Timothy Johnston - The Current

He turned then and walked back to the road, back toward his cruiser, and Danny followed, watching Moran’s back, the smooth patch of neck above the collar and Just keep your mouth shut, Danny-boy, don’t say another word, just get in the truck and get your ass into the house .

But Moran stopped in front of the truck door and Danny stopped too. Stood looking down at his own boots. The fraying laces. The scuffed and scarred-up toes.

“Folks talk,” Moran said. “They love to talk. But I’ll tell you one thing.”

When Moran didn’t go on, Danny looked up. The other man was looking up at the sky, the night clouds. No other cars were out, no headlights as far as you could see. Somewhere in the night a dog was barking but not at them.

“I hope,” Moran said, “I truly hope the next thing I hear about you is nothing, buddy. Just nothing at all.”

LATER THAT NIGHT a wind came up to rattle the window in his room, and the rattling was the sound of the sheriff’s Zippo lighter rapping the metal table, and he could smell the smoke and he sat up suddenly in the dark room looking all around him, his heart pounding and a drop of sweat running down his chest. He’d just been here—the sheriff. The Zippo lighter rapping lightly on the tabletop. The cigarette smoke. The two of them caught in the mirrored glass… And with his heart still drumming he switched on the lamp and swung his legs out and sat on the edge of the bed, his bare feet flat on the old thin rug. It was not his old room but his new room in the farmhouse; she’d brought his things and arranged them as they’d been: his desk, his desk lamp, his chair, his bookcase. Going so far as to put the books back out because the empty shelves were just too much, she’d said, just too much.

He sat staring at his reflection in the rattling window. Awake now but that Zippo still rapping on the tabletop, the sheriff’s voice continuing on as it had in the dream, a voice he’d spent so many years pushing from his mind: And Holly Burke was at the bar too, at Smithy’s, when you were there with Jeff Goss?

Yes, sir .

Did you see her leave?

No, sir .

You didn’t see her leave .

No, sir .

You didn’t give her a ride?

No, sir. I had my dog with me .

So? The sheriff waiting, turning the Zippo slowly on the tabletop now, like he was trying to tune in a station. Up in the corner above the door a red dot of light glowed on the little camera .

You’re recording this?

We record all our interviews .

Something tells me I should ask for a lawyer .

The sheriff, whose name was Sutter, smiled, friendly. I already told you you’re not under arrest, Danny. Like I said, we’re interviewing everyone who was at Smithy’s. Who saw her there .

Did they have lawyers?

Who?

Everyone .

They weren’t under arrest either. Do you mind if I light one of these? It’s not allowed, strictly speaking, but I don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary just so I can go outside and smoke .

Danny shook his head and the sheriff lit his cigarette with the Zippo and blew a cloud toward the ceiling. There was no fan, no vent, and the smoke hung in the air. The smell reminded him of his father, before they got him to quit .

Sutter gave him a nod: Go on, now. Continue .

Danny sitting on the edge of the bed, in the cold room, staring at the spines of the books. Titles going back to middle school, the Hardy Boys, Ellery Queen, on up to Raymond Chandler and the assigned books of high school: Hemingway, Salinger. Flannery O’Connor, who wrote the story about the killer, The Misfit, that he’d read more than once. Above these on the top shelf stood the textbooks from his one semester in college. As if he might come back and pick up where he’d left off. Classes. Equations. Exams.

He stood from the bed in nothing but the boxers he slept in and crossed the room, floorboards creaking, and he took down the largest book on the top shelf— Applied Structural Dynamics by Field and Leery, the hardback edition he’d bought used and already marked-up with highlighter pens—and standing there in the draft from the window he held the book faceup in his hands. The familiar dense weight of it and the familiar cover with the little doodle man still dangling from the underside of the bridge by his noose, hung there in permanent marker by a previous owner. When he opened the cover the spine crackled and the sound made his heart kick. The pages parted with the stickiness of old glossy pages that have sat too long with no parting, no airing, some of them sticking to each other as if by glue, and maybe it was trapped in one of these pairings, the pages reacting to the foreign material in some chemical way as if to consume it, as if to digest it slowly over the years until there was no trace left, not even the shape of it. But then the book opened in another place and there it lay. Flat and square and white. Strange thin bookmark, or rare leaf pressed flat and delicate and so sheer you could read the text beneath it. The window rattling behind him. His skin goose-bumping from his neck all the way down.

All right, Danny. Where did you go when you left Smithy’s?

I went home .

You went straight home .

Sutter smoking, watching him with those blue eyes of his. Danny picking up the Coke and taking a drink and setting the can down again. He looked at the mirrored glass, as they always did in the TV shows. Who was behind there? More cops? The deputy who pulled him over? Drinking coffee and watching. Cop banter as they watched .

No, sir. I went into the park .

Sutter had been about to take a drag on his cigarette and stopped. Then took the drag and blew the smoke .

Henry Sibley Park? he said .

Yes, sir. The smoke was thick and Danny coughed .

Sutter tapped his ash on the floor .

Just to be clear, Danny, he said. After you left Smithy’s, you drove into Henry Sibley Park .

Danny wanted to cough again but fought it down. The sheriff was fucking with him now. Wasn’t he?

Yes, sir .

And why did you do that, Danny?

To walk my dog for a minute .

You didn’t follow Holly Burke into the park?

No, sir. I didn’t even know she was in there .

The sheriff watched him. Then he moved his notepad closer and wrote something down, studied what he’d written, then put his pen down and took up the Zippo again .

Was there anyone else in there—in the park?

Anyone else?

Yes .

Danny gave the Coke can a quarter turn on the tabletop. I couldn’t say, he said .

You couldn’t say what?

If there was anyone else in the park. It’s a big park. And it was dark .

Sutter was silent .

You didn’t see anyone else in the park, Danny?

Danny resisted looking at the mirrored glass—the cops, the deputy, watching him. He’d seen the deputy, but that was outside the park, on the county road .

No, sir, he said truthfully. I didn’t see anyone else in the park .

Did any vehicles drive through?

Danny wiped his hands on his jeans. Sutter watching him. There was a loud ticking but he saw no clock in the room and he realized it was Sutter’s watch. He could see the second hand moving with the ticks .

I was pretty deep in the woods, chasing my dog .

That’s not what I asked you, Danny. Did you see any other vehicles in the park while you were there?