A Quiet Belief in Angels (53 page)

All these things, and beneath them would be the memory of those days in Augusta Falls, of the beginning of this nightmare, and how it really should have ended back there.

A circle, I would say.

And Dearing would look at me, and in his eyes I would see a younger man, a man who had in some small way cared for me, for my mother, who had visited her as many times as he could, who had spoken to her and given her a sense of resolve. When everyone else had disowned us, Sheriff Dearing had been there. He had never given up. A man of little compromise and reservation.

It has been hard, I would tell him. To suffer this much loss. My mother. Alex. Bridget. Elena and all the others. I don’t know how someone could stand to lose so many people and still believe in the fundamental goodness of others.

That’s because we have faith, he would say. That’s because we believe in what we are doing, whichever way it comes down, we believe in what we are doing.

And we have to do something to make it stop, I would say, and Dearing would nod and agree, and then he would tell me of the years he had walked through America looking for the next little girl, perhaps hoping against hope that there wouldn’t be another, but knowing,
knowing
, that there would.

You remember the Guardians? I would say, and Dearing would laugh. That’s what we called ourselves, the Guardians. Me and Hans Kruger and Maurice Fricker—you remember him? I saw him recently—

Recently?

Yes, just a few days ago. You know his dad is dead?

Gene is dead?

Yes, he was killed in a hit-and-run somewhere out of county. Maurice looks just like his dad. Always did, but even more so now he’s older. And Michael Wiltsey? The King of Fidget we called him. Couldn’t ever keep still. And there was Daniel McRae, we always watched him closely, you know? Because his sister was one of the ones that died? We watched him like hawks, like any moment he would break down and we’d have a wreck on our hands. And Ronnie Duggan. You know Ronnie Duggan?

Yes, I remember him. Little shrimp of a kid, hair hanging in his eyes all the time.

That’s the one. He was with us too. And you put those flyers up around the town, the ones with the silhouette?

I remember that . . . God, I haven’t thought of that for so many years.

Yes . . . and it was the Guardians versus the child killer, and though we knew we couldn’t really do anything to stop him, at least we tried, right? We tried to do what we could to stop this terrible thing happening.

I know you did, Joseph, I know you did. And what did they say when you saw them?

They didn’t want to know, Sheriff, they just didn’t want to know. They tried to pretend that it was all in the past. That it stopped in Augusta Falls when Gunther died.

Yes . . . when Gunther died.

I know about that, Sheriff. I know what happened that day.

I know you do, Joseph. I know you figured out what happened.

And I understand why you did it.

You do?

Yes, I think so. Because you wanted everyone to go back to their lives. You wanted everything back the way it was before it started, and you thought that if they knew who was guilty they would stop worrying, they would stop being frightened, and Augusta Falls could be the town it was before Alice was murdered.

Dearing would be silent, and he would look at me with tears in his eyes, and just like my mother when she spoke of what had happened between her and Gunther Kruger, I would see that Haynes Dearing wanted me to forgive him.

I can try and understand, but I cannot forgive you, Sheriff. I can’t absolve you of your sins. That’s something you’re gonna have to come to terms with when you seek your redemption.

I know, Joseph, I know. I wanted so much for it to end. I know you understand. I wanted everyone to go back to how they were before. I suppose I believed that if they had someone to blame it would be a sort of deliverance. I suppose I believed—

It’s okay, Sheriff, it’s okay. That’s over now, and no matter how much we might talk about it, what happened will never change.

And now, Joseph? What now?

Now? Hell, I don’t know. It all seems so far back that I wonder sometimes if I haven’t dreamed it.

It did take place, Joseph, it did take place.

I know, Sheriff, I know.

So what are we going to do, Joseph?

I was hoping you’d have an answer.

Me? Why would you think I’d have any better answer about this than you?

Because you were there. All these past years . . . while I was here in Brooklyn, while I was in prison in Auburn, you were still out there looking.

