’t seem too safe.”
“Tell you what, I’ll bring my cell phone and I’ll tell him that I called Sheriff Buck when I saw him pick up the letter. Okay?”
“How ‘bout you actually do call Sheriff Buck.”
“Fine.”
We clink our glasses together.
Then from behind me comes a familiar lisping taunt.
“Hey there, Thathafrath.”
Edie Dales stands at the front door, a big gummy smile on his face.
“I thure hope you’re in a better mood tonight.”
I don’t respond. Turn back around to face my wife.
“I take it that’s the guy you were telling me about? The one you got in a fight with the other night?”
“Well, yeah, that’s the guy. But it’s a bit generous to refer to what happened between us a fight.”
“Let’s get out of here, Tucker.”
Tammy grabs her purse and puts it over her shoulder.
“I’m going to finish my drink,” I say.
“Thay, no hard feelings about the other night. Things jutht got a little outta control, right? Bethides, you threw the firtht punch.”
Still not facing him, I take another sip of my drink. Say nothing.
He raises his voice and repeats, “Hey! I thaid no hard feelingth. I’m offering my hand.”
I don’t respond, and I can hear Edie move across the floor toward me.
“Maybe you’re not hearing tho good tonight, Thathafrath,” Edie says, slamming a hand down on my shoulder.
But before he can spin me around to face him, another hand grabs hold of Edie’s wrist.
It’s Son Settles.
“Let go of him, Andrew. Let it go.”
I look over my shoulder at Son. His eyes are tender—not only for me, but for Edie, too. Edie looks at those same eyes and sees weakness. He gives a wheezy, breathy laugh, the fetid stench from his rotten mouth filling the air.
“Go to hell, Thon.”
He takes a wild swing at Son with his free hand, but Son blocks the blow and strikes Edie squarely in the nose with a right jab that drops Edie to the floor. Out cold.
Son looks over at me and gives a cowboy tip of his Dodger cap. I finish my drink and headed to the door with Tammy, stepping over Edie on our way.
The next day, Tammy and Tory go to Glidden to visit Grandma and after that to lunch and a matinee.
With Grandpa in the garage working on his broken down Wheel Horse, I pack a paper sack with potato chips, two bologna sandwiches, two bottles of water, and a book. I head out for the cemetery, prepared to stay until sundown if necessary. Determined to catch Mr. Innocent retrieving my letter. If, that is, my letter is even still there.
It is.
By 10 a.m., I have set up camp again in the bushes. I pull a bottle of water and a sandwich out of my lunch sack. I am two bites in when my first visitor arrives.
Edie Dales.
“Son of a bitch,” I whisper through a mouthful of bologna.
He passes right in front of me, arms at his side, hands clenched into fists, which is how Edie has always faced the world.
He walks slowly, heels hitting ground first, toes last like he’s wearing cowboy boots, but he is not. His arms don’t sway at all when he walks. It’s as if the fingers on both hands are wrapped around something heavy, something he has to carry everywhere he goes. Maybe lugging all that invisible weight around makes Edie Dales so angry all the time.
Edie carries his heavy weights around the corner of the utility shed and out of my line of sight. I wait a few seconds then quietly scoot over and peek around the corner. He walks to a headstone in the far corner of the cemetery, stops, and puts his hands in his pockets. Something in the way he stands there with his eyes looking down and all humble-looking tells me that this must be his father’s grave. He is saying something, but I can’t hear what it is. Whatever the message, he delivers it with a lot of shoulder shrugs and head tilts, like he is apologizing or perhaps confessing.
After a few minutes, Edie pulls his hands out of his pockets, picks up his invisible weights and walks back toward me. He turns the corner into my line of sight again and after a couple of steps, he stops in his tracks and puts his hands in his pockets again.
&
nbsp; Edie scans the horizon, takes in a deep breath—almost sniffing, like some animal in the wild picking up the scent of prey. That’s when he spots the Grave Letter at the foot of the headstone in front of him.
He glances around the bone yard at the other letters, his eyes snapping sharply from one to the next. Then he locks on the yellow envelope by James Johnson. After a peek over each shoulder, he makes a move toward the letter.
My heart jumps like I’d just felt a tug on my fishing line and watched my bobber go under. I push the bushes away from my face to get a clearer view. As I do, though, Edie stops in his tracks.
I had been too loud.
