Kings of the Earth: A Novel (31 page)

Donna

S
HE BEGAN GOING OUT
to the farm more often, as if wanting to substitute herself for her dead brother, as if hoping somehow to fill the gap he’d left behind. As if such a thing were necessary or even close to possible. Driving out there one noontime she saw Tom’s car parked half in and half out of the barn and she turned right around in the middle of the dirt lane and went straight back to the hospital, thinking there was no need for the two of them to be there at once. She didn’t know what use Tom might be around the farm or how he’d gotten off work to help his uncles with whatever they were up to, but that didn’t matter. He was thirty years old and maybe he was finally growing up a little. She’d have to remember to mention it to him. Or maybe not.

Creed and Audie were out there all by themselves when Del Graham came the next time. He drove out on his way to work, plenty early but still late enough to be certain that milking time was over. The co-op truck was barreling around the corner onto the main road without even slowing down and the driver hit the brakes hard when he caught sight of the police car. Del just smiled and waved him on. If there’s one thing that won’t wait it’s milk. Milk and the cows it comes from.

When he got to the barn it was empty and the house was empty too. He rapped on the screen door and called out their names, Creed and then Audie and then Creed again, but no answer came. The door bounced open of its own accord but he didn’t go in, he just stuck his head through and called again and sniffed a couple of times and squinted into the dim room and that was that. Without the veil of the rusty screen, the place looked exactly as it had when he’d been out here before. Everything had run so far downhill so long ago that there wasn’t much left to be altered by either use or time. Even the flypaper, stiffgluey twists of it hanging down from the ceiling over the table, over the bed, over the sink, had caught its limit.

He closed the door and pushed on it and pushed harder, waiting for it to click shut, but the spring latch was rusted out. He went on down from the porch and around into the barnyard. Dust collected on his shoes and he stamped them and thought this is how it begins. A little bit at a time. He cocked his head, hearing the sound of a tractor from somewhere up in the high fields, and hearing it he followed along the way he’d gone on the day of Vernon’s burial, letting himself through the gate and taking the path up into the pasture. It was pleasant up there, green and breezy. Trees stood in places, making little pools of shade that drew some of the cows but not others. Another small mystery.

He found them near the graveyard, Audie driving the Farmall tractor and Creed watching him from beneath a tree at the edge of the field. Creed had a can of Dr Pepper and he lifted it to Del on sight, grinning like mad. Del thought if you scrubbed away the grime and gave him a shave and maybe fixed his teeth a little, you couldn’t have told him apart from some well-heeled playboy type greeting you at the country club. He had that same manner.

Del came over to the shade of the tree but he had to shout above the noise of the tractor going past. “I came to see your brother.”

Creed pointed to Audie with the hand holding the Dr Pepper can, one crooked finger straight out. It was short by one knuckle but it pointed well enough.

“I see him. I need to ask him a couple of questions.”

“He’ll be done in a while,” Creed said. “I come up to keep an eye on him. He don’t see too good no more.”

“I know,” Del said. Then: “How about you take over, so I can borrow him for just a bit?”

“All right,” said Creed. He put the can down in the grass and stood up, clapping dust out of his pant legs, and then he went out into the field hollering at Audie to stop right where he was.

Preston

I
SAW HIM GO
and I thought I knew what he was up to. I didn’t know how he’d found out about that marijuana field but I didn’t care. He’d need a search warrant and I guessed he had one, either that or he was just going to talk to the boys for a while and have a little look around and pretend to just kind of stumble onto it. That was all right with me either way. I figured it was about time. So when he and Audie came back down together you could have knocked me over with a feather just about. I could still hear the tractor going. I figured Creed was driving it since Graham and Audie were coming down through the pasture together. Graham had a hold of Audie’s elbow the way you’d do it if you were showing a blind man where to go. Like he thought Audie couldn’t find his own way.

They were coming down the hill but they were coming slowly. They were talking back and forth. Graham would say something and then he’d turn his head toward Audie and Audie would say something back but you could see that Graham didn’t understand it. He’d get kind of squinty-eyed and curl up one corner of his mouth and cock his head at an angle. Then he’d say something more and you could tell he was probably asking the same question all over again. I didn’t feel sorry for him. I felt sorry for Audie. Audie’d shake his head and kind of draw it back like a lizard or a bird or something the way he does. A turtle. Kind of making his neck short and wagging his head back and forth quick. He looked worried. Graham would nod and pat him on the arm or take his own hand off his elbow and rest it on his shoulder like they were the best old friends in the world, but Audie didn’t ease up any you could tell. I could see him winding up. I could see him just winding himself up real tight.

