No Way Home (27 page)

“I’m sorry you see it that way, Pink,” she said coldly. She reached for the car door handle, but Pink jerked her away from it.

She turned on him furiously and snarled, “Let go of me.”

He loosened his grip. She pulled away from him and got into the car. She got out her keys and began to insert them into the ignition with a trembling hand. Pink hesitated, then reached in and tried to grab them away from her. Lillie cried out and rolled up the window. Pink snatched his hand out quickly, to avoid getting his wrist jammed in the window. Lillie reinserted the key, pressed on the gas, and started the engine. She put the car into reverse and let out the emergency brake. As she glanced into the rearview mirror, she saw her husband standing there, behind the car.

She rolled down the window and stuck her head out. “Get out of the way, Pink,” she said.

“You can’t do this,” Pink said. “You can’t just go out and destroy all our lives.”

‘Tm not trying to destroy anything. But I’m going to talk to Royce Ansley. Right now.” She revved the engine and touched the gas. The car inched backward.

“Go ahead and hit me,” he cried. “Why don’t you?”

She blew her horn, but he stood still, blocking the car’s path with his soft, aging body.

She looked at him incredulously. “Move out of the way,” she cried. “I’m going out.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “I don’t care.”

And in that moment she knew that it was true. He would. For his misguided notion of shielding Grayson, he would stand in the path of a car. She didn’t know whether it was pity or revulsion or even sympathy that twisted her heart.

She threw the gear shift into drive and the car jerked forward. She turned the wheel sharply and threw it into reverse, backing out at top speed over the emerald-green perfection of Brenda’s lawn, leaving tire ruts in an area around the driveway. Pink shouted something after her, but she rolled up the window again so that she could not hear him.

Royce Ansley lived on a quiet street in a stone farmhouse that some returning soldier had modeled after a French country house after World War I. Lillie parked in the driveway and recalled what the now-shabby facade had looked like when Lulene was alive. Roses climbed up around the door and her flower garden was unrivaled in Felton.

After his wife’s bout with cancer and her death, Royce’s brown crew cut seemed to turn gray overnight, and he never did appear to recover. He had married late in life, and when a seemly amount of time had passed and people suggested that he date again, he would always say the same thing. “I had my wife.” And the way he said it, it was as if he meant to say “my life” instead.

Lillie banished the sympathy that she’d always felt for him. She walked up to the front door, dropped the old iron door knocker, and waited. She heard footsteps and the door opened. Royce Ansley, still in his bathrobe, looked out at her with tired eyes. He did not seem surprised to see her.

“I thought it might be you,” he said. “Come in.”

Lillie closed the door and followed him into the front sitting room. “Do you mind if I get dressed?” he asked.

Lillie was tempted to refuse. Part of her wanted to humiliate him, to make him face this confrontation in that vulnerable condition. He was not the man she had respected all these years. He was a liar and a lawbreaker. But for some reason that she could not understand, she wanted to be fair to him.

“Go ahead,” she said abruptly.

“Thank you. Make yourself at home.”

Lillie nodded and looked around as Royce left the room. Who could feel at home here? she thought. The room was neat, everything perfectly in its place. But the yellowed curtains looked as if they had not been opened in years. Lillie could tell that Royce had not changed the position of one object, not even an ashtray, since Lulene’s death. She remembered coming here with Jordan when he was in the school play Our Town. Lulene had served them tea and told Jordan about productions she had seen on Broadway. Lillie could remember how Jordan’s eyes had shone, and she had not recognized the danger to her in that gleam.

She had felt only pleasure that he was so highly regarded by his teacher, that it made him so very happy. Lulene was pregnant with Tyler then. The house was neat then too. But it was also cheery with flowers and china teacups. She could not help but imagine, now, how dreary it must have been for Tyler growing up in a house like this after his mother had died. A house full of death and orderliness.

“There,” said Royce, coming back into the room as he tightened the belt buckle on his civilian pants. “All right, Lillie.”

“Did Pink call you?” she asked tartly.

“Yes.” The terse word conveyed his readiness for her assault. She did not intend to disappoint him.

