“I suppose,” Orville said, looking at his hands.
“And here’s the other thing,” I said. “It’s about May Wickens and her son, Jeffrey.”
“What the hell have they done?” Orville asked.
“Nothing. But I had coffee with May this morning, and she kind of poured out her heart to me, at some considerable risk, I think. She wants to get away from her father, to get her son away from him. Timmy Wickens is feeding that boy’s mind a daily diet of poison.”
Orville Thorne shrugged. “So, she should leave. She’s free, white, and twenty-one, isn’t she?”
“Timmy Wickens has this kind of hold on her. She said if she tries to leave, he’ll hold on to the boy. He won’t let her take him.”
For the first time, Orville almost looked concerned. “He can’t do that.”
“I know. She says if she tries to leave, with Jeffrey, that Timmy and those two stepsons of his, Charlene’s boys, will track her down wherever she goes and bring her back.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Just go up and talk to them,” Dad said. “Just get a feel of what’s going on.”
“But you can’t let on that you know what May told me,” I said. “I think that could be bad for her.”
Orville collapsed into total frustration. “Just what the hell is it you want me to do? Hunt for stolen fertilizer when you don’t have a shred of evidence that Wickens had a thing to do with it? Try to get the daughter and her boy out when she’s made no official complaint whatsoever? Honest to God, what do you want from me?”
Dad and I looked at each other.
“Also,” I said, “he assaulted me.”
“What?”
“On Main Street. When he found me having coffee with May, Timmy Wickens grabbed my arm and squeezed it.”
Now it was Orville’s turn to try not to laugh. “Did he squeeze it really hard?” His voice dripped with concern. “Go ahead, grab my arm and show me how hard he squeezed. I can take it.”
“Fuck it, never mind,” I said. “Let’s just go up and talk to them about the dogs.”
“The dogs.”
“They have to keep them tied up. Plain and simple. Then, while we’re up there, we play the rest by ear.”
Orville said, “We?”
Dad begged off, saying his ankle was throbbing. I think he was glad for an excuse not to go.
So Orville and I walked up the road to the Wickenses’ gate. I knew enough now not to hop it. Orville shouted, “Mr. Wickens! Hello?”
Timmy appeared, followed by Wendell and Dougie, who, at that moment, really did remind me of the Darryl and Darryl characters from that long-ago sitcom. The three of them walked, casually, taking their time, down the drive to the gate.
“Yeah?” said Timmy. Not nearly as friendly as at dinner the night before.
“We wonder if we could come in and talk for a moment,” Orville said. “Provided your dogs is someplace safe.”
“They’re in the barn,” said Wendell, grinning.
“You’re sure?” I said.
“If the boy says they’re in the barn, they’re in the barn,” Timmy Wickens said, unlatching the gate and opening it wide enough to admit me and Orville. We started walking slowly, walking and talking at the same time, toward the house.
“What’s this about?” Timmy asked.
“Your dogs got a bit out of control today,” Orville said.
“Wendell told me.” Wendell nodded at this. “Didn’t he say he was sorry?”
“Well, you see,” Orville said, feeling his way, “it’s not just a problem of an apology.”
“What then?” said Dougie.
Charlene, in a grease-stained football jersey, had come out onto the porch to see what the commotion was. I could make out May Wickens at the window.
“Those dogs are dangerous,” Orville said.
“Did they bite anyone?” Timmy Wickens asked.
“No, no they didn’t.”
“Well then. Every dog’s allowed its first bite, and they ain’t even done that yet.”
“They’re vicious animals, Mr. Wickens. If you can’t control them, the town will seize them.”
Timmy bristled. “Will they now? I’d like to see them try something like that.”
“It won’t be necessary so long as you keep them tied up,” Orville said.
May had stepped out onto the porch, walked over to the railing. Our eyes met.
