A Quiet Belief in Angels

  I remembered how New York had taken my breath away, and had not returned it for two days.

  Eighteen years had passed. I felt like an old man.

  Brooklyn pulled me, and I followed the pull.

  I stood there on the corner of Throop and Quincy. Aggie Boyle’s house had gone. It was no longer the same street, nor the same junction, but I felt Bridget’s memory there. She too was a ghost that haunted me.

  It seemed fitting to be here. To be right back in my own personal nightmare. For catharsis, or maybe tempting fate, I took a hotel room no more than two hundreds yards from where I had turned the corner and started running that day of my return from Manhattan, running headlong into the worst day of my life. Or perhaps not—it seemed there had been so many. How had I deserved such a life? What crime had I committed that had given me such justice?

  I did not know. I did not dare to ask. I let my mind fall silent, and sat at the window of my room and watched Brooklyn through different eyes.

  In the morning I would call Sheriff Vallelly and tell him where I was.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “WE HAVE WORD OF HIM,” VALLELLY SAID AS SOON AS THE LINE connected.

  “Dearing?”

  “The very same. One of the people in Baxley saw him.”

  “Baxley?” I asked. Baxley was no more than an hour from Augusta Falls.

  “Someone I know over there. We used to work together when I was in Macon.”

  “Jesus,” I said through clenched teeth. I stood at the reception desk of the hotel. Behind me and through the front window I would have been able to see the Quincy junction. I turned my back to the receptionist in an effort to maintain some slight degree of privacy.

  “Mr. Vaughan? You there?”

  “Yes, sorry . . . I’m here. Okay, so he was in Baxley. How come they spoke to him?”

  “He was pulled over with a flat. My friend, he’s the deputy sheriff there, well, he stopped to give him a hand and they got to talking. He told him that he should contact me, that I had news of an old friend who wanted to look him up.”

  “Did they give my name?”

  “No, I didn’t give your name out. I’m hoping that your man will call me, make some contact, and then I can give him your whereabouts.”

  “He didn’t say where he was going?”

  “Said he was heading out of Georgia, going north I think he said. He didn’t say much apparently, but he did say he would call me.”

  I was silent for a while.

  “This has come as somewhat of a surprise for you, Mr. Vaughan.”

  I took a deep breath, held it for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “It was a slim chance at best. Christ, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Well, there ain’t a helluva lot to say until Dearing contacts me, and then we’ll see where we go from there. Okay?”

  “Yes. And thank you. I really appreciate everything you’re doing to help.”

  “Hell, Mr. Vaughan, like I said before, if it brings this thing to an end any faster I’m more than happy to help. So you stay there, all right? And if Haynes Dearing calls me I’ll make sure he gets in touch with you.”

  “Thank you. Yes, as soon as you hear anything, call me here.”

  “You take care now, Mr. Vaughan, and hopefully I’ll have some news for you soon.”

  I thanked Sheriff Vallelly again and hung up. I told the receptionist to make sure that he fetched me down as soon as any calls came through.

  The receptionist—a short, balding man named Leonard—peered at me over half-moon glasses. “Trouble?” he asked suspiciously.

  I smiled, shook my head. “A little excited,” I said. “A very old friend. We haven’t spoken for a lot of years and there’s a chance I might find him.”

  Leonard smiled, relaxed. “Good luck,” he said. “I’ll make sure to get you if a call comes through.”

  I returned to my room, sat on the edge of the bed. My head felt too heavy for my shoulders, and I lay down, tugged a pillow behind me and tried to think.

  Augusta Falls. Sheriff Haynes Dearing. The Guardians versus the child killer. I retraced my steps through everything I could remember. I thought of Dearing’s lecture in the schoolhouse, the way he looked at every one of us in turn, never mentioning our names but making it all too obvious who he was referring to. The violation of the curfew. The words of warning. My mother. The way she had slipped irreversibly into the depths of something terrifying. Elena Kruger. My failure to protect her. The oaths we had made as children, and how we had broken them.

  And I thought of the killer, the little girls that had suffered at his hands. I tried to understand what would drive a man to such things. Anger. Hate. Jealousy. Some indescribable sense of madness that came from deep within the soul and could never be exorcised. A madness that Laurence Gabillard, irrespective of the number of letters after his name, could never hope to comprehend.

  And then I thought of Georgia, of all that had been. Of Reilly Hawkins, Frank Turow, one-eyed Lowell Shaner who walked with the seventy-man line and cried for a girl he’d never known. The smells and sounds of the Krugers’ kitchen, of Mathilde and the children.

  Of the question in Haynes Dearing’s file: Where did the boy go after Jesup?

  Where did the boy go?

  The sudden hammering at the door startled me. I lost my balance on the edge of the bed. I stood suddenly, the blood rushing to my head and for a moment I was thoroughly disoriented. I walked to the door, snatched it open, and Leonard stood there—flustered, excited.

  “Your call,” he said. “Your call downstairs, your friend I think.”

  I hurried past Leonard and bolted down the stairwell. I reached the desk and snatched the receiver from it.

  “Joseph,” Haynes Dearing said.

  “Sheriff Dearing?”

