John Hart - Down River

He leaned close and I saw the sweat on his face, the close-cropped gray hair and the sunburned scalp beneath it. “Yeah. That’s right. Hard thing to screw up. Even for you.”

I leaned left and peered through the glass. Dolf was bent, staring at the tabletop. “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

He twisted his lips and lowered fleshy eyelids. He turned and shoved a key into the broad lock, twisted it with a practiced motion. The door swung free. “Five minutes,” he said, and stepped aside. Dolf did not look up.

My skin crawled when I walked into the room, and it seemed to burn when the door clanged shut. They’d grilled me for three days, same room, and I saw it like it was yesterday.

I took the chair opposite Dolf, the cop side of the table. It grated when I dragged it over the concrete floor. He sat immobile, and although the jumpsuit hung on him, his wrists still looked massive, his hands thick and competent. The light was brighter in here because the cops wanted no secrets, but the color still seemed off, and Dolf’s skin looked as yellow as the linoleum floor outside. His head was bent, and I saw the hump of his nose, the white eyebrows. Cigarettes and a foil ashtray sat on the table.

I said his name, and he finally looked up. I don’t know why, but I expected to see something distant in him, a barrier between us; but that’s not how it was. There was warmth and depth in him; a wry smile that surprised me.

“Hell of a thing, huh?” His hands moved. He looked at the mirror and rotated his neck. His fingers found the smokes and shook one out. He lit it with a match, leaned back, gestured at the room with a hand. “Is this how it was for you?”

“Pretty much.”

He nodded, pointed at the mirror. “How many back there, do you think?”

“Does it matter?”

No smile this time. “Guess not. Is your dad out there?”

“Yes.”

“Is he upset?”

“Parks is upset. My father is distraught. You’re his best friend. He’s scared for you.” I paused, waited for some hint of why he’d asked to speak with me. “I don’t understand why I’m here, Dolf. You should be talking to Parks. He’s one of the best lawyers in the state and he’s right out there.”

Dolf made a vague motion with the cigarette, causing pale smoke to dance. “Lawyers,” he said vaguely.

“You need him.”

Dolf waved the thought away, leaned back. “It’s a funny thing,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Life.”

“Meaning what?”

He ignored me, ground out the cigarette in the cheap foil tray. He leaned forward, and his eyes were very bright. “Would you like to know the most profound thing I’ve ever seen?”

“Are you okay, Dolf?” I asked. “You seem… I don’t know… scattered.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “The most profound thing. Would you like to know?”

“Sure.”

“You saw it, too, although I don’t think you fully appreciated it at the time.”

“What?”

“The day your father went into the river after Grace.”

I don’t know what was on my face. Blankness. Surprise. It was not what I’d expected to hear. The old man nodded.

“Any man would have done the same,” I said.

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Other than that day, have you ever seen your father in the river or in a pool? In the ocean, maybe?”

“What are you talking about, Dolf?”

“Your father can’t swim, Adam. Guess you never knew that about him.”

I was shocked. “No. I never knew.”

“He’s scared of water, terrified; been that way since we were boys. But he went in without hesitation, headfirst into a debris-choked river so swollen it was all but over its banks. It’s miracle they didn’t both drown.” He paused, nodded again. “The most profound thing I have ever seen. Unequivocal. Selfless.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

He leaned forward and grabbed my arm. “Because you’re like your father, Adam; and because I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

His eyes burned. “I need you to let it go.”

“Let what go?”

“Me. This. All of this.” New force moved into his words, a conviction. “Don’t try to save me. Don’t start digging. Don’t get your teeth into it.” He released my arm and I rocked back. “Just let it go.”

Then Dolf rose to his feet and took quick strides to the two-way mirror. He looked back with still bright eyes and a voice that broke. “And take care of Grace.” Sudden tears appeared in the seams of his face. “She needs you.”

He rapped on the glass, and turned away, tilted his face to the floor. I found my feet, reaching for words and failing. The door opened with clang. The sheriff came in; deputies filled the space behind him. I held up my hand. “Wait a second,” I said.

Some emotion moved in the sheriff. Color flooded his face. Grantham appeared over his shoulder, paler, more distant.

“That’s it,” the sheriff said. “Time to go.”

I studied Dolf: the straight back and the bent neck; a sudden, racking cough and his arm in that orange sleeve wiping across his mouth. He spread his fingers on the mirror and lifted his head so that he could see my reflection. His lips moved, and I could barely hear him.

“Just go,” he said.

“Come on, Chase.” The sheriff reached out with his hand, as if he could pull me from the room.

Too many questions, no answers; and Dolf’s plea a clatter inside my head.

I heard a plastic rattle, and two deputies rolled in a video recorder on a tripod.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The sheriff took my arm, pulled me through the door. The pressure eased when the door clanged shut; I shrugged my arm out of his grip. He let me watch through the narrow glass as deputies aimed the camera. Dolf moved to the table, looked once in my direction, and sat. He lifted his face to the camera as the sheriff turned the key and dropped the bolt.

“What is this?” I asked.

He waited until I looked at him. “A confession,” the sheriff said.

“No.”

“For the murder of Danny Faith.” The sheriff paused for full effect. “And all I had to do was let him talk to you.”

I stared.

“That was his one condition.”

I understood. The sheriff knew how much Dolf meant to me and he wanted me to see it: the camera, the old man in front of it, the sudden complacence in his collapsed frame. Parks had been right.

“You fucking bastard,” I said.

The sheriff smiled, stepped closer. “Welcome back to Rowan County, you murdering piece of shit.”

We left the detention center and stood in wind that brought the smell of distant rain. Lightning flashed silent heat and went dark before the thunder rolled over us like cannon fire. They wanted to know about Dolf, so I stripped my voice down and told them almost everything. I did not mention his plea to me because I could not leave Dolf Shepherd to rot. No way in hell. I told them that the last thing I saw was Dolf sitting in front of a video camera.

“It doesn’t make sense,” my father finally said. “Dolf took you to the knob, Adam. He all but held the rope. You’d have never found the body without him.”

“Your father’s right,” Parks said, and paused. “Unless he wanted the body to be found.”

“Don’t be absurd!” my father exclaimed.

“Guilt does strange things to people, Jacob. I’ve seen it happen. Mass murderers suddenly confess. Serial rapists ask the court for castration. People twenty years in the clear suddenly own up to killing a spouse decades earlier in a jealous rage. It happens.”

I heard Dolf’s voice in my head; what he’d said to me at the hospital: Sinners usually pay for their sins.