Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop (44 page)

The sheriff limped to the open doorway and glared in. He saw the twisted wreckage of the screen door and the floor littered with dirt and rock and shards of broken glass. The door to the blue-bright office stood open, and within the office one exterior door swung slowly on its hinges.

From seventy-five yards away he had watched Kathryn turn and flee toward the far side of the building. He hobbled forward, clutching his left thigh where the door handle caught him just below the hip. The impact had knocked him twenty feet and left a throbbing fist-sized knot of purple and green. He never lost consciousness, but it had been a full minute before he struggled to his feet and spotted the despectacled head of Dr. Polchak bobbing like a buoy above the sea of yellow-green. He drew his sidearm and leveled it—but Kathryn’s shout made him rush his shot, and he fired harmlessly overhead, cursing himself for his lack of discipline.

He stopped and swept the field with eyes as dark as blood.

There.

A hundred yards away in the center of an open meadow Kathryn stood perfectly still. She faced away from him with her head slightly bowed, and her arms seemed to disappear at the elbow as though her hands might be folded in front of her. She looked to him like that goddess in the picture book at the Holcum County Library, majestic and holy and alabaster-pure, but without arms—because the goddess reaches out for no one, but waits eternally for someone worthy to reach for her.

But he was unworthy … he knew that now.

He limped forward. She heard him approach like the slink of a jackal.

Ten yards away he stopped.

“Kath,” he said softly. “We got to talk.”

She never moved—not a twitch, not a nod, not even a breath. She stood motionless, implacable, and mute. Her auburn ponytail hung down, tied by an artist into a thick sable brush, swaying from side to side and painting a masterpiece of soft curves and perfect forms—a masterpiece that he would never touch again. Her jeans were spotted and soiled but still crisp and tight. Her T-shirt draped between her shoulder blades with sweat.

And two white shoestrings met in a bow at the center of her back.

“Okay,” he said. “Then just listen. I know you’re mad at me—hey, I don’t blame you. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just want you to try to understand—about Andy, about Jimmy, about everything.”

He took a step forward.

“Yes, I was mad when you married Andy. But what could I do? I knew Andy loved you. I knew Jimmy loved you too—we all did. But when I saw you and Andy together, I knew you loved him back. And that was okay—really. I figured it was just sort of his turn.”

He stepped forward again.

“Remember what I told you? I always knew we were meant to be together. I never knew when—I just knew it had to be. Finally, eventually, someday. And I figured lots of things would probably happen before that day. Like I might go off to the service or you might move away—but it didn’t really matter, because I knew that someday, somehow, we would both end up together. It just had to be.

“I wish I could tell you why I’m so cocksure about it. Some things you don’t just think with your head, it’s something deeper—something way down inside. It’s like when I hunt way back in the woods—you can blindfold me, you can spin me around, but when I take the blindfold off I can always find my way out. I got no map, I got no compass, but it doesn’t matter—’cause I’ve got something inside that tells me which way the arrow points, that tells me which way is up. I see the sun, I see the stars, I can see the big picture in my head—and I know where I fit in the picture.
I can’t explain it, but that’s how it works—and that’s how it works with you too. I know how my life is supposed to go—I can see it—and you were supposed to be part of it.”

Another step closer still.

“When you married Andy I figured, ‘Okay. Not yet.’ So I waited. I waited real patient. I waited like a gentleman because it wasn’t my turn yet. But I knew that someday things would have to change—I could see it in my head.

“So every day I expected something to change, something to happen. Every time Andy crossed the street, I thought a truck might pop out of nowhere and run him down. Every time the 82d did a training jump, I thought his chute might not open, that he’d be the one we’d bring back in a bag. But it never happened. Things just kept going the way they were, all wrong and needing to be made right.

“Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to just sit and wait for things to straighten themselves out. It’s like when you see old Mr. Jenks sleeping night after night on the bench outside the True Value. Don’t you ever get tired of waiting for him to get sober, to straighten up and get himself a job? Sometimes the church gives him a new set of clothes or takes up a collection and gives him a few bucks—and then he goes and drinks it up again. They can’t make him change, but they can help him change. Sometimes I got tired of waiting, sometimes I thought maybe I should help things change. Maybe I should be the one driving the truck, maybe I should help him pack his chute.

