23. This Is Justice
This Is Justice
Vedder
Old Man Smithy’s real name was Jonathan Smith, and he may or may not have been as old as the valley itself.
I almost wanted to ask him what he thought when George Washington marched through on his way to the Battle of Saratoga.
He was gruff, short on words, and shorter on politeness.
Just a big-ass grump of an old man in general.
I kinda wanted to be him when I got older.
He was waiting for me on his small porch with his arms crossed, his white hair barely combed. I was greeted with a grunt when I approached, then he walked inside, leaving his front door open. I guess that was an invitation to come inside?
I stopped at the threshold, peeking into the old cabin. It contained a single big living space with a kitchen, a small living room, and a breakfast nook near the window that overlooked the river bank. I could see his boathouse was just a stone’s throw away.
The rain obscured the mountain on the other side.
“Coffee?” he huffed. “How do you take it?”
“Just black, thanks.”
He gave a little “hm” which must have been a sound of approval. I guessed that he was not the kind of man who respected coffee embellishments. Probably not a pumpkin spice kind of guy.
He walked over to the cabinet, pulling down a chipped mug before filling it. A bit of coffee sloshed out as he placed it in front of me, leaving a black circle on his dark-stained wooden table.
“Braun sent you to talk to me,” he said. As he leaned back, his broad shoulders showed evidence of an active life. “So talk.”
He loudly sipped from his mug. I pulled a small notebook and pen out of my back pocket and dove right in.
“Could you talk me through what you saw the morning we found Luke Gray?” I was doodling on the page. I had no real intention to take notes.
“Hmm,” he groaned. “I saw that son of a bitch. Recognized his shirt. He wore it a lot on that stupid boat of his. The man was an ass on the river as he was in life. Made a lot of noise, scared the fish.”
I tapped the pen against the pad, wanting to write it down but also not sure if this was important.
Old Man Smithy didn’t like the Luke. As far as I saw, neither did Melody.
No one seemed to like him, really. Except his own brother. In that sense, he was better off than I was. I couldn’t imagine what my siblings thought of me after all these years.
“You didn’t like him?” I said idly, trying to build rapport so we could get to the good stuff.
“Like him?” He scowled. “You been in the Catskills much, boy?”
Boy. As a grown man well over thirty, being called boy was almost a compliment.
“Naw,” I drawled. “I’m from Kansas.”
He looked at me with disdain. Like Kansas was hell itself.
It kinda was.
“When you live in the mountains, there are two places people go to misbehave and keep their secrets. One is the woods, and the other is on the water.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
His broad shoulders and crooked back showed his age, but I was pretty sure he could still take me down if he wanted to.
The man likely came from a long line of hardy country folk. The kind that survived harsh winters and sweltering summers. The kind of men who walked among bears and called them friend and foe—and liked them as both.
“Those Grays…” He pretended to spit like he’d been chewing tobacco, then glared at me.
“Those boys are some of the reasons I keep to myself. I hate it when they’re there, polluting my water.
Hell, if it wasn’t for him rotting up the creek, I wouldn’t have bothered calling him in.
I’d have just let him ride on down until the river met the Hudson and took that bastard out to sea so he could be sucked on by the bottom feeders where he would actually do some good. ”
I cleared my throat and leaned back, placing my hands on my thighs and almost smiling. “Well, that certainly paints a picture.”
I wasn’t sure what use I could get from this meeting, but I owed Braun his money’s worth, so I continued.
“That fucking shirt.” He snorted. “You don’t forget something like that.”
I didn’t miss his snarl. Absolute and total hatred.
“When was the last time you saw him wearing that shirt?”
“Who hired you and Braun to look into this?” His gruff voice was starting to sound like something out of nightmares; the kind of country hermit with bodies lined up in his cabin.
It didn’t help that thunder rolled in at the same moment, the lightning casting his wrinkles in dark shadows. “One of the Grays?”
I didn’t answer.
“Of course, it is. They can’t accept that anyone wants them dead. Too rich to see reality. But also too poor not to stab each other in the back. Rich enough to dress like they’ve got class, but rotten to the core.”
My leg bounced faster the more he talked. Something tugged at my brain. A vision, a thing I knew but didn’t want to know, so I chose not to know it.
Old Man Smithy must have seen him die.
It had already been ruled an accidental drowning.
He was alone. On his boat. Drunk and on meds.
The rowboat was found a year ago, just drifting out in the water without signs of foul play.
Even the paddles were notched where they were supposed to be, with a cooler of whiskey and beer sloshing in the melted ice.
“You were the one who found his boat, weren’t you?” I asked.
Old Man Smithy…infamous around town for seeing everything on the water.
Knowing everyone’s business while keeping his mouth shut.
He lived alone, hated everyone, and kept to himself except for these two incidents.
I cleared my throat again as a lump started to form, and I asked the next question because I had to. I had to know. I didn’t want to know, though.
“What did you see the day you found his boat last year?” I started scratching lines onto the notepad. Deep, jagged lines. Just so my irritable, twitchy hands had something to do.
