Dogwood (24 page)

The first night I didn’t hear Will, I’ll admit I was disappointed. The next night came and no Will. I figured he was on vacation. Maybe some kind of minor surgery. People take time off from work in every profession, right? But the longer he was gone, the more worried I became.

I was at the church for a meeting one afternoon when I got the nerve to call the station. A young, talkative woman answered, and I asked what happened to Mark Joseph, the guy overnight.

She groaned. “He’s gone and none too soon if you ask me. People were complaining and the station lost business.”

“But why? Did he do something wrong?”

“It was because of that accident years ago—he killed some kids walking by the road. One was my friend. I can’t believe he came back here, but everybody’s glad he’s gone.”

I hung up even though she was still chattering. My thoughts swirled, and I knew I had to get to Ruthie.

Lucille saw me in the hall. “Karin, are you all right? You look flushed. Here, sit down.”

I tried to make it to my husband’s office; then I turned around and headed for the front door. There was no way I could talk to
him about this. No way I could tell him what was going on in my heart. The pain and the heartache and the past were all catching up faster than I could think.

I hurried through the atrium of the church, a sunny room with lots of tables where people congregate and talk and have coffee. At any time of the day you’ll find a hum of activity.

A few of the women gathered around me, asking what was wrong and why I looked so upset.

I checked my watch and gave a nervous sigh. “The kids will be home from school soon and I need to be there. I almost forgot.”

That seemed to satisfy them, but when Richard came around the corner and saw me, my face flushed again.

“Is everything all right?” he said.

“I don’t know. I feel . . . something’s not right.”

He took me by the arm and walked me to his office.

“I have to get home and meet the kids,” I protested. “I like to be there at the driveway and make sure they’re okay.”

“Shh, they’re going to be fine. Now what’s troubling you?”

The emotions came when I looked into his face. I could not bear the thought of letting this good man down, and neither could I bear the thought of losing Will, illusion or not. So much of what Ruthie had said to me kept coming back, but I was drawn to Will again and I felt my heart being led astray.

“I’m just so mixed up,” I cried.

“It’s all right. There’s nothing you could say to me that would shock me or make me care any less. You can be sure of that.”

“That’s what I can’t stand to think about. Hurting you. Making you feel less of me.”

Richard smiled that wide, toothy smile that I remembered from when I first met him. How could I break the heart of this good man? If I told him what was really going on inside, what would happen to him? to the church? to the ladies who looked to me for guidance?

“I’ve been having awful thoughts,” I said. “Terrible thoughts about a man.”

“It’s okay. Just calm down and tell me. What man? Someone here?”

“No, someone I knew a long time ago. Someone who’s come back.”

“That’s good. Tell me what you remember. Tell me everything.”

“But I have to get home. The children will expect me. I need to pick Tarin up at the preschool in a bit, but Darin and Kallie will be home on the bus soon.”

He raised his voice and spoke through the slightly open door. “Nancy, the children will be coming home on the school bus in a few minutes. Would you mind having someone meet them at the house?”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll call one of the neighbors.”

“There,” Richard said. “All cared for. They’ll be fine. Now, who is this mystery man?”

I gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look and again he smiled. I had held this in so long—I even felt guilty for that.

“His name is Will Hatfield,” I blurted. “I met him in high school, and we rode to college together for a while, before he moved away.”

“He moved away?”

“Yes. I mean, no. He had some kind of accident before he moved. I just heard about it today from a girl at the radio station. He worked there in high school and college. I used to go over and visit him and we’d talk. Nothing romantic, we’d just talk.”

“Did you date him?”

“Not that I remember. No, wait, we went to a play once, I think. Or a concert. Yes, I remember that. And I think we saw a movie or two. But nothing happened. At least, nothing physical happened between us. That I can remember.”

“You don’t need to be anxious. I can take this. Really.”

That brought the tears again.

“Isn’t this the man you visited in prison with Ruthie?” he said. “Will Hatfield?”

“Yes. Yes, I went with her and we had such a good talk, but everything . . . it hasn’t been the same between us since then. She abandoned me. She won’t talk.” My chin crumpled and gave way. “Oh, but you don’t know, do you? You don’t know.”

