by John Smolens
BUZZ GAGNON CALLED Pearly’s house late one afternoon.
“You need to come in here, Pearly. I want to ask you some questions.”
“When?”
“Right now, and you might want to get in touch with Owen, too.”
Pearly called Owen and they met Buzz in the police station at five o’clock. Other town employees were closing up their offices, and their footsteps knocked loudly on the floor in the hallway as they left for the day. A tall blond kid named Randy, the summer cop who had replaced Sean, was also there, sitting on a folding chair in a corner by a fax machine.
“Just thought we’d have another little talk,” Buzz said.
Owen said, “This is about Pearly’s boots, right?”
“Boots from Whitefish Harbor aren’t a top priority at the lab over in Marquette, but we finally got them back. There was Martin’s blood on them, like I suspected.”
“Like Pearly said!” Owen almost shouted. “He told you he was standing there in the driveway, which was covered with Martin’s blood. It means nothing.”
Pearly had never seen Buzz less jovial. “I just want you to know where we’re at with this thing. See if you want to talk about it. It might be better in the long run.”
“This office seems so empty.” Pearly turned to Randy. “’Course, now with Frank Colby gone, you’re suddenly getting your feet wet.”
“Never mind Frank Colby,” Buzz said. He laid his beefy forearms on his desk. He appeared to be having second thoughts. “But I’ll tell you something, Pearly. I think you know we’re going to find something else soon, and it’s going to be more substantial than some blood on the sole of your boot.”
“So talk to us, then,” Owen snapped. It seemed as if he was more fed up with his client than with the police chief. “In the meantime, my supper’s waiting.”
Buzz ignored Owen, which was unusual for him. “Actually, Pearly, Frank Colby is—well, how should I say this? You might be better off just taking care of business now. I think he’s not gotten over the inference you made about his son in Hannah’s kitchen. So it might be better for you to get it done for your own good. Know what I mean? Right here and now.”
“What, you’re offering me protection?” Pearly asked. “You going to take me out to the bench in the back room where I’ll be safe?”
Buzz sat back in his chair and shrugged. It was meant to be a gesture of affirmation. “I’m just saying you might think about what’s in your best interests here, that’s all.”
Owen stood up but Buzz didn’t even look at him, and at that moment Pearly felt a respect for the captain he’d never known before—Gagnon was going beyond the law. He was doing the right thing: giving Pearly fair warning.
Pearly stood up, too, and leaned over the desk and offered Buzz his hand. Buzz took it, a bit surprised. “Thanks, Chief. I appreciate what you’re doing here, but I’m fine.”
“Your call,” Buzz said. His handshake was firm and, Pearly thought, final.
“This mean I don’t get my boots back, huh?”
The chief shook his head. “’Fraid not.”
Pearly followed Owen out into the hallway.
“What crap,” Owen muttered. “Trying to scare you into a confession. Je-sus.”
Outside the front doors Pearly stopped and said, “Know what I ought to do?”
Owen was still walking. “What’s that?”
“Let you go.”
Owen turned. His gray suit coat billowed behind him in the breeze. “Let me go?”
“Yeah.” Pearly went over to the rusted flagpole stand and looked down into the dark hole. There was another beer can in there. He decided to leave it and began walking slowly around the stand, one hand out, touching the imaginary ship’s mast, which was there when they were kids. “Yeah, I’ll let you go, Owen, because this time I’m really free.”
“To do what? Hire another lawyer?” He thrust his hands deep in his front pockets. Suddenly Pearly knew what was coming next. It was Owen’s greatest fear. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’re not going over to my father?”
“Nothing like that, Owen.” Pearly continued to circle the stand, walking faster. “Besides, he wouldn’t take me anyway, you know that. He usually handles the winners. The rest of us, we just get you.”
“Thanks,” Owen said.
“Believe me, I’ve always been appreciative of your services.”
“Right.”
“But it’s time.” Pearly stopped walking, closed his eyes, and there it was—he felt the world tilt. He waited until the dizziness subsided, then opened his eyes. “I’m free—and it’s just time, Owen. Can you understand that?”
Owen stood there for a moment, a little more than perplexed. Then he appeared to arrive at a viable solution. “Fine,” he said, turning and starting down the sidewalk toward his car. “Fine, Pearly. I’m going home. See if you can understand this: I’m hungry.”
24
THERE WASN’T A RESTAURANT in the U.P. that didn’t have a fish-fry special every Friday night. The Portage was jammed as usual, but Hannah and Martin had managed to get one of the booths in back. Out the window they could look across the parking lot toward the lake, down between several shacks the commercial fishing boats used to store gear. It was late August and some trees down by the water had already begun to turn.
Pearly was at the bar, and when Hannah and Martin finished dinner, he joined them. He bought them both a root beer, and himself one more beer. They talked about the house. In a few weeks, the second- and third-floor apartments would be ready to rent. They were, in a sense, celebrating. Soon there would be tenants living upstairs and the place would pay for itself—a good thing, since Martin’s money, which Hannah had been managing well, was running low.