“Hello, ladies,” Orville said. “Nice to see you.” Charlene glared at him. There was something in May’s expression that seemed to reach out. Orville looked directly at her. “How are you doing, Ms. Wickens?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said quietly.
“Everything’s okay with you, is it?”
Timmy face darkened, and he looked from Orville to his daughter and back again. “Yes,” May said. “Everything is fine.”
“That’s terrific, I’m glad to hear that. That’s wonderful.” Orville cleared his throat nervously. “Well, that’s good. Isn’t that good that everyone’s fine?”
“Is there anything else?” Timmy asked.
“Well, as a matter of fact,” Orville said. “I wonder if you’d mind if we just had a look around the place?”
Whoa. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe Orville actually had some balls. One, at least.
“What?” said Timmy. “You want to search my place? On what grounds? Do you have a warrant for that?”
“He doesn’t really need one,” I said. “Because this property belongs to—”
“Hey, look,” said Orville, “I just wanted to look around, that’s all. You don’t have anything to hide, do you, Timmy? Because—”
“Ha-ha!” said Wendell. “I got it!”
He’d come up around Orville from behind and grabbed the police chief’s gun right out of his holster. Orville must have failed to snap the safety cover back on after the dog incident, making it easy for Wendell to snatch. Wendell waved it playfully in the air, dancing as he did so.
“I got your gun! I got your gun!” He singsonged, like he was chanting a nursery rhyme.
“Hey!” Orville said. “You give that back!”
Dougie was laughing, and Timmy had a big smirk on his face, too. “Hey,” Wendell said, pointing the gun at his brother. “I’m gonna shoot ya!”
“No!” I said.
“Bang!” Wendell shouted, and Dougie dropped to the ground comically, engaging in a set of ridiculous spasms on the grass.
“You got me!” he cried.
“You give that back to me right now!” Orville said, running after Wendell, who’d begun skipping away. Dougie was back on his feet now, running behind Orville.
“Here!” Wendell shouted at Dougie. “Catch!”
Dear God no.
Surely they would have enough sense not to toss around a loaded gun. But they did. It sailed through the air, up and over Orville, who reached futilely into the air to catch it. The gun arced earthward, and Dougie caught it handily, running off in the other direction.
“Now, boys,” Timmy said, smiling. Charlene was laughing now, too. May was the only member of the Wickens family not to find this amusing. She looked on in horror. Jeffrey slipped outside and sidled up next to his mom.
“What are they playing?” the boy asked.
“Go inside right now,” she said. May must have known what could happen if a loaded gun landed on the ground. “Now!”
Orville was running back and forth between Wendell and Dougie as they tossed the gun between themselves. “Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it!”
“Come on, fellas,” Timmy said. “You better give him back his gun.”
But the boys paid him no mind. It was Charlene who brought things to an end.
“Boys!” she bellowed. They both whirled around and looked at her. She smiled at them. “I think it’s time to stop.”
“Do we have to?” Wendell asked. He and Dougie looked so terribly disappointed.
“Your mom’s ri
ght,” said Timmy. “Time to call it quits. So long as Orville here agrees to one condition.”
Orville stared at Timmy.
“Chief Thorne, I’ll ask my boys to give you back your gun, but you’re going to have to promise to leave us alone.”
Orville said nothing. Timmy walked over to Dougie, the current possessor of the weapon, and took it gently from his hands.
“We were just having some fun,” Dougie said.
Then Timmy slowly walked over to Orville, and before handing him the gun, he leaned in close to the chief’s face and said, “Now, Orville, you just walk away, now. Okay?”
Orville stared into Timmy’s face.
“You understand, Orville?” Timmy said, smiling. “Just. Walk. Away.”
Orville, his face ablaze with shame, took the weapon and slid it back into his holster. Then he turned and started walking back to the gate.
“Hold on,” I said. “Aren’t we—”
“You better go with him,” Timmy said, feigning concern. “You know what? Take him into town, get him an ice cream. Make it all better.”
