Curling up with his head at the edge of the porthole, he rested on his pack so he could see the trees going by outside. Much darker now, ten minutes till night. The life they all live. Alternative must not be good. What the Swede came from, reason they were so angry when they found you in that old building. Their simple pleasures being taken away.
That’s right, he thought, more guilt. Take a lesson from the old man: don’t admit you might have been wrong. Lie to yourself and discover true happiness. Lee and Poe the same. An addiction, really, needs its own hotline. No, he thought, the kid should take note. There’s gold in them hills. The original business model. Offer forgiveness. Lie cheat and steal and the kid will forgive you. All welcome at the Church of the Kid. Follow his instructions to get to the afterlife. Sixteen virgins and a harpsichord. Your felonies pardoned whether man woman or child. Faith the only requirement—believers go forth and commit. Find forgiveness in reflection. Shine of the collection plate.
He thought about the Swede again. I’m not worried about that anymore, he told himself. Give me water and light and I’ll knock down a temple. Jesus Christ? No, a hayseed. Light life and love. The old man who said he never liked my name—sounded Jewish. My mother the one who insisted. I am the Truth and the Light. I am the truth in a knife. Trajectory of a thrown object across level ground: y-axis 9.8 meters per second squared, x-axis zero, initial velocity twenty- five meters per second, release angle fifteen degrees. Presuming no air resistance. Presuming flight uninterrupted by a man’s head.
You are going crazy, he thought.
He stayed like that for a long time, looking out at the trees rushing past, afraid to touch his eyes and get dirt into them. Keep going, he thought, wash your eyes out. Outside now it was fully dark.
4. Harris
He’d gotten the call from Glen Patacki at lunchtime.
Glen was twenty years older than Harris, the local justice of the peace, the one who’d put in a word for Billy Poe last time. He’d been chief for much of the time Harris was a sergeant, one of the first people Harris met when he moved to Buell. This was the first social call in eight or nine months. The timing is no accident, thought Harris.
Driving up and down the steep hills, all woods and farmers’ fields, the sudden ravines and valleys, so much hidden away, you could get to the highest promenade around and still not be able to see half of what was in front of you, the land was so tucked in on itself. Everything green, swamps in the lowlands.
Ho had dropped the morning paper on his desk, Billy Poe’s picture on the front page, a story made for newspapers, football star turns murderer. It was the sort of story people couldn’t help wanting to read. By tonight, he guessed, there would be few people in Buell, or maybe the entire Mon Valley, who hadn’t seen or heard about it.
He downshifted into third gear coming down the long hill so as not to overheat his brakes. He could remember clearly when he’d had ten years left till his pension kicked in but now he was down to eighteen months. Counting down the end of your life. Hoping things will go by faster. He wondered if everyone was like that, he wondered if, say, doctors or lawyers thought the same things. He was fifty- four now, forty when he’d made chief, the youngest in the history of the town, the youngest in the whole Valley, it was Don Cunko who got him voted in, along with a big push from folks such as Glen Patacki. At the time they’d had fourteen full- time guys and maybe six part- timers. Now those numbers were reversed.
Harris was nineteen when he’d joined the marines, put down law enforcement as his preferred MOS and now, thirty- five years later, here he was, riding out a decision he’d made as a kid. I enjoy my life, he thought. It is work to be happy about things. She is the one who taught you that. Maybe the fact that you had to work at being happy meant it wasn’t the natural condition. But he had no excuse. If you had a certain level of comfort, which he did, you just had to decide every morning. Will today be a happy day or a sad day? Listen to that shit, he thought. The only one you’d ever say that to is Fur.
He could imagine himself following Grace until he was old with wandering, he knew he would be comfortable with that. Never close enough to get really burned, or to lose anything. Keeping her just over the next hill. The feeling for her preventing him from finding anyone else. In her own way, she was his even keel.
It was not her fault, to have someone like Billy Poe dependent on her; it had really taken a toll. Don’t get too sympathetic, he thought. But it was true. He got worried sick about Fur if the dog was gone too long on one of his runs.
He saw the sign for the marina and went down a long green road under a tunnel of trees. How long had he lived here? Twenty- three years. Before that it was six years with the Philadelphia PD and four as an MP in the marines. He had not planned any of it, he’d enlisted because it was better than getting drafted and the number he pulled made being drafted a certainty. Someone told him MPs were less likely to get sent out on suicide missions by shitbag second lieutenants, not to mention you’d end up coming out, if indeed you came out, with a skill you could actually use.
Coming into the parking lot there was Glen Patacki’s black Lincoln, a judge’s car, freshly waxed. There were those who waxed their cars and those who didn’t. Below that, there were those who washed their cars and those who didn’t. Harris being the latter.
Glen was waiting on his boat, he waved from a distance as soon as he saw Harris come out onto the green by the water. A thirty- eight- foot Carver, twin 454 Crusaders. A yacht, as river boats went. Harris had his own slot but his boat, a nineteen- foot Valiant, had been out of the water three years now. One of these days he would sell it. Owning a boat was like having a second dog, except a boat didn’t love you for sinking half your paycheck into it.
“Christ what a day, isn’t it?” said Glen. He waved his arm, indicating their surroundings. “Couple miles upriver, you’d never know it.”
It was a different world. As wooded as Buell was, the southern Mon Valley was beyond the reach of industry. Just trees, branches hanging low over the water and the slow muddy river itself. Quiet, the occasional passing boat, sometimes a tow of barges.
Harris climbed onto the boat. Glen motioned him to sit.
“Bud, to cut the bullshit, the reason I asked you out here is I got the guy from the
“On what?”
“Anything we might have forgotten to file the seal order on. He’s sniffing around, is the point, on anything that might look even worse on this Billy Poe murder.”
“There isn’t anything to find. If that’s the only reason you dragged me all the way out to Millsboro.”
“I missed you, baby,” said Glen. “You know that’s the real reason.”
“I know.”
“The other thing that’s been crossing my mind recently is that I’m not much longer for this job. I thought we might discuss that.”
Harris looked at him.
“I’m fine,” said Patacki. “It’s only that I’ve made my nut and I was thinking that when I retire, you might consider running for my spot. It’d be a good thing for you.”
“Never thought about it.”
“Never?”
“Not really.”
“That’s the beautiful thing about you, Bud. I could have told ten different people that same thing and all of them would be sucking my dick right now.”
“I better have a drink first.”
