A Brilliant Death (33 page)

Gerald and Harold listened, then turned to me. “Man, he was like your best friend,” Gerald said.

“No way. No way,” I said, a panic in my voice that was not total exaggeration. “I just saw him before I came out here. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. When? When did it happen?”

“Sometime around midnight, maybe a little bit before. I’m not for sure,” Spuds said.

It was one-thirty a.m. If it ever came into question, my time was accounted for. Mr. Robinson had seen me leave their party. The twins would swear I had been at their place when the Chevy went into the river.

I handed Gerald my unfinished beer. “I gotta go,” I said, running for the car. I took the back route down Riddle’s Run Road, the same path on which Travis had led Cloyd. This would be the most difficult part of the entire scam. Travis was long gone. I had to appear devastated that my friend was dead. I also felt bad for what I had put my parents through for the past ninety minutes. I’m sure they weren’t convinced that I hadn’t been in the car and wouldn’t be until they saw me. My mom was standing in the sunroom when I turned the corner in front of the house. She sprinted out of the house, her eyes red from crying.

“Thank God, you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. I was out at the Hatchers’. I came home as soon as I heard.”

Again, the tears came. It had been an emotional week. Everything was coming to a head at the right time. My eyes were red and moist. I was sorry for scaring my parents, sorry that I had lost a friend, worried that I would be exposed, and terrified that Big Frank Baron would eventually figure out the scam. Dad appeared on the sidewalk behind us. He had just gotten back from the marina. “Urb and Snookie are up at the marina. You want to go up?”

I nodded and swiped at my eyes with my sleeve. “Sure.”

We hopped in his pickup truck and started north along Labelle Street to the split at Penn Street. “Does anyone know how it happened?” I asked.

Dad shrugged. “I guess he got drunk and drove his dad’s car over the cliffs. Your mother said he raced through town, went out the ridge and back on New Alexandria Road. No one saw him go in. Evidently he drove down through the park and couldn’t stop when he got to the edge of the parking lot.”

“Christ.”

“It put quite a scare into your mother and I. We thought you were going to be with him tonight.”

“I was, for a while. He was pretty drunk at the Robinsons’, and we ended up getting into a little scuffle.”

“So I heard. Where’d you disappear to?” he asked.

“Out to Gerald and Harold Hatcher’s.”

He looked at me, and I looked out the window. If Dad sensed that all wasn’t as it appeared, he didn’t let on. He turned into the marina and parked alongside the caretaker’s shanty. There were a dozen boats in the area, all combing the river surface with spotlights. The fire rescue boat was dragging two grappling hooks. It was too dark and too dangerous to send divers into the water. That would begin at daybreak.

Urb and Snookie were standing at the far end of the dock. Their eyes were red and swollen. “We should have sat on his ass at the Robinsons,” Snookie said. “We never should have let him go. Now look what happened, goddammit. It’s our fault.”

“It’s not our fault, Snook. How could we have known?” I said. He continued to sob. Already, I wanted to break my promise to Travis. I walked over to the bench that had been built into the end of the dock. I had to get away from them before my weakness overtook me.

Travis had come up with the plan before he began filling up the cistern. For several days, he said, he had seriously contemplated killing Big Frank. He planned to stab him at home, then drag his body up Thorneapple Creek, dump him in the cistern, and fill it up. No one would ever find the body. He said he wasn’t so much worried about getting caught, but he didn’t want his mother to have to share a grave for all eternity with Big Frank.

Ultimately, Travis decided on the plan to fake his death and destroy his dad’s most prized possession. “After it’s all over,” Travis had said, “Big Frank won’t know if I’m dead or alive, but he’ll know one thing for sure. He’ll know that I know what really happened to my mother.”

I didn’t press him for details. In this situation, the less I knew, the better.

Somehow, he was going to let Big Frank know. And when Frank found out, no one would be safe, not even his son. Big Frank was a shark on land, concerned only with his own self-preservation. If he thought Travis was alive, he’d hunt him down. The only way out was to “die.” So far, it seemed to be working. Of course, by this time he and his grandparents were probably closing in on Breezewood, Pennsylvania, the self-proclaimed “Gateway to the South.” I had overheard one of the firemen say that the state patrol had tracked down Big Frank somewhere east of Cleveland and he was now on his way home. I wanted to be nowhere near the river when Frank Baron came to survey the damage.