I freeze, suddenly mindful of my Adam’s apple and how loudly I swallow. Intensely aware of the itchy, drippy, sweat that covered my face.
Air makes a wheezy sound as it passes through my nostrils so I open my mouth, but I am no quieter.
But then something else, a different noise. It is the rumble of a lawn mower in the distance.
My eyes go to the long grass in the cemetery lawn. Old Man Keller is on his way, which is good and bad news. On the one hand, Edie hasn’t caught me. On the other, I haven’t caught him either.
Edie looks down at the envelope, pulls his hands out of his pocket and makes his way out of the cemetery. He and Keller nod at each other as they pass.
I’m not sure what to do. Do I wait to see if Edie came back for the letter? That could be hours. I look down at my lunch sack, see my book, and decide to stay for a little while anyway.
Questions race around my mind, bouncing into and off of one another.
Why was Edie writing these letters?
Had he killed Katie himself or did he know who had?
The Old Man and his mower had been noise-polluting the cemetery for about twenty-five minutes when he gets to the area in front of the bushes that are camouflaging me. I look down at my clothes and thank God for thinking to put a green shirt on me today when I hadn’t thought to do so myself. I scrunch up small as small as I can get, knees pulled up to chest, arms wrapped around knees.
The Old Man went in and out of view, left to right, right to left, blade on blade.
And then another surprise. This day was full of them.
The Old Man puts the mower in park and swings himself off of it. I lower my head for a better view between the branches, but can’t see what he is doing from my seated position. I stand up so I can see better, thankful for the noise of the still-running Cub Cadet.
He walks around to the other side of the mower and bends down out of view. When he is upright again, the Old Man looks directly at the bushes I am hiding behind. He shoots furtive glances to the left and the right, then walks back around and takes his rightful place atop his grass-chopper.
As he sits down something catches my eye. A tiny little corner of something sticking out of the back pocket of the Old Man’s denim overalls.
Something yellow.
He pulls away and my eyes lock on the rock in front of James Johnson’s headstone. The letter is gone. The Old Man has taken the letter I had written to Mr. Innocent.
Why? He is going to mess this up for me, but I don’t know what to do about it. Looking around at the places he has already mowed, I see that all of the other Grave Letters seem to still be in place.
The realization hit me like a Son Settles sucker punch. It’s not Edie Dales. It’s the Old Man.
Old Man Keller is Mr. Innocent.
I spring out from behind the bushes and run to the grave of James Johnson where Keller is quite startled to see me.
“Jesus Christ, Tucker, you scared the ever-living shit out of me,” he yells over the top of the mower.
I walk closer to him, holding his gaze. I reach down and turn the key of the Cub Cadet, killing the engine. Its rumble echoes through the cemetery for a moment and then all is quiet. The world is still. Not a bird, not a car, not another human being. Just me and the Old Man.
His voice quivers. “Again, Tuck? What do you want with me this time?”
“Answers,” I say. “I want answers. And you’re the guy who has them, aren’t you, Alvin?”
The Old Man chuckles.
“Answers, huh? I hope the questions are easy,” he says, pointing at his head apologetically.
I say nothing, just watch the Old Man squirm in the silence. It isn’t an interrogation technique, exactly. I really don’t know what to say next.
The quiet gets the best of him.
“Good for holding hats, not much else,” he laughs, again pointing at his head. “Ma, she’d always say, she’d say ‘Alvin, the day the good Lord was handing out brains, you musta—”
“This isn’t about brains, Alvin,” I interject. “It’s about honesty. You just be honest with me, okay?”
“Sure, Tuck, yeah, of course … of course, I’ll be honest with you.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“What’s eatin’ at ya, Tuck?”
The world smells like freshly cut grass and I breathe in as much as my lungs can hold. One of the fringe benefits to the Old Man’s job, that smell. A green smell that rises in rings and swirls from the decapitated blades of grass.
“What’s in your back pocket, Alvin?”
“Oh, is that what this is about?” He reaches back and pulls out the envelope. “This letter?”
“Yes, Alvin, that’s exactly what this is about.”
“Well, sure, I know it’s one of them, what are they calling them—Grave Letters? Yeah, they’re all over the place out here” he says, lifting his arm and turning in his seat to reveal them to me. “Get in my way when I mow—some of ‘em, anyway.”
