Adam's Woods (28 page)

"JT, I have to tell you this. I thought...when you told Eric about those kids. I thought that maybe you had done it. I'm so sorry. It just seemed unbelievable that you could know. And then when we walked up there, I wondered how you did it with your leg like it is."

"It's all right Mary. It sounded that way to me too because it wasn't the whole truth. I just didn't know how else to tell it. Not to Eric, or anyone." He looked away from them, out the window, looked more like the old JT, angry and carrying many burdens. Sharp, heavy burdens built entirely of corners.

"I need to tell you the whole truth now." He turned back and fixed Eric with an intense stare, which Eric met. He knew that whatever JT needed to get out, he needed to hear. Had always needed to know it all.

"Stupid little kid." JT muttered under his breath. He didn't mind hanging out with Eric, even liked him despite the four year age gap. When you lived in a little backwoods town like Lincoln Corners, bused to school ten miles away, you couldn't be choosy as to your friends. His mom wouldn't drive him into Drake City to anyone's house, and anyway the only invitations had come from kids that skipped class and smoked pot. Despite everyone's beliefs to the contrary, he didn't want to go that route. Not yet. But he could only bear so much loneliness. For now he tried to pretend that his life was exactly how he would have it, and could deceive everyone except himself. He desperately wanted, needed Eric to like him. Tony and Jeff were okay, but their dad was a total asshole. Eric's mom and dad were cool. Nice people. The kind he had willed his parent's to be when he lay awake with a pillow over his head trying to block out the arguments. At least before his dad had left. They had never tried to tone it down for his sake, or for anyone within a hundred yards.

Whore.

Slut.

Bastard.

Asshole.

And worse.

Sometimes with a drunken slur, often preceding the slap of a fist meeting flesh. Not always his father on the giving end, either. He hated them both. The only dubious benefit of being ignored was the freedom to go out whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted. But the secret shame went too, that no one cared.

When revealing the gun at the cabin, he told Eric he had to sneak it out. In reality, he had held the gun in his hand and walked past his father lying comatose on the couch under a blanket of empty beer cans. He didn't think his mother had spent the night there. No big surprise. He had paused and then slowly put the barrel against his father's forehead. He hadn't even stirred. Then he had put it to his own temple, relishing the image of his father finally coming around to find his son lying on the floor and his son’s brains lying in the kitchen. Instead, before leaving, he had withdrawn the gun and leaned over to kiss his father's cheek, tasted the stale sweat tinged with alcohol, and walked out the door, angry at his own tears. When Eric had left the cabin before he had even freed the gun from his waistband, he again had put it to his temple. But JT couldn't do it. Somewhere beneath the shame and hurt, he believed himself better than this, better than his parents, and somehow would find out a way to prove it: to Eric, to his teachers who had already written him off as a future guest of the state for ten to twenty years, to Arnie Fisk that wouldn't allow his sons to come out unless Eric were with him, to Mary that he hid his affection from to avoid the sure rejection.

He had been pleased, for the most part, with Eric's reaction to the magazines, had feared a similar reaction to the gun, had always feared he would tell his parents. But Eric had never snitched, stayed this time to look at the naked women, and even let Adam wander away in favor of them. And the remaining stack was huge. Next time he might just take them all.

His mood had fallen on having to look for Adam. It was too hot to go traipsing through the woods. If Adam weren't so important to Eric, he would have just gone swimming in the creek, alone if necessary.

Eric had disappeared down the path leading to the gravel pit, and JT lingered at the fork, trying to decide whether to go back to the cabin or just stay here and lie and tell Eric that Adam wasn't at the swamp. Maybe walking off like that would get Adam in trouble, and he wouldn't be allowed out with them anymore. But no, Eric would be held responsible, get grounded, and JT would be left to find a way to amuse himself until school started. Even though it was August, the weeks would pass too slowly.

So, reluctantly, he had trudged down the path. Stopped when he heard the scream. Not even a scream, but like someone trying to, but the scream so big it couldn't get out. An image of Adam struggling in the black water came, and he started to run, excited. If he could save Adam from drowning, he would be a hero. Eric's parents - who at least tolerated him, probably because they were church people (even though Arnie Fisk was, too) - would love him. The whole town would love him. And that would really piss Fisk off. He ran faster.

Adam wasn't in the water, and he wasn't alone. Someone stood in front of him. Isaac Burroughs. He couldn't see what he was doing, but his arm worked upwards in short jerky motions. Adam had his shirt off. JT thought of the sex perverts that they warned about in school and almost ran the other way.

Isaac saw him then, and he smiled. A pleasant smile, and JT smiled back. It didn't seem like the smile of a pervert at all. A welcoming smile. The sort of smile that rarely, if ever, came his way. He was still returning that smile when Adam fell to the ground as if someone had let the air out of him, and he saw the knife, and the blood, and Isaac took a step towards him. But the older boy's smile became a frown, and he shook his head and turned away, began to walk along the edge of the swamp and deeper into the woods, muttering to himself. JT felt the sting of some sort of rejection, but his mind was trying to process the particulars of the scene, wondered most of all why Adam didn't get up.

He did walk closer, then. Isaac was gone, and he felt uneasy but didn't yet know to be afraid. That came when he got close enough to see. And then his mind simply refused to process what his eyes insisted on. He bent down and shook Adam, whispered for him to get up. Then he lifted his hands and saw the blood on them and tried to run. He stumbled on legs that forgot how to work, and began to crawl. But even that failed him and he stopped and sat, vainly wiped the blood on his shirt, on the grass. He vaguely registered someone standing over him, a boy. He knew his name but it wouldn't come. Nothing would.

