Cicada Spring

by Christian Galacar

  “If you say so,” Catherine said.

  There was disbelief in her voice, and it furthered Gaines’s own self-doubt. Why couldn’t she ever just agree with him? Why did she have to be so…

  He tossed the license back on the table with the rest of the evidence. Then Gaines’s eyes settled on the green, metal ammunition can one last time. Something about it had seemed strange. It was a bit odd for someone to use such a bulky thing to carry around cigarettes. But then again, the man had shot one of his deputies and tried to kidnap—most likely murder—a woman too. So who was Gaines to think that he could understand the motivations of someone like that? Who was Gaines at all? That was starting to seem like a recurring question as of late.

  Suddenly, Gaines made a faint connection to the conversation he’d had with Harry Bennett a couple of days before. Not that he actually valued anything the man had to say, but it had seemed to ring true in the moment: People like you and me, we’re not made of stone and steel like most people think. We’re something closer to wood, and after a while, life sands down our edges, rounds us, forms us to its will. It’s our job to know when it’s time to reform our boundaries, re-sharpen our edges. It reminds us who we are.

  Gaines couldn’t help but wonder if that was what was happening to him. Had he lost his edge? The thought that it might be the case made Gaines feel an overwhelming wave of exhaustion.

  Outside the birds had just begun to chirp. A few early-to-rise cicadas had started their lonesome soliloquies, and sleep was becoming necessary. It had been a long night. That was the only thing Calvin Gaines was certain of.

  It was 3:45 in the morning on Wednesday.

  CHAPTER 28

  Around noon, after Gaines managed to steal a few hours of sleep in an empty holding cell, he picked up the phone and tried the Belchertown police a second time.

  It rang twice, then a man picked up. “Belchertown Police Department.”

  Gaines cleared his throat. “This is Sheriff Calvin Gaines calling from over in Heartsridge. Could I speak with the officer in charge please?”

  “Just a moment.” There was a beat of silence, followed by rustling on the other end of the line. Then: “What is this regarding?”

  “I think it’d be best if I went over that with whoever’s in charge,” Gaines said.

  Another pause. This time Gaines heard muffled voices on the other end.

  The man returned and said, “Just a moment, please.”

  Thirty seconds or so went by, then an older voice picked up. “This is Chief Walsh. What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  “Hi. Hello. Sorry for the theatrics,” Gaines said, “but we have a bit of a serious matter on our hands over here.”

  “Not a problem. Hope it’s nothing too serious,” Walsh said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, unfortunately, we had a shooting last night,” Gaines said, and sighed. “The worst of it is we lost one of our deputies. A good man. It’s been a really trying twenty-four hours, to say the least.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. That’s never easy. It’s the worst part of the job,” said Walsh, his voice tightening up—a serious tone.

  Gaines could hear the sincerity. “Yeah, it’s a real shame. Young kid, too,” he said.

  “Well, you have my condolences. Anything we can do to help?” Walsh asked.

  Gaines sat upright and shuffled the selected copies of evidence sitting in front of him: motel statements, pictures from the scene, and a copy of the ID they had found in the man’s wallet. “The person responsible, he’d been staying locally for a few days. Said he was a photographer from up north. But that was a lie, of course.”

  “You have him in custody?”

  “Not exactly in custody, no, but we got him.” Gaines stalled briefly. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh,” Walsh said, sounding relieved, if not happy. “Well, maybe there’s justice after all.”

  “I suppose. Anyway, we found an ID on the guy. It says he’s from Belchertown.” Gaines scanned the copy of the license just to make sure, even though he’d seen it a dozen times. “I was hoping maybe you’d heard of him. We ran the plates on his truck and they came back stolen, so no luck there. We’re running his name, too, but that always takes time. I was hoping maybe you could help us shut this case a little quicker. We got our hands full as is.”

