First the Thunder Page 24

  Stevie turned in his chair to smile at him. “It’s nice to agree,” he said.

  Moments later the sheriff’s footsteps echoed again, growing louder with every step. Then he was standing beside his desk, looking down at Stevie. He said, “Mrs. Wilson’s going to take you back to her place now, Stevie. She says you’re going to be staying with her a while.”

  Stevie nodded. “We’re going to take care of each other.” Then he stood and shook the sheriff’s hand. Then the coroner’s hand. Then he looked out the empty doorway, and felt confused for a moment.

  The sheriff laid a hand on Stevie’s back. “Make a right out the door,” he said. “Then straight down the hall.”

  Stevie stepped into the hallway, looked right; Mrs. Wilson, seeming a mile away, waved to him. He wanted to run but remembered that he was inside the courthouse, the same place he paid his driving violations and bought his concealed-carry permit and once a long time ago a dog license for the mixed-breed husky pup that chased after a kid on a bike and got itself crushed by a Chevy Cobalt. So he walked instead. His body felt light, though in the back of his head somewhere was the knowledge that his brother Harvey was dead, and pretty Jennalee was dead, and he would never again see either one of them standing up. And that knowledge was very heavy and very black. And though the sight of Mrs. Wilson standing up to meet him made him happy enough to laugh, the thing in the back of his head made him want to cry instead.

  Mrs. Wilson took his hand, leaned close and whispered to him. “Do you promise me you had nothing to do with breaking into that school?”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, and told himself, This is the good kind of lie. “I promise.”

  She squeezed his hand, then started them walking toward the exit.

  65

  “Okay,” the coroner said, he and the sheriff alone now in the sheriff’s office. “Let’s say Laci did put the flash drive under the couch. Why not just hand it over to you? Why not say, ‘Here, Sheriff. This might shed some light on why Harvey did what he did’?”

  “Didn’t want me to know she knows. Embarrassed by the whole thing. But still wants to get the truth out.”

  “In other words, she provided you with evidence.”

  “Planted evidence.”

  “I think it’s open to interpretation.”

  The sheriff chose not to respond to that. “Let’s run through what we do know and don’t know. Facts only.”

  “Well,” the coroner said, “we have Harvey’s blood on the carpet in Kenny’s game room, and on three of the fireplace tools. Plus he has defensive wounds, showing that he was struck by at least two of those tools. He has Kenny’s and Louise’s blood on his clothes. Their blood is on the little shovel.”

  “So Harvey got into it with Kenny’s mother, and maybe she laid into him with the fireplace poker. It’s hard to say if she was killed first or Kenny was.”

  “Could be Kenny attacked him, then Louise joined in, and Harvey found himself fighting for his life. Or Louise started it, and Kenny joined in.”

  “It’s pretty clear whose side you’re on here,” the sheriff said.

  “I’m not on anybody’s side. I’m talking science. Everybody’s got defensive wounds. It all happened within a matter of minutes. And unless you can say whose wounds came first, you can’t say if it was murder or self-defense.”

  “So there was a fight,” the sheriff conceded. “No way of telling who started it.”

  “Only who survived it. Who killed whom. The flash drive is hard evidence of motivation.”

  “And far more credible than the kiddie porn story. I think Harvey planted that stuff.”

  “The question is, Why? When he apparently knew the real reason.”

  “That’s the thing,” the sheriff said. “Did he really know? Before breaking into the school, I mean? ’Cause if he did know, why would he need a kiddie porn excuse to go after Kenny?”

  “Maybe he wanted to keep the truth to himself about what his wife and brother-in-law were doing. Figured if he got away with killing Kenny, maybe he and Jennalee could get back on track again.”

  “You think he’d be willing to forgive her that stuff?”

  “You ever been in love?” the coroner asked. “Blind stupid crazy in love?”

  “Dozens of times,” the sheriff said. “Then I got married.”

  The coroner smiled. Then let the smile fade. “He plants the evidence that will make the entire town despise Kenny Fulton. Then waits around the school afterward to see when Kenny goes home.

