Growth (10 page)

Kevin stood in the cool shade of the elm trees and felt the heaviness of the backpack. Reached inside. Curled his fingers around the solid holster, Velcro scratching against his palm. He knew exactly what his mom's gun had done. As they supposedly used to say in the old west,
God may have created all men, but Samuel Colt made them all equal
.

He was going to kill Jerm and the other two assholes with it if they fucked with him again.

“Such a horrible racket, all night long.”

Sandy was listening patiently to a couple of old women complain about the speeding, reckless drivers who had turned Fifth Street into a drag-race strip. Sandy had a feeling that anything that happened after seven p.m. instantly translated into “all night long,” for the two women, but she made sympathetic noises and made sure they noticed how she was writing everything down in her notebook.

Actually, she was writing a grocery list. Started with
bread
.

She said, “Well, I thank you ladies. You have taken the first, most important step in letting us know. Now, the next thing I need from you is to give us a call whenever something like this happens again. That way, we can catch the perpetrators in the act.” Sandy tried not to smile. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually used the term “perpetrators.” Still, it filled the old women with joy. They were regular crime-fighters now.

She was getting back into the cruiser when Liz broke over the radio with a couple of missing person reports. The first was Mrs. Ferguson saying her husband hadn't come home from the fields yet.

She waved good-bye at her new deputies, started the car, and got on the radio. “I'm betting he stopped off at the bar. Still, have Hendricks go on out and get her statement.”

The second was from the Einhorn residence.

“What, again? Already?”

“This one's different. It wasn't the neighbors that called,” Liz said. “Sounded like Kurt himself. Told me his wife was missing. Been missing for almost twenty-four hours now.”

“You're kidding.”

“Wish I was.”

“Ten seventy-six.” Sandy replaced the radio. She sped through the town, wondering if Ingrid had finally escaped after all these years. Then another, darker suspicion arose, and it sounded much, much more plausible. Kurt wouldn't be the first abusive husband who killed his wife, hid the body, then called the cops and claimed she had run off.

 

 

When she got there, though, she found Kurt sitting on the front steps, cradling his shotgun and surrounded by empty beer bottles. He didn't look calm and composed, ready for the authorities to grill him. The arrogant asshole from the other night was gone. In his place was a haunted shell. Raw, red-rimmed eyes stared blankly at the cruiser as Sandy pulled up to the house.

Even if it didn't look like he saw her at all, he spoke first. “Didn't do nothin' to her. Nothin'. I know what you're thinkin'. I know how it looks.”

“How does it look, Mr. Einhorn?” Sandy took it easy, keeping an eye on the shotgun.

“I know damn well how it looks. I mean, I had to teach her some manners once in a while, but it was for her own good. I didn't do anything real bad. Shit. Didn't even see her yesterday morning, so whatever happened, it wasn't me.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“I dunno. Late that night. Two nights ago, I guess.”

“Is it possible she went missing earlier? In the middle of the night, maybe?”

He shook his head. “Heard her making breakfast. Then nothing. She's gone. Been looking for her. All gone. I don't know where.” His breathing hitched, and Sandy realized he was starting to cry.

“You mind if I look around?”

“Be my fucking guest. She ain't here, though. Wastin' your time.”

“I'd feel better if you put your shotgun down.”

“I need it.”

“Not asking you to put it away. Maybe just lean it against the porch over there.”

Kurt grumbled about it, but he did what she asked. He flopped back down and tried to find a bottle with a little beer left.

“Thank you.” Sandy stepped past him and over all the bottles and went inside. She stopped for a moment and simply listened. The house was still. She checked around the front room, but it didn't look any different since the last time she was here. A bitter, slightly rotten smell pulled her to the kitchen.

She noted the bacon on the counter. It looked a little green and was probably responsible for at least part of the odor. The egg basket and frying pan on the floor. The dark substance on the floor was crusty, almost like some kind of clay. It was dry now, but Sandy could see the skid marks in the swirls and spatters. She took her pen and gave the stuff an experimental poke. It crumbled under the touch of the pen.