  He laughed. “Christ, no one’s called me that for as many years as I can remember. Hell, son, how are you?”

  I started laughing. I felt emotion flood through me. I felt dizzy, almost sick, and it was some time before I could find anything at all to say.

  “I’m . . . I’m okay. Yes, okay, Sheriff. I’ve been looking for you.”

  “So I hear,” Haynes Dearing said, and with the sound of his voice everything I remembered about him came back as if we’d spoken only the day before. I had everything to tell him, and yet I could barely string a sentence together.

  “So where are you?” he asked.

  “New York,” I replied. “In Brooklyn.”

  “Jesus, Brooklyn of all places. I’d have figured you might have had enough of that place . . . you know, with everything that happened back then.”

  “Everything in my life, Sheriff,” I said. “I was hoping—”

  “That we could meet up?”

  “Yes, yes, that we could meet up. Where are you?”

  “Christ, all over the place. But I can come and see you,” Dearing said. “I can come to New York and see you, Joseph. If that’s what you want?”

  “Yes,” I said, barely able to believe what was happening. “Could you?”

  “Sure I could. It would be good to see you again after all these years.” He paused for a moment. “I heard about everything that happened. The girl in New York . . . the trial—”

  “Enough,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about—”

  “I know what you want to talk about, Joseph, and that’s why I called you. I should come to New York. I think that’s the best thing under the circumstances. I could leave almost immediately. If I take a train I could be there tomorrow perhaps?”

  “Yes,” I said. Every nerve in my body was jangling with anticipation. I felt fear, exhaustion, a sense of overwhelming anticipation. I would see Haynes Dearing. Between us we would make sense of this thing and bring it to closure. I knew it. I believed it. Had to believe it.

  “Okay then, we’re settled,” Haynes Dearing said. “I’ll come to New York. Tell me where you are.”

  I gave him the address
of the hotel. I told him I wouldn’t go anywhere, that I’d stay right here and see him when he arrived. I thanked him for calling, for agreeing to come, for the possibility that we could at last speak and take some steps closer to the truth.

  Haynes Dearing wished me well, and then he hung up.

  I stood there with the receiver buzzing in my hand until Leonard took it from me and set it back in its cradle.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  I turned and smiled like a fool. “Couldn’t be better,” I said. “Couldn’t be better.”

  A half hour later I went out and bought some provisions—some bread, cheese, some slices of ham, a couple of apples. I wanted no reason to leave the hotel. I carried them back to my room and set them on the table near the window. I sat in one of the two chairs that were against the wall.

  I could not sit still for long. I started to pace the room. I walked to the window and closed the drapes. I wanted it to be evening. I wanted to sleep, to think of nothing, to be already in tomorrow and seeing Haynes Dearing walking down the street toward the hotel.

  I went back downstairs and called Sheriff Vallelly to tell him that Dearing had called, to thank him once again for his help. The phone rang out at the other end. No one home.

  Back in my room I paced between the window and the door to the small bathroom. I felt as if I were in Auburn again, counting steps to take my mind off everything. I believed I would explode, perhaps spontaneously combust right there in that room. The feelings that assaulted me were indefinable, but close, closer than anything. I tried to think of things I had read, movies I had seen. I tried to think of Alex, of Bridget, tried to see their faces to remind myself of why I was doing this. They did not come, almost as if they sensed my disturbance and wished to be no part of it.

  Eventually I lay down on the mattress. I closed my eyes, and sleep pulled me down; I resisted, but it was strong; my body was tired, and my mind believed there would be nothing gained by fighting. And as I lay there I imagined the years Dearing had spent traveling this country looking for his redemption. He had killed Gunther Kruger, that much I knew to be true, and I wondered how much it had haunted him.

  I am lost, he would say. I have been walking for twenty years and still I am lost. And I don’t understand this thing now anymore than I did back then.

  It’s okay, I would tell him. It’s okay, because between us we will make this thing end once and for all. I want you to tell me what you’ve seen and heard, what you believe, why you think these things never stopped. You can do that much, can’t you?

  And Dearing would sit in the chair by the window, and behind him the late afternoon sunlight would make a halo of his hair, and I would think of angels, and those thoughts would bring their faces back to me, and I would shudder in that moment of recognition, and realize why I had let this thing consume me.

  So speak, I would tell him. Tell me everything and I will listen.

  And we would spread the newspaper clippings out across the coverlet of the bed, and we would look down at their faces together, and he would tell me why he believed they’d died, and why Bridget had been murdered no more than a hundred yards from where we now sat. And I would try to understand the conclusions he had drawn during all these years we’d been apart, and he would speak of how he too was haunted by the ghosts of the past, that he too could close his eyes and hear their laughter and catcalls and childish games. And perhaps we would cry, and in crying together we would share some degree of fraternity, and know that we had lived this thing together despite being apart. And then we would speak of what to do, of where we would go now, of how this thing would end.

  We would speak of fear and frustration and anger. We would speak of the nights we’d found ourselves facing this man in our dreams, and how we had killed him. Killed him a thousand times over. And how we had woken, and realized that the sense of justice we believed we’d earned was only a phantom . . . like the child killer.

