Happy Policeman (20 page)

Chapter Forty-Six

Schoen took an unsteady step, and then another, wondering where his feet were taking him now that his family was gone. He found himself at his car. Somewhere during his journey, the Bible had dropped from his hand. “Lord?”

No one answered.

“Lord?” he breathed.

“Jimmy? That you?”

Startled, he turned. Dee Dee was standing a few feet away, near Foster’s empty Corvette. Schoen chided himself. He shouldn’t be surprised—righteousness always conquered sin. It irked him that he was so glad to see her.

“Get in the car, Dee Dee, and I’ll take you home. I’ll explain to the children what has happened. Then you will get on your knees, and together we’ll pray for your forgiveness.”

“Oh well, honey, I
would,”
she said, looking at her watch, “but I promised Hubie I wouldn’t be more than an hour. I came to remind you to change the furnace filter, and rinse the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. Otherwise you get these little specks. I put instructions on each of the plants. The Peter’s Plant Food is on the sill in the kitchen window. If the water looks blue—like the toilet bowl blue—you’ve put in too much and you’ll burn the leaves. And don’t forget the lint trap when you use the dryer. Goodness, there’s a lot to remember.”

“Dee Dee . . .” Schoen‘s eyes filled.

“But don’t you worry. I left you all kind of notes. And I put up a lot of my lasagna—I know how you love that. It’s in the freezer, in these little single-serving Tupperware containers? Microwave them on medium for fifteen minutes, not on high, because the cheese will bubble and get all over the—”

“Dee Dee!” He wanted to tell her that he loved her. “It’s my fault,” he said instead. “I should have spent more time with you and the children. I should have been a more forceful shepherd.”

“Oh, Jimmy, really. All I wanted was ranch salad dressing once in a while.” She walked to Foster’s Corvette and drove away.

When she was gone, he climbed into his Pontiac and folded his hands prayerfully on the wheel. The velour upholstery had trapped the scent of his wife’s perfume. And the milky odors of his children. But he, an aromaless man, had left no trace.

Chapter Forty-Seven

They put on their coats and went outside. Granger took a rope from his pickup. The center’s automatic floodlights winked on, casting tree-latticed shadows across the parking lot.

Putting the finishing touches to his hangman’s noose, Granger gave DeWitt an embarrassed shrug. “Haven’t tied one of these things since I was a kid.”

Doc was kneeling, taking a stethoscope and blood-pressure cuff from his bag.

Granger lowered his head, and his voice grew faint. “But then, I was always sort of handy with things.” He threw the end of the rope over an oak limb. The noose swung, its long shadow spanning the grass. Hattie came out with a chair.

Granger called, “Curtis?”

Curtis emerged from the dark, hands in his pockets.

“Who’ll do it?” Granger asked.

Curtis looked at the bench where Bo sat with Billy. Then at a button on his coat.

Hattie spoke up. “And we need a sheet to wrap him in, and some kind of coffin.” She cleared her throat. “And a grave.”

Granger nodded. “Seresen can find us a box. I’ll call Tyler. He can meet us later at the cemetery with his backhoe.”

First Doc and Granger, then Seresen and Hattie walked away. DeWitt could hear their footsteps long after the shadows swallowed them. The freshening wind beguiled the noose into a dance. Bo rose and went to Curtis. The breeze plucked and snatched at their conversation.

“. . . what you’re getting into.”

Curtis shrugged. “. . . matter now.”

“. . . killed like this!” Bo urgent, gesturing. “Curtis, listen to me, you don’t have any idea how horrible . . .”

Curtis put his hand on Bo’s arm. The officer flung it away. More words, too low to distinguish. Curtis handed Bo a joint. DeWitt watched the officer light it, take it to the bench, and tuck it in Billy’s mouth.

Seresen reappeared with four Torku and a packing crate. The workers set the box on the ground and went back into the center.

