The Second Son (37 page)

I suppose I was making them nervous, staring at them like that. Andrew found his voice and croaked, “We’ll have to call the police. He’s out of control.”

“Now, Andrew,” my mother murmured.

“Forget it,” I growled. “You’re not calling anybody.”

“You’re nothing but an ignorant thug,” he threw back. “You can’t live with normal people.”

He was probably delighted I had jumped him — he thought he had the edge now. The poor dumb bastard. He didn’t know how close I was to sticking the knife in.

I SMILED AT THE POOR DUMB BASTARD
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puffy face and droopy shirt-tails, while I contemplated the point of entry. He finally got flustered and barked at me, “You’re not getting away with this, you know. You’ve got a record.”

“Andrew,” my mother reacted.

“Tell me, brother dear,” I drawled, “why do you keep talking like I’m the one with the problem?” When he didn’t answer I took a sip of coffee and turned to Jean. “Jeannie dear, remember what you told me once? How you read up on Gail McDonald and how she died? And how the papers said that everybody saw us leaving town that day, together . . . well, you know what they said.”

She was mystified. “What do you mean?”

Andrew interjected, “Leave her out of it, you — ”

“I’ll bet you didn’t know we had company up there.”

She stiffened. “Pardon?”

I smothered a quiet laugh before I answered, “Yeah, and I’m not talking about the horse.”

“Pardon?” she repeated.

I finally gave it to her straight, “Your husband, he was up there that day, at the dam.” Andrew gasped and I threw him a sharp look. “Go ahead, deny it.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed just a bit. “But — ”

“Yeah. There was nothing in the papers about that, was there?” I looked over at my brother, then my mother, and smiled. “There were only three people who knew about it. Me, Andrew, and our dear mother.”

Mom was not pleased. “Oh, Michel, how can you start this again? Think of the harm you could cause.”

Jean was looking back and forth between the two of them. “What does she mean, Andrew? Were you really there? Why didn’t it come out?”

He actually pushed his lower lip into a pout before he answered, “Everybody knows what he did.”

“Then what is he talking about? Were you really there? Yes or no?”

I laughed out loud this time. “Yeah, Andrew. Yes or no.”

He pushed out of his chair, embellishing his exasperation as he paced across the kitchen, shoving his shirt tails back in like he was preparing for battle. He finally turned and gave me a dirty look before he answered, “Gail was in the parade, with that fancy horse of hers. The whole town saw them, after, riding down Main Street.”

“But tell her the whole story, Andrew. Who was right behind her in that parade? Driving that Model A?”

“So what? She was the one people were looking at, on that palomino horse her father bought her.” He turned to his wife for support. “Don MacDonald was the richest man in town and he wanted everyone to know it. He bought a farm just so his daughter could keep a horse, with the money he was making from putting my father out of business.”

I shook my head in disgust. “Don’t try to change the subject. Tell Jean who owned that truck you were driving right behind her, looking up that palomino’s ass.” I took a second to laugh at my own joke, then added, “I kept hoping it would dump a load of shit on you.”

He sniffed, “You’re such a pig. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Like hell it doesn’t. MacDonald owned that truck. He bought it off the old man when we lost the store and needed some cash to live on. The old man felt so bad about giving it up that he made him promise you could drive it in the parade. Even took you down to Cornwall and lied about your age so you could get your licence.” I looked to Jean, for some kind of confirmation, I guess. “They loved that truck, spent three years restoring it. Wouldn’t let me near it.”

“Hah,” he snorted at me, “tell her the whole story. Tell her how you fiddled with the jack one day and almost dropped it on his head.”

“Quit trying to change the goddamn subject. The fact is you were still mooning after Gail. Couldn’t forgive her for dumping you.” Once more I looked to Jean. “He always figured it was because we were so poor all of a sudden and the old man had to take a job cleaning furnaces. He ran and hid every time the old man came home covered in soot.”

“Bullshit!” That one got to him as he stood there, trying to be in and out of the conversation at the same time, hands stuck stubbornly in his pockets.

I sneered back at him, “Yeah, sure. Tell Jean how mad you were when you found out I was going up to the dam with Gail. Tell her what you did. See if she’s as understanding as your mother was.”

