Where the Broken Lie (10 page)

“Yes,” I said. Then looking at Katie, “Well, no. I mean, I don’t like her.”

From the stove, Mrs. Cooper said, “Howard, behave yourself.”

I chanced a look over at Katie who was staring straight down into her lap and stifling a giggle.

“Tucker, your Grandparents live in town here, don’t they?” asked Mrs. Cooper.

“Yep. Grandpa and Grandma Mueller both died a few years ago, but Grandpa and Grandma Gaines live three blocks away from us. He’s a truck driver. Hauls cattle and pigs for the farmers around here. Mr. Patterson does, too, but Grandpa’s better. He gets up real early in the morning. Also, he’s real safe. His handle is “Snail” on account of how slow he drives. I don’t have a handle yet, but I’ll get one when I’m older and can help drive some loads for him.”

“So, you’re going to be a truck driver when you grow up?” asked Mr. Cooper.

“Oh, no sir,” I said. “That would only be part-time. To get money for college and stuff.”

“Well, then, if you’re not going to be a truck driver, what are you going to be?”

I could feel my forehead and eyebrows crinkle up as I thought seriously about that question for a minute, which was about a fifty-eight seconds longer than I had ever previously spent on that question.

“Well, sir. I guess I’d like to be a baseball player, but I suppose I can’t count on that. Not too many people get to do that and they don’t even have baseball at the high school. So, if I can’t do that, I guess maybe a writer.”

“A writer? You mean like an author?”

“Yes, sir. I think I’d like to write stories and stuff. I won the Junior Writer’s award for 4th grade. Plus, I’ve written some poems my mom says are really good.”

After saying this, I snuck a look over at Katie who I found smiling widely at me.

“Poetry, huh?” said Mr. Cooper. “You mean like love poems? Stuff like that?”

“Howard, if you’re done eating will you clear the table please,” interjected Mrs. Cooper. “Katie, why don’t you and Tucker go and play. It looks beautiful outside.”

“We’re in the middle of a conversation here, Betty. I was going to ask Tuck to recite some of his poetry for us. How ‘bout that, Tuck, would you read us one of your poems?”

“Another time,” Mrs. Cooper said. “Outside you two.”

Stepping off the porch together, Katie said, “Sorry about my dad. He likes to tease is all.”

“That’s okay. My dad does the same thing.”

“He likes you, I can tell,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Always calling him ‘sir’ like you did. That’s good. He likes that.”

After a few minutes of walking in silence and kicking at rocks, Katie spoke up again.

“So you write poetry, huh?

“I don’t know. Some, I guess.”

“Can I read it?”

“Read it? Why? It’s not very good.”

“That’s okay, I want to read it anyway. Besides, I’ll bet it’s a lot better than you say.”

“I don’t think so, Katie.”

“Well, can I read it anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on! Please!”

I squirmed, looked around, stomach turned, look at her. I couldn’t believe what this little girl could get me to do.

“Promise you won’t make fun?”

“Promise.”

“Promise not to tell anyone?”

“Promise.”

“Promise to like it?”

She squeezed my arm above the elbow.

“I already do.”

It’s hard to keep secrets in old houses, what with all the moaning and groaning they do. What with all the tattletale creaking of wooden floors and old doors swinging on cranky hinges.

Still, I manage to sneak out without waking Grandpa or Grandma Gaines.

It’s well past midnight and I’m still buzzing on vodka when I step off the back porch and look up at that nosy old moon. It’s low in the sky that I almost feel as if I’m looking down at it, which makes me feel like God a little bit.

I say a prayer of apology for this blasphemous thought, but then point out to God that He is the one who made me this way. And so I say another prayer of apology.

Sin and redemption.

Buried inside me there is an eleven-year-old boy who still loves Katie Cooper and he has something he wants me to do, so I let him be in charge for a while. He takes me to the garage and puts a pair of hedge clippers in my hand. Then he walks me through the Cooper’s backyard and into my Aunt Paula’s, where the hydrangeas still thrive against all botanical logic.

I am much more careful than I had been the first time I did this, those many years ago. Back then, I had grabbed the flowers by the stem and yanked. This time, I gently bend them over and clip, almost surgically.

Back then, I had tossed them to the ground, piled on top of each other. This time, I gently lay them down in a bouquet.

Back then, I had run away, flowers clutched in fists. This time, I cradle them in my arms and walk.

Back then, I had given them to Katie Cooper. This time, I would do the same.

