A Choir of Ill Children (9 page)

I studied the lesson being taught. The voice of my mother had stopped but still I pursued it. That song remained behind in the air like the scent of jasmine. It carried into trees and sparkleberries. I climbed through the shallows and stood hip deep in the bayou, knowing my place. One of my places, at least.

The boy had been half-buried in mire.

A shovel lay nearby but someone hadn’t finished covering him over. His left arm hung at an angle outside the grave—fist clenched—and his right foot lay bent in such a way I knew the bones had been shattered. The sneaker remained neatly laced up, double-knotted with a looping bow, just like my own.

Most of his face could still be seen. His eyes were open. They were gray and drying.

He was about my age, maybe a year or two younger. I knelt and confronted the body, wanting to touch it but unwilling to put my hand on his skin. Part of his neck was dirty but the rest was pale and clean as if it had been scrubbed. I could clearly see the dark bruises under his Adam’s apple the size and shape of fingerprints.

“Hey, young’n.”

For an instant I thought the boy was talking to me. I peered closer. I ran my fingers through his short, blond hair. His mouth was filled with skimmer dragonflies and mosquitoes.

“Young’n, you there, kid!”

I spun and stared farther into the slough until I saw a thread of white smoke rising. A man sat in the morass puffing on a cigarette. He waved amiably and asked, “You wearing a belt, son? Yeah, you are, I can see it from here. I need a belt and a nice strong piece of stick.”

He had no shirt on and his body seemed carved of brass. The muscles rippled on his heavy arms and massive chest as he slowly raised the cigarette and puffed deeply. A broken-backed bull gator thrashed in the bog, squirming and rolling, dying. In its jaws was a human leg.

It was the man’s. He had used his shirt to try to stanch the flow of blood pouring from the stump, but it hadn’t made an effective bandage. He’d knotted the sleeves together but they were wet and loosening. He calmly continued smoking, apparently in no particular hurry to move, even though he was bleeding out.

“I need your belt and a stick so I can make a tourniquet. You do know what a tourniquet is, don’t you, boy?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s good, I had a gut feelin’ you was a smart kid. My name is Herbie Ordell Jonstone, come here from Tupelo, Mississippi. Don’t be scairt none, you could do me a righteous turn, you could.”

“Uh-huh.”

I stared down at the boy and kept stroking his hair.

“That there is my son, Johnny Jonstone. This bull gator here got to him first. A tragedy it is, a man losing his firstborn and his leg like this all on the same afternoon. But you can help to make it right.”

“I can?”

“Good Lawd above, yes. We need more heroes like you in this here world, boy, trust me on that. Someone of distinguished valor and admirable exploits, that’s what you got a chance to be. Willing to help a man down on his luck and in pressing adversity. I bet this here story receives some national coverage on the TV, and folks from all around our great nation will hail your name.”

“You really think so?”

“For certain. And tell me now, just what is your name?”

“Thomas.”

“You gonna make your mama proud today, Thomas. You’re my savior is what you are.”

“I know it,” I told him, taking my belt off. I stepped over to a loblolly pine and endeavored to break a thick piece of branch off. It took a while of twisting and bending it over with all my weight on top before it finally came free.

“That’s it, Thomas. Now bring it on over here to me. The water ain’t but waist high on you. And don’t be scairt of that there bull, he’s done in for, that’s a fact. He sure did try to even the score though. Hurry it up some, I’m startin’ to feel a might dizzy here.”

“I’ll tell you what, Herbie,” I said.

“What’s ’at? You’ll . . . ?”

I dropped my belt and the loblolly branch on the dead boy’s chest. “We’ll leave it up to Johnny Jonstone.”

He gave a quizzical head ratchet. “The hell you say?”

“If he brings it out to you, then you’ll be fine and me and Johnny’ll both be men of admirable exploits. He’ll make his daddy proud today.”

“Hold on now,” Herbie said, beginning to seethe. I liked the look on his face. He flicked the butt of his cigarette into the bayou and it bounced off the flailing tail of the dying gator. “I don’t believe you quite understand the situation we got goin’ on here, boy.”

“And I believe I do.”

“Thomas, you come on out here now, ’fore I—”

“If Johnny doesn’t get up, then I guess you run out of blood right there where you are and them other gators will come take you away. You hear ’em calling now, don’t ya?”

