“Yes, Larry, I do.”
“These times... I don’t know about these times. The kids... I think she was taking some kind of pills, Jamie, I’m pretty sure she was, she seemed so... I don’t know... out of it all the time. I kept wishing she’d go back to school again... she was at Risdee, you know, up in Providence for a while, studying photography there, she was always interested in photography, I guess I told you that, you’ve got to forgive me, I’m sort of, this happening today, all of it so... so sudden, you know. The cops appearing on my doorstep, Jimmy who works in the post office during the week, all dressed up like a proper cop on Sunday and ringing the doorbell to tell me there’s somebody in the woods over near the reservoir, little bag on her belt has my daughter’s driver’s license in it, would I come have a look to identify her? Identify her? I said. Because, Jamie, you don’t have to identify somebody unless she’s dead; if she’s alive she can identify herself, am I right? So if some girl was there in the woods with my daughter’s driver’s license in her bag, and they’re asking me to identify her, then this has got to be her and she’s got to be dead. Melanie was still asleep, I didn’t wake her up. As I was leaving the house, she called to me, asked me what it was. I told her it was nothing, I’d be back in a minute, go back to sleep, honey, I’ll pick up the Times in town.
“She was lying on her side in the leaves, Jamie. The leaves were all covered with blood. That was the first thing I saw, the blood. And the first thing I thought was somebody did this to her, somebody killed my daughter, all that blood shining on the leaves, the sunlight coming in over the reservoir and setting all those leaves on fire with her blood. And then I saw the shotgun on the ground beside her, and I recognized the gun, it’s the gun I keep in the garage, right outside there, right on the wall in the garage, keep the cartridges in a box on a shelf beside it, that was my shotgun, the initials L.H.K. on it — Lawrence Harold Kreuger — burned into the stock, my gun, and my daughter lying dead beside it with chunks of her skull and her hair and her... oh, Jesus, Jamie, oh, God, oh, Jesus, oh, God...”
Jamie held him close, his arm tight around his shoulders. He did not truly know this man, he still could not believe this man had come to him for comfort, nor could he understand why he was offering it so freely. Had that tired routine with Scarlett really registered over the years, “Oh, lookee heah, it’s Missy Scah-lutt home fum Atlanta!” and the blank, unblinking stare on Scarlett’s face each and every time, her green eyes wide, and on that freckled face the certain knowledge that poor Lissie Croft’s father was certifiably nuts. And yet... she’d admired him. As a man and as a father. Admired him most as a man and a father. Those had been Larry’s words. Jamie felt tears beginning to brim in his eyes, and he blinked them back guiltily; he was not on the edge of crying for Larry’s daughter who’d blown off the back of her head with a shotgun, but instead for his own silent daughter in India, who seemed not to admire him at all as a man and as a father.
“I told them yes,” Larry said, “that’s my daughter, that’s my Scarlett. But, you know, Jamie, I’m not so sure that was Scarlett lying there in the forest. Oh, yes, that was Scarlett’s pink party dress that girl was wearing, and her face was Scarlett’s sure enough, the face hadn’t been harmed, you see, she’d put the gun in her mouth and what it did was take off the back of her head, but the face was still Scarlett’s, the green eyes open and looking up at the sun, wide open, way she used to stare at me when she was a little girl asking me all sorts of questions. People said she wasn’t too bright, Jamie, I heard people saying that about her, but she was the most inquisitive little girl I ever knew. There... there were... she was lying there with her eyes open and her mouth open and there... there were flies buzzing in the... in the bl—”
And he began weeping.
He was a southern male, born and bred in the sovereign state of Georgia, and was not expected to break down in a time of crisis, but he turned his face into Jamie’s shoulder, and wept unashamedly, clinging to him like a son in his father’s arms. Jamie kept patting him, muttering sounds of reassurance, nonverbal, simply little umms and ahhs and uhhs, his hand constantly patting while Larry wept out his despair against his shoulder.
Melanie Kreuger came out of the kitchen not five minutes later, looking clear-eyed and crisp in a pale blue robe that fell to her ankles. She saw her husband cradled in Jamie’s arms, and then came immediately to where they were both sitting on the sofa, and extended her hand to Jamie and said, “Jamie, how good of you. Have you had coffee? Would you like coffee? Les-tuh, bring Jamie a cup of coffee.”
“Melanie,” he said, “I’m so sorry for you.”
“Yes, darlin’,” she said, “but be sorry for my daughter. Jamie, dear, whut are we to do?”
He didn’t understand her at first. He blinked at her in much the same way Scarlett had blinked each time he recited his “home fum Atlanta” line.
“We’ah both Methodists, Larry and mahself, but Scah-lutt was never one to go to church, and I know it would offend her, Jamie, if we had any soht of r’ligious service for her. So whut are we to do?”
“Well, the church here in town...”
“Is nondenominational, I know. But Jamie, the emphasis is on Jesus, and I know Scah-lutt would not want anythin’ like that, I know it for a fact. Jamie, this has nothin to do with Larry and me, this has only to do with Scah-lutt. It would pain me to have a service that isn’t the soht I grew up with, but I know it would pain Scah-lutt more to have anythin r’ligious. You probably knew her better than anyone on earth, includin’ her own parents, so I’m sure you know that’s true.”
There it was again. The indication that Scarlett and Jamie had shared a deep understanding of each other, that she had looked upon him as something of a surrogate father, information that was startling and unbelievable to him. Of all Lissie’s friends, he had perhaps been least close to Scarlett. Had it been Rusty Klein who’d blown her brains out in those deserted woods, he might have understood a supposition of friendship. He had enjoyed many long and mature conversations with Rusty, and had in fact written a letter of recommendation for her when she’d applied to Bennington. But Scarlett? He scarcely knew her.
“Do you think you could talk to the minister?” Melanie asked.
“Yes, surely, I’d be happy to. About... what did you want me to talk to him a...”
“A memorial service. But not at the church, Jamie. I thought someone might contact the town supervisor to see if we couldn’t use the Town Hall...”
“I’ll take care of that. When did you want...?”
“Tomorrow.”
“All right, I’ll talk to Andy.”
“And the minister, too. I’d want him to say a few words, Jamie, but I don’t think Scah-lutt would appreciate a lot of Bible-thumping. If you could just explore that with him...”