Just because I was looking doesn’t mean I have any better idea about what to do. I just saw more of it than you did, that’s all. Nothing more nor less than that, Joseph, I just saw more of it.

And did seeing more of it make you better understand why it happened, Sheriff?

A silence, and then through tear-filled eyes he would look at me and say, I think he was ashamed after he killed the first child. I think she talked to him, taunted him, followed him everywhere he went, and each little girl he saw reminded him of the first, and then the second, and then the third. And he had to stop their voices, Joseph. I think they talked to him and made him mad. They stopped him sleeping. He had to make them go away, until they all became the same, and they looked at him the same way, and their voices were like one voice, and the only way to make them silent was to kill them. Guilt, you see? The seed of guilt was planted, and from then on he could do nothing but try to make the guilt disappear.

You think that’s what happened?

I don’t know, Joseph. I don’t know that anyone will ever really understand. I have tried, but the more I think about it the more I get confused.

Enough now. We just have to decide what to do.

The morning of Tuesday the eleventh I woke suddenly. My clothes were drenched in sweat. Sunlight struggled to find its way into the room through the closed drapes, but the sound of the street told me that another day had arrived. I looked at my watch. Eleven was already gone.

I rose and showered, I shaved, changed my clothes. I stood before the mirror and asked myself whether I was ready to meet with Haynes Dearing. I tried to be strong and retain some sense of resolve about what I was doing.

I tried to eat some bread and cheese but I had no appetite.

The room was nothing more than my new prison cell, and though I could leave whenever I wished, though there was no lock on the door and no one stood beyond to prevent my exit, I could leave no more easily than when I’d been in Auburn. Everything in the present seemed a mere echo of the past. Somewhere I had made a decision—perhaps something simple, even insignificant—and as a result of that decision everything from that point forward had slipped off kilter, onto other axis. The real Joseph Vaughan existed within a parallel world, a world without dead children, a world where he had grown old with Alex Webber, where his mother had lived to some ancient age, where she was ever present, ever beautiful, ever pleased with the life she had created for herself and her son. Or perhaps even earlier. Some other life where Earl Vaughan’s heart had been sound and strong, the heart of a giant, and nothing so inconsequential as the rheum had afflicted him. He was somewhere even now with his wife, and though they’d never had more than one child, that child, their son, was an inspiration for them. He was a writer, and people knew his name. He was the son of Augusta Falls, and Augusta Falls would be remembered for that son.

Some other world. Some other life.

Not this one.

By two I had opened the window and sat there on a chair with my forearms on the sill. Watching and waiting, praying that Dearing had not been overcome with second thoughts. I willed him to come. I placed everything within a single thought and sent it out there. I wanted to see him turn the corner at the junction. I wanted to see him make his way down the sidewalk with that unforgettable gait. I wanted him to look up at the window and see me, to raise his hand, to smile, and start speaking to me even before I could hear him.

I watched cars and cabs crawl down the street, wishing any one of them would draw to a stop against the curb, that the rear door would open, and after a moment’s hesitation Haynes Dearing would appear, and I would see nothing but the top of his hat as he emerged, but I would know it was him. No doubt. No uncertainty. Haynes Dearing in Brooklyn and at my hotel.

By the time the sun began to set I was beside myself with agitation. I could not speak. I tried to look at myself in the mirror, pretend I was someone else, start a conversation just so I could hear a voice.
Any
voice. Nothing but a strangled sound emerged from my lips, and I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

I am an exile, I thought, and wondered if here I would stay, forever trapped within a prison of my own making, caught in some hiatus of time and place, waiting for someone who would never arrive.

I am an exile, and no one knows I’m here except the man I’m waiting for. And he will never come. Never intended to come. Made a promise and then broke it. Just like the promise I made to Elena. Broken words. Broken oaths. Worthless vows. This is who I have become, and I have created this for myself. No one else has done this but me. No one else but me.

