“That’s a nine millimeter, ain’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“What did you say his name is?”
“Didn’t say, but the boy’s name is Arvin Russell. Middle name’s Eugene. His parents both died up around there the way I understand it. I think his daddy might have killed himself. He’s been living with his grandmother down here in Coal Creek for maybe the past seven, eight years.”
Bodecker frowned, stared across the room at the posters and flyers tacked on the wall. Russell. Russell? How did he know that name? “How old is he?” he asked Thompson.
“Arvin’s eighteen. Listen, he ain’t a bad sort, I’ve known him for a long time. And from what I’ve been hearing, this preacher might have deserved killing. Seems he was messing with young girls. But that still don’t make it right, I guess.”
“This boy driving?”
“He’s got a blue Chevy Bel Air, a ’54 model.”
“What does he look like?”
“Oh, average build, dark hair, good-looking feller,” Thompson said. “Arvin’s quiet, but he ain’t the type to take no shit, either. And, hell, he might not even be involved in this, but I can’t find him right now, and he’s the only good lead I got.”
“You send us any information you got as far as the tags on the car or whatever, and we’ll keep an eye out for him. And how about you letting me know if he shows up back down there, okay?”
“I’ll do that.”
“One more thing,” Bodecker said. “You got a picture of him?”
“Not yet, I don’t. I’m sure his grandmother’s got a couple, but she ain’t in the mood to cooperate right now. I get one, we’ll make sure you get a copy.”
By the time Bodecker hung up the phone, it was all coming back to him, the prayer log and those dead animals and that young kid had the pie juice smeared on his face. Arvin Eugene Russell. “I remember you now, boy.” He walked over to a big map of the United States on the wall. He found Johnson City and Lewisburg, and traced his finger up through West Virginia and crossed over into Ohio on Route 35 at Point Pleasant. He stopped in the general spot off the highway where Carl and Sandy had been killed. So if it was this Russell boy, they must have met somewhere along in there. But Sandy had told him she was going to Virginia Beach. He studied the map some more. It didn’t make sense, them staying in Johnson City. That was surely taking the long way around to get home. And besides that, what the fuck were they doing packing those guns?
He drove over to their apartment with the keys he’d taken from the ring. The smell of rotten garbage hit him when he opened the door. After raising a couple of windows, he looked through the rooms, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. What the fuck am I looking for anyway? he thought. He sat down on the couch in the living room. Pulling out one of the canisters of film he had sneaked from the glove box, he rolled it around in his hand. He’d been sitting there maybe ten minutes when it finally occurred to him that something wasn’t right about the apartment. Going through the rooms again, he couldn’t find a single photograph. Why wouldn’t Carl have any pictures hanging on the walls or at least lying around? That’s all the shutterbug sonofabitch thought about. He started searching again, now in earnest, and soon found a shoe box under the bed, hidden behind some spare blankets.
Later, he sat on the couch staring numbly at a hole in the ceiling where the rain had leaked through. Chunks of plaster lay beneath it in a pile on the braided rug. He thought back to a day in the spring of 1960. By then, he’d been a deputy almost two years, and, because their mother had finally agreed with him to let her quit school, Sandy was working full-time at the Wooden Spoon. From what he could see, the job had done little to bring her out of her shell; she seemed as backward and forlorn as ever. But he’d heard stories about boys coming by at closing time and coaxing her into their cars for a quickie, then dumping her off in the sticks to find her own way home. Every time he stopped by the diner to check on her, he looked for her to announce a bastard on the way. And he guessed she did that day, just not the kind he was figuring on.
It was “All You Can Eat Fish” day. “Be right back,” Sandy told him, as she hurried past with another plate piled high with perch for Doc Leedom. “I got something to tell you.” The foot doctor came in every Friday and tried to kill himself with fried fish. It was the only time he ever stopped at the diner. All you could eat anything, he told his patients, was the dumbest idea a restaurant owner could ever come up with.
She grabbed the coffeepot, poured Bodecker a cup. “That fat ol’ sonofabitch is running my legs off,” she whispered.
Bodecker turned and watched the doctor cram a long piece of breaded fish into his mouth and swallow. “Heck, he don’t even chew it, does he?”
“And he can do it all goddamn day,” she said.
“So what’s going on?”
She pushed back a loose lock of hair. “Well, I figured I should tell you before you hear it from someone else.”
This was it, he thought, one in the oven, another worry to pour on his ulcer. Probably doesn’t even know the daddy’s name. “You ain’t in trouble, are you?” he said.
“What? You mean pregnant?” She lit a cigarette. “Jesus, Lee. You never give me a break.”
“Okay, what is it then?”
She blew a smoke ring over his head and winked. “I got myself engaged.”
“You mean to be married?”
“Well, yeah,” she said with a little laugh. “What other kind is there?”
“I’ll be damned. What’s his name?”
“Carl. Carl Henderson.”
“Henderson,” Bodecker repeated, as he poured some cream in his coffee from a tiny metal pitcher. “He one of them you went to school with? That bunch over off Plug Run?”
“Oh, shit, Lee,” she said, “them boys are half retarded, you know that. Carl ain’t even from around here. He grew up on the south side of Columbus.”
“What’s he do? For a living, I mean.”
“He’s a photographer.”
“Oh, so he’s got one of those studios?”
She stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and shook her head. “Not right now,” she said. “A setup like that don’t come cheap.”
“Well, how does he make his money then?”
She rolled her eyes, let out a sigh. “Don’t worry, he gets by.”
“In other words, he ain’t working.”
“I seen his camera and everything.”
“Shit, Sandy, Florence has got a camera, but I sure wouldn’t call her a photographer.” He looked back into the kitchen, where the grill cook was standing at an open refrigerator with his T-shirt pulled up, trying to get cooled off. He couldn’t help but wonder if Henry had ever fucked her. People said he was hung like a Shetland pony. “Where in the hell did you meet this guy?”
“Right over there,” Sandy said, pointing at a table in the corner.
“How long ago was that?”
“Last week,” she said. “Don’t worry, Lee. He’s a nice guy.” Within a month they were married.
Two hours later, he was back at the jail. He had a bottle of whiskey in a brown paper bag. The shoe box of photographs and the rolls of film were in the trunk of his cruiser. He locked the door to his office and poured himself a drink in a coffee cup. It was the first one he’d had in over a year, but he couldn’t say that he enjoyed it. Florence called just as he was getting ready to have another. “I heard what happened,” she said. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I know I should have.”
“So it’s true? Sandy’s dead?”
“Her and that no-good sonofabitch both.”
“My God, it’s hard to believe. Weren’t they on vacation?”
“I believe Carl was a lot worse than I ever gave him credit for.”