County Line (45 page)

“We won’t give up, buddy.”

He drank from his giant cup. I remember thinking he seemed so lost. Just a kid, thirteen years old. Heartbreaking.

“I shot him.”

Around me, the cafe grew quiet. Lee Jr. looked up at me, and his eyes were like a well you look into expecting to see the reflection of the sunlight on the surface of the water below. But all you see is a void.

“I still have the gun. It was my birthday present. Do you want it?”

We later learned Lee had taken away his goddamn Nintendo. Bad grades.

Biddy shares with Lee Jr. that same emptiness. He has a story—we all do—a life history which might explain how he arrived at this moment with a shotgun in his hands and a mounting body count in his wake. Maybe it was abuse. If Chief Nash can track down his adoptive parents, we might discover a long, sad tale of neglect and beatings, affection withheld. I don’t want to hear it. I want to ram that shotgun through Biddy’s teeth and blow his spine out his back.

He walks two paces behind Pete, who is moving like a drunk. Taya is behind me, Ruby Jane between us both. The night has grown cold, and I can see our breath billow in the light shining from the house into the yard. Biddy leads us to the garage, has me open the door in front of the pickup.

There’s some confusion about how to proceed. Two guns and three hostages don’t add up to math Biddy likes. He and Taya discuss their options while the three of us cluster together at the bed of the truck.

I look at Ruby Jane, my eyes a question. She frowns and shakes her head. Pete’s head sags, and his breathing sounds like a clogged drain. I pull him over to me. Ruby Jane’s manner, remote and strangely calm, leaves me more unsettled than Biddy’s shotgun. I’d like to think she has a plan. I’m all out of ideas myself.

In the end, Biddy has us climb into the truck bed and sit with our backs to the cab. He looks at Ruby Jane.

“Where to?”

“Do you know where Woodlawn Cemetery is?”

The idea of going to a cemetery fills him with glee. “Sick!” He tosses Taya a nod. “You drive. I’ll ride in the back with the cargo.”

“I’m not driving this piece of crap.”

“Jesus. Fine. Whatever.”

Ruby Jane points to the rack of tools hanging at the back of the garage. “You’ll need a shovel.”

That makes him laugh. Taya climbs aboard and rests her back against the tailgate. Through the scratched window, I see Biddy carry the shovel to the cab. As we pull out, Ringo comes to the fence to watch us pass. Biddy has to drive around a bike in the driveway and I realize why Ruby Jane left her car. She rented the bike, probably at the landing, so she could arrive in silence. I don’t know if she meant to slip up on Bella unawares, or anticipated Biddy and the shotgun.

The ride takes forever. My head is swimming with diesel fumes. Pete sags against me. Taya stares at a spot on the roof of the fiberglass cap, shotgun across her lap. Only Ruby Jane seems alert. After the second or third turn, she leans forward and prods Taya’s knee with her foot.

“Don’t talk.”

Ruby Jane has a sad smile on her face, and her eyes glitter in the dark. “You don’t have to do this, Gabi.” Her voice is soft.

“That’s not my name.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You need to be quiet now.”

“You think when he has what he wants he’ll take you with him?”

“Shut up!”

Ruby Jane settles back again. Even in daylight I’d have no clue where we’re going. We pass dark forest and open pasture, the occasional house set back from the road. The truck springs protest every turn, and the engine whines when we climb. The full moon appears on the horizon as we turn off pavement onto gravel. The quality of darkness changes from slate to silver and I realize we’re among gravestones and mown grass. The pickup stops.

No one moves until Biddy opens the tailgate. Taya slides out and stands beside him. He gestures for us to follow. Ruby Jane and I help Pete despite his protests.

“I’m fine.”

He doesn’t sound fine, but he keeps his feet. Biddy thrusts a flashlight into Ruby Jane’s hands. “Lead the way, Mom.” Taya goes tense beside me.

