First the Thunder Page 25

  She was beginning to understand. No criminal charges against Harvey. “Do you think that’s going to happen?” she asked.

  The deputy shrugged. “I think everybody’s dead and there’s nobody left to punish. Sheriff said so himself.”

  She looked up at her husband. Wondered what he was thinking. If he was following any of this.

  “There’s just no way to attribute intent,” Walters told her. “Not with the defensive wounds Harvey incurred. And no way to say who struck the first blow.”

  Will released a breath through his nose, a small moan from the back of his throat.

  Walters gave him a look, then addressed Laci again. “That lawyer on the back of the card I gave you is handling the disposition of the estates. The way it looks is, since Kenny and his mother died first, minutes apart, their estates would go to Jennalee and become part of her marital assets. But then she shot Harvey, which means that even if she had lived, she couldn’t accrue any profit or benefit from killing him. Which means he inherits her share of marital assets, along with his own. Where it gets tricky is that Harvey was involved in a double homicide too. If he were to be charged criminally for that, he couldn’t benefit either. Except does he really benefit if the assets go to his next of kin?”

  Will spoke, surprising both of them. “I, uh . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay,” the deputy said. “I wasn’t asking you to answer that question. I’m just saying it’s a tricky situation. But in all likelihood, it’s all going to end up with the two of you. You guys and Stevie.”

  Laci looked from Walters to her husband. Then down at the card. “Why would anybody want either one of the houses?”

  “You might be surprised,” the deputy said. “Two of the nicest houses in town? I bet Stevie would love to get out of that little trailer of his. I know I would if I was him.”

  Laci regarded her husband. He looked as limp as a scarecrow, one arm hanging at his side, the other held outward only by Laci’s hand in his.

  “Of course, the state’s going to take its chunk,” Walters said. “But what’s left won’t be insignificant. The land, two houses and everything in them, insurance policies, savings accounts, the whole shebang. The lawyer will contact you when he’s got it all straightened out.”

  Will said nothing, motionless but for his head moving back and forth by a few degrees. He stood as he had at his brother’s grave, eyes on the ground, head shaking almost imperceptibly. His hand tightened around Laci’s.

  “If you and your family need anything,” the deputy said, “you just let me know. Anything at all.”

  Laci nodded, thanked him with a small smile. Then looked up at her husband again. The deputy nodded in return, then walked away.

  Laci reached up with her free hand and slipped the business card into the breast pocket of Will’s suit coat. “Did you get all that?” she asked.

  Will nodded, but his eyes looked glazed. He seemed to be having a hard time looking at even her. Or maybe having a hard time being looked at.

  69

  After Deputy Walters’s departure, only one vehicle remained in the cemetery. Donaldson’s Cadillac. It sat with the engine and air conditioner running. Behind the tinted windows, Donaldson sat at the wheel, Stevie in the passenger seat, Molly in the rear seat, all waiting for Laci and Will.

  Will had moved away from the grave, had walked a couple of yards beyond it and stood facing the woods in the distance, his back to the car, leaving Laci beside the grave.

  “You doing okay?” she asked.

  He said, “I feel like I can’t get any air into my lungs.”

  She crossed to stand beside him, and laid her hand against the small of his back. “What do you want to do?”

  After a few moments he reached into his pocket, took out the key to the bar’s front door, handed it to her. “Just open the place up. I’ll be there in a while.”

  “You want me to stay here with you? I can give the key to Stevie.”

  “I need to walk,” he said.

  “Alone?”

  “I think so,” he said.

  She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be too long, babe. Don’t make us worry about you.”

  She turned and headed toward the car, but paused midway to look back. He was already walking, a brisk, angry stride, yet anything but straight, staggering toward the trees.

  70

  Ten minutes into the shade and a semblance of calm finally descended. Movement and shade were all Will had needed, just like as a boy. This was the only place he had ever felt comfortable. Maybe there was something wrong with him, some flaw that made him uneasy around people, made him too conscious of himself. Not a good trait in a barman. But in the woods he felt wholly different. Enveloped in something. Cloaked. Not a man standing conspicuous and alone and exposed in his uncertainty.

  Harvey had loved the woods too. How many times had they walked through these woods together, ten yards apart but tethered by their silence and blood? Tethered by their love, which was never spoken aloud, never even by allusion. To be felt was enough.

  Even their father, for all his rough talk and apparent disdain for them, despite the quickness of his hands when he felt disobeyed or ignored, even he had loved the woods and been changed inside them.

  Will thought back to their last hunting trip together, all four of them in their canvas jackets and orange vests. There had been a fine powdered snow on the dry leaves that morning, a light breeze blowing through bare branches, long shafts of low, golden sunlight glinting on ice-encrusted limbs. Every movement crackled. Every breath vaporous and warming on the face.

  It was Stevie who spotted the big buck behind a thick shrub, its antlers looking like a trophy rack, thick hindquarter showing clearly once you knew where to look. Harvey had said, because his father had been ill for a while now, everyone aware of what lay ahead, “It’s yours, Pops. Go on and take it.”

