Chapter 4

1

They were piled in grampa’s ‘84 Tercel. Never one to insist on the protectionist impulse of buying American, the man doled out for a Toyota because Consumer Reports specified the steady front wheel drive and the great gas mileage. It was a victory for capitalism over the sort of patriotic fervor of one who fought in southeast Asia. There was some rust on the wheel wells, but the powder blue paint had held just enough so that the boys wouldn’t make fun of the ride.

            “Japs make one hell of a vehicle and stereo. Put ‘em together and what have you got? Toyota. If this is payback for the bombs, we should have sent in more.”

            It was the kind of joke Adam’s dad hated. But for as much as Adam understood what it meant, he could chuckle, because he knew his grampa was of a generation not as used to the sort of culture soup that had become of America.

            Pug and Chels were in the back hatch where the smell of exhaust was the worst. The poor dog panted, but sat happily on the Mormon’s lap and watched the trees whizz by. The Jew and Croak sat in the backseat, and Adam in shotgun. Grampa had his window down and his arm on the door.

            “Old farts are supposed to like the tranquility of these towns. Peaceful. Nice for the last years. As if I required just a little quiet. If Truman’d said my efforts would result in these sort of twilight years, I would have been a little more brazen in Korea.”

            The Jew guffawed in the back. Adam didn’t quite know what he meant, but ol’ Lewis was not one to resist taking jabs at Reedy Creek. He didn’t blame him. He missed the weekend trips to Boston; he missed the real Fenway, and hated understanding that he would have to make the substitute in the field because the authentic park was in his rearview now. The Creek was a town expanded by industry, what the grown-ups called a responsible action for the long term. It was partly why his father left Massachusetts to head midwest. Because his studies in ecology meant a beneficial role for him in what passed as a council position in something called the E10 Brain Trust. On the Creek’s outskirts was a distillation factory made up of silos and smokestacks where corn was turned into fuel. The way of the future. The sort of sorcery Adam didn’t understand, but then again, he didn’t know how this Tercel could reasonably move as fast as it could with just a guzzle of gasoline. The wider world was a mystery, and its precluded efforts to keep him in the dark left him a boy fumbling for just a few of those accessible answers he might actually achieve in discovering. It’s why you play baseball. Because there’s enough you don’t know about the world that you might as well pack your head with enough stats to make the swing of the bat your math.

            No, beyond the wily subtext that made Reedy Creek and its expansion on what was called government corn subsidies, the place was the sort of dive you couldn’t wait to escape. The sort of place that made the Liquor Depot nearly as profitable as the plant. And maybe the sort of place that made a guy like Lazarus a necessity.

            “Can’t believe you’d forget your glove, kiddo. Fenway’s forcing a wider detour just to get a sandwich.”

            Adam looked at his grampa. He wasn’t sure how he could bring up the accident organically. Not without inciting those questions and concerns about what he might have seen.

            “Just wanted to check. Mr Sub’s just up Main and the last thing I want is one of those older schmucks coming across the mitt. Finders keepers.” He didn’t have to hope the scene was still there. He’d already seen the flashing lights. And his grampa’s response.

            “What the hell is this?”

            The pines leading to the field were on the right. They were coming up on Fenway from the opposite end and there was a bundle of traffic ahead. His window was already down, so when the officer did stroll up to the car, Lewis only arched his brow and cocked his head.

            “Sorry sir. We’re detouring cars back up Woodvine.”

            “Why?”

            The cop’s name was Stevenson. It was on his badge, proudly worn, and just as clichéd as his aviators. “Car crash, just up ahead, sir. Not good.” He wiped his lip. The boys knew what the man had seen.

            “Jesus.”

            “Yeah. Were you heading up Main?”

            Lewis nodded his head.

            “Who was it?”

            “Adam!” Grampa seldom raised his voice, not at the boys, because their parents did enough of that. His goddamn son-in-law made a lot of mistakes in life, he did, and Lewis would often attach those sort of karmic inconveniences to the man’s own detachment to a humanity he overlooked for the well-being of the whales or polar bears, or whatever fucking cause he hitched his wagon to while blaming man for every misdeed. The 60s were a bitch. They were, because they took his daughter and wrapped her in the accoutrements of revolution, of breaking the same systemic values he’d nearly sacrificed his life for, and that little prick, the man that never gave him the courtesy to ask for her hand in marriage (another broken institution according to the man’s postmodern literature) only scoffed at his service and jingoism as a blight on civility. Because his generation’s judgment of what came before left little room for due process. Lewis was guilty of whatever crimes Trevor’s prejudice accused him of.

