The Devil Walks in Mattingly (13 page)

“First name’s Taylor,” I managed. “Got that out of the other one. I’ll try to get a last name when I get back.”

I kept my eyes on the blood. All that blood.

“Hey,” Alan said. He led me by the elbow toward the front doors, away from prying ears. “Jake, listen. I know you’re not used to this sort of thing, but I don’t want you to get all worked up. Chances are good this Taylor fella’s gonna get as far from here as possible as quick as he can.”

I’d said much the same to Kate. Still, it felt good to hear it echoed from someone who knew what he was doing. A single thought in my mind took root and sprouted: Maybe the worst was over now. Maybe all that was left was the hurting and the moving on. Maybe so. But in the meantime, there was the matter of not looking like a scared little boy to the real policeman in front of me.

“I’m not worked up,” I said. “For Taylor’s sake, I hope he
has moved on. He wouldn’t like it if I was the one who ran him down.”

Alan seemed satisfied at that. “Jeep out there the boy’s?”

I nodded.

“No registration or insurance. Plates are expired. No ID on the body either. That how folks drive around here, Jake?”

I shrugged. “It’s the country, Alan. Boy’s name is Eric. Kate’s working on the particulars.” I paused, knowing I’d referred to Eric in the present tense. Then came an idea: “Andy’s got a camera set up.”

“We found it,” Alan said. “Haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. Your suspect say anything?”

“Other than Taylor’s first name, no.”

“We could take a look at the tape together. Might loosen his lips.”

He had a point. I took off my hat and turned it over in my hands as pictures flashed through my mind of what had happened just a few feet away. The last thing I wanted was to give an air of fact to the things I imagined—to see that, no, Eric hadn’t been standing
there
when he’d gotten stabbed, he’d actually been
over there
. Or that Andy had gotten only three shots in with his broom and not four before being pumped full of fire and bug spray. But like I said, I had to keep up appearances. I had to preserve that thin sheet of tough Barnett enamel.

We kept well wide of the blood and snaked our way to the cramped back room. A small black-and-white monitor sat atop three ancient milk crates by the breaker box. Alan brushed a thick layer of dust from the VCR and rewound the tape. I stared at my boots and offered a prayer that I could make it through what I was about to see.

“Any chance the Texaco has a setup like this?” he asked.

“Afraid not.”

Alan grunted and studied the time stamp on the picture as the tape sped forward. “Okay, I figure this is about the time it happened.”

The screen showed a panorama that extended from the counter to the side door and stopped at the second aisle. Andy was gathering the trash when Eric walked in. They left through the side door. Alan pressed the forward button again, turning minutes into seconds. He stopped when Charlie and Taylor pulled up. The rest was played out frame by frame in a silence that was louder than anything I’d ever heard.

When it was done, I could only say, “Sweet Jesus, help us all.”

Alan switched off the monitor. For the next long moment, the only sound was the tape rewinding and ejecting.

“I expect that’s all we’ll need,” he said. “Pretty cut and dried.”

I thought it was too. The act, anyway. But what lay behind that act wasn’t cut and dried at all. I’d never been one for intuition or a sixth sense. I’d never heard the voice of God (and after Phillip I didn’t expect to, at least until my judgment). But I knew there was something wrong just the same. Something more.

I looked at the tape in Alan’s hand. “Let me have that?”

“I’ll need it when I pick up your prisoner. He’s coming with us. Murder falls to the county, Jake. We’ll handle the murder investigation, and I’ll help you any other way I can. Keep some cruisers in the area, at least. Town won’t take too well to outsiders patrolling their streets, but even if this Taylor fella’s gone, I wouldn’t take any chances just yet. Up to you, though.”

I fell quiet and pretended to weigh options that didn’t need to be weighed at all. Then I said, “Town’s not so big, Alan, but the outlying hills are. I suppose some extra bodies would be best. Just for now, mind you.”

And so it was agreed. Alan handed me the tape and said he’d be down later to collect Charlie. I gave the pools of blood an even wider berth on my way out.

God took that opportunity to at least say yes to one prayer. I managed to make it to the privacy of the Blazer before I vomited.

8

Taylor pushed the girl through the open door and then stumbled through himself as the surge of adrenaline that had gotten him safely back to the Hollow puttered to vapor. What took its place was a deep throbbing in his head and the grim knowledge that he had at most four steps left before his legs gave out.

