Seventy-Two One Week Later
SEVENTY-TWO
ONE WEEK LATER
THEY SAY BURT WEBB’S funeral is the biggest in Cross Rivers since my father’s. A tent is set up outside the First Congregational Church for the overflow crowd, as if this were some kind of competition.
In the immediate aftermath of Burt’s passing, Briar Crockett tried to step up and offered a reward, half a million dollars, for information that might lead to the arrest of Burt’s killer. Same as he had after my father died. Maybe inflation is why the price has gone up.
Briar had brought the offer of a reward to Helene Mayes personally, showing up at Nash Hader’s old office.
The meeting, as she described it to me later, didn’t last but a minute or so.
“That bullshit might have worked when Silas’s father died,” she’d told him. “But as far as I’m concerned, you can take that money and put it into small bills and see how much of it you can shove up your ass.”
“You’re letting your feelings about me get in the way of something that might help,” he said.
“Only helps you,” she said. “Now get out of my office.”
I’ve spent some time with Taylor over the past week, but not much. Her choice, not mine.
“You’re the one who told me that alone wasn’t the best idea in the world,” I’d said.
“Not for you, it wasn’t,” she said. “When I’m ready for some company, I promise you’ll be my first call.”
Mostly what I’ve done since Burt Webb died is spend even more time in the gym, as if I’m back doing preseason two-a-days at UNC.
I go at it this hard and this often even knowing there’s no workout ever invented that can free me up from all the rage I’m carrying around inside me over his death, along with the frustration I’m feeling because Helene still hasn’t come up with any solid leads about who the shooter was.
Her people did find the Ford Fairlane a couple of days ago, what was left of it anyway, burned to a crisp at the side of a deserted back road over in Parsons.
No witnesses to that, either.
Charlie Hall has given me the week off, saying I need some room, assuring me he doesn’t much need me for field work right now.
“It’s nice of you to put it that way,” I tell him. “But you never needed me, Charlie.”
Abby is giving me time and space to grieve, too, saying she’ll be there for me whenever I’m ready. But really the only people I’ve spent time with since the funeral are EJ and Vince.
And I get with Taylor when she allows that.
She may have allowed herself to cry when I’m not around.
Just not when I am.
I’ve been telling EJ about this tonight, the two of us in the wicker rocking chairs on the front porch. I’ve long since finished the beer I’d been nursing while she’d been sipping her way through her old-fashioned.
“Everybody grieves in their own way,” she says.
“I just don’t think it’s healthy for her to keep everything bottled up.”
“Look who’s talking,” EJ says.
We both go back to rocking. She takes another sip of her drink.
“I should have asked this sooner,” she says, “but what’s going on with these workouts, hon? You plan on joining the Marines as one of those free agents?”
“I doubt they’d have me,” I say.
“That’s not nearly an answer.”
“It’s just maintenance, is all, now that it takes a hell of a lot more maintenance than it ever did to make me feel as if I’m in shape,” I say. “And maybe it helps me take my mind off Burt, even if it’s only for an hour or so at a time.”
“You were pushing yourself pretty good before Burt died,” she says.
She looks down at her glass, starts to raise it back to her lips before she sees there’s only ice now. Then she stands, and comes over to me, and gently pats the top of my head.
“Whenever you’re ready to talk about whatever it is we’re not talking about out here,” she says, “well, I’m here.”
“Deal.”
“Gonna hold you to it.”
I say, “I’ll walk Bumper one last time before I turn in.”
I hear the screen door open behind me, but not close. When I turn, I see her holding it open.
“Your father didn’t talk, either,” she says, and then the door closes.
But she’s not gone. Softly, through the screen, she says, “You’re fixing to leave.”
Not even making it a question. Just letting it float there between us.
I turn now and say, “I love you, EJ.”
I think about going inside and getting another beer.
I stay out here instead, rocking in the bigger of the two chairs my father favored, night sounds all around me, the big sky full of stars, trying in vain to remember which planet it is I see close to the moon tonight.
And not being surprised at all at how well my grandmother knows me, even when she doesn’t know exactly what she’s talking about.
Then, almost as if I can’t help myself, I’m back in Burt’s hospital room that day, that moment when I saw his eyes open and saw him smile at Taylor, and how, even bandaged up and attached to tubes and that monitor, he looked like the big, happy kid he’d always been, and I thought, just for that moment, that he was going to make it, that the worst was over.
Right before the alarm sounded and it felt as if the whole hospital came running in there, even though it was too late for them to save him, because his great heart had stopped for good.
I stay out here a long time. I’m finally ready to go inside and get Bumper when I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.
Taylor
Before I can say anything, I hear her say, “Silas, you… you have to help me.”
She hardly ever raises her voice, but she’s raised it now, not a lot, just more than usual. And she never asks for help, from me or anybody else, even after she’s just lost her husband.
“Tay,” I say, “what’s wrong? Is someone in the house?”
I wait.
“Tay, talk to me. Is someone there?”
“Just hurry.”
And ends the call.
I start down the steps for the truck, knowing the keys are in it.
But I stop myself, turn around, and go back inside and up the stairs to where I keep Burt’s Glock in my bedside table.
Then I run for the truck.