“So you really are back,” Crawford said, “I didn’t think you’d ever get out.”
Red flashes of anger threatened to take control of Paul but he held back. “Fine thanks, how are you Officer Crawford? I’ve been expecting you.”
Blood began to rise in Crawford’s face. “It’s Chief Crawford now.”
“Congratulations. The news hadn’t reached me,” he lied.
The Chief leaned back on the front fender of the cruiser and pulled a cigar from his pocket. He placed it between his yellow teeth and scratched a match against his belt to light it. His movements were slow and deliberate. He was obviously trying to work on Paul’s nerves. Finally he took a big puff on the cigar. “A little warm for a sweatshirt, isn’t it Greymore? But I bet you’ve been in hotter places over the years, eh?”
Paul’s agitation was growing but he refused to fall into the man’s game. He inadvertently reached to his pockets for cigarettes that weren’t there. When he did, Crawford jumped up, his hand moving to his holster. The car bounced on its shocks from the sudden release of weight. Paul put his hand back down to his side. Sensing control of the situation, he said, “You look a little nervous Crawford, something bothering you?”
Crawford whipped off his sunglasses and pulled the cigar from his mouth. Getting right in Paul’s face he yelled, “Damn straight something’s bothering me, you freak. The shit I thought I cleaned from this town came oozing back, and I don’t intend on waitin’ for more kids to get killed before I clean it up again! I don’t want you in my town and neither does anybody else, except that bleedin’ heart preacher friend of yours!” Crawford’s breath stank of cigar smoke and stale whiskey and his face was a deep scarlet, veins pulsing in his forehead.
Freak. That was the word that fueled Paul’s anger. He leaned closer to Crawford, locking his eyes. “I didn’t kill those kids. You knew that seventeen years ago but you pinned it on me anyway. Maybe over the years you even talked yourself into believing it, but I didn’t kill them.” Freak. The word echoed in his head. He stepped back and pulled off his sweatshirt. The thick cords of muscles in his arms and chest rippled under his sweat-soaked skin. The skin itself was a hideous roadmap of scars, mirroring the ones on his face. “This is all I have to hide, Crawford. See this one,” he pointed to a long scar running across his left shoulder, “that’s for not giving my last cigarette to one of the yard bosses. And that one across my stomach is for not giving a blow job to one of the queers. And this beauty on my chest is from one of the guards because I didn’t call him sir! But my arms, Crawford, they’re my scarlet letter. Look at them, you bastard!”
The scars on Paul’s arms were not the random doing of a carelessly slashed knife, they were carvings. On the worst night of Paul’s life, a night that had driven him to consider if his life was even worth living, the other prisoners had marked him. Etched sloppily down one arm was the word “pervert.” The ugly scars on his other arm formed the word “freak.”
“I spent seventeen years in Hell, all thanks to you. These are my secrets, my past. What about you, Crawford? What scars do you hide behind your badge and gun? What do you relive on the dark nights when sleep won’t come and save you from your thoughts? Do you think about taking away my life?” Paul pulled the sweatshirt back on. “I endured things in there that I will never forget, no matter how hard I try. But now I’m home. Don’t you dare call this your town Crawford, it brings Haven down.”
Crawford swallowed hard and took a puff on his cigar. Unable to meet Paul’s stare, he folded up his sunglasses and hung them on his front pocket. “My son told me what…”
“Your son’s a shit, Crawford, just like you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the knife that the younger Crawford had wielded. “I told you I’ve been expecting you.”
Crawford again went for his holster and this time he drew the weapon. He held the gun aimed at Paul’s chest. “Are you threatening me, Greymore? We can end this here and now.”
Paul smiled coldly, “You’d love that wouldn’t you Crawford? You could say I pulled a knife on you and you shot me in self-defense. What’s another lie considering what you’ve already learned to live with?” For a few seconds, Paul thought the man was actually going to shoot him. Crawford held the gun on him for another long moment and finally slid it back into his holster. Then he grabbed the knife and slid it into his pocket.
“When you give that back to your kid, you can pass along a message to him. If he ever puts that thing near my face again, I’ll feed it to him.”
Crawford squinted and his face turned a shade redder. He put his sunglasses back on and perched the cigar between his teeth. “I’ll be watching you Greymore.”
“You can watch all you want, Crawford, but not from my property. Now get the fuck off my land, and don’t come back without a warrant.”
Crawford stared at him for a moment from behind his sunglasses, and then he spit on the ground and turned toward his car.
Paul watched him back out and drive away. He walked slowly toward his backyard and out to the lake. He always came out here to think when he was growing up. He sat down on a rock near the water’s edge and looked out over the lake. Out on the water, a couple of kids were fishing from an old rowboat. The sound of their laughter carried across the water, surprising Paul with a memory of him and his only real friend fishing on the lake a million years ago. Or so it seemed. Everything that had happened in the past and since his return to Haven was spinning in his head. So much had been taken away and now Crawford wanted to keep taking. Greymore would not let it happen. He wanted his life back. He decided he would pay a visit to Joe Cummings.
(12)
The canoe drifted lazily around the middle of the lake while Tony DeMarcy drifted in and out of sleep. The lake itself was motionless, as still as the humid air above it. A day too nice to waste sitting in class, especially on a Friday, Tony had decided earlier. Above him the sky was a hazy whitish-blue, the sun a shimmering fireball behind the haze. Tony pulled his Red Sox cap down over his eyes and started to doze again.
Tony’s family had moved from Haven to the more desirable town of Bristol last year. Tony had fought the move with everything he had: how he would miss his friends, how damaging it might be to change schools, not that his grades could get much worse, but still he had tried, and lost. So when he woke up this spring morning he decided he would cut school and go look up some of his friends in Haven, God knows they won’t be in class today. It took longer than he expected to hitch a ride, and he arrived in Haven after the last school bell rang. He looked for Dale Crawford and the rest of the guys at Teddy’s Spa, but they were gone. Tony figured those guys had already burned through all of their allowed absences and couldn’t miss another day of school or they’d be stuck going to Summer School. Tony had one more day to kill and that was today. No great loss, he thought, the two joints in his cigarette pack wouldn’t have to be shared. That’s how Tony ended up spending his final day on Earth floating around on the lake with two stogies worth of pot working their magic. The thought that he might just stay here on this canoe forever was beginning to seem very reasonable.
The last time Tony could remember being on the lake was a few summers ago. He and his dad had been fishing from their old rowboat. He smiled as the memory tuned in, becoming clearer in his mind. He and his dad used to do things together all the time, before Tony had started hanging around with the “wrong crowd.” Tony had started reeling in, when his line went tight. At first he figured he was stuck on an old tree branch, but when he pulled his line up he discovered he had hooked a rusty old side-view mirror. “How could this get out in the middle of the lake, Dad?” he had asked with all the innocence and curiosity reserved for nine-year-old boys.