Sandy went upstairs. Nothing in the two bedrooms. In the bathroom, she found a little smear of dried blood on the wall next to the toilet. Maybe it was time to give Mike, the county forensics investigator, a call.

She heard engines. Recognized them. They sounded just like her own cruiser. She went to the window, and saw three county squad cars pulling into the wide area between the house and the barn. “Shit,” she breathed. Somebody in the sheriff's department must have been listening in on the Parker's Mill radio communication. Their arrival was like dumping gasoline on a child holding a sparkler.

She watched through the window just long enough to see Sheriff Hoyt step out of his cruiser and hold a bullhorn up to his mouth. A goddamn bullhorn. Like his voice wouldn't carry twenty feet. Typical overkill from the sheriff's department.

Sheriff Hoyt's amplified voice boomed around the farmyard. “STEP AWAY FROM THAT SHOTGUN. NOW.”

Kurt's voice yelled back. “Fuck. You.”

Sandy bolted from the bathroom. She knew, with a cold certainty, this was about to get worse. There was no time to radio Sheriff Hoyt, no time to get his attention, no chance to calm everybody down.

More yelling, back and forth, as she crashed down the narrow stairs. She had hit the first floor and started to turn from the kitchen to the front room when gunfire erupted. She crouched, filled her hand with the Glock, and waited. The barrage continued. She could not hear a shotgun's flat booms, only sharp cracks from handguns, over and over and over.

Sandy edged back around into the kitchen and waited. Made sure she wasn't touching any of the crap on the floor. The shooting slowed and trickled away, like popcorn still defiantly bursting in an air-popper even after the power had been cut.

She rose and went through the front room, called out the front screen. “Clear! Officer inside.”

Sheriff Hoyt answered her through the bullhorn. “CLEAR.”

Sandy stepped through the front door, onto a front porch riddled with bullet holes, and found Kurt facedown at the bottom of the steps. His stained white T-shirt was now solid red. He'd been shot at least ten or twelve times. His shotgun rested against the porch railing, in the same spot where he'd left it when she went inside. Gun smoke hung in the farmyard like smog. She looked out at the five county deputies, still crouching behind their squad cars, still aiming at the porch, as if Kurt might get up like the goddamn Terminator or something and start shooting.

She put her Glock in its holster.

Called out, “I think you got him.”

 

 

The hallway was empty. The path to his locker was clear. Kevin walked slowly into the school and couldn't stop shaking. His backpack suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. He swallowed, but saliva kept filling his mouth, and he was afraid he might throw up, right there in the hall.

He couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed that Jerm wasn't waiting for him. He'd played the scene out in his head, over and over, where Jerm would smirk at him and say something about his mom. Kevin had decided he wasn't going to say anything anyway. He wanted to keep it as simple as possible. As soon as Jerm said something, anything, Kevin would reach into his backpack, rip open the Velcro, and pull out the Smith & Wesson.

He imagined the stunned look of terror on their faces when they finally realized that they had pushed around the wrong kid. That was the part he lingered on, every night since he had made his decision to steal his mom's revolver. The gun wasn't only for show; he wasn't going to use it just to scare them. If the Incident had taught him nothing else, it taught him that you never draw your weapon unless you are fully prepared to use it. When he pulled it out, he was going to aim square at Jerm and the assholes' chests and start squeezing the trigger as fast as possible. He wanted to put giant holes in them; they deserved it.

Kevin was still lost in the images of their faces as the realization hit them that they were about to die, when the door to the boys' bathroom banged open behind him and he heard Morgan say, “No fucking way she let you touch her tits.”

A pause. Then, “Thought something smelled like shit out here.” Jerm.

Kevin almost dropped his backpack. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't turn around.

They came up behind him. Jerm said, “Did Chief Mommy pack you a nice lunch today?”

Kevin felt his backpack yanked violently to the side, dragging him with it. He slammed into the lockers. As they passed, Morgan said, “You stink, bitch. Tell your mommy to give you a bath.”

They continued down the hallway, Javier protesting. “Fuck you guys if you don't believe me. She let me feel her up. Swear to God. Next time, you watch, I'm gonna get her to suck my dick.”

Jerm shook his head. “Is that what you tell yourself when you jerk off, dude?”

