Fragile

He was guilty of cowardice, of inaction, of allowing an innocent man to be convicted of murder. But Tommy Delano was not an innocent man; he was innocent of murder but guilty of different things. He’d said himself in his letter to Eloise Montgomery that it was only a matter of time before he would fail to control his appetites. Maybe, in a sense, their silence had saved the lives of other girls. But, no, that was a wishful rationalization. They’d done wrong, pure and simple.

“I don’t know what I think you should do,” she’d said finally.

She’d pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs, looked at him with wide eyes. There was something about her expression, like she was preparing herself to say good-bye.

“We’re coming for you, Detective. Hang in there.”

The voice above him brought him back to the moment.

“How’s Matty?” he called up. His words seemed to bounce and spiral. Every so often, small bits of dirt broke off from a ridge and rained down on him.

“He’s okay.” Jones wasn’t sure who was calling down to him. “He’s with his mama, on the way to the hospital.”

“Good. That’s good.”

It was cold and quiet down at the bottom of the hole. Jones found his mind clear here; he could think clearly for the first time in years. There was no place to hide in the quiet solitude, a place he’d avoided at all costs through the years. He always had the television or the radio on, a newspaper or a book in his hand, a glass of wine or beer on the table before him. He’d made a life out of avoiding himself, partaking of any and all of the daily distractions offered in a busy-addicted world. But he knew. He knew himself, knew what he was, knew what he was going to do. Had there ever been any question?

He’d toyed with all the options before him. When Leila Crosby (no, not Crosby; her married name was Leila Lane. Why could he never remember that?) had brought by the jacket she’d found while cleaning out her father’s place, he’d felt as though it had all come full circle. He saw that the jacket was as clean as the day he’d received it, not bloodied and covered with dirt, as he’d imagined all those years. The chief had lied. But it might as well have been soaked in gore; the sight of it made him sick, made him want to weep and scream in pain. He could barely keep himself together in front of Leila.

“What in the world was it doing there, Jones?”

“I have no idea. Maybe Travis took it? I lost a jacket in my senior year. Did my mom ever go ballistic, having to fork over another hundred and fifty dollars.” Lies came so easily to him; they always had.

He’d taken that jacket and shoved it in the bag still in Elizabeth’s attic, and then put the whole mess into the trunk of his car.

The rain was coming down harder, lightning strikes following one after the other, the thunder so constant it sounded like a freight train. It was gone, the bundle he’d been carrying around for a hundred years. It was down in the hole, covered with dirt, buried finally. He hadn’t thought ahead. He didn’t know how he’d explain to Maggie what he’d decided to do, didn’t know what her reaction would be to his cowardice. He figured she’d leave him. Not right away. She’d fight the good fight, try to reconcile his actions with her love for him. They’d go to counseling, fight and cry together. But, in the end, she’d leave him. It was just as well. He didn’t deserve her. He never had.

He turned to walk away from the hole and saw a slim, hooded form moving toward him. He looked around for another vehicle, but he didn’t see one, not that he could see much in the rain, with the lights from his truck casting everything beyond their beams into pitch-blackness. He rested his hand on his gun as the form drew nearer. It wasn’t until he was two feet away that Jones realized it was his son.

Ricky pulled back his hood. The rain had made his hair flat, washed some of the goop from it. It hung limp around his face. Jones thought Ricky looked just like he had when Jones used to lift him naked from the bath. Jones would dry his hair with a towel and kiss his face and belly and say, I love you so much, Ricky. And Ricky would throw his arms around Jones’s neck and say, I love you so much, too, Daddy. It was so easy to love each other then, when he was small. Jones could so easily manage all of Ricky’s needs then, help him with the simple things, like falling asleep alone and learning to pee standing up, comfort him through nightmares. He could chase his son around the house and play hide-and-seek for hours, things even Maggie didn’t always have the time or patience to do. He didn’t remember when that ease had left their relationship, when the stakes had suddenly seemed so high that he was afraid to appear soft, to let things slide.

“Dad, what are you doing?”

He didn’t know how to answer his son, so he just shook his head.

“I know everything,” Ricky said. He wiped some of the rain from his face and pulled his hood back up. A bolt of lightning lit the sky; the thunderclap that followed was weaker than the last. The rain was letting up.

“About what?” Jones couldn’t believe Maggie would tell him. She wouldn’t. Neither would Elizabeth. It wasn’t Ricky’s problem, his burden.

“Melody told Charlene about the accident,” Ricky said. “She told Charlene about how that girl Sarah died, and how you all kept quiet.”

Jones wanted to deny it, to push past his son and run away. But he couldn’t, not anymore. There was nowhere else to go, nowhere else to run. Instead he covered his eyes. How could he look into his own child’s face with such a stain on his heart?

“Dad, it wasn’t your fault.”

He felt his son’s hand on his arm, was surprised by how big and strong it felt. He remembered when he could hold Ricky in his open palms, a tiny bundle that barely weighed ten pounds.

“It was,” Jones said, looking at the boy now. He’d spent so much time trying to teach Ricky to take responsibility for himself and his actions. He had to do the same. “In so many ways it was more my fault than anyone’s. I was driving. I let Travis talk her into my car.” Jones had to stop for a second, his throat closing around the words. But then he went on.

“She didn’t want to go with us that night. But I let him push her into it. Later, I told her what Travis had said. It made her so angry. I was the lynchpin. If I had changed anything I’d done that night, she’d still be alive.”

“Dad.” Ricky lifted a hand to stop him, but Jones couldn’t keep the words from coming now.

“Then, after she fell, I drove us away from there. Melody and I, we left her in the park. I could have gone back for her. I tried to go back. But she was gone.”

Ricky put both his hands on Jones’s shoulders. “Dad, listen. Whatever you did, you didn’t kill that girl. It was an accident.”

“It’s not that simple. I…”

“Please listen, Dad,” Ricky said. “Later, after you’d gone, Charlene’s mom told her that Tommy Delano took Sarah’s body. He’d been following her. He was the one who did those things to her.”

Jones stared at his son, who was level and calm. Jones had never discussed this with anyone except Maggie; he could barely believe that somehow Ricky knew more than he did about the night that changed his life.

“No,” Jones said. “It was Travis and Chief Crosby who took her. They moved her body and they framed Tommy Delano. And still I kept quiet.”

“No, Dad. Charlene’s mom said that when the chief and Travis went back, they saw Tommy Delano putting her in his car. They let him take her.”

The rainfall had tapered to a drizzle. But they were both soaked to the skin. Jones could hear the thunder rumbling, moving farther away. He’d never allowed himself to dwell on what happened to Sarah, on whether Travis was capable of doing those things to her. He’d never wanted to know the ugly answers to the questions he had never dared to ask. He told his son as much.

“Dad, it was an awful thing, a terrible thing, that happened. But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t kill her. You didn’t violate her dead body. You made mistakes. Okay. But you have to stop punishing yourself now. It’s time.”

Jones almost couldn’t stand to hear the words. Would he be so understanding, so forgiving, with his son? He knew that he wouldn’t.

“I should have said something,” Jones said. His voice sounded as faint and powerless as regret itself. “At least I should have done that.”

Ricky dropped his hands from Jones’s shoulders, dug them deep into his pockets. “Maybe you were scared,”