Orrie's Story (22 page)

Paul had never heard anything like this firsthand, and listening to it, he felt his scalp flex and then stretch so tight he expected it to tear away at the temples. There was absolutely nothing he could do to meet his obligation as a friend to minimize the event or mitigate Orrie's agony, which was only appropriate. It was by far the worst thing he had ever heard or heard of. He could easily have changed his entire sense of Orrie, had he let it get to him in a certain way.

But Ellie had seized his wrist. “It was self-defense! Nobody can blame him for anything.”

“It was murder,” Orrie said. “I didn't mean to do it, but it was murder.”

“Wait a minute,” Paul said. “That doesn't make any sense. If it was an accident that you didn't mean to do, then it
can't
be murder. Talking like that won't do any good for anybody.”

Ellie squeezed harder on Paul's wrist. He wanted her to rely on him.

“You listen to Paul,” she said, twisted to look back at her brother. “He knows what he's saying. He's older.”

Paul, who was almost twenty, was flattered. “I'm just trying to talk sense,” he said. “What's done maybe can't be undone, but we also can't let it take everything else to ruin with it. You're not a criminal. You can't tell me anybody's going to think you are when they hear the explanation.” Ellie was now shaking his arm, so he started the engine.

“That's what I've been telling him,” she said. “For all the good it's done. If you can just hide him out for a while…”

“I can,” said Paul. “You just leave it to me. But why don't you come along too? Two heads are better than one.” He was now speaking as if Orrie were not conscious. “I think together we can eventually straighten him out.” He began to back the car around. When she made no reply, he said, “I can't just leave you here on your own.”

Ellie looked straight ahead. “I've got something to do here. I'll be okay.”

She had let go of Paul when he started the car. He wanted some other connection with her. He took his left hand off the steering wheel and got out his wallet. “You anyway ought to have an emergency fund in case of need. Maybe after a day or so you'll want to come join us, and you'll need the fare.” He would have thought of more reasons had she protested, as he expected, but she said nothing and passively accepted the bills he gave her.

Ellie seemed preoccupied, but when they reached the edge of the business district she gave him precise directions. Where she wanted to get off proved to be the village hall, at the
POLICE
sign over the side door.

“I'm going to try again to get that chief to listen to me.” She made a firm little mouth.

Paul had never known a girl like her. “Good luck,” he said. “If there's anything I can do —”

“Better get going,” she said, “before somebody spots Orrie.” She opened the door and hopped out before Paul could say anything else to fortify their connection. But obviously she thought well enough of him to entrust him with her brother.

Bob Terwillen kept shaking his head. “I told May I felt something awful was going to happen in that house. I didn't know what, but I knew it would be bad. Of course, if I had known it was going to be this bad, I'd have taken those kids out of there by force.” He sat alone at the bar, the time being the dinner hour for most, but May was under the weather with a stomach upset, so he had made weak tea and toast for her and for himself heated a can of chicken-noodle soup, finishing the entire sequence, including scouring the pot he had burned, early enough to reach the Idle Hour by not much after six.

“Chief Gross called in help from the county,” said Herm. “He was leery about going down to Rivertown without reinforcements.”

“He thinks it was revenge, right? Somebody with a beef about rent or something?” Terwillen shook his head more violently, the light reflecting off his glasses. “I don't believe it. I've been down there with the lifesaving squad a couple of times: once a kid almost drowned, another time a guy got a chicken bone stuck crossways in his throat.” He smiled briefly. “We took care of both of them, before the doc showed up. I never saw anybody who seemed so bad they would shoot two people down in cold blood and kidnap kids. And not steal a cent: E.G.'s wallet was still there, full of cash.”

“Then again,” Herm pointed out, “you don't know what anybody might do with enough liquor in them, or, down there, reefers or worse.”

Terwillen shrugged. “I just don't believe it.”

“So,” asked Herm, who had not yet served him anything to drink, “your theory is what?”