“Touching your cousin is kinda gross, dude,” Morgan said.

“I told you, she's a fucking second cousin, man. Like, we're hardly even related.”

“And you're gonna see her, when, next fucking family reunion? When's that? Ten fucking years?”

“Fuck you guys. Y'all are just jealous.”

Kevin watched them as they sauntered away, without giving him so much as a backward glance. He thought about how easy it would be to pull out the Model 686, shout, “Hey!” and when they turned around, start shooting.

The thought almost made him smile.

And that was enough. Simply knowing that he had the power of life and death over the bullies made everything okay. He waited until they had turned the corner, heading upstairs, before he took a shivering, shaking breath. He slumped against the lockers, marveling at how much his hands were shaking. He didn't know whether he was going to laugh or cry.

In the end, he put his backpack in his locker, took out his math book and binder, then slammed the door. He double-checked it was locked and went to class.

 

 

Sheriff Hoyt was a little guy with a big hat and a bigger gun. He was seriously fucking irritated that Sandy was already at the scene of the crime when he and his boys had taken down a goddamn cold-blooded murderer. There hadn't been a murder in Manchester County in over three years. Without an occasional murder, the absence of serious crime skewed the books, made it look like they were slacking off. That their law-enforcement presence wasn't absolutely necessary.

Sheriff Hoyt firmly believed it didn't hurt the people in Manchester County to be reminded once in a while to appreciate just how much they needed their sheriff.

A scared populace was a compliant populace.

But here was Sandy, fucking up the works again, just by doing her job.

She knew all this, knew it before she even walked out onto the porch, and wasn't surprised at all to see Kurt's body at the bottom of the steps. She wouldn't particularly miss Kurt; the man was a cockroach and should have been made to pay long ago for all the pain he had inflicted on his wife.

Nevertheless, the law was supposed to obey the rules. They weren't supposed to just go around shooting people because they felt it was justified and nobody would cause a ruckus over whoever ended up dead. Her report could complicate things for the sheriff.

While his deputies stood over Kurt's corpse making jokes, one of them took Kurt's shotgun and casually laid it on the grass near the body. Sandy pretended not to notice as she leaned against the side of Sheriff Hoyt's cruiser.

He paced around the driveway, looking back at her every once in a while. “All I'm askin' is that you back me up here. Save me a lot of bullshit red tape.” He spread his arms wide. “Ain't nothing for you to mention in your report that he was in an agitated state of mind, and wouldn't relinquish his shotgun. Simple as that.”

He got closer and stopped pacing. Looked straight into her eyes. He was one of the few cops that stood at her height, and it chafed him something godawful. He dropped his voice, became her best pal. “Look. I know it ain't easy for you. Lord knows, I know. And we both know that I can make things easier for you. Didn't work out that my boy was elected. Fine. I am a man who can accept defeat gracefully. However, I do expect everyone under me to accept my authority.”

“I'm not under your authority, Sheriff. Thought we understood each other.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that the law enforcement agencies in this county understand each other. This son of a bitch murdered his wife. Let's not kid ourselves. We took care of this particular problem. No tears will be shed. We'll find the wife's body, and case closed.”

“Find the body, and the DA decides whether the case is closed or not. No body, and we don't know for sure if there was a murder or if Ingrid finally had enough and ran away. Technically speaking, Sheriff, if you don't have a body, you have a missing person.”

Sheriff Hoyt looked like he wanted to punch her. “Gonna stand there and tell me this son of a bitch didn't pound his wife into fucking hamburger on a regular basis?”

Part of Sandy, deep down, the tired part, wanted to simply say, “Okay. Sure. Whatever.” It would be so much
easier
if she simply submitted to Hoyt.

She couldn't. She had met plenty of men like Sheriff Hoyt. Men who took their rarefied positions for granted and expected everybody else to do the same. These were the men that ruled their little kingdoms. If you stuck out, you or members of your family could be isolated and subdued, simply if you didn't fit within Sheriff Hoyt's narrow definition of normal and decent and law-abiding. When Kevin came along, his birth was met with outright hostility from the town, as if Sandy and her son had been set ablaze with the sin of green hellfire.