A Killing Secret

by Robert E. Dunn

  I saw Billy shove her back. He raised his free hand as though he wanted to strike out and hit the woman. Instead, he backed away and onto the stage.

  As he entered, the projection on the screen faded to nothing. No lights came up. No stage manager called a cue. Billy was not a part of the scheduled show. He didn’t seem to notice or care. He slung his guitar and strummed a couple of licks. It was a calming habit more than a check for tune.

  He stood alone in the center of the stage and looked out over the audience. It was dim without stage lights. Under the brim of the Stetson he still wore was only black. Billy was literally speaking from the shadows as he said, “You have heard a lot of things about my friend Rose Sharon. You’ve heard a lot of things about me lately, too.” He strummed. “I’m not here to defend or to plead. I’m not going to tell you any stories—true ones or lies. I’m just here to sing a song. One of her favorites.” Again he strummed. This time it was a chord. He let it ring, then placed his hand over the vibrating strings. Billy shuffled his feet.

  My heart was breaking for him. I suspect he was reaching the audience, too. They were silent as old bone waiting for the resurrection. A light, a clear white spot, came on, then it centered on Billy.

  “You know Rose and her brother lost their parents. The loss broke their lives, then reshaped it. Rose fared better than her brother Levi. Mothers.” When he said the word he raised his right hand in a fist again. It looked as if he was going to slam it down against the guitar.

  I looked away, not wanting to see him break down or make things worse. That was when I noticed that Sissy was gone.

  “Mothers…” Billy said again.

  I was reminded of my own difficult relationship with a woman who abandoned me. When she returned, I wasn’t the girl she remembered and she wasn’t the mother I dreamed of.

  “Rose, this is for you and your mother,” Billy said. He hit a chord on the guitar, then began to play in earnest. There was a collective release of breath as everyone recognized the Paul Simon tune, “Mother and Child Reunion.”

  Stage lights crept up with the sound of Billy’s voice. It was easy to remember at that moment where his true talent was. He didn’t sing alone for very long. First, the audience joined in on the familiar song. Then, slowly, other performers moved out onto the stage. There were more guitars, fiddles, mandolins, an upright bass and an entire chorus of brightly clad backup singers. The song turned into an anthem.

  I relaxed. I allowed myself to think Billy had made the perfect moment for Rose.

  That was when Sissy Fisher appeared again in the far side wing. She had a pistol in her hand. It was a chrome-plated revolver and obviously heavy in her hand. She shouted and waved aside the stage crew who were blocking her path.

  I bolted across the stage behind the throng of musicians. Sissy came out from behind the black curtains, leading with the gun. I caught her by the wrist and forced her hand up. The pistol fired into the distant ceiling. I twisted her wrist and kept pushing Sissy back into the darkness of the wings.

  With the gunshot, the music died. I was afraid for an instant that there was going to be a panic. As I forced Sissy to the floor and wrenched the gun from her hand I heard the guitar start up again. Billy started singing the old folk tune “Shenandoah.” Immediately, the crowd of musicians joined in and made the song a hymn to a lost friend. The audience settled back into the groove the musicians carved.

  Sissy didn’t stop fighting or cursing me. That made it easier to take a little joy in forcing her over onto her front to cuff her hands behind her.

  When I had her standing again, she flashed bright, hateful eyes at me. “You’ll pay for this. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “You sound like a character in a bad TV show.”

  “How’s this sound?” She waited for me to look at her. “Your man took everything from us when he screwed Rose.”

  “Shut up,” I said. I was surprised and grateful when she did. I secured the pistol. It was a .357 with magnum loads. I doubted that she could hit anything she aimed at, but anything she did hit would take a lot of damage.

  “Where’d you get this?” I asked.

  She stared at me, giving nothing.

  The chrome on the gun matched the tone set by what Sissy was wearing. Once again she was doing the mock Native American look. She wore a denim skirt trimmed in suede with silver conchas woven in. Around her neck was a huge squash blossom necklace with an inverted turquoise moon pendant.

  Holding the pistol up right in her face I said, “Firing a weapon in a crowded place like this—is insane. You could have hurt a lot of people or caused a panic. Is that what you wanted?”

  Once again I underestimated the depth of her anger. Sissy lifted her foot. I was distracted by her moccasins. Even they were trimmed in beads and conchas. As I was paying attention to the silver and turquoise, Sissy’s foot surged forward. Her kick landed off-center but hit hard on the bend of my lowest rib.

  If my body hadn’t been already damaged I might have taken the kick and restrained myself. Or maybe I’m giving myself too much credit. The pain was a jolt of electricity. The impact bent me down and forced the air from my body. I don’t know if anyone saw me doubled over and gasping. I do know the singing was over and at least fifty performers walked off the stage to witness what happened next.

  It was a reflex. The wrong one. After so much abuse and pain, my body reacted without conscious control. I swung out as I straightened my body, whipping my hand at her face. I didn’t realize until too late that the revolver was still in my grip. Sissy Fisher was cuffed and under arrest when the barrel of the .357 fractured her cheekbone. She dropped like a prisoner on a gallows.

