Herb’s mouth tightened. “What do you want?”
“Don’t blame Eileen,” Willy continued, ignoring the question. “She’s never told anybody else, and not just because they didn’t ask. She’s good people, and except for Nate, you’re all she has left.” Willy smiled. “And Nate’s a basket case. Living in the woods for over twenty years hasn’t done him any good at all.”
Herb stared at him. “You talked to Nate?”
“That’s how I convinced Eileen to open up about you-took me a home visit and two follow-up phone calls to get her there. She’s very protective of you. I would’ve talked to Bud and Dreama, too, if they’d been available. You probably don’t know this, Herb, what with all the fuss and bother over Irene, but your coffin came up full of rocks. After all this time, you’re officially out of the closet, so to speak.”
“What?”
“Storm water eroded the cemetery, exposed the coffin you were supposed to be in. Imagine how people felt.”
Herb stared at him, speechless.
Willy grunted. “You’re right. They didn’t feel anything.”
“Why’re you here?” Herb asked, reacting to Willy’s tone.
Willy gave him a hard look. “Good question. What’ve you done since you limped off into the wilderness?”
“What do you care?”
Willy’s relaxed posture didn’t change. “Don’t give me ’tude, bro. I’ve wasted a lot of time hunting you down. This is when it better count for something.”
Rozanski scowled. “What?”
“Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
Herb was visibly thrown off. “I don’t know. I moved here, to melt into someone else, mostly. I did odd jobs-whatever I could with one arm. Then I found this place.”
“That’s it? No family? No love life? What do you do when you’re off the clock?”
Herb took in his murky surroundings. “I don’t…”
“Hey,” Willy suggested. “Gay guys can have a life, in this town, especially.”
Herb refocused on him. “You know that?”
“Isn’t that why Nate tossed you onto the saw blade?”
He hesitated before answering. “In part.”
“The other part being what you and Nate each wanted out of your piece-of-shit old man.”
“He took care of me,” Herb said stubbornly.
“Tell me how,” Willy challenged him.
“That whole thing with the empty coffin; throwing Nate out; taking me to Doc Racque to be patched up.”
“And then throwing you out, too, because he couldn’t live with the embarrassment of his own screwup.”
“What screwup? He wasn’t the one who cut me up.”
“Wasn’t he?” Willy asked. “Didn’t he force the two of you to compete for his attention, whatever that was worth? Didn’t he peg you as gay, maybe even before you did, and start driving that wedge between you and Nate? He fucked you up, good and proper, and then tossed the two of you out so he could play the martyr. Your fight with Nate was like manna from heaven. There was no reason for Bud to fake your death, except that it let him cut bait and forget about you and your brother.”
“No.”
“Your mom knew it,” Willy persisted. “That’s what killed her. Your father was a narcissistic bully, Herb-his way or the highway. And when he was faced with his own failures, he just slammed the door on them. You and Nate and Eileen, too, to a lesser degree-you were all three told to just figure it out on your own. Only Nate went into the woods to live like a hermit, but isn’t that what you all did, in the end?”
Tears were running down Herb’s cheeks. He rubbed them away with the heel of his one hand. “Why’re you doing this?” he asked.
“’Cause I’m pissed off, is why,” Willy said, leaning forward and grabbing Herb’s hand in his own and holding it up between them. “’Cause of this and what it represents. You think you’re the only one with a sob story? Stand in line.”
Herb pulled away and glared at him. “That’s what this is? Suck-it-up time? What a crock. You swagger in here with your crippled arm and brag about how quote-unquote people like us should just shrug off the past and get on with it? ‘Gay guys can have a life’? What the fuck do you know about being gay? You clearly aren’t.”
It was a watershed moment for Willy-who knew too well that he was in the midst of transition. The old Willy would have kept the battle going, challenging this man for each foot of advantage. But that’s not why he was here-not in whole. Part of him was angry and frustrated. But not at Herb Rozanski.
Willy sat back, relieved by Rozanski’s outburst. He stated quietly, “No, I’m not. I’ve got other labels. I suppose everybody does, somehow or another, real or made up. I have a boss who can figure out shit like that. But me, I just get mad, and I get alone, and then I turn into a black hole.”
To Herb’s credit, he smiled, and said, “I know the feeling.”
Willy nodded and stood up, moving toward the door. He opened it partway before looking back. “Jon Fox? Reach out to Eileen. She misses you. You could get to know her kids. And what the hell? Maybe Nate, too. He’s changed, and could really stand some help. I always thought other people were around to mess me up. I was totally wrong. Don’t make the same mistake.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Joe looked up at the knock on the doorframe. The interview room was open, allowing him to see a slim, attractive, gray-haired woman, probably in her seventies, standing tentatively on the threshold.
“Hi,” he said, rising and coming around the table.
“I was told that someone wanted to talk to me about Gorden,” the woman said.
Joe escorted her to the chair facing his. “Yes. Thanks so much for coming. My name is Joe Gunther. I’m a policeman. Are you Nancy Kelley?”
“Yes, that’s right,” she said, sitting down as he returned to his seat. He’d been handling Sammie’s scheduled interviews for several hours by now, making this number four. It had not been a productive evening so far, whittling down his expectations.
“Again,” Joe began, “I appreciate your being here. I know it’s not what you had planned-”
“Oh, no,” she interrupted happily. “You people are all the talk. I’m delighted to be included.”
“Great,” he said without enthusiasm. “Well, then, as you probably already know, we’re looking into Gorden Marshall’s death-”
“Was he really murdered?” she cut in again.
Joe held up his hand. “Let’s not jump the gun. First things, first.”
She laughed. “Ah. You didn’t answer. That means yes.”
Joe smiled indulgently. “Very good. You’ve been watching your TV shows. Actually, we don’t know that for a fact. It may turn out he died of natural causes. That’s why all the interviews.”
She looked slightly disappointed. “Oh.”
Joe opened his notepad to a fresh page and cued his voice recorder. “I tape all these conversations so that there’s no confusion later on,” he explained. “Do I have your permission to do so now?”
“Of course,” she said. “This is quite exciting.”
“Outstanding,” he muttered, quickly reviewing a few notes from Sammie’s overview file. “Do you prefer to be called Mrs. Kelley, or Nancy?”
“You can call me Nancy.”
“And you swear under penalty of law that everything you’ll be telling me today will be the truth to the best of your knowledge?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Great. I understand that you are the widow of Jeremy Kelley, is that correct?”
“Yes. Jerry and I were married for fifty-one years.”
Joe smiled. “Congratulations. Sounds like you two had a good time.”
“It had its moments,” she said cheerfully.
He looked up from the page he’d been writing on, caught by the phrase. Her face appeared as upbeat and slightly vague as before, but he sensed a look in her eyes that suggested he might have finally ended up with someone with a tale to tell.
“Mr. Kelley was a colleague of Marshall’s, back in the day. Is that correct?”
She nodded. “Oh, yes, thick as thieves.”
“He was also a state senator?”