Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller (25 page)

Kain had looked up at her with this idiotic,
Search me, ma’am,
pasted on his face. Had thanked God when Big Al had leapt in with an answer.

“Cripes, woman,” the big farmer had said, clearly annoyed by his wife’s probing. “It’s a dog. A goddamned stupid one at that. Look at my goddamned leg.”

Despite the bandages and the cane he now carried, Georgia had not been pleased with her husband’s tone and language. Nor his explanation. She had stood there for the longest time as silent as a cadaver, waiting for the man with those odd scars and the long hair to offer his own opinion. She had waited and waited and waited … and now her daughter was.

“What can I say, Lynn? Dogs just don’t take to me. Never have.”

“And I suppose cats don’t take to you, either? Never have?”

“I don’t know what it is,” he said, and said it as if he really didn’t. “Even when I was a boy I could never have pets.”

“But how can they all not like you? Don’t you find that just a little bit strange?”

“… More than a little, yes,” he said.

~

She did not pursue the issue further, yet for the life of him, he did not know why. His elusiveness did not dissuade her, no; perhaps she had her suspicions and was simply keeping them under wrap until the pieces of the Kain Richards puzzle began to form a more complete face. Whatever the reason, he was reserved to simply walk, to let the afternoon unfold as it would.

They emerged from another stand of bug-infested woods. They were at the river now, and already the breeze had grown stronger, coming off the water in short gusts. The clouds in the west were blacker, cutting the deep azure sky like a dark sword. The river led everywhere. Nowhere. He stepped up to the cusp of the water and relished the cool, refreshing wind as it filled his lungs with the purest air a man could breathe. His skin rippled with gooseflesh that was cold and tingling and invigorating. Even the throb in his back seemed to hold. Wave upon wave folded in on the rocky shore, the cresting waves lulling him with hypnotic rhythms, while far, far above, dozens of gulls swarmed in silent symphony, like bright white ships sailing on a dreamy sea of blue.

The drifter closed his eyes, and suddenly, without really knowing how it came to pass, the words slipped from his lips in a whisper.

“Now’s the moment … Now’s the time … Make Now count … Every time.”

Lynn, who stood well behind him, cast him a curious glance. “Is that a song?”

He didn’t answer. He simply took in the world as it was at that precious instant in the clockwork of things. Every second was a First Time.

He had no idea how much he loved this place.

Lynn stepped up and prodded him with a finger. He opened his eyes slowly, as if coming out of a deep slumber.

He turned to her but said nothing.

She regarded him as if he had just dropped from the sky. “So how was Oz? Still gleaming?”

“Just an old, tired drifter,” he said, feeling exactly that way suddenly. “Just trying to catch a slice of something solid.”

Lynn nodded she understood, but he doubted if she truly appreciated his words. What was the old saying? You had to walk a mile in a man’s shoes to understand him? Try a million. Maybe then she might
begin
to understand.

“Was that a Johnny Tillotson song?”

“Sorry?”

“Those words … was that a song?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and that was the truth. Gramps never did tell him where they came from. He had always assumed it was something the old man had made up.

“How did it go?” She started to recite it and gave up.

He told it to her, slowly, just as his grandfather had told it to him those distant years past. She repeated every phrase as he went along.

“It’s beautiful, Kain. If it’s not in a song, it should be.”

Something comforting fell over him then, like a warm blanket on a bitter winter night. He wanted to hold her, kiss her right then and there. The soothing roll of the river, the intoxicating sweetness of the fine air … those incredible eyes … together, they were all too perfect, all too consuming and seductive. But like a nervous schoolboy who has no idea what to do with his hands, he knelt for a flat stone instead and hurled it sidearm over the water. It skipped a half dozen times before a cresting wave swallowed it. He smiled weakly, and she returned it; hers was perhaps weaker than his, perhaps as anxious. He led her downriver, along the shore toward a rolling hill, neither of them saying a word until they crested the rise. The baseball diamond was barely a half mile on.