            “Sorry officer, I guess common decency wasn’t taught in his household.”

            Adam’s face flushed. It was a poor tactic, he knew it. He wasn’t sure he even expected an answer. But now he knew his grampa deserved the truth.

            “Not a problem, sir. I’ll direct you back. Enjoy your Saturday.”

            Lewis nodded his head and shifted the Tercel into reverse, pulling a wide ‘U’ while Stevenson uselessly waved him away from the curb.

            “Sorry grampa.”

            “What the hell, Adam? Somebody mighta died back there. Cop was white as a sheet.”

            “He did die.”

            “How the hell do you know that?”

            “I…we saw.” He was surprised it didn’t come out as a stutter. He saw grampa gauge the boys in the back in the mirror. “We knew the guy from around town. Saw his body in the car.”

            “Jesus, Adam.”

            “We were curious, is all. I wanted to put a name to the memories. I thought we owed him that much.”

            “That’s why you coaxed me to Fenway? You couldn’ have been honest from the get go?”

            “And say what: gramps, we saw a dead stranger. We wanna make him a dead friend. Swing by the scene, will ya.”

            Lewis laughed and then scratched the scruff on his neck. “You boys okay?”

            “Yeah. I mean, it was grisly…but…” Danny didn’t say anything else. He was shocked Adam had said anything at all. He wasn’t sure why he even brought up the forgotten glove ruse in the first place. If anything, he thought they could just devise some sort of non sequitur at Mr Sub.

            “We always saw him at Mr Sub,” Pug added, running his hand down Chelsey’s back. “It’s how we knew him. I guess we just wanted to pay his…well, pay his respects.”

            “Noble of you, for sure,” Lewis said, looking at the fat boy in the mirror. “So this wasn’t a nice gesture on your behalf to spend more time with grampa? You wanted to put a name on the gravestone. Oh, to be a curious boy in the world again.” He smiled wide now, showing the clasps of his partial dentures. “What do you need from me?”

2

Stevenson was on his haunches by the car. The skid marks were proof enough something had come out onto the road. A deer, maybe. But this struck him as odd. The Reedy P.D. hadn’t a large enough force for Vehicular Forensics, so the Staties would have to come in for the heavy work, but more often than not accidents were just that. The Creek had seen a few of these over the months. Spin outs with nothing left behind to prove the car was veering to miss a coon. It’s hard to execute a wide sweeping Wear Your Seatbelt campaign with so small an on duty task force, but had the fucker been wearing one, maybe he’d just have a headache.

            But if the brake discs were this worn, the guy would have gotten them fixed, or at the very least looked at. Mechanics weren’t so booked at the shop that he couldn’t stop by for an inspection. It would have been the noise alone. Hell, if there was an animal on the road, the screech would have been like screaming bloody murder and the thing would have been in the woods before the Audi had made the bend. Probably just twenty bucks for new pads. Twenty bucks and the guy might still be breathing.

            And then he noticed it. Ned Stevenson did alright in Shop back in Wisconsin, and at one time thought he might change oil for the rest of his life. He didn’t have the brains to back up a journey into pre-law like his older brother, nor did he have the necessary resilience to buck up and open a book once and awhile. He would never confine himself to a desk, so if that meant taking a call to see something like this every blue moon, he didn’t mind sacrificing the sensitivities that once might have had him puking upon the sight of blood and a busted skull. These goddamn automakers are cheap! Sometimes it came down to a motorist’s choice and the laziness that would suggest clasping a belt before starting the car was too much to ask for on so tight a schedule. But the frugality of the profiteers had him wondering why the Germans and the Detroit beltline put so little care or effort into the moral underpinnings of putting a human being behind a two-ton cage of steel with nothing but rubber lines dangling in the chassis.

            He got up and went to the Sheriff of Reedy Creek, a man sitting in his car with a decaf in hand, avoiding that pestering son of a bitch Cole Moore from the Post, who doubled as some sort of photographer, as if freedom of speech somehow legitimized by association the publishing of grisly car crashes as companion pieces to morning coffee.

