Authors: Ron Rash
T
he day after visiting Bill in Asheville, I awake to a knocking at my front door. I go to the window and see Sheriff Loudermilk's squad car. A coincidence, I try to tell myself, just another complaint about uncut grass or empty garbage cans. But I know it's not that, and I realize something elseâa part of me has been awaiting this visit.
Cotton mouthed and half stumbling, I grab a dingy bathrobe and move toward the door. I walk into the front room where late-morning sun slants through the blinds, awakening a headache I'd hoped to sleep through. Dust motes drift in the yellow light, bringing back a moment of childhood, more sensation than memory, of a tall
shadow thickening over me and then a weightless rising. The knocking becomes more insistent.
“I need to talk to you,” Robbie Loudermilk says when I open the door.
“If it's about the grass,” I answer, my hand on the doorknob, “I'll get it cut.”
“It's not about that. Mind if I come in?”
“As you can see, Sheriff, I haven't gotten dressed.”
“I don't mind waiting until you do.”
My hand's still on the knob. The brass is cold and dense, suddenly real in a way nothing else quite is.
“So can I come in or not, Mr. Matney?”
I open the door wider. Loudermilk stoops as he enters, a tall drink of water, as older folks used to say. His hair is suspiciously black for a man well over sixty and he wears it roached back like a TV preacher. All of it, including the poorly reset nose and clenched smile, seem part of his uniform.
“I played on that ball team with your brother,” Loudermilk says, stepping closer to the mantel. “I was pretty good, but Bill was on a way other level. And now he's a big-time surgeon. A lot of people aren't very good at even one thing. Matter of fact, some are just world-class fuck-ups,” he adds, still looking at the photograph.
“They can't keep a job, or a family. Hell, they can't even drive sober with their own child in the car.”
He turns and bares a set of teeth white as porcelain. It seems incongruous, even a liability when dealing with the rough sorts who'd consider artificially whitened teeth effete.
“I counted Bill a friend in high school, even came here to visit a few times. Your mother always had milk and cookies for us. Of course, this house was kept up better then. Doesn't seem to be a priority for you. Yeah, Bill was my buddy, until he hired his hotshot lawyer to get you off. That changed things.”
“I need to get dressed, Sheriff, so if you don't mind . . .”
“Go ahead,” Loudermilk says. “I'm in no hurry.”
I go upstairs and put on a sweatshirt and jeans. When I return, he's gazing at the photos, which gives me a moment to scan the room. A plastic cup, an empty wine bottle, and a dwindling fifth of Jack Daniel's crowd the lamp table. On the floor by the couch, a dusty scatter of books and magazines. And on the couch itself, something I quickly look away from.
“Your mother was an attractive woman,” Loudermilk says as he turns. “It's surprising she never remar
ried. I used to see her when I took my grandkids to the library. She always took time with them, suggesting books, that kind of thing.”
I step closer to the front door, hoping his eyes if not his feet will follow.
“What is it you wanted to see me about, Sheriff?”
“Ligeia Mosely. You knew her in high school, right?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, she wasn't a friend or anything. I just knew who she was.”
“Who she
was,”
Loudermilk says. “So you know they found her body over at Panther Creek?”
“I read about it in the paper.”
“I noticed,” he tells me, and nods at the folded newspaper.
Remains Identified
is at the top in bold black. “So she wasn't a friend?”
“Like I told you, Sheriff, I knew who she was.”
“But not someone you ever hung out with?”
“That's right,” I answer.
“Angie Wellbeck says otherwise.”
“Angie Wellbeck?”
“She was a high school friend of Ligeia's until they had a falling-out. After we asked for information, Angie
came to see me. According to her, you and Ligeia were up to something that involved you giving her money. Angie didn't know exactly how much, but she did say it was a wad of bills, and the one on the outside was a twenty.”
“I don't know . . .”
Loudermilk raises a hand.
“Angie admitted that Ligeia was selling drugs, but using more than she sold. That's why they had a falling-out, Ligeia borrowing money she wouldn't pay back. Or couldn't pay back, because she owed money to other people.”
“I don't know anything about that.”