Then the boy was gone. Soon after, someone began to scream. A real scream. The scream that the other boy had tried to make before...and he was up and running, stumbling over tree roots and deadfalls and falling once so hard that it knocked the breath out of him. But he got up and ran home, to an empty house and crawled into his bed. His mother wasn't home, and his father had gone to make his home somewhere else.

When the police detective came later that day, he nodded when asked a question, or said "yes" or "no" if he had to speak. He knew what the detective had asked, but he answered as if remembering from a television program, but one that he hadn't seen to the end and would have to catch the rerun. His mother stood next to the battered kitchen table wearing hair rollers and smoking cigarettes one after another down to the butt, staring at him in her way that said "you're a liar." Often she was right, but more often not. And not this time. He wondered then, and still did sometimes later, if she had hoped he had killed Adam. To be rid of him.

When the detective walked to the door, he spoke briefly with JT's mother. He heard him say, "You might want to think about getting him some help. He needs to talk to somebody."

She answered, "Look around you. Does it look like I can afford to send him anywhere? If he needs to talk to someone, he can talk to me."

The detective paused as though to say something more, but then handed her his card, said, "If he remembers anything else, please have him call this number. And we might need to talk to him again, regardless, so make sure you're available."

"Sure. I'll just cancel that trip to Paris," she said and chuckled, then coughed.

He didn't know why she had to be so rude. JT wanted the policeman to stay longer. He at least believed his innocence, more so than his own mother.

Two nights later, he woke up with a name on his lips, and had to vomit before, shaking and sitting on the cold tiles and moldy grout in the bathroom, he could speak it. Isaac.

He had last seen the detective's card on the kitchen table, but it wasn't there. Nor was his mother home. He searched the house. After an hour and still no card, he envisioned it in the bottom of her purse or of a trash can at one of the bars she frequented. He looked at the clock. Only eight-thirty. He had gone to bed early that night, to try and avoid remembering that he had indeed seen the end of the program. He picked up the phone to call 911, but the dead silence said that his mother hadn't paid the bill again.

It was still light outside, and he thought of the store down the road. Marjorie West had always been civil to him when he bought bread and peanut butter for his lunches, if not exactly friendly. He doubted the store would still be open, but she might let him use her phone. When he told her why, she would have to. He thought briefly of going to the Kane's, but dismissed it. The thought of entering their home and the concentrated grief and horror there frightened him.

He put on his shoes and a t-shirt, and walked down the road, stopping periodically to squeeze shut his eyes when the images of Adam lying in the red mud surfaced, until retreating for the next showing. But now that he remembered, he wouldn't push them away entirely. And he didn't care what Eric's parents would think if he could identify their son's killer. He simply wanted to tell the truth and see Isaac arrested.

There was a light on in the store, and he tried the door but it was locked. JT put his hands to the glass and peered in, looking past the neat rows of canned goods, loaves of bread, and his favorite rack of Hostess products. His stomach responded. He couldn't remember what or when he'd eaten last. A car approached but didn't pass. He heard it slow, and sought to identify it through a reflection in the window, but the light inside prevented it. A flutter of fear began in his already unsteady stomach.

"What are you doing? You looking to steal something, Groves? Better get home before I call the police. Surprised they didn't take you in with them today."

He flinched at the recognition of Mr. Fisk's voice. But here was an adult that could help him. For this, he would have to shelve his animosity. It might even change his mind entirely. He felt ashamed that in the end he might be taking advantage of Adam's death. But Adam
was
dead, he wasn't, and still had to live in this town.

He turned around and blurted out, "Mr. Fisk. I know who killed Adam. It was Isaac Burroughs. We have to call the police. My mom took the card the detective gave her, and our phone was shut off..."

He trailed off as Fisk's face, peering out through the open passenger window of his car, lost its color. But then the news of the pastor's son involved in murder would be the sort to do that.

In a somber voice, Fisk said, "Get in the car Groves. That's a serious accusation. I might need to take you to the police station myself if it's true."

"It is, Mr. Fisk. I couldn't remember at first, but I remember it...all...now." He came down the two steps that led to the grocery and opened the car door. He hesitated, thinking of all the cruel words and insinuations delivered by Mr. Fisk, but knew that this took precedence over his own comfort.

He shut the door, and Fisk began to drive, staring straight ahead, his jaw working. JT had never noticed how thick with muscle his arms were, evident even under the suitcoat he wore, and felt uneasy to share the same small space. They drove past his house, past the junkyard and its hidden cache of pornography, and to the deserted firehall parking lot. They bounced through some holes in the packed dirt, and the car came to rest.

Finally Arnie turned to him, and his expression was hard. "Why would you tell such a wicked lie, Groves? Isaac Burroughs hasn't been around for about a month. He's in California, last I knew. Why would you want to lie about good people?"

"But...it was him. I saw him." Doubt gnawed at his certainty of a few moments ago.

There was no give in Arnie's tone or expression. "No, you didn't. You saw someone else, and you'd better think hard about who."

JT tried to imagine the face, the smile, as belonging to someone else, but the more he attempted to rearrange the features, the more his memory insisted. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. He had to get out of the car, had to think. Maybe Isaac had never really left, just pretended and hung around, waiting to kill someone. Maybe it had been someone that just looked like Isaac. He needed some time to think, to find someone else to talk to that didn't hate him.