It was nearly dark when they left, and as they walked across the parking lot, Sean arrived in his truck. Hannah was certain that he had timed it so he’d pull into the lot just as they were leaving. More than once she’d seen his truck pass by the house at night, but she’d never said anything to Pearly or Martin. You couldn’t stop him from driving down the road.
Sean got out of his truck and walked toward them. Hannah looked at Martin, who had the intensity of a bird dog. “What?” she said.
“The gasoline,” Martin said. “It was his gas can. I found it out in the bushes by the driveway.” He hesitated, then said, “He tried to burn our house down. He was going to do it again.”
Hannah glanced at Pearly, then said, “Yeah, that’s probably what he had in mind.”
Martin turned to her. “Bruises. And you had bruises in the bathtub.”
“You remember that, Martin?” she said.
“He came into the house while you were sleeping. I went after him.”
“All right,” she said carefully, as though telling him to go slow.
Sean was now about five yards from them. Martin walked over to him, and Hannah and Pearly followed.
“You knew I couldn’t light the gas,” Martin said to Sean.
“That right?” Sean looked at Hannah, then Pearly. “The fuck’s he talking about?”
“What’d you use?” Martin asked. Sean tried to go around them but Martin stepped in his way. “I remember we went in your truck. Down to Petit Marais. One of the turnouts there. That’s where you—you picked up a rock.”
Sean placed both hands on Martin’s chest and shoved him so that he fell back against the nearest parked car. Pearly took two steps toward Sean and punched him in the stomach, doubling him over. Sean put one hand on the car hood and took deep breaths.
“I told you it would come back to him,” Pearly said.
“So the fuck what?” Sean gasped. “What’re you going to do, go to the police?” He straightened up and grinned, though there was pain in his eyes. “A lot of good that’ll do. Buzz Gagnon thinks you two did him. Just about everybody believes that. So you go right ahead.” Sean turned and pointed toward the two picture windows in the back of the Portage. Both windows were full of
people staring out at them. “You tell all of them and see if they buy it.” He started for the bar again, walking slowly with one hand on his stomach.
“We will,” Hannah said. “Believe it, Sean, we will.”
Sean took a couple more steps, then turned around. “I believe you, Hannah. I have always believed you.” He walked up to the back door of the bar. People looking out the picture windows began to go back to their seats.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING it was raining hard when Pearly arrived at the house. Martin was still asleep. Hannah was sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee. She was wearing a nightgown. He’d never seen her in one before. It was white and there was a tiny purple satin bow on the embroidered front that had been pressed flat.
“He was up late last night,” she said. “He never has trouble falling asleep now.”
Pearly sat down across the table from her. “What’s he want to do about Sean?”
“He doesn’t know. He’s so confused. I hate to say this, but he’s like a boy who’s afraid to squeal on an adult.” She got up and poured coffee into a second mug and handed it to Pearly. “Did you see that look on Sean’s face?”
He nodded. The coffee was good and strong.
She stood by the table, looking out the window at the rain. “Do you know what it means?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“I could take Martin in to talk to Buzz Gagnon,” she said.
“You could do that.”
“But he’d just think we convinced Martin to lie for us.”
“True,” he said. “It’ll only make us look really guilty.” After a moment, he added, “I wish you’d sit down.”
“You know Gagnon came by the other day?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Know what he wanted?”
“The bathrobe,” Pearly said.
She sipped her coffee. “So I gave it to him, but you know I felt guilty doing it—giving him the wrong bathrobe, my bathrobe, and I think he knew it. And I don’t have anything to feel guilty about!”
“I know.”
“You burned Martin’s robe, right?”
Pearly nodded.
“Jesus,” she whispered. “I’m so tired. Martin finally settles down about three in the morning, and I’m still lying awake, waiting—waiting for something, I don’t know what. It’s like I don’t know if Sean’s going to try and burn the house down, or whether he’s going to come through the door, a window, or what. But I know he’s out there and he’s coming. If not tonight, tomorrow night. And the work—everything we’ve done to this house, it’s really coming together finally. You know, I always felt safe here with Martin. But now . . .”
“Now?” Pearly said. “How is it now?”
She ran a hand through her hair. She knew what he was really asking. “Now is now,” she said. “I can live with it. I have to live with it. It won’t be easy, but what can I do?” Then she surprised him. She put her hand on his. “You understand it, don’t you? I couldn’t leave him. Then I would be guilty.” She squeezed his hand. “You don’t know how much it’s meant to me—to us—that you’ve been around, you’ve stayed around.”
Pearly turned his head toward the window. The patio bricks were slick and bright in the rain. “He’s all the family I have.” He raised his head and saw that she was crying. “You both are. I never knew what I’ve been missing until now.” He let go of her hand. “Listen, if you’re going to sit here and bawl your eyes out, I’ve got to get out of here right this minute.” She smiled as she wiped her cheeks. He drank the rest of his coffee and stood up. “Besides, it’s a good day to finish that trimwork upstairs.”
Hannah put her bare arms around Pearly’s neck. After a moment he put his hands on her hips, her cotton nightgown as sheer as a veil under his fingers. She held him tightly and kissed him on the mouth. It was, he knew, a gift, just this once.
