No Way Home

by Andrew Coburn

  “Who’s there?” she said, and Junior Rayball sidled into the open with a sheepish smile. Her eyes crinkled and narrowed. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” she said. “I could say you’ve grown but you haven’t.”

  He shuffled closer, wearing a cap with stitching on the front, and scuffed up some dust. She remembered him sitting on a shitpile and eating sultana raisins from the box, a treat from her cupboard.

  “What are you doing here, Junior? You come to give me a visit after all these years?”

  “I’d’ve come a long time ago,” he said, “but I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

  “Not want to see you? I’ve missed you, boy, didn’t you know a simple thing like that?” She watched him beam the way he had when she had praised his handling of a pitchfork, awkward as it was, and she remembered his looking at her with the eyes of a pup caught peeing on the rug the time he had tried to go home with an egg in his pants and it broke in his pocket. Don’t have to steal, all you have to do is ask. “You come for anything special or just to say hi?”

  “I might go to Florida,” he said.

  “That so? Who’s going to take you, you go?”

  “Clement.”

  “I heard your brother was back.”

  “He came back to see me.”

  “He was always a good boy. Quiet, always quiet, I remember that. Florida sounds nice, Junior.”

  “I might not go. Depends.”

  “Depends on what?” she asked and was aware of the sudden tenseness in his posture, as if he had another egg in his pocket.

  “On if you might let me come back to work for you like I used to,” he said.

  “I got a boy working for me, part-time. One of the Wetherfields, Floyd, you know him? He’s putting himself through community college.” She watched Junior’s face begin to flatten into itself, and quickly she said, “He’s not smart like you were when it comes to chores. You were the best.”

  “I just thought I’d ask,” he said, “in case.”

  “Never any harm in asking. You want to come in for a drink of something cold?” she said, but he was already backing off, raising dust, perhaps feeling the heat of the sun, which would have been in his eyes had it not been for the visor of the cap.

  “I gotta go.”

  She watched him break into a trot and then into a run, and she wondered whether she’d been wrong not to have found something for him to do. Poor bugger, he had always gotten in the way, the short time she’d had him.

  • • •

  Reverend Stottle got himself out of bed and waited for Matt MacGregor on a piece of wrought-iron garden furniture. Mrs. Stottle’s garden shrilled too many colors. The reds, of which there were many, screamed. The oranges blared, and the several varieties of yellows whined. The music, he noted with melancholy, had been in the irises, cool blues and touches of bishop’s purple, and in the sweet William, pinks and whites, which were gone or nearly gone.

  Mrs. Stottle called from a window. “Would you like me to serve something when Matthew comes?”

  “No, dear, I don’t think he’ll be staying long,” he answered back with a slight cough. A jay flew toward a treetop as if on a secret errand — or perhaps for an assignation, a supposition that added to his apprehension. The possibility that MacGregor was coming to redeem his former girlfriend’s honor had grown into a certainty.

  When MacGregor arrived he felt an instant flood of relief, for the young man’s face revealed no murderous intent. On the contrary, it bore the mark of a choirboy in need of guidance, of a father’s firm hand, which made the reverend’s world seem right and proper again. God was good.

  “Nice of you to see me, Reverend.”

  “You didn’t give me much choice,” he said with a smile to show he held no ill feelings but was there to serve.

  MacGregor sat down hard on metal, framing himself against roses that looked preoccupied with their own overly red beauty. He was shaved, which he had not been the last time Reverend Stottle had seen him, and he was dressed neatly in casual clothes. Only his voice was haggard. “Do you know what it is to love a woman?”

  “Mrs. Stottle and I have been married an appreciable number of years. I do believe I know what it is to love a woman.”

  “Love her so much you’d do anything to keep her?”

  Reverend Stottle pictured Mrs. Stottle with a suitcase in hand at the open door and himself on his knees begging her to stay, which he had been prepared to do the night before. Thank God the chief was a brick and spared him such nonsense. “Yes, Matthew, I believe I do.”

