by Thomas Scott
“Something’s wrong.”
Virgil turned his head slowly and looked at Murton. “Really? I hadn’t noticed. I’m not sure anyone has. Especially Becky, which sort of surprises me because she usually picks up on this sort of thing before any—”
“Would you please shut up?”
Virgil wasn’t offended. He knew Murton was hurting, and more importantly, he heard a kindness in his voice no matter the words he used.
“What is it, Murt? How can I help?”
Murton shook his head. “That’s just it. I don’t know that you can.”
“I tried to call Gibson.”
“I wish you wouldn’t have done that. You’re going to get tangled up in something that’s not your business.”
Virgil stood and faced him. “Not my business? Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m your—”
Murton pointed a finger at him, little heat in his voice. “Boss? You can stop right there. I’ll tell you who you are, Jonesy, and don’t you ever forget it because things are changing and I don’t know that they’ll ever be the same.”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you’re Small’s husband. I’m talking about you’re Jonas and Wyatt’s father. That’s who you are now and I couldn’t be happier for you. But what’s headed my way…I can’t let you get wrapped up in it. I can’t let that happen because when it goes to shit, and make no mistake, it’s going to, I don’t want to be the one who has to look at your family and tell them it’s my fault that you’re gone.” Then he softened his voice. “My God, what about Jonas? Could you imagine what it’d do to him to lose another father?”
“No, Murt, I can’t. I don’t want to even think about it. But why do I have the feeling that you do?”
Murton looked up, a sad smile on his face. “You’re smarter than you look.”
Virgil sat back down on the bench. “Delroy said it feels to him like something bad is coming down the line.”
Murton chuffed. “Sometimes I think that man has some sort of Jamaican juju or something.”
“Sometimes?”
Murton stared off into the distance at nothing. “Do you know what I most admire about you, Jonesy?”
“What’s that?”
“You never asked. Not once. Almost forty years now and not one single time have you ever tried to crack the door. That is some top-notch, grade-A love, brother.”
Virgil knew what Murton meant. “I’ll tell you something, Murt. There hasn’t been hardly one single day I didn’t want to ask. I simply figured you’d tell me when you were ready…when you wanted to.”
“I know that. But it’s not a question of want. Not anymore.”
Virgil had been waiting most of his life to hear what Murton was about to tell him. He knew the story, the meat of it, anyway. What he didn’t know were the details, the missing pieces that in all likelihood helped shape the man Murton had become.
Murton stood up. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
Virgil frowned a question at him. “Where?”
“Upstairs. If I’m going to tell it, Becky should hear it too. That’s what we were fighting about. She’s been leaning on me about the rest of the story for a long time.”
“Maybe you should go talk with her first. I can wait. She’s your—”
“Jonesy?”
“What?”
“Let’s go.”
They walked back inside and went upstairs to the office over the bar. Murton looked, Virgil thought, like a man who knew he was headed for his own end. It wasn’t staring him right in the face, but like a death row con, he knew it was there and all it took was a palm-size mirror stuck through the bars where he’d have an unobstructed view of what waited at the end of the line.
9
They entered the office and found Delroy and Becky sitting quietly on the sofa. Delroy was either trying to help Becky simply by being present, or more likely, the conversation had stopped when they heard Virgil and Murton coming up the steps. The looks on their faces suggested the latter. Delroy stood when they walked in.
“Maybe I go back to work now, me.”
Murton closed the door. “Delroy, I’d like you to stay. You don’t have to, but I’d like you to.”
Delroy looked at Virgil, who gave him a slight nod. He sat back down. “Yeah, mon. Whatever you tink.”
Becky stood and Murton walked over and put his arms around his girlfriend. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This isn’t easy.”
“Being downwind of history rarely is,” Becky said.
Virgil thought her statement might have been one of the most profound things he’d ever heard her say. He turned away and looked through the one-way glass window that gave out over the bar and listened as Murton took them back almost forty years to the night he joined Virgil’s family.
They were boys, only seven years old, and had been friends for about a year. After Murton’s mother died, more than a month passed before Murton would speak to Virgil and even then it took yet another tragedy before the foundation of their friendship began to solidify, able to carry the weight of what the decades would bring their way.
Murton’s father was something of an enigma. Like many men of his generation, Ralph Wheeler wasn’t able to shake the standard of his era or the expectations placed upon him that in many ways amounted to nothing more than the social discord of his time. He had neither the fortitude nor the desire to change. And why should he? In his day, men were men. Ralph Wheeler’s definition of a man was someone who was hard, mean, distant, able to hold his liquor, and unafraid to knock his wife around if she failed to meet his demands. Often those demands were ones set purposefully out of reach as justification for his own actions.
The night of the soccer game all those years ago changed everything. As difficult as it had been for Murton, Virgil wouldn’t have had it any other way. But decades later the night remained one of mystery, not only for what happened, but for what was said and never told.