  “Glad to, but heck, I hate to think someone like that came outta our town. Though I’m not foolish enough to think it isn’t possible,” Walsh said regretfully. “What’s the name? I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Leslie Charles Millis.” Gaines verified with the copy once more. “That’s what his driver’s license says, anyway.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, followed by a few reluctant laughs. “Are you screwing with me? Pulling my leg? Who put you up to this? Frank?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “Charlie Millis is dead,” Walsh said.

  “Dead? Are you sure?” Gaines felt waves of frustration starting to crash against the front of his mind. A fear that he would have to start from scratch started to enter his mind. He didn’t have time. He just couldn’t catch a damn break this week. Suddenly, his head started to ache.

  Walsh cut the laughter and said, “As a goddamn doornail. No doubt about it. Hanged himself after he had a stroke. I don’t know who you have sitting in your morgue, but it sure as hell isn’t Charlie Millis.”

  “Then why is his ID sitting in an evidence bag in the basement of my station?”

  “I don’t know, but sounds like whoever it is…” Walsh trailed off as if an old thought had struck him. There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. Then, curiously sincere, he asked, “What does this guy look like?”

  “About six foot, skinny, red hair, a crooked nose that looks like it might’ve been broken a few times,” Gaines said. “Maybe forty years old. It’s tough to tell, his license is old and the DOB is faded. Looks to be expired, too.”

  “Christ almighty… I wonder…” Walsh muttered.

  “What?” Gaines said impatiently.

  “It’s a long shot, but Charlie Millis had a son, Gordon… Gordon Millis.” There was a slight hesitation in his voice. “But no one’s seen him in years. He was the spitting image of his old man. God, I can’t remember the last time I heard that name.”

  “You think that’s who it is?” Gaines asked.

  “Maybe. Don’t know. But I can’t think of anyone else who’d have Charlie Millis’s driver’s license and who you’d mistake for the real Charlie Millis, provided the ID hasn’t been altered. I can’t know for sure without having a look myself. I could take a drive there if you’d like. Tell you for certain.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” Gaines said. “I’ll have one of my guys head over there now with a copy of the license and some pictures of the body for a positive ID.”

  “That’ll work too,” Walsh said, almost sounding disappointed.

  “Okay, good. That helps a lot,” Gaines said. Finally, something was going his way. “So this guy, Gordon Millis, what’s his story? Got any info, if it is him?”

  “Hell, where to begin? What a sad thing that was. I don’t think I’ve thought about that kid for ten years.”

  “Well, enlighten me if you could. I’m still trying to understand why this happened in the first place,” Gaines said.

  “It’s been a while, but you don’t forget a thing like this, unfortunately.”

  “Whatever you can tell me, I’d appreciate it,” Gaines said. “All we got over here are questions… I could use some answers for once.”

  Walsh breathed a long, pensive breath. “Okay. Well to start, Charlie Millis was a terrible drunk. I mean, this guy—what a real piece of work. I picked him up more times than I can remember on drunk and disorderly charges. But that was the least of his problems. He was a real grade-A scumbag. For a while, he was married to a real sweet woman, Elizabeth, I think was her name, and he developed a bad habit of slap
ping her around after he’d hit the bottle. About once a month we’d get a call from a neighbor who’d heard yelling and screaming coming from the Millis house and who was sure Charlie was about to kill his wife. We’d show up, she’d have a shiner or a rosy cheek or a bloody nose, but she’d refuse to press charges—that’s usually the case with these things, you know—so we’d just make Charlie sleep it off in the tank and release him in the morning. Nothing else we could really do. It was awful. Made me sick sometimes.”

  “If you ask me, people like that deserve the chair,” Gaines said. He felt compelled to state his position, to prove he felt the same disapproval for that kind of abuse. For a second, he wondered if he felt that need only because of how poorly he’d presented his true position recently regarding the accusations against Harry Bennett. It was, perhaps, a poor, desperate attempt at redemption.

