Drowning of Stephan Jones (23 page)

Judith reached out to squeeze Carla’s hand. “It’s not the five
people who took Stephan Jones’s life should be applauded. It’s you and Frank Montgomery the two people who tried to
save
his life!”

With a notable lack of energy, Carla nodded weakly smiled back. Judith said, “Well, I guess that’s that,” trying to sound more matter-of-fact than she felt. “Let’s get out of here.”

Peg and Debby Packard hugged Carla and without any further comment began threading their way through the melee of rejoicing celebrants. As they approached the front steps of the courthouse, Carla turned to her mother as Judith attempted to steer her down the concrete steps. “Mother, I can’t leave just yet. There’s something I have to do.”

“What?”

“Well, I’m not ... exactly sure.”

“I’m not in any hurry,” Judith said as she turned to Peg Packard. “Are you?”

“Mother, please ... I’d really prefer it if the three of you just went on. I’ll get home.”

Judith’s worried look returned, flicking across her brow, but Carla interrupted before her mother had time to form her worries into words. “I’ll be fine—please, Mom, we’ll talk when I get home. I promise I won’t be long.”

Judith nodded reluctantly. Debby threw her best friend a puzzled look but simply said, “I’ll call you later, Carla, or you call me. Okay?”

“Thanks, Debby.”

As Carla watched the three women negotiate their way down the courthouse steps, she made her way to spot at the far edge of the building where she served the exiting throng. She knew that she had to stay at this scene, although she didn’t know why. She an uneasy feeling that something wasn’t finished. Something still needed doing. But exactly what needed doing she didn’t know.

An exuberant Andy Harris, sandwiched between his grinning
lawyer and his thrilled mother, swept out of the building and into the warm and welcoming glow of sunlight. But just before starting down the stairway, Andy stopped when he saw Carla. He caught and held her eyes.

She felt a range of emotions; chief among them was amazement that she could now look upon a person she once thought she loved and feel only disgust. Another emotion that filled her was sadness, as real and thick as London fog. Sadness that a sweet and gentle man lay in his grave, and in her own hometown, people who ought to know better acclaimed and applauded his murderers.

Carla’s face exposed her complex web of feelings, but then Andy’s face wasn’t exactly keeping government secrets. His lower lip curled under while his left eyebrow arched. So what registered there was pure industrial-strength contempt. Rapidly, he scanned his repertory of insults for an ego-crushing zinger to finally put Carla in her place for all time. He called out across the crowd, “Hey Carla Wayland, I heard you and your mother are moving to New Hampshire. Just don’t think you’ll be any more popular there than you are here. Everyone will find out about you and how you’re a rat fink!”

He waited for a response that wasn’t forthcoming, as she stared at him in amazement. Much the way she’d stare at someone who was growing smaller and smaller before her very eyes. Then Andrew Anthony Harris snapped his head and his attention away from Carla to go skipping lightly down the steps of justice, where his friends and neighbors waited expectantly, along with happy relatives, some who had traveled here all the way from Jonesboro, Tyronza, and Parkin.

As the girl watched him move with manly grace to mix and mingle on the green with the still-gathering throng, she wondered, Was that the end? All there was to it? Had she made herself stick around for nothing more important than to see Andy for one final time and to be the recipient of his insult? Was
everything all tied up and finished? She felt drained all the way down to empty.

Spotting a hub of activity near the statue of the Confederate soldier, Carla observed the subdued and haunted looks of the members of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Several women and at least one man were openly crying. At first, she wondered why the entire group huddled together, and then she thought she understood. Being close might provide them with a touch of warmth in an otherwise cold and cruel world.

As Carla wandered near this cheerless, crowded group, she noticed a young woman with carrot-colored hair. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she cried out to nobody in particular and to anybody and everybody who would listen: “If there’s no punishment for killing one of us, then doesn’t that mean that in the eyes of the law we’re not human? Not really human?”

Chapter 25

Y
ARDS DISTANT FROM
the members of the task force was the distraught Frank Montgomery with his hands thrust deep within his pockets. A fat copy of the local newspaper was still jammed against his body. Without knowing exactly why or what she planned to do, once she arrived there, Carla found herself walking over to Frank. When he saw that it was her, he looked up and said, “Hello.”