“I don't know what to think. Maybe the two of them had a fight, Esther and him, and shot one another. The kids got scared and ran away.” He frowned forcefully, the thick eyeglasses rising on his nose. “But that's pretty farfetched.” Terwillen stopped shaking his head for an instant of immobile deliberation.

“Maybe the chief is right, then.”

“Howie Gross makes a good town cop,” Terwillen said, “but how often has he had a case like this to deal with? Why would anybody kidnap those children? Where would the ransom come from? Everybody they're related to is dead now. No, I tell you they ran away.”

“But where would they run to?” asked Herm, at last delivering the beer he had drawn.

“You should have seen that place, with the blood all over. Kids having to see a scene like that! Jesus Christ, to find your mother…I think they ran away because they were scared. Maybe they thought they would be next, or maybe just because they lost their heads. Poor kids!”

“Well,” Herm said, standing back with his chin angled in concern, “I just hope they can be found before anything else happens to them. I hear they're real nice kids.”

Terwillen hardly knew them, but he said, “The best!”

Joe Becker came in, walking more slowly than usual. He had aged in the last few days. He put a hand on Terwillen's shoulder, but sat down two stools away. To Herm he said, “This kind of stuff happens with the scum down in the big city. It's not supposed to happen up here.”

“So what do you think, Joe?” Terwillen asked. “You agree it's not likely they've been kidnapped?”

Becker turned his head very slowly to face Terwillen. “The girl turned herself in to Howie Gross about an hour ago. She claims she shot them both for murdering her father. Says her brother tried to stop her, but after she did it he ran away so it would look like he was the one who was guilty, says he wanted to take the rap for her.”

Herm said, “My God.”

Terwillen's eyes looked as vulnerable as they did when his glasses were off. “She kept saying that, the day we were called in for Augie: that those two murdered him. It was awful to hear a little girl talk that way. But Christ Almighty, I never thought she might do something like this.”

“She didn't!” Becker barked. “How could a little girl like that lift a twelve-gauge and pull the triggers?”

“Damn,” Herm said incredulously. “She claimed that?”

“Then who did it?” Terwillen asked.

“Well, there is that theory about the Rivertown bunch,” said Herm.

“Naw,” Becker said. “Huh-uh. And it's got nothing to do with the racketeers which Erie Mencken might or might not have been connected with when he supposedly lived down in Florida.” He turned to Terwillen. “You were there yesterday, Bobby. Wasn't Esther pretty beat-up on the face? I mean, other than the shotgun wound.”

Terwillen lowered his head and murmured, “Sure was.”

“Now who would have been punching her?” Becker asked. “Young Orrie? Little Ellie? You saw her. I didn't. But according to Howie Gross, her one eye had really been hit hard, and her jaw was broken on the left side, teeth knocked out and all.”

Herm leaned across the bar and asked, incredulously, “Erie beat her up?”

“Looks that way now. Howie's got a detective from the prosecuting attorney's office to help him, and that's their theory. Nobody came in from outside, that's pretty sure. The girl can be believed so far as that goes, anyway. There's no fingerprints of anybody else, except those on the shotgun—other than Augie's old ones: it belonged to him. But not
one
of little Ellie's. She's got no answer for that. Just sticks to her story.”

“What's her version of how her mother got so beat up?” asked Bob Terwillen.

Becker threw his hands out. “No answer! She swears they got along beautifully: they murdered her father and were happy about it. In fact, they were gloating over it at the time she shot them: that's why she did it.” He slapped the bar top. “As for her brother, he had already gone back to college, according to her. But the fact remains that nobody at school has seen him for the last four-five days.”

Rickie Wicks came from the direction of the men's room. Apparently he had been there all the while. Herm drew him a beer. He stared into it awhile without drinking, listening to the others. “Getting so bad,” he said at last, “you never know each day what worse thing can happen up there, and then it does.”

Terwillen said, “That little girl never shot anybody. But she
is
cracked on the subject of her dad's death.”