            “Sir. I think I found something.”

            They’d bagged the body. The M.E. in Davenport would have to determine if it was the broken skull or a rib skewing a lung, or some other nonsense as if the paperwork required any determinate cause beyond the Audi’s crumpled fender. Sheriff Andrew Napolitano took a last quick sip and tossed the coffee cup on his passenger seat.

3

There were a couple of older kids at the Contra arcade game, one sipping a cup of Coke, prodding on his buddy to kick the shit out of the Reds. Pug had leashed Chels outside and let her stroll back and forth on the sidewalk, certainly to the chagrin of tightly wound Saturday errands-goers as she bounded in leaps to sniff and lick crotches.

            Adam went in first and took a look above the door. Mounted atop the lintel was what looked like a beaded black opal, transfixed on him like a cycloptic spider. Or the eye of a crow. This thought took him back to the farmhouse. To those same cameras whose lines were cut. Without a sense to them or a back-story to show what might have happened to the animals that had collected there. To his left was the booth where Fat Meatball shared a daring conversation with Lazarus, taking his bag of tricks to a bedroom to get high alone. To get high and make believe that he wasn’t so alone.

            “It’s the same,” Danny said. He was looking up as well.

            “What are we on about now?” grampa asked, hitching up his pants and checking the line at the counter.

            “Nothing,” Adam said. The guy could have been here today. Maybe right before his fateful drive. Maybe he’d met Lazarus.

            No. Lazarus was at the farmhouse. He felt a sickening turn in his gut.

            “I’ll get in line,” Lewis mumbled. “Think of how I might get some info organically. What do you boys want?”

            Adam looked at Danny, who turned to Pug, who turned to Croak. It wasn’t planned, but they were on the same wavelength. Because they shared something here. Pug would always claim he was ecstatic not just in making the friends he had, but in the notion that even despite how goody goody his beliefs sought to make him, he could find common ground in a gang of cool guys willing to look past his limitations. “Four meatballs.”

            The boys sat down at the closest table to the window booth they’d seen in the tape. “What do you think it means?” Cory asked. “The cameras, I mean. Same ones as the stoop.”

            “Typical closed circuit,” the Jew answered.

            “Ok. Fair enough. Then how did Lazarus get the feed from this place?”

            Danny looked at Croak for a moment. Considering the question. “The Creek’s a small shitburg, Croak. And boring. Those guys will be on Contra for a few hours till they run out of quarters, but they’re just passing by Saturday because they know once they leave they’ll realize free time is only boredom. They don’t look like the jocks at the bleachers, or guys who might find girlfriends easily. They ain’t Adam Kramer.”

            Adam didn’t say anything. The guys could bug him all they wanted. His affinity for the other sex, or rather, their affinity for him was duly noted. It wasn’t exactly something he cared to talk about now. That was something for the start of the school year, he figured. When most things would likely change. He looked at Pug for a moment and the Mormon smiled.

            “If they are Lazarus’s tapes, then we gotta expect the fat guy wasn’t the only one on his run.”

            “What do ya mean?” Pug asked. If Adam was one for the ladies, Danny would have to be the official extoller of urban reality; the one who’d seen the mean streets of New York and lived to tell about them.

            “I mean, free time with nothing to do means finding something to fill it with.”

            “You think he’s got deals with some of these shops for access to their tapes?” Adam asked.

            “Probably gives paper bags to the managers.”

            “Sometimes you’re pretty fucking smart, Guidry.”

4

He’d really come to Reedy Creek for them. Patty and Adam. His daughter had turned into an insufferable idealist. At least that’s what he thought to call her. Lewis Forsmythe was not a registered Republican, and he would never stoop so low to consider voting Democrat. When that retard Mondale sought to take Reagan’s ticket, Lewis knew his vote in the matter wouldn’t have made a difference either way. Because the conservatives had taken a pretty shitty deal from Carter the Peanut and turned the inflationary politics of a gas-controlled decade of impunity and turned it into shrinking deficits and heartier bottom lines for his social security. Lewis wasn’t political, but he hated to high heaven what Trevor Kramer had turned his wife into, and even despite the folk that man had run into from what could only be called the Boston Low Breed, and the certain expectations from what little Lewis could give to help out when they moved to the Creek, made him hate even more how it felt to get old and understand those damn twitches and tics were just a sign that he would not always be around for those two boys.

