Page 79 of The River We Remember

Charlie told him about her visit with the Quinn girls and her subsequent visit to the Barrows’ home, where she talked not just with Sissy but with the girl’s parents as well. At the Christmas Eve service at Saint Ignatius months before, Jimmy Quinn had approached them with a proposition. All the parishioners knew about Marta’s illness or knew as much as anyone did. Quinn explained his need and asked if Sissy, who was eighteen, unmarried and with no prospects in that direction, might consider working for him, helping with the upkeep of the house and with the cooking responsibilities. The children, he explained, were a great help, but there was so much. He quoted them a wage, which was a little outlandish in its extravagance. Sissy accepted. Or rather, they accepted on her behalf because Sissy, though grown, was not a young woman fully capable of making her own decisions. But she knew well how to take care of children and housework and was good in a kitchen. She’d looked pretty on that Christmas Eve, they remembered. And she’d seemed happy.

The problems with Quinn began a few weeks into her employment. The first time Quinn approached her—“in that way” was the phrase they’d used—Sissy didn’t understand. The children were in school. Marta was upstairs in bed, as she often was. Sissy had been at work on the pot pie that would be the evening meal. Her hands were covered with flour as she made the dough, and she was intent on her labor when Quinn stole up behind her and—Charlie had to pause in her telling to choose the right phrasing. She could have said “grabbed her ass,” which was how Sissy’s father had put it. Instead she said, “He touched her derriere inappropriately.”

“Grabbed her ass?” Graff said.

“It got worse after that,” Charlie went on. “It finally reached the point where Sissy was afraid to be alone in the house.”

“She told her folks?”

“Not until he actually attacked her.”

Charlie explained it in the way that it had been explained to her. Quinn came in for the noon meal smelling of whiskey. Usually the hired men were with him and Sissy fed them all. But that day it was just the two of them, Sissy and Quinn, in the kitchen. She’d sometimes smelled alcohol on his breath, but it had never been that strong before. He reeked. When Sissy set his plate in front of him on the kitchen table, he’d grabbed her and had pulled her down to the floor and then he’d begun to unbuckle his belt. She’d screamed and fought, but Quinn was a big man. He pinned her under him so that she couldn’t move. He would have done something terrible, except that Marta came into the kitchen and, small and frail though she was, shoved her husband off the terrified girl. Quinn had stumbled out into the cold, vanished toward the barn. Marta had helped Sissy up, had tried to comfort her, told her it was best if she did not come back. She’d given Sissy a check for a lot of money and had pleaded with her to say nothing of this to anyone. Though Marta was not at all well, she’d driven Sissy home.

“The Barrows didn’t think of reporting this to Brody?” Graff said.

“There was the money Sissy had accepted,” Charlie told him. “And nothing really had happened except that Sissy got a terrible scare. But the next Sunday after church, Sissy’s father pulled Quinn aside. Jimmy denied everything and threatened that if they pursued the issue, he’d sue them for all they owned. And you know that with Jimmy it was no idle threat.”

“So the whole thing was dropped and nothing ever said.” Graff shook his head. “Then Kyoko began working out there.” He gave Charlie a long, meaningful look.

“If Noah or Kyoko would just tell me the truth, I could help them, I know I could,” Charlie said.

“Too afraid, I’m guessing. And with good reason. You know how big the human heart is?” Graff balled his hand into a fist. “About that size. I continue to be amazed at how much hate such a small thing can hold, even in people who think of themselves as decent and Christian. There are a lot of folks in this county with a lot of hate stored up, and those small hearts of theirs are just ready to burst from it. You can work miracles with a jury, Charlie. I’ve seen you do it. But I’m afraid you’d have to be God himself to get a fair hearing for Noah Bluestone. And he knows it.”

Kyoko stepped out of the house and smiled when she saw Charlie. “I have never had so many visitors. This is becoming like…” She thought a moment, then said, “Grand Central Station. Did I say that right?”

She looked small and delicate, and Charlie hoped that Graff was wrong about the hatred locked up in the hearts in Black Earth County, because she was afraid that if whatever restraint held it in check was removed, the great rush of all that enmity might easily shatter Kyoko Bluestone.

