Lucky's Girl (22 page)

The thing that didn’t make any sense was
why
.

What did Lucky have to gain from all this?

Kenny had been sitting here in this darkened trailer for a long time. But the answer hadn’t swum in from the shadows. He still saw Lucky as his best friend, but the question kept coming back.

Why
?

What was all of this
for
?

Would someone who
could
control people like Lucky could do it just because they were able to? Wouldn’t they do it to gain something or accomplish some goal? Is control just for the sake of control why people seek to do it?

Maybe some people were like that, but Lucky talked about Elton like it was an overflowing toilet. He talked about the people like they were dumb animals. He couldn’t wait to get away. Lucky wanted the world, so why start in Elton?

And the banging started. It wasn’t knocking, it was banging: it shook the windows and rattled the doorframe. “Kenny! Kenny! Son?”

There was dirt on his clothes and leaves in his hair, and the panic in his voice said that he hadn’t been out hunting. Something put the fear in Frank McCord and Kenny knew that it was time for consequences.

Frank pushed and pulled him out of Mary’s trailer, his lack of words made up for by the worry in his eyes. His uncle’s body motions, his hovering, suggested that he was trying to put himself in between Kenny and something or somebody.

“Uncle Frank, what the hell is going on? You’re freaking me out, tell me what’s going on!”

His uncle turned to him with a haunted gaze. “What did you think would happen?”

Kenny couldn’t play dumb. He knew his place and that place had nothing to do with touching, much less
fucking
,
girls like Christie Tellefsen. No matter what, you don’t get to upset the balance of the universe without consequences.

“How did you find out?”

“Get in the truck, it’s time for you to go.”

Kenny got in the truck. His uncle tore down the road to their cabin. He was already scared, but just what did
it’s time for you to go
mean? Was his uncle getting rid of him? Was he being sent away? Did reaching up and touching heaven cost a man his life?

“Uncle Frank, please. Don’t send me away.”

His uncle didn’t take his hand off the wheel or his eyes off the road. “You don’t know what Lucky’s been doing.”

It was a statement, not a question, so Kenny had to ask. “What…
what did Lucky do
?”

The truck lurched to a halt in their driveway. Frank leapt out and ran around to the passenger door, looking this way and that for mystery assailants. He yanked the door open and hustled Kenny out and into the cabin. As soon as they were inside he ran to the gun cabinet and jammed the old .45 into his belt. He threw the double barrel to Kenny and slung the deer rifle. Then he pulled all the shades and turned out the lights. He lit one of his hand-rolled cigarettes in the dark and turned to his nephew.

“Lucky’s in jail.”

CHAPTER 10

Lucky’s room looked like a Christian teenage boy’s bedroom should. At least that’s what Jerry thought. He really didn’t know. There were the requisite Roger Staubach posters and The Fridge from the Bears, and Rolly Fingers from the Brewers and The Red Wings too. No Motley Crue or Heather Thomas. Lots of little plaques from this or that Christian leadership conference.

But that was
Mary
lying on the bed.

Poor sweet deluded Mary, the kind of girl who’d never gotten a break in life and had ended up in the morgue because some punk got jealous of her glancing at another guy.

Or they ended up with a guy like Lucky.

But Lucky was sitting in jail
.

What happened here was something he’d never seen, and he’d seen a lot, both in Detroit and working the highway. High speed accidents were bloody and terrible.

But this…

This looked more like an animal attack, but no four-legged creature had done this. This was a human animal attack, frenzied and wild. Her abdomen had been torn open and the contents of her torso pulled out. It stank. The old brown carpet had soaked up the blood and had wicked it all the way to the four walls. His shoes made a slick squicking noise and the footprints carried it out into the hall.

But her face was serene, happy even. There was a lamp lying on the bed with a wad of blood and hair stuck to the base. Someone had hit her over the head then pulled her open and turned her inside out.

Pulled her guts out.

Just like Lucky had done with those animals today.

But Lucky was in a cell.

Abby had found her. He’d dropped the Rev off after informing him about Lucky and Grove Island. The Rev had gone in to try to tell Abby. To tell her that her son was accused of something so sick that he could barely describe it. Then Abby had told the Rev that Mary was pregnant. Their son, the accused animal murderer and former youth pastor, was going to be a father. Abby had run upstairs to be with Mary only to find her like this.

Inside out.

The coroner was here as well as the EMTs from the county hospital. He’d called them for Abby and the Rev. Neither were overtly unhealthy but they weren’t young either. The human heart could only take so much and today would have taxed the hearts of anyone.

Jerry was alone here. His deputy was a nice kid but he’d left him outside to keep out the gathering crowd of parishioners. This was a small town and the rumors had begun to fly like a swarm of arrows.

Mason James was in a jail cell.

Somebody had killed Mary.

Devil Worshippers were among us.

And Jerry didn’t have a single rational thing to tell anyone. He had Lucky in a cell for doing
whatever it was he did
on Grove Island. He couldn’t have killed Mary. That meant that between the Rev getting home and Abby going upstairs, someone had gone up there, butchering Mary while the James’ were on the deck talking about Lucky. And unfortunately only one person made sense in this timeline –
Kenny
.

Frank had left the station to go look for him because he hadn’t come home from the night before. And Lucky said he’d left him at the Tellefsen girl’s house that morning. He walked into the kitchen, and picked up the phone and dialed Frank. It rang three times before Frank picked up. He was relieved because he had learned early on that Frank as a rule didn’t pick up the phone.

“Frank, it’s Jerry. Have you found Kenny?”

“No, I haven’t. Why?”

“I can’t say right now, Frank. But everything we’ve been looking at? It’s much worse. Much, much worse if you can believe it.”

“I believe it.”