            It didn’t take Betty’s dying to remind him how goddamn fickle mortality could be when he’d always thought it would be the big cancer taking him first after picking up the ol’ tobacco habit during his European run in the 40’s before the Marshall Plan could help the continent pick up the broken pieces the Krauts left. He’d come to Reedy Creek for those boys.

            He wasn’t sure what the kids had up their sleeves today. He remembered youth only insofar as those memories preserved the sense of self worth remembering. It was a morbid thought, sure, but childhood in the 30’s meant looking at the present with the scoffing indignation of an old coot judging the niceties of today’s youth, which was something he never intended to be or do. Those two, he thought, looking at the arcade game, something he’d never truly understand, no matter how much Adam might try and convince him otherwise, those two don’t know treasure or time. They’re stuck in a loop to fill today and tomorrow. It’s a sunny day and they’re looking at a box.

            Sure, and you do the same now too, Lew. Ya old shit. He chuckled, standing in line alone, no doubt proffering the sort of peripheral looks reserved for the uncanny and odd. You watch that goddamn television as if a single second of that is time well spent. It was Betty’s voice. Before the coughing would make her damn near indecipherable.

            It is as long as I’m near those boys. And he’d taken quite a liking to the other three. The Jew. Ha! Pug…as if reminding the poor chap that he didn’t quite take the better representative qualities of his parents but served to remind them that, indeed, there could be trying times in the future when some might confuse the two as brother and sister considering the result of their consummation. Ha! And Croak. A name that would live beyond puberty if these boys stayed as close as they were now, and forever would Lewis hope they remained that way. Stuck excited by a world full of adventure. Away from the box that had made the house a playground.

            “Can I help you, sir?”

            He was lost in thought. And knew this kid, folded paper hat and apron, gawked at him with the understanding the senile fool might be off his meds. Usually he liked to play with the assumption. Maybe even, as the old were privy of doing, let go of a few farts without acknowledging them openly, continuing conversation through the pitchiest of them only to gauge the sort of “did he just do what I think he did” suspicion from those feigning engagement with him. But he knew what Adam required of him. And for now he wanted nothing more than to play the fifth wheel with those boys.

            The place smelt of stale bread and deli meat. He knew this kid was antsy for summer to end because for most kids that meant leaving fulltime work for school, which was really just an excuse to hang out with your friends while some know-it-all tried to teach you a thing or two. “Four meatball supremes.” He looked up at the bulkhead, upon which the menu was backlit showing pictures of each sandwich; Lewis only had to look at the assembly line behind the counter to know what he’d find stuffed into foil would not even remotely resemble the advertisements. “Make that five,” he added, thinking he might as well partake in the same sort of gut-churning indulgence as the boys and perhaps earn another go on the shitter later this afternoon. The boy cocked his eye.

            “You want any drinks?”

            Lewis purposely ignored the question for a moment and gave the boy a glazed look.

            “Sir?”

            “Oh, I’m sorry.” It was calculated. Or what he called organic. “Saw something on the way over. Can’t take my mind off it. Probably why I ended up here at all.”

            He could tell the kid didn’t care. The boy had long hair. Long enough to touch his shoulders. You thought you’d seen the last of that in the 70’s, but no. These goddamn trends keep coming back and coming back until one day boys might as well be girls.

            “There was a car crash off Woodvine. God I hate those. Didn’t look good either. And I recognized the car, too. Audi Quattro. Pretty sweet ride. Front was all mucked up. Seen it parked here a few times. Guess it’s why I ended up bringing my grandson and his chums.”

            The boy’s eyes perked for a moment as he put one and one together. Regulars in small towns were more than just a stamp of approval. No, they were family.

            “Ya mean Mr Wilson?”

            Bingo! “He a bigger guy?”

            “Big, if you’re trying to be nice. He okay?”

            “I don’t know, kid. Car’s not though.”

            “Ah, shit. Guys,” the kid turned toward the back where an equally young group were busy slathering white bread with mayo and portioning slabs of what might be called turkey into thinly sliced layers over American cheddar. “This fella says Mr Wilson’s been in an accident.”

            “He okay?”

            “Don’t know.”

