“There weren’t no lights on,” Zack told him, “but I heard this little guy whimperin’ inside, and when I knocked I heard somebody stirrin’ in there. I figured it wasn’t Sully. He’d’ve come to the door. But this guy sounded hurt, so I went in.”
“The door was unlocked?”
The man chuckled. “Sully never locked a door in his life. Most of the time he wouldn’t even think to close ’em.”
“And you found him inside. Your son-in-law.”
He nodded. “I turned on a light, and there he was in the doorway, rubbing his eyes like he just woke up. He said, ‘This ain’t working out like I planned.’ I asked him what he’d planned and he said, ‘You’re supposed to be Sully.’ We just stood there lookin’ at each other for a minute. Then I said, ‘Aren’t you gonna ask how she is?’ And he said, ‘How who is?’ That was when I seen he was holdin’ that hammer.”
He showed Raymer his left elbow, which he must’ve used to block the blow, now ballooned up to the size of a knee.
“You don’t have to talk to me,” Raymer said. “In fact, you probably shouldn’t, not without a lawyer. You know your rights?”
He shrugged. “I watch TV.” He listened patiently while Raymer recited the Miranda, resuming his story only when that was over. “He got the one blow in, but that was it. Roy ain’t much of a fighter. He likes to punch women. Kick poor defenseless animals. But a big guy like me? I just picked him up and tossed him. The back of his head hit the edge of the counter and that was that. He just laid there, not movin’.”
“An accident, then.”
“I never meant to kill him, if that’s what you mean.”
He seemed to understand, though, that a jury might not want to play ball, given his strong motive for vengeance.
“I probably can’t really say that, though,” he admitted, scratching his belly again. “ ’Cause maybe I did. When I grabbed him, I was thinkin’ about what he just said—‘How who is?’—like he’d already forgot about what he done to Ruth. Plus all those times he hit our Janey. So maybe I tossed him harder than I had to. Before tonight, I never wanted to hurt nobody. I like to get along with people, mostly.”
“Why burn the trailer?”
Zack rested a hand on his cowlick, holding it down for a minute, though it popped right back up again when he dropped his hand. “He must’ve found Sully’s gas can out in the garage, since it was sittin’ right there on the kitchen table with a box of matches. I figure he must’ve planned to hit Sully with the hammer when he came in, then burn the place. Make it look like an accident.”
“So you thought you’d do the same thing?”
He appeared to consider the possibility, as if he no longer had access to his earlier intention and the best he could offer was an educated guess. “You ever kill anybody?” he said, pointing at Raymer’s gun, the butt of it peeking out from his jacket.
“No,” Raymer said. “Never.”
“You don’t think normal afterwards,” he said. “It’s all different. Most of the time I can figure out what to do. It might not be what you’d do, but I kind of know what’s right for me.”
Raymer nodded.
“Kill somebody and it’s like…you can’t figure out what comes next, ’cause you ain’t you anymore. You can’t really even remember who you were. All there is is what you just did. That’s the best I can explain it. I just did what he was plannin’ to do.”
“How’d you manage to burn yourself?”
“That was this guy’s fault,” he said, pointing at the dog, who’d tired of doing circles and figure eights and plopped down on his stomach midway between them, as if he couldn’t decide which one was more likely to issue a command. “Roy’d locked him in the bathroom, and I kind of forgot about him. I’d just struck the match when I heard him whine, and I must’ve just stood there with it lit, because when I looked down my sleeve was on fire. Must’ve spilled some gas on it. Anyway, I got the shirt off, but when I dropped it, the whole place went up.” He squatted in front of the dog, who rose and licked the man’s left hand. “I just grabbed you and got us out of there before we both burned up, didn’t I?”
Raymer couldn’t think of anything else to ask except the obvious. “You aren’t going to give any trouble, are you?”
“Me? No.”
This he believed. “Well, let’s stop at the hospital and get that arm looked at. But tomorrow you’ll have to come down to the station.”
Zack nodded. “You think they’ll believe me about what happened? That it was an accident?”
“Well, I do.”
“What’ll they do to me?”
“That I can’t tell you,” Raymer admitted. “You picked the right man to kill, though.”
“That’s what I got to get straight in my head,” he said. “From now on I’m gonna be somebody that killed somebody else.”
Raymer couldn’t help feeling sorry for the guy. He didn’t look like he’d be getting used to that idea anytime soon.
Cured
“UP,” said the older nurse, yanking back Sully’s bedclothes. He’d been warned this was coming, just a few minutes ago, he thought, but the clock said three-thirty, so they’d let him sleep for an hour. Mighty big of them.
“Have a heart, lady,” he told her. “Four hours ago I was dead.” Not exactly true, but close enough. “A life-threatening cardiac event” was how they were describing what happened in the driveway, one he wouldn’t have survived if Mrs. St. Peter, one of the elderly Upper Main Street widows that he’d ferried to doctor and hairdresser appointments, hadn’t called the police station to report a Peeping Tom, which she did at least once a week. An officer named Miller had been sent to her house, right across the street from Miss Beryl’s, and he’d seen Sully stagger up the driveway like a drunk and then collapse. The protocol would have been to call for an ambulance, but Miller apparently saw an opportunity for heroism and dragged him out to the street, stuffed him into the back of his cruiser and raced him to the hospital, siren blaring, quite possibly saving his life in the process.
“Okay,” the nurse said when he’d managed to swing his legs over the side of the bed. “So far, so good. Catch your breath a minute.”
His breathing, actually, was pretty good. The best it had been in months. They’d told him at the VA that if he didn’t die on the table he’d feel a lot better immediately, but he’d forgotten what a lot better felt like, when oxygen really penetrated his lungs. “Does my doctor know you’re treating me like this?”
“Any dizziness?”
“No.”
“Feel like you might faint?”
“No.”
“Okay, then, on your feet, mister.”
Up he went. Wobbly for a second, then steady. The older nurse at his left elbow, the younger at his right. “I feel this draft,” he told them.
“That’s because you’re bare-assed,” the boss lady told him.
“I thought that might be it,” he said.
When he went to touch his chest, she said, “Don’t,” and swatted his hand away.
“What’d they put in there, a hockey puck?”
“It feels bigger than it really is. You’ll forget it’s even there.”
“When?”
“Let’s walk.”
“Where?”
“Down the hall. Then back. You think you can make it?”
“I think we should go dancing, you and me.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you want. But first you have to give me back my pants.”
“How do you feel?”
Good. Good was how he felt. Which was strange in itself. “What ward are we on?”
“Intensive care. They’ll move you to a regular room tomorrow.”