Hattie returned, not with a sheet but with an old quilt, At the bench, she paused. Billy, dressed only in jeans and a flannel shirt, was shivering. Hattie arranged the quilt around Billy’s shoulders, as if tucking in one of her boys. He lay down, making himself as comfortable as he could with the handcuffs. His eyes closed.

Bo came to DeWitt. “You have to stop this. No matter what you think of me, you have to stop it now.”

“It’s the law.”

“It’s
not
the law! Hanging’s not the law. I’ve seen a man strangle to death. Three minutes of convulsing on the sidewalk like he was trying to tear himself apart. DeWitt! Don’t tum away like that. If you go through with this, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

DeWitt faced him. “Don’t act all of a sudden like you’re concerned.”

“I didn’t mean . . .”

“You destroyed my wife. You told everyone what she did, don’t you see? Now when she’s in the supermarket, when she’s walking down the street, she’ll wonder what people around her are saying. Every goddamned whisper, every look. Did she really deserve that?”

“There wasn’t any choice. The trial—”

“Janet was going to leave you, wasn’t she?”

A flash of anger. “What happened in that courtroom wasn’t about Janet. The law’s the law.”

DeWitt swiped at his eyes. “Well, isn’t justice a blind old bitch.”

Granger and Doc came back, carrying a jug of moonshine. Bo helped Billy sit up and drink. The jug was passed around. Curtis took a long swallow. DeWitt took a sweet, cloying pull. Snow began to fall.

Billy raised his head, caught the flakes on his face. “I like snow.”

DeWitt glanced Billy’s way.

“It’s nice it’s snowing, don’t you think?”

Half-formed patterns of snow moved about the parking lot. Drifts settled around the curb. DeWitt took another pull and felt the first amusement-ride lift of inebriation.

Granger asked the time.

“Near midnight,” Curtis said.

Granger took the quilt from Billy’s shoulders. Without conscious choice, DeWitt stepped forward. When he touched Billy, the man fell to his knees.

Billy was a small man. DeWitt had never realized how small. It didn’t take much effort to lift him, to drag him to the chair.

Billy’s feet plowed furrows in the snow. “No, Granger! DeWitt, wait!” He looked up at the noose and whimpered, “Wait.”

Twin clangs as his boots hit the top of the metal seat. They were scuffed boots, workman’s cheap lace-ups, their soles caked with ice. He started to sink; the boots slid, drawing lines of brown mud on the chair.

DeWitt grabbed him, and the incision in his belly stung. He didn’t want to be angry with Billy. He knew it wasn’t right. Yet it was so hard to hold him up.

“Just a little while more. Please.” Billy’s tiny voice.

“Get something Wittie and I can stand on.” Granger’s quiet baritone.

“Get up.” Hattie poked DeWitt in the ribs. “Get up. You can’t get him positioned any other way.”

Something bumped his leg: another folding chair.

“Hurry,” Hattie said. “Let’s get it over with.”

DeWitt and Granger pulled Billy erect between them. Billy’s breaths made steam-engine puffs in the cold air. His eyes were wide, as if, hands cuffed behind him, he wanted to grasp the world with sight. “Wait! I ain’t ready.”

Granger’s kindly voice: “Don’t draw it out, son. Don’t make it harder on yourself.”

Billy’s teeth chattered. “I ain’t drunk yet, Granger. Oh, please. I ain’t drunk yet.”

DeWitt’s side ached. “Let him have another drink.”

Hattie handed the jug to Granger, who lifted it to Billy’s mouth. With a sputter and glistening drool, the liquor came back up. .

Granger returned the jug to Hattie. “Stand up straight, Billy. Let me get the noose on you now. Don’t give yourself time to think about it.”

Billy looked at DeWitt from the dark, cramped place of his terror, and suddenly it was just the two of them: DeWitt and Billy, alone with what they were to do.

DeWitt said, “Everything’s going to be all right, Billy. I won’t do it till you’re ready. And when it comes, it’ll be fast, over before you know it. Granger? The noose. No, don’t fight it, let him put it around you. I won’t do anything until you say. Look at me. That’s right. Now lift your head a little.”

