Bryan Gruley - The Hanging Tree

“So she could have just dropped it.”

“Or it could have fallen out of her pocket as she was being dragged up into the tree.”

I tried to imagine it. A man? Two men? It wouldn’t be a woman. Not with Gracie. No, it would be a man, or men. But why? I had no idea. All I could think at that moment was that the answer was likely to be found somewhere other than Starvation Lake. Somewhere downstate.

“When do you expect to hear from Doc Joe?” I said.

“You mean Doc Slow?” Doc Joe was Joe Schriver, Pine County medical examiner. He was not known for expediting cases. “We’ll probably figure this out before he rubber-stamps it.”

“You’ve positively identified-Jesus!”

A rapping on the window to my left startled me. I turned and saw D’Alessio standing in the road outside, a long flashlight in one hand.

“What?” Darlene said.

I lowered my voice and put a finger up to let D’Alessio know I’d be just a moment. “I have a visitor,” I told Darlene. “You-know-who.”

“Gus,” Darlene said, “somebody wants us to think this was a suicide. Somebody who really didn’t like Gracie.”

D’Alessio rapped the butt end of his flashlight on my window again, harder. “Open up, fuckhead.”

I took another look at the shoe tree. “You’re right,” I told Darlene.

“Gracie was no angel but-”

“I know. She didn’t deserve this. Don’t worry. I’m on it.”

Cold whipped across my face as I rolled my window down. D’Alessio had hidden his eyes behind unnecessary sunglasses.

“Frankie,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Can’t be parking here.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of town. “Got to move it along.”

D’Alessio had come to Starvation from Detroit as a boy. His father had been a Detroit cop who got sick of the shot-up streets and falling-down houses, so he came up north and bought a grocery store in town. Frankie had a wife and a couple of kids. He skated in the Midnight Hour Men’s League. Not a lot of skill, but a knack for whacking the top of your skate with the heel of his stick when you weren’t looking, something I hadn’t had to endure when I was playing goalie.

He also carried a barely disguised hard-on for Channel Eight’s on-air reporter, Tawny Jane Reese.

“What do you think?” I said. “I hear you’ve got a suicide note.”

“Crazy little bitch,” he said, meaning, I assumed, Gracie. “No comment.”

“It’s not a suicide.”

“All communications with the press should be directed to the sheriff or the on-duty press liaison.”

I chuckled. “Tell me, Frankie. How do I get you to leak me stuff like this so-called suicide note? I hope Tawny at least gave you a hand job.”

I didn’t really think she’d ever given in to D’Alessio’s come-ons, but I was sure she regularly used them to her advantage.

“You want a tip?” D’Alessio said. He grinned and leaned his head down so he could look at me over the tops of his glasses.

“I’m not giving you a hand job.”

“Meat’s back.”

I tried to look nonchalant. “Who?”

“Fuck you,” D’Alessio said. He leaned his head back but kept the grin in place. “You know-the guy whose wife you been banging.”

He meant Jason Esper, Darlene’s estranged husband. I had heard rumors that he might come back to Starvation after leaving Darlene and town many months before.

Those of us who played hockey called him Meat for how the knuckles on his right hand looked after dozens of fights in the lowest of the low minor leagues. Like pounded meat. Darlene had told me that Jason went through periods when it was too painful for him to put his hand in his pocket. He also happened to be about as big and muscled as a steer.

“Aha,” I said. “Well, welcome back, Meat. Why’s he back? Did someone beat his video golf record at Dingman’s?”

“I hear he’s fixed himself up pretty good,” D’Alessio said. “But you can see for yourself tomorrow.”

Tuesday night, Soupy and I and our team, the Chowder Heads, had a first-round playoff game in the Midnight Hour Men’s League.

“No shit, huh?” I said. “Meat’s playing?”

“Yes, sir. Last time you saw him on the ice, he was skating for the Pipefitters, wasn’t he?”

The Pipefitters was the team from south of Detroit that beat us in overtime in the 1981 state final.

“Yeah,” I said. “But he was young, didn’t get a lot of ice time.”

“He’ll get plenty tomorrow, unfortunately for you.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Deputy!”

The shout came from the shoe tree. We both looked to see Dingus waving his arms over his head. He didn’t seem happy. D’Alessio, flustered, gave him a thumbs-up, then looked back at me.

“Move it along,” he said. “I’ll see you at the rink or”-he smirked again-“maybe in the hospital.”

I swung my truck around and headed back in the direction of town. As I turned north on Ladensack Road, I tried Soupy’s cell phone. As usual, he didn’t answer. Probably still in bed, I thought. I didn’t bother to leave a message he wouldn’t bother to retrieve.

The Starvation Lake Arena, in all of its cinder-block glory, squatted in a parking lot ringed by snow-laden pines and birches.

I slowed to let a snowplow pull onto the road in front of me. I was glad to see the lot empty but for a single Dodge pickup. Snow was piled high against the marquee on wheels near the roadside, but I could still make out the advertisement for that night’s game. “River Rats v Mar ue te, 7 o’clock, SRO”, it said, the “q” and a “t” missing from “Marquette”. I smiled and shook my head. It had been a long time since the Rats had commanded standing-room-only crowds. Back then, I was the goalie, Soupy was the all-state defenseman, and the Rats were one of the best squads in Michigan.

I drove around to the back of the building and parked. A rusted oilcan overflowed with beer cartons covered in snow. The door to the back of the rink was locked so I walked around to the front, hoping I was alone.

The sweet smell of refrigerant filled my nose as I pushed open one of the double doors between the arena lobby and the rink itself. The only sound was the hum of a generator beyond the walls somewhere. I walked to my left and stopped on the rubber-mat floor behind the net I had tended as a kid for the River Rats and, many years later, in the Midnight Hour Men’s League.

I’d liked the vantage all those years I was a goalie: the rink spreading out in front of me, the bleachers rising to the shadows beneath the ceiling on my left, the benches and penalty boxes stretching down the dasher boards to my right, the opposing net facing me two hundred feet away, the banners dangling from the rafters overhead. When a crowd had gathered, I could feel the glass behind me groaning against their weight, hear them cursing me or praising me, no matter what I did. Some were on my side, some weren’t. Sometimes you couldn’t tell the difference.

Finally, I had had enough of throwing myself in front of flying pucks, enough of people firing pucks at my head. A year before, I had ditched the mask and leg pillows and chest protector, grabbed a stick with a hook on the blade, and started playing on a wing. It felt good to be on the bench bitching about the goalie instead of being the one on the other end of the bitching, good not to be alone between those iron pipes.

I scanned the rink, looking for whoever had parked the Dodge outside. Sometimes old folks came and walked circles around the perimeter for exercise. None were there on this morning. The preschool figure skating class wasn’t due for another hour. I knew these useless facts because I read them each week on the press releases someone sent to the Pilot. I peered up at the banners. The last, in faded Rats blue and gold, had been hung in 1987, when the team won the regional final before losing in the state quarters. The best-or the worst-was the banner from 1981, when my own Rats team lost in the state final, in that very rink, because of the goal I allowed into the net I was now standing behind.