Echo Lake: A Novel (32 page)

The papers would have only good things to say about him if he chose now to end it. The young men he had counseled would say he had been like a father, the families that he had been their ally, the children that he had been kind. Nobody could say that he had hurt them. He had confided in nobody, made nobody an intimate in his troubles. He could disappear completely, only his public face remaining as a memory.

He smoked three cigarettes slowly and completely and then put the pack in his pocket, his throat sore. He walked to the edge of the water, where the rocks replaced the grass and the water sloshed up. He crouched down by the water and dipped his hand in, testing the temperature. It was cool, but not cold. He breathed deeply, the air thick around him and cooling, though he was sweating at the brow and a wide, dark stain spread around his underarms.

Fuck it, he thought, and even mouthed the words, though he could not say them. He took off his shirt and unbuckled his pants. He imagined what could be in the water, the snakes and tangles of branches, and slid his pants down his legs. He stepped out of them and took off his shoes and socks, leaving his clothes on the shore. He did not stop to fold his clothes. He didn’t turn on the headlights to see what was in the water before him. He didn’t shout and stamp his feet as he often did in the woods, when clearing an old path, to scare the snakes and armadillos away.

Let come what will, he thought, before he stepped in and then jumped, his whole body taking the shock of the cold.

He emerged from the water shaking, fearing he would bite his own tongue as his teeth chattered, and walked away, naked and barefoot. He ignored the car and walked past it into the woods, where there was no path, no way to know where he was or where he was going. But he knew where he was going—how? He tried to wrangle his thoughts, to pin them down and make them his own again, but they swam in front of him. He felt almost apart from his body, like somebody watching himself as he entered the darkness of the woods and dodged the branches, moving quickly on his way to somewhere, but where? There were plenty of houses out here, scattered along the dirt roads and tucked away down long driveways.

His body tore through the woods, one green branch whipping across his chest, opening a small, weeping gape in his skin.

And then, he saw a light, a window within the frame of a house. He moved toward it, his head buzzing. He worried that his car would be found, he’d be seen stumbling in the woods, and the worries joined the cloud of thoughts already in his head, the sound growing and needling into his skull like a dentist’s drill.

He broke through the trees and touched the cool siding of the house. It was real. He could faintly hear the sounds of television from inside it.

Somehow, he had to get inside. But why? The question was far away from his ear and did not mean much to him. He went around to the front of the house, his hand brushing the dirty siding, tracing the windows.

The door was not locked. Inside, a woman sat in a chair. She did not move and her mouth was opened, her head leaned back.

His mind buzzed. His stomach tingled and began to churn and heave. He saw his feet move him into the kitchen.

She’s going to be upset when she finds you here, the words buzzed in his head. She’ll call the police. What will they think? His hand picked up a knife from the block of wood where she kept a large collection of knives, probably something she’d bought from QVC— it seemed new and never used, the handle lipstick red and the blade bright as a knife in a model kitchen.

He wondered what his body would do with the knife right up until the moment that his hand slid the blade across her throat, pulling her head back hard as he did so. Her hairnet came off in his hands. He looked on as the blood shot across his hand, his bare chest. The woman first tried to raise her hands to her throat, but quickly stopped, her hands dangling heavy when they fell.

It’s too much blood, he heard some part of himself say, and he noticed the black gushing from the gashed place in the woman’s throat and felt something rise up his esophagus and burn. He turned away and the sickness cleared.

His legs carried him out the door and back the way he came. He threw the knife into the water once he reached the lake, put the scrap of fabric in his pocket, and stumbled back to where he’d started. He washed his hands in the water, scrubbing the blood from under his fingernails, from his chest, which was bare and scratched. He went back to where he had left his clothes in a pile and put them on quickly. By the time he got into the car and turned the ignition, his mind was clearing. But clearing wasn’t the right word—it was filling up again, after being cleared, a blank. He didn’t know why his legs ached as though he had traveled a distance, why his hands were damp and pink from scrubbing, why his mouth was salty and his stomach unsettled. He remembered diving into the water, the cold, the sludge under his feet, and after that, only static until he was in the car and driving.

When he got home, he undressed and emptied his pockets of their contents. In the dark, he did not know what the hairnet was. He put it away in the garage, in the yellow toolbox he rarely used. He didn’t know why he had kept it or why he had put it where had, but his mind was so aching and tired, his body so exhausted, that he did not question it until later, when he remembered the woman’s blood flowing into his hands and her wet gasps and needed something to show for it, to prove that he was not the man that everyone believed that he was.

8

In moments of great stress or fear, Emily tended to go outside of her body. Instead of feeling her own reactions when upset, she imagined how other people would react. How would people in a Western film react, for example, versus people in a drawing room in a Jane Austen novel? What exactly would be the appropriate response to this kind of news, anyway? In the world of ideal responses, what would she say to a man who claimed that he had killed her one known living relative?

She tried to reconcile the Levi she knew with the dead great aunt she had not known. She did not love him as she would family, but she liked him. He was kind, if strange, and too religious, of course, but there were worse sins. She should be angry, disgusted, horrified, she decided, but she wasn’t. She watched the scene unfold, unmoving, as the space around her began to fill with the sounds of bodies rising from chairs, a kind of crackling and whisk of fabric.

Jonathan touched her knee, squeezed it hard until she turned to look at him.

Are you okay? He asked. Talk to me, Emily.

She turned away from him and looked back up at Levi.

Now, Levi was weeping, his hands over his face. His body collapsed onto the podium and the microphone squealed and rustled against his lapel.

She turned to Jonathan again.

