Down River (23 page)

Then Dolf rose to his feet and took quick strides to the two-way mirror. He looked back with still bright eyes and a voice that broke. “And take care of Grace.” Sudden tears appeared in the seams of his face. “She needs you.”

He rapped on the glass, and turned away, tilted his face to the floor. I found my feet, reaching for words and failing. The door opened with clang. The sheriff came in; deputies filled the space behind him. I held up my hand. “Wait a second,” I said.

Some emotion moved in the sheriff. Color flooded his face. Grantham appeared over his shoulder, paler, more distant.

“That’s it,” the sheriff said. “Time to go.”

I studied Dolf: the straight back and the bent neck; a sudden, racking cough and his arm in that orange sleeve wiping across his mouth. He spread his fingers on the mirror and lifted his head so that he could see my reflection. His lips moved, and I could barely hear him.

“Just go,” he said.

“Come on, Chase.” The sheriff reached out with his hand, as if he could pull me from the room.

Too many questions, no answers; and Dolf’s plea a clatter inside my head.

I heard a plastic rattle, and two deputies rolled in a video recorder on a tripod.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The sheriff took my arm, pulled me through the door. The pressure eased when the door clanged shut; I shrugged my arm out of his grip. He let me watch through the narrow glass as deputies aimed the camera. Dolf moved to the table, looked once in my direction, and sat. He lifted his face to the camera as the sheriff turned the key and dropped the bolt.

“What is this?” I asked.

He waited until I looked at him. “A confession,” the sheriff said.

“No.”

“For the murder of Danny Faith.” The sheriff paused for full effect. “And all I had to do was let him talk to you.”

I stared.

“That was his one condition.”

I understood. The sheriff knew how much Dolf meant to me and he wanted me to see it: the camera, the old man in front of it, the sudden complacence in his collapsed frame. Parks had been right.

“You fucking bastard,” I said.

The sheriff smiled, stepped closer. “Welcome back to Rowan County, you murdering piece of shit.”

   We left the detention center and stood in wind that brought the smell of distant rain. Lightning flashed silent heat and went dark before the thunder rolled over us like cannon fire. They wanted to know about Dolf, so I stripped my voice down and told them almost everything. I did not mention his plea to me because I could not leave Dolf Shepherd to rot. No way in hell. I told them that the last thing I saw was Dolf sitting in front of a video camera.

“It doesn’t make sense,” my father finally said. “Dolf took you to the knob, Adam. He all but held the rope. You’d have never found the body without him.”

“Your father’s right,” Parks said, and paused. “Unless he wanted the body to be found.”

“Don’t be absurd!” my father exclaimed.

“Guilt does strange things to people, Jacob. I’ve seen it happen. Mass murderers suddenly confess. Serial rapists ask the court for castration. People twenty years in the clear suddenly own up to killing a spouse decades earlier in a jealous rage. It happens.”

I heard Dolf’s voice in my head; what he’d said to me at the hospital:
Sinners usually pay for their sins.

“Bullshit,” my father said, and the attorney shrugged.

The wind gusted harder, and I held out my hand as the first raindrops clattered down. They were cold, hard, and hit the steps with a sound like fingers snapping. In seconds, the drops multiplied until the concrete hissed.

My father spoke. “Go on, Parks. We’ll talk later.”

“I’ll be at the hotel if you need me.” He dashed for his car, and we watched him go. There was a covered area behind us and we moved out of the rain. The storm was fully engaged. Rain hit hard enough to float a cold mist under the shelter.

“We’re all guilty of something,” I said, and my father looked at me. “But there is no way that Dolf murdered Danny.”

My father studied the rain as if it held a message. “Parks is gone,” he said, turning to face me. “So, why don’t you tell me the rest?”

“There’s nothing else to say.”

He ran both hands over his hair, squeezing the water away from his face. “He wanted to talk to you for a reason. So far, you haven’t said what that reason is. With Parks here, I could understand that. But he’s gone, so tell me.”

Part of me wanted to keep it locked up, but another part thought that maybe the old man could shed some light. “He told me to let it go.”

“Meaning what?”