SEAN DROVE THE whole afternoon in the rain. There was no apparent logic to his route. It was like a dog trying to pick up a scent. His circle kept widening, eight miles east, six miles south, ten west. The connecting dots were bars and roadhouses. At a place called the Twelve Point Rack outside of Eben he found his father’s van parked in back.
His father and a woman with long, straight black hair were sitting at a table beneath a dusty set of moose antlers. There were no other customers, just an old woman who sat on a stool at the end of the bar.
Sean went over to the table.
The woman with the black hair was Indian and she was just lighting a cigarette. The match flame illuminated her pockmarked cheeks. She could be thirty, she could be forty. Sean was only certain that she was older than he was, younger than his father. Somehow age didn’t seem important. She and his father were both drinking shots and beer.
“Sean,” his father said, “this is Mary Threefoot. Mary, this is my son, Sean.”
“Hello, Sean,” she said.
Sean didn’t say anything.
She got up from the table and said to his father, “I’ll wait outside.”
Sean watched her go out the door. Through the window he could see her stand under the metal awning over the front door. Her gray sweatshirt was draped over large breasts. She smoked her cigarette and stared out at the rain.
The old woman sitting at the bar came over to the table. Whiskers grew out of a mole on her neck and she couldn’t have been five feet tall. Sean’s father said, “We’ll have another round here, Hattie.”
Sean sat down and unzipped his jacket. They didn’t speak until Hattie brought two draft beers and two shots. She removed the empty glasses and bottles and went back to the bar.
“I’m not going back,” his father said.
“Don’t kid yourself. You can’t go back. Mom doesn’t want you around and she really means it. Whatever you do, don’t go near the house.” Sean waited for some reaction but there wasn’t any. His father just downed his shot. “Where you been staying?”
“Around.”
“Mom’s friends have seen you with her.” Sean nodded toward the window. His father didn’t look like he believed it. “They call up and tell her.”
His father hadn’t shaved in a few days, something he never failed to do. He ran his hand over his jaw and his skin seemed to crackle. “She should be okay for money.”
“She doesn’t think so.”
“The house, the car, the van—they’re all paid for. The real difference between your mother and me is I pay as I go while she puts it all on a credit card. She can manage, provided she doesn’t go shopping between drinks.” Dim light from the window illuminated his left eye, which seemed hard and lifeless as a marble. “You look like you got a problem.”
“I got a few.”
“Name one.”
Sean drank some beer, which was very cold. “Martin, he’s starting to remember things now. When he puts it all together, I don’t know—they might take him to Gagnon.”
“You used a rock?”
“That’s right.”
His father seemed disappointed. “Sometimes it’s better to finish what you start. I mean, if this girl still means that much to you.”
Sean downed his shot, which was bar Scotch that burned his throat. He followed it with a long pull on the cold beer. “I don’t think Buzz Gagnon would believe him.”
“Who knows with Buzz, and who cares? All depends on what’s good for Buzz. Right now he has me out of his way, which means he’ll be chief until retirement a dozen years from now. Plus, if he could hang this Martin thing on a guy like Pearly and your old girlfriend, he’d look like he’s actually doing his job. But I’m betting on Buzz doing what he does best, which is nothing. With Buzz, though, things can change real quick.”
“You’re saying I should have killed him.”
“I’m saying you should have asked yourself what it was all about. What was it worth. You might have considered what you’d get out of it. What is it about, getting laid? You got laid in Italy. Or maybe it’s about love? You
tell me.” His father drank some beer. “I’m just saying you got to know your business, and once you start something, you got to finish it. Right or wrong, you’ll know you made up your mind and you did what you believed was necessary.” He saw that Sean was about to speak and he waved a hand. He wasn’t through. “I’m not talking about what other people think. About what friends say when they call on the phone. I’m not talking about committee decisions and local politics. I’m talking about what you know, what you can say to yourself. Only you can determine what you can live with.”
“I don’t know,” Sean said. “I got to put a stop to it. This has really fucked me up. Sometimes I could murder somebody.”
“A day never passes when the thought doesn’t cross my mind.”
“I want to kill him. I want to kill her. I’d like to throw Pearly into the deal, too. I want them and that fucking house to just go away.” Sean drank down the rest of his shot, which went smoother this time, then followed it with another pull on his beer. “Tell me something,” he said, looking out the window. The woman was still under the metal awning, just behind the stream of water that ran off the outer edge. When she took her cigarette out of her mouth, smoke drifted up into the damp air. “What’d you do to Mom?”
His father drained his glass and put it on the table. For a moment he watched the foam slide down the inside of the glass, then he said loudly, “We’ll have a couple more here, Hattie.”
The old woman poured two more shots and opened the bottles of beer. Sean tried to watch the rain, but his eyes kept drifting back to the Indian. She had never once turned and looked in the window at them, but just kept smoking her cigarette, lifting her head every time she exhaled.
His father didn’t say anything while the old woman delivered the next round. After she went back to the bar, he said, “What’d your mother tell you?”
