A Simple Plan (23 page)

Finally, in desperation, I simply said, “What if I were to confess?”

It came out loud, almost a shout, surprising all three of us. Jacob and Lou turned to stare at me.

“Confess?” Lou asked. He grinned at me. He was drunk, and I think he must’ve thought I was, too.

“Could you imagine that?” I said. “Me confessing?”

“Confessing to what?”

“To taking the money, to killing Pederson.”

He continued to smile at me. “You’re thinking about confessing?”

I shook my head. “I just want to know if you can imagine me doing it.”

“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

“Can you?” I asked Jacob. He was sitting slouched beside me, looking down at his hands.

“I guess,” he managed. It came out fast, like a squeak.

“How?”

Jacob gave me a baleful stare. He didn’t want to have to answer.

“You’d turn state’s evidence,” Lou said, smiling. “You’d rat on us so they’d let you off.”

“But what would I say?”

“The truth. That you smothered him with his scarf.”

I felt Jacob stiffen on the couch beside me. Lou’s knowing about the scarf could mean only one thing—that Jacob had told him how I’d killed the old man. Lou might’ve guessed in the beginning, but once the issue had been raised, my brother hadn’t held anything back. I noted this in my head, filed it away. It was something I could deal with later.

“Pretend you’re me,” I said to Lou. “Pretend Jacob’s the sheriff and you’ve just come into his office to confess.”

He gave me a suspicious look. “Why?”

“I want to hear what you think I’d say.”

“I just told you. You’d say you smothered him with his scarf.”

“But I want to hear you say it like you’re me. I want you to act it out.”

“Go ahead, Lou,” Jacob prodded him. He glanced toward me, gave a mean little laugh. “Pretend you’re an accountant.”

Lou grinned at him. He took a swallow of whiskey, then stood up. He mimed knocking on a door. “Sheriff Jenkins?” he called. He made his voice sound high and shaky, like a nervous child’s.

“Yes?” Jacob said, using the deep baritone he associated with authority.

“It’s Hank Mitchell. I’ve got something I want to tell you.”

“Come on in, Hank,” Jacob boomed. “Have a seat.”

Lou pretended to open the door. He walked in place for a moment, grinning stupidly, then sat down on the edge of his chair. He kept his knees primly together, his hands in his lap. “It’s about Dwight Pederson,” he started, and I reached up to scratch at my chest. There was a soft click as I pushed in the button, and then the tape recorder began to hum.

“Yes?” Jacob said.

“Well, he didn’t die in an accident.”

“What do you mean?”

Lou feigned glancing nervously around the room. Then he whispered, “I killed him.”

There was a pause after that, while Lou waited for my brother to respond. I think Jacob was hoping that I’d stop it there, that all I wanted was that simple statement, but I needed something more. I needed him to say how he’d done it.

“You killed Dwight Pederson?” Jacob asked finally. He pretended to be shocked.

Lou nodded. “I smothered him with his scarf, then I pushed him off the bridge into Anders Creek. I made it look like an accident.”

Jacob was silent. I could tell just by the way he was sitting that he wasn’t going to say anything more, so I reached up and turned off the tape recorder. It seemed like we had more than enough: if a taped confession was going to frighten Lou into submission, then this ought to work as well as any other.

“All right,” I said. “You can stop.”

Lou shook his head. “I want to get to the part where you offer to testify against us.” He waved at my brother. “Keep asking me questions, Jake.”

Jacob didn’t respond. He took a long swallow of whiskey, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I removed the tape recorder from my pocket, rewound it to the beginning.

“What’s that?” Lou asked.

“A tape recorder,” I said. The machine made a soft thumping noise when it finished rewinding.

“A tape recorder?” my brother asked, as if confused.

I pressed the play button, turned up the volume with my thumb, then set the machine down on the coffee table. There was a second or two’s worth of hissing before Jacob’s voice jumped out at us: “Yes?”

“Well, he didn’t die in an accident,” Lou’s voice said.

“What do you mean?”

“I killed him.”

“You killed Dwight Pederson?”

“I smothered him with his scarf, then I pushed him off the bridge into Anders Creek. I made it look like an accident.”

I reached forward and pressed the stop button, then rewound the tape to the beginning.

“You recorded us?” Jacob said.

“What the fuck’re you doing, Hank?” Lou asked.

“It’s your confession,” I said. I smiled at him. “It’s you saying how you killed Dwight Pederson.”