“Ever since I can remember, Royce, I always respected you. I always thought so highly of you. If someone had told me that you were capable of something like this…”

He did not try to adopt an aggressive posture. He sank down onto a worn brocade-covered chair and stared at his wedding picture on the table beside him. The couple in the photo smiled out at him, not young but still innocent. “I don’t know how I can explain this to you,” he muttered.

“You can’t,” Lillie said shortly. “I didn’t come here for explanations or excuses. I’ve had it up to here with excuses.”

Royce looked up at her somberly as she slashed a flat hand across her own throat. Then he shook his head. “It was Pink’s idea to keep this from you. He said that you’d be so upset over Michele that you wouldn’t be able to think clearly. I didn’t see it that way, but then again, there was no good solution. I hated lying to you, Lillie. I don’t expect you to understand, but I want you to believe that.”

Lillie was not about to reassure him. “So,” she said, pointedly ignoring his plea, “you and Pink went ahead and now we’re all caught up in this pack of lies. And what are we going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” said Royce. He got up from his chair and walked over to the writing desk in the corner. Lillie suddenly noticed his holster, lying on the desk, and for a moment her heart leapt in fear.

“Royce, don’t!” she exclaimed.

Royce saw where she was looking and he frowned. Then he looked up at her with sorrow in his eyes. “Oh, Lillie, do you think I’m evil?”

“I don’t know what to think,” she said in a quiet voice.

He picked up a framed photograph of Tyler and studied it for a moment. Then he set it back down on the desk.

“How could you, Royce?” asked Lillie. “You’ve been a police officer all your life. Do you think you are above the law by now?”

Royce sighed. “Do you love your son, Lillie?”

“Don’t give me that,” she said impatiently. “I’ve had all I can stand of that from Pink. God knows I don’t want my son arrested or publicly humiliated. I’m his mother. I want to protect him. Just as you want to protect Tyler. But this isn’t a broken window we’re talking about. Or even a stolen car. This is murder. My daughter lost her life. So don’t give me this business about loving your son. We all love our children. But what is best for them? That’s the question now.”

“No, on the contrary,” he said. “I’m not sure about that love. I don’t know what a father should feel for his son.

When I think of Tyler…Lillie, I’ll be honest with you—”

“It’s about time,” she said.

“I didn’t really want any children. I was never good with children. Their games and so forth. And I was older than most. But she was so happy to have Tyler.” He pointed vaguely to the wedding picture. “She just doted on him. I stayed away from him pretty much. I punished him when it was called for. When he got old enough for hunting, and sports and the things I knew about, he was never interested. His mother was gone, and I didn’t know what to do with him. He was secretive and surly and rebellious. We never spoke that it didn’t end in an argument. He was always in trouble, in school, everywhere. He was drinking. I knew it. And God knows what else. A year ago, money started to disappear from my wallet. I knew he was stealing from me. I warned him…I threatened…it was useless. He was everything I despised.”

Lillie sat quietly, watching him. Royce sat back down and looked squarely at her. “When I found Michele that night, and the baseball bat…. That sweet little girl…. And then I came across those boys, and they told me what happened.

“I wanted to strangle my son with my own hands. You must believe me, Lillie. Protecting Tyler went against everything in me. Everything I ever felt, or believed in. If Pink hadn’t showed up just then…Well, I won’t say that. I won’t lay my misdeeds at his feet. But I’ll tell you this. I didn’t do it for Tyler and I didn’t do it for me. I did it for her. Because she loved him.”

“I see,” Lillie said bluntly. “And so that’s the end of it. Tyler goes off to military school. And to hell with my daughter. And what about the next innocent girl who gets him angry?”

“I think the Sentinel will be the best place for him. I’m praying that they can straighten him out.”

Lillie could scarcely believe how hard she felt. It was as if Michele was alive and she was fighting to save her again. “He killed my daughter,” she said. “He belongs in jail.”

“Justice.” Royce sighed.

“All right. Yes,” said Lillie.

“An eye for an eye,” said Royce.

