Bryan Gruley: The Hanging Tree

“Time still not certain,” he said. “But it’ll be at his house. Someone else will be with him. His lawyer, I assume.”

“Great.”

“You know the house?”

“I’ve seen it once or twice.”

You could step outside the Pilot and see it from Main Street, the biggest house on the lake, peering out from the northeastern shore.

“Thank you,” Philo said. He looked up from the keyboard. “Would you mind bringing me a coffee? No cream, four sugars?” He reached into his pocket.

“I got it,” I said. “Back in a few.”

As I started out of the room, Philo called after me, “Hey, Gus.”

I stopped and turned to face him.

“Yeah?”

“Hockey’s really a big deal here, isn’t it?”

“You’re catching on.”

“Where I grew up, we play lacrosse.”

“Tough game. You never saw hockey?”

“Well, not in Annapolis, but they had it in D.C., I guess, but it wasn’t… I don’t know… it wasn’t like it seems to be here.”

“No, not like here. Here, it’s everything.”

Outside on the sidewalk, I turned my cell phone on. There was indeed a message. Waiting for it, I felt the dry morning cold rush down the open neck of my coat and thought of Darlene asleep the night before, the warmth of her bare shoulder blades against my chest.

“Hey,” I heard her say. She wasn’t quite whispering, but she was trying to keep her voice down. “I’m guessing you’ll be at Audrey’s. Don’t believe everything you hear, OK? I’ll try you later. Love you.”

“Me, too,” I said, dialing her back. I watched Audrey’s as I listened to three rings and a click followed by her voice.

“You’ve almost reached Pine County sheriff’s deputy Darlene Esper. Please leave a message, keeping in mind this is not Books on Tape.”

I’d heard the message plenty of times but still it made me smile. The phone beeped. “Darl,” I said. “Got your message. Don’t worry. I hope you’re doing all right. I’m thinking about you.”

The little bells on the door at Audrey’s Diner jangled when I walked in, and every head in the place turned. The smells of bacon grease and maple syrup washed over me.

“Morning,” I said, as friendly as I could without making eye contact with anyone. I went straight to the counter across from where Audrey DeYonghe was bent over the griddle in a crisp white apron over a smock embroidered with yellow and orange flowers, her hair tied back in a walnut bun wrapped in a hairnet. She glanced over a shoulder at me, smiled, turned back to the pancakes she was flipping. “Good morning, Gussy,” she said. “What’ll you be needing today?”

“A vacation is what he needs,” came the voice from the back of the restaurant. Elvis Bontrager, squeezed behind his usual table, spoke through a mouthful of half-chewed egg and sausage. “A nice long vacation,” he said, “so we can get our damned rink built.”

Elvis was my personal Greek chorus. Whatever I wrote in the Pilot, from a few grafs on the upcoming Rotary Club lunch to a half page on the school board spending a thousand dollars on a “fact-finding” trip to Chicago, I could count on Elvis to let me know, in front of everyone at Audrey’s, what he didn’t care for. That turned out to be pretty much every word I wrote-or failed to write, if he thought there was something I should have written. It wasn’t because Elvis didn’t like the Pilot; he just didn’t like me. Hadn’t liked me since I let that goal in that cost the Rats the state title. Liked me even less when, instead of marrying his niece, one Darlene Bontrager-now Esper-I took off to make my name as a big-time reporter in Detroit. And I had heard he wasn’t too pleased that I was now fooling around with Darlene, even though, at least on paper, she was still married.

“How are you today, Elvis?” I said. There was no sense in arguing; his ears might as well have been filled with cement. I pointed at a spot just below his shirt pocket, where a chunk of cheese-covered sausage had fetched up on the roof of his potbelly. “You’re missing the best part.”

Elvis kept his eyes on me while his wife, blushing, reached across the table and plucked the scrap off of his shirt.

“You got the scoop yet on the McBride girl, boy?” he said. “I’m thinking not.”

“Why do you have to talk about this here?” Elvis’s wife said.

My eyes swept the room. The music of forks and knives on china kept playing. Everyone kept their eyes on their raisin French toast and American fries. But nobody was talking because they were all listening. They must have been so grateful that Elvis was willing to be a loudmouth. It was hard to get the really tough questions answered talking behind people’s backs.

“Gracie?” I said. “What happened?”

“You know what happened, son,” he said.

“Gussy,” Audrey said. “What would you like?”

“Thanks, Mrs. DeYonghe. Two large coffees, one cream only, one no cream, four sugars.”

“Nothing to eat?”

Audrey glanced sideways at Elvis to keep him shut up. He was shoveling potatoes into his face, his red suspenders straining against his girth. I would have loved to sit down and savor one of her Swiss-and-mushroom omelets, but I hadn’t time nor did I want the hassle.

“Uh, sure, how about some rye bread, grilled?”

“Coming right up. With blackberry jam? I made fresh.”

“That would be great.”

She leaned over the counter and touched one of my hands. The aroma of lemon wafted off of her face. “I’m so sorry about Gracie,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“How’s Darlene? And your mother?”

“It’s a shame is what it is,” Elvis said.

I ignored him. “Darlene’s working, so that’ll distract her for now. I’m going to go over to Mom’s in a few minutes.”

“Good. How is she otherwise?”

“You mean… right. Her memory’s not so good some days. Maybe it’s just old age. She’ll be sixty-six soon.”

“Let’s hope,” Audrey said.

“It’s a damn shame,” Elvis said again.

“Yes, it is, Elvis,” Audrey said. She took out two slices of rye, picked up a knife, and started spreading butter on each slice. “She was a young woman with her whole life in front of her. And a grieving mother. And others who cared about her. Leave it be.”

“That ain’t what I’m talking about,” Elvis said. “Ain’t no shame in Gracie McBride killing herself. It’s about as surprising as a blizzard at Christmas. Was just a matter of when.”

“Elvis,” his wife said.

Audrey laid my rye slices on the griddle. Elvis waved his fork over his head, upon which a blue polyester baseball cap announced “Cupid Rhymes with Stupid.”

“The shame is that in a town like this, we’ll now have to have a long and-I might add-very expensive investigation into why she did it and how she did it and all the other hoo-hah that goes along with it.”

“Our tax dollars at work.”

I looked to my right. The complaint had come from Floyd Kepsel. Elvis was emboldening his audience. I had to get out of there.

“Precisely, sir,” Elvis said. “We have somebody trying to give us a brand-new hockey rink- give it to us, no strings-and we cannot get that done. But now we will go about spending untold hours and days and money wringing our hands over this, this young woman’s stupid…”

I’d seen Elvis worked up plenty of times, but not quite like this. I understood that he was disappointed-distraught, upset, totally pissed off-about the rink. There weren’t many River Rats fans more devoted than Elvis, especially now that he had a sixteen-year-old grandson-big kid, pretty good feet, lousy hands, hard slap shot-skating right wing for the team. But I hadn’t told the new rink’s contractors and subcontractors to pack their hammers and go home; they did it on their own when the money stopped coming.