By the time the sun was high, I was standing in Skidmore's office. He'd found Hiram Frazier's body just where I'd told him it would be in my 5:00 A.M. phone call. He'd wanted more information, but I was too dazed to tell him much over the telephone, so he'd made me promise to come in and see him. I wasn't feeling much more coherent in his office at noon. I hadn't been able to sleep much. At least I'd had a shower.
The day outside was clear. A polished copper light careened amid the last of the leaves, and the air was a crisp bite, a cold apple. Autumn's light and air were, however, shut out of Skidmore's lair.
He closed the office door, sat behind his desk, and indicated an insistence that I take the chair opposite him. His face was a mask of exhaustion and skintight nerves.
“I called Tennessee about Frazier this morning,” he began. “Actually spoke to a real live person this time. Know what they said?”
“They probably didn't know who you were talking about.” I guessed.
“Pretty much. I asked if they wanted the body. Nobody did.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don't care.” He measured out the syllables, barely controlling his ire. “Where are they, Fever?” His voice was a stranger's, his eyes wild and disoriented.
“If you mean Orvid and Judy,” I sighed, “I wouldn't know. Do you have any idea how you look at the moment. How you sound?”
“How I
sound
?”
I sank back into the chair, breathed in the stale air of his shut room, and closed my eyes.
“You have to tell me what the hell is the matter with you,” I said softly, “or I can't talk to you at all.”
“Are you serious?” His voice was suddenly spiny. “You'll talk to me when I say you will!”
I opened my eyes, but didn't move otherwise.
“That's not you,” I said simply. “That kind of sentence, that tone of voice.”
I slapped the arms of my chair and hauled myself to a stand.
“What do you think you're doing?” Skid growled.
“I've had it,” I shouted at him. “I'm going to see if anyone in this town knows about exorcism, because you've obviously got a demon in your clutch housing!”
His head snapped back only slightly, and there was the merest second of a crease at one corner of his mouth
“My clutch housing?” he said, calming. “That's what you went with? Clutch housing? You don't know thing one about cars, you realize. Where did you come up with that?”
“It's from an old cartoon in the
New Yorker,
actually,” I admitted, only a little embarrassed.
“Yeah,” he followed instantly,
“that
I believe.”
“You need a priest,” I insisted.
He let out a long, heavy breath.
“I need a vacation,” he corrected me at length. “That's surely true.”
I sat back down.
“So are you going to tell me what's going on with you?” I prompted quietly.
“It's no big mystery, Dr. Drama,” he told me, squinting. “I don't believe I'm doing this job of sheriff right. I don't think I'm running my life especially well at the moment.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Everybody thinks I'm doing terrible,” he managed to say. “I hear the talk.”
“I think you're hearing incorrectly.”
“I'm saying that I've discovered it's a whole lot easier to complain about the boss than to be the boss.”
“Well,” I began.
“For one thing, I should have known about all this drug business in town a long time ago,” he interrupted. “I just didn't want it to be true. I didn't want our town to be that town.”
“You mean about Nickel Mathews. I had the same reaction.”
“I mean that
Melissa
knew about it before I did,” he said, self-mocking. “You know, God bless her and I think she's great, but she's not the brightest bulb in the store, and she's not half the seasoned law enforcement professional I am.”
“But she is Nickel's cousin. You said yourself she had a personal stake in the matter, and that's what compelled her.”
“Maybe,” he allowed.
“So.” I shifted sideways in my chair. “Speaking of Melissa.”
“God, Fever, I know what everybody thinks,” he said, softer. “It makes me mad, and it's made me stupid. I'm afraid I've beenâI don't knowâdaring people to think the worst. You can't tell me you don't know what that feels like. I happen to know that in your life you've gone out of your way to exaggerate people's worst opinions of you just for some weird version of spite and righteous indignation.”
I smiled.
“That's a significantly astute observation,” I told him. “Must be the seasoned law enforcement professional in you.”
“You don't know where Orvid and Judy went.” He leaned forward.
“I do not,” I said plainly.
“We found tire tracks from Judy's car in the woods where you said they'd be. We know from the mud that they turned left onto 186. Other than that, they could be anywhere.”
“Still,” I said, “as I pointed out to Orvid, they don't exactly hide in a crowd.”
“If Orvid's been a hired murderer like you said, he's figured out a lot about
hiding.”
I had to admit that would be true.
“You're telling me,” I said slowly, “it turns out that you're not having an affair with Melissa.”
“I am not.”
Skid's eyes were bright, and he might have been on the verge of an actual smile.
“Good,” I said. “You need to straighten things out with Girlinda, though, don't you?”
“Girlinda's not worried about that.” Skid laughed. “She's worried about my losing sleep and eating poorly and, well, being less interested in her in general, you know, since I've been sheriff. She doesn't think I'm after the wrong girl, she thinks I've taken the wrong job.”
He let that sink in. Of course Girlinda wouldn't believe town gossip about Skid. She knew him better than that.
“You're better at your job than you realize,” I began, mustering a pep talk.
