Take Me There (27 page)

Tornado walks her up the hill, and Arnie starts talking. “How long do you think it took me to find out you were wanted by the law in California?”

So this is how it will end. He’s going to turn me in. I should have known this was the way he would handle it. “I imagine you figured it out pretty fast,” I say.

“One phone call and I could have had you locked up last week.”

“Why didn’t you?” I ask, wondering if he’s planning to shoot me and claim I was resisting arrest.

“You’ve got until Tuesday night, and then the law will be on your ass like hemorrhoid cream.”

All I can say is, “Yes, sir.” Don’t know why he hasn’t already turned me in, but I don’t dare ask him.

He starts to walk back up to the house, and then turns around. “My brother, Jack, loved your father like a second
brother. The three of us grew up playin’ ball together. I don’t think your father would have ever hurt Jack intentionally, but it doesn’t really matter. A good man died, and justice demands that somebody pay for it. Not me, not my family, not even the people on that jury. It’s justice demands it, and justice doesn’t always care who it is who pays. Even if your father didn’t pull the trigger, it’s his fault my brother is dead. And D.J. Dawson knows it.”

And with that, he is gone.

I run as fast as I can all the way to Levida’s house and am surprised to see a pink Cadillac the color of Pepto-Bismol parked out front. I hope maybe it’s the lawyer or one of his associates, come to bring us good news, but when I walk inside, I find Jess anxiously pacing the kitchen. My mother and grandmother are sitting at the dining table, facing each other in stony silence—the rusty box with the gun sitting between them.

“Thank God you’re okay,” Jess says, running up and hugging me. “I thought that man was going to kill you.”

“Me too,” I confess. “Tornado didn’t bother you, did he?”

“No. He didn’t say a word,” Jess tells me.

“Have a nice nap?” my grandmother asks. I wonder how she knows these things, but I don’t bother to ask. It’s obvious that seeing my mother has put her in a bad mood.

“What are you doing
here
?” I ask my mother.

“That’s what we’re all tryin’ to figure out,” Levida says.

“I’ve come to see D.J. and to bring Dylan his birthday present. He turned eighteen yesterday, in case you didn’t know.”

“It was your birthday?” Jess asks.

“It’s not important,” I tell her.

If my mother’s comment is supposed to make Levida feel guilty, it doesn’t work. “If you’re lookin’ for a free place to stay, you can keep on lookin’,” Levida says. “I ain’t runnin’ a Motel 6.”

“Staying with you was never
free
,” my mother retorts. “I paid for that experience in more ways than one. But for your information, I’m staying at the Home Suite Inn in Huntsville with my brother.”

“Mitch is here?” I ask.

“He wanted you to have something special for your birthday,” she says, holding up a car key.

“You can’t be serious,” I say, looking out the window at a car only a cosmetics dealer should drive.

“No, not the Caddie. He found you a brand-new Chrysler convertible.”

“I don’t want any more of Mitch’s presents.”

“But why not?”

“The boy don’t care about a car when the state is fixin’ to kill his daddy,” Levida says. “But as usual, you think you can fix all your problems with some shiny new gadget. You were always worthless, Mollie. The only thing you were good for was spendin’ D.J.’s hard-earned paycheck.”

“This really isn’t the time—,” I try to interject.

“Well we all had our little addictions, didn’t we?” my mother says. “Did you tell Dylan about the bottle you keep hidden under the kitchen sink?”

A bright crimson flush begins at my grandmother’s neck and moves quickly up her face. “My husband had died. I’ve made my peace with the bottle since then.”

“Have you made your peace with anything else?”

I know my mother is playing the hypocrite. She hasn’t made
her own peace with the bottle. But I’m also impressed that she can stand up to Levida as easily as she does. Levida has a lot more secrets than I realize.

I wonder if she was drunk that night. I wonder if
she
could have shot Jack Golden. If she was drinking, she might have gotten it all mixed up in her mind. Has my father spent all this time in prison protecting her?

“If living with us was so god-awful,” Levida hisses at my mother, “then why did you stay here all those years?”

Suddenly all the fight seems to leave my mother. She sinks into herself and says, so quietly I almost don’t hear her, “Because I loved your son.”