  Before I fully understood what I’d done, Billy was beside me. He eased the revolver from my hand and backed me away from Sissy. “Call 911!” he shouted out to the crowd.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I said.

  “Don’t talk,” he warned. “Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. Stay here and stay quiet.” He turned back to address the crowd. “Tell 911 we need an ambulance. And stand back.” He knelt beside Sissy and put his hands on her neck, checking for signs of trauma to the vertebrae. When he was satisfied, Billy pulled out his cell phone and punched a number. “Calvin,” he said, once connected. “Go to my vehicle and get my med kit. Bring it to the stage.”

  By the time the ambulance arrived, Billy had a cervical collar on Sissy and the split skin on her cheek covered and taped. As she was taken out on a gurney Billy turned his attention back to me.

  “I need your service weapon and your badge.” He held out his hand.

  “It was an accident.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Half the theater saw you pistol-whip a woman who was cuffed and in your custody. You’re relieved until things are straightened out.”

  “She discharged her weapon. I took it from her and restrained her. She attacked me and I hit back without realizing the gun was in my hand.”

  “We’re not talking about it now.” Billy kept his open hand out.

  I handed over my credentials and my weapon.

  * * * *

  Outside, I stood in the falling snow trying to reason through what I had done and how things had gotten so far off reality’s track. The night was so black even the city lights didn’t reach the clouds. The theater was surrounded by neon and thousands of incandescent bulbs. Their light caught the falling flakes as they dropped, making each one appear as a tiny comet that appeared from nowhere. White stars crashed to Earth and buried everything in their cold fire.

  I stood watching the white bloom as my hair and shoulders were dusted. Violence is not just a man’s game. It’s something women play at too. Deep in all of us is a bit of the old lizard brain that loves the chance to take control. People like me, drunks, are prone to the lizard at the best of times. At the worst, even without drinking, we embrace the reptilian
promise of a cleansing rage. Therapy and AA have helped me understand that the anger is never properly aimed. No amount of fury or brutality will ever touch the source of the hurt because it is always in the past. We fight what we can because we can’t fight ghosts.

  Or maybe I was trying to justify myself to myself.

  When I allowed myself to move again, my body was wracked with pain. I imagined the Tin Man, breaking loose rusted joints and moving for the first time in ages. For the first time I noticed I was shivering too.

  My truck was still where I had parked it, but it wasn’t alone. The shrubs took as much of a beating as I had that night. I was blocked from the back and partially from the front. With some careful cutting of the wheel I could jump the curb and ease back into the parking lot.

  As soon as I put the GMC into gear, a set of high beams flared in front of me. A truck rushed forward, blocking me. It stopped with the open driver’s side window aligned with mine.

  Levi Sharon stared and waited.

  I put my window down.

  “What happened?” he asked before I could say anything.

  “Why don’t you come in to the sheriff’s station with me and we can talk about it.”

  “You know that’s not going to happen.”

  “Once you back up, we’ll see about that.”

  He grinned like he was having the time of his life. “You’re not even a cop now. Sure you want to take that on?”

  I wasn’t sure of anything. “What do you want, Levi?”

  “Is he dead?”

  “You shot two men. One is dead.”

  “Donny Fisher?”

  “He’s alive,” I said. “Barely.”

  Levi’s smile dissipated. “I think I screwed up.”

  “In a big way.”

  “He didn’t do it, did he?”

  “You’re going to have to clarify that for me.”

  “Donny Fisher. Did he kill my sister?”

  I shook my head and snow drifted off my hair. “I don’t believe so. In fact, I think he was probably a pretty good friend to her. Like a brother.”

  “You sayin’ I wasn’t?”

  I didn’t answer that.

  Levi looked away, then stared up into the sky. He appeared to be looking for something in the falling snow. “Sometimes I…” He shook his head and lowered it back down to face me. I could see the transition in his eyes, sadness replaced by anger. “Billy should have told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “You know what.”

  I looked away and stared into the falling stars of white, wondering if I saw the same sky Levi did. I wanted to cry. “I bet he did,” I said. “I get the impression that you listen about as well as I do.” When I looked back at him I saw only confusion. “You need to come in with me. Take responsibility.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Levi said. He meant it. “But I ain’t doin’ that.”

  “There are a lot of cops looking for you. Most of them know only two things about you, you killed before and it says armed and dangerous on the BOLO. That’s a dangerous situation.”

  “Are you sure Donny didn’t do it?”

  Talking to some people was like trying to argue with a compass; you can’t change the way their needle points. “Pretty sure,” I said. “Why did you think he was the one who killed your sister?”

  “Some lies are slow, ain’t they?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Lies. They don’t have to be words. They can be things people do. Their entire life.” Levi drew himself into the cab of his truck and looked down at his hands. “My own life.”

  He worked something around in his lap. My thought was it had to be a gun. He was desperate and depressed. I didn’t think he was thinking straight, either. It was impossible to tell if he was more of a danger to himself or me.

  “Levi?” I waited. “Levi!”

  “You know why they didn’t want me?” He looked up and brought a wadded paper towel to his eyes. “I couldn’t sing for shit.”

  I realized I had been holding my breath. My long exhalation made a plume of white vapor.

