Set This House in Order (56 page)

“The night he died, I was working, out on patrol; I met up with your father on the road. Eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night and he's out driving,
with a six-pack on the seat right next to him—and he's
not
headed for home.

“I asked him where he was going. He told me he'd had a fight with Althea, and she needed some time to cool down, so he'd decided to come out and have some fun. ‘Fun?' I said. ‘She's five months pregnant, you mean to say you just left her alone? What if something happens?' He told me she'd be fine—she'd fume for a while, then be asleep by the time he got back. He asked me if I wanted to go swimming with him. I blew up: told him he needed to start acting like an adult, told him, if she was my wife…but he laughed. ‘She's
not
your wife,' he said. ‘She picked me, remember? Anyway, you should be happy—if she divorces me for neglect, you'll get another shot at her.'

“I came close to hauling him out of the car for that. If I had, if I'd beaten the hell out of him, like he deserved…but I didn't. I told him to get out of my sight before I arrested him. I told him, I told him I hoped he drowned his stupid self…

“What happened,” Chief Bradley continued, “what we eventually decided happened, Silas drank most of the six-pack sitting in his car, here, and then he took the last can with him and swam out to the raft. He made a bad dive, hit his head, and lost consciousness. By morning his body had drifted down to the west end of the lake. I got the call around nine
A.M
.”

“So he had an accident,” I said. “And then, what, did you and my mother—”

“
She
came to
me,
Andrea. I don't know what you must think of me, but I did not see your father's death—my best friend's death—as some sort of golden opportunity. No matter what
he
said, that night. But she came to me. Asking for help. And then how could I say no?

“Do you know I was there, the day you were born? It's true: I drove your mother to the clinic, and stayed at her side. And the cottage, too: I helped her with that. Silas's death benefit, it didn't amount to much, but I helped out, I traded some favors to get her a deal, so you wouldn't have to grow up in a trailer…”

“But you didn't do any of this,” I said, “for
selfish
reasons.”

His shoulders moved in what might have been a shrug. “Of course I still wanted her,” he said. “A man dreams…and she seemed to want me too, for a time, though I guess I was wrong about that. But what you have to understand, Andrea, what happened, it wasn't just about wanting—it was about
making sense.

“I suffered terrible guilt over your father's death. No, I wasn't responsible, but I was haunted by the thought of how easily I could have prevented
it. If I'd stopped him that night, or if I'd just gone with him…I used to have dreams about that, nightmares that I
did
go with him, that I was there on the raft when he hit his head, and just stood there doing nothing while he drowned.

“So when Althea came to me, when she
needed
me, that wasn't just a second chance with the woman I loved. It was a chance to justify what happened to Silas. If a man simply dies, that's a senseless tragedy. But if, because he dies, a woman—a good woman, and her daughter—end up in the care of another man, one who's not necessarily better than the first, but better
for them,
then the tragedy acquires meaning, an underlying order, however terrible…

“I
know
that's a self-serving way to think,” he said, looking at me in the rearview mirror as if expecting an argument. “I know it, and I have paid for it. But I truly believed it at the time. It's
because
I believed it that I suffered so badly, snared by my own logic, when the second man, the supposedly better man, turned out not to be me.”

“How did the stepfather come into it?” I asked. “Was he another friend of yours?”

“No!” Chief Bradley said, appalled by the suggestion. “No, he was a stranger, an outsider. She met him at her sister's house…I'd asked her to marry me. It was too soon, I knew it was, but I'd worked it out in my head by then that this was fate, we were meant to be together. So I proposed, and Althea asked for time to think it over. She was going to visit her sister in Mount Pleasant, and she told me she'd give me her answer when she returned. Of course I agreed—I thought it was just a formality at that point. She was gone eleven days. She was supposed to be gone for three, but she was gone eleven, and when she came back, the engagement ring she was wearing wasn't mine.

