by Bret Lott
“Honey, everything all right?” Mom said. “Huger?”
I looked in the mirror again. No bandages, my head no bigger than ever. But I knew something. In that head—my head—was something important enough to make her come to me.
The only problem was I had no idea what it could be.
“I’m okay,” I said. Then I leaned over to the toilet, flushed it. “Just using the toilet,” I said, and held the paperweight in my palm so no one would see it when I came out.
Next morning Dr. Buck came in early, woke me up. I lay on my stomach, my hand inside the pillowcase under the pillow, in it this glass thing. I squinted at him for the light above the bed again. I let go the paperweight, rolled over, sat up.
The blinds were open, the sky through them gray, though I could tell it wasn’t cloudy. Just early.
Mom’s cot was empty, the blanket and sheet they’d given her folded at the foot, the pillow set on top of them.
“Where’s Mom?” I said.
Dr. Buck put the clipboard on the bed, flashed that penlight in my eyes a couple times more, the pain almost gone. He put a hand to the back of my head, felt the bump back there.
“Can’t say as I know, bo,” he said, and gave a quick smile. He picked up the clipboard. “We’ll keep you here maybe another hour or so, then you’re good to go. Okay?”
I looked back to the window. Through the blinds I could see pieces of the tops of other buildings, pieces of palmettos and live oak and the red metal and gray slate roofs of old houses way off and down.
Charleston.
I closed my eyes. I wanted home: Hungry Neck.
“I’ll be ready,” I said.
He turned, went for the door, but stopped, and I opened my eyes. He looked at his clipboard, at me again. “That was something, yesterday.” He paused. “What happened. What you saw.” He put his hand up to the doorjamb, tapped his fingers.
“Yep,” I said.
“Hope your uncle’s okay.” He gave that quick smile. “Hope he’s all right out there without you.”
“He’s been alone before,” I said. “He’s a big boy.”
He tapped the doorjamb one last time. “You got that right, bo,” he said. Still his redneck talk didn’t sound right, or real. He cleared his throat. “You take it easy, hear? And give my best to your uncle, when you see him next.”
“Okay,” I said.
Mom showed up around eight, all her makeup on, hair done. She had a nice blouse and pants on and had a little carry bag with her, one of those flowery free things you get when you buy a few dollars of soap at the Belk. She was laughing when she came in, behind her a nurse, a big black woman with her hair pulled tight into a ponytail. She was pushing a wheelchair.
Mom got this big smile on her face, said, “My baby is awake!” and set the bag on the bed. “Dorinda here says Dr. Morrison’s signed you out already. I myself went home to get you some clean clothes, not to mention taking care of myself. Nothing like sleeping on a cot to give your hair a royal mess.” She sat at the foot of the bed. “But of course the doctor’s already here and gone.”
“The governor’s signed your reprieve,” the nurse said, smiling.
Mom was pulling stuff out of the carry bag now: a pair of jeans, socks, a green-and-white plaid shirt. “Dorinda’s going to wheel you out, once you get your clothes on.”
They looked at me, the two of them smiling.
But all I was thinking on was the paperweight in my right hand, under the sheet, my mind set on how I was going to get my clothes and go to the bathroom and change without either of them seeing it.
“If you’d get out of here,” I said, “we can head home all the quicker.”
Mom stood, gave me this look, rolled her eyes: Who do you think you are?
But I covered it, gave her my shit-eating grin, the one any kid with half a brain has figured out by the time he’s three.
“Well,” she said, and smiled. “A young man’s got to have his privacy, I guess,” she said.
“Damn straight,” I said, and gave it another good smile, her skinny and pitiful and only child here in a hospital bed.
It was in my pocket. I knew that. But I felt like everybody in the hospital knew it too, though we’d only wheeled out of the room, were only a few doors down the hallway. I glanced into each room as we passed, expecting to see a nurse who’d call out to me, ask who that lady was who came into my room late last night. I saw nobody, just the same oak and brass and wooden blinds as back in my room.
