Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

When Marlene came on the line, he did not pause for pleasantries with her, either.

"Why I'm calling, ma'am, I mean bothering you, is you said, if there was anything you could do…"

"Sure. If you call me Marlene instead of ma'am, I'm at your service. What's up?"

"Okay. Well, Emmett doesn't know I'm calling. I mean maybe this is crazy."

"What is?"

"I mean… okay, they arrested this guy for the murders?"

"Good. I'm glad. Who was it?"

"A guy named Moses Welch. He lives down in Fairless Holler, about three miles from our place. Mom used to give him odd jobs, like hauling stuff, digging the garden, like that. He's about Emmett's age, a couple of years older."

"How did they find him?"

"From his shoes. He had blood all over these yellow boots he was wearing, spatters and along the sole. He was in town and someone noticed and told the cops, and they went and picked him up. It was human blood and the right kind. When the tests came back from the state lab in Charleston, they charged him."

"And…?"

"Well, it's crazy. Moses Welch didn't kill my family. Moses Welch can hardly drive a car. He's got an IQ of about twenty. He wouldn't know which end of a gun to point."

"So how did he get their blood on his shoes?"

"They weren't his shoes. He said he found them under the bridge over the Guyandotte. Almost new shoes. He thought it was paint on them."

"And you believe him?"

"Well, yeah! The guys who really did it tossed them over the bridge and he found them."

"And the cops don't buy that?"

"Oh, hell, ma'am… I mean Marlene-we don't have any real cops here. We got J. J. Swett. He's been the sheriff for about a hundred years and he's got a total of six officers, and none of them can tell their sorry butts from a hole in the ground. Besides, all of them are in with Weames or the coal company."

"Weames is the man your father was running against."

"And he beat him, too. Emmett did an exit poll after the election; Dad won by ten points. Then Weames announces the results, and of course he said he won. Dad was going to bring DOL into the election to investigate. That's why Weames killed him. Or had it done."

"You sound pretty sure about this."

"Well, hell, I didn't need to go to damn MIT to figure that out," said Dan, his voice grating and loud over the phone. "One-he threatened Dad; two-he knew he was going to go down if there was an investigation of the election; and three-it wasn't some damn retard that did this."

"Is that what Emmett thinks?"

"Oh, yeah. Except he thinks he's going to find out who did it and kill them himself. That's why I need your help. Could you come here? My mom told me… I mean about what you used to do, and you're a lawyer, too. Moses got a lawyer, but he's a joke, the courthouse drunk. He can't defend anyone on a murder charge. We've got some money from the insurance. We could pay you…"

"Hold on a second. You want me to defend this man, this suspect in your family's murders?"

"Well, yeah, to start with. If they convict him, hell, it's all over. No one will ever look at the thing again, not in Robbens County, anyway. And then after you get him off… well, you know, find out who did it."

"Find out…?" exclaimed Marlene incredulously. "Okay, look, Dan-I appreciate that you have a problem there, but first of all, I am not licensed to practice law in West Virginia. Second-"

"You went to Delaware. My mom told me about that girl who killed her baby."

"She didn't kill her baby. And that was different. I had a local cocounsel and-"

"Well, you'd have Ernie Poole, wouldn't you?"

"Who?"

"The fella who's defending Moses now."

"The drunk? Oh, thank you very much! Second, as I was saying, in the real world, as opposed to books and movies, crimes are solved by the cops, not by private investigators. I can't just drop into a strange part of the country, ask a few pointed questions, beat up some villains, and come out with the answer. It don't work that way. A triple-murder investigation is a big, big operation."

"You have to come," cried Dan, his voice breaking. "I haven't got anybody else. Everyone around here is too scared now, or bought out by the company or Weames. And Emmett is drinking and talking big about going over to Weames or one of his people and beating the truth out of them, and he's going to get killed, too, and he's all I've got left in the world." Heavy breathing, then stifled sobs.

Marlene sighed and rolled her eyes upward. Lucy, who had not gone far, asked, "What's wrong?"

Marlene put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, "He wants me to go down there and… Okay, Dan, calm down. Get hold of yourself! Look, here's what I think you should do." She paused there. What should he do? She had no idea, except maybe not to have called, not to have had a mother who struck up a conversation on a Long Island beach with a woman who should have known better than to blather on about her colorful past, and then gotten herself killed in some godforsaken hole in West… No, that was the wrong line of thought. The question was, what should she do? Marlene felt Lucy's eyes on her.

"What I think you should do," Marlene resumed, "is get your drunk lawyer friend to hand you copies of all the paper he's got on the case, as complete a record as he can-arrest reports, evidence reports, whatever. I'll need to look at all that. Where are you guys staying now?"

"At our house… Wait, does that mean you're coming?"

"At your house?" cried Marlene. "You're living in the crime scene?"

"Uh-huh. It's our house. They took all the, you know, the murder evidence out. And we hired a couple of women to clean it up and paint and all."

"Oh, great!"

"What's wrong? Did we make a mistake?"

"Oh, no, it's not your fault-but just so you know, in the regular world, crime scenes are usually sealed for a considerable time. Sometimes even until the trial. I've known defense lawyers and prosecutors to actually tour a jury through a preserved crime scene. Well, it doesn't matter now."

"But you're coming, right?"

She blew out a long breath. "Yeah, I guess. Hang in there, kid. And try to keep your brother from doing something stupid." After a few more similar encouraging banalities and a brief logistical discussion, she hung up.

"Speaking of stupid," she said to the air.

Lucy was almost trembling with frustration. "Mah-umm! What is going on?"

Marlene explained the situation. "I want to come, too," was the response.

"Idiot child, you can't come. I couldn't go at all if you weren't here. The boys…?"

"They could go to summer camp. And you might need help down there."

"Yes, and if they held court in Estonian, you would be invaluable."

"That is really nasty."

Marlene hung her head and controlled her temper. "Yes. I'm sorry. Look, here's what's going to happen. What we have here is a case of panic. It's a delayed reaction to the shock, and God knows those poor kids have a right to be a little weird. I will go there, take a look around, calm them both down, find them a decent West Virginia lawyer, and depart. It should take a week, two tops."

"You going to take your gun?"

"No, but I am going to take a lot of Kleenex." Marlene held her hands palms up and pirouetted once. "Look, this is the new nonviolent mom, just like you always wanted. It's a mission of mercy."

"Uh-huh. Are you taking the dog?"

"Well, yeah," said Marlene, startled a little by the question. Of course she was taking Gog. She would take her shoes, her toothbrush, and a change of undies, too.

Lucy raised an eyebrow over a baleful look, then left the room.

This is ridiculous, thought Marlene-why am I trying to impress my daughter with my benevolent intentions? Feeling annoyed at herself, at the Heeneys, and at Lucy, she decided to call her husband and vent.