“You need a drink?” Loudermilk asks. “You seem a little shaky.”
“Why are you here, Sheriff?”
“Just curious about why you'd give Ligeia Mosely money.”
“I didn't give her any money.”
“Why would Angie Wellbeck lie about that?”
“I don't know,” I answer, speaking slowly to steady my voice. “It was forty-six years ago. She must be confusing me with someone else.”
“No, Angie was certain it was you. She said you had
zits and blond hair and were skinny as a scarecrow. The pimples are gone, by there's yet some blond in that gray hair of yours. And you're still not exactly Mr. Universe, are you?”
“She's mistaken, Sheriff. I'm sorry Ligeia Mosely's dead but it's got nothing to do with me.”
Loudermilk rubs the back of his neck. He looks above me, then resettles his eyes on mine.
“I almost sent one of my deputies to talk to you, but I came out of respect for your mother. Now I'm glad I came. We know Ligeia was arrested for possessing prescription drugs in Daytona Beach, right before she came up here, and after what Angie Wellbeck told me, I figured this was about a dealer she owed money to, a dealer from Daytona, because she kept telling Angie that she was going to Miami, not Daytona. I hoped as a customer you might lead me to someone who might know someone. That kind of thing. But now . . .”
I start to speak but Loudermilk doesn't let me.
“Here's the thing, Matney. Ever since I got here you've been nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. And your newspaper turned to a story about her, that's a tad curious, don't you think? Look, I didn't
come here to accuse you of anything, but I owe it to the Mosely family to get the truth of what happened.”
“I said I knew who she was.”
“You sure you don't need a drink?” Loudermilk says. “It might loosen you up to remember some things. I'm not a drinking man myself, but I understand lots of times a man drinks to forget. I mean, look at you, your brother and grandfather both doctors and here you are, holed up drinking away your life. Maybe there's something you want to forget involving Ligeia Mosely.”
“You've been reading too many pop psychology books, Sheriff.”
“No, this is my own thinking, but you're probably right. Any man driving drunk with his own daughter in the car can't be troubled too much about hurting people.”
“Is that what all of this is about, Sheriff, my DUI charge? Charge, not conviction.”
“I didn't like you getting off,” he answers, “but I've learned a slick enough lawyer can always find a technicality. I bet it was a pretty penny your brother paid him though. But no, it's not about DUIs. It's about why someone cut the throat of a seventeen-year-old girl.”
Loudermilk stops and stares at me intently.
“You're surprised,” he says softly.
Surprised, yes, but even more the sudden sense of weightlessness when a trapdoor's sprung. For a few moments neither of us speaks.
“I'm surprised because all I know about any of this is what the newspaper said.”
“And what was that?” Loudermilk asks.
“That the cause of death hadn't been confirmed.”
“That was before forensics in Raleigh had a look. A sharp-bladed instrument, maybe a knife, maybe not, cut into her upper spine so deep it damn near cut her head off. Anyway, let's get back to the money you gave her. It was for drugs, right?”
“I didn't give her any money,” I answer, “for drugs or anything else.”
“Be careful, Matney, you're acting guilty again, and right when I thought you might not know anything after all. Look, you know I can't charge you for buying drugs that long ago. But the statute of limitations doesn't apply to murder. So a name or names, even if you think they had nothing to do with this. That's all I want from you.”
“I don't know anything about any of this, Sheriff.”
“Then why did you give her money?”
“I didn't give her money. Her friend is wrong.”
Loudermilk tilts his head ever so slightly. He's not a stupid man, but nowhere as clever as he thinks. The lawyer had made that clear at my DUI trial. By the time he'd finished, Loudermilk had contradicted himself a dozen times. He nods at the Jack Daniel's bottle.
“Okay, you've probably wiped out enough brain cells not to remember,” he says. “You been drinking this morning?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I wish you'd empty that bottle and get in your car, because if I catch you again, even the damn governor won't be able to help you. I'll make sure every newspaper in the state knows about it, and about what happened the last time. And I won't spare Bill. He was wrong to get your worthless ass off, even if you are his brother.”
