Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

Poole wanted blackberry pie. Marlene laid some money on the table and stood up. "I just remembered something I have to do," she said, and left.

She drove back to the Heeney place. "What do you think, huh?" she said to her companion. "Don't you ever have instincts where you know you're right? Of course you do. That's all you do have, is instincts. If you were half the dog you should be, you could dive into that river and come out with the goddamn gun between your teeth."

And more of the same. The dog let her rant and licked the fragrance of chicken-fried steak from her hand.

"Dan, have you got a magnet?" He was watching a Yankees-Orioles game on the TV, with a thick text on his lap and a beer at hand.

"What kind of magnet?"

"You know, a big, strong one, for dropping in water and pulling stuff out. Magnetic stuff."

"Yes, magnets don't work on nonmagnetic stuff. I speak as a professional physicist here. How about that one?" He gestured to the door to the dining room. At its foot was a black object the size and shape of a small brick, with an eyebolt growing from its center.

"The doorstop?"

"Yeah, we got it from mail order when we were kids. We used to use it to find stuff underwater."

"That's what I want it for. Can I borrow it, and some strong rope?"

"May I ask?"

"You may, but I'd be embarrassed to tell you. Did you ever get an idea that you knew was dumb, but you had to go ahead and try it or you couldn't get any peace?"

Dan felt himself blushing. His idea of that category was to get on a plane and drop in on Lucy Karp, unexpected and uninvited. "Yeah, most of my ideas are like that. You're looking for the gun, right?"

"You got it. Oh, also, do you have, like, waders?"

"Emmett had a pair. I think they're still in the cellar." Dan got out of the bed. "Come on, we'll fix you up."

An hour later, Marlene found herself on the muddy banks of the Guyandotte River, in the shadow of a green-painted steel-and-concrete bridge. The river here was not more than a hundred feet wide, at this season running sluggish and shallow between high, slaty banks. The water itself was red-ocher with an uninviting sheen on it like beetles' wings, and it smelled faintly like the cabinet under her mother's sink. Gog the dog was wisely not splashing about in it but patrolling the bank, investigating holes and sprinkling the shrubbery.

She knew that she now stood on the spot where Moses Welch had found the boots. Assuming they were flung at approximately the same time from a moving car… She swung the magnet around her head a couple of times and heaved it out into the river. Nothing. Then: a can; another can; nothing; a muffler; something too heavy to move; a piece of angle iron; a Delco alternator.

The light was starting to fade, as were Marlene's expectations that this project was anything but what it had initially seemed, a stupid waste of time. No, the murder weapon was not going to magically appear on your magnet, you silly girl.

The dog barked sharply, twice. Marlene looked around. A boy was standing ten yards away, at the head of the little trail that led down from the road. He was about twelve, Marlene estimated, thin, and weirdly pale, like a mushroom. He was dressed in worn bib overalls on top of bare skin, and his feet were in old sneakers with the toes ripped off. His hair was the color of dead grass, and like grass on a hummock it stuck up in all directions. The dog bounded up to him and gave him a sniff-over. He neither flinched nor tried to pet.

"Does he bite?" He had a thin, nasal voice.

"Yes, but only bad people."

"Does he mind?"

"Yes. Come here, Gog." The dog came down the trail and stood by Marlene. She flung the magnet into the water again, telling herself it would be the last one.

"What're y'doin'?" the boy asked after the magnet came back with a piece of auto chrome.

"Looking for something. Want to help?"

"It ain't there."

"What isn't there?"

"What all you're lookin' fer. It ain't there."

"How do you know what I'm looking for, and how do you know it isn't there?"

"He says," said the boy confidently. " He says, tell her she ain't gonna find nothing in that river. He says to take you up the holler and he'll tell you who killed them and how it was done."

Marlene felt the thrill sweat pop out on her forehead and her lip. "Who are you?"

"Darl."

"Darl? Okay, Darl, you got a last name?"

"I cain't say. You come on with me now. He said." Darl turned and walked up the bank. At the top he stopped and made a beckoning gesture. Marlene gathered up her magnet and line and tromped out of the waders. At the truck, she parked Gog in the back and let the boy into the passenger seat. When she was in herself, she asked, "Where to?"

"Just straight." He pointed. It was full dusk now; she turned on her lights.

They drove north on the highway, which flanked the river and the railroad tracks that stitched the valley. The boy said nothing and ignored Marlene's conversational gambits until: "Turn right here."

She turned onto a county road, whose number she didn't catch, and after a mile or so, the boy turned her right again onto dirt and gravel. It was now quite dark. Every so often, the boy would say "Right up ahead" or "Go left," and she would hump the truck, in four-wheel drive, up some primitive track. Branches whipped against the windshield. The truck rolled and heaved like a small craft in a seaway, its headlight beams sometimes pointing to the heavens.

"Are we almost there yet?" she asked finally.

"It ain't fur now."

She checked her watch. They had been driving for about ninety minutes, and she had no idea where she was, except that it was somewhere on Belo Knob, the northern edge of it. After more driving, once along what seemed to be a rocky creekbed, the boy said, "Slow down here. Turn right."

She looked at him. His face seemed to glow in the dash lights, in a way that ordinary flesh should not. "Turn where? There's no road."

"There is. Just go through them bushes."

She hit the gas and wrestled the wheel around. Branches made shrieking sounds on the metal. It was a track at least, a steep tunnel through rank overgrowth. Then they were clear, and she felt on her cheek the changed air that meant open space. The high beams cast out across a small mowing, the grasses chest-high, and the edge of a structure.

"That's it," said the boy. "You can shut your lights off now."

She did so, and the engine, too. The sound of crickets and the faint breeze in the grasses. A nightbird called. As her vision adjusted, she saw a dim light ahead, a window in a small building. She walked toward it, following the boy.

It was a farmhouse, long disused. Tall grass grew through the sun-bleached steps. There was no door. The boy made an odd gesture, like a headwaiter motioning toward a table. She entered and found that a sheet had been hung from a low ceiling, behind which there was a kerosene lantern, the only source of light. She could make out the silhouette of a seated man.

"Sit down," said a low voice, an old man's voice, rough and rumbling.

A stool had been placed in the center of the floor. She sat.

"I got me a gun here, so don't go a-gettin' no ideas about coming round this cloth. You understand?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Never you mind that. I know what I'm talkin' about though, so listen good. I reckon you know that slow Welch boy didn't do those Heeneys."

"Of course he didn't."

"You'd like to know who did do it though."

"Yes, I would."

"It was Earl Cade, and Bo Cade, and Wayne Cade, and George Floyd. They done it on orders from Lester Weames, on account of that union business. Red Heeney was going to get an investigation of the union goin' and Lester couldn't stand that. So he had to go."