Timothy Johnston - The Current

No, sir. I didn’t see any other cars. Not while I was there. And that was true too: he’d seen the headlights and he’d heard the motor but he’d never seen the car itself. And it might not have been Jeff’s car at all .

Although he knew that wasn’t true .

He pinched the square of cloth at its corner and it came away clean and he closed the textbook one-handed and set it flat on the shelf, and then he laid the bit of cloth on his open hand. Weight of a feather. Weight of a butterfly. Great square wing of a strange nightmoth. They’d searched his room and they’d searched the books, or at least had pulled them all from the shelves, but the cloth had hung on.

And if it had fallen out when she moved the books, boxing them up and then unboxing them, years ago? Would she have put it back, not recognizing it? Or would she have sat there with it in the palm of her hand, knowing exactly what it was and what it meant. And then put it back anyway?

He stared at the cloth where it lay on his own palm, of such thin stuff it stirred with his breath. Exactly the thing they’d been looking for when they came to the house. The thing that no one else knew was missing but them—and you, and no way for you to have it unless you’d taken it yourself. A memento. A keepsake to press in a book and find again one day, or to be found by someone else and wondered about. Sheer stupid luck that you’d seen it at all that night. Seen it before they did. Stupid luck that the dog got away from you and rolled himself in shit or else you wouldn’t have taken him to the front of the truck where the hose was and would not have been there hosing him down in the light your mother left on for you and would not have glanced at the license plate, you didn’t even know why, and then looked again because there was something there, a bit of white paper or something stuck between the plate frame and the bumper, fluttering in the wind.

Then what happened, Danny?

What do you mean?

What happened next, after you got your dog and got back in your truck?

Danny held the sheriff’s eyes. He knew what was coming next. What the sheriff already knew: the flashing lights in his rearview. The deputy with the bug eyes .

I drove out of the park .

You didn’t see Holly Burke then, on your way out?

No, sir .

You didn’t hit her with your truck—by accident? You were at Smithy’s and you were drinking, Danny. Cruising through the park, feeling that buzz… You didn’t come around a bend and there she was but you couldn’t stop in time? An accident, Danny? Sutter opening his hands like a man offering something. Or ready to receive it .

No, sir. I never saw her .

You never saw her—that’s why you hit her?

No, sir, I never saw her and I never hit her either .

And still holding the dog by the collar you set down the hose and tugged this bit of whiteness loose and stood there hunched over and looking at it in the light—a square of thin material, maybe silk, with tiniest threads like spiderwebs where it had been sewed on and it was the pocket of a girl’s top and you knew it, you recognized it immediately, because you had looked. You had looked at it when you’d seen it earlier that night and you could see right through it and you couldn’t help looking—even if it was just the quickest of glances, you’d looked, you’d wanted to see. And now here it was in your hand and you knew what it was and you knew in your gut, in your heart, that it could not be here except that something terrible had happened and maybe you’d been too drunk to know it. Was that even possible? Not see her? Not feel the impact?

Or not remember it?

Look more closely at the bumper. Look for the break in the plate frame, the bent plate, the dented bumper. The bit of blood and hair. Wrap the dog leash around the hosebib and get the flashlight out again and go over the tires, the treads, all the way around with the dying beam. The underside of the bumper. All the jagged parts of the undercarriage that might catch and snag and rip and hold on to—and was she out there still, lying there, alive? Go back, find her, call 911?

But what if they were there already? What if someone else had found her and called the cops and here you come driving back to the scene, having already driven away?

But what if she’s alive and lying there? Holly Burke, Gordon’s daughter, lying there cold and broken and trying to stay alive?

It could’ve happened to anyone, Danny. Who would expect a girl to be walking through that park, that time of night? Maybe you thought it was a deer. You’d had a few beers and you were cruising along and then suddenly—wham. You hit something and you think, Holy crap, I hit a deer. So you stop and get out and walk back and there she is—holy shit, there’s a girl lying on the side of the road and she’s no deer and you know you hit her…

Danny shaking his head, No, sir…

… you didn’t mean to, she just came out of nowhere, and you tried to stop but you couldn’t. And now there she is and you can’t believe it. No life in that body, you think, and this is no dream, this is real and you’ve done it and you can’t go back five minutes, not even one minute, and not do it. It’s done. The girl is dead… and so are you—everything you’ve ever known or wanted. Your plans. Your degree. Your family. Your girlfriend, Katie Goss… You have hit this girl and she’s dead and you can’t take it back .

No, sir…

And so what do you do, Danny? Standing there in the cold and the wind, looking at her—what do you do? You’re not a bad guy, you’ve never been in trouble before, but you’ve been drinking and you’re not thinking straight, and all you know is that you want to live, you don’t want your life to end this way—because of an accident? Because of nothing but chance and bad luck?

What if you were never here? you think .

What if you’d not gone through the park at all?

What if she just vanished and no one ever knew?

No, sir, it didn’t happen like that .

How did it happen, Danny?

It didn’t happen .

Why did you drive up to your cousin’s cabin, Danny, after you got home?

To go duck hunting .

At two thirty in the morning .

Yes, sir. So we could get an early start .

Could you get rid of the truck, a whole truck, just make it disappear—into the river, or into the lake far away?

Don’t be stupid. Don’t be crazy. Take the hose and spray it all down, plate and bumper, tires and undercarriage. Uncle Rudy has a cabin up in the woods and Cousin Jer has the key and by the time you get up there, going over the dirt trails and across the stream and through the mud there won’t be anything left of anything you might’ve missed…

But to not see her? Not feel the impact?

And what if she’s still alive…?

Tell me about Holly Burke, Danny .

What about her?

What did you like about her?

What do you mean?

Sutter taking a last drag on his cigarette and mashing it on the heel of his boot and dropping the butt to the floor. You know what I mean .

I’ve known her a long time. Our fathers were business partners .

Did you ever date her?

No, sir .

Did you ever want to?

And he thought then not of Holly Burke but of Katie Goss, and felt again that bang in his heart when the sheriff had asked to see his cell phone, hours ago, up at the cabin, because Danny had remembered then—only then—that Katie had called him when he was in the park, and he’d thought somehow that the phone would tell the sheriff where he’d been when she called, like some kind of tracking device, and he had not understood that what the sheriff really wanted to see was had he called Holly Burke, or had she called him. And now he could use that same phone to show the sheriff that not only had they not called each other—at least not on any cell phone—but that she was not even in his contacts!