When the rope went under his jaw, Billy stood tip-toe, his boots skidding on the metal.

DeWitt held him, one arm around his neck, the other under his chest. “I got you. Step away now, Granger. I got him.”

Granger walking away; the grass, everyone receding.

“Close your eyes.” DeWitt could stand all night if need be, holding Billy from the waiting earth. “I want you to count to ten.”

Billy’s eyelids twitched.

“Count, Billy. Can you do that for me?”

“One . . .” Breathy, unsure.

“Count as slow as you want to. It’s all right.”

“Two.”

A shudder through Billy’s frame. Not fear, exhaustion. His shoulders slumped.

“Go on.”

“Three.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Four.”

DeWitt held Billy as he might have held Janet during the last dance of the prom. They swayed there alone, fatigued, held up by unheard music and the press of the dark.

“Five.”

It was late, past midnight of a long, long day, and Billy was ready for sleep. His chin rested, trusting, on DeWitt’s shoulder. DeWitt held him tight. And kicked the chairs down.

They fell hard. The rope snapped taut with a jarring twang. Billy flopped and twitched like a fish at the end of a gaff. From his throat came gagging, airless grunts, as though he was trying to utter some last words. He butted DeWitt groin to groin, in a mockery of fucking.

DeWitt wasn’t strong enough. His grip, his will weakened, and he fell, taking Billy’s shirt with him.

Above, the tree limb bowed like a fishing pole whose line had hooked a tarpon.

Bo screamed, “God!”

The rope stretched and creaked, and Billy twirled, his feet pumping the air as if trying to sprint to freedom.

“Stop it!” Hattie’s hands clapped the sides of her head. “Cut him down!”

Granger fumbled with drunken, hysterical haste at the knot on the tree.

There are things, like trust, like promises, that once broken can never be mended. DeWitt took a running leap and landed on Billy’s shoulders. Through his hand and chest he felt the wet, firm pop of separating bone.

Billy gave a last shudder before his body went slack. His fists, pressed against DeWitt’s belly, opened. For a peaceful instant DeWitt was eight again, and the body nothing more than a tire swing rocking back and forth, back and forth.

DeWitt let him go.

“Are you happy now?” Bo shouted. “Nine years, and I still dream about Dallas. How will you sleep at night, DeWitt?” Without waiting for an answer, he rushed into the snow-driven darkness.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Seresen watched Granger ease the body into DeWitt’s waiting hands. Curtis wandered off muttering; Hattie walked away.

DeWitt laid the body on the ground, then realized Billy was still cuffed. He decided to bury Billy with his arms locked behind him, but glanced at the narrow packing crate and saw that the body wouldn’t fit that way. Kneeling in the snow, he pushed the corpse over on its stomach. The head stared balefully over the back. Peach brandy rushed up DeWitt’s throat with a sting of candied bile. He swallowed, looked away, and fumbled the key into the lock.

A snap—like a small bone breaking. He freed one slack wrist and let the body drop back on the other.

“Will you close his eyes, Granger? Just for God’s sake close his eyes.”

Granger knelt. “I can’t,” he said. “They’s pooched out too much, Wittie. They won’t stay put.”

“Okay. Get him on the quilt.”

Granger laid the quilt out next to the body. They each grabbed a wrist. At the count of three, they pinched Billy’s jeans at the outside seam and lifted.

Billy’s head disappeared. Startled, DeWitt let him go.

“Wait a minute.”

I ain’t ready yet.

Granger dropped the corpse. The body wasn’t lying flat. Billy’s face was pushed into the snow; the back of his skull was under his shoulder blades.

“Hold on.” Granger spun awkwardly toward Seresen.

“You okay?” DeWitt asked.

Granger waved a hand. “Yeah. Just don’t let his head do that no more.”