19
ORVILLE WAS MOVING so quickly I had to run to catch up with him. “Orville, wait,” I said. He was out the Wickenses’ gate and walking down the hill toward his patrol car. “Would you hold up for a minute?” I shouted.
He stopped abruptly and whirled around. “You wanna make a joke? You wanna have a good laugh? Go ahead. Laugh. And then just keep the fuck away from me.”
“Orville,” I said. “Listen, I don’t know what to say.” And I didn’t. I knew I didn’t want to make fun of him. I had no smartass remarks ready to go. Maybe, being a cop in Braynor, you didn’t have to deal with that many like Timmy Wickens. And when you ran up against one, you didn’t know what the hell to do.
It was clear Orville Thorne wasn’t much of a cop. It wasn’t that he was a cop on the take, as far as I knew. I’d had to deal with at least one of those in the past. Thorne just didn’t have the stuff. Which made him, in many ways, a lot like me. At some level, I was sharing his shame.
“Why don’t we go talk to my dad,” I said gently. “Those guys, look, those guys are nuts. If I’d been you, I don’t know what I would have done. I mean, it wasn’t like you could just shoot them all dead, as much as you might have liked to. We just, we just need to figure out another way to—”
“Shut up, Walker,” Orville said. “Just shut the fuck up.”
I felt badly for him. You couldn’t watch someone get humiliated like that and get any pleasure out of making it any worse. Orville Thorne knew what he’d failed to do, and he didn’t need me to remind him of it. Back up the hill, beyond the gate, we could hear Dougie and Wendell laughing, making whooping sounds.
“Orville,” I said, “I have a friend coming up, someone who’s had some experience dealing with all kinds of things and—”
“That’s great,” Orville said. “It’ll be great, won’t it, to get someone up here who knows what he’s doing. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Someone who can show me up real good.”
I held my arms out at my sides in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I’m just saying this guy might be able to give all of us some ideas about a fresh approach, is all.”
Orville reached his car, got inside, turned it around, and stopped as he passed me. “Tell your dad we’ll be out in the morning to look for the bear.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll tell—”
And then he hit the gas, kicking up gravel on his way out.
I went back into Dad’s cabin. “How’d it go?” he asked.
I ignored him and went into his study and downloaded the shots I’d just taken from the digital camera to Dad’s computer. “Hey,” he called out. “Are you gonna tell me what happened up there or not? Where’s Orville?”
I found two good pictures of Orville, one straight on, the other a three-quarters shot, and e-mailed them to Sarah’s work address with a note. This is the police chief, Orville Thorne. Does he look familiar to you?
I closed the mail program and went back into the main room.
“Would you tell me what in the hell is going on?” Dad said, anger creeping into his voice. “Every time I ask you about things, like what happened out front of Lana’s, what happened up there just now, you don’t tell me a damn thing.”
I decided it was time to start doing a bit of work on my own. I dug out the phone book he kept in a drawer in the kitchen area. “What’s that mayor’s name again?” I asked.
“Huh? What do you want her name for?”
“The name?”
“Holland. Alice Holland. She’s mayor for Braynor and the surrounding county. Are you calling her? What are you doing?”
I ran my finger down through the listings of the slender phone book. There was only one Holland, but no A. Holland. “There’s only a G. Holland here,” I said. “On Connor Bay Road.”
“That’s her husband. George Holland.”
“So she’s not a lesbian,” I said.
“Far as I know,” Dad said.
I asked Dad where Connor Bay Road was. “North side of town, half a mile or so, road runs off to the east, you hang a right, it’s kind of windy,” he said. “Are you just going to go out there? You’re just gonna show up? Don’t you think that’s a bit rude? Shouldn’t you call first?”
I grabbed my car keys off the counter and was out the door, Dad calling out, “What’s going on?” I got in my Virtue and headed into town. The only traffic light on Main Street was green, allowing me to sail through Braynor in under a minute. As the houses on the north side began to thin, I looked for Connor Bay Road.