“First we need to come to an understanding.”

“There’s only one understanding. Show me the money.”

“You have to let my friends go.”

He doesn’t like the sound of that, but I can see his mind working, trying to figure out a way to get what he wants while still addressing the problem posed by our very existence. If I was a stone killer, I wouldn’t want to leave any witnesses either.

“How much are we talking about? The old lady said it was hundreds of thousands.”

Ruby Jane is smart enough to know how this is likely to go down. But her face reveals nothing. “Do you want me to show you or not?”

“Get going.” It doesn’t sound like we’ve reached an agreement, but Ruby Jane moves ahead of us across the grass. She knows exactly where she’s going. Biddy carries the shovel in one hand, the shotgun in the other. When I try to move alongside Biddy, Pete pushes between us. Taya puts an insubstantial hand on my arm and we move through the grass, spreading out. I’m not sure if this is by design or accident. Biddy doesn’t strike me as one with a gift for tactical thinking.

The headlights of the pickup shine behind us, illuminating our path. We pass upright stones and flat markers. The cemetery isn’t big, a few acres bordered on three sides by trees. I gaze up at the broad star field, struck by the thought I will soon be there. Then Ruby Jane points out a grave marker, flush with the grass.

Taya’s shotgun barrel brushes my legs and I realize she’s no longer holding it up. I turn, but all I see are shadows. Pete’s head hangs down. His breathing is ragged and wet. In the uncertain illumination—truck headlights, flashlight, moon and stars—Ruby Jane’s cheeks shine with a strange, electric energy. She holds the flashlight tight, like a club. Biddy seems to sense her intensity and keeps his distance, gun trained on Pete.

“Where?” His words are breathy with anticipation. “Show me.”

She clicks the flashlight on and sweeps the beam across the grave marker. I see letters carved into the surface, but the beam doesn’t hold still enough for me to make out the name.

“This is it? It’s buried here?” His voice has gained half a semitone in his excitement. “Damn, you are one crazy lady.” He jams the head of the shovel into the ground and moves closer, pushing Pete forward with his elbow. Then he stops. Ruby Jane fixes the beam on the marker. The angle of the light throws the letters into sharp contrast. Even from fifteen feet away, I can read the name.

BIDWELL DENLINGER WHITTAKER
“LITTLE HUCK”
JANUARY 14, 1990 – DECEMBER 11, 1990

“The original stone said Biddy Denlinger, but six or seven years ago, Jimmie bought a new one. He told Bella it had to include Whittaker, plus the name I’d intended for the baby.” There’s a calm, sing-song quality to her words, as if she’s sharing a sadness with which she’s long since come to terms. “She never knew how to care for a child.” Her voice trails off until all I can hear is the faint whisper of a breeze through the trees at the edge of the cemetery. In the shimmering moonlight, Ruby Jane’s face is like a portrait reflected in a dark mirror. She’s looking at the grave marker, trace of a haunted smile on her lips. Her cheeks shine with reflected starlight.

A sharp, metallic crack splits the night—the sound of two hammers locking back.

“You fucking cunt.”

Between the hit-and-run and the beating, my joints are like rusty gears filled with sand. Pete’s no faster, but he’s in better position. He deflects the gun barrel toward the ground with his hands. I push across the lawn, indifferent to Taya. I don’t know if she’s even there. She’s a ghost to me. My only concern is for Biddy, and for the two barrels he fights to bring to bear on Ruby Jane.

The shotgun goes off. Double-ought buckshot shreds grass and soil. Pete drops to one knee and screams. He’s ten feet from me, clutching at his legs. My shoulder protests as I reach out, lunging.

Whatever I hope to accomplish, I’m too slow.

But Ruby Jane rises out of shadow as if she was made for this moment, wielding the weapon Biddy brought at her request. She swings the shovel at his head, connects as he fires the second barrel. The sound hits me like I’ve slammed into a taut sheet of canvas. Pete stops screaming and falls.