He stared at me in bewilderment. “That was you confessing,” he said. “I was pretending to be you.”

I leaned forward, pressed the play button, and the machine began to spin out their dialogue again. We all looked down at it, listening. I waited till it was finished, then I said, “Sounds more like your voice than mine, doesn’t it?”

Lou didn’t respond. He was drunk, and though he knew he was unhappy with what I’d done, it didn’t seem like he could figure out exactly why.

“We’re not going to split up the money till the summer,” I said.

He appeared to be genuinely surprised by this statement. “You said we’d do it next weekend.”

I shook my head. “We’re going to wait till the plane’s discovered, like we planned from the start.”

“But I already told you, Hank. I need it now.” He glanced toward Jacob for help. Jacob was staring down at the tape recorder, as if still trying to overcome his shock at its sudden appearance.

“I’ll tell,” Lou said. “I’ll tell the sheriff about Pederson.” It was only now, I think, as he spoke these words, that he realized why I’d taped him. He sneered at me. “Nobody’s going to believe that thing. It’s obvious I’m just kidding around.”

“If you and I both went to Sheriff Jenkins tomorrow and claimed that the other killed Dwight Pederson, who do you think he’d be more likely to believe? You?”

He didn’t say anything, so I answered for him. “It’d be me, Lou. You can see that, can’t you?”

“You fucking—” he started. He leaned forward and tried to grab the tape recorder from the table, but I was too quick. I snatched it away from him and slid it back into my shirt pocket.

“You aren’t going to tell anyone anything,” I said.

Lou stood up then, like he was going to come around the table and get me, and I stood up, too. I knew he wasn’t a threat—he was smaller than me, and drunk—but I was still frightened enough by the idea of exchanging blows with him that I would’ve run to avoid it, would’ve sprinted straight across the room, up the step to the entranceway, and out the door. I’d gotten what I’d come for; now all I wanted to do was leave.

Lou scowled at me across the coffee table. Then he waved toward Jacob. “Grab him, Jake,” he said.

Jacob jumped a little, sliding backward on the couch. “Grab him?”

“Sit down, Lou,” I said.

“Come on, Jake. Give me a hand.”

A short, heavy silence descended on the room while we waited to see what my brother would do. He cringed, seemed to pull back away from us, his head retracting into his shoulders like a turtle’s. This was the moment he must’ve been dreading all evening, the point where he’d have to demonstrate his allegiance in a concrete way, where he’d have to choose, publicly, one of us over the other.

“The tape doesn’t hurt you,” he said, his voice sounding pathetically timid. “It’s just to keep you from hurting him.”

Lou blinked at him. “What?”

“He’s not going to use it unless you tell on him. That seems fair, doesn’t it?”

Jacob’s words were like little pellets; they seemed to fly at Lou and bury themselves beneath his skin. Lou swayed a little on his feet, an empty look coming across his face. “You’re in this together, aren’t you?” he said.

Jacob was silent.

“Come on, Lou,” I said. “Let’s sit back down. We’re still friends here.”

“You set me up, didn’t you? The two of you together.” Lou’s body went taut. Muscles I’d never seen before appeared on his neck, quivering. “In my own fucking house,” he said. He closed his hands into fists, glanced around him as if searching for something to hit. “Let’s pretend you’re me,” he said, mimicking my voice. He sneered at Jacob. “Jacob, you be the sheriff.”

“I didn’t know—” my brother started.

“Don’t lie to me, Jake.” Lou’s voice dropped a notch, coming out hurt, betrayed. “You’re just making it worse.”

“Maybe Hank’s right,” Jacob said. “Maybe it’s better if we wait till the plane’s found.”

“Did you know?”

“You can make it till then. I can help you out. I’ll loan you—”

“You’re gonna help me out?” Lou almost smiled. “How the fuck do you think you’re gonna help me out?”

“Listen, Lou,” I said. “He didn’t know. It was all my idea.”

Lou didn’t even bother to look at me. He pointed at my brother. “I want you to tell me,” he said. “Tell me the truth.”

Jacob licked his lips. He glanced down at his glass, but it was empty. He set it on the table. “He promised he’d help me buy back my farm.”

“Your farm? What the fuck’re you talking about?”

“My dad’s farm.”

“I forced him to do it,” I said quickly. “I told him he couldn’t buy the farm unless he helped me trick you.”

