Deep Winter (11 page)

L
ester sat on Mindy's porch step and glanced at his watch. Two-forty
A
.
M
.

Lord, this night is crawling by.

He figured that a statie should be arriving any minute. He felt dog-tired and wanted to climb back into bed beside Bonnie. He wanted to press up against her, feel her warmth, and listen to her breathe. Hell, he'd even let the cats up on the bed at this point.

He flicked his cigarette into the snow and lit up another. He only had two more smokes left. Just one more thing to be miserable about. He wished he had grabbed another pack on his way out.

The tips of his fingers, his ears, and his nose were freezing out there, but he'd be goddamned if he was going to wait inside. Couldn't bear to see that poor girl all twisted up and lying there.

He kinda regretted that he had to send the deputy off to Doc Pete's. He could use the company even if Sokowski was a prickly son
of a bitch. A nasty little boy who grew up to be a nasty man. Back in high school, Sokowski was always getting in trouble, picking fights, and stealing things left and right. Lester thought the kid would mellow out, but he still carried a chip on his shoulder that wouldn't or couldn't get knocked off. Maybe it all started because of his messed-up ear. Kids could be cruel, so Sokowski probably just wanted to be the one to throw the first insult or punch.

When Sokowski's old man pushed hard for Lester to take him on as his deputy, Lester didn't like the notion much. But Sokowski's old man, Pepper, God rest his soul, was a stand-up guy and a good friend. Hell, they had known each other since fifth grade and had been hunting and fishing buddies for three decades after that. He knew that Pepper wanted his only son to turn over a new leaf, and old Pepper thought that Lester, with his evenhanded nature, was the best person to rub off on his hell-raising son. Lester told Pepper that he would owe him big, and boy, had he hit the nail on the head with that one. Lester's way was to earn respect, not force it down folks' throats. But against his better judgment, he gave the boy the badge and that was that.

Then, after Pepper took his own life when Sokowski was still growing whiskers on his chin, he got even worse. Sokowski was two years out of high school and was one year wearing the deputy badge, and whammo—his old pappy couldn't take the hand he was dealt no more and left his only child alone and responsible for the farm. Poor kid was barely a man, but he grew up quick. Turning bitter, angry, and even nastier.

Lester knew that Sokowski bullied folks too much, but by and large he did his job and was younger and more fearless when walking into a bar fight. It only took one hard look or the occasional five-knuckle surprise from the deputy to keep drunks in line. Lester still
held out some hope that Sokowski would change. That he would turn all that anger into something good. He believed that a tiger could change its stripes. Might not be easy, but it could be done.

When he had come back to Mindy's trailer, Lester could tell that Sokowski had been into the drink again. He didn't want the state trooper to see his deputy liquored up. That would be one more unwanted problem to add to the night's growing list. Besides, Sokowski was better off keeping an eye on the Bedford boy. Carl had about as much sense as a jug of water and appeared to be barely holding it together. Lester made Sokowski promise to keep his mitts off Danny. A broken jaw and a few loose teeth were bad enough. Sokowski gave his word—for whatever that was worth.

Lester took a final drag on his cigarette and looked back into the pack, hoping by some miracle that he had miscounted. Nope. Still only two. He decided to hold off for a few more minutes before he lit up again.

A pair of headlights appeared down the road and headed his way. He sighed out loud, more than ready to pass this mess off to someone else. His knees popped and complained of the cold as he stood and watched the headlights approach. The vehicle was driving fast and erratic. Lester heard the engine chewing up the cold night air and could tell it had eight hardworking cylinders—he had a good ear for engines and guns. Could tell by the pop of a shotgun if it was a ten-gauge, a twelve-gauge, or a single-shot .410. Bonnie always gave him grief that he couldn't hear her ask him to take out the trash but could hear a pickup truck a half mile away and know if it was a six- or eight-cylinder.