            “That sucks.” Lewis could tell the affectation was genuine and felt bad for the kid. Come tomorrow’s paper, he’d learn the truth and realize the world isn’t as sincerely static as small town life sometimes made it out to be. Because the routine always confirmed one’s hope of immortality. Especially if one is young. “You want drinks?”

            “Yeah. Yeah. For Mr Wilson’s health. Five Cokes.”

            Lewis wouldn’t know how apt that order was.

5

Book ‘em or bag ‘em?           

            It was the sort of idiom that had become well known at the station because the Creek was the sort of place whose dispatch required two shifts, and thus two employees manning the station, imbibing the job with the boredom that came coupled with those random calls coming through the switchboard (most of them pranks from kids pretending to be abused). Beyond the tidy bookings of those drunk tank recruits, it wasn’t often deputies returned with ill tidings, and today, with Becky at the seat snapping pink gum, Stevenson could only shake his head.

            “Jesus,” she muttered. “He didn’t have kids, right?”

            Ned didn’t know. He had other thoughts now. He’d tried to be candid with Napolitano on site but got shit when Cole Moore hunkered close with his notepad and what looked like a tape recorder. The last thing they wanted was conjecture dotting the Post as some sort of official decree. Gossip was a bitch. So the Sheriff set up for a brief consult at the station and Ned could only come down from the initial musings that had him thinking something was amiss. Or maybe that’s you hoping just so you can play gumshoe.

            “This fresh?”

            Becky looked at the pot of coffee with a “the hell if I know” gesture and returned to the paperback sitting folded on her desk.

            Ned poured himself a cup only to taste the tepid brew of coffee that had been sitting since the station emptied when reports of the accident first hit dispatch.

            “Beck, you know there’s some paperwork you could be filing. Anything but that smut.”

            Sheriff Napolitano was a slight man. If anything it was the badge on his shirt and the aviators clipped to his front pocket that suggested any sort of illusion that he was otherwise. He was all but five foot eight in his thick-soled boots. Ned always thought he looked more like an academic, and that the mustache he did grow was there only to fit the bill, as if he’d watched a movie one time and thought the look somehow characterized the part.

            “Sorry big Andy,” Becky said, setting the book back down and shuffling a sheaf of paper indifferently. “Sorry about ol’ Robby. You know him?”

            “Not well. And thanks.”

            “He have kids?”

            “I dunno. Don’t think so. Ned. Come with me.”

            Ned took one last sip of the coffee, forgetting how stagnant the first taste had been. He set down the mug and scampered after Andrew, who led him toward his office past the bullpen, whose desks were empty at the moment what with the deputies finishing off at the scene and helping the volunteers with the fire house to clean up the glass on the road.

            “That was careless, Ned.” He shut the door after Stevenson stepped inside. There was a borrowed light into the bullpen with venetian blinds. He left these open most of the time. “You know Moore thinks he’s with the Gray Lady. And if he sniffs something out of the ordinary, he’ll cast suspicions without an investigation.”

            “I know, I know.”

            “So you saw what I saw?”

            “I think so.”

            “But you say it looked sheared.”

            Ned nodded. He’d been sitting on his calves. Maybe at first he thought he’d smelt gas. Maybe the collision fractured the tank. At the front of the car, smart guy? The brake pads were on the verge, sure, but the rubber line beneath hung loose like a vine from a jungle canopy. It didn’t look like natural fray, the sort you’d expect upon the torque of the line against the abrasive edges of the chassis or some sort of debris getting tangled in the undercarriage. No, the cut was clean. He wanted to say purposeful. But the implications of the suggestion would go far beyond accident. And he could see that worry in Andy’s eyes.

            “Shit,” Andy said. “Shit shit shit. Look, Forensics will be all over this. Treads say the guy swerved to miss something. Maybe he did pump the brakes. Probably did. And if they didn’t work, maybe he panicked. But if you’re suggesting the brakes were cut with intent, then we’re opening the door to accusations.”

            “I’m just saying what I saw, sir.”

            “Yeah, and within earshot of the fuckin’ press. You know what this sort of intent implies, Ned?”

            He did, but he didn’t say anything.

            “It implies a manhunt. And in a community like the Creek, it suggests he who did it could reasonably do it again. That sort of blanket paranoia can only come as a result of voicing the original accusation. You and I both know where the money’s coming from. If the fuckers over at the plant catch wind of any sort of break in the serenity of this ho hum project, they could just as easily pull out.”

