Bullet Point (12 page)

WYATT ENTERED THE OFFICE
of the
Millerville Beacon
. He’d never been in a newspaper office before, didn’t know what to expect. The
Millerville Beacon
had a counter in front, bearing a stack of fresh-looking newspapers, and four or five workstations in back, only one of which was occupied. The old man in the bowtie sat there, eating a sandwich, eyes on his computer screen.

“Looking for today’s paper, young man?” he said, somehow catching sight of Wyatt peripherally. He turned, pointed with his chin at the stack. “Just drop fifty cents in the dish,” he said.

Wyatt took the top paper off the stack, put two quarters in a dish that now held four.

“Don’t see many of your generation as customers these days,” the old man said, giving him a second look. “I’d be interested in any insights you might have about that.”

“Well, uh…”

“Simply put—why the hell don’t you read the goddamn paper?”

“There’s, um, online,” Wyatt said.

“Online.” The old man practically spat out the word. “You mean free.”

“What about advertising? Pop-ups and stuff.”

“One, it doesn’t pay diddly-shit. Two, no one even glances at the ads, and as soon as the accounts realize that, they’re over the blue horizon. So answer me this, young man—what’s your name, by the way?”

“Wyatt Lathem.”

“Nice name,” said the old man. “Mine’s Lou Rentner. Interested in palindromes?”

“What’s that?”

“Something that’s the same forward and backward—like Rentner. Lathem’s not a palindrome, of course, but it is an anagram.”

“Don’t know that one either,” Wyatt said.

“Not your fault—blame the education system in this country. An anagram’s where you can rearrange the letters and come up with something else. In your case, Lathem turns into Hamlet.” Wyatt thought,
Whoa
, and inside he reeled a little. “Ever heard of Hamlet?” said Mr. Rentner.

“A play by Shakespeare,” Wyatt said.

“Well, well. Can you tell me a thing or two about it?”

“It’s all about whether to believe the ghost or not.”

Lou Rentner tilted back in his chair, gave Wyatt a closer look. “Well, well,” he said again. “And where do you go to school, young Wyatt?”

Quick-decision time. Wyatt stuck with the story. “Foothills CC.”

“Really? You don’t look that old. But it’s true what they say about us geezers—the older you get, the harder it is to guess the age of the young people. What are you studying?”

What did people study at Community College? “Just taking a little of this and that for now,” Wyatt said.

“This and that will get you nowhere in life on planet Earth,” Mr. Rentner said. “If you don’t mind me sticking my oar in.”

“I’m interested in criminal justice.”

“Yeah?”

Wyatt nodded. He plunged ahead, the way he thought Greer might have in his place. “Right now I’m working on the story of this old case—it actually happened here in Millerville.”

“Did it, now?” said Mr. Rentner. His chair squeaked. “And what case would that be?”

“It was about these guys who tried to rob some drug dealers.”

“Thirty-two Cain Street?” said Mr. Rentner.

“Yes.”

Mr. Rentner pulled over a chair from the adjoining workstation and patted the seat. Wyatt walked around the counter and sat down.

“An interesting case,” Mr. Rentner said. “How did you happen to pick it?”

Was this the moment for starting over, for saying something like,
It turns out that my real father, who I’d never met until very recently, committed this crime, or maybe not, and my girlfriend and I—another maybe not—are trying to find out what happened?
Wyatt’s every instinct told him not to. “My
partner found out about it,” he said.

“Partner?”

“We team up on these projects.”

Mr. Rentner shook his head. The skin of his face was shiny and must have been very thin: Wyatt could see purple networks of blood vessels underneath. “Never learn a goddamn thing that way. Real learning means all by your lonesome. But not your fault.” He drummed his bony fingers on the desk. “Tell you what let’s do,” he said. “I’ll take you on a quick tour.”

“Of what?”

“The crime scene, other places of interest. Nothing beats a firsthand look, and no amount of digital dipsy doodling will ever change that.”

“Thanks,” Wyatt said, “but I don’t want to take up your time.” But more important, how could he leave? What about Greer?