“Don’t dig. He’s worried that I’ll look for the truth of what really happened. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want me to do that.”

My father turned from me and took three steps to the edge of the shelter. One more step and the rain would swallow him whole. I straightened and waited for him to look at me; I needed to see his reaction. Thunder clawed the air as I spoke, and I raised my voice. “I saw his face when we found Danny’s body. He didn’t do it.” The thunder abated. “He’s protecting someone,” I said.

Nothing else made sense.

My father spoke over his shoulder, and the words he cast at me may as well have been stones. “He’s dying, son.” He showed me his face. “He’s eaten up with cancer.”

I could barely process the words. I thought of what Dolf had told me about his bout with prostate cancer. “That was years ago,” I said.

“That was just the start. It’s all in him now. Lungs. Bones. Spleen. He won’t make it another six months.”

Pain struck so hard it felt physical. “He should be in treatment.”

“For what? To win another month? It’s incurable, Adam. Every doctor says the same thing. When I told him that he should fight, he said that there was no need to make a stink of it. Death with dignity, as God intends. That’s what he wants.”

“Oh, my God. Does Grace know?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

I took the emotion and shoved it down deep. I needed a clear head, but it was hard. Then it hit me. “You knew,” I said. “As soon as I told you that he’d confessed, you knew why he was doing it.”

“No, son. I knew only what you knew; that Dolf Shepherd could never kill anyone. I have no idea who he’s protecting; but I do know this. Whoever it is, it’s someone he loves.” He paused, and I prompted him.

“So?”

He stepped closer. “So, maybe you should do what he asks. Maybe you should let it go.”

“Dying in jail is not death with dignity,” I said.

“It could be. Depends on why he’s doing it.”

“I can’t leave him there.”

“It’s not your place to tell a man how to spend his final days—”

“I won’t let him die in that hole!”

He looked torn.

“It’s not just Dolf,” I said. “There’s more.”

“More what?”

“Danny called me.”

He was vague in the gloom, dark hands at the end of long, pale sleeves. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Danny tracked me down in New York. He called three weeks ago.”

“He died three weeks ago.”

“It was a strange thing, okay. The call came out of nowhere, middle of the night. He was hopped-up, excited about something. He said that he’d figured out how to fix his life. He said that it was something big, but that he needed my help. He wanted me to come home. We argued.”

“Needed your help with what?”

“He refused to say, said he wanted to ask me face-to-face.”

“But—”

“I told him that I would never come home. I told him that this place was lost to me.”

“That’s not true,” my father said.

“Isn’t it?”

He hung his head.

“He asked for my help and I refused him.”

“Don’t go there, son.”

“I refused him and he died.”

“Things are not always that simple,” my father said, but I would not be swayed.

“If I’d done what he wanted, if I’d come home to help him, then he might not have been murdered. I owe him.” I paused. “I owe Dolf.”

“What are you going to do?”

I looked at the rain, reached out my hand as if I could pull truth from the void.

“I’m going to turn over some fucking rocks.”

   We rode back to the farm, and I listened to the hard slap of wipers on the old truck. He killed the engine and we sat in the drive. Rain beat itself to mist on the roof. “Are you sure about this, son?”

I didn’t answer the question; I was thinking of Danny. Not only had I refused his request, but I’d doubted him, too. It was the ring found with Grace. It made everything so clear. He’d changed, gone dark for the money. His father wanted mine to sell and Danny had played along. Damn! I was so ready to believe it. I forgot the times that he’d stood up for me, forgot the man I knew him to be. In all of the ways that mattered, that was the greatest injustice I had done to him. But he was dead. I had to think of the living.

“This is going to kill Grace,” I said.

“She’s strong.”

“Nobody’s that strong. You should call the hospital. It’ll hit the papers. Maybe they can keep it from her, at least for a day or two. She should hear about this from us.”

He seemed uncertain. “Maybe until she’s better.” He nodded. “A day or two.”

“I’ve got to go,” I said, but my father stopped me with a hand on my arm. My door was open and water cascaded into the cab of the truck. He didn’t care.