THIRTY-FOUR

I
T WAS DARK. THROUGH A THIN GAP IN THE DRAPES I COULD SEE THE moon, high and full. It shone like a single eye into my room and found me there sitting on the floor with my back to the wall beside the bed.

I heard the car pull up. I heard an exchange of muffled words. I heard the door slam, the engine start, the car pull away.

My body fought against me, but I dragged myself up from the floor and made it to the window.

I pulled back the drapes and tugged up the window. I looked down and it could have been the same day.

Thursday, February seventeenth, 1949.

He looked the same as he had then. When he came to drive me to Jesup.

When I saw him take a moment, glance back toward the road, and then look up at the house like his own angel of death was planning to appear from within, I knew.

I
knew
.

He raised his hand.

I extended my hand through the open window.

“Joseph,” he said, and his voice was almost a whisper.

“Third floor,” I said. “The room at the end of the hall.”

He nodded, took a moment to set his hat on his head like a punctuation mark, and then he walked slowly toward the front door.

I rummaged through my bag. I gathered the newspaper clippings and put them out on the bed. My heart was thundering in my chest, my hands were sweating. I could feel my pulse in my temples and my head was ready to burst. I took the chairs from near the window and set them facing one another in the middle of the room.

I stepped toward the door.

I could hear his footfalls on the stairwell. I stood for a moment. I tried to breathe deeply and gather myself together. I stepped back, sat down in the chair, and closed my eyes for just a second.

The door started to open, I could see the handle turning. I had almost passed out, believed for a moment that I would lose myself completely. I watched the door open inch by inch, and then Haynes Dearing was standing there in front of me, and he was smiling, smiling high, wide and handsome, and though he had aged, though the better part of twenty years had passed since I had seen him, I did see him. I saw him as though for the first time.

“Joseph,” he said, and he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

“Sheriff Dearing,” I said.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Is it?”

He glanced at the bed as he turned, saw the newspaper clippings spread across it. He smiled understandingly, even compassionately. “These are our ghosts, are they not?”

“I believe so, Sheriff,” I said, and somewhere within me I found some deep well of resolve and inner strength. “Come and sit down,” I said. “Come sit down and tell me how you’ve been.”

Dearing did not carry a bag. He wore a long coat, and he took a moment to remove it. He folded it neatly and placed it on the small table beside the bed.

“You been here long, Joseph?” he asked as he walked forward and sat down.

“A couple of days.”

He smiled and started to laugh. “It smells like someone died in here, Joseph.”

“Perhaps someone did.”

There was nothing between us for a moment, and then Dearing reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his gun. He pointed it unerringly at my chest.

“How long?” he asked, and his voice sounded caring and sympathetic.

“How long?” I said. “I don’t know, Sheriff. Everything’s blurred together and there are no seams. I look back and see everything as if it happened yesterday.”

“Do you understand anything of what has happened?” he asked.

“I understand that you turned my mother against the Krugers, that you made her believe that Gunther Kruger, perhaps even Walter, was responsible for the children that died. I think you were the one that shot a bullet through Kruger’s window, and you killed his dog as well. I think you fired the Kruger house, and then you visited my mother all those times at Waycross and made her believe that she had done it.”

Dearing stared back at me implacably. There was a twitch along the line of his mouth, and this was all that told me he was alive. His eyes were dark, lightless and deep. I could see my own reflection there, and what I saw frightened me.

“And you went out there and hanged Gunther Kruger. You used me, didn’t you? Used me as your scapegoat. You went there and killed him, and you put that ribbon in his hand, and you put those things beneath the floorboards. Your evidence that Gunther was the child killer.”

Dearing’s eyes closed for a moment, and when he opened them he had a vague and distant smile on his face.

“I think you put that note in the file you left in Valdosta. You wanted to find the Kruger boys, perhaps were afraid that they would realize you murdered their father. People saw that note and believed you suspected one of them. Walter? Was he the one you were afraid of?”