The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 (44 page)

But he was still breathing. At first Johnny thought for sure the man had to be dead, but then he heard a slow gurgling, similar to Oldfield Creek rolling over the rocks.

“Mister, can you hear me? Mister, you okay?”

There was no response, and Johnny hadn’t expected one. He wasn’t sure what to do but figured since he was about halfway between home and Henry’s, the smartest thing would be to go on to the store. His mother didn’t have a telephone, but Henry did, and he could call the police once he got there. Except just as Johnny was about to leave, he looked across the man’s lap and saw something lying on the passenger’s side floorboard. It was a beige gunnysack, and spilling from the top, where the drawstring had loosened, were gobs of twenty-dollar bills, fanned out like tail feathers.

He closed the door and ran around to the other side, where the passenger door opened easily. As quickly as he could, without forethought of repercussions, he snatched the gunnysack and stuffed it inside his rucksack. He also found a pistol, which he grabbed before thinking properly. As he was about to close the door the man said, “I see you, boy.” The voice was strained, weak, gravelly. But he heard it all the same.

Johnny slammed the door, ran to the bridge, and tossed the pistol as far as he could downstream. Then he took off for home, shuffling through the snow—now boot-high and rising fast—practicing the words he’d tell his mother once he arrived. “Henry’s was already closed, Ma. I’m sorry. I know I messed up.”

That evening, once he was sure his mother had gone to sleep, he pulled the bag from the back corner of his closet, where he’d hidden it beneath empty shoe boxes and a mound of dusty quilts. He dumped the cash onto his bed and began stacking the crisp twenties into piles of ten. When he’d finished, he couldn’t believe the tally. He counted it again, and then again, before he uttered the amount aloud. “Four thousand eight hundred dollars.”

Johnny didn’t sleep well, tossing and turning, wondering about the man. Wondering if he was still alive. Most importantly, wondering if he—Johnny—would get caught for what he’d done.

The next morning, when there was a pounding on the front door, his heart screamed. He scrambled out of bed, slapped on clothes in a mad dash, and tried to beat his mother to the door, not at all sure what he’d do once he got there. Especially if it was the man.

But it wasn’t the man. Instead, standing on the front porch was the local sheriff, dressed in a heavy coat and Mountie hat. “Hey, son,” said the sheriff. “Your mama at home?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, his heart screaming louder still, his cheeks flushing as he turned to yell for her. But she was already there, directly behind him, wiping her wet hands on the bottom of an apron, her hair pulled up tightly in a bun. One of the cats walked a series of figure eights through her legs, arching its back as it brushed the hem of her dress.

“Hey, Bryson,” said his mother. “What brings you here in such pretty weather?”

“Patricia,” said the sheriff, pinching the edge of his hat and nodding. “Was wondering if I might talk to you for a minute.”

“Come on in. Get out of the cold. You want some coffee?”

“No, I’m okay.” He stamped his boots on the porch boards, knocking out clods of frozen snow.

Johnny looked out at the front yard before closing the door behind the sheriff. The morning was overcast, but the snow had stopped. He figured there was about a foot and a half on the ground; his tracks should have easily been covered. At least he hoped so.

The sheriff followed Patricia into the kitchen, where she pulled out a chair for him at the table. He took it while she grabbed the hot kettle from the stove. Johnny sat down at the far end, staring at the hulking figure of the sheriff. All he could think about was the load of money in his room, second-guessing whether he’d put it back in the closet or left it sitting out.

She poured two cups of coffee, despite the sheriff’s refusal, and set one in front of him. He warmed his hands around the mug before taking a sip.

“Johnny, you need to go get your chores started,” said Patricia as she sat down. “Sheriff needs to talk to me.”

Before Johnny could rise, the sheriff said, “Actually, he ought to stay. He needs to hear this too.”

Johnny’s cheeks flushed; his breathing went short, figuring the sheriff must know everything. Figured he’d found the man, the man told him that some boy had stolen his money, and the sheriff followed the tracks right to the front door.

“Last night one of my deputies located a truck right by the bridge at Oldfield Creek. Crashed into a tree. Thing was torn up pretty good. Looks like the fella lost control coming down the hill. Not sure how long it’d been there, but the tire tracks were already covered by the time my man arrived.”

Johnny discreetly exhaled.