They were roaring in the distance. Herbie turned in the slime to listen. The shock was wearing off and some of the pain and fear had started seeping in.

“Sound fair?”

“You little bastard!” he shrieked.

“That any way to talk to your savior?”

“You come on out here right now, young’n! You—”

“No.”

“—come this way so I can
squeeze on you some, too
!”

I sat and waited while Herbie shouted and tried to crawl toward me, but killing the boy and the gator and having his leg torn off had taken something out of him. He couldn’t do much more than flail in place. I half expected the child to get up and clamber away crying for his mother.

Occasionally I prodded the kid in the chest while patting his head. Cormorants and ring-neck ducks waddled past and, feeling content and safeguarded, I fell asleep in the shadow of white oaks, listening to Herbie’s screams.

When I woke up the bodies were gone and my father stood over me with a terrified look in his eyes. The gators had taken the bodies off, I thought, if they’d ever really been there at all.

I followed my father home, my distinguished valor intact.

But my belt was gone.

P
RIVATE EYE WORK IS NOT ALL FLASHING .45S, DIRTY
cops, and beguiling broads in sunglasses, but at least some of it is. Nick Stiel is already having serious problems. Lily’s been working him down to a nub, and the good sex is making him feel guilty whenever he thinks of his dead beloved wife.

Stiel now looks as much like the stereotypical PI as Lily appears to be the repressed schoolmarm with molten loins. He’s begun to drink and the stench of whiskey wafting from him fills my office. I almost enjoy the smell. His eyes are no longer half-lidded. They’re wide and gazing around and it’s no longer an ordeal for him to bear witness to life. It may drive him completely insane before the end, but he’ll jackknife over the rim glaring at it all.

The constant assault of her stern glance has pounded upon his fractures and burst him open. He’s leaking out between the seams. It’s a lot to deal with: Lily’s onslaught, that slithering tongue, the ever-loosening bun of her shining hair. The revelations of an exquisite body beneath such ill-fitting clothes, and the alluring mania of her lust. And all the while having Eve stare at him, pigtails bobbing.

His calluses have been scrubbed off, probably with pumice stone. His fingers are as pink as a sow’s ass. I can imagine Lily arguing with him about how she prefers smooth hands, spending hours softening his scars with oil and lotion, then scouring them off. They’re as fine as velvet now. He’s getting a little beer gut and hasn’t practiced martial arts since he arrived in Kingdom Come.

Stiel’s instincts are still sharp though. I can sense that he’s running all the variables around in his head, perplexed in a lot of new ways but no longer distracted by his wife’s death. He perceives me as a possible threat and he’s much more alert than he was before.

“How goes it?” I ask.

His integrity and honesty mean a great deal to him, and he’s not afraid to admit his failure. “I haven’t found a damn thing out about either case yet.”

It doesn’t bother me. I didn’t think the report and maps and photos I gave him would ever do much good. His conflicted soul over Lily and Eve has only added to his other burdens. Stiel was pretty much lost from the very beginning, but we all have to play our strings out to the end.

I’ve heard that he’s made friends in Potts County. He enjoys the company of the granny witches, and Abbot Earl has mentioned that Stiel spends a lot of time at the monastery, hoping to get centered again but not having much luck.

“Don’t let it nettle your conscience,” I say. “You didn’t have much to work with right from the start.”

“Thanks, but I’m still on it. I’m going to stay in town until it’s done.”

He frowns, wondering what kind of play I’ll make next. There’s something of an implicit threat in his voice, as if he’s running the show. I toy with the idea of telling him that I won’t pay for any more of his time. If he hasn’t discovered anything by now, as I suspected he wouldn’t, there’s not much point in continuing.

But I know it’s a matter of pride with him, perhaps the last vestige of self-respect that remains. He wouldn’t leave if they ran him out with pitchforks, and I still want to keep somebody close to Eve.

“No luck at all with the dog kicker?”

“Nothing. It’s still occurring pretty regularly, despite all the precautions taken by your neighbors. It’s clearly somebody who’s intimate with your ways and knows your pets.”

“Uh-huh, it’s got to be one of us.”

“Yes.”