He grunted his disdain, but Jean was now staring at Lorna. “Was he really up there? Why didn’t it come out?”

I could see my mother’s confidence was fading fast. She put her hands to her head like she felt a headache coming on. “Oh, Jean,” she finally answered, “it was all so tragic.”

I forced a laugh. “Yeah, for everybody but Andrew.” I could see that Jean was still confused.

And getting angry. “Andrew,” she ordered through tight lips, “I want you to tell me what happened. Now.”

He sputtered, “It’s . . . it’s just . . . you can’t believe him, Jean. He lies as fast as a dog can trot. You know that.”

I growled, “You wish.”

She wasn’t about to be mollified. “Dammit, Andrew, tell me what happened.”

“Nothing, dammit,” he almost yelled. “I was at home all afternoon, sick to my stomach. I ate too much at the fair.”

I laughed and slid into a sing-song voice, “Oh, have I eaten too much at the fair . . .”

He yanked his hands free of his pockets and stepped into my face. “Shaddapp, you goddamn fairy, or I’ll — ”

I stood up to face him, pleased with myself. “So now I’m a fairy. And you’re a goddamn liar. Probably told yourself that bullshit story so often you can tell us exactly what you had to eat that day.”

That confused him for a second. “I could not. I — ”

Now Jean was pissed off with the both of us. “Are you saying it happened differently?” She tried to stare the answer out of me.

The willpower was wasted. I was more than ready to talk. “He’s lying. Same as he was thirty years ago.”

She backed off a touch. “How?”

Andrew caught it. “Jean, don’t encourage him. He’s a — ”

She ignored him. “I’m listening, Mike.”

I slipped her a sad smile. “I believe you are.” I stepped into Andrew’s space and locked on his eyes. “My big brother showed up at the dam that afternoon, in the old man’s car, begging Gail to talk to him. I told him to take a hike, but she said it would be okay and she went with him, behind the powerhouse.”

Andrew blinked and looked to his wife. “He’s a pathological liar, don’t — ”

She put a hand up. “Let him finish. It won’t hurt to listen.”

I smiled. “Yeah, ask him why they found her over behind the powerhouse, across the dam from where the horse was. And — ”

From her seat at the table my mother tried to cut me off, “Oh, Jean, this is not right. Make him stop.”

I mimicked her feeble protest, “ ‘This is not right.’ Ask her how he got that big scratch on his face. See how she explains that away.”

“Lies, lies, lies,” Andrew spit out. “Make him show you that damn tattoo. How can you believe someone who tattoos the name of the girl he killed on his chest?”

I knew I had him when I saw Jean whirl and stare at him. She had heard the desperation in his voice and now there was fear in her eyes. “What scratch, Andrew?”

He just stared at her, his face reddening until it was almost like the scratch was re-appearing on his cheek. He finally slipped back into his chair, as though the table would give him protection. My mother tried to rescue him. “Michel makes things up. You know that, Jean.”

Encouraged, Andrew got back into it. “He’s a lying pervert, everybody knows it.” And when Jean failed to respond he blurted out more, “His story makes no sense, can’t you see? If it’s true, how come he never told on me? It makes no sense.”

Jean took that in and studied his eyes for a moment before she turned back to me. “If you expect me to believe this, Mike, you’ll have to give me an explanation that makes sense. If he was really there, why would you leave him out of it? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Oh?” I reacted. “And how do you know what I was like? At the tender age of thirteen?”

Maybe my mother thought that was an opening, that she could appeal to the thirteen-year-old boy buried deep inside me, the one she had left behind that day in the courthouse. “Oh, Mike,” she moaned, “how can you do this to us? I just buried your father. Don’t you care about us at all?”

It didn’t work. I gave them both a roll of the eyes and turned back to Jean, calm as hell. “We were eating supper when Chief Kennedy came to the door. He told us they had just found Gail MacDonald up at the dam. Dead.” Reminded of something, I stopped and pointed at my mother, “Ask her what she said when she heard that. Go ahead, ask her.” Jean stiffened, but remained silent. I could see she wasn’t going to go there, so I did. “Go ahead, mother. Tell her.”

She just shook her head and moaned some more. “Oh, Mike. Your father never wanted this. You know that.”