Murton’s father, for all his faults, knew how to keep up appearances. One way he accomplished this was by coaching his son’s soccer team. There had been plenty of speculation and quiet whisperings that perhaps a month wasn’t nearly long enough to wait before returning to the field. But Ralph Wheeler wasn’t the type of man who listened to those who held no authority over him, so when he said it was time for Murton to take the field, that’s what he intended to accomplish.
The problem was, Murton wasn’t ready. When his father tried to force the issue things got out of hand. Ralph Wheeler first pushed his son out on the field in an attempt to make him play. When that didn’t work, he pushed him further and harder. When he finally discovered it wasn’t going to happen, he grabbed his son by the back of his neck and dragged him like a dog over to the bench then forcefully sat him down.
As he turned to walk away something else happened that would be a catalyst of change and alter not only Murton’s life, but Virgil’s as well. No one heard what it was, but whatever Murton said to his father upset him enough that Virgil’s dad, the sheriff of Marion County at the time, quickly moved in to prevent any violence against Murton’s person.
Virgil caught Murton’s reflection in the glass and turned to face him. “Just say it, Murt. They’re only words. Words from forty years ago. You couldn’t be any safer than you are right this very moment.”
The room was quiet for a long time. When Murton finally let go of his secret, the one he’d carried with him for decades, Virgil noticed a softness in him, one that he’d never witnessed in all their years together. There was something else in his voice too, though Virgil could hardly believe it. It was fear.
Murton looked at everyone in the room for a long time before he spoke. When he did, his jaw quivered and his voice sounded as distant as the memory of his past. “I killed my mom.”
When Becky heard the words, her eyes got wide and she slowly backed away and sat down on the sofa.
Murton saw the look on her face and held
up his hands. He shook his head and tried again. “I mean…that’s not right. I didn’t kill her, but I’m responsible for her death.”
Virgil put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Murt, I don’t know what happened…not yet, but I do know this: whatever it was, you’re not responsible.”
Murton gently stepped away from Virgil’s grasp and looked down at the floor. When he looked back at Virgil he said something completely unexpected. “Remember when we were racing back to your place? When Small was bleeding out after Decker attacked her?”
Virgil looked away for a moment, suddenly lost in his own thoughts. “Yeah. What about it?”
“You were scared. I could hear it over the phone. I think you were as scared as I’ve ever known you to be. More scared than when we were in Iraq, or when Mason died, or even when Pate and his boys had you strung up on that beam.”
“You’re probably right. What of it, Murt?”
“When we were on the phone I gave you some bad advice. I told you to bury it. I told you to push it down and get those thoughts out of your head. That was a mistake.”
“Why? It helped me…in the moment anyway.”
“It was a mistake because it doesn’t work,” Murton said.
Virgil was confused. He could tell that Delroy and Becky were too. “Murt—”
Murton shook his head and waved a hand, asking for silence. “About a year before you and I became friends my mom took me to the movies on a Saturday afternoon. Just me and her. Things were already bad at our house, my old man was drunk all the time and she wanted to get me out of there, if only for a couple of hours. Right before the movie started I told her I had to go to the bathroom. I was too old to go with her into the ladies’ room, and she couldn’t go with me into the men’s room. So I went in by myself.
“The urinals were too high so I had to use one of the stalls. They didn’t have doors on them back then, but hey, men were men, right? Who cared? So I dropped my pants and hopped up on the seat, peed and hopped back down. I was getting ready to pull up my pants when someone came out of the stall a few spaces down.”
Murton stopped for a beat, his eyes closed, reliving the moment. When he spoke again his voice sounded almost robotic as he described the lewd things the man said and worst of all, how he…touched him.
Becky rushed over and threw her arms around him and held him for a long time. Virgil and Delroy looked at each other without speaking. When Becky finally let go, Murton finished his story.
“I tried to bury it. I pushed it down and pretended like it never happened. But it didn’t work. I started acting out. Didn’t even realize I was. One morning almost a year later it was so bad my mom took me out back and told me she knew something was wrong. She also told me that we were going to sit out there until I told her, even if it took all day and all night.
“I was just a boy. I was trying to protect her. I knew she’d tell my old man, and I knew he’d take it out on both of us, especially her for letting it happen to me. I did the best I could, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer, so I told her the whole story. When I did she comforted me for hours. We talked about it, we went for a long walk together, and she promised me I would never be hurt again. I was so relieved I actually managed to fool myself into believing everything was going to be okay. But when we came home she asked me to wait out back. Then she went in the house and told my old man.” He looked at Virgil. “It wasn’t long before I heard them screaming at each other and then I heard him start to beat her. When I couldn’t take it anymore I ran down to your place. That was the day we started working on the lawn with Mason.”
“I remember,” Virgil said.
“He killed her, Jonesy. My dad killed my mom that day because of what happened to me. And you know what I did? I ran away. He was killing her and I ran. He made it look like an accident, and he got away with it, but he killed her. I spent a month with that man after she died. I listened to his alcohol induced ramblings. I saw the rage. He didn’t speak to me for the entire month. Sometimes I’d wake in the night and find him standing at the foot of my bed holding a hammer.
