A Simple Plan

it.'

I stared at her. The light on the night table made a little golden cloud out of her hair, so that it looked like she had a halo.

'But don't you feel bad sometimes?' I asked.

'Bad?'

'About what we've done?'

'Of course,' she said. 'I feel bad all the time.'

I nodded, relieved to hear her admit this.

'We have to live with it, though. We have to treat it just like any other grief.'

'But it's not just like any other grief. I killed my brother.'

'It wasn't your fault, Hank. You didn't choose to do it. You have to believe that.' She reached forward to touch my arm. 'It's the truth.'

I didn't say anything, and she pressed down on my arm, pinching my skin.

'Do you understand?' she said.

She stared at me, squeezing my arm until I nodded. Then she glanced at the clock. Her head slipped away from the light, and her halo disappeared. It was 3:17 in the morning. I was fully awake now; my thoughts were clear. In my mind, I repeated her words: It wasn't your fault.

'Come here,' she said. She held out her arms for a hug. I leaned forward into her body, and when she got a grip on me, she dragged me slowly toward the mattress.

'Everything's going to be all right,' she whispered. 'I promise.' She waited a moment, as if to make sure that I wasn't going to try to sit up again; then she rolled away and turned out the light.

As we lay there in the darkness, Mary Beth began to howl.

'I'm going to shoot him,' I said. 'I'm going to put him out of his misery.'

'Oh, Hank.' Sarah sighed, already halfway into sleep. She was lying a few inches to my right, the sheets growing cool in the gap between us. 'We're all through with shooting now.'

Sometime before daybreak, winter returned. A wind came up from the north, and the air turned cold.

Friday morning, as I made my way out across the farm country in to work, it started to snow.

9

THE SNOW continued to fall throughout the morning and into the afternoon -- heavy, incessant, as if it were being thrown from the sky. The customers brought it into Raikley's, brushing it from their shoulders and stamping it from their boots, so that it collected on the tiles before the door, melting into little puddles. Everyone seemed excited by it, even giddy: the suddenness of its arrival, the rapidity with which it fell, the ghostly silence that it draped across the town. There was a manic quality to the voices I heard drifting into my office from the lobby, a holidaylike tone, an extravagant friendliness and good cheer.

For me, though, the storm acted not as a stimulant but as a sedative. It calmed and reassured me. Ignoring my work, I spent much of the morning sitting at my desk, staring out the window. I watched the snow fall on the town, softening the contours of the cars and buildings, blocking out the colors, making everything white, uniform, featureless. I watched it fall on the cemetery across the road, erasing the black rectangles of Jacob's and Lou's and Nancy's and Sonny's graves. And when I closed my eyes, I pictured it falling in the nature preserve, drifting quietly down through the stunted trees of the orchard, and slowly, flake by flake, burying the plane.

I accepted Sarah's logic -- eventually the wreck had to be discovered. It had to be found and then forgotten, so that we could leave and begin our new lives. But I knew, too, that the longer it took to surface, the safer we would be. I prayed silently: Let no one connect the shootings with the money on the plane. Let no one remember the one when they think of the other.

While I watched the storm, I daydreamed about where we'd go and how we'd live. I doodled on a pad -- miniature sailboats, Concorde jets, the names of foreign countries. I imagined myself making love with Sarah on an island beach, pictured myself surprising her with expensive presents from native bazaars: exotic perfumes, tiny statues of ivory and wood, jewels of every size and color.

All day the snow continued unabated, filling in the morning's footprints, drifting back across the freshly plowed road.

ABOUT a half hour before closing, I got a call from Sheriff Jenkins.

'Howdy, Hank. You busy?'

'Not really,' I said. 'Just tidying things up for the weekend.'

'Think you could pop over to my office real quick? I got somebody here you might be able to help.'

'And who's that?'

'A man by the name of Neal Baxter. He's from the FBI.'

WALKING across the street through the snow, I thought, This has nothing to do with what I've done. They wouldn't call me over to arrest me; they'd come to Raikley's and get me themselves.

Carl's office was in the town hall, a squat, two-story, brick building with a short flight of concrete steps leading up to its double doors. I paused at the foot of these steps, beside the aluminum flagpole, and tried quickly to gather myself together. I brushed the snow from my hair. I unbuttoned my overcoat and straightened my tie.

Carl met me in the entranceway. It seemed as though he'd been waiting for me there. He was smiling; he greeted me like an old friend. He took me by the arm and led me off to the left, toward his office.

He had two offices really, a large outer one and a smaller inner one. His wife, Linda, a short woman with a pretty face, was working in the outer one, typing at a desk. She smiled at me as we came in, and whispered hello. I smiled back. Through the open doorway beyond her, I could see a man sitting with his back to me. He was tall and crew cut and dressed in a dark gray suit.

I followed Carl into the inner office, and he shut the door behind us, blocking out the sound of Linda's typing. There was very little in the tiny room -- a wooden desk, three plastic chairs, a row of filing cabinets along the wall opposite the window. Two pictures were propped up on top of the cabinets: one of Linda holding a cat in her lap; another of the entire Jenkins clan -- children, grandchildren, cousins, nephews, nieces, in-laws -- all crowded together on a lawn in front of a yellow house with blue shutters. The desk was clean, orderly. A little American flag in a plastic stand sat beside a tin can full of yellow pencils and a stone paperweight without any papers to weigh down. Behind the desk, hanging from a wall, was a glass-doored gun cabinet.

'This is Agent Baxter,' Carl said.

The man rose from his chair, turning to face me. He leaned forward to shake my hand, wiping his own along the side of his pant leg before he did so. He was lean, broad shouldered, with a square face and a flat nose, like a boxer's. His handshake was short, firm, decisive, and he held my eye while Carl introduced us. I found him strangely familiar for some reason, as if he resembled a movie star, or an athlete, but I couldn't exactly place it; the resemblance was too vague, just the bare trace of a memory. He was polished; there was a glow about him, a sheen of calm competence.

We sat down, and Carl said, 'You remember earlier this winter, when I saw you out by the nature preserve?'

'Yes,' I said, a fistlike ball of panic forming at the center of my chest.

'Didn't Jacob say you guys had heard a plane with engine trouble a few days before?'

I nodded.

'Why don't you tell Agent Baxter what you heard?'

I could see no way to avoid it, no way to lie or evade the question, so I did exactly as Carl asked. I dragged