“Go around the back
when you’re finished, Daniels. Take your rover, but don’t shine any lights. If
he’s armed, we don’t want to give him a target.” Cresly picked up his own rover
— a handheld radio — and got out of the car. Our feet crunched the gravel as we
made our way to the back of the Mercedes.
“What’s she doing?”
Cresly asked as we strained to see through the darkness. She made a movement.
Cresly drew his gun.
“Mrs. Zane,” he
said, “I want you to move back here, move away from the door.”
“Who are you?” she
demanded.
“The police, Mrs.
Zane.”
He’s listening to
us, I thought, watching the fluttering of the curtain at the window. Zane was
inside listening. Suddenly, the light went out and then there was an explosion.
A bullet sizzled through the darkness, within inches of where I stood. I
dropped to my knees.
Daniels, kneeling
beside me, said, “Draw his fire, while I get around back.”
“No,” I said. “Josh
might be in there. You’ll endanger him. And her.”
Cresly said, “Move
around the cars, Daniels. Just go slow.”
“Tom! Tom! Let me
in!” Rennie pounded on the door, shattering the stillness. Daniels scurried
around the cars and quickly eased himself over the fence at the side of the
house. Rennie screamed to be let in.
From within the
house, Zane shouted. “Get back, Rennie! It’s all over. Just get away.”
She seemed to
collapse against the door. I started toward her.
“Rios, stop,”
Cresly said in a fierce whisper.
Ignoring him, I
squatted and darted to the porch. She sat with her back against the door, her
face barely discernible in the darkness but when I whispered, “Rennie,” she
looked up at me, her eyes glittering.
“It’s Henry. Come
on.” I reached my hand for her and she slapped it away.
“They’ll kill him,”
she sobbed.
I half-lifted,
half-dragged her up to her feet. “There’s no time for this,” I said. “The cops
are here and more are on their way. You’ll get caught in the crossfire. Let’s
go.”
She struggled for a
moment longer. “He won’t let me in,” she cried, then she let me pull her back
toward the cars. I sat her down on the ground. Freeman was there, his gun
drawn, looking into the darkness.
“Where’s Cresly?”
“Out there,” he
said, nodding at a shadowy flicker of movement between a couple of trees.
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s gonna draw
Zane’s fire while Daniels breaks in through the back.”
“Josh is in there,”
I said.
Just then, we heard
Cresly from the other side of the yard say, “Zane. If the boy’s in there with
you, let him come out.”
He was answered
with another shot.
“Is that his
evidence?” I demanded. I started toward Cresly, but Freeman pulled me back.
“You can’t go out
there, man.”
“We don’t know
whether Josh is in there or not.”
“Then ask her,”
Freeman said, jutting his chin at Rennie.
I knelt beside her.
Her hair was disheveled and a silvery line of snot ran from her nose to her
upper lip. Her face was slack and she looked old. Older than I had ever seen
her before.
“Is Tom in there
alone?” I asked.
She looked at me
without apparent recognition and swayed her head back and forth.
I grabbed her by
the shoulders. “Listen to me. Who’s in the house?”
She turned her head
away from me, lay her cheek against the car and muttered, “What does it matter.
They’re going to kill him.”
Cresly yelled out, “Let
the boy go, Zane. If he’s okay we don’t have anything on you.”
I dug my hands
deeper into her shoulders and shook her. “Tell me!”
She drew a long,
shaky breath. “Is what he said true?” “Yes,” I said. “They know about the
murders but they don’t have any hard evidence. Tonight was a set-up. The boy
was bait. If he’s all right, they can’t charge Tom with anything.”
Even as I spoke I
heard sirens, far off, but approaching.
“I heard another
voice,” she said. “Male.”
I released her
shoulders and crawled over to Freeman. “She says she heard Josh in there. I’ve
got to tell Cresly.”
“I’ll go,” Freeman
said. “Watch her.”
The sirens were
coming closer. “Hurry, before the sheriffs get here. They’ll scare him into
something stupid.”
“Zane?” he asked,
confused.
“Cresly. Go on.”