“The driver okay?” asked Patricia, a look of mild interest on her face, but not overly so. Instead her expression seemed to say,
So why are you telling me this?

“I don’t know if he’s okay or not. He wasn’t in the truck. There were some faint boot prints in the snow, but they’d pretty much filled up already by the time I arrived. And a fair amount of blood. Looks like he went to the creek and cleaned himself up before he took off to wherever he was going. But here’s the thing. The truck was stolen. It was used as the getaway vehicle in a robbery yesterday. The guy knocked off the bank over in Floyd. Got away with nearly five thousand dollars.”

Patricia took a sip of her coffee, her eyes showing a little more interest. “And you think he might’ve come here?”

“I don’t think so. I scouted around your place before I knocked. I didn’t see any sign. But he’s around here somewhere. We’re trying to get some dogs from over in Christiansburg, but with the snow, everything’s at a standstill. I just wanted to let you know. Make you aware. He’s got a pistol. Used it to rob the bank. You got a gun, don’t you? And a vehicle?”

Patricia glanced over at Johnny, suddenly showing more concern. “The alternator’s gone bad on the car. Haven’t had the money to fix it. We’ve got a shotgun.”

“What about a phone?”

“No, no phone,” she said, shaking her head. “You got any idea who you’re looking for? A description or something thereabouts?”

The sheriff hesitated, took a sip of his coffee, then scratched his nails across the grooves in the table, trying to buy some time. “Well, here’s the other thing, Patricia,” he said, talking to the table instead of her. “We’ve got a pretty good notion that the fella, the fella we’re looking for, is Martin.”

And with that, for the first time, Johnny saw a look of true fear cover his mother’s face. Her eyes widened. Her jaw went slack. Johnny reacted the same way because he recognized the name, though suddenly nothing made any sense to him.

“What . . . what do you mean?” she said.

“That’s the real reason I’m here,” said the sheriff, finally making eye contact. “Considering the truck is less than a mile away, we think he was probably coming here, looking for a place to hide. You probably didn’t know, but for the past five years he’s been locked up at Petersburg. For another robbery.”

Patricia barely nodded. She said, almost a whisper now, “I heard something about it.”

“Well, two days ago he escaped. Warden called and alerted us.”

“Bryson, I haven’t seen that man in nearly fifteen years.” Her voice was suddenly sharp. Angry. “Why would he come here? If he does, I’ll blast him to kingdom come. I swear to God I will.”

“I know you will. I’m not accusing you.”

“You can search the entire house if you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t put him up for nothing.”

“Patricia,” said the sheriff, showing both restraint and calm, “I’m only here to warn you. You two need to be on your guard. We’re going to run patrols, get a search party going. But again, with this snow, it’s going to take time. From the looks of the accident and the blood we saw, he couldn’t have made it too far. He’s probably banged up pretty good. Could’ve frozen to death last night for all I know.”

“That man’s tougher than a pine knot. You know that, Bryson. He eats barbed-wire pie for breakfast and smiles while chewing it. If he’s got a pile of money to keep him warm, he’s not about to just crawl up and die.”

“Soon as we catch him, you’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, keep that shotgun handy.”

Patricia walked the sheriff to the door while Johnny remained at the table. He had so many questions. So many thoughts.
What’s going on? Who’s Martin? That was my daddy’s name
.

Patricia sat back down at the kitchen table after showing the sheriff out. She grabbed her coffee cup and raised it to her lips but couldn’t steady her hands enough to take a sip. “Johnny, baby, we need to have a little talk. There’s something I have to tell you.”

His father, as it turned out, hadn’t been killed in the army after all. Instead he’d been a cheating, lying scoundrel who’d left Patricia once he learned he’d swollen her belly. Disappeared, leaving her with nothing.

“And the picture of the soldier?” Johnny had asked. “Who was that?”

Patricia had tears in her eyes, her face filled with anguish. But also with relief, it seemed to Johnny. Her secret was a secret no more. “That was my brother. Your Uncle Bruno. He was the one killed in South Carolina.”

Johnny hadn’t known what to do with himself. He’d go to his room, check on the money, then wrap his mind around everything he’d learned. He decided that if his mother wanted to keep secrets from him, then he had a four-thousand-dollar secret he’d keep from her. But after stewing for a while, he’d become restless and unsatisfied, thinking of new questions, so he’d go back and grill his mother for more answers. By late afternoon they were both exhausted. Emotionally drained.

