Marty stared at Jack’s white legs sticking out of his shorts, the little potbelly, the sunburned arches on his forehead where hair had once been. While the idea of Jack as a good shot scared the hell out of him, the image of a gun in the good and gentle hand of his father-in-law was absolutely unbelievable. ‘Is this going somewhere, Jack?’
‘Sure it is.’ Jack’s head wobbled a bit as he tried to bring him into focus. ‘You want to know who would want to kill Pop, right? ’Cause he’s this great guy, loved everybody, everybody loved him… Shit, Marty. I spent the last couple years ruining my life so I wouldn’t have to tell anybody, and now you just want me to spit it out.’
Marty heard the rumble of distant thunder. ‘Whatever it was, the cops will put it together eventually.’
Jack giggled. ‘Those bozos aren’t ever gonna figure it out, and if they did, they wouldn’t believe it anyway.’
‘Figure out what?’
Jack tried to think and keep Marty in his line of sight all at the same time. It was almost too much for him. ‘That somebody finally caught up with them, that’s what. Only it wasn’t the cops, ’cause we’d all be on Jerry Springer right now. But you can’t get away with that kind of thing forever without pissing somebody off, right?’
‘What kind of thing?’
‘Christ, Marty, pay attention, would you? Killing people, of course. Near as I can figure, a couple a year for a long time.’
Marty didn’t bat an eye. ‘You are so full of shit, Jack.’
Jack nodded, a dangerous move in his condition. ‘Yep. I am that. But not about this. This, I know for a fact.’ He leaned forward to grab the bottle of Balvenie off the floor and filled his glass right to the top, spilled some when the thunder clapped a little closer. ‘ ’Bout six months before Hannah died Pop took me up to Brainerd one weekend – said he was going to take me fishing, get me away from the office for a while. When we got to this big old lodge a couple other cars pull up, and there’s Ben Schuler getting out of one, and Rose Kleber out of the other.’
Marty’s eyebrows arched. ‘So you did know her.’
‘First time I saw her, last time I saw her. Sweet little old white-haired lady in this dress with purple flowers on it and these big clunky shoes, and I wondered what the hell she was doing there, fishing with a couple of old guys like Pop and Ben. Never knew her name. Pop just called her a friend. So we go into this lodge, I’m guessing to check in or something, and there’s nobody in the place because there’s some kind of contest going on at the lake, except this old geezer at the registration desk, and what happens then is that Pop pulls a gun out of his jacket pocket and reaches across the desk and shoots the guy in the head.’ He closed his eyes and just breathed for moment while Marty’s mouth sagged open and his heart started hammering at his chest, as if it were trying to get out. ‘I think I might have screamed then, but I can’t really remember. Next thing I know, Pop hands the gun to Ben, and that old bastard walks around the desk and shoots the guy on the floor, and then he hands the gun to sweet little grandma, and she plugs him a few more times, cool as a cucumber. She got blood and some other stuff all over her dress and those black shoes. Funny, what you remember, isn’t it?’ He gave Marty a lopsided, sad little smile.
Suddenly Marty’s throat was bone-dry, and for a second he marveled at that, and then at the way his voice cracked when he finally spoke. ‘Who was he? Who was the man they killed?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Just another Nazi, like all the others. And you know what happened next?’
Marty stared at him, shook his head mindlessly.
‘Well then, Marty, my man, after Rose was finished, she handed the gun to me.’
38
Jeff Montgomery was sweating beneath the black rain slicker he wore over dark jeans. It was uncomfortable, but necessary. Before the night was over the cold front would push hard against this monstrous heat layer, the winds would howl, the temperature would drop twenty degrees, and the rain would pour down. Every good Minnesota boy knew when to wear a slicker.
Personally, he was wishing the cold front would get a move on. Hottest April on record, they kept saying, and although he didn’t mind the heat himself, the cool-weather plants were suffering. The other problem was that this kind of heat often broke with a hailstorm, and he didn’t even want to think about that. It was going to be bad enough coming to work tomorrow and dealing with the mud; the thought of hail damage to the tender young plants almost made him sick to his stomach.
And that was funny, he thought – him worrying about plants, when just a few months ago, he wouldn’t have known chickweed from a hydrangea. Engineering was the ticket. His father had been pushing that on him his whole life. But then his folks had died, the dream of college in the East dying with them, and he ended up taking a few classes at the U of M and working for Morey and Lily Gilbert.
He’d learned more about plants from Mrs Gilbert than anything he picked up in classes so far, found he had a knack for it, and before he knew what was happening, he was hooked.
He loved working the soil, testing it in the little tubes for nutrient content, deciding which additives and how much of each were necessary for whatever seedlings he was trying to germinate. That was the engineering part of his brain kicking in, he supposed. But he also loved feeling the soil in his hands and under his nails, seeing the morning dew in a tulip cup, and watching new growth sprout from the sharp, clean cuts of his knife on the candles of a Black Mountain spruce. If he were granted one wish when his work was done, it was to work in this nursery forever, learn from Mrs Gilbert, maybe buy into it when he could put some money together.
Funny, the ways things happened; the way the horror and shock of his parents’ deaths had led him, unwittingly, to the place and the life he was meant for.
The streets around the nursery were completely empty now – everyone in the neighborhood was probably glued to their TVs, waiting for tornadoes and the excited weather-men to tell them when to take cover. Everyone but him, of course. He couldn’t afford to let a little weather scare him off, because he was on a mission, and sometimes missions were very dangerous.
He’d already circled the block around the nursery three times, and found everything as it should be. No armed figures crouching in the bushes, the single squad car that arrived this afternoon still in its original place in the parking lot, and most important, Mrs Gilbert still safe in the house.
A rumble of distant thunder made him jump a little, and he covered a nervous giggle with his hand. The sky was getting blacker by the minute, and off to the west, webs of cloud-to-cloud lightning flashed, followed by more ominous thunder, charging the air with excitement. God, this was fun. Meek, quiet Jeff Montgomery slinking around in the near-darkness, eyes sharp and busy checking all the shadows, strangely titillated by the possibility of danger.
When he reached the nursery’s hedgerow, he pressed himself into the greenery and moved slowly and stealthily, inch by inch, along the screen. He rotated his head, covering all directions, keeping a sharp eye out for anything suspicious, maintaining his cover. He couldn’t afford to be seen – if Mr Pullman or the officer spotted him, it’d be all over and they’d send him packing, or even worse, they might shoot him by accident. He had to be very, very careful.