Risen (12 page)

Madge had another premonition now.

John had been sober and industrious since his rise, but it made Madge uneasy, like when Jimmy Swaggert cried on television. It wasn't natural. Not that she wanted the old John back, not by a long shot, but deep down she wasn't so sure he was gone. People don't change like that overnight.

He'd said that they had work to do, but he didn't say what it was. He'd busied himself around the house, fixing dripping faucets and the like, but surely that wasn't what he meant. The way he'd said it made it sound more like some kind of mission, but John hadn't breathed a word about anything like that. She wondered what he was waiting for.

It was the waiting and the not knowing that made her nervous. That, and the voice in the back of her head that kept whispering its warning in her ear. She was feeling the premonition as a coldness in her veins when Brant Kettering drove up and tooted his horn.

The toot was a kind of courtesy in Anderson, extended by visitors who hadn't phoned before dropping in. It gave you time to button your pants or get your hands out of the dish water before you had to respond to the knock on the door, and if you didn't want to be home to visitors, it let you quiet down and make yourself invisible until they left.

Madge had often had reason to take advantage of the toot. When she had a bruise she didn't want anyone to see or her eyes were swollen from crying, she'd hear the toot and move quickly to switch off the radio she was listening to and hide in the pantry. They couldn't see her, then, even if they peeked in the windows, but she couldn't see out either and had to stand very quietly so she could hear when the car drove away. One day she'd seen Bernice Tompkins walking her way with a basket of kittens and Madge had a black eye and hid in the pantry and she'd stayed there for forty-five minutes, imagining Bernice circling the house and peering like a spy through every window.

Hiding was Madge's impulse now, but she couldn't say why.

John was working on the back porch banister that'd been wiggly as long as Madge could remember. She could see him through the back door and saw him look up and scowl when the horn sounded, as if he didn't want to be dragged away from his work. That wasn't like John, either, who was usually happy to put off any chore, especially if it meant a sociable drink or two.

She went to the door and was there when Brant knocked. His appearance was no surprise to her. He'd approached her before, when she was a murderess, but she'd refused to say anything for fear that the first word would be like the first tiny rock in the dam to give way, and that after that would come the torrent of abuses and complaints bottled up over twenty years of marriage. She didn't want to complain then, and she sure as heck wasn't going to get into it now.

***

Brant studied the Duffy place as he walked from the car to the front porch. It was shabby, not quite ramshackle but needing a lot of tender loving care. He knew from the gossip that tender loving care was a rare commodity in the Duffy household.

Madge answered his knock. Brant had no idea how he was going to get this ball rolling considering her sphinx-like silence when he'd tried to interview her in her cell, but he hoped that talking to her in her own home would be more productive.

He couldn't imagine how Duffy would respond, but Brant was prepared to duck.

"Hello, Madge," Brant said warmly.

Madge returned his "hello" but didn't invite him in.

"I guess you know why I'm here," Brant said.

"I expect it's about John," Madge replied.

"It's a big story. I thought he might want to tell it from his point of view. I'd like to talk to you, too, of course."

"There's nothing to tell." It was John Duffy's voice, and it had an edge to it. He'd appeared from the kitchen. The grim look on his face made the hammer in his hand seem more like a weapon than a tool.

"Must have been quite an experience," Brant said, trying to sound conversational. When Duffy didn't take the bait, Brant dropped another worm into the water. "Waking up in the morgue like that, must have been a shock."

"It's over and done with," Duffy said, advancing. He put his hand on the door as if to slam it shut.

"Maybe for you," Brant said, "but all of Ma's Diner was debating the principles of the thing this morning. Darn near started a riot. Any light you could shed—"

"It just happened, that's all."

Brant sighed and scratched his head. "Well, if that's the quote you want me to run...."

Sometimes the best way to get a subject to talk is to just shut up and let the silence become a void that they feel compelled to fill with words. As the seconds ticked by, Brant got the impression that he could stand on that porch for seven days and seven nights without John Duffy ever uttering another syllable. Madge, though, was another matter.

"He's changed," Madge said, almost without moving her lips.

Duffy whipped his head around and glared at her like a rattlesnake suddenly aware of a descending boot. Madge knew that glare even without actually seeing it, but the test of John's redemption had to come sooner or later and so maybe this was it. "I don't know what he saw on the other side," she said, "but it changed him."

"In what way?"

Madge chose her words with great care. Practically everybody in town knew her and John's history, but there was no need to splash it all over the front page for those who didn't. On the other hand, she wanted people to know that he was reformed, and having it reported in the
Times
made it somehow truer.

"For the better," she said at last, and then added, "and that's my last word on the subject."

Brant opened his mouth to speak but the door swung suddenly toward him and shut with a finality that told him the interview was over. He turned away from the Duffy place and got back in his car and drove off, not knowing that behind those walls John Duffy had just knocked his wife to the floor.

"You're shitting us," Darren said. He looked from Galen to Tom, desperate for a sign that this was all some kind of sick joke. A smirk, a snicker, a twitch of the lip. Anything. Finding nothing.

"It's true," Tom said. "Haws is alive."

"Again," Galen added.

Darren regarded Kent and Buzzy. Kent sat on the fender of Darren's Satellite looking so sunken and morose he barely seemed to be breathing. Buzzy sat beside him, his leg twitching nervously, his mind working a mile a minute.

"I don't believe it," Darren said.

"You heard about Duffy," said Tom.

"Yeah, I heard. And I don't believe that crock of shit either."

Galen paced like a caged hyena, his teeth clenched, his breath huffing through flared nostrils. He turned on Darren and punched a palm hard into his chest.

"Fucking believe it!" he said.