            Ned thought the comment was ridiculous but said nothing. The gas magnates wouldn’t cut production here for some potential murder case, especially when the cause could have been the clear result of a prank or accident. But he understood what Andy was on about. Ned had been in small towns his entire life, and rumors spread like wildfire during a dry summer. So the big Sheriff was just trying to scare him to keep his mouth shut.

            “Look, sir, we’ve dealt with a few of these accidents this summer, so it isn’t inconceivable some animals are coming from the cornfields or woods, and it isn’t inconceivable that the line snapped when the Audi hit the curb. What people are going to talk about when they hear ‘s that this isn’t the first death this summer from a single car collision.”

            That was true as well. In June he was called out to the by-road where shipments come in for new framing jobs to accommodate incoming Corners. There he found Colin Perkins in the culvert with shards of broken glass embedded in his skull and a neck twisted like a corkscrew. His car had overturned in the ditch, its windshield shattered where the man presumably launched forward when he struck the deer in the road. The deer must have flown thirty feet. It was dead when he got to the scene, but a part of him thought it had struggled for some time before seeing the flashing lights, trying ever so gently to stand on snapped legs.

            “And hopefully they’ll put on their seatbelts. I’ll let you know what I hear from Davenport.” Andy folded his arms and sat on the edge of his desk. Ned only nodded once and turned to leave, closing the door again as he did.

            A moment later Andy picked up the phone. “We need to talk. Bring the tape from the Watchtower.”

6

“I got you boys a name.”

            “Not an address?” Croak joked.

            “I’m not a miracle worker,” grampa said, handing out the subs and taking a seat.

            Pug peeled back the wrapper first and took a large bite, running barbecue sauce down the heft of his chin.

            “Typical, Pug, typical. I thought you Mormons said grace first.”

            Grampa laughed and nudged Danny as if to prompt him to behave, but Adam ignored the horseplay. He was looking up at the camera, knowing full well somebody could have been staring back at him. “Well, what have you got then?”

            Lewis set his sub down and leaned forward. “You boys weren’t kidding. The guy was a regular. Kid at the counter seemed upset.”

            “So you told him the guy croaked?”

            “Manners, Danny,” Lewis scolded. “I told him about the accident. The kid can infer what he wants, and probably will. And to answer you, Adam, all I got was a Mr Wilson. So if you’ve got more planned for this Dennis the Menace act, you’ll have to go from there.”

            Adam sat back. He looked at the hunk of foil sitting on the tray; he remembered joking with the guys when they first saw Mr Wilson the Cokehead guzzling the damn footer without a breath to spare, wondering how he could dislocate his jaw to fit a sandwich inspired by a cock and not consider the ol’ arteries were thickening with the crust of sourdough and swiss. But that was then. Now the booth by the window would never receive his heft, and those guys behind the counter would get the paper tomorrow and see the remains of their best customer. The guy who might come in and know them all on a first name basis. Who might throw them the pointy finger and wink, and that meant the usual was coming up, so he’d just sit and wait for his order. Because he was a creature of habit.

            It’s a small town, bud. Corn growing and ethanol selling county over here. What your folks would have called Flyover Country. It’ll have to work by deduction from there. Adam stood up.

            “You okay?”

            Adam didn’t answer his grampa. He went back toward the camera and opened the front door. He stepped outside. “Not now Chels,” he said, swatting away Pug’s mutt. The poor thing eyed him for a moment and then continued pawing at a strewn candy bar wrapper. There was a phone booth between Mr Sub and the facade for the hair place he sometimes saw ugly girls enter and pretty girls leave. At least that was the joke. The phone book was tied to the console by a braided steel cord. He flipped through a few pages until he found the W’s.

            It’s a common name. Yeah, but he had something else. He thought of the big guy sitting on his bed, in that moment before he knew he had the powder in the bag. It’s cocaine, pal. Call it what it is. He wasn’t the moral police, but something about the act truly disappointed him. Because Wilson did seem the sort of jovial man that could dress as Santa at the mall and have kids sit on his lap all day. And actually enjoy it. Understanding there was something far more sinister happening behind closed doors proved there were secret worlds in adulthood...proved anybody he ever saw could have the same indulgences protected by privacy. Or what one thought was privacy.