“Dolf is my best friend, Adam. He’s been that for longer than you’ve been alive; since before I met your mother, since we were kids. Don’t think that this is easy for me.”

“Then you should feel like I do. We need to get him out.”

“Friendship is also about trust.”

I waited for a long second. “So is family,” I finally said.

“Adam…”

I climbed out, leaned in as water thrummed on my back. “Do you think I killed Gray Wilson? Right here, right now… do you think I did it?”

He leaned forward and the dome light struck his face. “No, son. I don’t think you did it.”

Something snapped in my chest, a strap loosened. “Saying that doesn’t mean that I forgive you. We have a long way to go, you and me.”

“Yes, we do.”

I didn’t plan to say what came next; it just welled out of me. “I want to come home,” I said. “That’s the real reason I’m back.” His eyes widened, but I wasn’t ready to talk further. I slammed the door, splashed through puddles, and slipped into my car. My father climbed onto his porch and turned to face me. His clothes hung wetly from his frame. Water ran down his face. He raised a hand above shadow-filled eyes, and kept it up until I pulled away.

I went to Dolf’s house; it was empty and dark. I stripped off wet clothes and flung myself down onto his couch. Thoughts churned through my mind; speculation, theories, despair. Fifteen miles away Dolf would be lying on a hard, narrow bunk. Probably awake. Probably afraid. The cancer would be chewing through him, looking for that last vital bit. How long until it took him? Six months? Two months? One? I had no idea. But when my mother died, and my father, for years, had been lost to me in mourning, it was Dolf Shepherd who made the difference. I could still feel the strength of that heavy hand on my shoulder. Long years. Hard years. And it was Dolf Shepherd who got me through.

If he was going to die, it should be with sunlight on his face.

I thought of the postcard in my glove compartment. If I was right, and Dolf had not killed Danny, then the card could possibly set him free. But who might it implicate? Someone with a reason to want Danny dead. Someone strong enough to conceal his body in the crack at the top of the knob. Maybe it was time to give it to Robin. But Dad was right about one thing: Dolf must have his reasons, and we had no idea what they might be. I closed my eyes and tried to not think of what Parks had said.
Maybe he wanted the body found.
And then Dolf’s voice, again:
Sinners usually pay for their sins
. Dark thoughts came with the sound of thunder. If Dolf killed Danny, he would have needed a damn good reason. But could he have? Was it even possible? I’d been gone for a long time. What things had changed in five years? What people?

I chewed on that thought until I fell asleep, and for once, I did not dream of my mother or of blood. Instead, I dreamt of teeth, of the cancer that was eating a good man down.

I woke before six, feeling as if I had not slept at all. Coffee was in the cupboard, so I set it to brew and walked outside to watery, gray light. It was thirty minutes before dawn, silent, still. Leaves drooped under dark beads and the grass was beaten flat. Puddles shone on the drive, as black and smooth as poured oil.

It was a perfect, quiet morning; and then I heard it, the multithroated wail of dogs on the hunt. The ululation of the pack. It was a primal sound that made my skin prickle. It rose above the hills and then faded. Rose and fell, like crazy men speaking in tongues. Then shots crashed out in quick succession, and I knew that my father, too, was restless.

I listened for a minute more but the dog sounds faded away, and no more shots were fired. So I went inside.

I stopped in Grace’s door on the way to take a shower. Nothing had changed and I pulled the door closed. Down the hall, I turned on the water. I washed in swift, economical movements and toweled dry. Steam followed me back to the living room, where I found Robin sitting where I had slept, her fingers splayed on the pillow. She stood, looking small and pale and more like my lover than a cop. “I always seem to find you in the shower,” she said.

“Next time, join me.” I smiled, but the day was too dark for levity. I opened my arms, felt the cool press of her face against my chest. “We need to talk,” she said.

“Let me get dressed.”

She had coffee poured by the time I returned. We sat at the kitchen table as mist moved out of the forest and the sun stretched sharp fingers between the trees. “I heard about Dolf’s confession,” she said.

“It’s bullshit.” The words came more strongly than I’d intended.

“How can you be certain?”