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Walsh said. “Anyway, all the while this was happening, they had this kid, Gordon. At this point he couldn’t have been more than a few years old, and he witnessed this type of thing probably daily. I remember every time we’d show up he was sitting in some corner of the house, knees curled up to his chest, just watching his father smack his mother around. The thing was—and this always struck me as odd—the kid never cried, not once. He always just sat there calmly, even when we walked in to break it up. It was probably shock, but it sure did give me the creeps. What kind of kid wouldn’t be upset over seeing that?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Gaines said, finding it hard to find any real sympathy for the person who had possibly just shot and killed his friend.

  “You don’t want to, that’s the truth. Trust me. But listen, it gets worse,” Walsh said. “So eventually Charlie’s wife leaves him. Can you blame her? That’s not a life if you ask me. I didn’t understand it for a while, you know, how a mother could abandon a child like that, but I guess everyone’s got a tipping point. I’m not saying she was a bad mother, she was just trying to survive. I think I get it now—it’s instinct. Truthfully, Charlie probably would’ve killed her eventually had she stuck around. But without a woman to beat up on, Gordon became the next best thing. Poor kid never stood a chance.” Walsh paused a moment. “I know you probably don’t want to hear me offering pity for this kid, not if he actually is the one who shot one of your guys. It’s just how I remember it, that’s all.”

  “It’s okay, I understand. Go on.”

  Walsh continued. “After his wife left, things changed a little. Not for the better, though. Charlie was a little more discreet about how he handled his boy. What he did, he did behind closed doors, and we stopped getting the calls from his neighbors. But every so often we’d get a call from a concerned teacher or someone who’d seen Gordon around town with a black eye or looking roughed up. Really everyone knew what was going on, but how can you stop family stuff like that? It’s always more complicated than it seems. Anyway, I tried talking to Gordon more than a few times, but he always clammed up and denied anything I was suggesting.”

  “What type of kid was he?” Gaines asked.

  “He was smart, you could tell, but always a few degrees off dead-center, if you know what I mean. When I’d speak to him, his eyes were there, you know, but there wasn’t much behind ’em. Tough to tell if he was born that way or just turned like that.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Well, eventually he left for college, which was probably for the best. He wasn’t really cut out for war. Kind of a loner, you know? I heard it had pissed his father off something awful, which was why his old man offered to pay for his schooling—told him to go and never come back. A parting gift, I guess you could say. So Gordon left and stayed gone a long time, almost ten years. Then his father had a stroke, a real bad one that paralyzed him and put him in a wheelchair. Shortly after that happened, I bumped into Gordon in town. He said hello with no mention of what he’d been up to for so long and then went on his way, like he hadn’t been gone all that time. I don’t know how he’d found out about his father—I don’t think he had any other family—or why he cared, but for some reason he came home to take care of the old man. And if you believe the popular opinion, he did just that.”

  “What do you mean?’

  “About a month after I ran into Gordon, he showed up at the station and said his father had hanged himself, and he said it with those same cold eyes.” Walsh paused for a moment, then said, “That was the last time I ever saw Gordon Millis. I think it’s the last anybody ever saw of him. I don’t think he made the funeral, if you catch me.”

  “So he murdered his own father? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. We never found any evidence to suggest Gordon killed him… never any to the contrary, either, though. But sure, there were more than a few people who were curious as to how a paralyzed man climbed a set of stairs and strung himself from the banister. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t one of ’em.”

  “Did you ever open an investigation? At least try and track him down? I mean, if you really thought he killed someone, didn’t you…” Gaines didn’t follow the thought through to its obvious conclusion; they both knew where it led. And what was the point, anyway?

  There was a beat of silence between the two men.

  “As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t a need to,” Walsh said earnestly. “Charlie was dead. The ME declared it suicide. And I just figured Gordon went back to whatever life he’d been living before he came back. Everyone was better off, it seemed.” He cleared his throat, his tone livening. “You still want to send those photos along? See if we can’t ID your DB?”

