Tumbleweeds (46 page)

“That’s right,” Deke said.

“Well, for goodness’ sakes, Deke!” Randy exclaimed. “Short of murder, what could Hall have possibly done at seventeen that would have you call me to Amarillo on a Friday afternoon when I’d planned to meet the boys for a beer?”

Deke’s face set in its noncommunicative mold as he returned the
items of evidence to the box, and the other men exchanged shocked glances.

“My God,” Randy said.

Back in his car, Deke formulated a plan of action, which now must include the assumption that Trey had not acted alone in the death of Donny Harbison. Deke was surprised he hadn’t thought of two boys being involved, one to hold the animal, the other to mark him. And it wasn’t the kind of prank a high school boy would pull off alone. He’d want a buddy to share the risk and danger, somebody who could bear witness to his daring when he bragged about it later.

So now, Deke had to find out who that somebody was so that he could track him down and obtain his prints. Randy had agreed to give him the weekend to work his hunches before he became involved. The accomplice was probably on the 1985 football team, a fellow player Trey could lead by the nose, which was the whole squad except for John Caldwell. Trey could never have talked John into participating in a stunt to hurt an animal. Deke would interview Ron Turner and get the names of players willing to do anything for their star quarterback. Most of the ’85 team had long left Kersey, but he’d get the addresses from the roster Melissa had compiled for her twentieth high school reunion.

He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Nearly three o’clock. At top speed, he could be back in Kersey in a little over an hour and catch Ron while he was still sober.

D
EKE DREW UP BEFORE
the Turners’ redbrick house with its handsome Corinthian columns in record time and was saddened to see the changes in the place. At one time, the large, two-storied residence had sat like an architectural gem on manicured grounds and was the showplace of Kersey. Ron’s wife had come with money when they married, inherited more afterwards, and it was her resources that allowed Ron to live in a house far above what he could have afforded
on a coach’s salary. Today, from the looks of the neglected lawn and flower beds, the untrimmed hedges and cracked drive, the place was going to ruin.

What a shame
, Deke thought. Ron Turner had been one of the best high school head coaches in the business, but his life had crumbled when his daughter had died just shy of her nineteenth birthday of a ruptured appendix. He’d hung in the coaching business for another five years or so, doing what he could with mediocre teams, but then his wife had died and he gave up. The last Deke heard of him, he was drinking heavily and living like a derelict in the house where he once reigned as king.

Deke found Ron’s telephone number in a Kersey directory he kept in his car and called ahead to make sure he was home. “Sure, come on, but don’t expect the butler,” Ron had chuckled, and answered the door almost the second Deke rang the bell. He saw little resemblance to the robust football coach his state championship team had once hoisted to their shoulders.

“Well, well, Sheriff Tyson, I can’t imagine why you’re here, but it’s mighty good to see you.”

“You, too,” Deke said.

“Oh, now.” Ron flung up a hand. “I look like a blown out retread, and you know it. Come on out to the kitchen. I’ve got us a couple of beers chilling.”

Deke followed the shambling figure past dark, drapery-drawn rooms to a cluttered kitchen connected to a breakfast nook and a cozy sitting area dominated by a handsome fireplace. The smell was peculiar to a man living alone who forgets to take out the garbage. “Sit down, sit down!” Ron invited, brushing newspapers off a kitchen chair. “What brings you to see me?”

“Trey Don Hall,” Deke said.

Ron slowly straightened. For an instant, his watery, alcohol-reddened eyes were as icy as chipped crystal. “Trey?”

“I have a few questions I’d like to ask you regarding him the week of the district championship game in ’85, Coach.”

“Why? That’s ancient history, Sheriff.”

“Indulge me. I bet you remember every minute of that week.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong there.” Ron shuffled to the refrigerator and extracted two bottles of beer. “But I can’t imagine why you’d be interested after all these years.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you, and I’d appreciate your keeping this visit and our discussion under your hat.”

“Don’t worry,” Ron said. “I don’t talk to anybody anymore. You were sheriff then. Is TD in some kind of trouble related to that time?”

Deke took the beer. “He could be. That’s what I hope you can help me decide. Your information might help clear up an injustice that would ease the pain of some good people who’ve suffered a long time.”

“They must be parents,” Ron said, taking a swig of the beer. “Usually, the good people who suffer a long time are parents. What do you want to know?”

Deke set down the beer bottle and opened a notepad. “Think back to the week of November 4, 1985. That was a Monday. Now, during any of the days before Thursday, can you remember anything being awry with Trey Don?”

“I sure can,” Ron said. “He and John Caldwell were sick on Monday. Came to practice that afternoon sick as dogs.”

“What?” Deke gaped at Ron. “John Caldwell, too?”

“Both of ’em. Scared the liver out of me, I can tell you.”

“What was wrong with them?”

“Something they ate for lunch. Seniors could go off campus then during their lunch break, and Monday was the only day I let my boys out with the rest of the pack. The other days they had to brown-bag it, and we met in the gym for a bull session during lunch. I always regretted that I didn’t keep them confined the entire week. Trey and
John picked up a stomach virus eating hamburgers at that greasy hangout Cathy Benson bought.”

“You’re sure it was a stomach virus?”

Ron shrugged. “That’s what they thought it was.”

Busily writing, Deke asked, “Practice began right after school?”

“Not a minute later.”

“And Trey and John showed up on time?”

“No, that was the problem. They were late. Nobody knew where they were. Some of the boys said they’d cut their last class. Turned out they were in the home economics room lying down. It was set up with a bed for the girls to practice putting on sheets. Can you imagine that being taught today?”

Deke felt as if somebody had thrown ice water down his back.
John Caldwell?
Father
John Caldwell, pastor of St. Matthew’s Parish and director of Harbison House?

“Was anybody else on the team sick?” he asked.