  “Follows him home. Uses the key in his pocket to sneak inside. Confronts him. Things go south, the old lady wakes up, he ends up fighting for his life, Kenny and his mother end up dead.”

  “And the little dog too. Three against one, is that what you’re saying?”

  The coroner shrugged. “The dog was collateral damage. Harvey goes home afterward, pretty well beaten-up himself, I might add, where he tells Jennalee what happened. She puts a shotgun round into his chest, then does the same thing to herself.”

  “The thing I don’t get,” the sheriff said, “is when did Laci get hold of the flash drive?”

  The coroner thought for a moment. “Harvey was at the bar after the school break-in. But apparently before going to Kenny’s house.”

  “You think he went to the bar to give the flash drive to his brother?”

  “Maybe asked him just to hold on to it for a while.”

  “As evidence. In case Harvey needed it later.”

  “You think Will knew that much?”

  “Maybe not. Not until Laci took the phone call about Harvey being dead. They probably looked at it then.”

  “If that’s the case, why didn’t she give it to you at Harvey’s place?”

  “I’m not sure it was needed then. It would just make Harvey look like an even bigger fool.”

  “But then she found out that Kenny and Louise were dead too. And what did she do before she went over to their place?”

  “Took Will home,” the sheriff said. “And grabbed the flash drive. Then pretended to find it underneath the sofa. I knew it wasn’t there when I looked the first time. Goddamn, I knew it. I looked under every piece of furniture in that room.”

  “Well then,” the coroner said, “let me give you another scenario. A bunch of kids break into the school and trash Kenny’s office. One of them finds the flash drive. They all look at what’s on it. And decide Harvey needs to see it. So they give it to him. He’s stunned. Just absolutely coldcocked by it. Who can he talk to? His brother Will. So he goes over to the bar and gives the flash drive to Will for safekeeping. Maybe he tells him what’s on it and maybe he doesn’t. Then he walks over to the school to have it out with Kenny, but can’t till the police leave, which means he ends up going to Kenny’s house later. He confronts Kenny, probably threatens him with exposure. There’s a fight, Kenny and Louise get killed. Harvey goes home and tells his wife. Shows her he has the evidence. She shoots him and then herself.”

  The sheriff blew out a long breath. Sat there leaning over the edge of his desk, hands clasped between his knees, shaking his head back and forth. “We’re not ever going to know the truth of it, are we?”

  “Not unless you can raise the dead and get them to talk,” the coroner said.

  The sheriff turned his head to the side again, stared at an uneven square of light cast down on the floor. All of the dirt and ancient filth between the floorboards was made clear by the light. All of the soiled comings and goings of the years.

  “You want another thing to worry about?” the coroner asked.

  And the sheriff said, “No.”

  “Who else was at the scene of the crime? Who else maybe had the opportunity to toss that flash drive under the couch?”

  “Don’t even go there,” the sheriff said. “Neither one of my deputies would ever do such a thing.”

  “Just stirring the pot,” the coroner said.

  The sheriff offered no response. A few moments later he lea
ned back in his chair.

  The coroner asked, “What about the other men in those photos?”

  “What about them?”

  “You going to charge them with anything?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” the sheriff said. “If people could be charged for stupidity, we’d have to build three or four more jails.”

  “You at least going to have a talk with them? Maybe put the fear of God in them?”

  “Do I look like a preacher to you?”

  “They need to know what they were a part of. The consequences of their behavior.”

  The sheriff thought it over, then said, “Might not hurt to round them up for a little conversation, I guess. Let them know we know what they’ve been up to.”

  “A good dose of humility never harmed anyone.”

  The sheriff nodded. Pursed his lips. Glanced at the square of light again. Then he swiveled around so as to gaze up at the photo on the wall. “I need to get back into those mountains,” he said.

  And the coroner, rising to his feet, said, “Haven’t you seen enough senseless violence for a while? Why don’t you just leave those poor animals alone?”

