William Lashner - Fatal Flaw

There was yellow tape around the fence, but I ducked under it and through the rip in the fencing and clambered down the steep slope to the narrow ledge above the water. There, behind a large outcropping, curled like a lizard in hiding, I found her.

I stooped beside her on the ledge and said nothing for a long moment and waited for her to acknowledge my presence, which she failed to do.

“He was the one,” I said finally.

She gave no answer.

“He was the one, Hailey, the one who brought a smile to your lips and a flush to your cheeks.”

“Stop,” she said quietly.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I don’t, don’t know.”

“No? They say it was Grady Pritchett that did it. The police are centering their investigation on him.”

“It wasn’t Grady.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because Grady is a coward.”

“Maybe he is, but he’s the one they’re looking at. He’s the one who will shoulder the blame even if it was someone else that did the deed.”

“Maybe it was an accident.”

“Yes, maybe. Wonderful athletes often are the clumsiest in their footing. But tell me, Hailey, who knew about you and the Sterrett boy?”

“No one, kids at school maybe.”

“Did your uncle?”

She looked at me, her red-rimmed eyes.

“’To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.’ Don’t hide it, Hailey, tell me. Who did this to young Jesse? Who did this to you?”

“Stop. Please.”

“I think I know.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I think I know. Let me read you something you might recognize.” I took a paper out of my pocket. “It’s from a poem I’ve been reading.”

She turned her face to me, puzzled, but as I started to read from the Plath poem “Daddy,” she curled her body defensively as if to ward off blows.

“‘ I was ten when they buried you, ’” I recited. “‘ At twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. But they pulled me out of the sack, and they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, a man in black with a Meinkampf look and a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do.’ ”

“Shut up.”

“I want to help,” I said. “Let me help. But for me to help, you must step out of your hole and tell me what is happening. I can’t do anything if you won’t tell me. Save Grady, Hailey, and save yourself, too.”

She didn’t respond. She lay there, curled like a lizard, thinking, and I stayed beside her in silence. Waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to tell me something, everything.

“You want to help me and help Grady?” she said finally.

“Yes,” I said. “I can and I will.”

“Then, this is what you do. You play cards with Grady’s father, he trusts you, I’m sure. You tell him I’ll get Grady cleared of all charges in exchange for something.”

“Yes,” I said, hoping she was ready to tell me all.

“Tell him I want a college education for me and Roylynn, college and graduate school if that’s what we want. Tell him in exchange for him financing our route out of this stinking little town, I’ll make sure Grady is cleared. Do you got that, Reverend?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” she said. “Let me know when it is all agreed, and I’ll talk to the police.”

“Where will you be?”

“Here, I’ll be right here. I’ve got no place else to go.”

I MADEthe deal. When I proposed it to Mr. Pritchett, he snarled at me, a Scotch in his hand, and nodded, and that was that. I ran back to the quarry and took Hailey with me to the police. I expected then that she would tell them what had happened, tell the truth, that the evil would be taken care of, I was certain of it. But, as always with Hailey, she betrayed my expectations. She insisted on seeing Grady first, and only then did she tell her story to the police, and a clever story it was. She saved Grady, financed her college and law degree, gave her sister a chance, everything she said she would do, but she did it all with a lie.

It wasn’t enough, I couldn’t just leave it at that. I had no evidence of what I thought had really happened, nothing more than the rantings of a suicidal poet, no witnesses who would back up my suspicions, but still I could not do nothing. I was compelled to do something. And so it was that I summoned Lawrence Cutlip to meet me in the chapel on a sunny Thursday afternoon.

He stood before me with his dangerous forward lean, a fresh wound on his cheek, his overalls spattered with the blood of slaughtered cattle. He held in his huge, hairy hands a rusted spade with a long wooden handle. We were in the center aisle of the chapel, the door to the outside world behind him, the cross behind me. He stared and smiled, and I felt a fear I had never known before and have never known since.

“I don’t have much time,” he said. “I’ve got some digging to do. So let’s have it, then.”

I didn’t even want to know what he was digging or why, the possibilities that flitted through my mind were terrifying enough. I braced myself against the side of a pew to stop my shaking, and then, without pleasantries, I brought up the purpose of our conversation.

“You need to leave this town. This town, this county, this state, those girls. You need to leave, now, and never come back.”

He tilted his head at me like a dog. “What are you saying there, Reverend?”

“I know what you are and what you’ve done. I know everything.”

“You’re kidding with me, right?”

“I am serious as my faith.”

“Aw, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about you and those girls. You and that boy. Leave now, or I’ll tell all.”

He stared at me, a realization dawning in his eyes. “Who you been listening to? Hailey? Has she been blabbing? She’s a lying bitch, always has been. You can’t go around listening to a mongrel bitch like her.”

“You need to leave.”

“Leave, hell, that would be the best thing for me. Don’t you think I want to leave? Don’t you think I wanted to leave ever day of the past eight years? I done everything for those girls. They’d have nothing without me, nothing. They’d be on the street, starving or whoring, I wasn’t taking care of them. I gave the best part of my life to them, sacrificed it straight up, spent my days butchering cows and my nights tending to their wants. But does anyone ever care about my wants? I’ve given up everything for them, and this is what I get in return, lies and accusations. They’re both a couple of halfbreed ingrates. Their father wasn’t a hundred percent, I told my sister that before she ever married that boy. Any wonder then at what is going on with his demon offspring? One slices her wrists because she wants to be the center of attention, the other’s now telling lies about me. They’s bad kids, that’s just the way they is. Everything that’s happened is their fault. There’s something wrong with them, I’ve always knowed that, something sinister. But you, Reverend, believing them lies. You should be ashamed.”

“You leave now, right now, take your truck and go and never come back, or I’ll make the calls.”

“Aw hell, go ahead and make your calls. No one’ll believe your ass anyways.”

“Yes, they will. I’m a man of God. And Hailey will back me up. And Roylynn from the hospital will back me up. And your sister will back me up, you know she will, when you’re in jail and she’s no longer afraid of the back of your hand. And as for the boy? Where was it you received that slice on the cheek? Did it bleed much? It’s a wonder what they can do now in matching up blood.”