Freeman jumped into
the darkness and disappeared, with only the crackle of grass, leaves, and twigs
to mark his path. I returned to Rennie. The sirens. If Zane couldn’t hear them
by now, he soon would. I thought of Daniels alone in the back of the house.
“Did you just lie
to me, Henry?” Rennie asked, in a semblance of her old voice.
“I’m just trying to
avoid any more killing,” I said.
She wiped her nose
on her sleeve and said, “What hate you must feel for me.”
“The boy in there
is my lover,” I replied, “and right now I don’t feel anything about anyone
except for him.”
“But how — “ she
began.
“There’s no time to
explain.” From their sirens, I guessed the sheriffs had found the road. “But if
anything happens to him, I’ll-”
“You don’t have to
threaten me,” she said. “I understand.” I nodded. Someone tugged at my elbow. I
swung around and found Cresly beside me.
“What the hell’s
going on here?” he demanded.
“She says she heard
Josh in there.”
“Bullshit.” He bit
off the word. “If he was in there, or still alive, Zane woulda used him to buy
his way out. I’m sending Daniels in.”
“You can’t,” I
said, but he was reaching for his radio.
Then, three things
happened, separated by only a matter of seconds yet seeming to span an
eternity. The sirens screamed in my ears. I looked around and saw the first
sheriff’s car flash through the trees. Then, I turned back to Cresly who had
lifted his rover to his mouth and swung at him wildly, knocking the radio to
the ground. He looked up at me, fury and amazement spreading across his face.
As he reached for the radio, there was a shot from within the house. We
swiveled around. Rennie screamed. There was another shot and then, as its echo
faded, doors slammed, voices cried out and the yard was full of cops moving
toward the house, guns drawn.
“Don’t shoot,”
Cresly shouted. “I got a man in there.”
The sheriffs
stopped in their tracks. A deputy hurried over to us. “What is this?”
“Keep your men
back,” Cresly said and picked up his radio. “Daniels.”
“I’m right here,”
Daniels answered. “Out back. Something’s going on in there.”
We all looked
toward the house. The porch light flashed on. Cresly stood up and shouted, “This
is your last chance before we start shooting. Come out with your hands on your
head.”
Slowly, the door
opened. My breath caught in my throat as someone stepped out onto the porch,
hands raised high over his head. It was Josh. I breathed.
*****
We were sitting on
the porch steps. I had wrapped my coat around Josh’s shoulders and put my arm
around him, but he could not stop shivering or talking, even as he cried. He
simply talked through his tears.
“It happened so
fast,” he said. “He had me sitting by the fireplace with the gun on me. Then we
heard the sirens and he looked out the window. Just for a second. I grabbed the
poker and just swung. It was dark and I couldn’t see very well but I must have
hit his hand because the gun went off and then I heard it hit the floor. I went
for it and when I got it I just started shooting — I just...” He broke off,
sobbing.
I held him closer. “It’s
all right, Josh.”
“But I killed him,
Henry.”
“He had the poker,”
I said.
“But I couldn’t see
that,” Josh said. “I didn’t wait to see what would happen.”
“Thank God for
that,” I said. He buried his face in my chest. I looked above his head into the
room behind us. A sheriff knelt beside Zane’s body. Someone laughed. Someone
sipped from a cup of coffee.
Irene Gentry stood
with her back against the wall. Cresly walked up to her and said something. She
shook her head slowly, again and again, until he shrugged and walked away.
After he’d gone, she lifted a slender hand and, almost contemptuously, wiped
the tears from her face. As if aware she was being watched, she looked slowly
around the room and then out the door until our eyes met. I tried to read their
expression but she was far away. I heard her ask for a cigarette and she passed
out of my view.
Josh asked, “What
will happen to her?”
“If they can prove
the murders, she could be indicted as an accomplice. If not,” I shrugged. “I
doubt that anything worse can happen to her than happened tonight.”
He was quiet in my
arms. Nothing worse could happen to her. She told me once that we each loved
according to our natures and her nature had brought her to an empty place,
where it was as easy to die as to love. I looked down at Josh. The light shone
off his face. His eyes were full of questions to which I had no answer but one.
But that one I could finally give.
“I love you, Josh,”
I said.