CHAPTER THIRTY

BRODY DERN WASN’T much of a drinking man, but he sure wanted a drink now. He wanted something that would cool the burn in his gut, stanch the raw bleed of his emotions. He wanted not to be angry and hurting and confused and betrayed. He wanted not to be a part of his own past.

He drove away from the Bluestone farmstead, away from his confrontation with his friend, mentor, and part-time deputy Connie Graff. He hit the steering wheel with his fist and cried, “Damn you! You were just supposed to make sure she was safe, not farm the goddamn land for her.” He balled his fist again but this time swung at the empty air in front of him. “I never wanted this to be murder. That was all your idea.”

The absolute truth was that from the beginning Brody hadn’t cared who killed Quinn. How many times after some superior slight or further demonstration of Quinn’s heartlessness had he himself been tempted to shoot the son of a bitch? But someone had finally had enough of Quinn’s cruelty, and the truth was that, however it had occurred, Brody was certain the killing was justified, and he’d done his best at the scene of the crime to wipe away any evidence of who that might have been. Because, when he was being true to himself, he felt like a coward for not having taken Quinn down himself long before.

It was Noah Bluestone who’d done that. Brody was certain of it. He knew the why of the killing didn’t matter. In Black Earth County, justice would be meted out by a jury of people already thinking in their hearts that the Indian was guilty. There was no way Bluestone would walk free. And that was all Connie Graff’s doing.

At the farmstead, Kyoko Bluestone’s eshaku bow, a simple, respectful Japanese gesture, had torn Brody wide open. Now his anger spilled out, and as he drove toward Jewel he didn’t see the road. In a blind fury, he saw what he saw in the terrible dreams that had been giving him night sweats ever since he pulled Quinn’s chewed-up body from the Alabaster: the burning men, the Asian girl whose smile had betrayed him, the ghost of the man he’d murdered long ago. He saw the true coward he was and had always been. He saw a darkness before him that was a kind of vortex threatening to suck him in, body and soul. And then he saw that he was pulling into the empty gravel parking lot of the Wagon Wheel.

He let Hector out of the cruiser. He didn’t speak to the dog as he normally would have, didn’t tell him to be good and that he would be right back. He didn’t say a thing as Hector stared up at him with those patient brown eyes.

He walked into the Wagon Wheel, walked without clear thought. The place seemed deserted. He sat at the counter and heard noise in the kitchen, and a moment later, Wendell Moon appeared, wiping his hands on his apron.

Wendell was tall and lean, somewhere in his late fifties, his hair gray and curly, his skin the color of mahogany. His face looked like the Devil had stepped on it, but his eyes were always full of welcome. He hailed from Oklahoma and had hit the road in the days of the Great Dust Bowl. His left eye was disturbing to look at. It never moved, the result of a beating he’d taken nearly a decade earlier, when he’d first arrived in Jewel. He’d drifted into town with only an old guitar and knapsack to his name and had asked Ida for work. She didn’t have anything and had sent him on. He made a little camp for himself on the bank of the Alabaster and that night was set upon by some local toughs who’d been drinking and who were never identified, though most folks figured they were some of the Creasys out of the hollow. When Ida found out, she visited Wendell in the tiny community hospital, paid his bill, and gave him not only a job but a place to stay. He lived above the garage behind the Madison house, a little apartment the elder Madisons had planned to occupy when their son and his family took over the big house. He’d become like family to Angie and Ida and Scott, but because Wendell was a Negro, many of the patrons of the Wagon Wheel, before ordering, would ask who was cooking that day. If the answer was Wendell Moon, they would order soup or some other food item they believed his hands wouldn’t actually have touched.

“Sheriff,” he said in greeting.

“Where is everyone?”

“Still out to Ruth Coffee’s funeral, I imagine. Folks’ll be gathered a long time talking about that fine woman. Angie came back early, though, to give me a hand here. She’s out back. You want, I’ll get her.”

“Thanks, Wendell.”

The man eyed Brody with concern. “You sick or something, Sheriff?”

“I’m fine.”

Wendell made a sound in his throat that clearly communicated he didn’t believe Brody. He walked into the kitchen and Brody heard his deep voice calling Angie’s name. A minute later, she was in front of him, behind the counter. She came smiling, but when she saw the look on his face, her own face changed. “It’s true,” she said. “You do look sick.”