  “Yes. I’ll send someone within the hour. Soon as you know something, give me a call. And thanks for your help.”

  “Of course, Sheriff,” Walsh said, followed by a sigh. “And I truly am sorry you lost a man, even more so if Gordon Millis did it.”

  “Me too.”

  Gaines hung up the phone.

  Two hours later he had his positive ID on Gordon Millis.

  CHAPTER 29

  On Thursday, with renewed hopes of getting on with her life, Kara returned to school. She had prepared for what she might be met with, knowing that her secret was no longer a secret, knowing that some version of it was out there floating around. Her mother had warned her that she’d received a call on Wednesday from her friend Meredith Drinkwater, asking if this terrible thing she had just heard about Kara was true. It was the inevitable nature of such a small town. No secrets here. And Kara had known there would be some kind of reaction to it. But this? It’d be a lie to say she thought it would be this harsh or directly mean—this cold. The sudden impact of the mean gesture she was looking at on her locker admittedly rocked her; she wouldn’t deny that. It pushed her close to that familiar ledge she’d spent the last few days backing away from, the ledge that fell away into that familiar dark chasm of despair she’d clawed herself out of, one helpless thought at a time. Hard days giving way to hard hours, giving way to hard minutes, giving way to impossible seconds, each a seemingly impassable hurdle. But she held strong. This would not drop her. She’d come too far.

  This is a part of you now. It is a part of your life.

  Kara said nothing standing in front of her locker. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw, fighting back the urge to cry and scream and pound her fists. There could be no reaction.

  Kara opened her eyes.

  It was a quarter after eight. Fifteen minutes before first period. That’s all. Just another day at school.

  She looked left down the hall and saw a group of girls standing in a small circle giggling and looking her way. Some she even recognized to be girls she thought were her friends. To her right she heard similar low-hung laughter but didn’t look; she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

  Breathing deep, Kara fixed her eyes again on the graffiti scrawled across her locker. The word SLUT was staring back at her, written in thick black permanent marker. Be tough, she thought.
Don’t give them the response they want.

  (Slut? Is that really what they think of me?)

  She squeezed the latch on her locker and swung the door open.

  At first she was startled by what happened. Jumping back, she clutched her chest and almost fell. Her backpack slid sideways, hanging unevenly off one shoulder. Immediately her face flushed and went hot. Then she heard the gales of laughter rising in a raucous crescendo. And this was all before she really knew what was going on.

  Papers were sliding out of her locker. An avalanche. They flowed down and spread out like some sort of kaleidoscope eruption. Different colors poured out into a confused pile of reds, yellows, whites, and blues all juxtaposed against one another. It took a moment for her to comprehend what she was seeing, but eventually she understood what all the papers were. They were old flyers from Harry Bennett’s various elections and campaigns. Hundreds of them. Some she immediately remembered seeing hung on telephone poles around town, one year, two year, maybe three years ago. Kara continued backing away. One fluttered to her feet, spinning in its own, small, lateral vortex and landing right side up. And then there he was: a black and white headshot of Harry Bennett smiled upward at Kara. Below the picture was a slogan: ELECT HARRY BENNETT, HE’S NOT AFRAID TO GET HIS HANDS DIRTY.

  Kara’s adrenaline kicked in, and she slammed the locker shut. There couldn’t have been more than twenty kids in the corridor, but the laughter roared like a stadium. She felt as if she had shrunk to an impossibly small size. She re-shouldered the fallen strap of her bag, and before she knew it, she was running toward the ladies’ room down the hall.

  While she ran, the world around her slurred into a million shades of gray, except for one thing that remained in focus: her friend, Haley Richmond. They had been friends for years, and as Kara began to break left to push open the door to the bathroom, she saw Haley and caught her eyes. She was laughing in a small group of girls, girls Haley and Kara never palled around with. New friendships, already? When the two made eye contact, Haley was quick to slacken her face and cut the laughter, her eyes immediately darting to the floor.