  66

  In his only suit, dark blue and a little tight under the armpits, Will swept the sidewalk in front of the bar. He knew he was getting his shoes dirty; even though no wind was blowing, the dust drifted back and settled over his shoes and cuffs. But he was not able to sit still and do nothing; even on this day he lacked the capacity.

  Usually when he swept the sidewalk or the interior of the bar he moved with a brisk and calculating purpose, breaking the floor or sidewalk into grids, sweeping one pile of dirt into another so as to ensure that he missed nothing and achieved cleanliness from corner to corner. He did not think about how quickly the area would become soiled again. Did not think of the job as merely a temporary stay against the endless encroachment of dirt.

  This afternoon he moved with the briskness and purpose of a somnambulist. Often he swept the same spot twice, missed others completely. He noticed all this with a vague detachment. He was killing time, nothing more. Any minute now Laci and Molly would come downstairs and outside and he would walk with them to the funeral home to say his last goodbye to his brother.

  The day’s heat was already suffocating, the air still and heavy and thick. He wanted to rip off his tie and coat. Wanted to sit in front of a giant fan that would blow his hair back and dry his face. Wanted to sit alone atop a snowy mountain and feel the cold slow his blood and freeze his brain silent.

  Instead he swept.

  He didn’t even hear Laci and Molly emerge from the bar, didn’t know they had arrived until Laci tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and saw them there, looking so pretty and fragile in their dresses, their legs and arms bare, their faces so clean and pretty and sad that his throat thickened and eyes stung and a terrible ache blossomed in his chest.

  “You ready?” Laci asked.

  He nodded. Stepped back to the wall and propped the broom against the door, against a sign he had taped to the wood: CLOSED FOR FUNERAL.

  “You just want to leave it there?” she said.

  He answered with a crooked smile. As if a broom leaning against a closed door mattered. As if anything did.

  The next thirty minutes seemed to last half a day, one long unbroken drone. He reacted numbly to the hands that shook his. He heard little of the funeral service. The buzz of a fly. The shuffling of feet.

  He was supposed to go to the back of the room then for more handshaking; supposed to stand there with Laci and Molly and Stevie, accepting consoling clichés as everybody filed out the door. It seemed such an unnatural custom, even, as he contemplated it, a nauseating one, as if grief could be shared or somehow assuaged. Just the thought of touching all those hands sickened him. The fraudulence. The lie. He dared not look his neighbors and customers in the eye, not with guilt plastered all over his face the way it was.

  He told Laci, “Give me a couple of minutes,” then went straight to the casket before she could react.

  Harvey looked like himself but didn’t. Looked like a wax replica of himself. Like a prop in a haunted house in broad daylight. Pitiful but not scary.

  Donaldson came up to him and laid a hand on Will’s shoulder. Said, “I’ll get the other pallbearers rounded up. We’ll need to close the casket soon.”

  Will said nothing, could not even nod. Held to the chrome handle on the side of the casket. Kept staring at his brother’s waxy cheeks. The paleness of his lips.

  It wasn’t long before he felt somebody else at his side. Someone smaller, probably Laci. But if he turned now to look at her he might collapse, might need to grab hold of her to stay on his feet. He gripped the cold handle. Felt the coldness bleeding into him.

  “You ever see the play Our Town?” the person said. Will turned his head just enough to see out the corner of his eye. Merle, of all people.

  “It’s fairly simple on the surface,” Merle said. “Act 1, youth and innocence, the trivialities of daily life. Act 2, love and marriage. Again, fairly routine. Something everybody can identify with. Act 3, death. Bam, it hits you out of the blue. A cruel reminder. People die, and they forget all about us. They have to.”

  Will turned his head, looked down. What was he talking about?

  “Thing is,” Merle said, “life’s a lot messier than a three-act play, isn’t it, Will? People make stupid choices and don’t realize until too late how stupid they were.”

