CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Willy killed his engine within sight of the cabin. It was in a clearing, deep in the woods, at the end of a rarely traveled, weed-choked track. There was no vehicle to be seen, but the garden was well tended, the woodpile large and ready for the coming fall and winter. A few articles of clothing hung listlessly on a rope between two trees off to the side, in the afternoon sun. To Willy, it was symbolic of a life stripped down, its momentum as arrested and preserved as if held in solitary confinement.
Defying unwritten protocol, Willy didn’t wait for a reaction from inside the cabin, but immediately exited the car, stood before it to be clearly visible, and held his badge up high.
In response, the rough wooden door opened to reveal a thin, balding man with a long gray beard, dressed in a flannel shirt and a pair of bibbed overalls. He reminded Willy more of some touristy calendar art than a sample of the local culture.
“Nate Rozanski?” he called out.
The man didn’t move at first, as if frozen by the greeting, before his shoulders slumped and he answered quietly, “I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”
Willy approached. “For twenty-seven years?” he asked.
Rozanski watched him, his face somber and defeated.
Willy stuck his hand out in greeting, a gesture he generally avoided. Rozanski’s grip was soft and powerless-offered halfheartedly.
“I didn’t come to cause you trouble, Nate,” Willy told him. “Not necessarily. But you know why I’m here. I need to hear what happened.”
“I killed my brother,” Rozanski said without preamble.
Willy nodded, having suspected that interpretation. “Can we sit?” he asked, gesturing toward the door.
Nate led the way, taking Willy into a single room with a bed in one corner, a small table in the middle, and a large homebuilt bookcase lining one wall, filled with cans and boxes of food and two small piles of neatly folded clothes. In another corner was a woodstove with a cook top and a couple of pans. There were no decorations on the walls, and only the one window facing the front. There was no plumbing or electricity to be seen. Willy reassessed his image of a self-made prison cell and now saw the place more as a monastic retreat of penance.
He crossed to the table, pulled out the one chair, and waited for Nate to find his own spot to settle, which became the edge of the bed. Given the size of the cabin, that still put him pretty nearby.
“Tell me what happened,” Willy instructed him.
“I told you,” was the murmured reply.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, Nate. I drove a long way.”
Nate’s voice was slow and awkward, as if lack of use had atrophied its muscles. “I put him into the saw.”
“Accidentally or on purpose?”
“On purpose.”
Willy coaxed him along. “Did you plan it out, or was it a spur-of-the-moment thing?”
“We fought.”
“What about?”
Nate silently stared at his gnarly, intermeshed hands, dangling between his knees.
“A woman?” Willy prompted.
Rozanski let out a short noise that Willy interpreted as a chopped-off laugh.
“That funny?”
Nate shook his head once, but then said, “Kinda.”
Willy didn’t hesitate. “A man?”
Nate looked up, his impassive face as close to startled as seemed possible, given his range of expressions.
Willy pushed on. “Your brother was gay?”
Rozanski scowled. “I hate that word.”
“You hate them, too?” Willy shot back.
Slowly, Nate covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t know,” he said, barely whispering.
“Didn’t know what?”
“I didn’t understand.”
He seemed blocked, so Willy tried redirecting him. “Take me back, Nate, to before that happened. Tell me about your family.”
“There’s nothing left,” he said.
“Your sister, Eileen, would be sad to hear that.”
That prompted another reaction as Nate dropped his hands-a slight smile. “I guess so.”
“She still loves you,” Willy said. “That’s why she keeps in touch.”
“She’s a good girl.”
“What was it like-you, Eileen, Herb, and your parents?”
Nate’s gaze drifted to the worn wooden floorboards between them when he spoke. “Nuthin’ special. Same as all families.”
“Most family members don’t kill each other.”
That didn’t jar him. “You asked about before.”
“I did. Still, call me crazy, but it sure sounds like there were tensions.”
Nate glanced up. “You’re a wiseass.”
“Never heard that one before,” Willy deadpanned. “Talk to me about the family.”
A flicker of irritation crossed Nate’s face. “We just lived in the same house.”
That sounded familiar to Willy. He could have made the same claim. “Nobody got along?”
“Not particularly.”
“’Cept maybe with Eileen?”
“Right.”
Willy sighed. “You really want me to drag this out of you? I can do that. You already told me you killed Herb. What’s the big deal if you didn’t like Mommy and Daddy, for Christ’s sake? Spit it out, Nate. Get this shit out. How many years you been waiting for this?”
“It’s hard.”
Willy leaned close in. “Hard?” he almost yelled. “Herb had it hard, dipwad. You killed that sorry fucker, Nate. That’s hard. You’re just wallowing in it.”
Nate’s face had reddened, his hands clenched, and his shoulders hunched tight.
Willy poked him in the arm, and Rozanski recoiled. “Come on, Nate. Let’s hear what you got. You been practicing for decades, getting this confession down. Well, it’s showtime. The audience is getting restless. Tell me about the family Rozanski. What the hell happened that all that anger finally blew a gasket?”
Nate was beginning to fidget on the edge of the bed, as if he might leap to his feet and lash out.
That’s when Willy abruptly shifted gears and laid a fraternal hand on his knee. “Nate,” he said softly. “Nate. Look at me.”
The other man blinked a couple of times and stared at him.
“It’s over, man,” Willy counseled him. “All the waiting, all the buildup, all the self-hate. Don’t think about it anymore. Just talk. Listen to the questions and tell me the answers. One at a time, one after another. Okay?”
Nate bobbed his head silently.
“What was your mom like? Dreama?”
“Yeah.”
“She wear the pants in the family? Roll over and play dead? Something in between?”
“She rolled over.”
“Outstanding. That’s good,” Willy praised him. “Was that with your father or all of you?”
“Just Bud.”
“You called your dad by his first name. That’s unusual. What was he like?”
“A son of a bitch.”
“Good. He beat you guys up?”
“Yeah.”
“He do anything to Eileen?”
Nate’s eyes narrowed. “You mean kinky?”
“Sure.”
“No,” he said emphatically. “He just hit her, like the rest of us.”
“What about Herb? More? Less? How did he treat Herb?”
“It changed.”
“From when he was little?”
Rozanski nodded.
“Started gentle and got rough?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Herb was soft.”
“And stayed soft?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t like that, either. Is that correct?”
“He was like a girl.”
“Like Eileen?”
“Yeah.”
“And so what worked for Bud worked for you. Is that the way it was, Nate? Did you let Bud set the example? Maybe to get on his good side? You and Bud against the world?”
Nate murmured, “I guess.”
“Did it work?”
He shook his head.
“’Cause you and Bud were different, weren’t you? He hit Herb for one reason and you hit him for another. Am I right?”
“Yeah.”
“And then one day, there you are, in the sawmill. Was it the three of you, or just you and your brother?”
“Dad came in right at the end.”