I went into the back hall and got my hat and then I went into the kitchen and asked Margaret if she’d call that lawyer on the telephone. Chapman. His business card was on the corkboard. When I’d sat down with him the first time I didn’t think we’d need him for Audie, but things change. I wasn’t going to let the same damned thing happen to Audie that happened to Creed. Next thing you know he’d be signing some piece of paper and they’d have the both of them in the pokey together. I was thinking maybe the troopers couldn’t make up their minds between them so they’d let a jury choose or else just go for the Daily Double. Convict them both. I wasn’t going to stand for that. I meant to nip that in the bud. Margaret got up to call that lawyer and I went out.

The door slammed behind me and I let it. Graham heard it go and believe me he pulled up short. For a lawman he looked an awful lot like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I don’t mind telling you that.

Del

P
RESTON
H
ATCH WANTED TO DRIVE
Audie to the barracks in his own car, which seemed like a good idea. I went on ahead and they came along when they got themselves situated. It didn’t take long. To tell the truth they almost got there before I did. Preston has something of a lead foot. But you could say he was on official business, so I didn’t make any remark on the subject. I just let him go.

The five of us would have been a tight fit in my office, so we talked in the small conference room. Al Chapman and Preston Hatch and Audie Proctor took one side of the table and Burnes and I took the other. Burnes was recording. I’d never met Chapman before that day and I wasn’t impressed with him. His first misstep, as far as I was concerned, was making Preston and Audie cool their heels in the lobby waiting for him to show up. That was disrespectful. Mrs. Hatch had phoned his office while I was out at the farm and she’d gotten him on the line and I’d gone into the kitchen to speak with him, and he’d said that he’d meet us down at the barracks right away. It took him well over an hour and a half to get there and that was only from downtown. He must have had something more important to do. I didn’t ask. It wasn’t any of my business. I had paperwork to keep me occupied in the meantime, but Preston and Audie just had to sit and wait. Burnes took them out some coffee but neither one of them drank any of it. From where I sat in my office I could see them on the couch with the coffee cups on the table in front of them. They had their heads together but they weren’t drinking the coffee, so I sent Burnes out to see if perhaps they wanted a Coke or something instead. Something cold. Hatch said no but Audie said yes although I don’t believe he drank that either, once he got it.

Once Chapman got here he took Audie and Preston into the conference room to go over what they had to go over. When he closed the door he didn’t look as if he was happy to see Preston and he didn’t look any happier about it when he opened the door again and came out. He looked like he’d figured out that he was stuck with him for better or worse. He fully expected me to object, no question. Before we’d even sat down he jumped on me with both feet. He insisted on his client’s behalf that Mr. Hatch be permitted to stay and participate in the questioning, since otherwise Mr. Proctor’s statements might be misunderstood both by law enforcement officers and by his own representation. He said having Mr. Hatch in the room was equivalent to bringing in a translator for a foreign speaker and I said fine. He said if I didn’t see it his way he could do a little research into the subject and quote me chapter and verse and file some papers but it would cause a delay and I said fine, really, I had no problem with Mr. Hatch. I had no problem with Mr. Hatch at all. I was the one who’d let Mr. Hatch come in the first place, for exactly that purpose. Chapman hadn’t expected that. I think he might have preferred the delay, but he didn’t get it.

Audie had a powerful smell about him in that small conference room. There’s only the one window and Burnes opened it up all the way, but it didn’t help much because there wasn’t any cross-ventilation. You couldn’t open the door and get some, either. Not with the questioning under way.

I began by asking Audie what had happened the night before his brother died. Asking if he remembered anything in particular. He said something to Preston and Preston cleared it with Chapman before he said it to me. Audie and his brothers had watched some comedy program on the television. He couldn’t remember what. Then they’d watched the news a little and switched off the television and gone to bed as usual. I got the impression from how he said it, from the cadences and the details, that Preston was giving me his words accurately. And it matched well enough with what I already knew.

I asked him how Vernon had seemed that night while they were watching the television and later on when they were going to sleep, and he said he’d seemed the same as usual. No different. He’d made no complaints.

I asked had they all slept side by side in the one bed the way they usually did, and he said yes. I asked in what order and he shook his head as if he didn’t understand the question. He kept shaking his head and he wouldn’t look at me. So I asked in a different way. I asked who slept on the side of the bed against the wall and who slept in the middle. He started picking at the edge of the table with his fingers as if he wanted to strip the veneer away from it. Preston took his one hand by the wrist and looked at me, wondering if that was all right to do, and I told him it was all right without saying it out loud. Just by the way I looked back at him. He got Audie’s hands down in his lap and Audie calmed down, at least to some measure. Preston asked him the question again for me, which I thought was good judgment on his part. It was better than my asking it myself, and this time Audie answered. Creed against the wall, Vernon in the middle. That fit with the way his brother had described it. As for Vernon’s being in the middle, it also fit with the presence of the urine stains. Although they’d been all over the place, really.

By then I’d decided I ought to back up a little and take it slower if we were going to get anywhere at all, so that’s what I did.