The Ax (28 page)

The general feeling was that all of Bucklin’s earlier loose talk would not be admissible in court, and after the lawyer arrived, Bucklin too started to claim that this burglary was his very first, so that he and Billy were at last telling the same story.

Which broke down when the police searched the Bucklin house (the same time they were searching ours) and found all that computer software.

Of course, they hadn’t found any illicit software at our house. So, if finding stolen goods at Bucklin’s house meant Bucklin was lying, then
not
finding them at Devore’s house must mean Devore was telling the truth, or at least that’s what Porculey was maintaining, and why he was doing his best to sever the two cases. Let Bucklin, the long-term master criminal, fend for himself, while Billy, the innocent youngster lured into a life of crime by Bucklin, faced the judge alone.

In chambers. We weren’t there for it, having to sit out in the corridor, but apparently it went well. Over the assistant district attorney’s ferocious objections—I saw her, from a distance, a hawklike woman in her thirties, thin and sharp-faced and ruthless—the judge did agree to separate the two cases, and to proceed in chambers with Billy’s case.

By then, a jail term was no longer at issue. In fact, as Porculey later explained it to us over diner coffee, the issue had become whether or not Billy would have a felony conviction on his record. He had never been in trouble before, he was a good student in school, he had a bright future, and he came from poverty. (Ah, well.) In chambers, Porculey had suggested the possibility of a sealed indictment, and the judge had said he’d think it over.

Over that coffee, as it cooled, all of us too keyed up to add caffeine to our systems, he’d explained what a sealed indictment was, and it’s an unexpected bit of mercy in the judicial system. If the defendant would plead guilty, and if the circumstances warrant giving him a second chance, the judge can choose to seal the indictment, keep it unpublished and unacted-upon, in his court, for whatever length of time he decrees; usually a year. If, in that time, the defendant is arrested for
another
crime, the indictment is unsealed and he faces prosecution for both the old crime and the new one. If, however, he stays clean until the term is up, the indictment is quashed as though it had never been. There is no police record; the defendant walks away pure.

Well, that’s what we were hoping for, of course, and Porculey expected we’d know before the end of the day, but first the matter of Jim Bucklin had to be dealt with. We stayed away from court during that time, but apparently Bucklin’s lawyer joined the assistant district attorney in struggling to keep the two cases together, and the argument was a lengthy one. He wanted his client, of course, to coast along on Billy’s cleaner coattails.

But eventually the judge ruled against both the defense lawyer and the assistant district attorney, and Bucklin’s case was held over alone for trial—or a plea bargain later on, more likely—and at three in the afternoon we were brought back in. Marjorie and Billy and I stood before the judge, who was a different one from that original bail hearing, in a different but similar courtroom. And again it was exactly like some religious ritual, full of arcane language, and we the penitents before the high priest.

Porculey had advised us against talking to Bucklin’s parents, so we’d avoided them, though they desperately wanted to talk to
us
; to convince us to re-yoke our boy to their doomed son, no doubt. I was aware of them at the back of the courtroom when our session began, remorseful, resentful and reproachful. I didn’t look back at them.

The judge sealed the indictment. I thought Marjorie would fall down when she understood what he’d just said, and I held tight to her arm. The judge spoke severely to Billy about his thoughtlessness—lovely word—and Billy kept his head bowed and his responses short and respectful, and soon it was over.

At twenty to four yesterday afternoon, Billy’s troubles with the law were done. So long as he stays honest from now on, that is. And there isn’t much doubt of that. This experience has frightened him, and he’s aware of just how lucky he is. He has the vision of Jim Bucklin right in front of him, to show him how serious it might have been. And he’s grateful to us, and doesn’t want to let us down.

We shook hands with Porculey, and tried to express our gratitude, and our awareness that we might well have drawn a much worse attorney, and then I took Marjorie and Billy home. What a relief it was, almost as big a relief as if I’d finished all this other business and had my real job back. And what it showed me was, if you just keep going, keep determined, don’t
let
the system grind you down, you can prevail.

I will prevail.

Well, that experience used up all of yesterday, and today was another counseling session. Today I kept my mouth shut, since I’m worried I might have exposed myself a little too much last week and I don’t want to risk doing that again. Quinlan tried to probe into me two or three times, I could sense his curiosity about the direction we were heading last week, but I gave him flat answers, greeting card answers that he couldn’t do a thing with. And Marjorie wanted to steer the conversation toward our roles within the marriage, which was what we were supposed to be there for anyway, so I think I did myself no damage.