“Have you been keeping in touch with Sheriff Burke?”

“That runt has a nasty disposition and he’s dumber than a shrub. He’s had no leads and, frankly, I don’t think he cares much.”

“He never has.”

It’s time to talk about Eve. Stiel fidgets a bit like a schoolboy waiting outside the principal’s office. I wait to see if he’ll crack the ice about the girl, but he doesn’t.

“Has Eve spoken?” I ask.

“No, she hasn’t. But she is capable of speech.”

“Oh?”

“In her dreams, she mutters. She’s mumbled a few words.”

I take a stab. “Anything about a carnival?”

“No. Why?”

I don’t answer. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t seen Drabs in days and he and Velma Coots have got me on edge. I let out a breath and Stiel inspects the office, the gouges on the desk. He knows Lily’s work and a twinge of jealousy flicks through him.

The genuine characters of both Lily and Eve are not that different, I suspect, although I have no idea what they might actually be. I don’t have to ask if Lily has bought her clothes more appropriate to an older girl. I’m certain Eve is still wearing the bobby socks and plastic black shoes.

I wonder if she’s the child my brothers claim to have murdered, returned now to hold judgment upon us all.

Stiel gets up to leave, gazing about, trying to find evidence. He knows that there’s more here than meets his eye. The rosy tips of his fingers must tingle. He wants answers and he’s nearly, but not quite, willing to rumble with me to get them. If only I could oblige.

“Stiel?”

He stops without turning to face me.

“Does Eve still have that all-day sucker?” I ask.

The word falls from his lips like black blood coughed up from a chest wound. “Yes.”

I wonder if he’s slept with little Eve yet, and if so, what it was like. He stares back at me now, already doomed or just about to be. Still, he holds his head high and walks straight and tall. There’s no curve to his spine and there’s a hint of a smile in those eyes. He’s got something to hold on to inside, even if it carries him to hell.

It must be worth the price.

“It’s this damn town,” he hisses, hand on the knob, as he lets out a soft, angry groan.

“Don’t I know it.”

R
EVEREND
C
LEM
B
IBBLER,
D
RABS
’
S FATHER
,
ASKS ME
to meet him at his church. I arrive just before dark, with the sinking red sunlight igniting the kudzu weed that runs rampant across the small brown crabgrass lawn. He stands in the front doorway, framed by drawn shadows. I stare at the roof.

The moist heat of night claws between my shoulders and sweat pools there. The reverend is dressed in a heavy black suit, as always. He’s comfortable and cool no matter how mindless the temperature makes everyone else. Perhaps his faith assuages and soothes him.

He aims his chin at me. The muscles in his glistening black face are taut, cords of his neck well-defined and showing every dark vein. His hands are clasped behind his back. He confronts the world—or only me—with a stoic, impenetrable front. He swallows once and his collar bobs. The reverend doesn’t unsettle me but he is perhaps the only man alive who carries any weight in my book. I’m not sure why.

“Thomas,” he intones. His voice is low and resounding and echoes across the empty yard.

“Hello, Reverend Bibbler.”

He ushers me into the small wood-frame church. Two ropes leading up to the steeple creak and twine in the breeze. The bell sways and there’s an almost imperceptible yet constant thrum. Forty years ago this was a one-room schoolhouse where my grandmother taught the children of Kingdom Come. She was discovered dead on the roof, impaled with a reap hook, and the murder goes unsolved today.

I’ve been in this church a hundred times and hardly ever think of my grandmother skewered to the shingles, but now I’m having a hard time getting past the image. She hung upside down for most of the afternoon, rotting in the sun, until she was discovered by my mother, who’d been sent to search for her. My gaze keeps drifting toward the rafters, to the west wall where strange words were found outside. Reverend Clem Bibbler knows why I’m looking there but doesn’t comment.

The place is extraordinarily clean. His congregation is still afraid that Drabs is going to get naked up there or that the dog kicker will get after their hounds while they’re away, so they’ve been skipping his sermons. If it wears on his nerves, he doesn’t show it in the least.

He leads me to the first pew and gestures for me to sit. I don’t. He clasps his hands behind his back again and strolls in front to his own pulpit. The cross on the wall is small, plain, and smells of lemon furniture wax.