Luke said nothing more about Kelli that afternoon, and now when he mentions her, it is no longer within a context of teenage love. Other things haunt him, questions that will not let him go, and which he continually approaches, sometimes from one angle, sometimes from another, but always closing in on the many things that still trouble and elude him when he thinks of Kelli Troy.
There are times when he will suddenly blurt out a question, as if it had just occurred to him, but which I know has come only after a lengthy rumination, rising like a body long submerged.
“Why didn’t Kelli call you that day, Ben?”
It is a bright summer day, not unlike that other bright summer day thirty years before, when he dropped Kelli off on the mountain road.
“Call me when?”
“When she needed a ride up to Breakheart Hill that afternoon. You were always giving her a ride, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“So why didn’t she call you that day? I’ve never been able to figure that out.”
I settle my eyes on the dark spire of a distant steeple. “Maybe she did try to call me.”
“You mean, you weren’t home that afternoon?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Where were you?”
I cannot help but wonder if, after years of plotting, he is about to spring the trap. “Just riding around,” I tell him.
He watches me doubtfully. “Why?”
I shrug. “I guess I had things on my mind.”
“What things?”
I can feel him drawing me closer to that moment. There is a whiff of violets in the air. I escape into a lie. “Nothing particular. The play, maybe.”
Although my answer does not seem to satisfy him, he has no way to contradict it. He has nothing but his long suspicion, nothing but his memory of my face as he stood before me in his bloody trousers, trying desperately to describe what he’d seen on Breakheart Hill. And yet, through all the years, it has been enough to drive him forward, one question at a time.
“Did you know she was going up there that day?” he asks.
I shake my head.
For a moment, he looks at me evenly, then turns away. “She was upset about something. But she didn’t tell me what it was.” He falls silent for a moment, then adds, “Why would she have wanted to go up there in the first place?”
“She told you that, didn’t she?”
“Just that she needed to think. That’s all she said.”
“Maybe she did.”
“But what could have been so important for her to think about that afternoon?”
“Maybe she wanted to study her lines. The play was set to open the next night.”
“If that were why, she’d have brought a copy of the play with her,” Luke insists. He looks at me significantly. “Sheriff Stone had another idea. He thought she was planning to meet somebody up there.”
“Why did he think that?”
“Because she hadn’t made any arrangements for somebody to pick her up later,” Luke answers. “That always bothered Sheriff Stone. He asked me if she’d mentioned anything about my coming back for her. I told him that I’d offered to come back for her, but that she had told me not to. And you know what Sheriff Stone said? He said, ‘There’s something wrong. There’s something wrong with all this.’ ”
I say nothing.
Luke shakes his head slowly. “Why would Kelli not have wanted me to come back for her, Ben?” he asks softly.
“Well, maybe she intended to walk back,” I answer lightly, making nothing of the question.
“I don’t think so,” Luke says. “Hell, it’s over two miles back down to Choctaw. She wouldn’t have been planning to walk that far, would she?”
“Probably not,” I admit. “But back then there was that little store right near where you let her out. Grierson’s, remember?”
“What about it?”
“Well, she might have been planning to call somebody from there.”
“To pick her up, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“No way, Ben. It was a Sunday. That store was closed.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s where he was. That’s where I saw him. Remember?”
I instantly recall the moment when I’d first heard Luke describe what he’d seen that afternoon. The courtroom had been jammed with spectators, my father and I crammed in with all the others. Not far away, I could see Miss Carver sitting stonily on the front bench, her eyes trained on Luke as he walked to the witness box.
A hush had come over the room as Mr. Bailey had begun to question him.
Now, Luke, you dropped Kelli Troy off on the mountain just up from Breakheart Hill on the afternoon of May twenty-seventh, isn’t that right?
Yes, sir.
And about what time would you say that was? Around three-thirty.
And after you dropped Kelli off, did you come on down the mountain by yourself?
Yes, sir.
All the way back in to Choctaw, is that right, son?
Yes, sir.
And on the way back down the mountain, did you have occasion to see anybody else up on that ridge?
Yes, sir, I did.
And where did you see that person?
In front of Grierson’s Store.
What was he doing?
He was walking up the mountain road.
Toward where exactly?
Toward Breakheart Hill.
How far would you say Grierson’s Store is from Breakheart Hill, Luke?
About a mile, I guess.
It would take about thirty minutes to walk that, wouldn’t it?
About that, yes, sir.
Now, Luke, if you saw him again, would you recognize the person you saw walking up toward Breakheart Hill that day?
Yes, sir.
Is that person in the courtroom today? Yes.
Could you point him out and say his name?
Luke had pointed with a firm, steady hand as he’d said the name: Lyle Gates.
At the mention of his name, I could remember glancing over to see Lyle as he sat beside his lawyer. He was wearing a gray suit that was too small for him, the cuffs of his shirt extending well beyond the sleeves of his jacket, his white socks stretching up toward the legs of his pants. His hands were clasped in front of him, and I remember noticing how the cuts and scrapes Sheriff Stone had found upon them when he’d first questioned him had healed during the period between his arrest and trial. I studied his slumped shoulders, the way he kept his head slanted, as if dodging an invisible blow. His eyes shifted about, unable to light on anything in particular, until they suddenly swept over toward me and locked there, as if he were studying me now, just as I had been studying him. I looked away, concentrating on Luke, until, after a few minutes, my eyes drifted back toward Lyle. He’d sat back in his chair by then so that I could see only his face in profile, but even so I knew that his eyes were still ceaselessly moving in quick, nervous jerks.