Moonbog (38 page)

Who had he been talking to on the phone, sounding so threatening?

Why, earlier that afternoon, had he been down in the cellar, cleaning his revolver?

Had he used it?

Was he in trouble with someone?

Was there someone after him?

Her stomach clenched like a fist as she pondered these and other thoughts. She knew she would have to ask Les what was going on. She just wondered if she had the courage to ask him or even deal with him tonight, drunk as he was.

She snapped off the light in the boys’ room and, with a slow, shuddering sigh, looked at their huddled shapes, wondering if sleep was taking away the pain and worry, or if their dreams were reflecting the horror. In the darkness, she felt a warm tear leak out of her eye and run down her cheek.

Maybe Sammy is right, she thought with a mixture of sadness and dread, maybe nothing will ever be all right again . . . Ever!

XI

“I
can’t believe it,” David said for the sixth or seventh time. “It’s Les? Les Rankin who’s been doing this?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and took another puff from his cigarette. The mayonnaise jar lid was overflowing with ashes and butts from the past hour as Marshall told him everything he knew and suspected.

“I just can’t believe it! Christ! Les Rankin! How can you be so sure?”

Marshall answered softly. “I just know what I saw. That’s all. Folks in town may think I’m an old codger with one foot in the grave, but my eyes ain’t failed me yet.”

David regarded his uncle’s face. It was still stern, but beneath that sternness, it now seemed less tensed, David thought. His features softened now that he had told someone the awful truth he had been keeping to himself.

Marshall sat with his hands folded on the table in front of him. He leaned forward, his eyes earnestly pleading for belief.

David exhaled noisily. “I . . . I guess I believe you, but—Christ—I mean, Les and I were pretty close friends a few years ago, and I just can’t . . . I dunno’.”

“I do!” Marshall said with intensity.

Conviction registered in his voice, but the truth—if what he said was the truth—was difficult if not impossible to register.

“I mean. . . .” David ran his fingers through his hair and then reached for his cigarette. “I mean, why in the hell would you lie to me about something like that?”

“You said you saw him that night you found the other boy’s body out by the Bog. Didn’t you recognize him?”

David shook his head. “It was dark, and whoever it was ran off into the woods before I could see him. I mean, I saw
someone
, but I’d be hard put to say it was Les Rankin.”

“It was . . . and
is!
”

David snubbed out his cigarette, got up from the table and began pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor. He tried to let everything Marshall had told him sink in. He found that it wouldn’t; that it stuck like a pig belly deep in mud.

He moved over to the kitchen sink where Marshall had been standing. The stuffiness of the kitchen pressed in on him as he rifled through his mind, trying to sort out how in the name of Christ his old buddy from high school could in any way be responsible for the brutal rapes and murders of little boys—Little boys!

David leaned forward and gently slid open the kitchen window above the sink. A faint breeze blew in, gently ruffling the dingy lace curtains. He could hear the far-off sound of the peepers in the Bog.

“It’s just unbelievable!” David said, turning again to face Marshall. The cool breeze blew across the back of his neck, raising goosebumps on his arms. “I mean, how could he ever do something like that.
How? Why?
”

Marshall could only shrug his shoulders, but the fire of conviction still burned in his eyes.

“He’s married, for Christ’s sake! Got kids!” He slapped his open hands on his thighs. “Hell, he
had
to get married! He got Leah pregnant before graduation. He was one of the horniest guys in school.” He shook his head with frustration and then chuckled softly. “Hell, if I can believe Allison, he even made a pass at her in the bar yesterday.”

Marshall didn’t crack a smile.

David looked out into the night, his eyes unfocused. “Raping and killing little boys! It just doesn’t make sense that Les Rankin would do something like that!”

“Lots of things in this goddamn world don’t make sense,” Marshall said softly, “but I know goddamned right well what I saw out there in the Bog. It
was
Les Rankin!”

David continued almost as if he hadn’t heard Marshall. “The autopsies prove it, that they were raped—sodomized, and then cut up with a knife. I mean, there’s no denying it, but why?” He looked again at Marshall. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s as crazy as a shit-house rat, that’s why,” Marshall replied.

“I know that,” David said. “I mean, if he’s doing it, that’s pretty damn evident. There’s gotta’ be some kind of psychological reason.”

“That ain’t so much our concern as what we’re gonna’ do now that
he
knows that
I
know it’s him who’s doin’ it.”

Marshall stared at David and that frightened, pleading look came into his eyes.

“I know what he’s capable of because of what happened to them kids,” Marshall continued. “And now, after them phone calls, I—”

“Wait a second!” David said, snapping his fingers. “Wait just a goddamn second.” He approached his uncle and pointed a shaking finger at the old man. “I remember something.”

“Huh?” Marshall looked at him, confused.

“I remember something that I haven’t even thought about in years, but it just might have something to do with this. It just might explain things a bit.”

“What the hell you talkin’ ‘bout, boy?”

“Les and me, when we were kids,” David said softly, his eyes unfocused as the memories rose. “When we were kids, Les and I . . . well, hell, I’m not so sure I want to—”

“Davie, will you quit mumblin’ and speak out?”

“Well . . . uh. . . .” David looked down at the floor.

“You know how it is when you’re a kid and you’re . . . you’re just finding out about sex and all?”

Marshall nodded sagely.

“Well,” David went on, “there was a time . . . once, when—“ He suddenly broke off. His gaze had drifted back to the open window above the kitchen sink, and the distant sound of the spring peepers filtered into his memory, striking a deeper chord. He moved quickly to the window, pressing his face against the screen, breathing deeply and listening.