Did you hear that? He asked, then shook his head. Of course you heard it. What do you think? What should we do? He spoke in a whisper. She turned her hands palm-up and turned from him again. It was too early to plan what to do. What could they do?

I need a minute, she said. I can’t really talk about it yet.

She looked behind her, at the confusion. The children were still on the ground, some still playing, but most had caught the last moments of Levi’s speech—the ones old enough to understand were tugging at their parent’s shirtsleeves, some crying.

A man stood up. Like Levi, he was excessively neat, his striped shirt unwrinkled at the shoulders and collar. He was younger than Levi, had more hair, and sat at a table with a woman and three children. His family, Emily imagined. He was the youth pastor, she overheard, the second-in-command.

Pastor Levi, he said aloud, addressing both the podium and the crowd. It sounds like you’ve had some kind of shock, but I can assure you, what you say is not possible. He faced the crowd now, clearly making an argument to them, not Levi. Why would you harm an innocent woman? What could make you do this? The man shrugged with exaggeration, scanning the eyes of the crowd. This is not the Pastor Levi we’ve all known for the last fifteen years, is it, folks?

Most people nodded. The men who were standing began to sit down. Somebody else had taken charge. Emily could feel the tension diffuse, the people in the room sitting and letting any weight fall from their shoulders. Here was somebody to take that weight.

Emily felt her hands opening and closing in her lap, her fingernails pressing the palm’s flesh.

I’m not sure why you think this has happened, Pastor Levi, or why you believe this dream, but I’m here to tell you that I know what kind of man you are in your heart. This is not you. You did not kill Frannie.

Another man, this one toward the back of the room, stood up. Greg’s right, he said. You didn’t do this thing, Levi, and we can get you the help you need.

Levi lifted his head. He lifted the hairnet. What about this? If I didn’t do it, what about this? Why do I have it?

Greg shook his head. There’s some explanation, brother Levi, some reason, but you didn’t do it. You didn’t do it.

Greg turned to a group of teenagers and motioned to them. Go up to Pastor Levi and help him down, he told them. Two boys separated themselves from the group—they both wore matching shirts advertising a Youth March for Life in Keno. They stepped up to the podium and took one arm each, steadying Levi.

Come down, Pastor Levi. Come down and rest, Greg said.

But I did it. His voice was softer now. Believe me. You all know about dreams: they aren’t all foolish. God gave Joseph dreams that were true. God gives dreams, like he gives everything else. I did it. You know I did it. And it was the lake that made me do it. It knew I had so much hate in my heart. He wiped the tears away from his face with his wrists. Despite his words, he let them budge him from behind the podium, let them walk him, slowly, down the steps and into around the edges of the crowd. Frannie’s hairnet lay on the podium, light, liable to be blown away if a small wind blew.

Emily watched his descent, her legs jittery, her hands pressing moons into her palms. For once, she felt her body working, not her mind, as Greg stepped up to the podium to explain that Levi had been under so much pressure lately due to the murders, that he had overstretched himself in his bereavement work.

He has taken responsibility for this terrible crime because his mind is tired and, like all of us, he wants answers, Greg said. And because he loves this town and the people in it, he’s willing to take responsibility—but this is not true. I know with all of my heart that this man is not capable of such acts.

Greg’s voice grew more forceful as he spoke. The more he spoke, the more he began to believe himself. He began to swell with the truth of his words, with the logic, with the nods of the people listening.

Emily stood unsteadily, not turning to acknowledge Jonathan’s whispered Emily!, resting her hand on the plaid print of the tablecloth.

The crowd nodded and said Amen. The crowd decided that they would not believe what Levi said.

Hello! Emily shouted. It was a stupid way to start, nothing like what she should say, but her mouth opened and the simple greeting flew out.

You know me, she said out loud, turning to see the people behind her. Frannie was my great-aunt. I didn’t know her. But I live here now. This is my home, too. Her chin wobbled, and she feared her voice did, too. She pushed forward anyway.

No matter what really happened, I know one thing. You don’t want to know the truth. You don’t want to know really happened.

Why don’t you want to know the truth? I know you care. I know you want this to stop, but it won’t stop until you do something about it. Until you decide to listen.

She opened her mouth, her face flushed, and shouted: WHY DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH? What do you have to hide? A child began to cry from somewhere behind her, snapping her out of her moment of stupid, thoughtless bravery.

She put her hand over her mouth and thought she might be sick. She had not meant to speak. She’d never meant to say those things. It was all so confusing. It was too much.

Hey, Em—Jonathan began. He stood up and touched her on the shoulder, but she walked away from Jonathan, passed the rows of people who turned to watch her, and made her way to the back of the row of picnic tables, where the teenagers had set Levi down at Greg’s request. She stood by Levi.

Greg remained at the podium. He was silent as she spoke, and then, when she was done, seemed to resume as though she had never spoken. He instructed everyone to clean up the tables, to go home and pray for Pastor Levi and Emily (who had gone through some
serious trauma today
) and to go home and get some rest after this trying day.

The teenagers looked up at her, afraid.

I have to talk to Levi, she said.

Pastor Levi needs to go home, Ma’m, one said, the taller, thinner one, with a dent in his chin and the look of a young man who would be able to sail through life on his square jawline and his blue eyes. He’s not fit for talking right now.

Levi was hunched at the table, his hands in his hair, his face resting on his bicep, turned away from her. The boys held him with difficulty. He seemed to be shaking all over, a flap of escaped hair (once gelled down, now in wild clumps) moving with his body.

Emily ignored the boys. She went to the other side of the table, where Levi faced a tangle of short, vine-choked trees. She knelt down to meet his face, leaning against the vine.