“Not an issue—I’ve actually been considering a follow-up piece, where-are-they-now, ten column inches. A handy space filler in this trade, should you ever choose to go into it, supposing it’s still around, which I highly doubt, as I hope I already made clear.”

“Won’t people always need news?” Wyatt said.

Mr. Rentner rose and took a cap off a wall peg, one of those flat caps with almost no brim. “Need, yes,” he said. “But all they want is entertainment. When you’re done with Shakespeare, check out the fall of the Roman Empire.”

They went outside. “This is my car,” Wyatt said. “Did you want me to, uh—”

“Nice ride,” said Mr. Rentner, patting the hood. “No—we’ll take mine.” He turned toward a bright yellow minivan. Wyatt quickly unlocked the Mustang so Greer could wait inside. Then he climbed into the minivan.

“Buckle up,” Mr. Rentner said. He pulled onto the road without looking, did a too-quick U-turn, and headed back in the direction of the North Side, over the speed limit by ten or fifteen miles an hour. A cop in a patrol car coming the other way made a pressing-down-air gesture with his hand, sign language for “slow down,” but Mr. Rentner didn’t seem to notice and sped up, if anything. Wyatt glanced back. The patrol car hadn’t turned to follow them; from behind, it looked like the cop was shaking his head in resignation.

“What do you know about Millerville?” Mr. Rentner said.

“Not much.”

“Where’re you from originally?”

“East Canton.”

“Did you know Mark Twain once ended up there by mistake?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Rentner looked disappointed. “Bottom line—Millerville’s much the same, but in even worse shape. Unemployment rate topped twenty percent last month. Know what that means for people?” He jabbed his finger at storefronts passing by. Jab. “Going out of business.” Jab. “Closed down last week.” Jab. “Hanging on, but only by the good graces of the landlord.” Jab. “Bankrupt.” Jab. “In court.” Jab. “Skipped town in the middle of the night.” Jab. “Tried to commit suicide.” They drove in silence for a while. “Town was in much better
shape back in the period you’re interested in. We just didn’t know it, is all.”

They came to Cain Street, turned left. Just past the point where the pavement ended, Mr. Rentner pulled over, onto the edge of one of the blackened lots.

“This was always the worst section, going back to frontier days. Know why? On account of the well water tastes skunky. But everyone’s been on town water for fifty years, and it’s still the bad part of town. Some folks, maybe most, take way too much time to realize things.” He pointed through the windshield. “Thirty-two Cain. Inside we had the Dominguez brothers, Luis and Esteban, illegal immigrants from Mexico. Make up your own mind whether the illegal part is germane to the story. The brothers worked construction for a local builder and developer name of Bud Pingree, now developing in the great beyond. Bud wasn’t a bad guy, rented out some properties he had on the North Side to some of his workers at a fair price. Thirty-two Cain was one of them. Not sure who owns it now.”

Wyatt came close to telling him; a strange situation, and uncomfortable. He realized with an inner start that there’d been too many of these lately.

“Bud’s nephew, Art—one of those guys who thinks he’s smarter than he is, in other words a born loser—did some of the rent collection. They say he came up with the robbery idea but I doubt it. Much more likely it was one of his lowlife pals—Doc Vitti or Sonny Racine.”

“What, uh—I mean how come you call them lowlifes?” Wyatt said.

“In addition to what they did right here?” Mr. Rentner said. “They were all pretty young, of course—mustn’t be too judgmental with the youth—but Doc already had a record and a rep as being something of a barroom brawler. The other one, Racine, was clean, as far as I recall, but there was something strange about him.”

“Like what?”

“He seemed—this was in court, I’m talking about—very smart, by far the smartest of the three. Not the kind of guy who shows it off, though—maybe he doesn’t realize how smart he is, pretty rare in my experience. The Art Pingrees of the world are much more common. Yet in a crime with incomplete forensic evidence and confused and sometimes contradictory testimony, plus no surviving witness other than a pair of drug dealers and an infant—you know about her?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s something you don’t know, the kind of sidebar that’s better than the main story—Bud Pingree and his wife ended up adopting her and she turned out to be quite a gal. Good rising out of the stink of evil. Don’t see that every day. But back to the main point—the smart thing in a case like this is to make the first deal. So why didn’t the smartest guy do the smart thing?”