  And there was something in Merle’s tone, something knowing, damning, that set Will back on his heels, made him feel that if he did not hold tight to the casket’s handle he was going to tumble over backward for sure. The entire weight of his body was leaning backward, pulling on the casket, threatening to slide it off its pedestal.

  “People die,” Merle said, “and then they’re out of this mess. The rest of us have to keep dealing with it, though. The best way we know how. That’s Act 4. It all takes place behind the curtain.”

  Will felt his knees weakening, his body sagging. To take his weight off the casket he held to the handle but sank down on his knees, laid his head against the shiny hull, heard his own frantic breath.

  Merle’s hand on his shoulder.

  Then nothing. A long moment of contact, then the hand moved away. Merle moved away. And Will remained kneeling, motionless, breathing fast and shallow, waiting for Laci to come and help him to stand.

  67

  Will and Stevie and four men from the Jimmy Dean plant in Gallatin lifted and shouldered the casket outside to the hearse. Harvey’s weight pressed hard and sharp on Will’s clavicle, dug deep into his chest, tightened around his lungs. He felt that his spine was being crushed, was about to crumple like a straw.

  Every shift of Harvey’s body made Will wince, every tilt and scrape. His ear was pressed against the hull, heard everything, absorbed every whisper. He thought for a moment about dropping his corner, ducking under the casket and letting it crash atop him, crush him flat, put an end to all this heaviness, this burden that would never leave him now, never lift away.

  Then the casket was in the hearse but the heaviness remained. Heavy in every breath. Every heartbeat a dull and labored thud.

  He and Laci and Molly and Stevie rode in Donaldson’s long black Cadillac as it made its way to the cemetery on the northern edge of town. The irony of the vehicle’s luxury did not escape Will: there is more comfort in death than in life.

  68

  At the cemetery the air was a little cooler beneath the scattered oaks and maples. The sky had darkened to the color of ash, and Will hoped for rain. None came.

  After a while Will found that he was standing alone at the gravesite with Laci and Molly. Cars were pulling away from the curb, on their way to the bar, where foil pans of lasagna and cold cuts and desserts would materialize on the tables as if out of thin air.

  “Sweetie?” Laci said, and took his hand. “We should go now.”

  He looked down at her. “What ar
e people going to eat off of?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Was I supposed to get plates for everybody? I have glasses but not enough plates.”

  “It’s okay,” she told him. “It’s been taken care of.”

  He stared at her. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just come and be there with us.”

  Laci took his hand, led him back toward the waiting car. Deputy Walters and Donaldson were standing at the rear of the car. As Will and his family approached, the deputy came forward to meet them halfway.

  He smiled at Molly first, then at Laci. “Any chance I could speak with your husband for a minute?”

  She turned to look up at Will, whose eyes were on Walters, Will’s expression pinched, eyes squinting. To Molly she said, “Why don’t you wait in the car with Uncle Stevie, okay? It’s cooler there.”

  She watched Molly turn away, saw Donaldson open the car door for her. Then, to Walters, Laci said, “What’s it about, Ronnie?”

  The deputy gave her a crooked smile. “I’m supposed to give you this,” he said.

  Reached into his pocket and withdrew a business card, which he held toward Will. Laci took it from his hand, read the glossy face.

  “This here’s a company out of New Castle that cleans up houses after situations such as these,” Ronnie told her. “You’ll probably want to get them taken care of ASAP. Send the bill to the address I wrote on the back. It will all get deducted from the estates.”

  Laci looked up. “Why do we have to do this?”

  “It’s just the one room in each house. This company will clean them up so that nobody will even know what happened there.”

  “But Ronnie,” she said, still looking at the address he had written, “why are we responsible for having this done?”

  “The sheriff’s putting the incident at Kenny’s house down to a mutual combatant situation.”

  “Okay,” Laci said. “And what does that mean?”

  “It’s just impossible to pin down timewise,” Walters said. “So unless he gets pushback from the community or the town council or somebody . . . If that happens, the DA might or might not insist on a more specific charge.”