Levida heaves a great sigh and closes her eyes, like someone who has lost the battle, but suddenly doesn’t care.

The phone rings, but Levida makes no move to answer it, and so I walk into the kitchen and pick it up. “Hello, this is the Dawson residence.”

“Hello, Dylan. This is Buster Cartwright.”

“It’s Dad’s lawyer,” I say.

“Is D.J. going to let me see him?” my mother asks.

“Will my dad talk to my mother tomorrow?” I ask the lawyer.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“What do you mean? He has to.”

“Your father doesn’t have many choices, but who he will or will not see is one of them.”

“No. This isn’t right.” The look of hope fades from my mother’s face as she listens to my side of the conversation. “Somebody has to make him understand. If you can’t make him understand, then I will.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he says.

“Why not?”

“He’s taken your name off his visitation list.”

It takes a minute for what he is saying to hit me. “What? Why? What have I done? What is so horrible that my own father won’t see me?”

“Oh, Dylan,” my mother says, and she starts to cry.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings,” says Cartwright, “but you might want to turn on your television and watch the news.”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. I truly am,” he says, and then he hangs up.

I set down the phone, walk into the living room, and turn on the television, with my mother, grandmother, and Jess following behind me.

“Breaking news today in the case of convicted cop killer D.J. Dawson,” says a newswoman. “But first a look at the local weather. Record temperatures continue throughout the hill country… .”

There is a report about a power outage in San Antonio, an oil spill near Galveston Island, and a fire in Houston before the newswoman returns to the story about my father.

“And now here’s our breaking story,” she tells her viewers, and my father’s face appears on the TV screen.

“My God! He looks just like you,” Jess tells me.

My mother kneels in front of the television screen and reaches out to my father’s picture as if she can touch him. “I almost forgot how beautiful he was.”

Wade walks in, sees us all staring at the television, and says, “What’s going on?”

“Dylan’s dad is on TV,” Jess informs him.

The anchorwoman continues, “After eleven years on death
row, just forty-eight hours before he is scheduled to die, D.J. Dawson, the man convicted of killing border patrol officer Jack Golden, has come clean with a confession.”

“No!” my mother cries, covering her mouth with her hands.

“In an open letter to the governor, Mr. Dawson wrote, ‘I’m getting ready to meet my maker, and I wanted to do it with a clear conscience. Jack Golden was a good man and a good cop. He comes from a good family. They’ve suffered enough over me. So has my own family, for that matter. I just want everyone to be able to put this behind them.’”

I can’t believe this is happening. This is
not
how things are supposed to turn out. My father is giving up. “Why?” I shout at the television.

“D.J., please don’t do this!” my mother says, crying, then flees the room.

The newscaster continues reading my father’s letter. “‘I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused by the death of Jack Golden. I offer my apologies to the people of Texas, who lost a hero, and I withdraw my petition for clemency.’”

My father’s photo fades to black, and the news anchor is back on the screen. “And now we go to the capitol building, where we’ll get a response to these new developments from Governor Billy Banks.”

The governor stands on the capitol steps with another reporter. “Governor,” she says, “what is your reaction to the confession made by D.J. Dawson earlier today?”

“I respect what he’s trying to do.”

“You got no idea what he’s tryin’ to do, you snake-livered mama’s boy,” Levida yells, throwing a shoe at the television screen.

“What makes us a civilized society,” the governor continues, “is our desire to make right our wrongs.”

A scene appears on the television of protesters outside the Walls Unit in Huntsville, and we are all suddenly surprised by the sound of someone pounding on the front door.

Wade looks out the window and says, “It’s a cop!”

I remember what Arnie Golden told me about sending the authorities after me, and I tremble as my entire body breaks out in a cold sweat.

“They’re comin’ for us,” Wade says, standing up and backing into the kitchen like a cornered animal, grabbing a knife out of one of the drawers.

“Wade, don’t be crazy!” says Jess.

“I can’t go back to jail,” he says.

The cop knocks again.

“I
won’t
go back to jail,” says Wade.

“I’m comin’,” Levida yells, though she makes no move toward the door. “Maybe they’ve come lookin’ for the gun,” she says. She and I both look at the table at the same time, but the gun and the rusted box are gone.

