The Calling (19 page)

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said.
 

“It’s nice to see you too, Steve.”
 

“Your uncle called me an hour ago. Said you were coming back here by yourself to pick something up. I told him that couldn’t be true, that you weren’t stupid enough to do something like that, especially after the mess that just happened in Bridgton. But I told my men to keep an eye out for you anyway, and five minutes ago Fred Walker gives me a call and tells me he saw you driving down Norfolk Road. So I’ll ask you again. What the hell are you doing here?”
 

“Just like Dean said. I needed to pick something up.”
 

“What—that book?”
 

“I figured I could use some relaxing summer reading.”
 

“Goddamn it, Chris,” he said, his voice now a growl, “what the hell’s wrong with you?”
 

I decided it best not to answer that, and instead asked if he’d had any luck finding my parents’ killer.
 

This caused the look of malice to disappear from his eyes. They shifted from mine for just an instant before returning. He shook his head. “No, we haven’t come up with anything yet.”
 

I nodded, the news not surprising me at all. For a moment I thought about mentioning how there was a boy who’d claimed he knew who killed my parents but refused to tell me, no matter how much I begged him. How instead he had whispered he could only tell me three things. Thinking this now, I glanced down at the Bible in my hands. Reading Job 42 was step three in Joey’s instructions. I’d already completed the first step and figured what the hell.
 

I asked Steve if he knew where Jack Murphy was right now.
 

“Jack Murphy?” He frowned, looked almost suspicious. “Why do you ask that?”
 

I opened my mouth but said nothing, my well of bullshit having suddenly run dry. It isn’t easy keeping your lies straight when you’ve got so many, but I doubted telling Steve the truth would do much good now anyway. How would I even begin to explain about Joey and his father?
 

“I just really need to speak with him. It’s important.”
 

He looked uneasy but said, “He’s probably at home. I’ll call him for you if you’d like.”
 

I started to say yes to this but then shook my head. “No, it’s probably best you don’t. It ah ... it’s kind of complicated.” Looking around the room, trying to find the best way out, I realized there wasn’t one and said, “But hey, why don’t you drive me out there? Maybe I can explain on the way.”
 

He gave me another questioning look before he said, “All right then, Chris. As long as I can keep an eye on you. My car’s outside.”

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J
ACK
MURPHY
WORKED
as a diary farmer. You wouldn’t think it if you saw him. He was thin and wore glasses and looked more like a teacher, which he actually was. He’d taught math for eight years before finding a farm for sale and deciding to buy it. He’d been running it ever since.
 

The day before my parents’ funeral, while his wife Karen got things prepared inside my house for the wake, he stopped by to talk to me. We went out back, behind the garage, where he lit a cigarette. “The wife would kill me if she knew I was still smoking these,” he said, then offered me one. I declined and waited, wondering what all this was about. Jack took a long drag, then another, before sighing. “You might not believe this, but when you were dating Melanie I thought of you as a son. Hell, I still do. I don’t know what happened between you and my daughter, and to be honest, I’m not sure I want to know. That’s your business. But ... shit, I don’t know just how to say this. If there’s anything you ever need, anything at all, don’t be afraid to ask. Got it?”
 

I hadn’t known what to say and only nodded. I just stood there, thinking about everything I had done with his daughter, everything I had done
to
his daughter, and here he was now, trying to be my friend. He was a good man, this Jack Murphy, who I had at one time actually believed would someday become my father-in-law. But after everything that had happened, after how badly it ended between me and Mel, I made the decision that I would never ask for his help. That I wasn’t worthy of it, that I didn’t deserve it at all. I promised myself I would never ask him for anything, not even an opinion, not even a sip of water if I was dying of thirst.
 

But now, a little more than a week later, I planned to break that promise. What it was I’d ask him I didn’t know, but I knew when the time came I’d think of something. If not, I’d improvise.
 

Jack Murphy’s farm was located on the eastern edge of Lanton Township, in large rolling fields about fifteen miles from my house. It took us twenty minutes to get there, Steve taking his time because he thought that the slower he drove, the sooner I’d tell him what was going on. Too bad for him, I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the ride.
 

The farmhouse sat a quarter mile off Lewiston Road. The drive was paved and ended beside the first of two barns where Jack kept his cows. There was about a fifty-yard gap between the barn and the house, with a stone walkway leading up to the porch steps. I remembered driving out here at night to meet Mel, lying out on the fields and staring up at the stars. She’d hated the fact her dad stopped being a teacher, had instead decided to become a farmer. She was popular at school, sure, but still the fact she was a farmer’s daughter was a title that had become solely hers, and which she absolutely loathed.
 

When Steve parked and we got out, he glanced around and frowned. “That’s strange.”
 

“What is?”
 

“Every other time I’m out here, his dogs always come running.”
 

It was true. There were two dogs that constantly ran the Murphy property, a German shepherd and a Husky. Their names were Ben and Jerry. They were Patty’s dogs, little nine-year-old Patty who I had once thought of as a little sister, a girl who would always want me to partake in her knock-knock jokes, who would always say, “I really like you a lot, Chris. Even more than
Mel
,” saying her sister’s name as if it was diseased.
 

We stood on either side of the cruiser, both our doors shut. The sky was clear, the day was warm, and the smell of hay and cow dung was thick in the air. It was a familiar smell that I’d somehow forgotten, the months erasing the memory of the odors from my mind.
 

Steve rested his hands on the hood and stared at me. “All right, Chris. Now that we’re here, what’s going on?”
 

“Where do you think he is?”
 

