He was face down, in the creek. And, unlike your typical Law & Order extra who comes upon a stranger who’s had a date with destiny, I actually knew who this man was, and who might actually want him dead.
A couple of things. Despite how I envied Jeff as a kid, I’d have been happy to go through life without ever finding a dead guy. Because this discovery didn’t come with the kind of notoriety Jeff received, but did carry with it the burden of adult responsibility.
And here’s the other thing. If this body had been the first and last I’d ever come upon, well, this story would be much shorter. There wouldn’t be all that much to tell.
But that’s not the way it turned out.
2
YOU WON’T GET VERY FAR INTO this before you start thinking that I am, not to put too fine a point on it, an asshole. At the very least, a jerk. I don’t happen to think I’m an asshole, but I’m also willing to acknowledge your typical asshole’s not blessed in the self-awareness department. How many assholes know they’re assholes? So I guess what I’m saying is that if I know I’ve behaved like an asshole on certain occasions, then there’s no way I could actually be one. But I’d understand if you remain unconvinced. By the time you’ve heard this story, you might say, “Man, that Zack Walker, he’s a major one.”
Let’s say my motivations haven’t always been fully understood or appreciated, although that sounds a bit like boneheaded politicians who lose because they fail to “communicate their message.” It’s fair to say my methods of instruction, of trying to teach my loved ones how to conduct themselves more responsibly, could have been better thought out. But overall, I’m not a bad guy. I’ve always loved my family, and all I’ve ever wanted was the best for them. A good life, happiness, and, above all, security. It’s just that my efforts to make sure they live their lives mindful of the risks that exist out there may have occasionally overstepped the bounds, or even backfired. So I won’t blame you for coming away with the impression that I’ve behaved as a know-it-all, a dickhead-an asshole, if you will-who, rather than going around trying to tell everyone else how to run their lives, could have benefitted from minding his own business.
My married history is littered with examples of what an enlightened asshole I am, but the pertinent examples really begin with the day I was walking back to our new home from the corner of Chancery Park and Lilac Lane, where I’d just dropped a check for our latest property tax installment into the mailbox.
The housecoat lady was watering her driveway. She did this almost daily, sometimes more than once in a given twenty-four-hour period, usually decked out in a flowered housecoat. She’d unreel the hose from its wheel beside the garage, grip the nozzle, and squeeze, forcing lawn clippings and other microscopic bits of debris down the asphalt slope toward the street. She and her husband fussed a lot with their yard, weeding, tidying up the line where lawn meets sidewalk. “Thou shalt edge” was one of their commandments, but having a perfectly clean driveway was the ultimate virtue. Free of oil stains, and, usually, of cars, it would have been an excellent place to perform surgery on a sunny day. I waved to her as I walked past and shouted “Looking good!” over the sound of the spray.
Our house is at the corner of Chancery and Greenway Lane, fronting on Greenway, and approaching our driveway I could see something shiny at the front door. Looking more closely, I could see a set of keys hanging there.
My wife Sarah’s Toyota Camry had been parked beside my aging Civic while I was gone. She’d evidently gotten home from work, and must have had her hands full with her briefcase or groceries, because her keys were still hanging from the front lock. The house key was fully inserted, and dangling from the ring were the keys to her car (an actual key plus a big plastic remote thingie with buttons for doors and trunk and a red strip that would set off the alarm if you pressed it hard enough), my Civic key, and one that opened her locker at the newspaper’s workout room.
This wasn’t the first time she’d left the keys in the door. One morning about six weeks ago, when I went down to get the paper that not only provides us with the news, but also pays Sarah’s salary, I’d found her keys hanging from the lock. She’d gotten home from work about eight the night before, which meant the keys had been dangling there more than ten hours. Not only could someone have had access to the house, but they could have stolen both cars from the driveway. I’d strolled into the kitchen with The Metropolitan and tossed it, along with the keys, onto the table in front of Sarah. She recognized the error of her ways and I got a reluctant confession out of her.
The trouble was, even this wasn’t the first time. A couple of months before that, our son Paul, who’s fifteen, had found her keys in the door, about five minutes after she’d come home. But that time she claimed she knew, and that she’d come through the door carrying the dry cleaning and was headed back to get them when Paul came in. Nobody bought it, but there remained an element of reasonable doubt. We weren’t going to get a conviction.
Maybe that was what had happened this time. It was still possible that at any moment she’d reappear to retrieve her keys, so I decided to give her a chance. I leaned up against the rear fender of her Camry, waiting, and gazed up and down our street.
There’s not much to obstruct your view. The town of Oakwood planted maples on the boulevards, between the sidewalk and the curb, to give every homeowner a tree-two, if you had a corner lot as we did-but they’d only put them in a year ago. You could wrap your hand around the trunk, thumb and index finger touching. Someday, long after Sarah and I-and probably our kids, too-are gone from the planet, they may throw a lot of shade, but for now, they’re the kind of trees that create little work for neighborhood youngsters looking for raking money. And there are few cars parked on the street, except for the ones in front of Trixie’s place, two doors down. She runs an accounting business from home and has clients dropping in. Many of the houses come with double, or even triple, garages, and no one’s renting out their basement.
While I waited to see whether Sarah would remember to retrieve her keys, Earl, the guy who lives across from Trixie’s, came around the corner in his pickup. He backed into his driveway, got out, opened the garage, and started unloading bags of potting soil from the back of the pickup. When he spotted me leaning against the Camry, I waved, and he nodded back, but not all that invitingly. It had been my intention to stroll over and shoot the breeze, but now I held back. Then Earl looked over his shoulder, I guess to see whether I was still watching him. When he saw that I was, I suddenly felt awkward. So I said, “Hey.”
He nodded again, kind of shrugged, and when he didn’t turn away, I crossed the street.
“Hey, Zack,” he said. Earl wasn’t big on conversation. You had to drag it out of him. His head, which he shaved, gleamed with sweat, and his T-shirt was damp. The end of a cigarette was stuck between his lips. Earl was never without a smoke.
I shrugged. “Hey. How’s things?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Keeping busy.”
We were both quiet for a moment. I broke the silence with a question of startling brilliance.
“Back from the garden center again?”
Earl smiled. “Oh yeah. Never a day I’m not down there.” He paused. “So how goes the writing?”
“Not a bad day.” I think Earl had a hard time understanding how I can make a living sitting inside the house all day, not getting my hands dirty. I said, “Walked down to the corner, sent off my property taxes.”
Earl looked off in the direction of the mailbox. “How’s the house?”