“But I never did. I just kept waiting, giving him his turn like a friend should do—but things kept going on all out of kilter. And then that day that Andy came to see me in the Gulf, he said, ‘When we get back, me and Kath are gonna have kids. Time to start a family,’ he said. And that’s when I knew that things had to change right away. He wasn’t being fair, don’t you see? His turn was almost over, and he was planning to take what was mine. My turn. My kids. My family.”

He spoke gently and calmly, and he moved constantly forward as he spoke.

“I’m still not sure what happened at Al Salman. I didn’t plan it, that’s for sure. Andy got ahead of us just like Jimmy said. Tryin’ to
be the first one across the line, I suppose; he was like that. He was backed up against a berm, and there were hostiles on the other side. Jimmy started firing over the berm, trying to hold them back. I stuck my head up too. I was planning to do the same, I really was. Jimmy was firing away, firing at nothing, wasting ammo like a fool. I played it smart, I sited across the top of the berm and waited for some dumb wog to stick his head up—and then my site crossed Andy’s head …

“You want to know the truth, Kath? I’m not sure if I shot him on purpose or not. I thought about killing him—I don’t deny that—but I don’t remember ever saying to myself, Do it, Pete. Pull the trigger. Kill him now. It just … happened. But after it happened, I knew that the world was closer to the way it was supposed to be.

“I’m not saying it was right—but sometimes the world doesn’t care if things are right, it just shakes things up and puts them back in order. You see a baby bird on the ground because the nest got too crowded and Mama kicked him out to let him die. Is that right? You see a little girl with no hair ’cause she’s got some kind of gutrotting cancer or something, is that right? It doesn’t much matter, does it? The world has a path it follows, and when it gets off course it just fixes things and jumps back in line again. And if you’re one of the things needs fixing—well, you’re just out of luck, that’s all.”

He stood just behind Kathryn now, little more than an arm’s length away. A bee buzzed by, and he dipped his head to let it pass.

“I don’t think you’re really mad at me,” he said softly. “I think you’re just scared. You’re scared because no one has ever loved you like this before. No one else ever could—the kind of love where the whole world will change its course to make sure it happens. You know what, Kath? Sometimes it scares me too—knowing that no matter what I do, no matter what anybody does, we got to end up together. Together forever.”

He flipped up the leather hasp on his holster and slid out the gun. The M9 Beretta held fifteen rounds.

He pulled on the slide and quietly ejected four shells.

“Now about Jimmy.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, I found out he was using cocaine in the Gulf. And no, I wasn’t going to turn him in—but I sure told him I was. I thought the threat of it might
do him some good; I thought it might scare some sense into him. It didn’t—because he was weak. Jim was always weak. That was his problem, and that’s why I knew he could never have you.

“Sure he helped me bury Andy—why shouldn’t he? He had just as much reason to want Andy dead as I did—maybe more. You think he didn’t lie awake at night just like I did and think about accidents and things that might go wrong? You think when the three of us shipped out he didn’t hope that only two of us would come back—or maybe only one? And that night at Al Salman, when Andy got cut off—you think he really wanted Andy back safe and sound? He didn’t go after Andy, you know. He just sat there safe and snug behind his little wall hoping and praying that some Iraqi bullet would do the job for him. And then he stuck his rifle over the wall and started firing—firing at what? You know what I think? I think he hoped one of his own stray shots might find the mark.

“But life doesn’t work that way. You can’t just hope for things, Kath, you got to make them happen; you got to be the man. Jim looked over at me, and he knew what I was thinking—he knew because he was thinking it too. The only difference was I was willing to do it. So I pulled the trigger. I did what he could never do; I did what he could only wish and whine and snivel about. And you know what he did then? He started to cry, he started to blubber like a baby—because he saw that I was strong and he was weak, that I did what he could never do, and that I was the only one who deserved to have you.”

As he spoke he drew back the slide again and again. Four gleaming brass cylinders tumbled through the air and disappeared into the thick meadow grass.