“I did arrest Nickel Mathews,” Skid went on matter-of-factly, “with an ounce of pot and ten hits of ecstasy.”
“What?” My eyes widened.
“All a part of the big drug bustâand do you have any idea how much I enjoy talking like the policemen on television?âthat went down yesterday.” Skid sat back proudly. “You'll never guess who's the drug kingpin of our little East of Eden.”
“Eppie Waldrup,” I shot back. “You got him!”
“I did,” he went on less certainly, “but I thought that would be more of a surprise to you. I had to sweat it out of Nickel.”
“Orvid told me. What about Andy Newlander?”
“Got him too.” Skid nodded. “All in the jailhouse. How did Orvid know?”
“His job apparently lets him in on a plethora of secrets.”
“I'll want to know more about Orvid.”
“I don't know much more,” I said, “but of course I'll tell you the
whole story. Some of it's fascinating. For instance, did you know the girls were dating Nickel and some boy named Tony Riddick?”
“Yes, Fever, I knew that,” Skid said wearily. “Sometimes a teenaged girl will do just about anything to prove to her parents that she's beyond their control.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I thought I'd be telling you something there. Well, do you remember that strange preacher over in New Hope?”
“I can tell this'll be a long story.” Skid slumped in his chair, obviously calming. “You know it felt good to tell somebody that me and Melissa weren't fooling around.”
“Maybe you should tell more people.”
“Don't want to say it too much,” he responded more softly, eyes downward. “People think you're covering something if you talk about it too much. Besides, everybody important knows what's the truth.”
He didn't look up.
“Right,” I agreed after a second. “So, what I was getting at with Nickel's dating one of the girlsâ”
“You want to know what about the drug screen that Millroy had to run,” he interrupted.
“Right.”
“That damned Millroy,” Skid sighed. “Does he remind you a little of the pea-brain football coach we had in high school?”
I knew whom he meant and shook my head.
“I thought more Sargent Friday from
Dragnet
,” I said.
“Well, he's worthless, Millroy is,” Skid said as if it were a total explanation. “He made me stop that funeral so he could run more tests, and then those tests were as inconclusive as the first ones had been. But it doesn't appear that the girls had any drugs in them. The best explanation we can give is that they were laughing when they died because they had something to laugh about. That's how I told Millroy to write it, and shut up.”
“Good. That's a good thing to say to everyone.”
“Amen.”
“So the funeral is ⦠?” I ventured
“Tomorrow morning,” he answered. “And only the family is invited this time, so you're off the hook. I know you hate those things.”
“Except for the food.”
“Exactly.”
“Lucinda will want to go.”
“She's family,” Skid said simply.
“Yes.” I shifted in my seat.
The way Skid had said that Lucinda was
family
made me realize something about my relationship with her. I didn't have words, exactly, for what I was feeling. Maybe I thought she was my family too.
“Look, could we finish all this later?” I said. “I am still a little vague about everything, and you were right: it is a long story. Besides, I'd like to get back to Lucinda at the moment. I don't like to leave her alone, what with everything that's happened. Could the rest of it wait?”
“All right.” Skidmore stood. “I want to go to lunch anyway.”
I stood too.
“One more thing,” I began. “You know how the police on television tell people in stories like this that they're not to leave town?”
“Yes.” He cocked his head, amused.
“I thought I should tell you that Andrews has asked me to come to London with him and work on a project of his.” I shrugged. “I'd like to go. I wouldn't mind getting out of town for a while anyway. A short while. Shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks.”
“When would you leave?”
“Whenever you say we're finished with this business,” I answered contritely.
“Good.” He smiled. “You could come over to dinner tonight.”
“Not tonight. I really do want to talk a few things over with Lucinda. Maybe she'll go to England with me.”
He stood frozen for a moment. I assumed he was trying to decide what to say.
“Bring me back a surprise from London,” he offered wanly after a moment.
Â
Â
The light outside was blinding, more like a summer afternoon than late autumn. But when my eyes adjusted, I could see how clear the air was.
All the way back up the mountain, in fact, I had the sensation that I could see better, see farther than I ever had before. You can always see farther in late autumn, of course, when the leaves are gone from the trees. In June the maples along the road to Lucinda's were filled with green that blocked out everything behind them. But that day you could see rows of bare dogwoods, and, once, a stand of vacant pear trees. You could even make out the mistletoe hanging in globes all over the huge oak boughs.
The sun slipped behind smoke-gray clouds, but I could still see all the way to the bottom of the slope where I'd started the upward climb. And at the edge of one sharp turn I could easily find the house where I was born. Down that way, past blackberry thickets, was a stream where I'd first kissed a girl who would later become my sweetheart. There were great granite rocks just beyond. That's where we'd sat to talk about my leaving, and cry and cry.
I felt if I strained my eyes a little, I could almost make out the footprints of every last traveler who had crossed my winding path on that climb. Even overcast, the sky allowedâor did it encourage?âthe sober examination of the way up the incline.