The way was wider here (the trail proper was nothing more than a years-old footpath, room barely for two), and they took respite on a cherry iron bench that overlooked the river. A small black plaque with white letters, screwed into the back, read DONATED BY KEN’S WROUGHT IRON FURNITURE. Kain mused briefly over the idea of cutting his hair and reapplying for a job at the ironworks, figuring Ken might give the drifter
-cum-
farmhand a second chance after all. Right.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said. Lynn seemed quite taken by the view, but her pensive expression betrayed her.

“I was just thinking of Ryan. How’s he going to take all this?”

Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea,
Kain thought.

“And Lee,” Lynn said. “Poor thing.”

“I’m so sorry for what happened, Lynn. If I could take it all back, I would.”

“I know. It’s just that … well, she’s a young girl, and … never mind.”

“No. I understand. She’s worried about her looks.”

“Of course she is.”

“She doesn’t have to.”

“Of course she doesn’t. But she does. It’s hardly a secret she’s not very outgoing. She doesn’t have a lot of confidence as it is.”

“It’ll only be a few weeks with the bandages. She’ll be her old self in no time.”

“… I suppose.”

She had said it as if she supposed it was all right if she’d get the noose instead of the chair.

“This isn’t about a broken nose,” he said.

Lynn fumbled with her words. She started, but stopped. She turned to him.

“You know Jimmy, right? Jimmy Long?”

An alarm went off in Kain’s head and kept blaring. It was even louder than the static.

“Yeah. Sure. What about him?”

“Do you know much about him?”

“Not much. Works hard. Hell of a fastball.”

She looked at him somberly. As if the world had turned cold and dark.

“Lee has a crush on him.”

~ 25

Like a cold, gray day in November, Lynn Bishop had fallen colorless. Lifeless.

Kain reached for her hand. She barely stirred, and he wondered if she could feel his touch at all. She seemed to be living a nightmare … or imagining one.

“Lee didn’t want me to say anything.”

She turned in alarm. “What did she tell you?”

“Nothing that should make the both of you react so strongly.” He paused. “She practically begged me not to tell anyone.”

“You must think we’re crazy.”

Again she turned away. She was more than upset—fear had a face, oh yes—and he was dead certain she would not go on. She looked as if simply
speaking
the words would betray her; as if her darkest thoughts would ring true.

“It’s Ray,” she said, saying her husband’s name as if she’d said
poison.
She drew her hand away and threw both in the air. “Always goddamn Ray.”

He let her settle. Let her talk.

“Ray hates Jimmy Long,” she lamented. “Hates anyone who isn’t Made-In-America white.”

Something sharp clicked in Kain’s head. Lee-Anne had told him that Ryan disliked the boy; the girl had said so in no uncertain terms. At the time, he had thought it adolescent jealousy of the big Sioux’s stature on the ball team, and that might still be so, but suddenly it seemed more a case of, like father, like son. How sad.

Lynn regarded him darkly. “There was this … thing … a long time ago. Lee was maybe five or six. I think she remembers. I doubt Ryan does. I tried to keep them out of it. We never talked about it, but I know the other kids did. I mean, it was a big deal, right? You can’t run from a secret, Kain. Not out here. Out here the wind whispers everything. Farm to farm. Ear to ear.

“Ray was working late on a friend’s car.
Said
he was working, anyway. Imagine that, Ray Bishop lying. He was at the bar. You know the one I told you about, the one that probably sold Ryan the liquor? Anyway, there was this guy. I know how this is going to sound, Kain, but … well, there are people who should know better, no matter how wrong that is … and he should have known better than to go in there. You know what I’m saying?”

He admired her diplomacy. He nodded.

“So you see … he was looking for trouble, and he found it. Ray and his cronies, Jake Maxwell and Frank Wright—Larry and Curly if you ask me—they ran the guy right out of there. There was a fight. You would have thought Ray would have been leading the charge, but it was those two idiots who roughed him up. That was supposedly the end of it.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“They said that afterwards, the guy just got in his truck and drove off. Even that snake Henry Roberts backed up their story. Guess he didn’t want to raise any more eyebrows than he normally does. Kain, the man they beat up … they found him dead the next day. His truck was halfway to Spirit Lake in a ditch. His name was Tommy Long.”