            He found what he was looking for and went back into Mr Sub. Pug was already done his sandwich and the Jew was bugging him for drinking Coke. “Ya know there’s caffeine in that, right?”

            “Shut up. I think I saw a quarter roll under the chair. You might wanna dive after it.”

            Lewis almost spit out his own soda. “There ya are. Your meatballs are getting cold.”
            Adam looked at the four of them.

            “Robert L Wilson. Nine sixty-four Deerhill Lane.”

7

Andy waited in his office with the door closed when he heard the knock.

            “You bring it?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Before they could watch it?”

            “I’d like to think so. I asked Grimwood for Woodvine B and he didn’t have any questions. Figured their attention was on Clayton Miller from Public Works.”

            Andy folded his arms and nodded. “Good.”

            Trevor Kramer sat down across from the Sheriff. As a member of the E10 council, he was granted the sort of decorum reserved for elected officials, so when he did enter the station, Becky didn’t have a word to say that could keep the man from the bullpen. He had the VHS tape in his hand. It was a non-descript black cassette. He tapped his palm with it and looked at the photograph of the lawman’s wife. He knew she used to be a professor, but her desire to be a part of this project with Andy was enough to prompt the migration from Philly. Some thought it strange she’d take a teaching job at the Creek Secondary, though she could only sell its merits as a sort of prep for townies.

            “We may have a problem.”

            “I suspected so from the tone of your voice.”

            “Ned Stevenson’s asking questions. Not all of them are out loud. He saw the brake line on Wilson’s car. After I put up a stink that he’d prompt an investigation beyond the accident, I could tell he was trying to find some connective tissue with Perkins and Hedges. Two prior wrecks. Two fatalities.”

            “You think he might start prying?”

            “I suspect he might. He thinks it’s his duty.”

            “And you’re arguing his idealism?”

            “You know what I mean,” Andy retorted. His gun was in his holster. An odd accessory considering his anti-gun stance. He touched its handle for a moment and decided he preferred the feel of the oak desk. Stevenson was at his table fielding a call. Perhaps the greater good served here, in a place facilitating the long term environmental objective procuring an alternative fuel, became the sort of substitute cause that made the gun on his hip a badge of honor over the hypocrisy he originally feared it proffered. “You watch it yet?”

            “How could I? I came here after you called.” Trevor handed Andy the tape and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a tic he picked up during the university lecture and debate tour the publisher sent him on when they sold out the first print run. If you’re looking for a wider readership, and you should be considering how evocative the content is, you have to stay away from the verbose Marxism that could scare away the wider market. Pax Americana has already done a good enough job to turn the Soviets into the Other. It was the sort of absurd advice only an editor could give, and it provided a censorial objection to his own rationale. But that was only academic mumbo jumbo; within the scholarly corridors, the ideology being fought in the Cold War was espoused as fundamentally actionable, only Trotsky and Stalin soured the finer details. Trevor’s biggest gripe was that the advice worked. The doom and gloom sold like hot cakes. The next gen Rachel Carlson. We’re eating ourselves out of resources. Soon there will be mass starvation. So stop screwing. Stop breeding. Follow the Chinese and cap it at one. If that. And the money from the book and lecture circuit starting coming in.

            Andy had a small television in the office, tucked away on a side table. He put in the tape and rewound it. They both sat and listened to the hum before Andy cleared his throat. “It wasn’t any easier.”

            “You thought it would be?”

            “Holdren always said it was a numbers game.” Andy pressed play. It was a wide shot of the street next to the entrance into Fenway from the very camera on the pine four familiar boys had not yet noticed. The street was empty now. And then a kid traipsed to the patch leading to the chute into the woods. Trevor exhaled.

            “Christ.”

            “That your boy?” Andy asked. Trevor said nothing. He just watched the screen. Maybe worried, maybe not. Andy couldn’t tell. He thought he remembered seeing a group of them come from that clearing where the kids believed they had a secret ball field. But there were no secrets. Not in Reedy Creek. The kid just stood there when a second came. Then a third, with a dog.

            “He wasn’t there when it happened, if that’s what you’re worried about. I saw ‘em come out well after the call came into dispatch.”

            “If they were playing baseball in that field of theirs, they would have heard it.”

            “Call to dispatch wasn’t from kids.”

            “That’s not what I’m saying, Andy.”