“Why?” said Wyatt. “Tell me.”

Mr. Rentner laughed, an unpleasant sound in his case, like unlubricated steel parts rubbing together. “If I knew, I would.” He turned the key, did a U-turn, headed back the way they’d come. “It was chaos in there that night, and chaos leads to incoherence. Luis Dominguez got knocked out with
a baseball bat right from the get-go, so his testimony was useless, and Esteban’s wasn’t much better—he was pretty much occupied grabbing his gun from under a seat cushion and trying to do some killing of his own. Do you have a handle on the forensics?”

“No.”

“Good. I mean by that it’s good to say you don’t know when you don’t know. Want to stay short of being an ignoramus, of course. First thing, there were two guns fired that night. One was a thirty-eight revolver belonging to Esteban Dominguez. Two shots were fired from that gun. One slug was dug out of the kitchen wall at thirty-two Cain Street, the other ended up in Art Pingree’s leg. Two more shots were fired from a twenty-two handgun that probably belonged to Art Pingree and was never recovered. The first one passed right through the girlfriend’s throat, severing her jugular vein, and then striking the baby in the eye. The second shot hit Esteban in the chest, missing his heart by an inch or so. He testified that he didn’t see who fired it, also testified that he remembered seeing only two invaders, Art Pingree and Doc Vitti. Pingree swore he wasn’t the shooter; Doc made his deal and fingered Racine; Racine took the stand and also denied he’d fired the shot. But then, in response to a question from the DA about what he thought had happened to the gun, Racine did the most amazing thing: he said he’d thrown it into the woods just as the police moved in. What do you make of that?”

Wyatt was totally confused. “The gun was never found?”

“Nope.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not without an alteration or two, completely speculative.”

“Like what?”

“Naturally the DA had no interest in speculation. What he had was a strong case, just about open-and-shut, that speculation could only muddy up. No gun? They figured Racine had thrown it in some other direction, or a dog had found the thing and run off with it, or that it had fallen into a hole they’d missed.”

Mr. Rentner turned down a street that led to the edge of town. They passed a few shabby houses, then stopped outside a trailer park.

“But suppose,” said Mr. Rentner, “there’d been a fourth person on that little shindig. Further suppose that said fourth person, perhaps the actual shooter, ran away with the gun just as the police were closing in, maybe was never in the house at all, but outside a window, let’s say. Maybe Racine was there, too, at least part of the time. Then his testimony starts to make sense.”

“How?” Wyatt said.

“Saying he threw the gun away takes the police off the scent of number four. Therefore, in this scenario, Racine lied to protect whoever that was. Not even much woods back of Cain Street, then or now. Suggests a certain unfamiliarity with the area. I’m not convinced he was even there.”

“But why would he do that?”

“Cherchez la femme,”
Mr. Rentner said.

“I don’t understand.”

“A basic French phrase like that?” Mr. Rentner said. Then he sighed and said, “Not your fault. Let’s put it this way—there were rumors at the time that Racine had a girlfriend.”

Wyatt felt the blood drain from his head, like he was about to faint. Yes, Racine had had a girlfriend all right: Wyatt’s mom. The girlfriend theory wouldn’t go away, threatening Wyatt’s whole history.

But there was no time to deal with that. An old black Dodge Ram pickup came driving out of the trailer park, a big-headed man with shoulder-length graying hair behind the wheel.

“That’s Doc,” said Mr. Rentner.

“WHEN I HEARD HE WAS BACK HERE,
I got it in mind to interview him, gave him a call, in fact,” said Mr. Rentner. “He told me no comment, but not in those words. One thing about the news business—we don’t like to take no for an answer.” He turned the van around—backing into a bush but not seeming to notice—and followed Doc’s black pickup.