“Hello,” she answered back. As she stood facing him, her heart felt full of things that needed saying. And although time was passing without any more words spoken, strangely enough she didn’t feel ill at ease. Even so, she didn’t exactly know how to go picking and choosing amid all those pulls and tugs from her heartstrings. She did understand that standing here with this man was the only right and proper place to be. “I wrote you a letter, Frank. It was the day after it happened, after Stephan drowned.”

“Strange I never received it.”

“Not so strange, considering I never mailed it.”

“Well, why not?” he asked, managing to sound at first pleased and then disappointed.

“For starters, I didn’t know—I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me.”

“Oh, how I would have loved hearing from you!” The animation in Frank’s face was more than matched by the animation in his voice. “What did you say?”

“I do remember that it was such a hard letter to write. ... I kept trying to express what I felt, but the words—I could never find the words, certainly not the right words!”

“Then tell me now,” said Frank, probing her eyes with his. “What was in your heart?”

“How terrible I felt about Stephan’s drowning. I wrote you
that I hurt for you losing a loved one. I know nothing hurts like that hurts ... nothing!” Then when Carla saw that her words were bringing tears to his eyes, she instinctively reached out to take his hand. “I’m sorry. Honestly, I didn’t mean to bring you more pain than you already have.”

“You didn’t!” he corrected, smiling in spite of the tear he quickly captured as it raced down his cheekbone. “You have only brought me pleasure. I’m sorry to hear you have also lost a loved one.”

“Hmmm ... maybe
lost
isn’t exactly the right word because I’m not sure that you can lose what you’ve never had. I’ve never known my dad, but that doesn’t stop me from missing him.”

Frank bent his head to kiss her hand. “You’re special,” he told her. “A very special lady.”

He smiled at her with a smile that was at the same time unspeakably sad and unquestionably honest. She responded by squeezing his hand in unspoken gratitude. It made her remember what she felt when first he whispered to her on that December night in front of Harris’s Handy Hardware Store. At that moment, like this moment, as well as like all those moments in between, she felt without question or quibble that Frank Montgomery was her friend.

Then in the next moment they were saying good-bye. And for some reason she didn’t even dimly understand, Carla never moved from the spot where she stood. Frank smiled at her and turned. She continued to stand watching him as he strode with what seemed like clear determination past the tearful, yet still defiant members of the task force.

As Frank charged past, Ben Brewster glanced up. It was quick, but still and all, it was enough to tell him almost instantly that something wasn’t right. While Andy Harris may have relaxed perceptibly since the sentencing, the same couldn’t be said for Frank Montgomery. The vein at Frank’s right
temple was pulsating off and on like a neon sign. He was wound up as tightly as any coil that at any moment must
snap
!

Both Ben Brewster and Carla were staring in breathless anxiety as Frank marched in an unbroken line toward the winners’ celebration circle. Inside this triumphant gathering of laughing friends, grinning lawyers, cheering families, and ever-curious reporters, Andrew Harris was turning into an instant media star. Even from Carla’s fifty-foot distance, she could tell by his body language that he was answering even the difficult questions thrown at him with surprising poise and swift repartee.

Someone just happening on the scene would almost swear that this handsome and assured young man had certainly been recognized for some sort of significant achievement: winning a scholarship, hitting a home run, saving a child from being run over by a speeding car, or at the very least saving a pet from being run over by a speeding car.

As Frank marched closer to his target, his shoulders were suddenly grabbed from behind by the full-bodied arms of Ben Brewster. As he swung him around, Ben pleaded, “What do you think you’re going to do, Frank? Stay away from that guy! You know—now, you know—that you don’t need that kind of trouble! It’s not going to bring Stephan back! It’s not!”

“No, it won’t bring Stevie back, but as you so correctly observed earlier, maybe I need something, too. And what I need, every bit as much as I need water to drink or air to breathe, is retribution. One way or another, I will see to it that Andy Harris is punished. He must be punished!”