The driver of the approaching car punched the accelerator, and Lester noticed that the vehicle didn't have any emergency lights on
its roof. Definitely not a state police vehicle. His stomach dropped when he finally recognized the ride.

“Hell,” he whispered to himself. He blew on his fingers in a futile attempt to warm them and prepared for the worst.

The Lincoln Continental veered off the road and skidded to a stop on the icy driveway. The driver's-side door swung open, and Johnny Knolls pulled his large mass out from behind the steering wheel. He appeared about as tall as he was wide and kind of wobbled as he walked. Johnny reached into the backseat, pulled out a rifle that Lester knew would be loaded, and clutched it in his thick hands.

Lester stepped off the porch. “Goddamn. What're you doing out here, Johnny?”

Johnny strode up and got right in Lester's face. His eyes were small black circles, and his nose was piglike—pink and round and turned up at the tip. He was breathing hard, beer and whiskey on his breath.

“Where the fuck she at?”

Lester stood his ground and tried to sound calm. “Now, hold on here a second, Johnny . . .”

“Either tell me where she's at or get the hell out of my way, Lester. God as my witness, I will take you down.”

Lester nodded and kept his voice nice and even. “I don't want you going in there, Johnny. It's bad. Real bad.”

Johnny hung on those words. His eyes went past Lester and looked toward the front door. Tiny specks of spittle clung to the man's beard, and his breath billowed out in rapid white plumes.

“It ain't something a father should see.” Lester immediately regretted uttering those words when he watched Johnny's eyes glaze
over. All reason, if Johnny were ever capable of any, got swept away by a blinding rage.

He put a beefy hand on Lester's shoulder and shoved him aside like a bowling pin. Lester's feet went out from under him, and he slipped on the icy walkway. Tried to break his fall but failed miserably. The side of his head smashed up against the edge of a cinder-block wall that ran along the sides of the driveway. He rolled onto his back, grabbed at his temple as blood seeped from an open wound and stained his fingers a crimson red.

Lester could only watch helplessly as Johnny marched past him and squeezed inside the trailer. He struggled to his feet, seeing white stars flash and dance in front of him. It got quiet for a second, and then a deafening scream erupted from deep within Johnny.

“JESUS! MY BABY! MY BABY! JESUS CHRIST!” The big man's howls were replaced by a smashing sound, and then it went dark inside as a lamp was thrown against a wall. Johnny flipped over furniture, punched at walls, and screamed and cried at the same time. It was a disturbing sound that Lester wouldn't be able to get out of his head for a long, long time. He held himself back from going inside after Johnny. It was already done. There was no taking it back now—the man had come face-to-face with a father's worst nightmare.

After a minute of silence, Johnny filled the doorway—his head nearly touching the top of the frame. He gripped his rifle to his chest in both hands as if he were ready to storm a beach. Lester looked up at a man who had slipped over the edge.

“Who was it? Who did this to my baby, Lester?”

“We got him, Johnny. Don't you—”

“WHO THE FUCK KILLED MY BABY!?” Johnny's voice boomed, bouncing off the mountains around them, kicking off
rocks and trees, then returning to the two men with a soft, echoed response.

“I ain't gonna tell you that right now, Johnny. Not right now. We got him, and the state police are on their way here as we speak.”

Johnny yanked back the rifle's bolt handle and snapped off the safety. “I ain't gonna ask you again, Lester. You tell me who did this to my baby.” Johnny shouldered the rifle and aimed the barrel at Lester point-blank.

Lester took a step back. He could count on one thumb the number of times he'd stared down the barrel of a rifle. Old Tom Dickerson suffered from Alzheimer's and had gotten into the whiskey a couple of summers ago. Tom's wife phoned up Lester because she was scared that old Tom was gonna blow his own head off. When Lester got out there, old Tom was standing in the garage with nothing on but a pair of dirty boxers, soiled with piss and shit. He'd scream one minute, cry the next, the whole time waving his gun around like a baton. Lester had finally managed to calm him down, but only after Tom's rifle was pressed into Lester's chest.