“He didn’t even feed me. He’d get up in the morning, throw back a few shots, head to work then come home and drink until he passed out. We didn’t have any food. Nothing. Every dime went to the booze. By the time the night of the soccer game rolled around they’d already cut off our power and water. You know how I survived? How I ate?”
Virgil suddenly did and was surprised it took him so long to figure it out. “My mom?”
“Yep. She packed me a lunch every day and brought me a plate every night. Sometimes it wasn’t much, but God bless her Jonesy, every day it was something. I wouldn’t have made it without her.”
Virgil nodded and turned away. When he looked back, Murton continued. “That night…at the game? I told him I knew what he did and the next time he passed out drunk I was going to kill him with that hammer he’d been too afraid to use on me. That’s what set him off.”
Virgil rubbed his face with both hands. “Listen, Murt, you were a kid. You were scared and all alone. Besides, when you showed up at our house that night, you never had to go back. You said something you didn’t mean in anger. It happens. Maybe it’s time to let it go.”
Murton laughed without humor. “Something I didn’t mean? You know me better than that, Jonesy. I not only meant it, I tried to do it. My mistake was not letting him get drunk enough. I thought he was passed out but he wasn’t. He was waiting for me. I swung that hammer like I was swinging for my life. But he was ready. He grabbed it from my hands and threw it across the room. Then he started hitting me. Not too hard at first. He was pulling his punches. I could tell. He wanted to make it last. But I fought back. I got lucky, really. I kicked him in the groin as hard as I could and he went down. He fell over and rolled into a ball. When he could finally speak he told me if he ever saw me again he was going to kill me. That’s when I ran to your house. You know the rest of it. Mason ran him out of town and here we are. I haven’t seen him since.”
Murton walked over and looked through the glass, out at the bar. Virgil turned as well and couldn’t quite believe who he saw headed their way.
It was their boss, Cora LaRue, and Agent Gibson.
Virgil looked at Murton. “What the heck are they doing here?”
Murton gave Virgil a sad stare. “It’s all connected, brother.” Then, to Delroy. “I think it’s getting a little backed up down there.”
Delroy stood and looked down at the bar. It was still early and the place was mostly empty. “Yeah, mon. I see dat.” He looked at Virgil. “You remember what I say about family.” It wasn’t a question.
Virgil nodded and Delroy walked out the door.
“You want to tell me what’s going on, Murt?”
“Mac has asked me to do something that only I can do. Cora is here for my answer. I’m going to say yes. What I need from you is to let me.”
“Let you? Murt, what the hell is it?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
Becky didn’t like the direction of the conversation any more than Virgil did. “Murton Wheeler, you are going to tell us what this is about right now.” It was almost a shout.
The door opened and Cora walked in, followed by Agent Paul Gibson. “Don’t be too hard on him, Becky,” Gibson said. He wore dusty jeans, a blue work shirt, and steel toed boots. His hair was uncut and it looked like his last shave might have been a month ago. “He can’t say any more because he’s under orders not to.”
Virgil looked at Cora. “Whose orders?”
She shook her head. “Not mine. How are you, Jonesy? Getting settled in with the new family and all?”
Cora was clearly trying to lower the tension, but it was neither the time nor the place, especially after the story Murton had just told. Oddly, Virgil answered her anyway. “I’m well. We’re all fine, Cora. The kids are great. Things have never been better.”
“I’ll bet,”
she said. “Two thousand acres. I still don’t believe it.”
“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Becky said. “Murt, what’s going on here?”
“How about we all sit down,” Gibson said. “I’ll tell you what I can.”
10
Reif, Chase, Stone, and Weller met one final time before they were scheduled to report to the rail yard. Weller wanted to go over the plan again. It might not have been completely necessary, but there was little room for error. Weller told Reif that he’d let him know when his men were back in town. “They’ll be staying at the safe house with you. There’s plenty of room.”
“Putting all our eggs in one basket doesn’t seem too smart,” Reif said.
“Never been a problem before. The neighbors think it’s a corporate rental, which is exactly what it is. Nothing is going to happen if you do what I say and keep your heads down and your mouths shut. Besides, they won’t be showing up until there’s only a few days left to go.”
“I’ll tell you something I don’t like,” Chase said. “We’ve never had to blend in like this. Every other time we’ve practiced off-site then went in, did the job and got out. This is a whole other animal.”
“Don’t have a choice on this one,” Reif said. “We can’t be lurking around in the dark the night before trying to figure everything out, and we can’t practice off-site. We’ve got to go in, get established, figure out the yard, the equipment, all of it.”
“Still don’t like it.”
“Relax, Chase. It’s two weeks. We’ve got good IDs, and we’ll do like the old man says. We’ll keep our heads down, and when we disappear they’ll be looking for guys who don’t even exist.”