We made it to the elevator, to my left an oak desk on an oriental rug. A woman in a gold suit coat and white blouse sat behind it, hands together on the desktop, smiling like a real estate agent in a TV commercial. She said, “I hope you enjoyed your stay with us.”
I just looked at her. She tilted her head one way, still smiling at me.
I felt Mom’s hand at my shoulder, squeezing. I smiled at the woman, said, “Thank you,” then looked forward, my eyes to the lighted numbers above the elevator doors. We were almost out of here.
Then the doors opened up.
Two men stood inside, both with buzz cuts, both with black windbreakers on. They didn’t even have to turn around, show me SLED in big yellow letters across their backs, for me to figure out who they were. Or why they were here.
It was in my pocket. I knew that. But they didn’t.
They stepped out, smiled at us as fake as Dr. Buck’s redneck words.
“Mrs. Dillard?” one of them said to Mom. He was blond, thick-necked, and had on a red polo shirt, the sleeves of his windbreaker pushed up to his elbows.
“Yes?” Mom said. She turned, nodded at the nurse. “I’ll take it from here, Dorinda. I’m a hospital employee, so if something happens while I’m pushing him out, I can sue me, and win.” She smiled, shrugged.
“Sound like a plan,” Dorinda said, and let go.
Mom pushed me between them and inside the elevator, then wheeled me around, so that now we were inside, looking out at them. She knew something was up.
The second one, black hair and with just as thick a neck, only with a white dress shirt and tie on, put his hand to the elevator door, held it so it wouldn’t close.
“We need to talk to Huger Dillard,” he said, and looked at me, smiling.
Mom touched the button for the ground floor.
“We’re going home,” she said.
“Ma’am, this is official business,” the blond said, and took out a billfold from his back pocket, flashed a badge and ID card. “I’m Agent Hampton, this is Agent Elliot, State Law Enforcement Division.” The other man, still with one hand holding the door open, took out his billfold, too, showed his badge.
“You don’t think I know who you are?” she said, and I could hear in her voice where she was headed.
“Ma’am,” the black-haired one said, “all we need is a few minutes to go through some questions. You can make it easy on yourself and your son, and just give us that time, or we can waste all our time, and make this harder than it has to be.” He smiled at her.
She took in a deep breath, let it out. “We’re going home,” she said, “and if you’d take your hand off that door, we’d all be spending our time a little more wisely.”
They looked at each other, then stepped in.
The door closed.
The black-haired one smiled down at me. He said, “Just a routine interview. He was there at the discovery of the body, and it’s SLED policy to interview everyone present at the crime scene.” He looked at Mom. “He’s the next-to-last one we have to interview. We got everybody else already. Just routine, ma’am.”
Mom let out a heavy breath. I couldn’t see her behind me, only imagined her eyes on the lighted numbers above the doors, her mouth shut tight.
“Did you hear anything at the club night before last?” the blond one said. “Anything out of the ordinary?”
I was looking at the numbers now, too. “No,” I said. “Nothing.”
“Your uncle is bli
nd, is that correct?”
“You boys must work nights for the Psychic Network,” I said, and Mom let out a small laugh.
They didn’t look at her, didn’t blink. “How is it you discovered the body?” the blond said.
I slowly shook my head, saw Unc only yesterday morning, telling me to stop.
“I didn’t find it,” I said. “Unc did.”
“And how did that happen?” He crossed his arms.
I said, “He smelled it.”
“He what?”
I looked at him. “He’s blind, and he smelled it. That’s why he told me to stop.”
The black-haired one cleared his throat. “We’d like to know what you saw once you discovered the body. If there was anything out of the ordinary.”
“What’s ordinary about a dead body is all I want to know,” Mom said. They looked at her behind me. “It’s out of the ordinary just to see something like that. So you’re asking him what else there was about it? Isn’t it enough my boy saw it in the first place?”