Again, Lou ignored me. It was as if I’d ceased to exist. “So you knew?” he asked Jacob.

My brother nodded. “I knew.”

Very slowly, so that there was a certain majesty to the gesture, Lou raised his arm and pointed toward the door. He was expelling us, a king banishing a pair of traitors from his realm. “Get out,” he said.

And this was exactly what I wanted to do. I thought that if we could leave, if we could just make it out to the truck before anyone said anything he couldn’t take back in the morning, we’d be all right.

“Come on, Jacob,” I said, but he didn’t move. He was focused on Lou, his whole body leaning toward him, pleading for understanding.

“Can’t you see—” he began.

“Get out of my house,” Lou said, his voice rising toward a yell. The muscles on his neck reappeared, straining.

I picked up my jacket from the couch. “Jacob,” I said.

He didn’t move, and Lou began to scream. “Leave!” he shouted. He stamped his foot. “Now!”

“Lou?” a woman’s voice called. We all froze. It was Nancy; we’d woken her up. Her voice seemed to come down out of the ceiling, as if it were the house itself that was speaking.

“Jacob,” I said again, making it a command, and this time he rose to his feet.

“Lou?” Nancy called. She sounded angry. “What’s going on?”

Lou backed away from us, out of the living room and into the entranceway. He stood at the bottom of the steps.

“They tricked me,” he yelled.

“I have to go to work in the morning. You guys can’t keep shouting like that.”

“They made me confess.”

“What?”

“They aren’t going to give us the money.”

Nancy still didn’t understand him. “Why don’t you go to Jacob’s?” she asked.

Lou stood there a moment, swaying a little on his feet; then he turned suddenly, as if he’d come to some decision, and headed off down the hallway toward the bathroom. Jacob and I put on our jackets. I walked quickly toward the front door, and he followed right behind me. I wanted to leave before Lou had a chance to reappear.

“Lou?” Nancy called again.

I opened the door and was just about to step outside when I heard a noise off to my left. It was Lou. He hadn’t gone to the bathroom after all; he’d gone to the garage and gotten his shotgun. He was carrying it now, jamming shells into its breech as he came.

“He’s got a gun,” Jacob said. He reached up and pushed at my back with his hand, urging me forward, and then, when I didn’t move, rushed past me through the door. When he reached the walk, he broke into a run. I just stood there, watching Lou approach. He’d left the garage door open behind him, so that he came toward me out of a square of darkness, like a troll emerging from his cave. I was thinking that I could calm him down.

“What’re you doing, Lou?” I asked. It seemed silly for him to be acting like this, like a thwarted child throwing a tantrum.

Nancy called his name again, her voice sounding as if she were already halfway back to sleep. “Lou?”

Lou ignored her. He stopped about five feet away from me, then raised the gun until it was leveled at my chest. “Give me the tape,” he said.

I shook my head. “Put the gun down, Lou.”

Behind me I heard Jacob opening the door to his truck. There was a moment’s pause, and then it slammed shut.
He’s leaving me,
I remember thinking.
He’s running away.
I waited for the cough of the engine turning over, waited for the crunch of the tires on the gravel as he pulled out of the driveway, but it didn’t come. Instead I heard the heavy clumping of his footsteps returning toward me, and when I glanced back over my shoulder, I found him running up the driveway, his rifle held out in front of his chest. It was my older brother, finally, after all these years, coming to protect me.

But it was all wrong: so wrong, in fact, that at first I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. An image floated up into my mind, absurdly, of Jacob playing army as a child: I saw him emerge from the cover of the south field, hesitate there like a real soldier, then scuttle toward the house, panting with the effort, a toy machine gun cradled in his arms, our uncle’s World War II helmet balanced loosely on his head, bouncing forward and backward with every step, so that he had to keep reaching up and pushing it away from his eyes. He’d been coming to get me then, to capture me off the porch—a boys’ game with make-believe weapons—and that was how he looked now, as if he were playing but pretending to be serious.

The sight of him, the sight of the rifle in his hands, sent a surge of terror through my body. It felt electric; my fingertips seemed to crackle with it. I held up my hand, waving him off, and he stopped at the foot of the walk, twenty feet away. I could hear his breath, a sawtoothed sound in the darkness. I turned back toward Lou, trying to fill the doorway with my body. I knew I couldn’t let him see my brother, knew implicitly that if it reached the point where they stood facing each other with their guns, anything could happen. It would be out of my control.