“I got angry with her, of course. I accused her of leading me on, and worse. I was not a happy or a pleasant man. And I
never
liked Horace, not even after I came to know him—after I
thought
I knew him. But when Althea told me straight out that he was the man she really needed, what argument could I raise against that?

“Snared by my own logic. It all had to make sense: but it didn't have to make sense in a way that I
liked.
And so in time—not before I'd made a complete ass out of myself in front of Althea—I was forced to accept it: Horace was the better man. If I couldn't see how, still it had to be so. Reason demanded it.

“For more than twenty-five years I made myself believe that. And then in
one day, in one phone call, I found out it wasn't so, after all. Couldn't be so. A drunkard, a violent man, even a cruel man—he could still, conceivably, in some unfathomable way, be a better husband than, than…but a man like
that
…there could be no sense to it. There was no goddamned sense to it. It was like some horrible practical joke.”

“So you killed him,” I said.

“It was an accident,” said Chief Bradley. “I just got so mad, when he denied it. I could see he was lying. And when I thought of him lying to her all those years, about what he was…”

“She knew what he was.”

“I almost didn't tell her about him,” the chief went on, not hearing me. “I shouldn't have. But Althea was so sad for so long after Horace died, that finally I couldn't help myself—I had to let her know what she was mourning. She didn't believe me, of course. She said I'd made it up, that
you
had made it up. She told me never to speak to her again. And she never, she never forgave me.”

“Chief Bradley,” I said.

He looked up, wet-eyed, into the rearview mirror. “What, Andrea?”

“My mother lied to you. She knew all about the stepfather. If she pretended not to believe you, it was only so no one would hold
her
responsible. But she knew.”

“No.” He shook his head, slowly at first, then more emphatically. “No, you are mistaken, Andrea. Your mother would never have condoned that.”

“She did.”

“No. I understand you being bitter, but if you're going to blame someone for not protecting you, blame me. If I'd listened to you more carefully that time—”

“You know you can't do that, Chief Bradley. You can't say you killed the stepfather by accident and then apologize for not murdering him sooner. Besides, you didn't do it for my sake—or for hers.”

“Maybe not,” the chief said hotly. “Maybe not. But—”

“And another thing. I can't claim to understand my mother's motivations any better than you did, but one thing I've figured out about her is that she didn't give her love to anyone who really needed it. So even if you'd gotten rid of the stepfather years earlier, it still wouldn't have gotten you what you wanted. She never would have picked you. Not if you'd killed a hundred stepfathers.”

“Well…” Chief Bradley said. “I suppose that's a moot point, now.”

“It is,” I agreed. “So there's no reason to talk about it anymore. I appreci
ate you telling me the story, but my hand hurts, and I'd like to go to the emergency clinic now.”

“Andrea…”

“You can drive us there if you want, or you can just unlock these doors. I'm sure Penny wouldn't mind walking.”

He stared out the front windshield at the lake, both hands gripping the steering wheel. “You still haven't answered my question, Andrea,” he said. “About why you came back here.”

“It wasn't to hurt you, or get you in trouble,” I told him. “But it's not my place to excuse what you did, either. Now if you want to tell your story to a judge, maybe—”

“A
judge?
” He laughed, a high bleak sound. “A judge…so you did come back to punish me.”

“No, Chief Bradley.”

“You know no one would believe you, if you told them. A troubled girl who's spent time in a mental institution.” He shook his head. “You probably make up all kinds of stories…but no one would believe it, without proof.”

“Then there's nothing for you to be afraid of. You can let us go.”

There was a long silence. When he spoke again, his tone was regretful but resolved, and though he addressed me by name, I could tell he was really talking to himself. “I'm sorry, Andrea. I never intended to harm anyone. I only ever meant to be a good and just man…”

“You still can be, Chief Bradley.”

“…but I loused up almost everything. I lost my best friend, and the woman I loved…even the woman I didn't love. My name and reputation in this town, they are all I have left now, and if I were to lose them too, that would be the end. I can't risk that. I'm sorry, I'm very sorry, but I can't.” His left hand came off the steering wheel and dropped out of view. Adam cried an urgent warning from the pulpit, but there was no need.