I watched throughout the rest of the night as the boat operators continued their search, an exercise in futility in which I was the only co-conspirator. Dad helped tie up the boats that one by one straggled to shore. There was talk of the tragedy of Travis’s short life, of his mother, the irony of it all, and the hidden meaning of the graduation speech. The question wasn’t whether Travis Baron had died. He had. There wasn’t even the specter of doubt. The only question was whether it had been an accident or suicide.

The moon was at three-quarters and disappearing over Tarr’s Dome, the last of its shimmering beam fading from the waters of the Ohio. Only two boats remained, and both were adrift—a vigil more than a search—not wanting to leave the body alone, as though leaving would signify the final surrender.

“How ’bout it, Bud? Ready to go home?” Dad asked.

The first faint hint of dawn was creeping into the valley. It would awaken to the news of a tragic death, a senior with his world unfolding, lost to the depths of the murky river. It was the kind of story the wire services would pick up on and distribute across the country. I wondered if Travis had bought a newspaper and read of his own death. I nodded to my dad and pushed myself off the bench. A very tired and rattled Cloyd Owens met us at the end of the dock. He nodded, solemn, and I returned the nod.

As we drove home, I glanced up the hill at Shaft Row and then across the railroad tracks to the house that was now Big Frank’s alone. As we passed, the Kenworth was pulling alongside the house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Reverend Horvath spoke of how only God could make sense of such a tragic death. I wasn’t paying much attention. Nothing Reverend Horvath had to say was going to make me feel any better about losing my friend. Ever since the accident, people kept approaching me like I had lost a member of my family. And, in a way, I had. They offered their condolences, but ultimately they wanted to know if I thought our fight had caused Travis to commit suicide. No, I told them. It had been an accident. That’s all. The fight had consisted of Travis popping me once in the nose and the two of us falling into a heap in Mrs. Robinson’s peonies. Actually, he also gave me a head butt when we hit the ground, but that was all. I didn’t even hit him back. In the six days since then, it had grown to a battle of Biblical proportions. I was tired of the questions and tired of the waiting. I just wanted it all to be over. The organ music was a drone in my ears, and Reverend Horvath’s words had no penetration. After the final prayer, several adults went up to offer condolences to Big Frank, and Duke and I slipped out.

But once he had me in his sights, Big Frank was not about to let me go. He hurried past those lined up to speak to him and went out the side door, slogging through water in the parking lot that was over his shoes, his belly jiggling out of his dress shirt, and then running down Campbell Avenue after me. We were almost to Third Street when Duke said, “You’ve got company.” I turned to see Big Frank lumbering down the road, and I stood at the corner of Campbell and Third, waiting.

He was sucking for air by the time he got to me. “You been duckin’ me, boy,” Big Frank said between breaths. “We need to talk.”

Big Frank Baron was moving toward me like a man after a disobedient dog. He was angry that I had not been around, and he was right, I had been ducking him. His nostrils flared; he was out of breath from the short run down the hill. He stopped within a foot of me and thrust a fist in my face. “What the hell is this?”

In the moment before I answered, I remembered why I loved Travis Baron. Even in “death,” he remained the master.

“That would be your fist, Mr. Baron.”

His upper lip curled and his teeth showed, clenched. He was breathing as though he could barely control his rage. “Be a smart ass to me, junior, and I’ll fuck you up.” He allowed the fingers on his right hand to go limp, and with the thumb and index finger from his left hand, he pulled a ring off his pinkie—a gold ring with a crescent of rubies set around a marquis diamond in the center. “Now tell me, where did this ring come from?”

I looked at Frank, the ring, and Frank again. If I had learned anything from Travis, it was to exploit any opportunity in which I held the upper hand. And clearly, I was in control. I took a breath and said, “Is this a trick question?”

“You tell me where this ring came from, or I swear to Jesus . . .”

There was panic in the eyes of Frank Baron. He was more scared than angry, afraid that the truth would finally be known. It made him appear much less formidable. People filing out of the church were staring down the hill, looking to see why Big Frank had sprinted out of the church.