It had taken much longer than expected to reach the cabin, though it had nothing to do with Taylor’s weakening condition. It had been the lady. She’d tripped and fallen and shaken and made more of a ruckus than Charlie ever could. It had been obvious to Taylor even before they’d left the gate’s shadow that she’d never been in the wild. As such, he’d spent the majority of the walk trying to keep Lucy upright and trying to decide if she’d been truthful.

She had displayed both courage and wits, neither of which were attributes of the slumbering. And she still bore sneakers on her feet. Yet as the dying moonlight had shown down upon the edge of the field, Taylor noticed that not only were the tracks the girl left far smaller than those he’d found leading from the grove, her shoes carried a different tread as well. And she had not known of the bear. Wouldn’t anyone who was Awake know of the bear?

He guided her through the cabin’s dark interior and kicked
out one of the chairs from the table. Pain and exhaustion slurred his words. “Siddown.”

She took her place and kept her arms tight at her sides, pushing them into the bulges of skin that blossomed over the top of her shorts. Taylor lit two candles and placed them on the table. Their wicks were nearly burned away. He wondered who would bring him groceries every month now that Charlie was gone. When he sat in the opposite chair, it was more a stumble.

The girl stared at him with dark eyes swirled with fear. Taylor saw she was comely but for her hair, but let that thought pass over and away. Pretty ladies were poison even if a blessing.

“You Awake?” he asked.

Her chin lowered.

“I speak it again because I have no confidence in your answer, lady. Everybody thinks they’s Awake, yet they are not. Charlie believed he was. You saw his end. Let that be instruction”—Taylor leaned forward, careful to make sure his warning was properly received—“you best be sure what you give air to.”

“I’m sure,” she said.

He pulled out his book. There was much to write that night, much to ponder. He managed to scribble only
Lady says awa
before the shaking in his hands took over.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Lucy,” she said. “Lucy Seekins.”

“Do you know where She is, Lucy—Lucy Seekins?”

Lucy’s mouth closed even as her jaws loosened. They were like broken hinges. “Who’s ‘she’?”

Taylor reached across the table and grabbed Lucy’s hand, pulling her to himself. She let out a cry that the Hollow swallowed full.

“I Woke that boy,” he said. “I Woke him up because that’s
where I was led. I done my part. Now if you’re the one who come outta this Holler, you tell me where She
is
.”

Lucy’s eyes widened, an accusing gawk if Taylor had ever seen one. He knew this lady bore no truth in her. And if that was so, then it had all been for naught. The trip to town had yielded nothing. He’d woken that boy

(But did you?
came a small, fractured voice.
Did you really, Taylor?)

but he’d lost Charlie. He hadn’t found who walked out of the Hollow, he’d found another comely girl. It shouldn’t be like this. Taylor Hathcock was a good man. A good man shouldn’t hurt this much. A good man shouldn’t have to do what needed to be done. And yet Taylor understood that good men were often called to do bad things in a hard world.

He rose and walked to the door. The shotgun rested barrel up by the stacked crates along the wall. Taylor hefted the gun and felt the same twinge of sadness that had engulfed him in the bathroom at the BP. He didn’t have a mind to see more blood that night. He’d seen too much already.

Lucy tottered in her chair. The caramel tan on her face and neck went white when Taylor racked the slide. He raised the barrel to her chest—

“I want to be awake.”

—and held it there.

“What were those words?” he asked.

“I want to be awake,” Lucy said again. “I want to be like you.”

Taylor pointed the barrel to Lucy’s face, searching her eyes for treachery, convinced plenty would be found if he looked long enough. But he felt as though a wet blanket had fallen over his shoulders and head, suffocating him. White and blue sparkles dotted his eyes and burst like tiny suns. Lucy’s sobs—long wails that swept over him and through the open door—filled
the cabin. It was a cry that brimmed with more than fear and poured forth with more than despair. It was a mourning not for what she was about to lose but for what she would never gain. That Taylor Hathcock knew this was not proof of his divinity, though he considered himself nearly as such. It was merely a lament he knew well, sung in the common language of hurt. He lowered the gun.

“I don’t know if your heart is true, Lucy Lucy, but I know I can’t set you a-loose,” he said. “You cannot leave my Holler. You’ve born witness to too much.”