            The Sheriff leaned over and pressed fast forward, watching the image quicken through squiggled lines. “You’re suggesting the boys have an explorer’s instinct.”

            “I’m saying that’s not something we’d know because somebody cut the fucking wires to the cameras at the Backdoor. And we’ve switched them out. Just to see what keeps killing those animals. But nada. Lines are cut again. Grimwood won’t say what’s happening. Says there’s no point replacing them. And that he doesn’t want his haunt under our supervision. He says the bodies keep the prowlers at bay.”

            Andy sighed, still looking at the television. “Grimwood’s going to do what he wants to do. It’s his security detail. He’s just taken this whole Cold War spiel to the extreme. He’s crazy as shit, but he’s good.”

           “What do you think he’d do if he knew what he was really watching?”

            “Pocket Holdren’s money and keep tight-lipped. If he knows what’s good for him.” Andy stopped the tape and watched. Random cars drove by. Speed limit on Woodvine was 40.  But teens and locals would cruise by the mostly straight stretch at well over 55 because it was open and there weren’t enough places to plop a Stevenson or Webster with a radar without being seen a mile away. And then a man walked into view. He was wearing mostly black; he did not look at the camera. He stood in that same patch of dirt where Adam met his buddies.

            “Look, Trevor, nobody suggested the operation would be smooth. Holdren blames the distillation on the animals. Says some by-product must be getting into their root water or something. Stumble around and die. Always going to be collateral damage, no matter how you try and save the world. You believe in the cause and leave it at that.”

            But in the same place? They all just had some groupthink and died by the Backdoor, coincidentally where the cameras keep going out of operation?

            The man in black paced from side to side and then—

            He darted into the street. The movement was so quick and unexpected Trevor let out an audible gasp. Because everything that followed happened fast. The lanky man in the black hoodie, legs bowed like a cowboy standing duel, was still in the road. And then an Audi Quattro came into frame, its back end already fishtailing. To them it looked as if a pedestrian had crossed and stopped in the middle of the street with the absent-minded quotient of one stopping to pick up a penny on the rails with a train coming. Wilson was going faster than the suggested 40. Andy knew that. He saw the streaked etching of the rubber left on the scene. Yup, a deer crossed right there. Timing really. Split second sooner or later and Wilson would have been home. Or wherever it was he was heading. The guy wearing black retreated toward the camera-side of the street, his head low, still away from the vantage point. He had just enough time to turn and watch. The Quattro didn’t slow. Couldn’t slow. Stevenson found the answer to that, didn’t he? Wilson pulled the wheel and the Audi nearly scraped the driver side door on the asphalt when the car swerved to the right, away from the aloof idiot now watching the result of his indifference. There was a powerline here. A thick pole jutting from the earth. Its precision in determining the end point was almost the sort of calculated proof that the stranger’s path on the video was pre-determined. That he’d crossed at that very point because the math suggested he do so. The Audi jumped the curb. Andy and Trevor saw the driver’s head strike the steering wheel. And then its front end crumpled around the pole like a rock into mud. There was no noise, but the concussive impact shattered the windows and the man wearing black left stage right. The next person who drives by, he or she will make a beeline to a payphone on Main, and Becky will take the call and amass the troops.

            Andy stopped the tape. This time he did touch his gun. Because the calm he felt now was jarring. It shouldn’t be that way. Not yet.

            “Jesus Christ,” Trevor said. It was chilling to think that was the end of it. That collision would push out one last gust of air from Wilson’s maw before he was gone. “Looked like Lazarus.”

            “That’s what Holdren wanted. In case Grimwood watched the tape and filed it for any criminal charges.”

            “I thought all suspicious activity was supposed to come through us?”

            “Who knows what he’d do? Grimwood’s a loose cannon.” Andy replied perfunctorily.

            “Now what?”

            “Well, this is the only proof Stevenson’s right. Somebody forced Wilson off road,” the Sheriff said. “There are no copies. Nothing Grimwood’s detail can watch.” He took out the tape and pulled the film from the reels, wrapping them around his knuckles. “I’ll burn it out back.”

            Trevor stood up. His face was pale. It never got easier. Never.

            “We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?”

            “It was unanimous, Trevor, or we wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

            “That’s not what I mean.”

            “I know.” Andy folded his arms. “We’re doing what’s necessary.”