Donald Pollock - The Devil All the Time

“Janey? No, she got married a couple year ago. Lives over in Massieville the last I heard.”

The boy nodded and started for the door, then stopped. He turned back and looked at Hank. “I never did get to thank you for that night my dad died,” he said. “You was awful good to me, and I want you to know I ain’t forgot it.”

Hank smiled. Two of his bottom teeth were missing. “You had that pie on your face. Damn Bodecker thought it was blood. Remember that?”

“Yeah, I remember everything about that night.”

“I just heard on the radio where his sister got killed.”

Arvin reached for the doorknob. “Is that right?”

“I didn’t know her, but it probably should have been him instead. He’s about as no-good as they come, and him the law in this county.”

“Well,” the boy said, pushing the door open. “Maybe I’ll see you later.”

“You come back this evening, we’ll sit out by the camper and drink some beer.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Hey, let me ask you something,” Hank said. “You ever been to Cincinnati?”

The boy shook his head. “Not yet, but I’ve heard plenty about it.”

A FEW MINUTES AFTER BODECKER got off the phone with his wife, Howser came in with a manila envelope that contained the slugs the coroner had dug out of Carl. They were both 9 millimeter. “Same as the one that hit Sandy,” the deputy said.

“I figured as much. Just the one shooter.”

“So, Willis told me some lawman down in West Virginia called you. Did it happen to have anything to do with this?”

Bodecker glanced over at the map on the wall. He thought about the photographs in the trunk of his car. He needed to get to that boy before anyone else did. “No. Just some bullshit about a preacher. To tell you the truth, I’m really not sure why he wanted to talk to us.”

“Well.”

“Get any prints off that car?”

Howser shook his head. “Looks like the back was wiped clean. All the others we found belonged to Carl and Sandy.”

“Find anything else?”

“Not really. There was a gas receipt from Morehead, Kentucky, under the front seat. Shitload of maps in the glove box. Bunch of junk in the back, pillows, blankets, gas can, that kind of stuff.”

Bodecker nodded and rubbed his eyes. “Go on home and get some rest. It looks like right now all we can do is hope that something pops up.”

He finished off the fifth of whiskey in his office that night, and woke the next morning on the floor with dry pipes and a sick headache. He could remember that sometime during the night he had dreamed of walking in the woods with the Russell boy and coming upon all those decayed animals. He went into the restroom and washed up, then asked the dispatcher to bring him the newspaper and some coffee and a couple of aspirins. On his way out to the parking lot, Howser caught him and suggested they check the motels and the bus station. Bodecker thought for a moment. Though he wanted to take care of this problem himself, he couldn’t be too obvious about it. “That’s not a bad idea,” Bodecker said. “Go ahead and send Taylor and Caldwell around.”

“Who?” Howser said, a frown breaking out on his face.

“Taylor and Caldwell. Just make sure they understand this crazy sonofabitch would just as soon blow their heads off as look at them.” He turned and went on out the door before the deputy could protest. As chickenshit as those two were, Bodecker didn’t figure they would even get out of their cruiser after hearing that.

He drove to the liquor store, bought a pint of Jack Daniel’s. Then he stopped at the White Cow to get a coffee to go. Everybody quit talking when he walked in. As he turned to leave, he thought maybe he should say something, about how they were doing everything possible to catch the killer, but he didn’t. He poured some whiskey in his coffee and drove to the old dump on Reub Hill Road. Opening the trunk, he took the shoe box of photographs out and looked through them one more time. He counted twenty-six different men. There were at least a couple hundred different shots, maybe more, bundled together with rubber bands. Setting the box on the ground, he tore a few stained and crinkled pages from a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog he found in the trash pile and stuffed them down in the box. Then he dropped the three film canisters on top and lit a match. Standing there in the hot sun, he drank the rest of his coffee and watched the pictures turn to ashes. When the last of them burned up, he took an Ithaca 37 from the trunk. He checked to make sure the shotgun was loaded and laid it on the backseat. He could smell last night’s booze coming out of his skin. He ran a hand over his beard. It was the first morning he’d forgotten to shave since his army days.

When Hank saw the cruiser pull in the gravel lot, he folded the newspaper and set it on the counter. He watched Bodecker tip up a bottle. The last time Hank could recall seeing the sheriff in Knockemstiff was the evening he handed out wormy apples in front of the church to the kids on Halloween when he was running for election. He reached over and turned down his radio. The last few notes of Sonny James’s “You’re the Only World I Know” ended just as the sheriff came in the screen door. “I was hoping you’d still be around,” he said to Hank.

“Why’s that?” the storekeeper asked.

“You recall the time that crazy Russell bastard killed himself up in the woods behind here? You had his boy with you that night. Arvin was his name.”

“I remember.”

“That boy come through here maybe last night or this morning?”

Hank looked down at the counter. “I was sorry to hear about your sister.”

“I asked you a question, goddamn it.”

“What did he do? Get in some trouble?”

“You might say that,” Bodecker said. He grabbed the newspaper off the counter, held the front page up in front of Hank’s face.

The storekeeper’s brow wrinkled as he read the black headlines once again. “He ain’t the one done that, is he?”

Bodecker dropped the paper on the floor and pulled out his revolver, pointed it at the storekeeper. “I ain’t got time to fuck around, you dumb bastard. Have you seen him?”

Hank swallowed and turned his eyes toward the window, watched Talbert Johnson’s hot rod slow down as it passed the store. “What you gonna do, shoot me?”

“Don’t think I won’t,” Bodecker said. “After I splatter your little bit of brains all over the candy case, I’ll put that butcher knife in your hand you got laying over there by your scroungy meat slicer. It’ll be an easy self-defense. Judge, the crazy sonofabitch was trying to protect a killer.” He cocked the gun. “Do yourself a favor. It’s my sister we’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I seen him,” Hank said reluctantly. “He was in here a little while ago. Bought a bottle of pop and some cigarettes.”

“What was he driving?”

“I didn’t see no car.”

“So he was walking?”

“He might have been, I guess.”

“Which way did he go when he left here?”

“I don’t know,” Hank said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Don’t lie to me. What did he have to say?”

Hank looked over at the pop case where the boy had stood and drank the root beer. “He mentioned something about the old house where he used to live, that’s all.”

Bodecker put the gun back in his holster. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He started out the door. “You’ll make a good little rat someday.”

Hank watched him get in the cruiser and pull out onto Black Run Road. He placed both hands flat on the counter and bowed his head. Behind him, in a voice faint as a whisper, the radio announcer sent out another heartfelt request.