“I don’t know
what
?”

“You don’t know what’s happened.”

Richard handed me a box of tissues. “What’s happened, dear? What’s upset you so much?”

Like a kaleidoscope that swirls the colors of the rainbow in shapes so vivid and then stops in a perfect stained glass picture, my life came into focus and I stared into the eyes of my husband. “I think I’m in love. I think I’ve always been in love with him.”

He nodded and kept his eyes trained on me. “I understand.”

“How
could
you? How could
I
? Why did you ever let me go see him in prison? Why would you do that?”

“I thought it might help you.”

“Help? How? It’s made me more confused. I hadn’t thought of him in years, and now I’m thinking about breaking every vow I’ve made to you. And our children.” I stood and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Tell me I’m infatuated! Tell me it’s just a schoolgirl crush! Scream at me! Yell at me! Do something!”

Richard looked at me with such . . . love—that’s the only way to describe it—and pity and concern in one expression. “I think there’s more to Will than you’ve realized. There’s more to your history together, isn’t there?”

“What do you mean?”

He gently pushed me back into my chair and sat on his desk, his arms folded. “I spoke with him.”

“Will? He came here? To the church?”

“He’s a gentle and kind man. I can see why you were taken
with him all those years ago. He told me some things about you—the two of you.”

“What did he say? What did
you
say?”

“That’s where it kind of gets tricky. You know, in my position, I can’t talk freely about what everyone says in this office. But he did tell me how much he enjoyed being with you. He told me of the letters he wrote you from Clarkston.”

“Letters?”

“I suppose you haven’t seen them.”

“No, of course not. Is that all he said?”

Richard took a moment, as if trying to frame a picture just right. “He said that he’s been waiting for you.”

“Waiting?” I almost couldn’t breathe.

“And he told me about
that night.
”

“What night? What are you talking about?”

“There was a concert in Cincinnati. He told me you went together. It was—”

“—his birthday. Yes.” The sound and the lights and the smoke came back to me. “We saw Jackson Browne.” I stood and walked to the window, the floor rushing under me like so many summer fields. “I do remember. We stopped at a park—no, it was a pool.”

“What happened there?”

I reached out for the window treatment. I had hung a set of flowered curtains to liven up the place when he first moved in. But the curtains were gone. Only shades now, the off-white ones that swung back and forth as soon as the air-conditioning engaged. “Where are the curtains? The ones I put up here?”

“Karin, let’s talk about that night. What happened?”

I turned and faced him, a hand to my forehead, scratching, trying to remember. “We stayed for the concert and it was late. He had asked me to go with him and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but . . . No, that’s not right. I think I asked him. I got the tickets from
some radio . . . We were good friends, not lovers. He was always very kind to me, and he didn’t take advantage in any way.”

Richard nodded. “Go on.”

I walked behind the desk and ran my hand along Richard’s chair—the high-backed leather one had been replaced by a wooden one, Spartan. “He bought a bottle of wine or two, I think. And . . . no, I had it with me. Yes, from my father’s cabinet. I hid it under the seat so Will wouldn’t see. To celebrate. It was his birthday and we were going to drive back, but we stopped to go swimming. It was dark and a police car came. And he was arrested? Oh, I can’t remember.”

“Don’t give up. You’re doing well. Just stay with me. Stay with the story.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? It’s like you’re trying to convince me to leave you. Or to turn my heart to him. I really have to make sure the kids are okay.”

Richard intercepted me and went to the door to speak with his secretary.

“Yes,” Nancy said, “they went to the bus stop to get them. They’re all fine.”

“But Tarin is still at preschool.”

“Nancy, would you mind going over and picking up Tarin for us?”

“That’ll be no problem,” Nancy said.

“Now,” Richard said, “don’t you think another thing about them.” He shut the door and sat in a chair beside me, putting a hand to his chin. “I know this seems strange, but I want you to keep going. Let’s stay on this track and think about that night.”

“But why?”

“Humor me,” Richard said.

Closing my eyes, I saw us in the moonlight together. “Will and I were at this pool in Ohio, I think, or Kentucky. It was after midnight. We kind of celebrated when it went past midnight, I guess, because it was officially his birthday.”

