A Quiet Belief in Angels (21 page)

Fermor glanced at his watch. “Ain’t even eleven o’clock, and you pair are out here cavorting and fooling around in the back of this here vehicle. What the hell kind of way is that to behave?”

I opened my mouth to speak.

Fermor shook his head. “Tell you the truth, I don’t wanna hear nothin’ but your name, son.” He took a notebook and a pen from his shirt pocket. He looked up at me, and nudged the peak of his hat back from his brow.

I said nothing, but glanced at Alex.

“Your name?” Fermor repeated.

“Vaughan,” I said. “Joseph Calvin Vaughan.”

Fermor printed my name laboriously in his book. “And where are you from this morning, Mr. Vaughan?”

“Augusta Falls,” I said.

“Augusta Falls? That’s in Charlton County, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Augusta Falls, Charlton County . . . seems you would know my contemporary down there, Sheriff Haynes Dearing.”

“Yes sir, I know Sheriff Dearing.”

Fermor looked up, squinted beneath the brim of his hat. “You had words with Sheriff Dearing in Augusta Falls, Mr. Vaughan?”

I shook my head. “No sir, I haven’t.”

Fermor raised his eyebrows. “So how would you be acquainted with him?”

“It’s not a big place, Sheriff. Pretty much know everyone around there.”

“You do, do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what do you do down there in Augusta Falls, son?”

“I work on fences, felling trees, any kind of thing like that . . . some farm work when it’s harvest, whatever’s going.”

“You gotta house down there, somewhere you live?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how old are you, Mr. Vaughan?”

“I’m eighteen years old.”

“Is that so? All of eighteen years old.”

Fermor wrote something else in his book, and then he turned his attention to Alex. “And now you, miss . . . your name?”

“Alexandra Madigan Webber.”

“Alexandra Madigan Webber . . . and you’re from Augusta Falls too, right?”

“Yes, Sheriff, from Augusta Falls.”

“And what would you be doing traveling out here this time of day?”

“We were on our way to the Community Hospital in Waycross.”

“Right, right,” Fermor drawled. “And why would you be going to the Community Hospital, Miss Webber?”

“We’re going to see—” She glanced sideways at me. She looked strained and anxious.

“To see?” Fermor prompted.

“We were on our way to see Joseph’s mother.”

Fermor nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving Alex. “And was there any particular reason you felt it necessary to stop over here, Miss Webber . . . instead of just driving right on through to Ware County?”

Alex looked at me, then back at Fermor. He’d asked the question just to embarrass her further and she knew it. She shook her head slowly. “No, sir,” she said, and her voice cracked with emotion.

I felt the lift of anger as it rose from my stomach to my chest.

“Well, all right,” Fermor said, and wrote something else in his book.

“We’re real sorry,” I said. “We were driving along, and we decided to stop for a little while—”

Fermor raised his hand. “I don’t know that it’s real necessary for me to know all the awkward details of this tryst of yours, Mr. Vaughan, ’cept to know that this here is a public highway. Kind of highway where people come walking or riding horses, even folks in cars, and the last thing in the world they want to be witness to is two folks engaging in the kind of behavior that we’ve seen this morning. Fact of the matter is that it’s gonna be the violation of some law somewhere—”

Alex opened her mouth to speak. She took a step forward. “Sheriff—”

Fermor took a step forward himself. There was something menacing in the way he did it, a counterpoint to Alex, a challenge. “Let me ask you something, Miss Webber,” he said. “How old are you?”

She frowned. “What does it matter how old I am?”

“I asked a polite question, Miss Webber, and I expect a polite answer.”

She shook her head. “Twenty-six, Sheriff.”

“And what would you be doing down there in Augusta Falls?”

Alex cleared her throat. “Schoolteacher,” she mumbled.

“You say schoolteacher, Miss Webber?” Fermor asked, something of surprise in his voice.

“I am, yes. I am the schoolteacher in Augusta Falls.”

Fermor nodded at me. “And this young man here . . . this young man is one of your students, Miss Webber?”

She laughed nervously. “No, sir, he’s not one of my students.”

Fermor adjusted his hat on his head. “Well, thank the Lord for small mercies, Miss Webber, because that would be just about as interesting an abuse of one’s position and respectability as I could imagine.”