  “That’s how I was with Lydia.”

  “She may not be all you thought she was,” he said, recalling her cold anger with not a word spoken as the chief hustled him out. A tic in MacGregor’s face alerted him, and swiftly he added, “But I can’t think of a finer woman, with the possible exception of Mrs. Stottle.”

  “I thought afterwards, after the thing, she would need me more than ever.”

  “Yes, the terrible thing,” he said. “And I would have thought the same, indeed I would.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Indeed.” But the intensity of the young man’s eyes caused him to avert his, briefly, for a splurge of scarlet phlox got on his nerves. Mrs. Stottle had a green thumb but no eye for coordinating colors.

  “I knew one was enough. The key was the mother. All I had to do was twist it.”

  He felt that he had missed something, but it did not matter. The boy was spouting wind and relieving his innards. A good minister, he had been told in Bible college, must learn when to hold his tongue, at times even to bite it, lessons in his salad days he had been slow to learn, his rash, eager lips more likely to issue a solecism than a kindness. What was the unpleasing nickname his colleagues had given him? He’d rather not remember.

  MacGregor said, “I knew the father had a bad heart, and I knew how close he was to the mother. I knew he wouldn’t last long after she went. What surprised me was he didn’t wait a minute.”

  Reverend Stottle perked up. “I spoke those very words, more or less. If you had been in church Sunday, you’d have heard them.”

  “It went better than it was supposed to. Rayball never knew he’d be popping one, but I’d be getting two.”

  He realized he was missing more than he thought. It was the damn flowers. Those acid yellows had no business in the garden. And Rayball. What did Rayball have to do with the price of sugar?

  MacGregor said, “Her mom and dad gone, I should’ve had her in my arms that night, crying her heart out. Mine forever. Instead she’s shacking up with the chief.” He stopped himself, as if some things he could not think about. His breath went in. “Last minute I wanted to stop it, I called to warn her, but nobody answered. It was too late.”

  “What was too late?”

  He looked deep into Reverend Stottle’s face. “You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Not entirely,” the reverend conceded, though the reference to Chief Morgan was certainly clear.

  “Best laid plans, Reverend. You know what they say.”

  “Yes, I do, but I still don’t understand.”

  MacGregor rose with a lightness he had lacked until now. “You think about it, Reverend. It’ll come to you.”

  With a mild sense of relief Reverend Stottle watched him leave and then strode from the garden, glad to leave it, pleased he had done his duty. As he opened the side door to his house he remembered, with distaste, the nickname: Shit-for-Brains.

  • • •

  Chief Morgan waited on the shore of Paget’s Pond for the scuba divers to finish the futile search. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and his forearms were red from scratching mosquito bites. The heat had ushered in a whole new generation. Behind him came footsteps.

  “What’s going on, Chief?”

  “A hunch that’s not working out,” he said.

  Lieutenant Bakinowski stood beside him. “They looking for the weapo
n?”

  “Yes, but it’s not there.”

  “Save yourself some time. Ask MacGregor where it is.”

  “You’re ruining a good cop,” Morgan said. “He’s not showing up for duty.”

  “I can understand why. I’m breaking him. I’m wearing him down. It’s a damn crude way I’m doing it, but you left me no choice. You gave me no help, and neither did Jackson. I went over your head, you know. It didn’t work. That’s what I like about these god-damn little towns. Everybody’s got a finger up the next fella’s ass. You got yours up Jackson’s, MacGregor’s got his up yours.”

  Morgan took a breath, held himself in, and swatted his arm. “I have nothing to say to you except leave MacGregor alone.”

  “Yeah, I’ll leave him alone. I’ll hand him to you on a plate and you can cut him up any way you want.” Bakinowski turned away and after a few steps looked back. His voice was calm. “I’ve been doing homicide too long not to know a killer when I see one. And you, Chief, you’re plain wrong.”

