Captain’s voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to show Ronnie what I could do with that match.”
“I didn’t know any of that,” Shooter said, his voice getting softer now. “I thought Wesley — you know — I thought — well, I wasn’t too far off from what I thought to be true. I couldn’t take a chance that you’d find out.”
“So you made up that story about Ronnie,” Biggs said, “and it turned out to be near enough true.”
Shooter’s voice was fierce now, pleading with Biggs. “Wouldn’t you have done it too? Tell me, wouldn’t you have done whatever it took to save your son?”
Biggs couldn’t say what he would have done had he stood in Shooter’s place, nor did he have an answer to the next question that Shooter asked.
“So tell me, Biggs, who’s to hold to account? My boy or Ronnie Black?”
31
That was the question that haunted the folks in Phillipsport and Goldengate all through the rest of winter. It was a question, really, that wouldn’t go away, not as long as there were folks alive who knew the story of Ronnie Black and his wife, Della, and how she and three of their children died late one night when their trailer caught on fire.
Caught on fire because a simpleminded boy loved a man who may have loved him back, but who, in the end, had no right to his devotion. Because the man made the boy feel special, and as a result the boy wanted to impress him with the trick he’d learned. Because the man went as far as to pour out that gasoline. Because the wind died down at the moment that lit match was twirling through the air. A trailer burned and four people died, and some said, well what do you expect from a boy like that, and some said, that poor boy, no mother and now this.
Laverne Ott said, “Wesley Rowe is God’s child. He may not always think the way you and I do, but I’ll tell you this, he knows what it is to love someone.”
Of course, there was the matter of what to do now that the facts were clear: a pissed-off man sloshing gasoline on a trailer with the intent of setting it on fire and then coming to his senses and walking away; a boy who meant no harm striking the match that started the blaze.
Spilled gasoline, a fancy match trick, a cold winter night.
“I never meant to hurt anyone,” Captain told Biggs. “Della was always good to me. I wanted to do something nice for her.”
In the swirl of all the talk that followed Captain’s confession, that was the one indisputable fact — he hadn’t intended to set that trailer on fire.
“I didn’t know anyone was in there,” Shooter said again and again when he told his story. “I thought Della had taken the kids to her folks’ house.”
After Ray Biggs had Captain’s story, he went back to the courthouse, and one more time he sat across the table from Ronnie in the interrogation room, and he questioned him again about the events of the night the trailer burned.
“Tell it to me again, Ronnie,” Biggs said. “Take your time.”
So Ronnie went through it all — the gas can, Wesley Rowe, the goats, patching the hole in the siding with a strip from his T-shirt, the trip back to town, taking off the T-shirt and stuffing it under the passenger seat before going on to Brandi’s house and getting into bed.
“I didn’t want her to see that shirt, torn up like that. I was afraid if she saw it and asked what happened, I’d tell her everything. I didn’t know how to tell her I’d gone to Della’s meaning to burn the trailer.” He bowed his head and didn’t say a word for a good while. Then in a voice he was straining to hold steady, he said, “Then Pat Wade came with the news. He came to tell me—”
He couldn’t go on, and Biggs took pity on him. “It was the boy.” He told Ronnie about Captain and the lit match. “He wouldn’t say that you poured that gas. Guess he was trying to keep that a secret. But we know you did, now don’t we?”
Ronnie nodded, choking back the thickness in his throat that came to him when he thought of how Captain had done his best to protect him. He thought how there were two kinds of people in the world. There were people like Captain, and then there were people like him. There were people who were faithful, and there were people who weren’t. “I patched that hole in the siding.” Ronnie’s eyes were wet. “I could do that much for my family, and that’s what I did.”
“You know that boy’s not to blame for this,” Biggs said. “But you? Even though you didn’t do what you went out there to do, you still had the intent, a criminal intent, and you poured that gas, and then you walked away.” He let Ronnie think about that a while. “You understand what I’m saying? Four people are dead because you did what you did. That’s reckless homicide, Ronnie. That’s exactly what that is.”
“I’d go back and change it if I could.”
The next day, Biggs carried the story to Lois and Wayne Best, and when Lois had heard all there was to hear, she asked Biggs if he could drive her over to the Rowes’. She had things she needed to say.
Biggs brought her to Shooter’s house in his patrol car. She walked into that house, her back bent from her years of trying to move forward through the world, her worn-out knee balky but her head lifted and her eyes set straight ahead.
She didn’t bother to take off her coat or to accept Shooter’s offer of a chair.
“Ma’am,” he finally said. He hadn’t shaved — had barely slept, Biggs would wager — and now he looked wrung out and ready to pin to the line. “My boy, he didn’t mean any harm.”
Lois drew herself up as straight as she could. “I know what it is to have a child. Della knew that too. She did everything to make sure her kids were loved and safe. Put up with Ronnie’s mess, cleaned other people’s houses nearly every day of her life. We all did what we could for those kids.”
Shooter rubbed his hand over his face. He looked so scared and lost. “I keep worrying over what’s going to happen to Wesley. You know how some of the kids make fun of him.”
“Where is he?” Lois asked. “Is he here?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Shooter said. “I kept him out of school today. I figured the talk would be making its way around. He’s back there in his room.”
“I want to see him, please.” Lois pointed down the hall. “This way?”
“First door on your left.”
Shooter took a few steps ahead of her before Lois stopped him by grabbing onto his arm. “I’d like to be alone with him, please. Just the two of us. Just him and me.”
“Well—” Shooter glanced at Biggs, looking for a sign of what he should do, and Biggs gave him a nod. “I guess that’d be all right.” He stepped aside so Lois could move past him. “Yes, ma’am.”
She tapped on the closed door with her knuckles. “Honey?” she said. “It’s just Lois. You know me. I want to make sure you’re all right.”
When no answer came, she turned the knob and opened the door a crack. “I’m going to come in, honey. Is that all right?”
Captain’s voice seemed to come from somewhere very far away, just a mumble, saying, “You won’t yell at me?”
“Oh, honey. Don’t you worry now.”
He was sitting up in bed, a quilt over his legs, and Lois recognized that quilt right away. She knew it was one his mother had made after she got sick, working on it little by little as she felt up to it. It was a pattern called Heart after Heart—five rows of four hearts each, all pieced and appliquéd. “I want to do this for Wesley,” she told Lois once when she came to visit. “I want him to know that I might be gone, but my heart will always be part of his.”