“Don’t I know it,” I spit out. “He was just coward enough to swallow the story you and Andrew cooked up.” I turned back to Jean. “You know what her first reaction was? When Chief Kennedy said Gail was dead? She turned to me and said, ‘Oh, Mike, what did you do?’ Never mind the scratch on Andrew’s face, never mind him hiding upstairs, never mind asking me what happened. Just join in with the cops and blame me, same as always.”

I could tell she wasn’t convinced my indignation was real when she smiled and said, “Of course you protested, told them Andrew was there, too. Right? Did they not believe you?”

I gave her a look. “You think it’s that easy? When your own mother condemns you without a single question? I was in shock, I just clammed up, wouldn’t say a word. Chief Kennedy let the old man ride in the cruiser with us, and he never said a word either, just sat there. I remember thinking that Andrew would tell my mother what really happened, as soon as we left. And the two of them would come rushing down to the courthouse and clear the whole thing up. Of course, after I got down there I found out they had the shirt I’d left over her face — those damn flies kept crawling on her face. And then the doctor examined me and they found that mess in my underwear. Still,” I paused and narrowed my eyes at them, “I thought they were coming any minute to get me out of there. I was sure they loved me enough to do that, to tell the truth.”

Andrew laughed the same phony laugh I’d heard all my life. “Aw, Jesus, it gets more elaborate by the minute. Notice how he glosses over the evidence they found. Evidence, Jean.”

Jean took a moment to process this stuff, then focused on Andrew for a second. “The news stories never said anything about her being molested.”

“It was the fifties, dear. They didn’t print that stuff.” He was always so goddamn quick.

She shot him an impatient look, then turned back to me. “I still don’t understand. If he was really there, how could you keep it to yourself?”

I pointed once more at my mother. “Because she asked me to.”

That got a rise out of Mom. “Oh, Michel, this is too much. You’re twisting the truth again. You admitted to Chief Kennedy that you did it. You told him yourself, you know that.”

“Is that true?” Jean came back with.

“What would you do? If your mother asked you to save your brother’s life?”

I could see that was a large pill. “You’re kidding?”

My mother kept trying to raise the drawbridge. “Don’t listen to him, Jean. He’s twisting everything.”

So I gave her a twisted smile. “Sure, mother. Tell her you didn’t come down to the jail and ask to see me alone. Tell her you didn’t ask Chief Kennedy how bad it was. And tell her it didn’t matter when he said I was lucky I was only thirteen. Tell her you — ”

“I don’t understand,” Jean interjected.

At least she was listening. Encouraged, I went on, “It should be obvious. Do you know how old Steven Truscott was? When he was charged?”

“He was fourteen, wasn’t he?” She paused to give that some thought. “And he was tried as an adult and sentenced to death.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And her darling Andrew, he was fifteen.”

Now she was really disturbed. She turned to her husband. “Andrew, this is getting worse by the minute.”

“Only if you believe his lies,” he huffed. “You don’t, do you? You can’t possibly.”

“Maybe not, but . . .” she hesitated, then looked to my mother. “Lorna, is there any truth to all of this?”

I thought I saw something new in my mother’s eyes. “Oh, Jean. You can’t imagine how upset we were. When your own child is accused of such . . . I can’t remember everything that was said. He may have accused Andrew of something. But that was what he always did, don’t you see, whenever he was in trouble. You’re a mother, you understand.”

Andrew piped up, “She’s right. No matter what he did, he always blamed me.”

I laughed. “You gotta admire it, how they stick together. Same as that day, when the Chief left her alone with me.” That image stopped me up, as though my mouth balked at telling the rest. I paced a few steps away from them, looking for distance. I finally turned and focused on Jean. “She kept telling me how I had to leave Andrew out of it. Of course she was crying all the time she was telling me this. Telling me he was so special, that his life would be ruined if people knew he was up there. I just sat there, stunned. It was black and white to me. He had gotten to her first and she believed him, even with that big scratch on his face.

“I’ve never really been sure why I took the blame. I just know I hated the both of them and wanted to hurt them. You know, like a kid, a powerless little kid whose only idea for hurting them back is to hope something bad will happen to him. Then they’ll be really sorry for what they did. Why does a kid think that way? I don’t know. I’ve been wondering . . . all these years. And I can’t — ”