I hide them among the bushes behind Grandpa and Grandma’s garage. I would rise early the next morning and take them to the cemetery.

With a fistful of flowers in one hand and a travel mug of coffee in the other, I leave for the cemetery around 6:30 the next morning. Rather than walk along the roadside, I trudge through Bruner’s field and enter the graveyard from the east.

Upon arriving, it’s immediately evident that my letters to Beatrice Hart and Phyllis Ross seemed to have started something of a trend, as there are a handful of headstones adorned with letters.

Some are stuck on with masking tape. Others have been carefully placed in the plants and bushes surrounding the graves. I see one that has been clipped to the chains on a wind chime. Another has been placed in the open palms of a weeping angel.

And those were just the ones I could see. Perhaps there were others more discretely hidden. Perhaps others that had already been read and removed. What a weird little phenomenon I had unwittingly instigated. And what a weird little sense of joy it brought me.

As I approach Katie’s grave, a bird taking flight from a tree branch above startles me. Wings flap mightily and it takes an arched path downward, spreading its feathery arms wide and gliding parallel to both heaven and earth.

It lands atop a headstone about thirty feet away and faces the opposite direction. On the ground in front of it, an envelope sticks out from beneath a small heavy rock.

The bird looks to be a falcon or a hawk of some sort. I stand silent and marvel at its majesty. What a curious flight it had taken.

Then that bird does a remarkable thing. It turns around and it 
faces me
 from atop its stony perch. The eyes seem human, old and wise. Its white and brown-speckled chest heaves. Our eyes lock for a second, maybe two, and then it expands and flaps its wings mightily and flies away.

In its wake, a single brown feather floats back down and lands on the ground on top of that partially hidden envelope.

Watch for feathers
.

Dropping the flowers I had brought for Katie, I walk to the grave and pick up the feather. Then I look for the name on the headstone it had fallen in front of. A simple engraving on a small and simple stone.

… First Katie, now Slim Jim. Couldn’t Tucker see that nothing good could possibly come from this. He was going to mess up a lot of lives going down this path. Including his own. In fact, it had already started …

James Johnson? Did I know that name? And then I realized … this was Slim Jim. Something about seeing his real name made me sad. Whatever James Johnson had been in 1953, he was something completely different by 1982. From James Johnson to Slim Jim. From love to hate. From a hopeful beginning to a tragic ending.

Slim Jim was the same as Katie and Ethan in that way.

But who would leave a letter at Slim Jim’s grave? He had no family or friends here to read it. Nobody cared about this child killer.

Except maybe for whoever paid for him to be buried here.

I bend down and pull the letter out from under the rock. It is unaddressed and unsealed. Feeling a little guilty for what I am about to do, I look around and make sure that I am still alone in this death field. I see that I am but still feel like I am not. A chill runs through me. Is it Katie or Ethan watching over me here? And have I somehow disappointed them?

I slide the letter out of the unsealed envelope and unfold it to see a single word on a single sheet of paper. A single word that instantly spawns a million questions about the past.

Later that night, I sit alone in the kitchen staring down at that one-word letter. I flip it over, turn it upside down, but there is just that one word. I delicately press out the creases, but find no answers in the folds and wrinkles. I hold it above me and let light shine through, but nothing is revealed. It’s just one word, but it carries the heaviness of certainty.

Did Charlie write this? It seems unlikely. He had been willing enough to discuss his theories with me at Mustang’s even though we hadn’t seen each other in years. Why get all ‘Deep Throat’ all of a sudden?

But if not Charlie, then who? Who else believed that Slim Jim was innocent and why would they wait until now to share this belief? And why in this manner?

Innocent.

That one word was secretive and cryptic. Inked by someone compelled to speak out, yet too frightened to step forward. And understandably so, I suppose. They would have a lot to explain. Probably more than they would be able to. For starters, how could you explain waiting twenty years?

This was a real Pontius Pilate move. Launching this letter into the world and then washing their hands of the matter.

All I know for sure is that after years of thinking that some random hobo had murdered Katie Cooper there are now two people declaring his innocence.

Moose and Charlie had sworn each other to secrecy and assuming they kept that promise, the letter-writing candidates seemed pretty limited. It could have been some random prankster, but that seemed pointless. It could have been someone who—for whatever reason—believed that Slim Jim was innocent. Still the question remained—why now? Perhaps the author of the letter had been afraid to come forward back then. Perhaps the real killer was still alive.