With a silent apology DeWitt pushed the corpse onto the blanket with his boot. “You can look now.”

Granger turned, ran a hand over his mouth. “Get the damned top off that box.”

They shoved Billy in sideways. With hammer and nails they secured the lid. They had just begun to slide the heavy box into the pickup when a car door slammed. The poorly-balanced coffin took a nose dive from the tailgate.

Catching the crate with his shoulder, DeWitt glanced up. Seresen was sitting in the front seat of Granger’s pickup.

Granger too had caught sight of the Kol. “Damn it, DeWitt. Where does he think he’s going?”

“Shhh. Quiet.”

“I don’t care what he hears. Goddamned turd-faced alien.” Granger shouted, “Hey! What’re you looking at? You think this is funny?” He grabbed the edge of the box and pushed, sending the crate slamming into the back of the bed. “I just don’t like it, Wittie. He shouldn’t have watched what we done. Makes me feel dirty.”

DeWitt’s hands were soiled with Billy’s urine, Billy’s drool. The skin of his palms tingled with the remembered crack of bone. He shoved his hands into the snow and scrubbed until his skin burned and his fingers paled. Until his knuckles ached.

“Come on.” Granger pulled at him. “It’s time.”

They climbed into the cab with Seresen. It was nearly thirty minutes before they drove through the cemetery’s iron and brick gates.

DeWitt and Granger got out and walked over the blank, snowy field to Tyler. Tyler was shivering on the backhoe, hugging himself, Stetson pulled down to his eyebrows.

Granger said, “Get in the truck, Tyler. Get that engine started and that heater going.”

The only part that showed between Tyler’s sheepskin collar and the hat were his eyes. “Y’all look done in.”

Granger helped him to his feet. “We been working up a sweat while you been sitting here freezing your ass. You get on in the truck now, and get some of that heat on you.”

Tyler staggered to the truck.

Huffing white, frozen breaths, Granger and De Witt toted Billy’s coffin from the tailgate. As Seresen watched, they settled the box into the ground.

Granger got on the backhoe. In jerky mechanical fits and starts he scooped up the first load. The bucket poised in indecision over the grave; then he hit a lever, and clumps of earth drummed the wood, a noise like jittery feet.

By the time DeWitt had tamped down the grave, his arms were twitching with exhaustion, and his entire belly was sore. Tyler came over from the pickup. He slipped off his right glove and solemnly shook hands with Granger. Both men walked to DeWitt.

“We’ll say some words.” Tyler took off his hat and twisted it in his hands. Clearing his throat, he looked up into the drifting flakes. “I am the resurrection, and the life . . .”

DeWitt listened to the benediction; but the only message he understood was that of Granger’s sobs.

Tyler finished, crossing himself. He took Granger by the sleeve. “He ain’t dead. Ain’t nobody really dies. You know that.”

Granger nodded glumly. “I know.”

“And Billy’s in a better place now. You know they’re all of them happier. And where they are, Billy’s asked for Loretta’s forgiveness, and she’s taken him back. The kids are playing, the sun’s shining, and every flower, every green leaf, every one of God’s butterflies are out. You know that. Say it, then. Say it loud, like you believe it.”

A sound from Seresen caught DeWitt’s attention. Something was wrong. For a terrifying instant it looked as if the alien was dissolving into snow. His skin turned the delicate hues of ivory and lily. As DeWitt stepped forward, he heard the Kol whisper, “Amen.” Then the alien walked quickly from the glare of the backhoe’s headlights and into the dark.

“Seresen!” DeWitt called.

The three started after him. Halfway across the cemetery the round flat footprints ended.

DeWitt cupped his hands to his mouth. “Seresen!”

Granger got a flashlight. He swept its beam across the silent graves. “Not here. Let’s go on home.”

DeWitt said, “It’s cold. He’ll get lost. Seresen!” He ran a few yards farther into the graveyard before he stopped, confused. Tyler took him by the arm and led him to the pickup.