Loudermilk lifts his right hand and flexes an open palm sideways, the way people once hit typewriter return bars. It's an odd gesture, perhaps one of dismissiveness, like moving on to a new paragraph, a new topic. He lowers the hand.
“There are a couple of other folks Angie Wellbeck
suggested I contact,” he says, “guys Ligeia knew, rough sorts. Sylva's a small town, and small towns have a way of eventually giving up their secrets. I may find out from someone else that you're tied to this, and that may lead to an obstruction of justice charge, so if there's something you âforgot' to tell me, or you want to get off your chest, call me.”
Loudermilk walks out the door and drives off. Sweat trickles down my spine. My forehead glistens, which Loudermilk surely noticed. I stare at the bottle of Jack Daniel's. One drink and by law I'm still sober, so I splash a shot glass's worth of whiskey into the plastic cup. My hand trembles as I raise the cup to my mouth but I do not swallow yet. Instead, I close my eyes and let the liquor's soft burn flood over my tongue. I level my chin and inhale through my nose, savor the peaty aftertaste on the back of my mouth and upper throat as I slowly swallow.
Leonardo's disembodied hand comes to me with an almost hallucinatory intensity, beckons me back to a childhood afternoon when Bill pressed a blade into my flesh and cut. He was twelve and I seven. A long-abandoned house, supposedly haunted, lay behind the county rec center. One afternoon after Bill and I had gone swimming, Bill wanted to explore it. I didn't want to
go but Bill coerced me with the promise of a milk shake at Pike's Drugstore. I was following him up the porch steps when a shard of rotten wood lodged in my foot.
“You knew better than to be in that old house,” Grandfather said when Bill helped me into the office. “You're damn lucky a board didn't give and break some bones.”
“I'm sorry,” Bill said.
“That's not good enough, son,” Grandfather answered as I waited on the examination table, injured foot flexed, watching with dread as Grandfather set the tray of bright, sinister instruments on the counter. After he called Shirley back to prepare the lidocaine shot, Grandfather handed Bill gauze and a bottle of Betadine. “Clean around that wound,” he told him.
Bill hesitated, then soaked the gauze and gingerly coated my tender mid-foot, pausing each time I winced. Shirley handed Grandfather the needle and syringe as Bill dropped the gauze in the wastebasket and set the Betadine on the counter.
“You're not finished,” Grandfather said, and placed the syringe in Bill's right hand.
“I've never given a shot,” Bill stammered.
“Good,” Grandfather said. “You'll learn several lessons today.”
“No, sir, I can't,” Bill said. “I don't know how to.”
“You've seen it done,” Grandfather scoffed.
“I know you need to deaden all around it,” Bill said, “but I don't know how deep to go, or how much in each place.”
“If you don't go deep enough, son,” Grandfather said coldly, “I'll tell you and you can do it again. If it's not enough, you will know that pretty quick.”
Bill turned to Shirley, hoping she'd offer to do it, though he knew as well as I that she'd no more defy Grandfather than Nebo would.
“The foot has to be lanced to get that splinter out, and you can lance it with or without lidocaine,” Grandfather said, turning to me. “Do you want your brother to do it with or without numbing it?”
I said I wanted my mother, and between wiping tears off my face pleaded that the splinter didn't hurt anymore and I wanted it left in. Grandfather lifted the steel lance from the tray, nodded at the syringe in Bill's hand.
“Your choice, boys?” Grandfather said.
Shirley took a needle and syringe from a cabinet.
“Like this, Bill,” she said, and angled the needle into her upper arm. “See, just under the skin.” Shirley slowly withdrew the needle. She angled it again, an inch higher
on her arm, and repierced the skin. “Do that twice on each side, a quarter of a centimeter of the lidocaine in each place.”
Bill nodded, but uncertainty clouded his face as he came over to me. “Close your eyes and keep your foot as still as you can, Eugene. Pinch your arm the way I showed you at the dentist,” he added. “That way you'll hardly feel it.”
I did what he said. The needle still hurt though, and I tried to jerk my leg back. Bill clamped his hands on my ankle. For a sickening moment, I felt the needle dangle from my foot, free of Bill's grasp. Then he secured it and injected the lidocaine around the skin.