“I don't think she killed them,” Becker said. “But maybe her theory as to Esther and Erie isn't all wet. I'm sorry, I don't like to speak that way of the dead, usually, but you know what was going on up there for years. Erie was always basically a skunk, starting out as a kid, and didn't change when he decided to call himself by the fancy initials. He was a shit as a boy. Hell, I've known him as long as I knew Augie. Never liked him.”

“I'll tell you how it could have happened,” said Herm, having been thinking. “I'm not saying it did, but Esther could maybe have been threatening him with the gun, and it went off…”

“I don't think we're going to get the straight story till Orrie turns up,” Becker said.
“If
he's willing to talk. But I think he will, once he knows what his sister is saying. Those kids stick up for each other. You can see that.”

“I like that in brothers and sisters,” Wicks said, but for much of his life he had been on bad terms with his younger brother. At the moment they had not spoken to each other for more than a year, though, as residents of the same small town, they often crossed paths.

Molly McShane was coming in at the door. She always made a certain ceremony of her entrance, and Becker had time to whisper to Terwillen and Herm, “Don't say anything about Ellie turning up. It's none of
her
business.” Terwillen nodded, but Herm looked noncommittal.

As it happened, Molly made no reference to the Mencken mess. She said nothing till she got settled on the stool and inspected the bar top by lowering her head and squinting to catch an angle of vision that would reveal any liquid Herm had failed to wipe up. As if that were not enough, she also slapped about with flat hands. Finally she brought up the big purse from the floor.

“Glad's arthritis kicked up,” she said. “It's this weather we've been having lately, in my opinion. Too hot. Summer lasts longer every year. Some might think that's great, but I say it isn't healthy.” She had directed her words thus far to Herm, who had her sherry ready before she got her purse situated.

“Couple reporters were in here earlier,” Herm said, and the men all stared at him resentfully, for he had reserved this information for Molly. “This might be national news, due to the nature of it. I mean, it's not every day a series of tragedies occur in the same family.”

Molly seemed miffed and just said, “Oh?” and took the first sip of her wine.

Becker said angrily, “You didn't mention that.”

“Just plain forgot,” Herm replied with a straight face. “Howie Gross sent them over. Said we know more about Augie and his family than any other sources. Pity it was too early for you guys to be here, but they got papers to put out and couldn't wait.”

“I could tell them a thing or two,” said Molly, with a grunt. “But I don't speak ill of the dead.” She grunted again. “I guess they'll all get to be famous, now it won't do anybody any
good”

“You sound jealous,” Becker said. He signaled to Herm with an index finger. “I guess I will have a drink after all.”

“Jealous?” Molly snorted. “No thanks. There's enough sin in the world.”

“Since when are you so religious?”

“How would you know whether I go to Mass, since you're never there?”

“I don't see where religion comes into it,” Terwillen said. He was Dutch Reformed. Rickie Wicks too was Protestant. Some thought Herm was a Jew, but if so, he never admitted as much and abstained altogether from any discussions of religion.

“I'll tell you how it does,” Molly said in response to Bobby Terwillen, though she did not glance his way. “Immorality. And that's all I have to say on the subject, period.”

“You mean, Esther and Erie got what they had coming?” Terwillen asked, though with no evident moral implication.

“I didn't say that!” Molly now stared at him. “I don't judge people. I leave that to —” She poked her free shoulder towards the heavens.

Becker had asked the others not to reveal to Molly that Ellie had turned up to claim responsibility for the killings, but he now proceeded to do so himself, if only because the former irked him with her hypocritical self-righteousness, and he added, “I don't believe it for a minute. I don't care what she says.”

Molly was badly shaken for an instant to be the last in this group to have heard the news, and tried to rally by saying through her teeth, “Don't put your money on it. She might be a chip off the old block. The other daughter sure was.”

“That little girl never shot anybody,” Terwillen said. “I know her. She's the sweetest little thing in the world.”