‘This is the really lousy part of the story. The kind of story that makes you ashamed to be a man.’
Russell said nothing, but waited. Ben had decided to share with him a bitter pill he’d never, in all that time, managed to swallow alone.
‘One day we were called in to work on an extension to the house of the county judge. Herbert Lewis Swanson, God curse him wherever he is. That was when Matt met Karen, the judge’s daughter. I was there the first time they met. I knew right away that something had happened between them. And I also realized it’d lead to nothing but trouble.’
The old man smiled at the memory of that love.
‘They started seeing each other in secret. It may have been the only happy time in Matt’s life. Sometimes I like to kid myself that the time he spent with me was happy, too.’
‘I’m sure it was.’
The old man shrugged, as if to say: what’s the point in remembering the past? Look at me now.
‘Anyway, it was no use. Chillicothe’s a small town, and not an easy place to hide in. Sooner or later, everyone notices everything. The judge soon found out his only daughter was seeing a boy. Then he found out who the boy was. Karen’s life was all mapped out. She was beautiful, rich, intelligent. A guy like Matt wasn’t quite what her father had planned for her. And her father was a very, very powerful man at the time. He practically owned the town.’
Ben allowed himself a few more sips of his coffee. He seemed reluctant to turn that memory into words, as if doing so meant being hurt a second time.
‘Around about that time there was a double murder, down by the river. A couple of hippies camping out in the open were found dead. Both stabbed. They never found the killer, and they never found the murder weapon. The sheriff at the time was a man named Duane Westlake and he had a deputy named Will Farland. Both of them were tied hand and foot to Swanson, who’d bought them with privileges and money. A few nights after the bodies had been discovered, these two burst into Matt’s room with a search warrant signed by the judge himself. Among his things they found marijuana, and they also found a big hunting knife, which could have been the murder weapon. Matt told me later that he’d been forced to put his fingerprints on the handle of that knife.’
The old man’s voice was full of anger.
‘I’m sure Matt had never sold an ounce of that stuff to anyone. And he’d never owned a knife.’
Russell had no reason to do so, but he was inclined to believe him.
‘They dragged him to jail. And there they told him what could happen to him. A charge of using and dealing narcotics, and the much more serious charge of homicide. They were the ones who put the grass in Matt’s room. As for the knife, I can’t quite bring myself to believe the two of them killed the hippies on purpose. But the sheriff had been the first person at the scene of the crime, and getting rid of the weapon would have been child’s play for someone like him. In addition, seeing that Matt was living at my place, those two sons of bitches told him they could charge me with being an accessory. Then they offered him an alternative to being tried and sentenced. He could volunteer for Vietnam.’
Ben finished his coffee.
‘And he agreed. The rest you know.’
‘A story as old as the world.’
Ben Shepard looked at him with his blue eyes, in which the pain was now fully accepted. ‘The world’s still too young to make sure stories like that never happen again.’
‘What happened to Karen?’
‘She couldn’t believe it when he made that decision. She was incredulous at first, then desperate. But one of the conditions of the agreement he made with the sheriff was that he couldn’t tell anyone. Not her, not me.’
Without asking, his host poured some more coffee into Russell’s empty cup.
‘After a period of training at Fort Polk, in Louisiana, Matt was granted leave, like everyone before they left for Nam. He snuck back here, and spent a month practically shut up at my place. Karen would come and join him there. They spent all the time they could in that room and I hope every one of those minutes lasted years, although that’s not usually how it is. A month and a half after he left, Karen came to see me and told me she was pregnant. She also wrote him about it. We never got a reply, because soon after that we heard that he’d died.’
‘What became of her?’
‘Karen was a strong woman. When her father found out she was pregnant, he tried every way he could to persuade her to have an abortion. But she held out, threatened to tell everyone who the father of the child was and that the judge wanted her to have an abortion. That wouldn’t have looked good for his political career, so the bastard chose the lesser of two evils, the scandal of his daughter becoming an unmarried mother.’
‘But then Matt came back.’
‘Yes. In the state you know.’
There was a pause, during which Russell saw images of that encounter in Ben’s eyes.
‘When I saw him and recognized him, I felt a grief inside me that’s taken years to pass. That boy must have suffered tremendously. He must have gone through things it isn’t right for a human being to go through.’
Ben took a handkerchief from the pocket of his old cardigan and wiped the corners of his mouth with it. Without realizing it, he had used almost the same words he had spoken to Matt the night he had found him hiding out on his premises.
‘Because of what he’d become, he didn’t want Karen to know he was still alive. He made me swear I wouldn’t tell her.’
‘And then?’
‘He asked me if he could stay there for a few hours, because he had something to do. As soon as he’d finished, he’d come back to pick up the cat and leave. I saw him walking into town. That was the last I ever saw of him.’
Another pause. Russell knew Ben was about to tell him something important.
‘The next day, the bodies of Duane Westlake and Will Farland were taken from the burned-out remains of the sheriffs house. And I hope they’re still burning in hell.’
In Ben Shepard’s eyes there was an open challenge to anyone who might not care to agree with what he had just said. By this point, Russell had lost the ability to judge. He only wanted to know.
Ben sat back in his armchair. ‘About ten years later, Judge Swanson joined his cronies.’
‘What became of the child?’
‘While he was still small, Karen would bring him to see me from time to time. Then we kind of lost touch. I don’t know who was more to blame, her or me.’
Russell realized that, in his honesty, he was assuming a share of the responsibility, although he did not really think he had any.
‘And then what happened?’