“Now, ma’am,” the black-haired one said, “we’re just trying to find out as much as we can about what happened. That’s all we’re here for.”
“You got three more floors to go before we’re out of here, and you’re out of our lives, so hop to it.”
“Ma’am,” the blond said, “we’ll ask as many—”
“Lee,” the black-haired one said, quiet, and this Lee stopped.
The black-haired one knelt, put his hand on the wheel of my chair. I could smell his aftershave, heavy and dull. “What did you see?” he said.
“His hands,” I said. “That’s pretty out of the ordinary. And that cardboard sign. That’s it.” I looked at my hands in my lap, and the skin on them, and waited for what was coming next: Have you seen the good doctor’s wife?
“And you heard nothing,” he said.
“Nothing.”
“Did your uncle act strange in any way earlier this week? Or at any time in recent weeks?”
“One more floor,” Mom said.
Unc hadn’t acted strange. Not until yesterday morning, when he told me he’d wanted to kill the man himself a long time ago. And last night, when he’d told me he didn’t want us in on any of this, whatever the hell that meant.
“No,” I said. “Same old Unc.”
“Did you talk about anything at all either before or after the body was discovered?”
I looked him in the eye, almost dared him to try and find what I was leaving out of what I was about to tell him.
I said, “We talked about the stands the night before, took a drive over to them Friday night, looked around. Saturday morning, after we found the body, we talked about the dogs and keeping them off it, off the body. And we talked about police stuff, like making everybody sit in the weeds on the opposite side of the road, walking single file, that stuff, so the scene wouldn’t be wrecked.” I stopped, took a breath at that place where I could have told him the fact he’d talked to Constance Dupree Simons only Wednesday. “And he told me the person’s name, Constance, who was married to that doctor. The one who wrote the cardboard sign, near as anybody could tell. He told me they were going to get married, Unc and that woman, a long time ago.” I paused, shrugged. “That’s it. Then we went back to the body, and that’s when it—”
For a second I saw only that dead man, those skinned hands lifting his gun up, aiming for that buzzard.
The doors opened. “End of interrogation,” Mom said, and wheeled me right out. The black-haired one didn’t have time even to stand up.
Then we were in a long white hallway, headed for glass double doors down at the end.
“One more question, ma’am,” the blond said. “Just one more,” and I heard him moving quick up beside us. He took hold of the rail on the chair, pulled us to a stop. The chair wheeled around to him for his grabbing on, and here we were, this big officer looking down at me.
“Now, you look here,” Mom said. Then the man moved his eyes to her.
She looked at him a long few seconds. There was no way out. The officer would ask his question, no matter what, no matter where.
The black-haired one was there now, and squatted again, looked at me. “All we need to know is when you saw your uncle last. That’s all.”
I said, “But he didn’t do it.”
“We just want to know where he is,” he said. “Nobody’s convicting anybody here.”
“You haven’t talked to him yet?” Mom asked, her voice quiet, like she couldn’t believe it. “You don’t know where he is, do you?”
“That’s what we’re trying to ascertain, ma’am,” the blond said.
I twisted in my chair, looked up at Mom behind me.
Her mouth was open, her eyebrows up: she was thinking maybe Unc really was in on this.
I looked at the black-haired officer. I said, “So I’m next to last. That means Unc is all you have left.”
He looked down. He was sitting on his heels, his shoes spit-polished. He put his hands together, like a prayer. “He rode in with Deputy Thigpen and Yandle and Dr. Morrison and you,” he said. “Nobody had time to interview him. He’s the only one left, and we can’t seem to locate him.”
“He was here yesterday afternoon,” Mom said, quick and loud. “He left around two o’clock. I figured he’d just find a way home.”
The only one left. A blind man, and they couldn’t find him.
The blond pulled his billfold out again, brought out a business card, handed it to Mom. “This here’s the number you can reach us at, if you hear anything.”