The old man’s graying eyes narrowed, his hands tightening around his coffee mug. I saw the subtle impression of a US Marine globe and anchor on the ceramic. A veteran. “Exactly what was said in the report.”
I watched his proverbial walls rise brick by brick.
“What wasn’t in the report?” I said, leaning forward and mirroring his aggressive stance.
He smiled. It wasn’t kind. It was the smile of a man who knew that I couldn’t make him do a damn thing he didn’t want to do.
“You couldn’t waterboard that shit out of me, boy.” His smile told me that he would reach out and punch me in the throat at any moment.
“Nah, I bet there’s nothing the water could do to hurt you. I bet a water god would come out of the river to save you.”
“That’s right.”
He knew something.
Refusing to confirm or deny was always a confirmation.
I pushed my paper and pen away. “Tell me what you saw. I’ll keep it a secret.”
“The only way two can keep a secret is if one of them is dead. You gonna make me kill you, son?”
“No.” I shook my head. “But I’ll let you kill me if I tell.”
Another crack of thunder, and the river was as loud as the rain pelting on the metal roof above our heads.
“What would you do with that information?” The power went out, and we were plunged into darkness, save for the faintest light from the window, but we didn’t flinch.
We just held each other’s gaze like two enemies who would not turn their backs on each other.
“Why the hell do you think you’re entitled to it? ”
Were we negotiating now? I’d bite.
“Melody Gray is mine. Mine to protect.” He was the first person I told. Before we had the chance to tell the kids, to tell First Sergeant McClanahan, or even the nosey Taz and Daria. This stranger now knew who Melody was to me.
I didn’t even know if he knew her at all. Did he even care about her?
Then he answered my silent question. “Melody and her mom were good people. They deserved better than what they got.”
We’d found common ground. He offered it like the most dangerous olive branch.
“I agree.” I swallowed, then tried again. “What did you see on the water a year ago?”
“Nothing I hadn’t seen before. It was just the first time Luke Gray got what he deserved.”
My nostrils flared, my fingers curling until I held them in a white-knuckled fist.
“Was anyone else on the boat with him?”
His smile turned psychopathic. A smile that almost dared me to run, to turn from the tale he would tell. But I needed to hear it. I had to bear it.
“There’s always someone on the boat with him.”
Who? Damn it, old man, tell me who. Say it. Put me out of my fucking misery.
“They say he liked to go on the water alone,” I said instead.
“They lied.”
“Who?” Another bolt of lightning struck so close the ground shook. The flash blinded me, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust and refocus on him.
“Who do you think?”
“How did they not notice you?” I wanted to poke holes in the story as much as I wanted to hear the details. I wanted it not to be true, even when I knew it was.
“You ever notice a leaf on a river?”
“You ever talk plain, or are you always talking in circles?”
He drank from his cup. I was primed and coiled like a snake ready to strike, because I would not put it past him to hit me on the head with his mug just to shut me up.
“You’ve seen him on the river before. With someone else,” I said.
“Someone he should never have been alone with.”
My breaths grew labored.
“Some men have no scruples. Some men hurt people they should be taking care of. Some men call it love, when it’s nothing but their own depraved evil.”
I could barely speak.
He sipped his coffee loudly, then put his mug down with a definitive thump.
“What are you going to write in your report to the Grays when they ask for one?”
“The truth. He had drugs and booze in his system. He fell in the water and died.” All true. Every word.
The old man snorted. “That’s all that happened. My story will never change. I’ll make you out to be a liar if you try to say anything different.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why didn’t you speak up? A real man would have stopped it!”
If he had seen Luke Gray with…with her…why didn’t he yell? Scream? Rail against it? Why didn’t he grab the man by the throat and kill him the first time he saw it? Why didn’t he defend her?
“A real man knows his place, and understands that sometimes, when money’s involved, justice is never served.
” There was pain in his gray eyes, in the wrinkles of his brow.
“Live long enough, and the thing all these privileged little shits say is that the right thing to do isn’t always the right thing to do.
This, me telling you this story…that’s justice. ”
He leaned back and crossed his arms.
“She’ll go through life with her secrets.
Her choices. And at the end of this storm, she’s gonna see the sunlight and the rainbow, and she’ll leave this all behind.
” He tapped his index finger on the table to emphasize his point.
“Luke Gray drowned in the river because of his own vices. The boat was just floating in the middle of the lake. Clean. And I saw him earlier that morning, and he was absolutely alone. Not a single soul but me and him on the water.”
“That last part is new. It wasn’t in the original report.”
He was lying, and I…was grateful for it.
“Sometimes I remember things. I remember it now. He was alone on the lake, and when I came back from fishing, the boat was empty. He wouldn’t have had time to dock and pick up passengers.
There wasn’t time between when I first saw him and when I found the empty vessel.
” He grabbed his coffee mug and downed it like a shot.
“Tell that to Whitlaw if she asks. Tell that to the Grays.”
He smirked, looking me up and down.
“I’m too fucking old to care what the Grays do to me. Now get the fuck out of my house.”