“So it was a happy time. You didn’t feel threatened or under duress.”

“With Will?” I laughed. “No, it was good. I mean, he wasn’t the most exciting guy I ever went out with, and we didn’t do all the things—well, I’ve told you about some of those things and you said they were all forgiven.”

“Surely.”

“But Will was so nice. The whole thing was comfortable with him, and I never once thought of myself as . . . vulnerable, you know? In danger, like with some of the others.”

“And then what happened?”

“We drove home. He had to work the midmorning shift at the radio station, so we decided to stay up the whole night.”

Richard took a breath. “Are you sure?”

“What do you mean, am I sure? Yes, I’m sure. I came home and . . .” Something flickered in my mind. The car pulling over. Will saying he was tired and saying I should get in the backseat and sleep. I’d had too much wine. I stayed in the passenger side, curled up.

“What is it?”

I sat up. “I just remembered something. He pulled over. We slept in the car. Both of us were so tired and it was still dark.”

“Do you remember waking up? going home?”

The image in my mind was blurry, like someone shooting a video through Saran wrap. “Will must have dropped me off on his way home. I remember we swerved, and I woke up fast . . . and then . . .”

A panic swept over me more intense than anything I’d experienced in my closet. A wave of nausea and horror. “When were those kids killed? The girl at the radio station said her friend died and that Will killed her.”

“The accident was in 1980. The morning of July 2.”

“His birthday,” I gasped.

“That was the same morning.”

My stomach tightened, and I felt like I was losing control of everything inside me. “No, no, no,” I whispered again and again. “It can’t be.”

My face must have turned pale because Richard was there with a wastebasket, holding it out to me. “What’s wrong? What are you thinking? Tell me.”

“I was there. I was in the car when he killed the children.”

I walked into the small police station and asked for Eddie.

The woman at the front just stared at me.

“Chief Buret. Tell him Will Hatfield is here.”

A haggard officer going through the mail put a hand on his gun and looked squarely at me.

“Tell him I need to see him outside,” I said.

I walked out and waited under the gray, overcast skies. It was on this street that I did my first remote broadcast for Seeb, describing the town parade when I was seventeen or so. Seeb parked a pickup near the route, then hooked a microphone to a long cord and attached the alligator clips to a telephone inside one of the stores. As soon as I climbed onto the back of that truck, I knew it would be a long day. Kind of like the
Hindenburg
’s crash. Nothing of that magnitude went wrong, but Seeb had the driver park near the guardrail, and I couldn’t see over it to read the signs of the dignitaries or different bands marching by. Karin laughed at the broadcast, especially the part when I said the majorettes looked cold. It was the only thing I could think of to say. I had felt naked and exposed, just like I did as Eddie, Bobby Ray, and the other officer emerged from the station.

“Will,” Eddie said, acting genial, as if he were my best friend, “what brings you to town? Didn’t think you came out in the daytime. The Vampire of Dogwood, that’s what some call you.”

“You really need this much protection?” I said, nodding at the others.

He turned and smiled at his friends. “These are just concerned coworkers making sure the threats you made inside aren’t followed through.”

“Threats?”

“You used a threatening tone of voice to our secretary,” the other officer said, talking through his nose. I recognized his voice from the phone on the night of the attack.

Eddie looked up and down the street, then moved closer. “To be honest, they’d rather gun you down right here and be done with you, but that wouldn’t be legal, would it?”

“My mother got served today. Eminent domain.”

“Yeah, schools are getting crowded around here. See, while you were in the pokey, the rest of us have been doing the hokey, and there’s a bunch of kids needing desk space.”

Bobby Ray didn’t laugh, but the other officer did, then pulled out a nightstick. The back of my head throbbed just looking at it.

“What do you want, Eddie? You don’t have to kick my mother out of the only house she’s lived in for forty years.”

He was so close I could smell the sausage pizza on his breath. He had a smudge of red sauce on his cheek and mustache. “If you’d have listened to me when you first came back, she wouldn’t have to move. But your kind doesn’t learn. Wasn’t enough you had to wipe out some kids on the side of the road, you had to bring your stink back to this town and remind us.”