This time the man on the other side of the gun wasn't suffering from Alzheimer's and was being fueled by drunken fury instead.

“I'm gonna put a bullet into you, Sheriff.”

Neither man saw or heard the state trooper's patrol car rumble down Tokach Road from the north. The vehicle pulled off the road behind a row of hedges and eased to a stop twenty yards from the trailer. The cruiser killed its lights, and a large man stepped out of the car.

“Don't do anything stupid now, Johnny.” Lester raised both of his arms and held his hands high. “Shooting me isn't gonna help matters none.”

“Goddamn you, Lester . . .”

A shot rang out. The sharp report of a handgun.

Lester's heart seized up as Johnny snapped back and a bullet ripped through his chest and exited between the shoulder blades. Johnny's knees buckled, and his two hundred and fifty pounds of deadweight fell back into the trailer and thudded to the floor. His legs jerked a few times, a gargling sound slipped out of his lips, and then he became completely still. Johnny's dirty work boots hung over the doorstep, and blood and tiny pieces of flesh were splattered against the trailer's aluminum paneling, running down slow before freezing.

Lester's head was still ringing from the gunshot when he turned and searched behind him. He reached for his gun out of reflex, but his hand stopped on the holster. A state trooper stood at the end of the driveway, crouched in a shooting stance, his pistol resting on the trunk of Johnny's Lincoln. As the state trooper lowered his firearm, Lester felt his legs give out, and he couldn't stop himself from falling to the frozen ground.

And the snow continued to fall. Falling heavier. No letup in sight.

D
anny ran because he didn't know what else to do.

The cornfield behind Doc Pete's didn't look so long from the window, maybe about as long as a football field, but Danny had been running for what seemed like a few minutes and he wasn't even halfway across it yet. He was afraid of stopping because the crop of corn had been cut down to the bases of their stalks, and he didn't have nothing to hide behind. He didn't want Doc Pete to see him running away.

Danny couldn't remember everything Carl had said to him, but he knew that Carl seemed scared and upset and didn't want to go to jail. He had seen Carl's kids around town, and they always smiled at him when Carl wasn't looking. He didn't want Carl to be put in jail because of him and leave them kids all alone with just their mama. Danny knew how hard it was to be without his own papa.

Danny didn't care so much about the deputy. If he went to jail,
that is where he probably belonged, but if the deputy got in trouble, so would Carl. Danny couldn't do that to Carl and his kids.

Still, it didn't make sense why he'd be blamed for what happened to Mindy. Didn't make any sense at all.

His heavy boots clomped over the thick layer of snow that covered the cornfield, crunching it right down to the hard dirt beneath it. The snow went up past his ankles and made it difficult for him to lift his feet out and keep them moving forward. His lungs burned from the cold, and he could feel his heart pounding hard in his chest.

He wanted to stop, but the forest was up ahead a little ways more. Once he got there, he figured he would rest for a bit. Catch his breath and think about where he should go.

His boot laces got tangled up in a cornstalk, and he fell forward onto the snow. He put his hands out to catch his fall, but he hit the ground hard, and it sent a shock of pain through his jaw that made him cry out into the night air.

Danny rolled over onto his back between the rows of corn and could feel the tears leaking from his eyes. The snow underneath him felt real soft, like a fluffy feather pillow. The moon shone down at him through a falling blanket of snow, and he didn't want to get up. He just wanted to stay put and rest for a minute.

Get up, Danny.

Even with the wind howling all around him, Danny heard the talking in his head clear as day, like it was right there next to him. This was the third time in the last few hours that the talking in his head had said something to him. Months, sometimes years went by and he didn't hear the talking in his head. He was in an awful lot of trouble, and that's probably why it was back again so soon.

Just a little further. Then you can rest.