“Look, Mr. Baron, I don’t know what you’re talking about. How am I supposed to know where your ring came from? Where’d you get it?”

“I’ll tell you where I got it. It was in the locked glove box of my Chevy when they fished it out of the river.”

Oh, Trav. Good one.

“So? I don’t understand why or how that concerns me.”

Frank again raised the ring close to my face. “It concerns you because you and Travis were thick as fuckin’ thieves, that’s why. Now, why don’t you take a real close look at this ring; maybe it’ll refresh your memory and you’ll be able to tell me where it came from.”

I shrugged. “Mr. Baron, you’re making me real uncomfortable here. I never saw that ring before two seconds ago, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Big Frank laughed a forced laugh and looked away. “I think you’re a liar, boy.” He spoke in a calm voice that belied the rage building within. He swiped at his sweaty brow with his jacket sleeve. “Where’d my kid get this ring?”

Duke stepped in close to me and said, “He already told you he doesn’t know.”

Big Frank glared at Duke. “This ain’t your fight, junior. Unless you’d like to lose a couple teeth, I’d stay out of it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr. Baron.” I squinted at the ring, then offered, “It looks like a woman’s ring, though, if that helps.”

“I’m going to find out what happened up at that park. You better hope to Jesus that your ass wasn’t involved. I found one of my shovels up behind Shaft Row near our old house, and it looks like a lot of dirt’s been moved lately.”

I shrugged. “Really? You just happened to be taking a walk up behind Shaft Row and found your shovel, huh?” We stood for a moment, locked in a stare-down. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Baron. Travis was a great kid. Too bad you never took the time to know him.” I nodded at the hand that was clenched around the ring. “I hope you don’t lose any sleep worrying about that ring.”

Big Frank was still standing on the sidewalk, his face reddened from anger and exertion, as we started north on Third Street. “Are you ever going to tell me what that was really all about?” Duke asked.

“Probably not,” I said.

“Would I want to know?”

“Definitely not.”

The cars were pulling out of the parking lot and driving past us on Third Street. Drivers and passengers stared. Behind the church, towers of gray clouds were roiling in from the west, ready to drop more rain on the Ohio River Valley.

EPILOGUE

On December 21, 1985, I returned home from the offices of the
Ohio Valley Morning Journal
shortly before five. My wife and daughters were baking Christmas cookies. The youngest, Michelle, the precocious five-year-old who was wearing a Bullwinkle the Moose cap, had spilled green sprinkles on the floor and was making a clumsy attempt to herd them up with a broom. The seven-year-old, Robyn, was covered with flour and delighted that I was there to witness the actual baking of the cookies. I volunteered to finish the sweeping job so the baking could commence.

My wife, Laura, was six months pregnant with our third child. She was as lovely on this day as she had been on that Fourth of July evening when I first discovered her beauty, though she had that exasperated, don’t-ask-what’s-for-dinner look in her eyes. I didn’t. I had, after all, learned a few things after ten years of marriage. I grabbed the bag of pretzels from the top of the refrigerator and assumed that a large mushroom and sausage pizza was somewhere in transit between the pizza shop in Elm Grove and our home.

I slid onto a stool at the kitchen counter and began leafing through the opened mail—a phone bill, a half-dozen advertising fliers hawking last-minute Christmas specials, a pre-approved credit card application, and a small pile of Christmas cards: Jeff and Linda Sue Ekleberry; Coach Oblak; Urb and Alice Keltenecker and sons; J.C. and Becky Wagner; Dr. Maxwell Skinner and Staff; the Groats; Carson “Snookie” and Melinda McGruder, and the Randleman Insurance Group. I tossed them to the side as Robyn insisted that I watch her push the ceremonial first sheet of gingerbread men into the oven. I applauded wildly. The pizza arrived, and I paid.

The girls were much too busy to bother eating, even pizza. They further insisted that I watch because at any moment they would be removing the first batch from the oven. I opened a bottle of beer and munched on the pizza, and for no good reason that I can recall, flipped through the cards again until I got to the one from J.C. and Becky Wagner, whom I knew not to be anywhere in my Rolodex. “Who are these people—J.C. and Becky Wagner?” I asked Laura.