Timothy Johnston - The Current

“Who was the man?”

“Danny Young.”

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “I had a feeling you were gonna say that name. I had a little talk with that SOB not two days ago. Told me somebody took a potshot at him. You’d think he might’ve gotten the hint.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“I didn’t say it was. Could have been any number of people. Did he think it was you?”

“I believe it crossed his mind.”

“Did you uncross it?”

“Tried to.”

Moran lifted his mug. Gordon watched him.

“How was it you came to have a talk with him?” Gordon said.

“How’s that?”

“Said you had a little talk with him not two days ago.”

Moran drew his thumb and forefinger down the corners of his mouth. “I had some business up there anyhow, with the Sutter case—those two girls—and a man told me he’d seen him in town so I swung by the house for a chat. Was that part of his story?”

“No, that wasn’t part of it.”

“Well,” said Moran. “You’ve got my attention, Gordon.”

“He said you pulled him over that night.”

“That night?”

“In the park. Ten years ago. Said you pulled him over as he was coming out of the park.”

Moran was silent. He raised a hand to scratch at the side of his nose and lowered the hand again. “That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yes, sir. Because, the thing is, I don’t remember that ever coming up before.”

Moran looked off through the window slats to his right. “Well, that was ten years ago, Gordon.”

“I’d of remembered that. No way I’d of forgot that.”

Moran turned back to him. “Not sure what fish you’re after here, Gordon.”

“I’m just asking you, Sheriff. Did you pull the boy over that night?”

Moran held his eyes. Did not look away or blink. “I pulled him over, Gordon. He’d been in the park and I gave him a warning and let him go.”

“And then you told Sutter about it. After my daughter… You told Sutter about pulling the boy over?”

“Of course I told him.”

“Then why wasn’t it on the record? Why wasn’t it in the report?”

“I have no idea. You’d have to ask Sheriff Sutter about that.”

Gordon stared at him. Moran staring back. Finally the sheriff looked at his watch. “Was that all you wanted to know, Gordon?”

“No. The boy said something else.”

Moran waited. He opened his hands. “What else did he say?”

“Not so much what he said as what he showed me.”

“What did he show you?”

“Showed me the pocket from the shirt she was wearing that night. The blouse she was wearing.”

The waitress came by and put her fingers on the tabletop. “You boys all right here?”

Moran looked away from Gordon and gave her a smile. “We’re good, Rhonda. Thank you.” She moved on and he watched her go, or seemed to. Then slowly turned back to Gordon.

“The pocket from her blouse,” Moran said. “And what makes you think it was the pocket from her blouse?”

“Well, I had a long night, Sheriff. I had plenty of time to think things through. And one thing I thought was, what would even give him the idea to bring a fake? How would he even know about it?”

“Unless he was the one ripped it off her blouse. I’m sorry to be blunt about it.”

“Unless he was the one,” said Gordon. “And in that case, why bring it at all? And why now?”

“Those are good questions. Did you get the answers?”

“I got his answers.”

“What were they?”

“As to the why, he believes that pocket was put on his truck, on the license plate, by somebody else, and there wasn’t nobody else could of done that between the park and when he found it but one man, and that was the man who pulled him over.”

“Unless it happened before the park. At the bar, for instance.”

“I thought about that too. But nobody said anything happened at the bar. Nobody said anything about a torn blouse when she left there.”

Moran raised his coffee and sipped and set it down again. “And why now?”

“How’s that?”

“Why did the boy wait till now.”

“Well, to hear him say it, he just didn’t know what to do when he was a kid. He was confused. Now he’s older and he’s tired of being blamed, I guess, so here he’s got something he’s held on to all these years and it’s something only a crazy person would show now, so either he’s crazy or he’s telling the truth, and he’s hoping I’ll think one thing and not the other.”

“To what end?”

“How’s that?”

“To what end. What does he expect you to do?”

“God damned if I know. Stop blaming him, for one thing.”

Moran sat there. He rubbed at something on the lip of his mug.

“Have you got it with you?” he said. “The pocket?”

“No. He kept it.”

“Ah.” Moran frowned into his mug. “I wish you’d held on to it, Gordon. That’s evidence of a crime. If he panics, or runs, we might never see it again.”

“Is he crazy?” Gordon said.

“What?”

“Is he crazy, or is he telling the truth?”

Moran looked at him with sadness in his eyes. Sorrow even. “The fact that you’d even ask is discouraging,” he said.

“I don’t think I’m asking that much, Sheriff. A man…” he began. “A man just wants to know the truth, that’s all.”

“I understand. But you’ve already put me on a level playing field with that son of a bitch and that just doesn’t sit too great, I have to say.”

“I wouldn’t say level. I wouldn’t say level by a long shot.”

Moran stared at him. Then he picked up his phone and lit up its face and stared at that, then set it down again, facedown, on the tabletop.

“Something else just occurred to me here, Gordon.”

“What’s that.”

“It’s that for you to even consider his story might be true, you’d have to think some other man—this man who pulled him over—had that pocket on him for one reason only. You realize that?”

“I realize that.”

Moran sat searching his eyes. The color had come up in the sheriff’s face. A light in his eyes that had not been there before.

“Well, I just don’t even know what to say to that, Gordon. I truly don’t. You come on down here, into my town. Walk into my office. All the while thinking this.”

“I’m sorry to do it, Sheriff. Like I said, I had a long night and I thought about a lot of things. And one thing I thought about… something I’d never really thought about before, was those times you brought her home. You remember that?”

“I brought a lot of kids home to their folks, Gordon. Brought them home drunk, high, beat-up. But alive. Always alive.”

“I know it. But she never talked about it.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“When you brought her home she wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Why would she? Would you?”

“Maybe not. Just, thinking back on it, it seemed she was more than embarrassed. Seemed she was more than that.”

Moran’s hands had been flat on the tabletop and now he lifted one in the air, palm out, as if to halt traffic. “All right, Gordon. Let’s just—slow down here a minute.” He leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Can you hear yourself, Gordon? Do you know what you’re saying?”

Gordon did not look away.

“Because I’m having a hard time believing what I’m hearing.” He sat looking into Gordon’s eyes. As if he might read there some other story altogether—or else the madness that would explain this one. Finally he shook his head and looked down at his hands on the table.

“I’m trying real hard to stand in your shoes, Gordon, but it’s difficult. I’ve never gone through what you’ve gone though and I pray to God I never do. I just don’t see how a man would ever be the same after something like that.” He took a breath and looked off and let the air out slowly. “So I’m sitting here asking myself what’s the best thing to do right now, and there’s two or three ideas going around. But I think the best thing for me to do is just get on back to work and let you be.”