Beau rose. “No wonder half my brothers are on crack. Bet it makes it easier to listen to crazy white guys.”
There was silence then, but for the late night sound of slow traffic sizzling through the wet streets, water running down a drain, distant laughter as revelers headed home, the far-off drone of a plane delivering bodies eager for a night of sleep without turbulence. Beau stood there staring at the mouth of the alley, as if trying to decide whether or not it was time to leave. Instead, he turned, looked at Finch, and folded his arms.
“How are you goin’ to do it?”
“We need guns,” Finch said flatly.
“Covered. My uncle Leroy has a gun shop over in Powell. He’ll give us whatever we need, as long as we don’t tell him we’re goin’ on a huntin’ trip and then ask for a bazooka, and as long as we got the money. He ain’t big on family discounts.”
“Katy Kaplan’s father is going to cover the expenses.”
“Nice, how d’you swing that?”
“He offered. I’m guessing he’s the kind of guy who approves of my idea but prefers to stay well clear of the war zone.”
“So he’s a politician?”
Finch smiled. “We’re gonna need maps. And we’re going to need to know everything that happened from the moment the kids stepped foot in Elkwood until the time Claire was found. We need to talk to the Sheriff down there.”
“The Sheriff? Why? You think he’s goin’ to help?”
“We’re not going to give him a choice. Someone down there did a good job covering things up so the trail would lead away from the killers and right to Wellman’s door. Tell me how a Sheriff can live a few miles from a bunch of murdering lunatics for years and not know anything about it.”
Beau thought about this. “Maybe they threatened him.”
“Yeah, probably. But if you’re living in fear for your life in a town with a bunch of maniacs, you don’t stick around. You move, and then you tell people all you know.”
“So you think this guy’s a rotten apple.”
“That, or a coward. But we need him. And Claire. I want to know all she knows. The more information we have about who, or what we’re going up against, the better prepared we can be.”
“What makes you think she’ll tell you anythin’? You know what it’s like to walk through Hell. It isn’t somethin’ you enjoy talkin’ about, right?”
“Like I said, when someone you love has been killed, there’s a whole lot of rage. And she loved Danny. She’ll want justice as much as I do.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Worst case scenario, we work with what the Sheriff gives us.”
“Assuming he’ll talk.”
Finch gave him a dark look. “Beau, you’re not hearing me. I said we’re not going to give him a choice.”
Beau began to pace. “So when we leavin’?”
“Friday night.”
Beau stopped. “This Friday?”
“Yeah. We got two days to get our shit together.”
“Why so soon?”
Finch looked annoyed. “It isn’t soon, man. It’s been eleven goddamn weeks. As it stands it’ll be a miracle if that family hasn’t already pulled up stakes and moved on. If they have, our job is going to be a whole lot harder. We need to do this now before they vanish off the face of the earth forever.”
-24-
“I once beat a man until he cried like a baby just for looking at my sister the wrong way,” Jeremiah Krall said. “What makes you think I won’t chop your goddamn head off for deliverin’ her to me dead?”
Papa shook his head. “Because it ain’t my doin’, that’s why. I can understand what you must be feelin’ right now: hurt, anger, sadness, but you’re quarrel ain’t with me. Outsiders done this, and if what Momma said before she died has any truth to it, then it won’t be long before they send folks to try to get us. I figure you might appreciate bein’ here to see their murderin’ faces when they do.”
They were standing at the back of the battered truck they had bought from Lawrence Hall, the old mechanic back in Elkwood. Stricken by fear at the sight of Papa-In-Gray limping into his garage, he’d sold the vehicle for a song and eschewed the paperwork in an effort to be clear of him quicker. But from the start, the truck hadn’t run right. It didn’t much favor steep inclines and spluttered a lot, but it was better than nothing, and they’d only needed it to get them as far as Radner County, and Krall’s place. Once they got settled, assuming Krall allowed them to stay, they could seek out a replacement and dispose of Hall’s junker.
In the bed of the truck was an enormous dirty white tarp they had once used to drag bodies from one shed to another and to cover logs in winter. It was raised up enough to obscure the small window at the back of the truck’s cab, but Papa sensed the three boys watching.
“What happened to her?” Krall asked. There had been no discernible change in his tone since he’d first stepped foot into the cabin. Even the news of his sister’s death hadn’t appeared to rattle him, but Papa guessed he should be glad of that. Another man might have used his grief as an excuse to kill the messenger.
“Heart, I reckon. She’s had problems for a while.”
“You reckon?”
“We didn’t have no time to get her seen to, and there weren’t much sense in it. She was gone, and we needed to be quick about leavin’.”
The tarp moved. Papa saw it and was not surprised, but he saw Krall frown and look around, as if expecting to find the wind had risen suddenly. It hadn’t, and he drew his gaze back to the truck.
The tarp moved again, rising in the middle as if the body underneath was struggling to get up.
“Now what the hell is this?” Krall said, and despite his apparent fearlessness, moved back a step. “You sure she’s dead?”
Papa nodded a single time. “I’m sure.”
This time something seemed to punch at the tarp from underneath. Rainwater that had puddled in the folds ran down the material.
“If’n you let varmints get at her, ’ol man, you ain’t drawin’ another breath,” Krall told Papa. Now that the initial surprise had abated, the man’s gruff tone had returned, though it was laced with a note of confusion.
Without a word, but not without effort, Papa grabbed the edge of the truck bed and hauled himself up. Krall watched impassively as the old man began to untie the cords that were restraining the now pulsating corpse. Rain made the sound of fingernails drumming against the material as Papa hunkered down with a wince—his leg had been bothering him since the night Luke had clipped him with the fender of the truck, and it was not showing any signs of getting better—and grabbed the upper hem of the tarp. He paused, both for effect, and to look up at the boys. Aaron, Isaac and Joshua had their faces pressed against the cab window, their features misted by their breath against the glass. He offered them a faint smile. All the way here Aaron had chatted excitedly to his silent brothers about the unveiling Papa had promised them once they reached Krall’s cabin, and now Papa was keeping that promise.
The old man glanced over his shoulder at Krall, who stood in the rain looking as fierce as always, but now he looked curious too.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Papa told him. “And mine too. But it’s times like these we got to think about rebirth, about the good that can come from tragedy. Momma-In-Bed asked me to make her a promise and to let you know it was her wish.”
He began to unroll the tarp. Maggots spilled out onto the truck bed. Noxious fumes rose from the corpulent remains, but they did not bother Papa. To him it was a sweet perfume and one he would miss once they put his wife in the ground. He took a moment to whisper a short prayer over the body, then rose and tugged the covering away from her. Underneath, she was naked, the enormous mounds of skin a bluish gray.