"Hey!" Darren protested.

Galen was in his face.

"I saw the asshole! I woke up in the back of his fucking car! The fucker is alive!"

Galen had indeed come to in the back seat of Haws' patrol vehicle and stared up at Haws' red neck, and then Haws had turned around and grinned at him and Galen had figured he'd died and gone to Hell. "Feeling better?" Haws had asked, and all Galen could do was lie there on the stinking seat while his brain performed its impression of the
Lost In Space
robot blowing a fucking fuse. Haws had reached over and jacked open the door behind Galen's head and said, "Be home tonight" and then told him to get the hell out of his patrol vehicle. Galen had scrambled out of the car without even sitting up, just scooted out like a lizard and flopped onto the pavement and Haws slammed the door shut and drove off, his back tires spinning and spraying Galen with road debris. When he'd stopped shaking, Galen had called the guys and told them to get their asses out to the reservoir pronto, some serious shit was going down.

"You'd better believe it," Galen said, resuming his pacing. Then he yelled out "Shit!" and kicked the fender of Darren's Satellite hard enough to leave a dent.

Darren leaped at Galen and gave him a shove before his good sense had time to stop him.

"Asshole!" Darren yelled and Galen whirled on him and grabbed the front of his shirt and muscled him over against the car and backed him against the window.

"Who are you calling asshole, asshole?" Galen demanded.

"You dented my fucking car!" Darren yelled back.

Galen and Darren faced off for a few seconds and then Galen glanced over at the fender. He looked at the dent as if seeing it for the first time.

"Shit!" he said, giving Darren a shove as he turned loose of his shirt. "Shit shit shit shit!" It looked as if he was going to kick the car again but some force restrained him.

"If Galen says he saw him, he saw him," Buzzy said.

"I saw him, too," said Tom. "He's alive."

"So Galen didn't kill him."

"No, but we sure as hell buried the fucker," Kent said.

"So why didn't he arrest us when he had the chance?" Tom asked. "He saw me there. He didn't even arrest Galen. He just loaded him in his car and let him go."

"He told me to be home tonight," Galen said.

"But he didn't arrest you. He didn't do shit to me. He didn't go after Darren or Buzzy or Kent. Why? What's he waiting for? Maybe you didn't kill him but you put a bullet in his stomach! You think he's just going to forget that?"

"Shut up!" Galen yelled. "How can I think? Shit!" He kicked at some dirt and everybody gave him some time to wind down.

"We're fucked," Buzzy intoned.

"This isn't real," Darren insisted. "This is fucking
Twilight Zone
shit."

"It's real," Tom said, "and we have to figure out how to deal with it. And we can't do that until Haws makes his move."

Tom felt abnormally calm. After the nightmares and the shock of seeing Deputy Haws alive at the diner, a strange resignation had settled over him. If Haws was alive, they hadn't killed him. So no matter what revenge Haws tried to take, it wouldn't put them in jail for life with no chance of parole. They faced the unknown, but it couldn't be worse than what they'd faced before. It just couldn't.

"I hate this shit!" Galen said.

Galen paced and Tom thought, This is it, Galen, the moment you've been hurtling toward for the past eighteen years. The moment of truth.

He'd often wondered what force of nature kept somebody like Galen Ganger in Anderson. He'd thought that Galen's rage would have taken him somewhere else long before this. Ironically, he realized, Anderson's provinciality, against which Galen struggled and cursed and railed, was the glue that held him fast. The town was like the forced perspective room in a funhouse that makes giants of midgets. Viewed against any larger backdrop, Galen Ganger would diminish. He might even disappear.

And now, something enormous had come to Anderson, and Galen had set himself against it. It dwarfed him utterly. It was roaring over him like an avalanche. To defy it was useless.

"You going to be home tonight like Haws wants?" Tom asked.

"I don't know!" Galen snapped.

"I think you have to."

Galen stopped abruptly at the words, his back to the other boys, his eyes on the water. The air was heavy and still. Tom felt his palms moisten—Galen did not like being told what to do. He looked at the others and noticed how carefully they avoided his gaze.

After several moments of leaden silence, Galen looked over his shoulder at Tom.

"Fuck," he said flatly. He looked at Buzzy and Kent, both studying the ground, and at Darren who glared at him, still mad about the dented fender, then fixed his eyes on Tom.

"When you're right, you're right, Einstein," Galen said. "It's me and him. That's what it comes down to. Me and him."

Tom nodded.

"Yeah," he said, "pretty much."

It wasn't just Galen and Deputy Haws, of course. It was all of them, and it was something much bigger than the bunch of them put together. He didn't see any use in pointing that out, though, not yet.

They'd find out soon enough.

***

Brant wondered if he should contact the Associated Press.

He hadn't had a story go out over the AP wire since he'd moved to Anderson, and the way news traveled over the grapevine somebody in the outside world would hear of Duffy's rise soon enough and he'd be scooped in his own backyard. On the other hand, he didn't want to be branded a kook and the facts in the case were as wonky as a shopping cart. Doc Milford could be counted on for a solid "no comment" and the Duffys certainly weren't talking.

No, if there was a story here, it'd take more digging to unearth it. At least, those were his thoughts as he drove by Carl Tompkin's house and saw him crawl out from under the foundation in coveralls and a filter mask and dragging a five-gallon stainless steel sprayer.

Brant pulled onto the wrong side of the street and rolled down his window and hollered at Carl.

"It's the damned cockroaches," Carl explained. "I've done everything, but with all the cats...I don't want to complain, but you know how it is. Cat food left out all the time, and they eat like pigs. Bernice tries to keep the place clean but...twelve cats. Jeez!"