The very first time he heard the talking in his head was when he
was a little kid. Around six or seven. After the accident. He had been looking for Donald Duck Cola bottles along old Route 6, and it was real hot. August was always the hottest month in Pennsylvania. The sun burned the back of his neck, and sweat rolled into his eyes, stinging them and making it hard for him to see. He kept wiping the sweat onto the shoulders of his T-shirt and kept his eyes searching for bottles hidden in the brush. Back then Donald Duck Cola came in all sorts of flavors—lemon-lime, grape, black cherry, and his favorite, strawberry. All the bottles had a picture of Donald Duck on the front, and Danny liked Donald Duck better than Mickey Mouse because his voice sure sounded funny. He had a pretty good collection going. Almost twenty bottles.

Danny had been searching in the bushes when Mr. Dempsey's car pulled alongside of him—the car was a brand-new Chrysler Imperial, and Mr. Dempsey was one of the first people in town to drive around in a fancy car like that. Because it was so hot outside, Mr. Dempsey had all his windows rolled down. Mr. Dempsey was a short little man with thick-framed glasses, and his head barely peeked over the big steering wheel. He smiled a toothy grin and called out to Danny.

“Hey, Danny. Whatcha doing?” Mr. Dempsey had a funny smile on his face. Danny remembered how small Mr. Dempsey's teeth had looked. Danny thought maybe he still had his baby teeth, but that didn't make sense. Grown-up people didn't have baby teeth. The Tooth Fairy took them away when you were little. But Mr. Dempsey's were small. That was for sure. Maybe the Tooth Fairy didn't visit him at night.

“Looking for Donald Duck bottles, is all,” Danny replied.

“Oh, yeah? You know, if I'm not mistaken, I got a half dozen bottles or so in my refrigerator back home. Nice and cold. Why don't
you hop in, and we'll both go and have us a soda?” Mr. Dempsey lived all alone up on Terrytown Mountain Road. A lot of the menfolk in town didn't like him so much. They said he was “funny,” but he didn't ever make Danny laugh.

“Whadaya say, Danny? It's hotter than heck out there. How about we go for a little ride?” He leaned across the seat and pushed the passenger door open. “Think I might have a fresh batch of cookies in the jar, too.”

Danny sure was thirsty, and a cookie sure sounded good right about then.

Don't get in the car, Danny-Boy,
the talking in his head warned him.

Mr. Dempsey patted the car seat and gave him a wink. “Come on, Danny. Hop on inside.” Danny had his hand on the door handle.

Go home now, Danny. Run!

Danny did as the talking in his head told him to. He took off running and went straight home but didn't tell Uncle Brett about anything. Uncle Brett always said real bad words about Mr. Dempsey. Words that Danny didn't know. Mr. Dempsey moved out of town a few years later. His garage had burned down one night, and the next thing Danny knew, he had up and moved away. One day he was there, and the next he was gone, and Mr. Dempsey's leaving sure seemed to make a lot of the men in town pretty happy. Uncle Brett told him that he probably moved to San Francisco to go live with all the other fruits.

The talking in Danny's head was back again tonight, but he felt sleepy and his jaw hurt and he didn't want to move anymore.

Get up, Danny-Boy. Not safe out here. Keep walking.

Danny did as he was told. The talking in his head was always looking out for him. It never told him to do something wrong or anything that got him in trouble. He struggled to his feet—his jaw
throbbing and complaining with each jarring movement—and started tromping through the snow again. He dug his hands in his pockets and put his head down to block his eyes from the hard-falling snow.

He plodded forward until he stepped into the forest—pitch-black—and immediately felt better. The woods were quiet and peaceful, and the snow wasn't falling as hard down under all the trees.

Danny liked that the talking was back again. He had missed hearing from it. He wished it would visit him more, not just when he seemed to be in trouble or scared. He wondered if the talking in his head was a little angel or something else he couldn't see. Maybe this time it would stay with him for a while so he wouldn't be so lonely. And maybe it would help him figure out what he should do next.