“Jimmy’s father?”

“I know … I know what you’re thinking.”

He didn’t think she did. But then again, it was probably written all over his face in big red letters.

“Do I think Ray killed him,” she said, blunt as a hammer. She didn’t give him a second to respond. No need.

“I think those two bastards roughed him up,” she said. “But Jake Maxwell? Frank Wright? Even those cowards wouldn’t beat a man so bad he couldn’t drive. You see what I’m saying? They all said he just got in his truck and drove off. If he was that bad off, he wouldn’t have gotten so far, right? He was miles from that place. So no, I don’t think Ray killed him. Even Ray’s not that stupid. But what I do think—what I know—is that he was in on it, and there’s more to this than I know. Tommy Long was a big man. From what I’ve heard he was no stranger to brawling. He got his licks in. Ray was bleeding pretty badly when he got home, so it was pretty obvious he’d been in another good one. That scar on his face? He didn’t get that shaving. And he didn’t expect the police to show up when they did.”

“Someone talked?”

“Are you kidding? It was the talk of the county. Everyone and his cousin threw in their two cents. It was suicide. It was murder. It was an accident. It was all just hearsay and gossip. Just to pass the time while the corn grew. But after a while, even the wind stops whispering. People move on. The sad thing was, no one cared enough about Tommy Long to find out what really happened.”

“But
someone
blew the whistle on Ray.”

“Just the biggest mouth of all,” she said, matter-of-factly. “That’s the thing about Ray. Can’t keep his mouth shut. Never could.” She shook her head with a subtle grin of satisfaction that Kain did not imagine. “He was drunk, of course. That’s the key to the lock on the Ray Bishop Well of Secrets. About six months after it all happened, he’s up at the bar, shooting off about how he took down this big Indian. I guess for once, someone was actually listening to his bullshit.”

“The whisper of the wind.”

Lynn nodded.

“So what happened?”

She sighed. “To this day I don’t know. The police asked Ray a few questions, but that was it. They were just going through the motions. I guess they had to fill in
some
kind of report. Ray told them it wasn’t him, just ask Jake and Frank. Well, that was good enough for the cops. One of them actually said the Indian got what he deserved. I was stunned. The three of them just stood there on the veranda, laughing. Then the cops left. They talked to the other two Stooges, and who would have guessed, they backed Ray up.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They know Ray.”

“They’re afraid of him.”

She nodded grimly.

“A part of me wants to believe this never happened,” she said. “I guess I just don’t
want
to believe it. But I can never be sure.”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated. “I think … I think Tommy Long was in good enough shape to make it all the way home,” she said. “I think Ray followed him.”

“Go on.”

“Maybe the man stopped to sleep it off. Who knows. I think Ray surprised him. Beat him within an inch of his life. But he didn’t kill him. But I guess it comes out the same.”

He was about to ask if she’d ever said a word to the police, then gave himself a mental shake. Of course not.

“Lynn … couldn’t the cops tell the guy was all beat up? I mean, wasn’t it obvious?”

He might as well have told her she had some terminal illness. The muted color she still held vanished in an instant.

“… There was an explosion.” Her voice was hardly a voice at all.

It struck him. In the chaos of the aftermath, standing there in the hospital with that shard still lodged in his back and not knowing what to tell her, he had spoken briefly with Lynn on the telephone; he had insisted, quite vehemently, to State Trooper Berridge, that
he
make the call. She had been unexpectedly calm at first, taking his measured words in stride (he had made it very clear that everyone,
everyone,
was safe and sound), but then, suddenly, as if he had crawled into her mind and had dug up the devil of all devils, she had uttered some inhuman groan into the receiver, probably not really knowing that she had, and then she had laid it down in its cradle, cutting him off, and had most likely come as close to a breakdown as a person could. He had not had the courage to call her back, not right away, but when he had, it had been too late. She’d called a friend for a lift and was already on her way.

Lynn … Lynn … there was an explosion.

“He never stood a chance,” she said, and small tears began to grow in her eyes. “They could hardly tell it was human, let alone Tommy Long.”