  “Not wrong, just mixed up,” Morgan said. “I had the wrong Rayball, is all.”

  “You want to explain that?”

  “Yes, when I bring him in on a plate.”

  • • •

  The evening seemed sultrier than the day had been, no movement in the air. The air in the station was clammy. Bertha Skagg’s thighs stuck together, and her feet swelled. “I can’t take no more of this,” she said, and Chief Morgan sent her home and took her place at the phone with its modest array of buttons, two of which were meaningless. He punched an outside line and fingered in Lydia Lapham’s number, which rang through. Then he called the hospital, but she was too busy to talk. He had the impression she did not want to. After a long hesitation, he rang up Christine Poole’s house, expecting to hear the son’s voice, but it was Arlene Bowman’s.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “How do you think she is?” There was a pause. “Are you asking yourself how much you had to do with it? You’ll never know, will you?”

  “I understood it was an accident.”

  “If you believe that, you must be great friends with the tooth fairy. Services will be private, so you needn’t worry about attending.”

  “Are you handling arrangements, Arlene?”

  “She has a son here, but he’s no help. Her other son is in Africa with the Peace Corps, he’s sent regrets. Calvin had children of his own, but they’re not here yet. So, yes, I’m helping out. Does that bother you?”

  “I hope she can’t hear any of this.”

  “Of course she can’t. And let me assure you, you’re least in her mind. You may not even exist.”

  “Thank you, Arlene,” he said and quietly disconnected.

  A half hour later, Meg O’Brien came through the door with sandwiches and two cans of root beer. The sandwiches were cream cheese and olive, with a side wrapper of dill pickles. She said, “I knew Bertha wouldn’t stay.”

  “I’ve got bad news,” Morgan said, immediately biting into the sandwich she had slid his way. “The divers aren’t coming back tomorrow. One’s got commitments, and the other’s going on vacation.”

  “Just as well,” she said, passing him a pickle. “That was only a guess of mine about the river.”

  Morgan made a space between his finger and thumb. “Meg, I’m this close to getting him.”

  “Good,” she said. “For Matt’s sake.”

  • • •

  Papa said to Junior, “You look at me when I talk!”

  “I am,” Junior said, his sneakered feet hooked on the rungs of his chair. He and Papa were at the kitchen table, around which the heat of the day was hovering for the night. Sweat dripped from Papa’s nose.

  “You don’t let Clement fill your head with Florida, you hear?”

  “I ain’t said yet I’m goin’, Papa. I’m jus’ thinkin’, like he told me.”

  “What you thinkin’ with? This?“ Papa rapped his own head. “You ain’t got nothin’ in there. I’m the one does your thinkin’.”

  Lowering his eyes, Junior placed his hands on the table and played with his fingers. “Would you miss me, Papa?”

  “Ain’t a question of missin’ you. It’s a question of what you’re gonna do on your own. Clement, he ain’t gonna have no time for you down there, he’s got his own life. You’d be like shit on his shoe.”

  “He wouldn’t of asked me, he didn’t want me.”

  “Now he wants you, later he won’t.” Papa snorted, the sweat flying. “You don’t know how to do nothin’ without me, when you gonna learn that?”

  Junior lifted his face, with some fight in his eyes. “Lots of things I do you don’t know about.”

  “Like goin’ behind my back, that what you mean?”

  Junior flushed and said nothing. His fingers were at play again, with Papa watching him closely. A bug beat at the screen in the window. Then Papa rose from the table, his voice softening.

  “I’m gonna watch some TV, you wanna watch it with me?”

  Junior shook his head.

  • • •

  Chief Morgan drove through the warm thickness of the night to Lawrence. He left his car in the Emergency lot and, entering the hospital, filtered into a waiting crowd of mothers with crying children, men with fierce wounds, and youths with their eyes glued to their hundred-dollar sneakers. A nurse bellowed a name. In some ways the area had the accusing air of a courtroom. He found quiet in a corridor and sought direction from a woman worker in sagging support stockings. At a nurses’ station he was advised to try the cafeteria.