“Who knows? Maybe I was weak too. Maybe I should have sent Jim after Andy and then finished both of them off. I didn’t; now I wish I had. So we came home, Jim and me, and he was weaker than ever, he was hooked on that stuff for good. The only time he felt strong, the only time he felt good about himself was when he was flying high. He’d whimper and wail and moan about what we done, about what happened to ‘poor Andy’—and then he’d do a little fluff, and all of a sudden he was strong; he was in control again. And then he’d always say, ‘I’m going straight, I’m getting off
this stuff. And when I do, I’m going to the authorities, I’m turning you in for what you done.’

“But I knew he never would, because he was a coward. Because the next day he’d be down at the bottom of the well again, and he’d be craving the stuff—just once more, just one line, just this last time, and then that’s it. He knew that if he really went to the authorities they’d make him go straight, and we both knew he couldn’t live without it.

“But I figured, what if he can’t get the stuff? Then he’d have nothing to lose, then he just might turn me in. So when he ran out of money, I began to supply him. I struck a bargain with Ronny. Did you really think he made that kind of money just by selling burial polices to old ladies? Don’t worry about Ronny—he won’t be turning up in any meadow. He won’t be turning up anywhere.

“And that’s how it went for years. I looked the other way when Ronny did business in Holcum County, and Ronny kept Jimmy happy. I knew Jim would never turn me in. He needed me—he needed the stuff.

“Then a couple of weeks ago I was at my place in Valdosta, and one day Jim showed up—hitchhiked the whole way down. Said he had a change of mind, a change of heart. Said he had to clear his conscience; he had to come clean and make things right. I told him I would make things right just like I always did—that all he needed to do was keep his mouth shut—but he kept saying he was going to turn me in, that this time he really meant it. I didn’t believe him at first—I thought it was just the cocaine talking again—but the longer I listened, the more I believed he just might do it this time. He really meant business; he even had his gun with him.

“So I hit him. Just once. Right between the eyes. Not hard enough to kill him, just hard enough to shut him up. I needed some quiet, I needed some time to think. And then I looked at him lying there on the ground, and I knew what I had to do. It was just like Al Salman again. I didn’t plan it; I didn’t want it to happen—life just gave me the chance to straighten things out again, and I had to choose. I couldn’t just wish and hope that Jim would keep his big mouth shut, I had to make it happen. I had to be strong again.

“So I pulled out his gun, and I put it in his hand. And I was strong.

“But I didn’t have a plan, so I had to think. I went back in the cabin, and I thought—I thought for a long time—and I figured it all out. I loaded him in the trunk of my car, and then I laid him in the meadow back here in Rayford. I knew some hunter would find him, and I knew they would call it a suicide. And I knew you would weep and wail and mourn, and then you would get over it. And then everything would finally be the way it was supposed to be.”

Then, for the first time, the statue spoke. Without turning, without even moving, a tiny voice drifted up from Kathryn, half whisper and half-moan.

“Amy … You murdered Amy, didn’t you?”

“That wasn’t murder,” he grumbled. “I just put her out of her misery like her old cat. I had to. I didn’t know what Jimmy told her before he left; I didn’t know what she might tell you.”

“You killed Teddy too. And Mrs. Gallagher. Oh, Peter, Mrs. Gallagher.”

“You made me do that!” the sheriff snapped back. “You made me do it when you wouldn’t listen to me, when you got that Bug Man involved in all this.”

“You knew what that fly would prove,” Kathryn said. “That Jimmy died in Georgia and not in North Carolina. Then it wouldn’t be a suicide—then there would be questions.”

The sheriff said nothing.

“Do you know why it didn’t work, Peter? Because you were weak—weak in the mind, just like you’ve always been—weak in the mind and sick in the soul. When you went to the lab and let the fly escape, you thought you had fixed everything. But you didn’t. The fly left behind a little capsule, a kind of cocoon, and from that Nick still figured out where the fly came from. And when you were at my house, guess what Nick was doing? He was checking the radiator of your car, looking for flies just like the one he found on Jimmy’s body. He found them, Peter, he found them. And when he shows them to the authorities, there’ll be all kinds of questions. You’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”