“I’ve been watching you the whole time, Alvin. You only picked up one letter. And you didn’t move it out of the way. You put it in your pocket. Why did you do that, Alvin? Why only the one letter?”
His eyes dart left and right. “Hell, I don’t know, I guess –“
I raise a warning finger.
“Don’t! Goddammit, don’t lie to me, Alvin!” Then, in a quiet voice, I add, “Just don’t, all right? You know exactly what that letter is. Now tell me what else you know.”
Lips parted slightly, eyes narrow, the Old Man is churning something over in his mind.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, I know what the letter is.”
“And?”
“And,” he hedges, “I suppose I’ve written a couple-few myself.”
“Why, Alvin? Why did you write them?”
He pulls the cap off his head and runs his fingers through silvery-white bristles.
“I don’t know. I guess, well, to be honest”—he looks up at me—“you’re kinda the cause behind it?”
“Me? How the hell am I the cause?”
“It was that night up at Mustang’s. You and that Skinner kid was talking and I overheard you.”
The stop-and-go of the Old Man’s confession was getting to me.
“Enough with the twenty questions routine, Alvin. Just spit it out. All of it.”
“Fine, fine,” he says, the words dipped in disdain. Then his head lowers and his eyes drop down and to the right where he finds the memory of that night at Mustang’s.
“Like I say, you and that Skinner kid were at Mustang’s and you got to talking about that Cooper girl who got killed back when, what twenty years ago or so? Well, he says something to you about how he seen ol’ Slim Jim break into Ben Halpern’s house that same night and come out with a gallon of milk or somethin’. Well, that was the first time I’d heard that Halpern story and I get to thinkin’ about it myself and I figure that Skinner kid is probably right. That sure don’t sound like a man who just killed a little girl. I mean, ol’ Slim Jim, he wasn’t all there—touched in the head—but he sure as hell had enough sense to know to not stick around if he’d killed a girl. Hell, just look at his past and you can see that. Lots of petty theft and even then he’d leave town and move onto someplace new. That’s exactly what he did. You gonna tell me that he knew enough to leave St. Char
les Mizzou after stealing a bag of chips but he’s gonna hang around Willow Grove after killing a little girl?”
“Okay, so what’s all of this got to do with you? I still don’t understand why you wrote that letter.”
“My conscience, I guess. I started to feeling guilty and my conscience got the best of me. You see, I had a part in getting’ Slim Jim put away.”
A million little memory dots swirled through my mind and two of them connected.
“Wait … were you the anonymous tipster?”
The Old Man nods.
“I don’t get it. The story was that the anonymous tipster saw Slim Jim taking Katie down the tracks. You’re telling me now that you never saw that?”
He shakes his head slowly side to side and with eyes closed says, “I didn’t. I didn’t see nothin’.”
“So you just call up and say that you saw something that you didn’t see. Why? And why anonymously? Why not step out and tell Sheriff Buck, nobody would have doubted you.”
“That’s not exactly how it happened. You see, someone else did see Slim Jim taking that Cooper girl down the tracks.” Then crinkling his eyebrows together he adds, “At least, that’s what they told me. But I don’t know any more.”
“Who was it? Who told you they saw them and why didn’t they come forth on their own?”
He wrestles hard with something inside himself, grimaces, and shakes his head. He looks at me and I can see that in that moment the Old Man hates everything inside and outside of himself. Hates it all.
“It’s complicated, Tucker.”
“Alvin.”
Unspoken words inflate his cheeks. Then he blurts them out.
“It was that Andrew Dales. He’s the one who seen Slim Jim and Katie going down the tracks. Wasn’t going to come forward and tell anybody, the little bastard, so I done it.”
“Edie? That doesn’t make sense, Alvin. Why wouldn’t he come forward on his own?”
“Hell, I don’t know. He said that Slim Jim used to get him beer and pot sometimes and he knew Slim Jim would tell his folks if he found out it was Andrew who had ratted him out. Protecting himself, I suppose. Said that telling people what he saw would mean getting in trouble himself, so he asks me to do it for him. Says he can’t do it because it needs to come from an adult voice to be taken seriously. Anyway, I tell him I’ll do it—that’s all. Never regretted it either, not really. Not until going to Mustang’s the other night and hearing the two of you yapping about it. Should have just minded my own damn business, I guess.”
Where the Broken Lie Page 13