“By Jesus, yes. It was in the spring because I remember the sound of peepers!”

He turned back to Marshall, who looked at him with an expression of bewilderment. Perhaps he was wondering if David was in his right mind. “What in the
hell
are you talkin’ about? Speak plain!”

“In the springtime, I remember. We must have been, I don’t know, maybe twelve or thirteen. We—Les and I were outside in his backyard, behind the barn. That was when he was living out on Webb Road, before his father left for good and his mother moved back to town. We were—” David shifted uneasily but found it difficult to look away from Marshall. “We were, uh, playing with—you know, feeling each other.”

If Marshall was shocked in any way, he didn’t let it show. Finally, after a long moment of silence, Marshall said, “Go on, go on! Christ, it’s not like you was the first kids to play with yourselves. What the hell’s this got to do with anything?”

David shook his head solemnly from side to side as the memories returned and realization dawned. “No, hell, no. I know we weren’t . . . and we weren’t the first kids to get caught doing it, either. But not too many kids who got caught ever got a belting the way Les did.”

Marshall raised an eyebrow. “Who was it that caught yah?”

David shivered with the memory. “His father. I don’t know how much you knew about Les’ family life, but to put it bluntly, his father was a first-class shit. I remember that he spent more time away from home than he did at home. Les always had some excuse cooked up, about why his father wasn’t there, out in California panning for gold or whatever. You know how kids are, they’ll cook up some pretty tall tales and expect everyone to believe them. Anyway, the night we got caught just happened to be one of those times when his father was home.”

Marshall prodded him again, “So . . . what?”

“Well, Les’ father called for us. He was piss-ass drunk, we could tell by the way he slurred his words. Les shouted back that we’d be right there, figuring that the old man was too drunk to come looking for us. We were, well, we were kind of getting into it, and I guess Les didn’t want to stop. It was all pretty innocent, you know?”

“I know, for Christ’s sake. Quit apologizin’, will yah?”

“Yeah, well, I guess Les figured wrong, because we were just tugging up our pants when his father came barreling around the corner of the barn like a damn Mack truck. He saw us there, still getting our pants on, and I guess he figured out right away what we’d been doing. The first thing he did was give Les a cuff on the side of the head that sent him reeling. By the time Les regained his feet, his father had his belt off and was getting a good grip on the end.

“‘Bend over!’ he shouted, brandishing the belt like it was a bull whip. He spun Les around and forced him to drop his pants and lean against the fence railing. He twisted around, almost losing his balance he was so drunk, and smacked Les hard across the backsides.” David winced as he remembered the details. “It sounded like a damn rifle shot.

“All the time he was whipping Les, he was mumbling to himself. I couldn’t make out much of it, but I kept hearing the words ‘sinful’ and ‘unclean,’ that we were ‘corrupted.’”

“Sort of, ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ taken a bit too far, huh?” Marshall said.

David smiled sadly. “He didn’t just strap him, though. After he’d walloped him a good dozen times, he took the belt and held onto the end so the big belt buckle hung loose. He braced his feet wide and swung once. I remember that Les screamed as the belt wrapped around him. The buckle slapped into his stomach and gashed him. Real deep. It bled quite a bit. He showed it to me a few days after, and, Jesus, was that cut inflamed.”

“And you mean to tell me that you think this is what kinda’ twisted Les?” Marshall said. He stroked us cheeks in deep thought.

“Well, there was something else, too. I. . . .” He hook his head and grimaced. “I remember that Les told me, a long time after, that on that night when his father belted him, he had had his first orgasm.”

Marshall snuffed loudly. David looked out the window again and took a deep breath.

“You know, it’s not like we were seriously into it, playing with each other. That was the first and last time we did. God, we were too damned terrified to even think of it. At least I was.”

“What happened to you?” Marshall asked. “Did he give you a whoppin’ too?”

“I was too damned scared to turn and run, I’ll tell you that much. I stood there frozen, watching Les get the goddamned strapping of his life. He was screaming and crying the whole time, but I never knew he got that gash on his belly or that he had an orgasm until much later. But I guess Les’ father never called Pa and told him because he was probably too embarrassed to talk to him about it—to tell him what we were doing. Either that, or he just plain forgot once he sobered up.”

“Could be,” Marshall muttered, scratching his cheek. Suddenly he stiffened, and the edges of his mouth hardened. “But I’m still not as interested in what is making Les do these things as I am worried about what he’s gonna’ do about me suspectin’ him.”

“Suspecting!” David said sharply. “I thought you said you
knew
. That you were
positive!
”

“Well, I
do
know . . . kinda’. But. . . .” Marshall fidgeted and looked away from David. “One of the reasons I didn’t tell Shaw right away was because I couldn’t
prove
it. Sittin’ there in Shaw’s office, it would’ve been his word against mine.”

“And what’s so bad about that, providing you’re telling the truth?”

“I
am
telling the truth!” Marshall shouted, his anger suddenly flaring. He slammed his knobby fist on the table.

David lowered his voice. “But if you had said something . . . anything, it would have at least directed suspicion at Les.”

“How much do you think Shaw’s gonna’ take my word on something like that? Jesus, boy, Les Rankin’s a fine, upstanding member of this community, so far’s anyone knows. He may get a bit out of hand drinkin’ now and again, but he’s married, got kids, keeps a steady job. . . . Who’s gonna’ believe a wild story like that?”

David shrugged and began pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor.

“‘Sides,” Marshall added after a moment, “I was figurin’ that once we took that there polygraph test, I could say what I know and the machine would show I was tellin’ the truth.”

David snickered. “Yeah . . . sure . . . the lie detector will make everything OK. Is that what you were thinking?”