Whippoorwill (16 page)

“Is this all about the statue?” I asked, because I couldn't think of anything else.

“We're taking you to the station now,” the driver said. He was a big guy with a nearly shaved head. I wondered why it was cops who always wanted to shave their heads. If I were the chief of police in any town, the first order I would give would be that all the cops had to have average hair length, not this skinhead crud that this guy wore.

We drove off. The last thing I glimpsed in the field was Wally sniffing along the edge of the river. He ran like a dog free at last with nobody to bother him and not a thing to do but whatever came into his head.

S
OMETIMES LIFE
is like a television show. Sometimes you find yourself living through something, and you realize that the people doing the things to you are acting out a script
they
have seen on TV, and so are
you,
but neither one of you can say anything to stop it and you both go along in a crazy sort of dance.

That's what it felt like in the back of the car. That's what it felt like when we arrived at the station in minutes, and more cars whizzed past us, and a bunch of cops closed around us and nearly lifted me from the car.

They don't have enough to do,
I thought.

It was overkill. The cops liked parading around and having something big and important to do, only it wasn't big and important,
I
wasn't big and important, and Danny was definitely small potatoes. But as they moved me inside, a female cop suddenly appearing at my side, I thought of Danny's eyes, his flashing look back and forth to the mirrors, and I recalled how quickly he had begun to drive hard. He understood something the cops understood, but that didn't add up, and I kept asking, as they pulled me along a small corridor, why they were doing this, what had we done, what was going on.

We went into some sort of holding room, decorated exactly as it would be on a TV show, with a small table and a couple of metal chairs, and little else. The female cop patted me down again, but she didn't try to be friendly, or share girl power, or anything like that. When she finished patting me down, she made me sit and she walked out and they locked the door. I started to cry, but it was a strangled kind of crying, filled with frustration and annoyance, and it ticked me off that they couldn't simply tell me what was going on.

After a while, maybe a half-hour, a new officer came in and the woman police officer came with him. She leaned against the wall. The new officer brought a pitcher of ice water and he poured me out a glass. Then he nodded at the woman officer and she went behind me and cut my hands free. I rubbed my wrists—just as they do on TV shows—and I reached forward and drank a glass of water. I drank two. The cop motioned that he was willing to pour me another, but I shook my head.

The male officer smiled. He was older than anyone else I had met there, and he had short gray hair and a clean-shaven face, and he looked to be in good shape. He had gray-blue eyes and deep crow's-feet around both eyes, so that when he smiled, he reminded me of a cowboy. I could tell he was trying to be calm, deliberately so, in order to defuse the entire situation. It was time for the talk, the TV show leveling between characters, and I sat and watched and knew how it had to start.

“So, you're Clair Taylor? Is that your name?”

I nodded.

“I'm Sheriff Hazleton. Have you been given your rights, Clair? Do you mind if I call you Clair?”

“I don't mind.”

“Have you been given your rights?”

“I think I'm too young for that.”

He looked surprised. He smiled. His cowboy eyes crinkled.

“You can always be apprised of your rights, Clair. But you are officially a minor, it's true, because you are under eighteen, aren't you?”

I nodded.

“We have Danny next door. He seems very concerned that you not get involved in this.”

“In what? Would somebody tell me what's going on?”

“You don't know?”

“We took the vines off the statue. Is that what you're talking about?”

The cowboy officer glanced at the woman officer. She didn't say anything.

“What vines?” he asked.

“My mother has a statue here and it was covered with vines. Danny and I took the vines down.”

Now
he
looked puzzled. He adjusted himself in the seat, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward a little.

“What statue would that be?” he asked, examining me closely.

“It's a statue of a fly-fisherman. It's on the Bolston town line.”

“The bicycle statue,” the woman officer said to the cowboy. “The one with bicycle parts.”

“Ohhhhh,” the cowboy officer said, nodding, finally putting it together. “Your mom made that?”

“Yes.”

“And it was covered with vines and you and Danny cut away the vines? Now I get it. Sorry. I was confused.”

“Isn't that why you chased us?” I asked, and I realized, saying it aloud, that it didn't make sense as an explanation.

“No, is that what you thought?”

I nodded.

“We chased you because Danny's father was badly hurt. Did you know that?”

“What? No, I didn't know that.”

“Danny's dad. Elwood Stewart. He's in the hospital.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“His skull is fractured. Badly fractured, actually. Someone hit him with a heavy object.”

I stared at the cowboy officer. Then I looked over at the female officer. They both watched me closely.

“I don't understand.”

“You don't understand which part?”

“I don't understand any of it.”

“Elwood Stewart—you know Elwood Stewart, don't you?”

“He's my neighbor.”

“And Danny's father?”

I nodded. They went at things so slowly, it drove me crazy.

“Someone tried to kill him,” the cowboy cop said. “Looks like he was in a fight and someone hit him with a car battery. We're fairly certain it was Danny.”

“You're making this up.”

“Did you know about it?”

“Know about what?”

“That Danny had crashed a car battery into his father's head?”

“Know about it?” I repeated dumbly.

“Did he inform you that Elwood, his father, was injured?”

The cop enunciated carefully. Cops seemed to enunciate a lot.

I shook my head.

“The battery was nearby on the kitchen counter,” the female officer said. “And someone brought it down on the father's head. It looked like they had a heck of a fight, but I'm guessing most of that was the father's blood. From the looks of it, the father didn't manage to bruise Danny much.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. Danny wouldn't kill anyone or even try to.”