“Let’s not play games, Royce. I have as much at stake as you do. Don’t you think I’m in agony over this? I mean, the thought of exposing my husband, my son. I don’t know what to do. But how can I let Tyler just walk away? He has to be punished for this.”

“Do you want him to die for it, Lillie?”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Royce. No jury is going to sentence a seventeen-year-old boy to death for a drunken…I don’t know…I refuse to call it an accident. An incident. Not even in Tennessee. But he may go to jail for a while and I say he should. Military school is not punishment.”

“I understand,” said Royce. “But what you must understand is that when Tyler goes to jail, he will be killed. By the other inmates. He’ll be killed because he’s my son. Because I put a lot of those guys in there over the years. They’ll have to keep him in solitary, all the time, but that won’t save his life. They’ll get to him. They have ways and ways.”

Lillie sank back and gripped the arm of the sofa.

“That’s why I agreed to keep quiet,” Royce said. “Because I knew he would die there, and the reason he would die was because of me. Now, you may feel that he deserves to die, but I could not personally sentence my own son to death.”

This isn’t fair, thought Lillie. I don’t want to hear it. But her mind was working furiously, realizing at once that what Royce said was true.

“You can see the problem,” said Royce.

She could see it. The problem was that Tyler’s life or death was now in her hands. And she did not want it to be.

“Lillie,” Royce said earnestly, “I don’t know of any good way. But I am asking you to be merciful and spare my son’s life. Even though he did not spare your daughter’s, and there is no earthly reason for you to show mercy.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t send him to prison,” Lillie protested weakly.

“Why wouldn’t they? This is Tennessee. You go to jail here for twenty years for possession of marijuana. And he deserves to be in prison, as you say. Anyone can see that. But, unfortunately, what you must decide is, does he deserve to die?”

Lillie stared up at him.

“You know what choice I made. But then again, he is my flesh and blood.”

Lillie looked up at the sheriff’s grizzled head and felt a wave of hopelessness. It was not fair. The responsibility was too great. It was one thing to send a boy to jail and another to mandate his execution. And to tear apart her own family at the same time. God knows what would become of Grayson and Pink, she thought. They might end up in jail themselves. They had lied. They had covered up a felony. Grayson had turned sixteen. He was old enough to face prosecution. She could not stand to think of him having to go through that. And for what? For trying to protect Michele in his own wretched way?

But what about Michele? Who was there to take her side if not her mother? Would her murder just be shoved aside, unavenged, as if she were some animal hit by a car on the highway? Oh, my baby, she called out to her lost girl from her heart, what would you want me to do?

And even as she asked it, she could not help but remember Michele, wearing her little protest armbands against capital punishment. A bleeding heart, Pink called her. Lillie had never taken her too seriously, for Michele was young and sheltered, and what did she know about criminals and murder, and victims wanting revenge? Although now, when she thought about it, Lillie realized that Michele had understood a death sentence all too well. In hospital after hospital, for most of her young life, she had steeled herself to face it. Death had hovered very low over her head.

Lillie’s heart felt like a weight in her chest. It was not right to have to choose. On the one hand was her murdered child, and on the other, her living son, and Royce’s son. Whom did you consider first, the living or the dead? And if she kept the secret, if they all kept the secret, would it torment them in the end?

“Will you think about it some more?” Royce asked.

Lillie stood up, numb. “I can’t make any sense of it,” she said.

Royce nodded his head in sympathy. “I know,” he said. “It seems that whatever we choose, we can’t win. Can we?”

They stared fearfully into one another’s eyes.

JORDAN HAD REQUESTED A WAKE-UP CALL
from the motel desk, but he awoke without it and was almost finished shaving when the phone began to ring in his room. He walked over and picked it up, ready to respond with a curt thank you when a masculine, authoritative voice on the other end barked his name like a command.

Jordan frowned. “Yes?”

“Colonel Preavette here.”

“Good morning, Colonel,” Jordan said, surprised.

“Do you have Cadet Ansley there with you?” the colonel asked in an impatient, accusing tone.

“With me?” Jordan said. “No, of course not.”

“You were here last night looking for him,” the colonel asserted.

“Yes, that’s right. And you told me to come back in the morning. I was just on my way up there.”