I hung a right. The town was only a quarter mile behind me, but I was back in the woods, tall pines crowding up to the shoulders of the road. I watched the mailboxes, each of them named, and when I saw “Holland” I put on my blinker and turned in.
The trees opened up about fifty yards in, revealing a chalet-like home with pine board siding, a peaked roof, and enough glass that I could see right through the first floor to the bay on the other side. There were a couple of SUVs parked off to the side, and I pulled in behind them.
A large, bearded black man, six feet easy, a couple hundred pounds, emerged from a separate double-wide garage, wiping his hand on a rag. It looked like he’d been doing some mechanical kind of work, but he didn’t have a mechanic’s look about him. He was wearing pleated khakis and an Eddie Bauer–like shirt. He eyed me warily, stepped back into the garage for a moment, and reappeared with a baseball bat in his hand.
Not a good sign.
“Can I help you?” he asked, lightly tapping the bat with his right arm into his left palm.
“My name is Zack Walker,” I said. “I’m a reporter for The Metropolitan. I was looking for Mayor Holland. Are you Mr. Holland?”
“I am. So what do you want the mayor for?” The bat was hanging down at his side now, swinging ever so gently.
“I just wanted to ask her a few questions, that’s all.” He kept swinging the bat. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
“We don’t get The Metropolitan up here much. There’s one place in town I think you can buy it. Why’s someone from a big paper like that interested in talking to a small-town mayor like my wife?”
“Look, is she around?”
“I’ll let her know you’re here.” He stopped swinging the bat, disappeared into the house, and a moment later, Alice Holland appeared at the door.
“Why don’t you come in?” she said, waving me toward her.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I said, stepping in. “I took a chance that you might be home. Your husband doesn’t seem very eager for you to have visitors.”
At a glance, I could see this was no cottage. Modern, Swedish-style furniture, abstract art on what few walls weren’t made of glass, art books and copies of The New Yorker and Harper’s on the coffee table.
“You’ve come a long way to see me,” Alice Holland said. She was a sma
ll woman, mid-fifties, I figured, barely five feet. She’d have looked even tinier had she been standing right next to her husband, but he held back, by the door.
“You want me to hang around, hon?” he asked.
“No, George, it’s okay.” He slipped out, and she smiled at me. “He just wants to be sure I’m okay. He’ll be happy to go back to work on his snowmobile anyway,” she said. “Another two or three months and we could have two feet of snow on the ground.” She had a pretty face, even without any makeup. But when she brushed some of her silver hair away from her eyes, I could see how weary they looked.
“I was already in the neighborhood,” I said. “And I’m not sure whether I’m speaking to you as a reporter or as a concerned citizen.”
“Why don’t you sit down,” she said, gesturing toward one of the two leather couches.
“My father owns Denny’s Cabins, south of town. Arlen Walker.”
Alice Holland brightened. “Oh yes, I’m sure I’ve met Arlen once or twice. And I’ve probably been into his place at some point, maybe when I was campaigning. I’ve certainly seen the sign on the highway.” She put her hands on her knees, leaned forward, as if we were sharing a secret. “Isn’t that where the man was killed by the bear? Tracy had a story in the Times.”
I hesitated. “Yes, that’s right.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Actually, I think Tracy writes every story in The Braynor Times. I wouldn’t be surprised they make her deliver it, too. Your father, I trust he’s okay? He wasn’t attacked as well?”
“No, well, he sprained his ankle, which is why I’ve been hanging around for a few days, to help him with the camp.” I cleared my throat. “For a small town like Braynor, there seems to be a lot going on.”
“Yes,” she said. “A man killed by a bear, and then that horrible thing down at the co-op. Did you know Tiff Riley?”
“No.”
“He was a charming man. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but nice. And that’s off the record, by the way. I wouldn’t want to be quoted saying something unflattering about the man, especially one who’s just passed on.”