  “They used her. They ignored me. Until they couldn’t anymore. Then I got sent away to the army. It was like she was waiting to get her hands on Rose. A plan came together. I was in the way.”

  I nodded. His pain was palpable, as if it was part of the cold between us. “You mean Sissy Fisher.”

  “The queen.” His words came out like spitting bile—a man expressing a boy’s pain. “She was the one who put me in with Lawson. Like she knew what would happen.”

  “Sissy Fisher knows E. Lawson?” The information was like a new kick in my stomach.

  Levi wasn’t hearing me or he was ignoring me. He kept talking. “You know, she thinks she’s some kind of Indian. She talks about family and heritage and it’s all an act.” His head bobbed with the derisive snort of air that huffed from his nose. “Bitch.” Then Levi dabbed with the paper towel. “She took one of those DNA tests. You know, the kind you spit in and mail off. Rose told me about it. There wasn’t anything Indian that showed up. We had a laugh at that. Even Donny made a crack. She got all pissy and said he wouldn’t be happy with any results he got, either. How screwed up is that? Or that I always felt left out of a family like that?”

  “Levi…”

  He kept ignoring me. He lifted a pint bottle of cheap rum and took a swallow.

  “That’s not going to help anything.” It was truth that felt like a lie in my mouth. It was strange to be on the other side of the lecture and wanting to take the bottle for myself at the same time.

  Levi took another drink and lowered his head. After a moment he closed his eyes. I recognized the look of someone trying not to look, but unable not to see the past.

  People always seem to expect clarity from looking back. If they’re lucky maybe they get a little understanding. Probably just enough to regret what they didn’t do or say in the moment. Drunks get regret and guilt and the insistent whisper of alcohol telling them this time things will be different.

  I was tempted—desperately wanted—to ask Levi to pass the bottle. I might have given in. I was already hating my rationalizations and the sound of shame I would hear in my voice.

  Levi raised a revolver to his mouth and pulled the hammer back.

  “Don’t,” I said. My voice was so quiet I wasn’t sure he could hear me.

  He drew the barrel away but kept it pointing right into his lips. “Why not?” he asked. His voice was quiet too. As if we were both suddenly in some sacred place where every word would be either prayer or lament. “Give me a reason.”

  I could hear the plea in his words. But I had no good answer to give. No matter what, everything sounded like another lie to pile onto his life. Finally I admitted, “It would kill me too.”

  Levi cast his eyes my direction without turning his head. The hand that held the gun eased forward. He closed his lips over the steel as if it was the last kiss he would ever feel.

  “Not the bullet. The shooting,” I said. “If you do it, I’ll be dead just the same. Not tonight. But I wouldn’t last long.”

  He lowered the weapon and said, “I see them. I see them all and I can’t stop seeing them.”

  We weren’t talking about the Fisher family or recent crimes anymore. I said, “I know. But there are other ways.”

  “This would be my choice. My own choice. My own way to go out.”

  “You don’t have to go out. There are ways to go through it. I can get you help.”

  “In prison?”

  “There’s no avoiding that, Levi.”

  He shook his head and raised the revolver again. Pressing it to his face, he breathed slow and deep, then said, “There’s my way. My terms.”

  “No.” I reached through the window trying to push the g
un away as it tilted. But I misunderstood.

  I jerked my hand back. Then I threw myself down across my seat, reaching into the far floorboard as he turned the weapon toward me. The concussion of the shot was amplified by the confines of the truck cab. One bullet shattered my back window. I heard his engine rev and Levi backed his truck away. It roared as tires spun on snow before finding enough traction to whip through the parking lot.

  I didn’t chase him. I didn’t even consider it. My day and night had been brutal and I was suspended. I called into dispatch and reported what had happened. Then I went home.

  Chapter 12

  The house had a chill in it that was more than winter cold. It was dark and it was lonely. Worse, it had never felt completely mine. The rich man’s log cabin perched on the edge of a cliff had been my late husband’s. His work space with easel and paints and my favorite piece of his—a painting of him and I as empty, drifting boats—still took up a corner by the fireplace.

  I didn’t turn any lights on. Instead I built a fire in the huge river rock fireplace. Once it caught I piled on dry oak until it was blazing with heat and light. I undressed in the middle of the room and tried to take stock of the abuses my body had suffered the past couple of days.

  My hair was still sticky with blood where the stitches were. I had tossed the bandage as soon as I had left the hospital. My shoulder was darkened by bruises. All down my side were contusions and scrapes. I didn’t bother to go to my upstairs mirror. Without looking I could count the wounds on my back by the ache in each breath. I had been running on adrenaline and that was all gone, leaving me vulnerable to the pain and prone to the depression and fatigue it always leaves behind.

  Still in my underwear, I dropped onto the leather couch. It was cold on my skin. The roaring fireplace was radiating a soothing warmth. I told myself I would only lie there a minute as I pulled the afghan over myself.

  At some point in the night, my dreams and my pain jelled. I opened my eyes and watched the flames. They were unnaturally large and bright. The heat coming out of the fireplace was something like a furnace in hell. Something moved in the shadows by the easel.