  Lydia Lapham was sitting with a doctor. He guessed who it was. The gray in the man’s hair pleased him. “Can I talk to you?” he said to her.

  The doctor rose as if on a command from his scrotum. “I was just leaving.”

  Morgan sat in the vacated chair and pushed aside the empty coffee cup, which rattled in its thick saucer. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She did not look it. Stark minimum makeup put her face closer to the bone and made her eyes enormous, forcing them to shift for themselves. Her frazzled uniform looked like milk hesitating between fresh and sour. “Was that your friend?” he asked.

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

  “I don’t have the right to be.”

  “But you are,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s interesting.” A few white threads dangled from a sleeve, like thistledown. “Tell me more.”

  He pushed the doctor’s cup farther away and said, “Was the other night something that happened and won’t happen again?”

  “I don’t know what it was. I’ve been pondering it. I’m a little afraid of you. Who are you?”

  “I’m starting to ask myself that.”

  “You’re not Frank. You’re certainly not Matt, and I’m not the wife you lost. They say you still carry her around.”

  “Not like I used to. Not as much.”

  “I hope to hell I don’t look like her. Do I?”

  “No.”

  “That’s something.” She had a little coffee left. She drank it. Two nurses smiled at her in passing. “I don’t want to make any more mistakes with men. What bothers me is that I’m fair game. The Reverend Mister Stottle showed me that.”

  “Did I take advantage?” he asked.

  “No, James. But could it have been anyone if it hadn’t been you? That’s the question in my mind.”

  “I’d like to think no.”

  “I would too.” She looked at her watch and rose. Quickly she freed the back of her uniform, which was sticking to her legs. He was conscious of her down to the tips of her toes. He felt her in his nerves. She said, “My mother used to say I looked like a bride in my whites. Do I still?”

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Thanks for dropping by.”

  • • •

  Mrs. Stottle joined Reverend Stottle in the study, where they enjoyed late after-din
ner coffee flavored with chocolate, a particular favorite of the reverend’s. His brow was faintly troubled. “Do you remember, dear, our first parish in Rhode Island?” She did. She remembered it well. She had been some thirty years younger. He said, “The ladies’ garden society kept the grounds beautiful, but I noticed something sinister. The magnolia blossoms lasted less than a week, the same with irises that bloomed later. Day lilies gave a show of longevity but only because they staggered their wealth. In reality everything was over in a wink. That’s the way it is.”

  “And always has been,” she said.

  “Of course, we have heaven to look forward to.”

  “Heaven, I suspect, is filled with happiness too horrendously consistent to enjoy.”

  “I was thinking of Mrs. Dugdale, poor dear. Heaven is where she is, certainly not hell.”

  Mrs. Stottle tinkled her cup, paper-thin china, in the saucer. “Hell is hard labor and heaven no work at all. Which is worse?”

  “Purgatory,” the reverend said. “But of course we’re not Catholics.”

  “Even they don’t believe in it anymore. How are you feeling?”

  “Better.”

  “I’m going to bed,” she announced.

  “Yes, I’ll follow,” he said, but settled a little more comfortably in his club chair, which had accompanied him to all his churches. On the wall hung a photograph of his graduating class, the cream of their generation, he liked to think. Then, for an hour, he listened to Beethoven and entered the depths of the music.

  When he crept into bed, his wife was asleep, snoring ever so lightly. He stole back portions of the top sheet that belonged to him, a theft that occurred nightly, a sin of less importance than the colors of her garden. Then he laid his head on his pillow, contented.

  Twenty minutes later, waking abruptly, he exclaimed, “Oh, my God!”

  His voice bit through Mrs. Stottle’s sleep, and she lifted her head. “What’s wrong, Austin?”

  “Matthew is going to kill somebody. Maybe himself.”