He sat the shotgun back in its place and rummaged through the crates for a length of rope. Lucy did not protest as Taylor ran the line around her shoulders to her waist and legs. He secured her to the bottom of the chair, making the knots as taut as his shaky hands would allow. When he was satisfied, Taylor staggered to the cot on the other side of the room.

“You run, I’ll know it,” he said. “Nothing’s hidden from me. I’m a king. You hear me, lady?”

The world fell away before Taylor heard her answer.

9

Kate thought it could have been worse; she could have been talking to Justus again. Instead she was on the phone with Mayor Wallis, whose peaceful slumber had been interrupted by a slew of worried townspeople, and who was now worried himself because he’d reached Kate at the office instead of the Barnett house. Kate had never been a fan of Jim Wallis. The reasons were many, but what she settled on at the moment was how he’d done everything in his power to keep Jake from
being elected sheriff. Kate managed to keep her voice calm and polite, promising the mayor things were being handled and that Jake would call as he was able.

She hung up just as Charlie yelled—a high, piercing scream that echoed down the hallway. Kate reached for the shotgun propped against her desk. Charlie yelled again. She drew the weapon up and pointed the barrel ahead, stepping soft and quick across the foyer.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

Charlie didn’t answer. Kate’s legs grew heavy as she reached the hall. The shotgun twitched in her hands. She hugged the wall beyond Jake’s office and inched closer, peering inside the cell.

Charlie sat hunched in the far corner. His eyes were pale moons and his lips, once thick and almost slippery, had shrunk into two thin lines. Sweat gathered at the tips of his black mop of hair.

“What’s wrong with you?” Kate asked again. She eased her hand farther up the gun’s forend, steadying the muzzle.

“I heard somethin’,” Charlie said. “He’s a-
comin
’. I know it.”

“Who?”

Charlie spoke the name the way Kate once whispered
Bloody Mary
into the bathroom mirror as a child—soft and shaky, wanting to think it would take more than a mention to summon him forth but not really believing it: “
Taylor
.”

“Jake says he’s gone.”

“He ain’t
gone
, woman. Don’t you see? He won’t leave ’til he finds Her.”

“Who?”

His eyes were wide, searching. Then, almost as if he would rather not shoulder the burden of fear alone, Charlie added, “He never tole me. Maybe it’s you.”

Kate said, “Let him come.” The shotgun’s barrel drooped. She brought it back up to Charlie’s chest. Her muscles clenched under the weight, creating a wave of dull heat across her back and shoulders. “Settle down, now. I got work.”

“Don’t you leave me,” Charlie said. His face bore the hopeless expression of the lonely and the damned. “Please just stay here. I won’t try nothin’. Swear on a Bible.”

“You ever seen a Bible, maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess,” Kate said. “I’d leave you here to rot, Charles Givens. That man you hurt at the Texaco was my brother.”

Tears sprouted from the dull whites of Charlie’s eyes. His chin quivered. “I dint know he’s your kin, ma’am. I . . . I’s tryin’ t’get his money’s all. I’m just a poor hurtin’ man. Please stay. I don’t feel so good. Your brother did most of the beatin’, if that settles you. Show me kindness.”

Kate winced. Of all the things Charlie could say, he’d chosen that. Kindness had been asked, and now she was bound to give it. But with that burden came a flicker of something else that chased thoughts of Eric and Andy and even her own brother away, and that was the open notebook on her desk. In that moment, Kate saw Charles Earl Givens as neither man nor monster, but as a name. One she could write just below Lucy Seekins’s and take her to page 212. One more step along the road.

“Sit in the rocker,” she said.

Charlie rose from the corner. He sat rubbing his left arm.

Kate kept her back to the wall. “What brought you here, Charlie Givens? How’d you grow up to get inside that cell?”

Charlie shook his head, freeing a tear. It struck the floor in front of him. When he spoke, Kate thought he’d used what time he’d spent not cowering in fear inside the softball equipment locker to ponder that very question.

“I dunno, ma’am. I reckon we all set upon a trail. Sometimes there’s paths that’re good or bad shootin’ off it, an’ you either take ’em or you go on your way. But there ain’t no more paths after awhile, an’ that trail narrows. The trail’s all you got then, an’ it’s just a straight line to heaven or hell.”