Deadliest of Sins (8 page)

“So what'd you think?” he asked, out of breath.

“I think they put you in the right position,” said Mary.

“I really suck, don't I?”

“You did okay, considering you're playing with semi-pros.”

“I'm probably lucky they let me play at all.” Galloway laughed, unembarrassed by his lack of baseball skill. “You want to go get a beer? I found out some stuff about your kid.”

“Honeycutt?”

“No, your little kid in the peach truck.”

“Sure,” she said. “Let's go.”

She followed him to a quiet restaurant far from the church league baseball crowd. They sat at the bar, underneath a television that was airing a soccer game.

“That's my sport,” said Victor as the barkeeper put two beers in front of them. “I'm a much better fullback than I am a right fielder.”

Mary looked up at the screen. She hadn't watched soccer since Lily played in the nine-year-old league, in Cherokee. The memory was bittersweet—Lily had loved soccer, but back then, Lily Walkingstick had also loved her.

“I played in high school, then some club soccer in college,” continued Galloway. “My mother's brother, Alejandro, played forward for Argentina.”

He pronounced
Argentina
with a Spanish accent. Until that moment, Mary had forgotten that he'd been hired for being bilingual. “So your mother's Argentine?”

“
Sí, senorita
. Maria DeCampos,
des
Buenos Aires. My father's Pete Galloway, from Brooklyn.” He grinned. “I got my mother's charm and my father's hustle.”

“Yeah, I saw all your hustle, out there in right field.”

Shrugging, he nodded at the TV. “Like I said, soccer's my game …
not baseball.”

“So have you found out anything about your teammates?”

“Only that they take baseball almost as seriously as they take God.”

“I found something interesting on your number eleven. Honey-
cutt.”

“What?”

“
He's the guy Sligo County indicted for Alan Bratcher's murder.”

Galloway put down his beer. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. They were in a bar, after a baseball game. Bratcher was gay, put his arm around Honeycutt's shoulders. Honeycutt took offense and beat the shit out of the guy in the parking lot. He died three days later, after which Sligo charged him with manslaughter. His lawyer got him off with some idiotic ‘gay panic' defense.”

“Gay panic?”

Mary nodded. “Claimed Honeycutt believed some obscure Bible verse that said if you're even touched by a homosexual, then you'll go to hell along with the homosexual.”

“And the jury bought that?”

“Apparently. The prosecutor was too much of a rookie to wiggle out of it. The DA may have set her up, too. Come election day, he won't look like a gay-rights activist.”

Galloway gave a low whistle. “So I'd better not pat Honeycutt's ass, huh?”

“I wouldn't if I were you.” Mary took a sip of beer. “What did you find out about my little kid?”

“After you left I pulled the phone records on Ralph Gudger's landline. They did get a call from a cell phone about the same time the kid claims to have heard from his sister.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. But it's from a stolen cell with a 704-999 exchange—that's Mecklenburg County.”

“Charlotte,” said Mary.

“Exactly where the boyfriend is from, according to Crump. Did the sister sound like she was in trouble when she called?”

“The boy said so, but I think he was scared his stepfather would catch him on the telephone. This Gudger character sounds like a real Nazi.”

“Well, that pretty much corroborates what Crump told us,” said Victor. “The girl's miserable at home, hates her stepfather, so she gets her boyfriend to pick her up as she's on her way home from a babysitting gig. She leaves her car running, hops in with him, and off they go. She probably felt bad and called home to let her mother know she was still alive. Instead of her mom, she gets her psycho brother.”

“But why would she tell her brother that she's in trouble?” Mary asked. “Why didn't she take her purse and her babysitting money? Has anybody questioned the boyfriend? The little brother says he doesn't exist.”

“Crump said it was probably an Internet romance she hadn't told anyone about.” Galloway shrugged. “It sounds like the girl was determined to leave the stepfather and just took the first way out that came along.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I honestly think that after assault weapons and drunk drivers, the most hazardous thing to your health is your own family.”

