“You don’t sound right, Lee. Why don’t you come on home?”
“I still got some work to do. Might be at it all night, the way things look.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“No,” he said, looking at the bottle sitting on the desk, “not really.”
“Lee?”
“Yeah, Flo.”
“You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
51
ARVIN SAW THE NEWSPAPER IN THE RACK outside the doughnut shop when he went to get some coffee the next morning. He bought a copy and took it back to his room and read that the local sheriff’s sister and husband had been found murdered. They were returning from a vacation in Virginia Beach. There was no mention of a suspect, but there was a photo of Sheriff Lee Bodecker alongside the story. Arvin recognized him as the same man who was on duty the night his father killed himself. Goddamn, he whispered. Hurriedly, he packed his stuff and started out the door. He stopped and went back inside. Taking the Calvary picture down off the wall, he wrapped it in the newspaper and stuck it in his bag.
Arvin began walking west on Main Street. At the edge of town, a logging truck headed for Bainbridge picked him up and dropped him off at the corner of Route 50 and Blaine Highway. On foot, he crossed Paint Creek at Schott’s Bridge, and an hour later, he arrived at the edge of Knockemstiff. Except for a couple of new ranch-style houses standing in what had once been a cornfield, everything looked pretty much as he remembered it. He walked a bit farther, and then dropped over the small hill in the middle of the holler. Maude’s store still sat on the corner, and behind it was the same camper that had been there eight years ago. He was glad to see it.
The storekeeper was sitting on a stool behind the candy case when he went inside. It was still the same Hank, just a little older now, a little more frazzled. “Howdy,” he said, looking down at Arvin’s gym bag.
The boy nodded, set the bag on the concrete floor. He slid the door open on top of the pop case, searched out a bottle of root beer. He opened it and took a long drink.
Hank lit a cigarette and said, “You look like you been traveling.”
“Yeah,” Arvin said, leaning against the cooler.
“Where you headed?”
“Not sure exactly. There used to be a house on top of the hill behind here some lawyer owned. You know the one I’m talkin’ about?”
“Sure, I do. Up on the Mitchell Flats.”
“I used to live there.” As soon as he said it, Arvin wished he could take it back.
Hank studied him for a moment, then said, “I’ll be damned. You’re that Russell boy, ain’t you?”
“Yeah,” Arvin said. “I thought I’d just stop and see the old place again.”
“Son, I hate to tell you, but that house burned down a couple year ago. They think some kids did it. Wasn’t nobody ever lived there after you and your folks. That lawyer’s wife and her buck boyfriend went to prison for killing him, and as far as I know, it’s been tied up in court ever since.”
A wave of disappointment swept over Arvin. “Is there anything left of it at all?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Just the foundation mostly. I think maybe the barn’s still there, part of it anyway. Place is all growed up now.”
Arvin stared out the big plate-glass window up toward the church while he finished the pop. He thought about the day his father ran the hunter down in the mud. After everything that had happened the last couple of days, it didn’t seem like such a good memory now. He laid some saltines on the counter and asked for two slices of bologna and cheese. He bought a pack of Camels and a box of matches and another bottle of pop. “Well,” he said, when the storekeeper finished putting the groceries in a sack, “I figure I’ll walk on up there anyway. Heck, I come this far. Is it still okay to go up through the woods behind here?”
“Yeah, just cut across Clarence’s pasture. He won’t say nothing.”
Arvin put the sack in his gym bag. From where he stood, he could see the top of the Wagners’ old house. “There a girl named Janey Wagner still live around here?” he asked.
“Janey? No, she got married a couple year ago. Lives over in Massieville the last I heard.”
The boy nodded and started for the door, then stopped. He turned back and looked at Hank. “I never did get to thank you for that night my dad died,” he said. “You was awful good to me, and I want you to know I ain’t forgot it.”
Hank smiled. Two of his bottom teeth were missing. “You had that pie on your face. Damn Bodecker thought it was blood. Remember that?”
“Yeah, I remember everything about that night.”
“I just heard on the radio where his sister got killed.”
Arvin reached for the doorknob. “Is that right?”
“I didn’t know her, but it probably should have been him instead. He’s about as no-good as they come, and him the law in this county.”
“Well,” the boy said, pushing the door open. “Maybe I’ll see you later.”
“You come back this evening, we’ll sit out by the camper and drink some beer.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Hey, let me ask you something,” Hank said. “You ever been to Cincinnati?”
The boy shook his head. “Not yet, but I’ve heard plenty about it.”
52
A FEW MINUTES AFTER BODECKER got off the phone with his wife, Howser came in with a manila envelope that contained the slugs the coroner had dug out of Carl. They were both 9 millimeter. “Same as the one that hit Sandy,” the deputy said.
“I figured as much. Just the one shooter.”
“So, Willis told me some lawman down in West Virginia called you. Did it happen to have anything to do with this?”
Bodecker glanced over at the map on the wall. He thought about the photographs in the trunk of his car. He needed to get to that boy before anyone else did. “No. Just some bullshit about a preacher. To tell you the truth, I’m really not sure why he wanted to talk to us.”
“Well.”
“Get any prints off that car?”
Howser shook his head. “Looks like the back was wiped clean. All the others we found belonged to Carl and Sandy.”
“Find anything else?”
“Not really. There was a gas receipt from Morehead, Kentucky, under the front seat. Shitload of maps in the glove box. Bunch of junk in the back, pillows, blankets, gas can, that kind of stuff.”
Bodecker nodded and rubbed his eyes. “Go on home and get some rest. It looks like right now all we can do is hope that something pops up.”
He finished off the fifth of whiskey in his office that night, and woke the next morning on the floor with dry pipes and a sick headache. He could remember that sometime during the night he had dreamed of walking in the woods with the Russell boy and coming upon all those decayed animals. He went into the restroom and washed up, then asked the dispatcher to bring him the newspaper and some coffee and a couple of aspirins. On his way out to the parking lot, Howser caught him and suggested they check the motels and the bus station. Bodecker thought for a moment. Though he wanted to take care of this problem himself, he couldn’t be too obvious about it. “That’s not a bad idea,” Bodecker said. “Go ahead and send Taylor and Caldwell around.”
“Who?” Howser said, a frown breaking out on his face.
“Taylor and Caldwell. Just make sure they understand this crazy sonofabitch would just as soon blow their heads off as look at them.” He turned and went on out the door before the deputy could protest. As chickenshit as those two were, Bodecker didn’t figure they would even get out of their cruiser after hearing that.