  All these things, and beneath them would be the memory of those days in Augusta Falls, of the beginning of this nightmare, and how it really should have ended back there.

  A circle, I would say.

  And Dearing would look at me, and in his eyes I would see a younger man, a man who had in some small way cared for me, for my mother, who had visited her as many times as he could, who had spoken to her and given her a sense of resolve. When everyone else had disowned us, Sheriff Dearing had been there. He had never given up. A man of little compromise and reservation.

  It has been hard, I would tell him. To suffer this much loss. My mother. Alex. Bridget. Elena and all the others. I don’t know how someone could stand to lose so many people and still believe in the fundamental goodness of others.

  That’s because we have faith, he would say. That’s because we believe in what we are doing, whichever way it comes down, we believe in what we are doing.

  And we have to do something to make it stop, I would say, and Dearing would nod and agree, and then he would tell me of the years he had walked through America looking for the next little girl, perhaps hoping against hope that there wouldn’t be another, but knowing, knowing, that there would.

  You remember the Guardians? I would say, and Dearing would laugh. That’s what we called ourselves, the Guardians. Me and Hans Kruger and Maurice Fricker—you remember him? I saw him recently—

  Recently?

  Yes, just a few days ago. You know his dad is dead?

  Gene is dead?

  Yes, he was killed in a hit-and-run somewhere out of county. Maurice looks just like his dad. Always did, but even more so now he’s older. And Michael Wiltsey? The King of Fidget we called him. Couldn’t ever keep still. And there was Daniel McRae, we always watched him closely, you know? Because his sister was one of the ones that died? We watched him like hawks, like any moment he would break down and we’d have a wreck on our hands. And Ronnie Duggan. You know Ronnie Duggan?

  Yes, I remember him. Little shrimp of a kid, hair hanging in his eyes all the time.

  That’s the one. He was with us too. And you put those flyers up around the town, the ones with the silhouette?

  I remember that . . . God, I haven’t thought of that for so many years.

  Yes . . . and it was the Guardians versus the child killer, and though we knew we couldn’t really do anything to stop him, at least we tried, right? We tried to do what we could to stop this terrible thing happening.

  I know you did, Joseph, I know you did. And what did they say when you saw them?

  They didn’t want to know, Sheriff, they just didn’t want to know. They tried to pretend that it was all in the past. That it stopped in Augusta Falls when Gunther died.

  Yes . . . when Gunther died.

  I know about that, Sheriff. I know what happened that day.

  I know you do, Joseph. I know you figured out what happened.

  And I understand why you did it.

  You do?

  Yes, I think so. Because you wanted everyone to go back to their lives. You wanted everything back the way it was before it started, and you thought that if they knew who was guilty they would stop worrying, they would stop being frightened, and Augusta Falls could be the town it was before Alice was murdered.

  Dearing would be silent, and he would look at me with tears in his eyes, and just like my mother when she spoke of what had happened between her and Gunther Kruger, I would see that Haynes Dearing wanted me to forgive him.

  I can try and understand, but I cannot forgive you, Sheriff. I can’t absolve you of your sins. That’s something you’re gonna have to come to terms with when you seek your redemption.

  I know, Joseph, I know. I wanted so much for it to end. I know you understand. I wanted everyone to go back to how they were before. I suppose I believed that if they had someone to blame it would be a sort of deliverance. I suppose I believed—

  It’s okay, Sheriff, it’s okay. That’s over now, and no matter how much we might talk about it, what happened will never
change.

  And now, Joseph? What now?

  Now? Hell, I don’t know. It all seems so far back that I wonder sometimes if I haven’t dreamed it.

  It did take place, Joseph, it did take place.

  I know, Sheriff, I know.

  So what are we going to do, Joseph?

  I was hoping you’d have an answer.

  Me? Why would you think I’d have any better answer about this than you?

  Because you were there. All these past years . . . while I was here in Brooklyn, while I was in prison in Auburn, you were still out there looking.

  Just because I was looking doesn’t mean I have any better idea about what to do. I just saw more of it than you did, that’s all. Nothing more nor less than that, Joseph, I just saw more of it.

  And did seeing more of it make you better understand why it happened, Sheriff?

  A silence, and then through tear-filled eyes he would look at me and say, I think he was ashamed after he killed the first child. I think she talked to him, taunted him, followed him everywhere he went, and each little girl he saw reminded him of the first, and then the second, and then the third. And he had to stop their voices, Joseph. I think they talked to him and made him mad. They stopped him sleeping. He had to make them go away, until they all became the same, and they looked at him the same way, and their voices were like one voice, and the only way to make them silent was to kill them. Guilt, you see? The seed of guilt was planted, and from then on he could do nothing but try to make the guilt disappear.

  You think that’s what happened?

  I don’t know, Joseph. I don’t know that anyone will ever really understand. I have tried, but the more I think about it the more I get confused.

  Enough now. We just have to decide what to do.

  The morning of Tuesday the eleventh I woke suddenly. My clothes were drenched in sweat. Sunlight struggled to find its way into the room through the closed drapes, but the sound of the street told me that another day had arrived. I looked at my watch. Eleven was already gone.