The pickup led them down a road with boarded-up buildings. After a while they came to a strip mall, a series of stores with dusty windows and no cars parked outside. The sign over the last store read
FIVE ACES LIQUOR
. The black pickup pulled in there. Mr. Rentner parked a few spaces away. Doc got out of the pickup, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He wore black jeans, a black jean jacket, dirty work boots; a big guy, about the size of Hector in the Sweetwater visiting room, a comparison that might have suggested itself to Wyatt from the top of a tattoo that curled up Doc’s neck from under the collar of his jacket. His eyes took in Wyatt and Mr. Rentner, sitting in the front of the van. Then he flicked the cigarette away—the wind pinwheeling it toward a Dumpster beyond
the last parking space—and went into the liquor store.

Mr. Rentner raised the console lid, took out a digital camera. “Bet he takes a nice dramatic picture,” he said. He got out of the van. Wyatt got out, too. They walked over to the pickup. Mr. Rentner peered through the driver’s side window. “Always look for the telling detail.”

Wyatt peered in, too. “Like how messy it is?”

“Sure. But what else do you see? What pops out at you?”

“That shoe?” Wyatt pointed to the floor in front of the passenger seat.

“Describe it.”

“Well, uh, a woman’s shoe.”

“Color?”

“Red.”

“Style?”

Style? Wyatt knew nothing about women’s shoes styles. “High-heeled, you mean?”

“Good enough. It can’t help raising questions in anybody’s mind, such as—”

Wyatt heard the closing of the liquor store door and looked up. Doc was standing outside, a case of beer under one arm and a muscle twitching in the side of his face.

“What the hell?” he said. “Messing with my truck?”

Mr. Rentner stepped away from the pickup, but not in a hurry. “Mr. Vitti?” he said. “My name’s Rentner, from the
Millerville Beacon
. This is my young colleague, Wyatt. Wondered if you had a moment for a few quick questions.”

“You the asshole who called me already?” Doc came forward.

“Let’s just say I called you already and leave it like that,” said Mr. Rentner. He was an old man, tiny next to Doc, but he didn’t back away and showed no fear. Wyatt didn’t back away either, but he felt afraid inside, no question. There was something wrong with Doc—he could feel it in the air. “But,” Mr. Rentner said, “these things always work much better in person.”

“Things? What fuckin’ things?”

“An interview for the
Beacon
. I’m sure our readers would be interested in hearing your side.”

“My side of what?”

“Thirty-two Cain,” said Mr. Rentner. He wasn’t speaking fast, the way most people would be at a time like this, had slowed down, if anything. At the mention of the address the muscle in Doc’s face jumped again. “The events of that night,” Mr. Rentner pressed on, “and whether you see them differently looking back—how about we start there?”

“See them different?” Doc took a step closer to Mr. Rentner, was at about an arm’s-length distance now. “What’s that s’posta mean?”

“Is there anything you’re now free to add about your testimony?” said Mr. Rentner. “Some information left out at the trial? Was there anything personal between you and Sonny Racine, for example?”

“Get the hell out of my way,” Doc said.

“Our readers would also be interested in learning your plans for the future, and how it feels being free after a seventeen-year incarceration.”

“You don’t hear so good,” Doc said. “I got nothin’ to say.”

“In that case, just a quick picture will have to do.” Mr. Rentner raised his camera, pressed the button.

“God damn it,” Doc said, and knocked the camera loose with a backhand swipe. The camera fell to the pavement and Doc tried to kick it, but Wyatt scooped it up before he could. Doc moved toward Wyatt. “Give me that fuckin’ camera.”

Wyatt held on to the camera, backed away. Doc reached inside his jacket.

“Technically,” said Mr. Rentner, “you’re free on parole, which can be revoked at any time.”

Doc glared at him. His hand emerged empty from inside the jacket. “Watch your step, old man,” he said, then turned to Wyatt. “Do I know you, punk?”

Wyatt didn’t answer.