“How the hell should I know? His truck’s parked over there. It doesn’t look like Karen’s home though. At least I don’t see her car anywhere.”
 

Jack Murphy’s Dodge Ram was parked beside the barn. The wide double doors were opened; I could hear the cows shuffling and mooing in their stalls. I wondered briefly why none of them were out in the field when I turned to face the house.
 

That’s when I felt it.
 

A sudden sense of wrongness, like a pang of ice shooting through my soul. It pulled me forward, and before I even knew I’d begun walking, I heard Steve behind me.
 

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”
 

The house was three stories, its first two stories stone, its third story covered in white siding. Its trim and shutters were sky blue. It almost looked as if it’d been built during the Civil War era. A large oak tree stood a short distance from the house, a tire swing hanging from one of its high branches. On the second floor were two windows that faced front. The chill pulling me forward was coming from the open window on the left, which I knew was Patty’s bedroom.
 

I was almost to the porch, my sneakers crunching the gravel on the walkway, when I heard her faint voice coming from that window.
 

“
No ... Daddy, stop ... please
.”
 

So soft, so small, yet I sensed the fear there, the urgency, and before I realized it I’d begun sprinting up the steps. The front door was open, the only thing keeping the outside world away a screen door. I crashed through this and then I was inside, the fragrant scent of apple cider hitting my nostrils, while behind me Steve called for me to stop.
 

I noticed a collection of things as I ran toward the stairs—the antique pots on the floor, the two dogs tied up in the kitchen, the framed pictures in the hallway of Jack Murphy and his wife and daughters—but none of it mattered to me, because now inside I heard her voice more clearly, I heard her moans and her gasps and her pleading.
 

I took the steps two at a time. Blood pounded in my ears. When I reached the second floor I went straight for the closed door, opened it and walked right in.
 

He had her on the bed. She was naked but he still wore his briefs. Her arms were being held up above her head and she seemed to be struggling with her legs, which he kept in place with his knees. He outweighed her by more than one hundred pounds, him being at least forty while she wasn’t yet even ten years old.
 

He looked back at me. His face was naked without his glasses, his lustful wild eyes now filled with confusion and bewilderment.
 

“What,” he started to say, but that was it.
 

Everything was silent in that single instant. Even Patty had stopped her whimpering and pleading. Downstairs, one of the dogs started barking. Then behind me, the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Seconds later, Steve grabbed my shoulder.
 

He meant to pull me back, meant to ask me just what the hell I was thinking. But then he stopped. He saw what I saw.
 

He whispered, “My God.”

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T
WO
POLICE
CRUISERS
showed up five minutes after Steve made the call. Jack Murphy was read his rights and placed in the back of one of the cars.
 

Patty Murphy was taken in the other cruiser to her grandparent’s place across town. She was silent the entire time, tears dried on her small face. She had seen me, had looked right at me, but didn’t say anything, didn’t even wave. The guy who had played along with her knock-knock jokes, the guy who she said she liked a lot, even more than her own sister who was the guy’s girlfriend, was now somehow a stranger to her.
 

I stood on the lawn in front of the house, beside the tire swing. It was an actual tire, a worn Goodyear. Ben and Jerry had been untied. They hadn’t seen me in a couple months and had come up to me right away, wanting to be petted, but when it became clear they were being ignored they started to roam the property, oblivious to what was taking place.
 

Steve waited until the car with Jack Murphy left, then came and stood beside me. He crossed his meaty arms and sighed. “He’s not saying a word. Guess he’s going to wait until he gets his lawyer. But I’ll tell you what—he’s going away for a long time. We ... well, I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but we found pornography on his computer in the den. Child pornography. It was actually on the screen when one of my men passed the room, so he went and did a quick search. There are thousands of files.” He shook his head. “And as it turns out, Karen is away. Down in West Virginia for the week.”
 

In other words, Mel was off touring Europe for the summer, Karen was down south on one of her retreats, where she met a group of other artists that shared their love for pottery in the same way she did. Meaning that Jack Murphy had been left alone with his nine-year-old daughter for at least a week, Jack Murphy who’d had been addicted to child pornography all this time but never let the desire control him until today.
 

“Christ,” Steve said, “things come in threes, don’t they. First your parents, then the Youngs, and now this.”
 

I looked at him. “The Youngs?”
 

“Your uncle didn’t tell you? I thought I’d mentioned it to him. Shannon Young was driving with the boys Monday afternoon. They went through an intersection and a truck ran the light. Smashed right into them. Killed them instantly.”
 

“What about Pastor Young?”
 

“He wasn’t in the car. But he’s been a wreck ever since. Real shame, that. Real shame, all of this.”
 

The dogs raced past us, Ben nipping after Jerry’s tail.
 

Steve cleared this throat. “Now, Chris, I’m going to ask you something. I’m not sure if I want to hear the answer, but I’m still going to ask because I feel I have to. How did you know?”
 

I waited a moment, then another, then said, “I didn’t.” I still smelled the mixture of lavender and sweat from Patty Murphy’s bedroom, like it had somehow gotten into my clothes, saturated my skin. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
 

Steve seemed to allow my words to soak in, because he stood there for a while, stock-still. Eventually he nodded. “All right then. I guess I can live with that. That’s fine by me.”
 

I thought about Joey and what he told me to do about Jack Murphy. The rational part of my mind had needed this to be nothing, to be just one big mistake so it could call Joey a liar and throw everything Moses had told me back in his face. Now I saw that couldn’t happen, because Joey had been right and I had no reason not to believe.
 

But unlike Steve, it wasn’t fine by me.

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