Ron shook his head. “No, thank God.”

“Did anybody else eat at Bennie’s Burgers that day?”

“Deke, how the hell could I possibly remember after twenty-three years? Come on. Tell me what this is all about.”

“You recall the name of the home economics teacher?”

“Thelma something-or-other. Old maid. Moved to Florida when she retired.”

Deke wrote down the first name on his notepad. Melissa would remember the rest of it. Maybe the woman’s address was included on the twentieth-reunion roster. He’d track her down to confirm the boys’ crumpling in her room that afternoon.

“Do you recall how long after practice began that the boys showed up?”

“A good hour, I’d say. We were well into practice when they came out onto the field, pale as silver dollars. I sent them home early.”

Deke drew a sharp breath. He’d bet
his
last dollar that Trey Hall
and John Caldwell were nowhere near that home economics room. They left school before their last class and planned to be back for football practice. They hadn’t counted on a murder or accident to delay them, throw them off schedule, mess with their digestive systems. But one problem gummed up his whole theory. The time frame didn’t work. It would have taken Trey and John no more than an hour to go and come from the Harbison place. Even allowing a half hour for the scuffle, to arrange the body in the barn and rake the ground, plus a few minutes to throw up in the weeds, the boys would have been long gone before Donny got home from band practice and prepared a snack. They’d also had time to change into their practice uniforms.

“Hate to challenge your recollection, Ron,” Deke said, “but can you give me the name of anyone else on the coaching staff back then who can confirm your memory?”

“Bobby Tucker, head coach now,” Ron said. “He was the line coach then, a rookie. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

“I’m sorry, but I will.”

Ron got up. “This beer sucks. I’m going to fix myself something stronger. How about you?”

“Beer’s fine,” Deke said, hearing Ron’s empty bottle clink against others in a paper sack on the floor. “Did you ever check out their stories with the home economics teacher?”

Pouring himself a glass of Jack Daniel’s from among other high-priced labels ranged on the counter, Ron said, “I saw no need to. Those boys weren’t in the habit of cutting classes. They took their studies seriously, especially John. And you only had to look at ’em to believe they were genuinely sick.”

Of course they were, Deke thought, but not from anything they’d eaten. He had to find a glitch in the time sequence to prove it. He rose to go, catching sight of a picture of Ron’s wife and daughter over the fireplace mantle. “Thanks for your help, Ron.”

“Wish you’d tell me what’s going on,” the coach said. “With Trey it could be anything.”

“Did you like him?”

“Yes, I did. I tried to be a father to him. I saw some saving graces in him beyond his ability to play football, but the boy could betray you on the turn of a dime. Look what he did to his aunt and Cathy Benson and John Caldwell.”

Deke nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed, seeing the bitter close of Ron’s mouth, the glint of long-banked anger in his eye. Best if he not mention Trey staying at Harbison House. In a drunken stupor Ron might call him up and chew him out, and Deke didn’t want him spilling the beans that former sheriff Tyson had been by asking questions. He said his good-byes and let himself out, leaving Ron to get stoned before the cold fireplace under the gaze of his wife and daughter.

C
athy did not utter a word as John finished relating how John Will Benson had been conceived. He had not let go of her hands. “Stay with me, Cathy,” he said, and she understood he thought he recognized signs of her old malady. “I know what a shock this is.” He released one of her hands and she felt suddenly set adrift, but he meant only to pick up her glass. It was not her old nemesis threatening. Disbelief had paralyzed her beyond speech. “Drink this,” he said, putting the glass to her lips, and she tossed down its entire contents, the liquid raw and prickling in her throat. She set aside the glass and took back his hand, dry and warm like a perfectly fitting glove, the fingers strong and familiarly shaped—like her son’s.

“You and I… But I don’t remember…,” she said. “How could I not have remembered something like that?”

“You were definitely loop-legged drunk, and you fell instantly into a deep sleep,” he said, failing at a grin. “I mean—like out cold.”

“Even so, how could I never have suspected—”

“Why would you? You were with Trey the next day. If I’d been more… knowledgeable, I might have recognized the root of his behavior. I’d have recalled his bout with the mumps and suspected his problem. The indications were there, clear as neon signs shouting
that something that had given meaning to his life had been destroyed, something irreplaceable.”

Cathy waited to feel something for Trey’s eighteen-year-old feelings, the devastation he must have felt when she told him she was pregnant, but nothing came, nothing at all. Her vision, her heart, were filled only with this man and the awe that he was the true father of her son. Never again would she have to worry that one day, years down the line, Trey’s genes would kick in, pollute the integrity that had marked the difference between father and son since Will was born.

“John…” She took her gaze over the features of his face, the shape of his ears, recalling the way his hair—like Will’s—curled in damp weather. How had she not seen John in her son? She said in wonder, “You’re Will’s father?”

“There’s no doubt, Cathy.”

“I should have known…. I should have guessed….”

His fingers tightened. “As Trey said, we looked only for what we expected to find.”

“I can’t begin to imagine how Will will feel when he learns the truth.”

“He’ll feel what I do.”

They stared at each other, each reading all the what-could-have-beens in the other’s eyes. “Good lord, John…” The enormity of Trey’s lies, the camouflage of his deceits, rose in her awestruck mind like gigantic boulders blocking the sun. “How could he have done this to us… to Will…?”

“He believed we betrayed him,” John said. “We shattered all he knew to be faithful and true, and he wanted to punish us.”

A mother’s fury began to shake her. She stood to get away from the rebuke of the liturgical shirt and Roman collar to the unholy rage she felt. She balled her fists. “But how could he let Will think his father had deserted him? How could he let that little boy suffer the same
feeling of being unwanted he’d known? Somewhere along the way, wouldn’t some decency in him make him come forward with the truth?”