“There is nothing in the law that says an eighteen-year-old—”

Fermor smiled, took another step forward. “
I
am the law here, Miss Webber, and if anyone’s gonna be quoting chapter and verse on the law then it’s gonna be me. Truth of the matter is that you both have upset me with your lewd conduct, and I’m gonna take you in and book you for something or other, and maybe next time you drive into Clinch County on the ways to someplace else you’ll just keep on going ’til you get to that place . . . as opposed to pulling over on the side of
my
highway and doin’ stuff that should only happen behind closed doors when the sun’s gone down.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake—” Alex said.

“For
Christ’s
sake, Miss Webber? You a churchgoer down there in Augusta Falls? You responsible for the moral and religious education of your charges in that schoolhouse of yours? I would say you were, if that schoolhouse is anything like ours, right?” Fermor shook his head. “So I wouldn’t be taking anyone’s name in vain right now, least of all the Lord’s, considerin’ the position you people have found yourselves in this fine morning. I’m gonna ask you to get your shoes and clothes arranged properly, one at a time, and then step right over here to the side of my car and wait for me to handcuff you.”

“Handcuff us?” I asked, now disbelieving, now beginning to worry that something vindictive and unjust was taking place.

“Why yes, Mr. Vaughan, handcuff you. That’s what I’m gonna do, and you people are gonna cooperate, or like I said before I’m gonna make a call to my office and a couple of deputies are gonna come down here and we’re gonna make a party of it.”

The heel that was rested on the gun shifted back an inch. I looked at Alex. Her eyes were wide, tear-rimmed. She looked like a frightened child.

We cooperated. We put our shoes on and straightened ourselves up. We walked one after the other to Fermor’s car and he handcuffed my left hand to Alex’s right, and then cuffed my right to a bar that ran above the upper edge of the window.

Neither Alex nor I spoke a word as we drove. As we neared a dip in the highway I glanced back at Reilly Hawkins’s pickup at the side of the road. I wondered if it would still be there when we returned.

The Clinch County Sheriff’s Office was a featureless block at the side of the road on the outskirts of Homerville. It looked like something someone had dropped on the way into town, and deemed of insufficient worth to return and collect. Once inside, I began to think that perhaps this event was the high point of Sheriff Fermor’s week. Stationed at the end of the corridor was a deputy, no older than me, tight-lipped and serious-looking, overcome with the grandeur and sobriety of his task. He informed us that there was to be no talking. I looked through the bars at Alex. She sat on the bunk with her back against the wall, her knees drawn up, her chin resting atop them. It’s gonna be okay, I tried to communicate. It’s not a big deal, nothing’s gonna come of this . . . and no, I don’t blame you.

She smiled back weakly, and then closed her eyes and lowered her head. I think perhaps she fell asleep.

The commotion started after an hour or so. The door at the end of the corridor was flung open and Fermor stood there.

“Let these deviants out of here,” he said matter-of-factly. “We got one helluva lot more important thing to be attending to.”

The deputy seemed uncertain.

“Go!” Fermor barked.

The kid hurried toward us, with the keys jangling on his belt.

Alex sat bolt upright. “Wha—”

“We’re outta here,” I said, and stepped up to the cell door. My hands instinctively gripped the bars.

Fermor walked down and stood beside the deputy.

“You’re Joseph Vaughan from Augusta Falls,” he stated sonorously.

I nodded. I felt the tension in my hands, felt my knuckles whiten.

“You were the one that found the Perlman girl back in August of ’42.”

I nodded again. “Yes sir, I was.”

“Well, son, we got another one, out in Fleming, Liberty County. I’m going up there, taking Deputy Edgewood here with me, so I ain’t got time to process any paperwork on you people.”

I felt my eyes widen. The blood retreated from my face. My heart missed several consecutive beats; my legs felt like they were filled with nothing but liquid. For a moment I couldn’t register what he was saying.

Another girl. Three years after Virginia Grace Perlman, another girl had been killed.

“You’re sure . . . sure it’s—” I stammered.