For an instant as long as the night everything freezes: Pete on the ground, Biddy’s shattered face, Ruby Jane with the shovel. Then, behind me, Taya materializes and fires. I don’t know who she’s targeting. Searing pain blossoms in my shoulder, but Biddy takes most of the blast, upper body and head. He drops without a sound, falling across Pete like a sack of potatoes. I’m there in an instant, toss him aside and kneel beside Pete. Ruby Jane flings the shovel at Taya, but she’s already faded away. Then Ruby Jane is with me, with Pete. He makes a desolate, bubbling noise. I can’t make out his face in the darkness, but I can feel his warm blood, so much warm blood. Ruby Jane cradles his head and whispers his name, over and over. “Pete, … Peter, …” The bubbling ends with a long, hollow rattle as the pickup starts behind us and tears away with a clatter of flying gravel.

I reach out and pull Ruby Jane close to me. She falls against my chest and sobs. I stroke her hair as my own tears flow, and she squeezes me tight and says my name. Soft, soothing sounds rise out of me as if someone else has taken charge of my voice. I’m not sure who’s comforting whom.

That’s how the San Juan County sheriff’s deputy finds us, minutes or hours later.

- 52 -

Going Home

They keep us all night and all day. Deputies and techs come and go from the island by sheriff’s department boat and by ferry. I don’t pay much attention. My only interest is Ruby Jane as she tells me the long story of where she came from and how she grew to be the woman I love. All this time, so much I never knew, so much she tried to leave behind. I ache to hear it all: Bella Denlinger, Clarice Moody, a young girl named Gabi, a boy named Finn. A stolen emerald ring … Jimmie Whittaker. A dark night on Preble County Line Road. A baby boy.

“She took him away from me. She called him Bidwell Denlinger, after the mother and father who’d disowned her. She thought she could win her inheritance with the empty gesture of a stolen child.”

“What does that mean, she stole him?”

“It means I was a coward. I felt so alone. Jimmie wouldn’t talk to me. I couldn’t face people at school—not even Huck. My feelings for him were too tangled up with what happened to Gabi. I spent all my time out running, or shooting baskets at the elementary school. Or writing for Mrs. Parmelee—she was the only one I could trust. I wanted to run away, but then I found out I was pregnant and it was like the ground gave way beneath my feet.” Her tears don’t stop. “That’s when Bella swooped in. I was too young to be a mother, she said. I told her she wasn’t fit to raise a plague rat, let alone a child. But she threatened to turn me and Jimmie in for Dale’s murder if I didn’t do what she wanted.”

“Dale was alive.”

“I couldn’t prove that. For all I knew, his body would turn up a county or a state away, dead from Jimmie’s bullet. No one had seen him since that night. Besides, I’d watched enough cop shows to know just because there was no body in that hole didn’t mean we’d be safe.”

A body helps in a murder conviction, but it’s not always critical. If enough evidence piles up, reasonable doubt erodes. Those toolboxes and the gun might have been enough to sink her. Certainly enough to make her life hell.

“What happened?”

“Her plan failed. Her parents saw right through her. So she found some new guy to leech off of and followed him out here with my baby. By that point, I think she was keeping him out of spite. But then she let him die. Viral encephalitis was the official cause, but I know the truth. She was a terrible mother.” She draws a long, shuddering breath. “She wouldn’t even let him have his own name.”

“Huck.”

An EMT checks us out. Ruby Jane is uninjured, but I’ve got a hole, front to back; Taya’s #2 lead shot went through the trapezius muscle above my injured collar bone. He cleans and bandages the wound. “You need stitches.” I don’t argue, except to insist Ruby Jane and I not be separated. We ride together in the back of a patrol car to a clinic in Eastsound Village, where a doctor sews me up. He observes I appear to have a grudge against my shoulder. The bruises from Preble County Line Road haven’t faded.