  Their ailing father raised the rifle, squinted into the scope. Used his teeth to pull off a glove, let it fall to the ground. He flicked off the safety. Slipped a finger through the trigger housing. And his sons stood frozen in place, eyes on the buck, and waited for the loud crack of the bullet.

  But then their father had lowered the rifle. Said, “What do you say we just look at him this time, boys? Give him another year to enjoy all this.”

  Remembering that day—remembering the love he had felt for his father at that moment, the release of fear and resentment, and the consequent swell of affinity with his brothers as well, for the woods and all they held—Will sagged, knees buckling, and he stumbled forward, braced himself against a tree, right palm and forehead against the rough bark as he wept. He was either going to be sick or pass out. He hoped for the latter.

  But neither happened. For even as he wept, each inhalation took in the scent of the woods, the leaf-matted ground and the shaded moss. And each breath filled his lungs and emptied them, the clean, cooling air going in, the dark, heavy air going out.

  He had been silent for a few moments, yet still braced against the tree, when a hand pressed lightly against his back. It did not startle him. He half expected to turn and see Harvey standing there. Or else Laci. But it was Molly. Beautiful sweet Molly.

  He smiled. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Following you,” she said.

  He turned fully, leaned back against the tree. “I thought you were still mad at me.”

  “I am. I just wanted to make sure you don’t get lost.”

  He kept smiling, felt the warming ache in his chest, felt tears of a different kind wanting to come to his eyes. “I know these woods pretty good,” he told her.

  “What makes you think I don’t?”

  “You’ve been out here before?”

  “Lots of times,” she said. Then, “A couple anyway. Maybe not lots.”

  He said, “You feel like walking with me awhile?”

  “Might as well,” she said.

  An
d they walked side by side for a while. He tried to match his stride to hers. Wanted to reach out and guide her each time they encountered a scraggly vine or deadfall, but resisted, kept his hands to himself.

  Until he stopped and raised a hand in front of her. “Look up there,” he said, and pointed midway up a medium-size oak.

  “Look where?” she said.

  “About twelve feet up. In that fork.”

  A ball of gray. Motionless. Black nose and small dark eyes.

  She reached for his hand. “What is it?”

  “Groundhog,” he said. “It’s not dangerous.” Then wished he hadn’t said it, didn’t want her to reclaim her hand.

  She didn’t. “A groundhog in a tree?”

  “They do that sometimes.”

  “I thought they lived underground.”

  “They do. But you live in a building and you used to climb trees.”

  “What’s he doing up there?”

  “Hard to say. Maybe he heard us coming but was too far from his burrow. So he scampered up there.”

  “It looks like a koala bear.”

  “It sort of does,” he said.

  Her hand was small in his, her skin warm. He wished he could raise her hand to his lips as he had when she was small; could kiss her fingers and palm and lay her hand against his cheek; could bring her face close so that he could kiss her forehead and eyes and nose and let the flood of emotion wash over her again, let it bind them inextricably as it had in previous years, the only form of communication either one needed.

  But she was too old for that now. He didn’t know how to throw open the floodgates anymore. All that love dammed up inside.

  Then her hand slipped out of his. He felt reduced by that; made less than he had briefly been.

  She started walking again, and he stepped forward, a long stride to stay beside her.

  A few minutes later, she spoke. “Did you really see him making out with another girl?”

  He did not understand. Was she talking about the groundhog? Harvey? But then it dawned on him—the older boy she liked. “I’m afraid I did. And smoking weed.”

  “You and Mom used to smoke it.”

  He was surprised she knew that. “Used to,” he said.

  “What did she look like?”

  “Your mother?”

  “The girl he was making out with.”

  “Older than you,” he told her. “But not half as beautiful.”

  “I bet,” she said. Then, a few moments later, “Anyway, it’s no big deal if he was kissing somebody.”

  “Really?” Will said.

  “We don’t get freaked out by things like that the way your generation does.”

  Interesting, he thought, and wasn’t sure if her statement troubled him or not.

  She said, “That still doesn’t make what you did okay.”

  “I know, sweetie. And I’m sorry I embarrassed you. I really am.”

  She looked down at her feet as she walked. “Are you going to let me look at the video? Mom said it was up to you.”

  “You can look at anything you want,” he told her. “Just promise that you’ll try to see things from my point of view. You mean everything to me. I will never be willing to let somebody break your heart.”

  “You broke it,” she said.

  “I’d rather die than do that.”

  She said nothing.

  “If anything bad ever happened to you or your mother,” he told her, “I couldn’t live anymore. I would need to stop living just to shut off the pain.”

  She lifted her head, looked up at him. He could see surprise in her eyes. Realized that maybe she had never before considered it—this awful side of love.

  “You’re a beautiful young woman,” he told her, “and from here on in, boys are going to try to take advantage of you. Once the testosterone starts flowing, they can get pretty selfish sometimes. You know about testosterone, right?”

  “Of course, Daddy. We learned about it in health class. Years ago.”

