A Simple Plan (37 page)

The clock on my wall said 9:01.

I shined the gun against my pant leg, removing the crumbs. Then I loaded the bullets.

When the clock flipped to 9:02, I picked up the phone to call Sarah.

The line was busy.

I put down the phone. I tried jamming the pistol into my jacket’s right-hand pocket, but it was too big to fit: its butt protruded and its weight made the parka hang at an odd angle on my body.

I took off my jacket, unbuttoned my shirt, and slid the pistol into my waistband, barrel first, fiddling with it until it felt secure. It was in the center of my belly, sharp and cold against my skin, its grip pointing to the right. Its weight there gave me a peculiar charge, a little burst of excitement, making me feel like a gunslinger in a movie. I buttoned up my shirt but left it untucked, so that it covered the gun. Then I put my parka back on.

The clock changed to 9:03.

I dialed home again. Sarah answered on the first ring.

“It’s him,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I told her quickly about the badge, about how he hadn’t wanted his picture taken, and how I’d called his name on the street. She listened quietly, not once questioning any of my deductions, but even so, as soon as I started to speak, I felt my sense of certainty begin to seep away. There were alternative explanations for everything that had occurred, I realized, all of which were just as plausible, if not more so, than the idea that Agent Baxter was an impostor.

“I called the FBI,” Sarah said.

“And?”

“And they said he was on field duty.”

It took me a second to absorb this. “They have an Agent Baxter?”

“That’s what they said.”

“You asked for Neal Baxter?”

“Yes. Agent Neal Baxter.”

I stood there for a moment, frozen, the phone clamped against my face. I was shocked; I hadn’t expected this at all.

“What do you think that means?” I asked.

Even over the phone I could sense her shrugging. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

I tried to force myself to believe this, but it didn’t work.

“Baxter’s not that uncommon a name,” she said.

I could feel the pistol digging into my gut. It felt alive, like it was kneading my stomach. I repositioned it with my hand.

“He might’ve even known there was a Neal Baxter,” she said. “He might’ve picked the name on purpose.”

“So you’re saying it’s him?”

“Think about what you just told me, Hank. About him not having a badge and all.”

“I didn’t say he didn’t have a badge. All I said was that he didn’t show one to Carl.”

Sarah didn’t respond to this. Behind her, in the background, I could hear Jacob’s teddy bear singing.

“Just tell me,” I prodded her.

“Tell you what?”

“If you think it’s him.”

She hesitated, and then, “I do, Hank. I really do.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Do you?” she asked.

“I did,” I said. I walked from my desk to the window. I lifted the blind and peeked out at the day. Everything was cloaked in mist. The cemetery’s gate looked black in it, like a net, the tombstones beyond it gray and cold and indistinct.

“I guess I still do,” I said.

“So you’re coming home?”

“No. I’m going.”

“But you just said—”

“I got a pistol, Sarah. I borrowed it from Carl.”

There was silence on the other end, and I could feel her thinking. It was as if she were holding her breath.

“I’m going to protect him,” I said. “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

“Who?”

“Carl. If it’s Vernon, and he pulls a gun, I’m going to shoot him.”

“You can’t do that, Hank. That’s insane.”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t. I’ve thought it out, and it’s the right thing to do.”

“If it’s Vernon, it’s important for us that he escapes. That way no one else will know how much money was on the plane.”

“If it’s Vernon, he’s going to kill him.”

“That’s not our problem. We don’t have anything to do with that.”

“What’re you talking about? We have everything to do with it. We know what Vernon’s going to try and do.”

“It’s just a guess, Hank. We don’t know for sure.”

“I can stop him if I go.”

“Maybe, maybe not. A pistol’s not like a shotgun. It’s a lot easier to miss with. And if you miss, he’ll kill you both.”

“I’m not going to miss. I’m going to stay right up next to him the whole time. I’ll be too close to miss.”

“He’s a murderer, Hank. He knows what he’s doing. You wouldn’t have a chance against him.”

The bear continued to sing behind her, its voice slow now, shaky. I pushed the gun farther down into my belt. I didn’t want to listen to her, wanted just to go, but her words settled into my mind like tiny seeds, sprouting pale shoots of doubt. I began to waver. I tried to revive my determination by imagining how it would feel to draw the pistol from beneath my coat, to crouch down like a cop on TV, aim at Vernon’s chest, and pull the trigger, but what I saw instead was everything that could go wrong—the gun snagging on my shirt; my boots slipping in the snow; the gun not firing, or firing wide, or high, or down into the ground at my feet, and then Vernon turning on me with his wooden smile.

I realized with a shock that I was scared of him.

“You have to think of the baby, Hank,” Sarah said. “You have to think of me.”

My dilemma seemed simple: I could either go with them or stay away. To go would be the braver choice, I knew, the nobler one, but also the riskier. If it was really Vernon who was waiting across the street, then he was probably planning on shooting both Carl and me. By going home, I’d escape that. I’d leave Carl to his fate, whatever that might be, and save myself.

I stood there pondering these two alternatives. Sarah was silent, waiting for me to speak. My left hand was in my pocket; I could feel some coins in there, my car keys, a little penknife that had belonged to my father. I pulled out one of the coins. It was a quarter, a bicentennial one.

If it comes up heads,
I thought to myself,
I’ll go.

I tossed the coin into the air, caught it in my palm.

It was heads.

“Hank?” Sarah said. “Are you there?”

I stared down at the quarter with a pit of fear in my stomach. I’d wanted it to be tails, I realized, had been praying for it with all my heart. I debated flipping it again, going for two out of three, but I knew it didn’t really matter. I’d just keep doing it until I got what I wanted. It was only a trick to soothe my conscience, a way to escape responsibility for my cowardice. I was too scared to go.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m here.”