“I'm sorry too, Chief Bradley,” I said. Then, preparing myself: “Seferis. Get us out of here.”

 

When the moment comes, Mouse is on the verge of blacking out. Ever since Chief Bradley drove past the medical clinic without stopping, she has been trying, unsuccessfully, to melt through the floorboards of the car and escape. Unable to bend the laws of physics, she's been forced to listen with steadily mounting terror to the dialogue between Chief Bradley and Andrew. Chief Bradley's every statement—even the most self-pitying—is freighted with menace, but it's Andrew's side of the conversation that really
sets her on edge. Rather than watch what he says, the way you do when someone has you at their mercy, Andrew is recklessly free-spoken, and at points seems almost to be trying to goad Chief Bradley into losing his temper.
Shut up,
Mouse wants to yell at him,
shut up,
and Maledicta, in the cave mouth, does more than just think about yelling it.

Finally they reach a critical juncture, the dialogue becoming a monologue as Chief Bradley readies himself to do something very bad. Up in the cave mouth, Maledicta is chanting “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh
fuck,
” and Mouse feels her grip on time begin to give, blackness looming, and she welcomes it, not wanting to be present at her own murder.

And then Andrew beside her says “I'm sorry too, Chief Bradley,” in a loud clear voice that makes her turn her head. She sees him change, his posture shifting in a way that makes him seem to bulk up in his seat, as if he were physically expanding. He raises his right arm and places his elbow against his car-door window; his arm jerks, and the window bursts outward. Before Mouse can even gape at this feat, he dives through the opening.

“Andrea!” Chief Bradley bellows. From outside, Mouse hears footsteps pounding, circling the car; they reach the driver's side just as the chief gets his door open and steps out. There is a loud grunt, and sounds of a scuffle; something heavy clatters across the front hood.

Then Mouse's door is wrenched open and Andrew leans in. “Come on, Penny,” he says—

—and they are outside. Andrew tugs at Mouse's arm, trying to get her to keep moving, but she hesitates, seeing Chief Bradley staggering dazed in the glow of the police car's headlights. The chief appears to stumble and drops out of sight, but just as quickly he pops back up, clutching his gun. Andrew tugs at Mouse's arm again—

—and they are crashing through dense underbrush in the dark. Invisible branches smack Mouse repeatedly in the face, but Andrew's arm is around her waist, bearing her up and carrying her along.

“Andrea!” Chief Bradley calls, blundering through the brush not far behind them. “Andrea, stop! Andrea, I
see
you—”

—and there is a flat
crack!,
like a big branch breaking—

—and Mouse and Andrew stand with their backs up against the bole of a tree. Andrew has a hand over Mouse's mouth to keep her from squeaking, which is a good thing, because Chief Bradley is
directly
in front of them, almost close enough to reach out and touch. He stands with his back to them, poised, listening; to Mouse, the sound of her own breath in her nostrils seems suddenly as loud as a jet engine.

Chief Bradley looks left, then right, then left again. It's full dark now, but this close, if he turns all the way around, he can't help but see them.

He doesn't turn around. He takes a step backwards. This brings him within arm's length, and Mouse feels Andrew tense up, preparing to push her aside and grapple the chief from behind.

Then something else moves, out in the dark; some animal. Chief Bradley fixes on the sound, starts moving towards it. The animal, whatever it is, hears him coming and bounds away; Chief Bradley gives chase. He vanishes in the gloom.

Andrew relaxes again. He removes his hand from Mouse's mouth.

Mouse slumps—

—and she is crouching in a thicket of weeds alongside a footpath that is just barely visible in the moonlight. She can hear water somewhere close by; the lake, maybe, although it sounds more like the burbling of a river or a brook. Farther off, in the opposite direction, something is crashing around in the brush again. Chief Bradley, Mouse guesses, still chasing after wildlife; he's making a lot of noise but he doesn't seem to be getting any closer.