The house was rustic and quaint, about what you'd expect to find nestled away in the Poconos. Gravel driveway. Dozens of small wooden animals guarded a front porch. The air was heavy and still. Everything – the weather vane, the American flag, the rocking chair, all the leaves and blades of grass – stood frighteningly motionless, as if inanimate objects had the ability to hold their breaths. As Myron climbed up the porch stairs, he noticed a modern-looking wheelchair ramp that also led to the front door. The ramp looked out of place here, like a doughnut in a health food store. There was no doorbell, so he knocked.
No one answered. Curious. Myron had called ten minutes ago, had heard a man answer, and hung up. Could be out back. Myron circled around the house. As he hit the backyard, the lake stared him in the face. It was a spectacular picture. The sun shone off the still – again, frighteningly motionless – water and made Myron squint. Placid. Tranquil. Myron felt the muscles in his shoulders start to unbunch.
Sitting in a wheelchair facing the lake was a man. A Saint Bernard lay by his feet. The dog too was frighteningly motionless. As Myron approached he saw that the man was whittling wood.
"Hi," Myron called out.
The man barely raised his eyes. He wore a red T-shirt and a John Deere cap pulled down over a weathered face. His legs were covered with a blanket, even in this heat. There was a portable phone within reach. "Hi." He went back to whittling. If he was surprised or upset to have company he was certainly taking it all in stride.
"Beautiful day," Myron said. Mr. Engaging Neighbor.
"Yep."
"Are you Jimmy Blaine?"
"Yep."
Even without the wheelchair it was hard to picture this guy working the city bowels of Philadelphia for eighteen years. Then again, it was hard to picture the bowels of Philadelphia, period, when you were out here.
Silence. No birds or crickets or anything but the whittling.
After some time had passed, Myron asked, "Had much rain this year?" Myron Bolitar, Salt of the Earth. Mr. Farmer's Almanac.
"Some."
"This your dog?"
"Yep. Name is Fred."
"Hi, Fred." Myron scratched the dog behind the ears. The dog wagged its tail without moving any other part of its body. Then it farted loudly.
"Great place you have here," Myron tried. Yep, just two good ol' boys shooting the breeze. Eb and Mr. Haney on Green Acres. Myron half expected denim overalls to materialize on his body.
"Uh-huh." Whittle, whittle.
"Listen, Mr. Blaine, my name is-"
"Myron Bolitar," Blaine finished for him. "I know who you are. Been expecting you."
He shouldn't have been surprised. "Jake called you?"
Blaine nodded without looking up from his whittling. "He said you were stubborn. Said you wouldn't listen to him."
"I just want to ask you a few questions."
"Nothing I care to say to you though."
"I'm not here to hound you, Mr. Blaine."
He nodded again. "Jake told me that too. Said you were okay. Said you liked to right wrongs, is all."
"What else did he say?"
"That you don't know how to mind your own business. That you're a wiseass. And that you're a major pain in the butt."
"He left out snazzy dancer," Myron said.
For the first time since he arrived Jimmy Blaine stopped whittling. "You trying to right the wrong done to Curtis Yeller?"
"I'm trying to find out who killed him."
"Simple," Blaine said. "Me."
"No, I don't think so."
That stopped him for a brief moment. He gave Myron the once-over and then began whittling again.
"Could you tell me what happened that night?" Myron asked.
"The boy pulled a gun. I shot him. That's it."
"How far away were you when you shot him?"
He shrugged, whittled. "Thirty feet Maybe forty."
"How many shots did you fire?"
"Two."
"And he just dropped?"
"Nope. He swung around the corner with the other one – that Swade kid, I guess. They disappeared."
"You shot a man in the face and ribs and he kept running?"
"I didn't say they kept running. The two of them were by a corner. They disappeared around it. Didn't know it at the time, but the Yellers lived right there. They must have climbed in a window."
"With a bullet in his skull?"
Jimmy Blaine shrugged again. "The Swade kid probably helped him," he said.
"That's not how it happened," Myron said. "You didn't kill him."
Blaine eyed him and then went back to his whittling. "Second time you've said that," he noted. "You want to explain what you mean?"
"Two bullets hit Yeller."
"I just told you I shot twice."
"But two different caliber slugs were pulled out of him. One of the shots – the one in the head – was from close range. Less than a foot away."
Jimmy Blaine said nothing. He concentrated hard on his whittling. It looked like he was sculpting an animal of some sort, like the ones on the front porch. "Two different calibers, you say?" He aimed for nonchalance, but he wasn't making it.
"Yes."
"That kid I shot didn't have a record," Blaine continued. "You know what the odds are of that? In that part of the city?"
Myron nodded.
"I checked up on him," Blaine continued. "On my own. His name was Curtis Yeller. He was sixteen years old. He did well in school. He was a good kid. He had a chance at a good life until that night."
"You didn't kill him," Myron said.
Blaine whittled with a bit more intensity now. He blinked a lot. "How did you find out about those slugs?"
"The assistant M.E. told me," Myron said. "You never knew?"
He shook his head. "I guess it makes sense though," he said. "Blame me for it. Why not? It's easier. It's a legit shooting. No one questioned it. IAD barely broke a sweat. It didn't hurt my record. Didn't hurt anyone. No harm done, they figured."
Myron waited for him to say more, but he just kept whittling. Two long ears were now evident in the wood. Maybe he was making a rabbit. "Do you know who really killed Curtis Yeller?" Myron asked.
There was a long moment of the same whittle-filled silence. Fred farted again and wagged his tail. Myron's eyes kept going back to the lake. He stared out at the silver water. The effect was hypnotizing.
"No harm done," Jimmy Blaine said again. "That's what they all probably thought. Good ol' Jimmy. We won't let him take the rap. It'll be washed clean from his record. No one will know. Hell, some of the guys will even treat him special – making a shooting like that. They'll say he saved his partner's life. Good ol' Jimmy will come out of this looking like a hero. Except for one thing."
Myron was tempted to ask what, but he sensed the answer was coming.
"I saw that boy dead," Blaine continued. "I saw Curtis Yeller lying in his own blood. I saw his mother hold him in her arms and cry. Sixteen years old. If he was a street punk or a drug addict or…" He stopped. "But he wasn't any of those things. Not this kid. He was one of the good ones. I found out later he never even touched the senator's kid. The other one – the Swade punk – he did the stabbing."
Two ducks splashed madly for a second, then stopped. Blaine put down the whittling, then thinking better of it, picked it back up again. "I replayed that night a lot of times in my head. It was dark, you know. There was barely any light. Maybe the Yeller kid wasn't going to fire the gun. Maybe what I saw wasn't even a gun. Or maybe none of that mattered. Maybe it was a legit shooting, but the pieces still never quite added up. I kept hearing the mother's screams. I kept seeing her press her dead boy's bloody face into her bosom. And I think about it, you know, and thinking ain't always a good thing for a cop to do. And four years later, the next time a kid is pointing a gun at me, I think about seeing another crying mother. I think long and hard. Too long."