All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

“Don’t seem to me he’s scared of Junior.”

“It just kills me. I keep seeing my son, walking all this way.” Cardoza seemed sincere, but he kept looking at his watch. The feds were set on proving Junior had time to go from the garage to the farmhouse and back. They didn’t have any eyewitnesses for that, aside from a neighbor who might have heard a motorcycle, but wasn’t sure what time.

It was hot and humid, like the day the Quinns were killed, and by the time we got to the garage, Cardoza and I were dripping with sweat. Junior would have been in worse shape, as much weight as he was carrying.

Donal showed us how he walked in through the open garage door and laid the gun on Junior’s workbench. Instead of knocking at the office door, he looked through a gap at the bottom of the blinds. Up on his toes, resting a hand on the windowsill.

“Wavy says it’s okay to watch. That’s how you learn things.”

“Who was in the office?” Cardoza said.

“Wavy and Kellen.”

“What were they doing when you looked in?”

“Fucking. Like Daddy does to Sandy on the kitchen table. When is Sandy coming back? I miss her.”

“I don’t know, son.” I doubted she was coming back. The feds had charged her with possession and intent to distribute.

“I’m thirsty. Can we get a pop out of Kellen’s fridge?”

“Did you do that on that day?” Cardoza said.

“No. I didn’t want Wavy to catch me spying.”

We were all thirsty from hiking, so we went into the office and got some drinks. Cardoza sat Donal down in the chair, perched himself on the corner of the desk, and said, “What do you mean by fucking? What was Kellen doing to Wavy?”

“You know. On the table. Like cooking. Wavy says that’s how babies are made.”

“Maybe you could just tell me what you think it means.”

Donal took a drink of his pop and gave Cardoza a suspicious look. Apparently the rape charge wasn’t a problem for the feds anymore.

“Putting his thing in her. Making a baby. Except Daddy fucks Sandy all the time and they never make a baby. But maybe Wavy and Kellen could make one.”

It would’ve been funny, if it wasn’t so messed up. Made me think a little harder about him asking, “Is Wavy okay?” Because of what he’d seen at the garage? I planned to ask Junior about that.

“So what did you do then?” Cardoza said.

“I left the gun here. Kellen would know what to do with it. I needed to tell somebody about Mama, so I went back to the house to see if he—” The boy went pale as ashes and snapped his mouth shut. He started to shivering so hard I reached out to take the pop bottle before he dropped it.

“To see if who what?” I said. I’d been letting Cardoza take the lead, but something had just happened.

Donal brushed his hand against his shirt.

“There was dirt on me. I wanted to go swimming. To wash the dirt off,” he said. Blood, he meant, but I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to think about that. He went back to the farmhouse, but when he got there, my deputies were there.

“Daddy says, stay away from the pigs, so I hid.”

That was the end of the boy’s story.

After we returned Donal to his aunt, Cardoza and I went for coffee.

“Goddamn it,” Cardoza said. “He almost slipped and told us what he’s trying to keep a secret.”

“He won’t make that mistake again. Now he’s had a chance to practice it.”

“That poor kid. He walked ten miles. One way carrying the gun that killed his parents, and back the other way knowing that lowlife was banging his sister. You still think Barfoot is innocent?”

*   *   *

On the one side, I had the feds trying to ram murder charges down Junior’s throat and on the other side, I had Brenda Newling, who was just as eager to see him in jail. I’m not a squeamish man. I’d been sheriff for twenty-two years, and dealt with more than a few rapes, but I didn’t relish having a woman sit in my office and say the word “rape” twenty times in ten minutes.

I made the mistake of suggesting that the girl was willing.

“She is barely fourteen years old and he raped her,” Mrs. Newling said.

“The problem is we don’t have much in the way of evidence for a rape charge. Indecent exposure might stick, since we’ve got you as a witness.”

“The prosecutor says that the evidence from the office and Wavy’s clothes is enough.”

Make that the feds, Mrs. Newling, and the county prosecutor breathing down my neck, plus a mess of evidence from the two scenes.

At the farmhouse: Liam Quinn’s blood in the hallway and bathroom. Four bullets, two through his chest while he stood in the hallway, and two through his back while he crawled away. Valerie Quinn’s blood in the kitchen. One bullet above her right ear. Entry wound with contact powder burns around it. Exit wound the whole left side of her head. What looked like a suicide note on the kitchen table.

Liam, I’m done letting you make me miserable. I hope you’re happy with your whores, but you’re never going to fuck me again. Val.

At the garage: blood on the floor and the workbench belonged to Roger Betsworth, from his accident. The smudge of blood on the windowsill of the office belonged to Valerie Quinn. Her son transferred it from his hand, left his fingerprints behind. Left them all over the gun, too, which was covered in Valerie Quinn’s blood.