“I do now,” Doc said. “Better believe it.” He brushed past Mr. Rentner, climbed into the pickup, slinging the beer inside, and drove off, tires squealing.

Wyatt handed Mr. Rentner the camera. Mr. Rentner peered at the screen. “Not bad,” he said, and showed Wyatt the photo: a furious Doc launching that backhand swipe, the letters H-A-T-E clearly visible on his knuckles. “Excellent work on your part, Wyatt. One of the best no comments I’ve gotten in some time. In fact, what do you think of ‘No Comment’ as the headline, running the photo right beneath that, and the piece following?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said.

All at once, Mr. Rentner’s expression changed, no longer so exhilarated. “Damn,” he said. “I forgot to ask about the red shoe.”

They got into the van, returned to the
Beacon
office. Mr. Rentner’s good humor returned. He smiled and said, “What are your plans for the summer?”

“Not sure.”

“But they’ll include work.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I might have something—more or less an internship, but it’ll be paid, if not well. Interested?”

“Yeah,” he said, and thought:
Wow.
“Thanks.”

“Not well at all, but write down your phone number.”

Wyatt wrote his cell number on a scrap of paper. Mr. Rentner parked beside the Mustang. Greer wasn’t there.

“I’ll be in touch,” said Mr. Rentner. They shook hands. Mr. Rentner hurried into his office. Wyatt got into the Mustang, called Greer, went right to voice mail. He sat outside the
Beacon
office, wondering what to do. After a while, Mr. Rentner appeared in the window. He made a questioning gesture with his hand. Wyatt waved good-bye, started the car, and drove off.

He cruised around Millerville, first in the downtown area, where he saw few people out walking, none of them Greer, and then farther and farther into residential areas, where he saw only one walker, a postman on his route. Wyatt pulled over, tried Greer’s cell, again got sent to voice mail. He headed back downtown, and was driving slowly along the main drag when he spotted what he took to be the new bus station, the simplest kind of bus station, just a ticket booth and a space in front for a single bus to park.

Wyatt got out of the car and walked to the booth.
BACK IN
10
MINUTES
read a sign in the window. On the schedule taped up next to it Wyatt saw that a bus for Silver City—last one of the day—had left half an hour before. He got back in the car, formed an incomplete plan involving catching up to the bus at some stop down the road, seeing if Greer was on it, seeing what might happen next. At that moment, the black pickup went by, Doc at the wheel. Wyatt didn’t think twice, or even once, really. He followed Doc.

Doc turned left at the next corner, drove for a few blocks, and stopped outside a bar called Good Time Charlene’s. Wyatt parked a few spaces behind him, a landscaper’s truck in between. Doc didn’t get out of the pickup, just sat there. After a few minutes, a woman came out of Good Time Charlene’s. She walked past the pickup without a glance, went by Wyatt, too. When she’d first appeared, he’d thought she was in her midtwenties, but now he saw she could be twice that: a middle-aged woman with copper-red hair, lots of makeup, tight jeans, and a tight red sweater. She must have had a great body at one time, still did, in fact, maybe just a little overweight. In his rearview mirror, Wyatt watched her get into a small sedan. She drove away. Doc pulled out and followed her. Wyatt followed him.

A mile or so later, they were in a not-too-bad neighborhood, nicer than Wyatt’s in East Canton. The woman parked in the driveway of a well-kept bungalow that backed onto some woods. Doc kept going, turned a corner, stopped by a small park with a swing set, the swings shifting in the wind. Doc parked. Wyatt kept going. In the rearview mirror, he saw Doc get out of the pickup, glance up and down the street,
then hurry into the woods, moving in the direction of the bungalow.

Wyatt stayed where he was for a minute or two, then made a U-turn and drove back past the bungalow. The woman was at a window, closing a curtain. There was a man in the room behind her, possibly Doc, but Wyatt couldn’t be sure. An electrician’s van was parked a few houses farther on. Wyatt pulled in behind it.