“Not sure of anything yet,” Fermor said. He cleared his throat, tucked his thumbs in his belt. “I’m just gonna say one thing before I throw you people out. Don’t much appreciate that you came into my county to commit this misdemeanor. I looked it up. What you were doin’ was a misdemeanor, plain and simple. Exposin’ yourselves in a public place, and engaging in lewd and lascivious conduct. And the fact that you’re a schoolteacher, Miss Webber—” He paused to fix Alex with a steely and disapproving glare. “That you’re responsible for the edification of Augusta Falls’s young ’uns, well, I don’t wanna use the language I’d like to use ’cause I been better raised up than that . . .”

Fermor’s voice was a blur of meaningless sound in my ears. I watched his mouth move, the way his expression changed as he spoke, and it meant nothing to me. All I could see was the white soles of Virginia’s shoes over the brow of the hill.

“I’d see to it that you take stock of what’s happened here today, take it as fortunate that I was the one who came across you and not someone with a harsher view. Only reason I ain’t gonna book you is ’cause of this terrible thing up in Liberty County, and I gotta go up there and assist my contemporary, Sheriff Landis.” Fermor nodded, and then turned to his deputy. “Deputy Edgewood is gonna drive you back to your vehicle, and then I would ask you to be on your way, go on up to Waycross to the Community Hospital and attend to your affairs. That is all I gotta say, but I will pray for you come Sunday as is my predilection in such matters. I wish you well, but I’ll not be sorry to see you out of my county.”

Fermor nodded one more time, and then turned to Edgewood. “You come on out to Fleming when you’re finished.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” Edgewood said, and watched as Fermor strode out toward the front of the building. Moments later we heard the engine of his car gun into life.

Deputy Edgewood stood there for a moment, nervous, perhaps uncertain of what lay ahead, and then he stepped forward and raised the key that would unlock my cell door.

“Let the lady out first,” I said.

He paused, looked at me, glanced back over his shoulder at Alex, and then said, “Yes, of course. The lady, sorry.”

Alex came out, and waited patiently while Edgewood fumbled and dropped the keys, found the right one, unlocked my door and stepped back so I could gain the corridor between.

Edgewood told us to walk out to the front of the building and wait for him. I took Alex by the hand, and once we exited the narrow corridor I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her tight.

“A lucky break,” I whispered, but I really wanted to say . . .
another girl, they found another girl.

She merely nodded, didn’t say anything, and while we waited for Edgewood I just held onto her as tight as I could.

The drive was without conversation. I don’t imagine Edgewood would have known what to do if I had started speaking to him, but I was incapable of speech. Overwhelmed by the presence of a feeling I had tried so hard to forget.

Edgewood dropped us off at Reilly’s pickup, turned around and headed back toward the junction where he could turn toward Liberty County.

“I want to go up there,” I told Alex.

“Where?”

“Fleming.”

She frowned. “Why, Joseph, why d’you wanna go up there?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Alex . . . hell, I don’t know, I just feel like I need to go up there.”

“And see what? Some other little murdered girl?”

We stood on either side of the pickup, looking at one another over the hood. I glanced down at the ground, at my shoes, and when I looked up I realized that there was no way for me to explain what I felt.

I’d found Virginia Perlman. I’d made a promise to Elena Kruger, a promise to ensure no harm came her way, and I had failed. I’d been the one to stand and watch as unjustified bitterness and anger was directed toward Gunther Kruger and his family, and how that had indirectly resulted in not only the death of his daughter, but also the loss of my mother as I knew her. I was drawn to this thing, that’s all I could feel, but I knew there was no way I would make Alex understand that. I thought of the Guardians, where they were now . . . and I knew again that everything we had tried to accomplish had been nothing but the foolishness of children.

“You really want to go?” she asked.

I nodded. There was no hesitancy or uncertainty in my mind.

“And your mother? When do you figure on seeing her?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, Alex, maybe on the way back . . . but if you don’t want to come with me I could take you home.”

She shook her head. “I wanted to go see your mother,” she said quietly. “I sure as hell don’t want to go to Fleming.”

“I
need
to go, Alex . . . don’t ask me why, for Christ’s sake, I don’t know why myself, but there’s something about this that just . . . ”

“If you’re going, well then you’re going alone,” she said. “If you really have to do this then that’s the way it’s gonna be . . . I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want any part of this godawful thing.”