“Seresen’s all right,” Granger said when DeWitt took his place on the truck’s bench seat. “He probably went home.”

Of course Seresen was all right. And Billy was dead. Yet in some back alley of his brain, the part that fretted that the front door was unlocked and the iron left on, DeWitt was afraid that Billy might wake up and find himself alone.

“I’ll drop you on by your house, DeWitt,” Granger said.

The cab of the pickup stank of gasoline, wet coats, and the hot-metal reek of the heater. “Take me to my car. It’s at the center.”

Wordlessly, Granger drove to the parking lot. The squad car was a lump in the white expanse: a corpse in a morgue, a cat napping under a sheet. Tyler helped DeWitt from the truck.

“You need me, you just call,” he said.

DeWitt nodded and high-stepped his way through the snow.

Behind him the pickup’s engine revved. Its wheels spun. He turned to see the twin red dots of its taillights disappear down the street.

“Wait!”

I ain‘t ready.

The truck vanished. He stood alone in the icy wind, wondering what he could do without his keys. Too ashamed to seek shelter at the center, he went to the car instead. His keys were dangling from the ignition. He dug his car out as best he could, then drove to Hattie’s. There was a single light on in the house.

Entering the kitchen, he whispered, “Hattie?” There was an elongated rectangle of yellow light across the linoleum. He walked down the short hall. The bedroom was dark. In the bathroom Hattie knelt before the commode, an aging naiad pondering her reflection. Her hair stuck out at argumentative angles, and her face was weary.

“Hattie.”

She bent over and vomited in the toilet.

He put his hand out to touch her; she flinched away.

“I tried to make it quick.”

He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he went back outside. Standing at the trunk of the car, he rolled himself three joints.

The wind died. On the crisp, clear air he could hear the bark of a neighbor’s dog. The clouds were breaking up, and through a chink in the sky a full moon cast its light on vanilla fields. From the barn nearby came the warm, whuffling sounds of the horses.

He finished the first joint. When he returned to the house, the light in the bathroom was out. He sat in the Barcalounger, tipped it back, and smoked the second reefer. He was asleep before he got to the last.

Billy stares at him, eyes like a rabbit in a hole. “I ain’t ready, Wittie.” Bodies pelvis-to-pelvis, cheap boots sliding on ice.

His mama at the sink, boning a chicken. See how the joints fit together, Wittie? Ball nestled in socket, chin on shoulder. She pulls at the flesh, and leg stretches from thigh. The ripping sound of tendon. And the sick, wet pop of separating bone.

You see? They dropped those bombs so sudden.

His mama’s eyes are white and empty. The skin of her face oozes and peels.

The world changed, and I wasn’t ready.

A Klaxon jolted him from his dream. Flailing in the dark, he knocked the ashtray to the floor. When the phone rang again, he found it by the sound.

“Hello?” DeWitt noticed the stuffiness of the room. Heard the faint sound of water dripping.

“DeWitt?”

“Yeah?”

“This is Granger. I called over to your house, and Janet said you might be at Hattie’s. I couldn’t sleep.”

DeWitt listened to the slight hiss of static over the phone line and the drip, drip, drip from the window.

“Got up to get a drink of water.” DeWitt noticed a tremor in Granger’s voice.

He sat up; the Barcalounger squealed.

“I can see a ways from my kitchen window, Wittie . . .” DeWitt’s heart was doing triple time to the metronome of the water.

“Wittie?” Granger’s voice fluttered like a moth caught in a screen. “You need to go look . . .”

DeWitt didn’t want to hear the next words. Didn’t want to know what horror Granger had seen.
His mama’s blind, white gaze. Billy staring up from the burrow of his terror.

“The Line’s down.”

DeWitt slammed the receiver home and shot up from the chair. He flung open the door. On the porch, drifts were melting to worm-holed islands of white. The snow was disappearing in a hot, hellish southern wind. And the horizon was black, dead black, for the first time in six years.