And now they were done.
They weren’t here after Constance Dupree Simons at all.
Tell Leland I didn’t do it, she’d told me.
It was Unc they were after. Not Constance.
“So what about this Constance?” I said. “The one who killed that boy, the doctor?” I knew the words might draw attention, me changing the subject from Unc and all to her. But I wanted to know, because if they had her already, then maybe she’d told them she’d visited me last night, and these two already knew everything about her showing up. Maybe all they were doing was just waiting for me to cough up what was in my pocket.
The black-haired one stood, and the two looked at each other. The blond made a face, shrugged: I don’t care. “It’ll be on the news tonight,” he said. “The TV crews were over there practically before we were. It’s no secret.”
The black-haired one took in a breath, looked down at me.
“What?” I said.
“She’s dead,” he said. “Suicide. She hung herself over to the Rantowles Motel, in one of the rooms.” He paused. “Somebody called it in at six this morning. A man, wouldn’t give his name.”
Here came that feel again, the same pinch at my throat as yesterday, the same collapse inside me.
She was dead.
I’d talked to her only last night. I had something of hers in my pocket right now.
Mom turned the wheelchair, aimed us for the door, her silence signal enough to me something inside her was collapsing too.
“You call us, you hear anything,” the blond said from behind us. “You have my card.”
The automatic doors opened up, and we were out on the street between the hospital and parking garage, out in sharp, white daylight. Mom turned the chair to the left, said, “Now let’s stand up,” and put a hand to my arm.
I stood, but felt my knees about to fall under me, about to snap.
“Oh, baby,” she said, “are you okay?”
I swallowed. “No,” I whispered, “but just let’s go on home.”
We started across the street, Mom’s arm looped in mine, leading me, just like I did Unc.
That’s when I saw the black Crown Victoria parked about twenty yards down to my right and across the street. Standard-issue SLED.
But behind it was a cruiser, leaning on the hood of it a man with his arm in a sling.
Yandle.
He was smiling, watch
ing us. He had a Styrofoam cup, took a sip, winced for it. He put the cup in the other hand, the one in the sling.
He pointed at me. It was a small move, nothing big or showy. Mom didn’t even see him for helping me along the crosswalk.
Then he made his hand like a gun, pulled the trigger. He smiled, slowly shook his head.
It was a small move. Meant only for me.
“Mom, let’s go,” I said, and tried to walk faster.
I didn’t look at Mom the whole way home, didn’t say a word.
Instead I looked at the same old buildings along I–26: the redbrick high-rise, everyone in there government-assisted; the dead mall and its empty parking lot off Montague; at the concrete barrier between us and southbound traffic, a barrier it wouldn’t be all that hard for a car to flip over, kill us right here.
There was a blue sky, too, what pieces of the Ashley River I could see off to my left a dull green, rimmed on either edge in brown salt-marsh hay and spartina and yellow grass.
A sweetgrass paperweight.
Suicide. She’d hanged herself.
The Rantowles Motel was a nothing place on 17 South, where couples from my classes at North Charleston went for a few hours on Friday nights, when they’d told Mama and Papa they’d be at the football game.
She hanged herself.
This made two of them. Husband and wife, and I’d seen both of them.
And if I told Mom anything, she’d become a part of it all, the this Unc wanted us out of. What I was already a partner in, though I couldn’t say why or how. Only that I had a piece of what was going on.
If I opened my mouth to Mom, even let her see my face, I’d have to tell her about Yandle, too. What was he out here for, him just an idiot droid deputy? If things worked like I thought they did, SLED was in charge of the whole thing, wouldn’t have him tagging along. Unless him being there fell under all that first-officer-at-the-scene shit he’d tried to hand Unc when he first pulled up.
I’d keep this all to myself, just go home, sit in the front room with the TV going, watch with her whatever it was she watched here, alone, on Sunday mornings.
Sunday morning. I hadn’t been here on a Sunday morning in years.