“You might be right.” Mary scooped up some cheese on a nacho chip. “Tomorrow I'll call the boy and tell him that his sister was calling from Charlotte, probably just to let them know she was still alive.”

Eleven

Chase grubbed the poison
ivy long past sunset, pulling the green vines off the fence, hacking at the roots with a pickax, all the while thinking he'd managed to screw everything up again. Though he'd managed to hang up the phone and run to the bathroom before Gudger came inside, he had a bad feeling that the ex-cop suspected something.

“What are you up to in there, boy?” Gudger had demanded, pounding on the bathroom door.

“I had to go to the bathroom,” Chase cried.

“Haven't you heard of pissing in the woods?”

“It's not piss.” Chase crouched on the toilet, shaking. “It's the other.”

“You can do that in the woods, too, Olive Oyl.”

Chase held his breath, wondering if Gudger was going to open the door and throw him off the john, but his footsteps thumped down the hall and into the bedroom. Chase waited a moment, flushed the toilet for show, then scampered back up to the poison ivy.

Now he sat by the fence in the growing dark, arms and legs aching, hiding until his mother returned home from work. Over the course of the afternoon he'd been tortured by the notion that Gudger had figured out that he'd been on the phone. If so, then he'd probably had one of his cop friends trace the call. Gudger would know then that he'd called Mary Crow. That would be bad enough, but what if the cops had also said, “Gudge, you had another call on that line yesterday, and it wasn't from any Jamaica Cruise company, either.”

That made him sick inside. He couldn't imagine what Gudger would do if he found out that Sam had called and that he, Chase, had lied to him about it. Beat him, probably. Or lock him in his room for the rest of the summer. Better to stay out here until his mother got home. Gudger wouldn't do anything to him in front of his mom.

He huddled in the shadows, watching the sky turn from pink to a soft, hazy blue. As fireflies began to blink close to the ground, he saw distant headlights threading through the trees along the driveway. He watched as his mother's old Dodge slowed to a stop under the oak tree. A moment later his mother emerged, juggling an armload of packages. She hurried toward the house with her head down and her shoulders hunched, as if she slogged through a private world of frost and despair, instead of the warm summer night that surrounded him. Already he'd seen new wrinkles bracketing her mouth and he often caught her staring out the living room window, as if waiting for Sam to roll up in the driveway and say hello, Suzie Q's radio blaring.

“I should tell her,” he whispered. “Tell her that Sam called, that she's still alive.”

It seemed mean to keep that kind of secret, but telling her would unleash a torrent of questions—
When did she call? What did she say? Where is she? Why didn't she call me? Why didn't you tell me this the instant she called?

He knew if he answered truthfully, they'd never see Sam again. His mother would go to Gudger and though he would make a big show about getting the cops involved again, secretly he would make double-sure that this time, Sam would stay gone for good. His sister's only chance of coming home depended on Gudger thinking that she was already far, far away.

“I'm sorry, Mama,” he whispered to her as she opened the back door. “I've got to keep this secret.”

He waited until he saw the lights come on in the kitchen, then he figured it was safe to go inside. Gudger's attention would be on his mother and supper, rather than him. Grabbing the pickax, he lugged it back to the shed. His arms and shoulders ached from all his chopping, and as he headed toward the house, the skin on his face and shoulders felt too tight for his own body. When he opened the back door, he found Gudger in the kitchen, holding a bucket of fried chicken as if it were dog shit. His stomach clenched; Gudger was already mad, and he hadn't even laid eyes on him yet.

“
You roll in here at nine thirty at night?” Gudger was yelling at his mother. “With this for my supper?”

“I'm sorry,” Amy replied. “I caught my hand in a door at work—I had to fill out an accident report and have the PA examine it.” She held up her right hand—it was purple, her wrist swollen to twice its normal size. “I thought maybe we could just have take-home chicken tonight.”