Something about Frank’s voice didn’t sound right. Frank was always a quiet man, his voice almost inaudible, but he never whispered. He was whispering now. People who whispered on the phone were hiding something, whether they knew it or not.

“Frank, did you go by the Tellefsen girl’s house?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you talk to anybody?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, who, Frank?”

“Her dad. Ted.”

Jerry took a deep breath and blew it out. Talking to Frank on the phone was like talking to a tree. He didn’t volunteer information.

“Did he know anything? How did that go?”

“Bad.”

“Bad?”

“Bad.”

“Frank please, just tell me what he said.”

The line was silent, but Frank was still there. He hadn’t hung up but he had detached from the conversation. Jerry knew this wasn’t going anywhere. He was just going to have to find these things out for himself.

“Okay, Frank, you’ve been great today. Thanks for everything, I mean it.”

Frank didn’t say anything, the line just going dead.

Jerry looked down at the phone and the room around him. Besides the coroner’s people and the EMTs there were Abby and the Rev on the couch, traumatized and holding each other for dear life. In a few short hours their lives had folded up and imploded.

And in the center of the room a bucket caught the slow drip of clotting blood pooling on the ceiling and falling in drips and clumps.

***

Kenny’s eyes were growing accustomed to the familiar dark of the cabin. He’d spent almost half of his life here after all. Every night on the old foldout couch he had watched the shadows do their dance as starlight had filtered through leaves and glass into their little home. He heard the familiar hum of the refrigerator and smelled the hand-rolled smokes, beechnut, instant coffee and fish. The smell of muddy boots and generic soap, English Leather aftershave, and gun oil. This was his home, but he felt the shadows were lengthening towards a certain inevitability.

Uncle Frank thought Ted Tellefsen was going to show up and kill him.

It sounded reasonable. There were consequences for upending the apple cart, for stirring up the beehive. He wondered if his uncle really knew what they’d done, he wondered if he himself really grasped what he’d done.

He glanced over at his uncle, smoking another, trying to look okay. But Kenny knew this was a ruse. His uncle was a hero all right, but it had cost him everything. He could barely interact with people. And from the looks of his clothes, Ted Tellefsen had attacked him. Kenny had never spoken with Ted Tellefsen but he’d seen him. He had a reputation as a mean-spirited boss who saw people as no better than insects. He fired people for less than nothing and rehired them for less than that. He was often visibly drunk at work.

His uncle looked like he’d gotten a pretty good beating.

And Kenny knew it was his fault.

And
Lucky’s
fault.

Kenny spoke quietly, feeling the long shadows between them.

“Uncle Frank?”

Frank didn’t respond for a moment. He also held his voice down. “Yeah.”

Kenny felt better just hearing his uncle’s voice. “What did Lucky do?”

Frank stared at him across the darkness. “Are you totally sure you don’t know?”

Kenny shrugged and sighed. “Was it pot?”

Frank laughed and then coughed. Kenny hadn’t expected to hear his uncle

laugh and it looked like his uncle hadn’t expected it either. “No. Not pot.”

Kenny smiled. “Then what finally brought down the mighty Mason James?”

He could feel the smile falling from Frank’s face even though he couldn’t see him. “How do you not know, Kenny? He’s your best friend.”

Kenny felt a cold wind inside his chest. He shot back to their conversation and all of the doubts he’d had since.

“Why does he shoot animals with a pellet gun and carry them off to Grove Island in a bag?”

Kenny knew Lucky, he knew Elton, he knew everything about this little town, but he didn’t know how Lucky
got away with it.
Lucky got away with everything. He’d never gotten in trouble for anything up until now. How was that possible? If Lucky had gotten away with so much, then maybe he’d been getting away with far more than Kenny knew about – a whole lot more. Kenny shook his head wondering what he
didn’t
know about Lucky, and the possibility that he really didn’t know his friend at all.

“Uncle Frank… I’m afraid of what you’re going to tell me, because I can’t see how any of this is possible.”

Frank nodded his head. “I don’t get it either.”

Kenny leaned back, exhaling hard. “Okay, tell me what he did.”

Frank hesitated, despite what they were facing he still didn’t want to come out with it either. “He kills the animals he shoots with that pellet gun. He cuts them open while they’re alive and he pulls out their guts.”

Kenny paused. “Okay, he does
what
?”

Then he heard the spin of wheels on gravel and the bright blast of headlights through the windows. He heard the clack of a car door opening and the light slam of it closing. Not the big clunk of a truck, light and precise. Different.

Neither spoke as they shifted on the floor.

This wasn’t Jerry’s car or Lucky’s truck or Mary’s either for that matter.

What kind of car does Ted Tellefsen drive? Kenny wracked his brain. A Lincoln. A big blue Lincoln. That car door wasn’t a Lincoln.

Then three knocks. Clack, clack, clack. Sharp and precise, just like the car door.

Kenny and his uncle looked at each other in the dark.

Kenny whispered. “That’s Christie. Not her dad.”

He nodded and gracefully lifted up and looked out from the corner of the window.

Kenny thought about it. “She wouldn’t bring him here, she’s looking for Lucky still.”

Frank looked back to him. “No one else out there.”

She knocked again and called out. Her voice was shrill in the dark. “Kenny? Kenny? Are you there? Please? Please!”

Kenny stayed low but went to the door. He didn’t open it. “Christie. Go home. Or go somewhere else. Your dad sees me with you he’s gonna shoot me. No joke.”

He heard her press her body up against the door. He visualized her on the other side. She ran her nails down the front of it, purring. “Well, looks like we should’ve thought about that before we all became a family, shouldn’t we?”

Then she laughed. It was a wild sound, unlike the first voice or the sultry second voice. Kenny knew Christie was losing it, but this was much weirder.