“Those chickens have got to be fed,” his mother said as dusk settled in. “In fact, why don’t you kill one and I’ll make us a hot soup. They aren’t laying for squat right now anyway. We could use a good meal.”

“Okay,” said Johnny, thinking that getting outside might do him some good.

“Take the gun with you.”

“I’m only going to the coop. It’ll take five minutes, tops.”

“Take the gun,” she repeated, and he knew enough not to argue.

With the shotgun slung over his shoulder, Johnny sloughed through the high snow until he entered the chicken coop behind the house. He let his eyes adjust, then scanned the shack before setting the gun down. He removed the lid of the feed barrel and tossed a few handfuls of grain out the door and into the fenced-in area where the chickens normally fed. The kibble sprinkled the snow like candies on cake frosting, and Johnny laughed for the first time that day as the chickens scrambled out the door, trying not to sink in the snow, flapping their wings furiously as they pecked at the grains.

For the next twenty minutes he kept himself occupied by sporadically tossing out handfuls, having a little fun with the chickens. He was in the process of sweeping the coop, his mind still abuzz with the events of yesterday, when he heard a commotion. Pots and pans clattered together, and at first he thought his mother had had an accident, probably dropping the soup pot on the floor. But then he heard her yell. Yell for him. And then a man’s voice. An angry, agitated man’s voice.

Johnny grabbed the twenty-gauge and ran toward the kitchen. When he entered, the man he’d seen the day before, his own father, stood near the stove, a knife in hand. His mother was backed into the corner by the cupboard, shivering as if cold, gripping a cast-iron skillet.

The man turned to face Johnny, looking better than the day before but still a complete mess. He’d fixed his glasses the best that he could manage, but they were bent and hung askew from the bridge of his mashed nose. The wide gash on his forehead was pink and raw but no longer bleeding, his clothes stained with crusty dried blood.

“Listen, boy, I just want my money. Tell me where it is and I’ll leave you both alone.” His voice was stronger than the day before, but rough, like he smoked cigars. His face hard, his eyes harder. He glanced at the barrel of the shotgun pointing at his chest but didn’t seem concerned. He’d strategically positioned himself in front of Patricia, so that if Johnny pulled the trigger, she’d also be hit by the birdshot spray. Because of the skillet, which she wielded like a baseball bat, he couldn’t grab her, but again he didn’t seem concerned.

“He doesn’t have your god-blessed money, Martin,” she yelled, the tendons in her neck straining like taut piano wire.

“Yes, he does,” he said calmly. He seemed to know that he was going to get his money back, regardless. It was only a matter of how much blood he’d have to shed before he got it. He shifted his eyes back and forth between Johnny and Patricia, squeezing the hilt of the knife. “I saw him when he stole it from my truck. Didn’t even bother to help me, Patty. Just took the money and ran. But I recognized him right off. Had blood running down my face, dripping in my eyes, but even still, saw right off he was the spitting image of his mama.”

Martin took a slow step away from Patricia and shuffled, with a subtle limp, a bit closer to Johnny. Johnny took a step back at the same time, performing some sort of awkward dance ritual, keeping the gun trained at Martin’s chest.

“You saw the wrong boy,” said Patricia, almost pleading. “Johnny was here with me all day yesterday. He doesn’t have your money.”

“Tell her, boy.
Johnny
, is it? Tell her how you took my sack of money,” he said, smiling a little as he limped a step closer. “Tell her,
son
.”

“It wasn’t me,” said Johnny. He wondered if Martin could see the end of the shotgun quivering. “I didn’t take your money.”

“Oh, but you did. You took it, and I want it back. Show me where it is, and I’ll even give you some. A little reward. Put the gun down and lead me to it. Then I’ll be gone.”

“I didn’t take it.”

Martin took another step forward, now only a few feet from the tip of the barrel, his head on a swivel as he kept a bead on both Patricia and Johnny. “You wouldn’t shoot your old man, now would you? Your dear old daddy?”

Quicker than Johnny thought possible, especially for a man in Martin’s condition, he snatched for the end of the barrel like a striking snake. And then Johnny felt his own shoulder blades slam into the wall. The pleasant smell of cordite clouded the kitchen, and Johnny’s ears rang from the explosion going off in such close quarters.