Ben’s hands went out in a desperate pleading gesture. “Don’t, I beg of you, rush into doing something that for the rest of your life you’ll regret. Wait until your grief is better under control! Wait until—”

Frank laughed, but it wasn’t so much a laugh as it was a mock. “Why is it that your advice never changes, huh, Ben? At the beginning, you told me to wait, give it some time, and
allow public opinion to turn against the Rachetville Five. But good ol’ public opinion never did. Did it? Later you advised me to stay calm and wait for the jury’s findings. Remember saying that, Ben? Still later, after they came back with involuntary manslaughter, your advice was not to do anything rash, but to wait for the sentencing. I did that, too, didn’t I, Ben? Even so, it all came to the same thing. Zilch! Zero! So what good did all my waiting do? No good! No good at all. Wait! Wait! That’s always been your answer, Ben! Well, I’m tired of waiting! I’m tired of your wimpish task force, and if the truth be known, I’m also tired of you!”

Then with a quarterback’s maneuver that was as quick and agile as it was unexpected, Frank faked to the right while passing Ben on the left. Frank rushed over to where Andy and the other four members of the Rachetville Five were exuberantly bantering with each other, their relatives, friends, and more than a dozen members of the press.

It was in front of this astonished gathering that Frank Montgomery made a serene, but altogether conspicuous entrance.

“What the—” snarled Lawrence Harris. “Get the fuck out of here!”

“As you can plainly see, this
is
a private gathering,” added Mrs. Harris, using her haughtiest tone. “For only close friends and well-wishers.”

“Well, since those are your criteria,” responded Frank, looking and sounding completely pleasant, “then you will have to admit, Mrs. Harris, that nobody could ever wish your son warmer wishes than I do.”

Lawrence Harris made a get-out-of-here gesture with his thumb. “Move it, faggot! You’re crazier than I thought! Don’t make a scene in front of the TV or I’ll ...”

“Please... I’m not here to cause trouble for you or your family, Mr. Harris,” Frank pleaded while shifting the bulging newspaper from beneath his left arm into his right hand. “For
God’s sake, Andy, the trial, the sentencing—it’s all over with. You’re safe now, nothing at all to be afraid of anymore.”

“What is this anyway?” Andy Harris made a grinding noise, a little like a small engine badly in need of a tune-up. “What are you talking about?! Didn’t you hear my daddy? Beat it, faggot!”

Taking no apparent notice of the taunt, Frank continued to show an altogether cheerful demeanor while making motions with his hands as though patting down air. “Hey, hey, big guy,” he soothed as he glanced slyly to his right and left before finally focusing on the three Harrises. “I made you all a promise. Remember?” Although Frank spoke in a voice that mimicked a whisper, it still was strong enough to capture the attention of more and more members of the group. Ironman, Spider, and the girls all had heads sharply bent toward the speaker. And to the extent that the in-group had been, only two or three or four minutes ago, happily noisy, it had now become the absolute total opposite: quiet, oh so ungodly quiet.

Everywhere people turned to look and they seemed almost reluctant to breathe, fearing that the sounds coming from merely inhaling and exhaling would in some way interfere with their ability to hear Frank Montgomery ... and to hear it all!

It was true that everybody was listening, but it was also true that only one person, only Andy, was the object of Frank’s complete and total concentration. “I did what I told you I’d do! I kept my promise of silence throughout the entire ordeal, didn’t I? If I didn’t desert you then, why would I blow your cover now?”

Andy Harris turned toward his family and friends with outstretched palms. “I don’t know what this guy is talking about! He must be crazy. I
swear
to God he’s crazy!”

Mrs. Harris implored the intruder, “Please, please just go and join
your
kind!”

With all the flair of a master magician, Frank Montgomery waved before his audience’s unblinking eyes a strangely misshapen edition of the
Parson Springs Transcript.
“I am now prepared to prove, Andy,” announced Frank, pausing only long enough to allow the drama to build, “that my word is true!”

“Honestly, Mr. Montgomery,” exclaimed Elna Harris through pinched lips, “don’t you realize that you’re upsetting us?”

Like a gentleman from another distant, more gentle, time, Frank acknowledged the lady’s complaint with an elaborate and apologetic nod of his head. But then, abruptly shifting gears, Frank allowed his laserlike focus to return to Andy, as he announced grandly, “I
have
kept my promise. It’s here and it’s all for you.” Reaching into the secret pocket within the paper, he whipped forth a packet of bluish-gray envelopes, all held together with a delicate and prettily tied blue ribbon.