  “It’s always a problem with guys. Some of them learn to control it; some don’t even try.”

  “Is that what happened with Uncle Kenny and Aunt Jennalee?”

  “How much do you know about that?”

  “Everything. Mom said what they did was wrong.”

  “Most people would agree.”

  “But what do you think?”

  “I don’t know, honey. I think maybe they were both very lonely people inside. Or they felt they couldn’t trust anybody else besides each other. I honestly don’t know what to think.”

  “Heather says the royal families used to do incest all the time back in the olden days. It was because they thought they were special and better than everybody else.”

  “So your friends are talking about it now?”

  “They say that’s why Uncle Harvey beat them up and killed them.”

  “Deputy Walters said it’s impossible to know who started that fight. It might have been Kenny. It might even have been Louise.”

  “Who do you think started it?”

  “All I know is that I never once saw my brother start a fight. I saw him finish a lot of them, though.”

  They walked in silence, moving without hurry. Will matched his stride to hers. Felt that he could walk like this forever.

  “Testosterone also makes men aggressive,” Molly said.

  “It certainly can.”

  “I think that’s what happened at Uncle Kenny’s house.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Why do you think she did it, Daddy?”

  “Jennalee, you mean?”

  She nodded. Sniffed. They walked a few steps.

  He said, “I guess she’s the only one who knows that, sweetheart. Maybe Harvey knew too. But I sure don’t.”

  He heard the hoarseness and the quiver in his voice and knew that she had heard it too, for now she looked up at him. A tear slid off his cheek but he did nothing to wipe it away. And then she too began to cry and leaned into him and he wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close. The scent of her hair made him cry even harder, and his cheek bucked against the side of her head. And for a while he felt that if he loosened his grip on her he would go sliding off into oblivion.

  But soon she pulled away, not fully at first, then more, until she was standing apart from him, looking at the ground.

  He said, “You think we ought to turn around and head back?”

  She said, “Let’s go a little farther,” and started walking again.

  He caught up to her. Thought about reaching for her hand. Did not know if he should.

  She said, “Are you going to the funeral tomorrow? For Uncle Kenny and Jennalee and her mother?”

  “We’ll all go,” he said. “It won’t be easy, but we’ll go.”

  They continued walking. She paused to look at a patch of small ferns. Bent down close to them, laid her palm beneath a frond, the tiny leaves bright and delicate against her skin.

  He wished he knew the name of the fern. Wished he had something instructive to say. He should have learned more when he was a boy, a young man. Should have paid closer attention.

  She lifted away from the fern, pressed her hands together and looked ahead, slightly to the right, then slightly to the left. “Is this where you always go hunting?” she asked.

  “Since I was a boy,” he said.

  “Are you going to do it this year? You and Uncle Stevie?”

  He thought for a moment. “It’s funny,” he told her, “but now that I think about it, Stevie never shot at anything. I don’t know if he ever once fired his gun.”

  “He doesn’t like to hurt things. Unless they’re dangerous or causing problems.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me.”

  “When did this happen?”

  She shrugged. “When we talk. I do talk to him, you know. Just because you guys never talk to each other about things doesn’t mean he doesn’t talk to Mom and
me.”

  He couldn’t help but smile; she was so much smarter than him. Better than him. Just like Laci. He and Stevie were so lucky to have them in their lives.

  “You can go hunting with Stevie and me this fall if you want,” he said. “You’re old enough.”

  “I’m not shooting anything either,” she said.

  “That’s okay. We don’t need to hunt.”

  “I mean I’ll come out in the woods with you. But I’m not going to shoot anything. It’s too pretty here for that.”

  And then he knew that he was done with hunting too. All he needed was to walk with her. With Molly and Laci and Stevie. He would walk with them wherever they wanted to go. Summer spring winter fall, as many seasons as he was allowed. He would walk and walk and never stop walking with them. Around the world and back again.

  71

  Presiding behind the bar, Laci poured drafts and shots of whiskey and lined them up near the outer edge. She tried not to think about how much money she was giving away. Each time the worry formed, she pushed it down. This isn’t the time for that, she thought.

  When not pouring drinks or thanking somebody for coming, she watched the people milling around, a dozen or so still standing in line to fill their plates from the buffet table. Stevie moved from one pocket of conversation to the next, Mrs. Wilson at his side as he nodded somberly and returned one handshake after another.

  It was nice to see the room so full. Several of Molly’s friends had turned out too, all of them seated around the big table at the back of the room, waiting for Molly to return. Laci looked at their young faces and felt a pang of sadness. So much misery ahead for them. So much uncertainty and regret.

  Nobody ever prepares you for that, she told herself. They tell you the future is bright and full of promise, but nobody ever mentions the other side.

  Now and then the door swung open and suddenly the room would fill with a silent explosion of blinding afternoon light. Laci would squint into the light, unable to identify the individual or couple approaching until the door fell closed again. And sometimes Laci would shiver when the light was cut off, because she knew that something else was out there too, menace and foreboding out there hiding behind the light, waiting for the chance to pounce and enter.