Gudger's face was turning the same color as his mother's hand, when Chase stepped forward. “Thanks, Mama,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I love fried chicken.”

His mother looked down at him. Suddenly her eyes grew wide. “Chase! What happened to you?”

“For once he's made himself useful.” Gudger looked at him, his mouth stretching in mirthless grin. “I had him dig poison ivy off the back fence.”

“Did you make him do it all day?” His mother put a hand under his chin, inspecting his body proprietarily, as if it were still somehow attached to her own. “He's blistered with sunburn. And look at these spots all over his arms!”

“Aw, they're just mosquito bites.” Gudger scoffed. “You treat that boy like he was a china doll.”

“But he's covered in these things!” She turned to Gudger in a rare show of anger. “Couldn't you have given him some insect repellent?”

“It's okay, Mama,” Chase said, not wanting to stoke Gudger's wrath further. “I'll go wash up and put on some lotion.”

“Good idea, boy.” Gudger said a bit too heartily. “By the time you get back, we'll have a nice plate of fried chicken ready for you.”

Chase went to the bathroom, weak with relief. Gudger hadn't been mad at him; Gudger had been mad at his mother not having a hot, home-cooked supper on the table at six thirty. He turned on the overhead light. As he started to fill the sink with water, he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. Suddenly he realized why his mother was so upset. He looked like something out of an old sci-fi movie, where people had been zapped by too much radiation. His skin looked like raw flesh from his hairline to his collar bones, covered in both mosquito bites and smaller, paler pimples that he'd never seen before.

“Wow,” he said, barely recognizing the face that stared back at him. “No wonder Mama got mad.” He washed the dirt from his face with cool water and dabbed pink Calamine lotion on his bites. He looked cleaner, but slightly comical, spotted in pink and white dots. He went to his room and put on a clean T-shirt, in case Gudger decided it would be fun to post more pictures of him on YouTube.

By the time he got back to the kitchen, Gudger sat hunched over his plate, making short work of three big pieces of chicken.

“Here, sweetie,” his mother said, giving him another worried look as she retrieved a plate from the oven. “I kept yours warm.”

He ate. Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, applesauce his mother had canned last fall. Never had anything tasted so good. He was about to ask for another piece of chicken when Gudger scooted back in his chair and tossed his napkin in his plate.

“I'm going to catch the rest of the game.”

Chase focused on his plate as Gudger went into the den. Soon the voices of the baseball announcers wafted into the kitchen. As he scraped up his last bite of applesauce, his mother started clearing the table. He could tell by the way she carried the plates that her hand was hurting her, so he got up to help her.

“That chicken was good, but it wasn't as good as yours, Mama,” he said, handing her his dirty dishes as she filled the sink with hot water.

“Did you get enough to eat?” She tried to squeeze her swollen hand into a rubber glove, but it wouldn't fit.

“I can wash the dishes,” he said. “I'll wash and you dry, just like Sam and I used to do.”

For a moment she smiled, then she leaned over the sink and started to cry. “Oh, Chase,” she sobbed. “What are we going to do?”

Suddenly, he couldn't stand to see her like this anymore. The words he'd earlier decided not to say filled his mouth.
Sam called yesterday, Mama. I talked to her. She's alive, but she's in trouble.
I called Mary Crow about her this afternoon.
They were just about to spill out when Gudger's voice cracked like a whip.

“Chase!” he yelled. “Get in here, boy. You and I need to have a little talk.”

His heart stopped. Gudger must have found out about his making that phone call. All night he'd just been waiting for the right moment to spring his trap. “I'm helping Mama clean up,” Chase called, stalling for time.

“Your mama can clean up by herself. You come on in here.”

“Go on, Chase.” His mother wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. “These dishes won't take long. I'll be in there in just a minute.”

He had no choice. Gudger was calling, his mother was telling him to go. His mouth chalky with fear, he walked slowly into the den. Gudger sprawled in his lounge chair, a small pile of beer cans in a wastebasket beside him. Chase approached the man cautiously. Gudger was mean enough sober; drunk, he was ten times worse.