When we got home, I did something I’ve been planning for a while, and now I think the time is right. I prepared seventeen of my resumés, my own resumés, addressed seventeen envelopes to paper mills I’d already approached in the past, plus Arcadia Processing, and I wrote a covering letter to each, saying I’m still here, I’m still available, just in case any job has opened up since you last heard from me. If the timing is right, my resumé will be the most recent one in Arcadia’s files, and possibly still fresh in Arcadia’s personnel director’s memory, when a job over there unexpectedly does become available. And since I’m sending this whole batch out, and it’s a week or two before URF’s death, there shouldn’t be any suspicion raised.

After I mailed those resumés at my local post office, I drove on up here to Wildbury, to find HCE’s answer waiting in the box. And now I sit here a minute, in the sunshine, outside the post office, and I smile at how well things are coming along.

Friday. Three days from now, I’ll find HCE at last. Will I be able to deal with him immediately? Find him and just
do
it? Then next week URF and it’s all over.

I can see the job, the work, the commute. I can
feel
being in that job, like a warm bath.

Friday.

I am parked down the block from the Coach House. It is five to one, Friday afternoon; almost time for HCE’s lunch with Ms. Laurie Kilpatrick.

Nine days ago, when I realized I couldn’t get at HCE directly, and began to think about this other way to do it, I drove all around this part of the state, looking at restaurants, and decided that, for my purposes, the Coach House in Regnery is ideal. It’s fairly up-scale, the kind of place where the local gentry goes, and it’s right on the main street of town, so there’s no problem parking or being anonymous. And there are large mullioned windows on the street, Colonial style, through which a pedestrian can easily see the front part of the restaurant, where the maitre d’ greets the customers and where there’s a small seating area of two benches for people to await their lunch companions.

Will HCE be early? I’m sure of it. At five before the hour, he’s probably in there already; time for my first walk by.

I get out of the Voyager, which I’ve parked half a block from the restaurant, and stroll down the sidewalk.

Yesterday afternoon, I phoned here, to make a reservation for two in the name Kilpatrick, so he’ll be told the reservation does exist but the other party hasn’t arrived as yet, and naturally he’ll take a seat in the waiting area.

And is that him? I stroll by, and one man is on the bench there, sitting back, looking confident, one leg crossed over the other. A very good dark suit and dark figured tie, close-cropped gray hair, a squarish face; that’s all I can see in that first glimpse.

I walk on, pause at an appliance store, study the VCRs and fax machines in the window for a few minutes, then turn and stroll back the way I came. A longer look at him now, and I’m sure this is my man. He has a blunt way of sitting, a square-jawed, take-command expression on his face, and just a hint of excited anticipation. HCE, at last.

I go back to the Voyager, get behind the wheel, sit watching the entrance to the restaurant. It’s pretty popular; well-dressed people keep going in, usually in pairs, usually men together or women together, occasionally a mixed couple, but all middle-aged or older. I don’t see another singleton who matches my idea of HCE.

1:10. Time to confirm my guess that the military-looking man in the suit is HCE. (The suit, which looks to me very good and very expensive, is the one small cause of doubt here.) Is he still waiting? Or is someone else there in his place, the
real
HCE?

No. Still him. He’s still my man. The former Marine instructor who spent his entire working life with one company. He’s looking less confident now, slightly distressed, and when I walk back toward the Voyager I see him looking at his watch.

Again I sit behind the wheel. The only question now is how long it will take him to give up.

1:45. He’s still in there. He must know by now that Ms. Kilpatrick isn’t coming, something’s gone wrong. But still he waits, hope against hope, the faithful soldier.

I hate doing this to him, the elation and then the humiliation, the terrible feeling of wretchedness and no way to strike back at the unfairness. If there’d been any other way…

Well. This situation has its grim moments.

2:05. Is he
never
going to give up? He can’t sleep in that restaurant, he’ll have to leave sometime. Did he decide to eat lunch there anyway, pay for it himself?

Unlikely. HCE and I can’t afford places like the Coach House any more.

Should I get out of the car, go see if he’s still seated there? If somehow he’s gone out some back way, left the restaurant, I should know it. But what if I do get out, and I’m halfway there, and he—

There. At last, he comes out into the sunlight. Standing, he’s shorter than I expected, but compact, a stocky man in good physical condition. He stops on the sidewalk, at a loss, looking up and down the block, and then he shakes his head and turns to walk in my direction.

My face is turned away, I’m looking at the bank directly across the street, when he walks past me. Then I turn back and watch him recede in the right side mirror, ramrod stiff. When he’s a little farther along I watch him in the inside mirror, and remember poor Everett Dynes, and briefly close my eyes. I don’t need that memory now.