He turned, looked back. All the houses on the street had mailboxes out front, some plain black, some big and fancy, decorated with painted flags or ducks. The bungalow had the duck kind, and over the ducks two names in red letters:
BOB AND CHARLENE WATERS
.

Wyatt sat there. Half an hour later, he thought he heard a door close, possibly the slap-snick of a screen door, but no one appeared. A few minutes after that, Wyatt drove back around the corner to the small park. The black pickup was gone. He returned to the bungalow and stopped right outside.

What now? He could chase after the bus, assuming Greer was on it, or—

The bungalow door opened and the woman came out. She was still wearing tight jeans but she’d changed sweaters, now wore black. She saw Wyatt, gave him a close look. He got out of the car.

“Uh, ma’am?” he said.

“If you’re selling something, forget it,” the woman said.

“No,” Wyatt said. “I’m from the community college. We’re doing this project and maybe you can help.”

“Project?” she said. “What kind of project?”

He went a little closer, smelled her perfume, also couldn’t help noticing the way her breasts stretched her sweater taut. Her eyes were small and watchful.

These things were easier with Greer. He glanced at the mailbox. “You’re, uh, Charlene Waters?”

“That’s what it says.”

“This project,” Wyatt said, “it’s about a crime that happened—”

That was as far as Wyatt got before the black pickup came around the corner. It seemed about to drive on by, then swerved to a stop maybe twenty yards farther on. Doc hopped out, the red shoe in his hand.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s goin’ on?”

Charlene shot a quick look up and down the street. “What the hell are you thinking?” she said in a very loud half whisper that might have been funny in different circumstances.

“I forgot about—” He held up the shoe. “I was going to park around the—” Doc’s gaze went to Wyatt. “What the fuck’s he doing here?”

“Some project at the community college,” Charlene said, still in that loud half whisper.

“Community college?” said Doc. “He works for the goddamn paper.”

Charlene turned to Wyatt. “Is that true?”

“No,” Wyatt said.

“He’s lying,” Doc said. He was on the move now, his stride quick and jerky. Wyatt backed toward the car. “What did you tell him?” Doc said.

“Nothing,” Charlene said. She closed in, too. “Who are
you?” No half whisper now, and her tone was aggressive.

Wyatt didn’t answer. He slid around to the driver’s side of the car, fumbled for the handle, and was opening the door when Doc dropped the red shoe and charged. Wyatt sprang inside—at least in his mind; in real life he was moving in slow motion—and reached for the key. The next thing he knew, an iron hand had him by the arm. And the moment after that he was in midair, flung from the car.

Wyatt landed hard on the pavement, rolled over, started to get up. Doc came forward, big fist poised for a roundhouse punch, H-A-T-E on the knuckles.

“Doc!” Charlene said. “Not here.”

“Fuck that,” Doc said, the muscle twitching in his face. Doc swung that big fist at Wyatt, landing a heavy blow on the shoulder that knocked him flat. Doc kept coming. He wore heavy work boots with thick lug soles. Wyatt rolled away from those boots. A thought came to him, kind of strange and maybe beside the point: he didn’t want his nose broken again. Something about that thought ignited a jet of anger in him, an anger that at least for the moment overwhelmed his fear. He sprang to his feet—not at his fastest, but not in slow motion, either—and got his hands up.

“Boy’s lookin’ to get his head beat in,” Doc said.

Maybe a boy, but the boys from East Canton knew something about fighting. Doc was big and strong, no doubt about that; it didn’t mean he was fast. Wyatt watched that big right hand. The twitchy muscle was on the right side, too.

Charlene called out, “Doc! Not here!”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Doc said, and he threw that
right hand. Not with a whole lot of speed; Wyatt ducked under it with ease and threw a left of his own, not at Doc’s head—he had no illusions about the damage one of his punches would do to a big thick-boned head like Doc’s—but at his throat. And yes: square on the voice box; it felt like punching a steak. Doc made a retching, gasping sound and sank to his knees, one hand clutching his throat.

Charlene’s mouth opened wide. Wyatt jumped in the Mustang. He sped off and didn’t look back.