“Yes sir?” Chase stopped well out of range of Gudger's fists.

“I wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you, boy,” Gudger said, just beginning to slur his words. “You did a man's work today, and you've earned a man's rest tonight. Come watch this game with me.”

He was stunned by Gudger's offer of camaraderie, also distrustful. It would be just like Gudger to pretend to be friends, and then blindside him when he wasn't expecting it. “Thanks, but I'm kind of tired. I'd really just rather go to bed.”

“You felt strong enough to help your mama a few minutes ago … are you saying you're now too tired to watch a ball game with me?”

Chase knew he was walking into a trap, but he couldn't tell what kind it was. Anyway, he knew arguing would only make Gudger more determined to spring it. “No sir,” he said. “I'll watch the game.”

He walked over and sat down on the sofa. On television, the Braves catcher was jiggling his fingers between his legs—some kind of signal to the pitcher. He didn't know anything about baseball—his father had been a Cincinnati Bengals fan. He sat staring at the screen, wishing Gudger would pass out when he felt something cold against his bare leg. He jumped, looked down. Gudger was holding an icy can of Pabst beer against his shin.

“There you go, boy. Working man's reward. Uncork that puppy and knock it back. It'll cure what ails you.”

Chase shook his head. He'd had beer before. It looked a whole lot better than it tasted. “No thanks,” he told Gudger.

“Aw, what's the matter? You too much of a mama's boy to take a drink?” Gudger's eyes glittered with dark glee, as if he'd discovered some secret Chase had been trying to hide. Again, he knew he was trapped. If he didn't drink the beer, he'd hear about it for weeks, possibly months.

“No, I'll drink it,” he said. Slowly, he pulled the can open. White foam gurgled to the top. He took a small sip; bitter, pungent bubbles filled his mouth. Sputtering, he put the can down. Gudger started to laugh.

“Go on, boy, knock it back! Chug it like a man!”

Chase took another sip, choked a mouthful down.

“No!” cried Gudger. “Not like that. Like this.” He opened a new can, held it up to his mouth, and poured it down his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing. He tossed the empty in the box and turned to Chase.

Just get it over with
, Chase told himself. He did exactly what Gudger did—held the can up high and poured it down his throat. Though he hated the taste, hated the way the stuff foamed up into his nose and sinuses, he managed to gulp the stuff down. When the can was empty, he gave it back to Gudger. “There,” he said. “I chugged it like a man.”

Gudger was going to say something, but the game on TV caught his attention. Chase sat back on the sofa, belching as one player hit the ball and another player caught, then dropped it. Gudger began screaming at the TV. Suddenly, the men on the screen grew fuzzy—comical pin-striped characters frolicking across a field of green. He blinked—his face felt hot, his skin tight. The room began to tilt as he felt a rolling sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“Did you see that pitch, boy?” Gudger turned to him, excited.

He couldn't answer as his mouth began to flood with saliva.

“What's the matter with you, boy?” cried Gudger.

“I-I think I'm going to be sick.”

“Aw, come on,” said Gudger. “After one beer?”

Quickly, he stood up. He knew he was going to puke—either here or in the toilet. Tripping over Gudger's feet, he stumbled toward the bathroom.

“Are you kidding me?” Gudger started laughing, then grew silent as Chase lurched into the door frame. “Oh, go on and get out of here, you lying little weasel,” he says. “Just see if I waste a good beer on you again.”

With the house spinning, Chase managed to get to the bathroom just as the beer erupted from his stomach. He clutched the commode like a man on a life raft as the beer and fried chicken made its way into the toilet. Though the room still spun and his body trembled in a cold, drenching sweat, Gudger's parting words sobered him quickly.
You lying little weasel
. There would be no reason for Gudger to call him that unless he knew that he'd been on the phone, talking to his sister.