“You’re not a policeman. You don’t know anything about guns.”

I didn’t say anything. I flipped the coin over in my palm so that the tails side was facing up.

“Hank?”

“It’s all right,” I said quietly. “I’m coming home.”

I
CALLED
Carl and told him that the baby was vomiting, that Sarah was in a panic.

He was full of concern. “Linda’s here now,” he said. “She’s done some nursing in her time. I’m sure she’d be willing to drive out with you if you need some help.”

“That’s awful nice of you, Carl, but I don’t think it’s that serious.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. I just want to get her to a doctor to be safe.”

“You head straight home then. I’m sure we can manage on our own. You didn’t really see anything anyway, did you?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“You said you heard it on the south side? By the Pederson place?”

“Just a little ways past it.”

“All right, Hank. Maybe I’ll give you a call when we get back, let you know how it went.”

“I’d like that.”

“And I hope everything’s okay with the baby.”

He was about to hang up. “Carl?” I said, stopping him.

“What?”

“Be careful, okay?”

He laughed. “Careful of what?”

I was silent for several seconds. I wanted to warn him, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it. “Just the rain,” I said finally. “It’s supposed to get colder later. The roads’ll ice up.”

He laughed again, but he seemed touched by my concern.

“You be careful, too,” he said.

I
COULD
see Carl’s truck from my window—it was parked in front of the church—so I waited there, hidden behind the blinds, to watch them leave. They appeared almost immediately, walking side by side. Carl had on his dark green police jacket and his forest ranger’s hat. The rain was falling in a thick mist now, forming puddles in the gutter and adding a rawness to the day, a cold, aching feeling, which I could sense even through the window.

Carl’s truck was like a normal pickup, except it had a red-and-white bubble light on its roof, a police radio hooked to the underside of its dashboard, and a twelve-gauge shotgun hanging from a rack on the rear window. It was dark blue, with the words A
SHENVILLE
P
OLICE
written in bold white letters on its side. I watched as he climbed in behind the wheel, then leaned across the seat to unlock the agent’s door. I heard the engine start, saw them put on their seat belts, then watched the windshield wipers begin to slide back and forth, clearing the glass of rain. Carl removed his hat, smoothed his hair once with his hand, and put the hat back on.

I stood there, crouching beside the window in my darkened office, until they pulled out onto the road and headed off toward the west, toward the Pederson place and the nature preserve, toward Bernard Anders’s overgrown orchard and the plane that lay within it as if in the hollow of a hand, awaiting, while the rain freed it from its veil of snow, their imminent arrival.

Before the truck disappeared down Main Street, its brake lights flashed once, as if in farewell; then the mist fell in behind them, leaving just the town beyond my window, its cold and empty sidewalks, its drab storefronts, with the rain running over everything, beading and pooling, and hissing as it fell.

I
DROVE
home.

Fort Ottowa was quiet. It was like entering a cemetery—the winding roads, the empty lawns with their mounds of dirt, the tiny, cryptlike houses. The children were all inside, hiding from the rain. Occasional lights dotted the windows; televisions flickered bluely behind drawn curtains. As I made my way through the neighborhood, I could picture Saturday-morning cartoons; card tables littered with jigsaw puzzles and board games; parents in bathrobes sipping mugs of coffee; teenagers upstairs sleeping late. Everything seemed so safe, so normal, and when I reached my own house, I was relieved to see that—at least from the outside—it looked exactly like all the others.

I parked in the driveway. There was a light on in the living room. Mary Beth was sitting beneath his tree in the rain, Buddha-like, his fur plastered wetly to his body.

I got out of the car and went into the garage. There was a small shovel hanging from a hook on the wall there, and I was just reaching up to pull it down when Sarah opened the door behind me.

“What’re you doing, Hank?” she asked.

I turned toward her with the shovel. She was standing in the doorway, a step up from the garage. Amanda was in her arms, sucking on a pacifier. “I’m going to shoot the dog,” I said.

“Here?”

I shook my head. “I’m going to drive him out to Ashenville. To my dad’s old farm.”

She frowned. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to do that.”

“I told Carl I’d return his pistol to him by this afternoon.”

“Why not wait till Monday? You can have a vet do it then, and you won’t need the gun.”

“I don’t want a vet to do it. I want to do it myself.”

Sarah shifted Amanda from her right arm to her left. She was wearing jeans and a dark brown sweater. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, like a girl’s. “Why?” she asked.

“It’s what Jacob would’ve wanted,” I said, not sure if this was actually the truth or merely a continuation of the lie I’d told Carl earlier.

Sarah didn’t seem to know how to respond to this. I don’t think she believed me. She frowned down at my chest.

“The dog’s miserable,” I said. “It’s not fair to him, keeping him out there in the cold.”

Amanda turned to look at me when I spoke, her round head swiveling on her neck like an owl’s. She blinked her eyes, and her pacifier fell out of her mouth, bouncing down the step into the garage. I came forward and picked it up. It was damp with her saliva.

“I’ll be back in an hour or so. It won’t take that long.”

I held out the pacifier to Sarah, and she took it from me, grasping it between two of her fingers. Our hands didn’t touch.

“You aren’t going by the nature preserve, are you?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“You promise?”

“Yes,” I said. “I promise.”

She watched from the front window as I untied Mary Beth and led him toward the car. Jacob’s things were still loaded in the back, and when the dog got inside, he began to sniff at the boxes, his tail wagging. I climbed in behind the wheel. Sarah was holding Amanda up to the window, waving the infant’s tiny hand back and forth.

I could see her mouth moving in an exaggerated fashion. “Bye-bye,” she was saying. “Bye-bye, doggy.”