“What if I leave?” I said softly.

“Well, did you hear that, boys? Will here says he’s thinking about moving on. Starting a new life.”

“It’s about time,” the officer said.

“Looks like you’ll be leaving whether you want to or not,” Eddie said.

“I know you and your father have a lot of pull on the town council,” I said. “Call them off and leave my mother and her place alone.”

Eddie scratched his head. “Problem is, it’s not just the town that wants you gone. We notified your family about this, and there wasn’t an objection.”

“My mother never heard anything—”

“It wasn’t your mother we talked to. It was the executor. You knew that because of her fragile state, your brother was assigned legal guardian for the estate. He didn’t have a problem with the eminent domain.”

I let the truth sink in. Carson had given them the okay.

“You gonna take that woman with you, Casanova?” the officer said. “The one Eddie said you were in love with?”

I made a move toward him, and Eddie pulled his gun and pointed it at my chest. “Not so fast, killer.”

I put my hands at shoulder height. “I’m not armed.” I looked at Bobby Ray. “You can see I’m not armed.”

Bobby Ray came toward me. “Just turn around, get in your truck, and get out of here.”

I kept my hands in the air.

Eddie glared at Bobby Ray, but by the time he had turned around, I was in my truck kicking the engine to life.

The knot in my chest was tighter than my serpentine belt. I clattered over the streets, passing old couples headed for dinner specials. I had avoided Carson’s office, but I knew exactly where it was. I didn’t worry about parking. I let the truck roll to a stop in front of the entrance, blocking two handicapped spots, and jumped out. I saw him at a window on the second floor, a phone to his ear. He didn’t wave.

A winding staircase led to the top, and an aquarium filled the
whole wall. A sign beside the aquarium read, C & E Weapons Analysis. I wasn’t sure who the E was, but I knew the C.

A nicely dressed woman at the front desk peeked up from her paperwork. She gasped and picked up the phone.

“Don’t bother. I know where he is,” I said.

“Mr. Hatfield, I think it’s him,” she said.

A door led to a hallway but it was locked. I turned to her, and she backed against a cabinet. I was familiar enough with buzzing doors after being in prison that I easily found the button under her desk and pushed it. As soon as I let go, it locked again.

“You want to hold this for me or do I have to get some tape?”

Her eyes were wild. Finally she stepped over and pushed it until I opened the door. So much for company loyalty. The door led to a hallway and three more doors to my right.

“Carson!” I yelled.

“Don’t do this!” he said.

“You want me to kick it down or are you coming out here?”

The lock clicked and I walked through.

He held a small pistol in his right hand. “Don’t make me use this.”

“Why did you do it?” I said. “Why did you give our land away?”

“They offered enough to take care of Mama the rest of her life. That’s all I’m concerned about.”

“What if she doesn’t want to live somewhere else the rest of her life? You ever thought about what
she
wants?”

“I’ve called the police. They’ll be here any minute. You’d better just go.”

“You called them or they called you?” I spat. I turned a chair over and moved toward him, pointing a finger at his chest and ignoring the pistol. “I took the fall for you. That drunk driving charge would have kept you from the scholarship.”

“Don’t bring that up. I never asked you to do that.”

“You never thanked me, either. And it was that prior that worked against me and you never said—”

“I was in D.C., little brother. Trying to get ready for Armageddon or whatever next war’s coming our way. What was I
supposed
to do?”

“What you ought to do right now. What would Daddy say about this? You know it’d break his heart.”

Carson laughed. “You’re accusing
me
of breaking his heart? After what
you
did?”

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt me. Instead, I walked into the hallway and muttered, “Judas.”

I left before Eddie got there and followed a back road toward the next county. I needed time to think and cool down. There had to be some way to keep our land, some way to keep my dream alive.

I bought a sandwich and something to drink at a gas station and drove to the park in Hurricane where Carson and I had played tennis and Little League. Just sitting there in the stands, watching the empty field, made me long for the days when the rest of our lives stretched out in front of us with so much promise.

Good luck. Bad luck. Sometimes the worst things that happen to us can lead to some of the best things. It hadn’t happened for me, but I figured it couldn’t get much worse.

I was wrong.