“I asked if Danny told you about the fight. He left his dad in pretty rough shape. If you knew about it and didn't report it, you could be in a lot of trouble, Clair. You could be an accessory to a crime.”

“I don't know anything about it.”

I turned and threw up on the floor then. Just like that. No warning, no preparation. The cowboy cop pushed onto his feet and hopped away. He glanced at the female officer. She went out to get cleaning materials, I guessed. I threw up again.

“Feel better?” the cowboy cop asked after the female cop cleaned things up. I couldn't help thinking it was typical that a woman had to clean things up while a man stood by. But maybe it was a question of rank.

“I guess.”

“Danny says you didn't know anything about it. Is that true?”

“How do you know what Danny said?”

“Two officers are interrogating him. I just talked to them while we cleaned up in here.”

“I don't know what any of this is about.”

“Sure you do. You know Danny, right? And you know his dad. Sometime last night it seems Danny and his father got in a fight. You didn't hear anything over at your house? You live next to him, don't you?”

“Yes, I live next to him, but I didn't hear anything.”

“Do you ever hear them fight?”

I shrugged.

“Do you?” he asked again.

“Sometimes. But that doesn't mean Danny did it.”

“No, but if I don't miss my guess, he'll be confessing soon. That's the catchy thing. It's a hard thing to carry around an action like that. To not tell anyone, not even his girl.”

“I want to talk to my dad. And I'm not his girl.”

“Your dad is on his way.”

I thought of the night when I heard Danny and his dad fighting. Like thunder on a summer night. Like voices over water.

“Have you caught Wally?” I asked.

“Who's Wally?”

“The dog that was with us.”

The cowboy cop looked at the female cop. She shook her head.

“They'll do their best,” she said. “Does he have a tag on his collar?”

I nodded.

“Not a license,” I said. “Just a tag with his name on it and a phone number.”

“Let's make sure we get the dog,” the cowboy officer said to the female officer.

She nodded.

“Is that your dog?” he asked.

“Danny's dog.”

“You said you weren't his girl, but were you dating Danny?”

“Not really. I grew up next to him.”

“But you're all the way up here. Were you heading north?”

“What do you mean? We had to come north to get here from where we live.”

“To Canada. Some people go across a border when they get into trouble. Did Danny suggest you go north? Maybe to hide out with him?”

“No, he never said anything like that. Danny's not like that. You're making him out to be too sophisticated or something.”

“So you came up to see . . . the statue? Is that what you're telling me?”

“Yes. Today was an in-service at my school. We had a free day, that's all.”

“Did Danny act unusual in any way?”

“He seemed a little jumpy, maybe. Not really, though. His phone rang a lot.”

“That was us phoning to get in touch with him. We're not trying to be hard on Danny. You know that, right? But something happened in that house and we're trying to sort it out.”

“You said they fought.”

“That's what it looks like. The house was broken up, mostly the kitchen. We figure the dad might have been drinking. Maybe he was drunker than he knew and Danny got the advantage of him. Pretty ugly scene. If Danny did it, he should have called someone. An ambulance. But it looks like he just left.”

“Danny wouldn't do that. He's not like that.”

“People do lots of things, Clair. Things you couldn't imagine. I hate to break it to you.”

“Danny's not like that.”

“Only a few people are really like that, as you say. People get pushed and massaged into things. Everyday people. Did Danny and his dad have a history together? Did Danny talk to you about that? Did they fight a lot, would you say?”

“His dad was violent. That's what people said.”

“We've heard some of that. A difficult man, I guess.”

“I guess.”

He let out a long breath. He seemed satisfied with my answers.

“You hungry at all?” he asked. “Or is your stomach still upset?”

“I'm not hungry.”

“Anything else you can tell us about Danny and his dad?”

I shook my head.

“You know it would be wrong to withhold information if you had it. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“Okay, we're done here for a while.”

“Will you check to see if they got Wally? Please? He's not to blame for any of this.”

He turned to the female police officer. She nodded.

“I'll check that,” she said.

I heard Danny scream a little later. It was a horrible scream. It didn't come from pain or from injury, but from something deep down, something frightened and animal and dark.

“Danny's pretty much coming clean about all this. How are you feeling?” the cowboy cop asked a little later.

“How do you mean he's coming clean? He's confessing?”

“He tried to defend himself from his father. It's pretty much what we thought.”

“He admitted that?”

“It was about the dog, partly. His dad wanted the dog out of the house. It was an argument and it escalated.”

“Can I see him?”

“No, I'm afraid not.”

“For a minute?”

“Not for any time at all, I'm afraid. Danny's in a lot of trouble, Clair. The way you could help is to try to reconstruct the past couple of days.”

“There's nothing to reconstruct.”

“There's always something to reconstruct,” the cowboy-eyed cop said.

He smiled. A real pal.

“Danny needed attention a little lately. That's the only difference.”

“How do you mean, needed attention?”

“He was around a lot. He wanted to do things with me.”

“Okay. Like this ride up here today?”

I nodded.

“After last night, he probably didn't want to be home much.”

I didn't say anything.

“It will be a pretty big story because of the father-son angle. These things usually are.”

“He didn't know what to do.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“For the last time, I didn't know anything about this. I just know Danny.”

I put my hands over my eyes. I suddenly felt exhausted. I could have slept in about one second if I had the chance.

“It happens a lot, you know. Abuse. Then retaliation. You almost can't blame the boy.”

“No one deserves to get his head crushed in by a car battery.”

“I guess not.”

“Is my dad here yet?”

“Soon.”