“What happened to it?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe your mother took it,” says Jess. “She’s gone too.”

Levida and I both look at each other.

“You gotta find her,” Levida tells me. “No tellin’ what she might do. You and Wade go out my bedroom window. There’s a storm cellar out by the workshop. Hide there till it’s safe to get away.”

“Come on,” I tell Wade, but he just stands there frozen like a statue.

“Go!” Levida tells us. “And put that knife down, Wade, before you hurt yourself.”

“Be careful,” says Jess.

I grab Wade and shake his arm till he drops the knife. Then we run for the bedroom, while Levida opens the door for the cop. We scramble out the window, but I run right past the storm cellar on my way to the truck. “Where you goin’?” says Wade.

“I gotta find my mom.”

“Levida said to wait in the cellar.”

“I can’t wait, Wade. I gotta go look for her now.”

“What if the cops hear you tryin’ to get away?”

“That’s a chance I have to take.”

“I can’t go with you,” he says. He’s trembling from head to foot, and I know he’s thinking of juvie. “I can’t ever go back to that place.”

“I understand. You wait here. I’ll be back.”

I run to the truck, and I realize Wade is right. If the cops hear me starting the engine, they’ll come after me. I put the truck into neutral and start pushing it down the dirt road until I think it’s safe enough to turn on the engine, and then I drive through town until I get to the highway. But I don’t know where to go. The only thing I can think of is my uncle Mitch and the Home Suite Inn in Huntsville.

Every time I pass a car, I check to see if it’s my mother, but she’s nowhere in sight. I get to Huntsville and start looking for the Home Suite Inn.

I find it, but there is no sign of the pink eyesore my mother was driving. I do see a Chrysler convertible with a frame around the rear license plate that says
MITCH’S MOTORS
. I park next to it and go inside. I’m about to ask for his room number at the front
desk when I hear his loud, obnoxious voice coming from the bar. I find my uncle Mitch drinking tequila shots and talking to the bartender. “Those were the days,” Mitch brags. “When me and Dozer Dawson played for the Texas Longhorns. I remember this game against A&M—”

“Uncle Mitch!” I say, hurrying up to the bar. “Have you seen Mom?”

“There he is,” Mitch tells the bartender, a definite slur to his words. “Dozer Junior. Wanna drink, kid? It’s a helluva night for a drink. Did you see your daddy’s picture on TV? Never thought I’d see the day. Pour my nephew a shot, bartender.”

“I’ll have to see some ID.”

“Forget the liquor,” I say, even as I imagine the tequila on my tongue and burning through my veins. “I’ve got to find Mom. Did she come back here?”

“Thought she was with you,” he says, motioning for the man behind the bar to refill his glass. I’ve never seen my uncle visibly drunk before. He can usually consume great quantities of liquor with no visible effects. I wonder how much he’s been drinking and when he started.

“Mitch, I gotta find her.” The bartender has turned away, to dry some glasses. I lower my voice to a whisper. “She has the gun.”

“What gun?”

“The one that killed Jack Golden.”

Mitch pauses mid-gulp and puts down his glass, his eyes becoming steady and hard. “Where the hell did she find that?”

“It was hidden in a box buried in the barn. Mitch, I’m afraid she’s going to …” I can’t finish my thought. “She was really upset. What if she hurts herself?”

“You afraid she’s gonna go shoot herself in the head like our daddy did?” he says too loudly.

“Please, you gotta help me find her.”

“You worry too much, kid. Your mama doesn’t have the gumption to kill herself. She hates pain too much.” He says this with a coolness that makes me want to shove that shot glass down his throat.

“Then why did she take the gun?”

“How the hell would I know?” He picks up the glass again and tries to act like this isn’t a big deal, but I notice his hand is shaking.

Something suddenly clicks into place in my mind, like when you’re looking all over the floor for the last piece of a puzzle, only to realize you’re already holding it in your hand. “The Cadillac Levida saw … You were there that night!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, motioning for the bartender to pour him yet another shot. “I was in Vegas at a blackjack table with at least twelve witnesses.”

“You’re lying.”