Martin said, “I know you killed my mother. I also know there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not stupid. A little boy’s testimony about something that happened over thirty years ago against the revered Sheriff of Blessed Creek—who would pay any attention?”
“There you go again, making accusations.” He brought his gun up, aimed it at Martin’s head. “You know, I could take you out and your wife too, if you screwed with me.”
“I have no intention of screwing with you, Sheriff.”
Sheriff Harms took a step back, leaned against his desk, the gun still in his hand. “Like you said, Austin, no one would pay any attention to you if you shot off your mouth. But if you did, it would really piss me off. I’ll bet you it’d piss me off enough to come after you and kill you dead. You know that, don’t you, Austin?”
“Is there anything you’d flinch from doing, Sheriff?”
“I’m a lawman, and I’ve had the guts for thirty years to keep myself and this town safe from people like you. Don’t you think to fuck with that, Austin.”
“I’m asking you to tell me why you killed my mother.”
Sheriff Harms walked to the door, opened it, looked up and down Main Street. A few people he’d known for years, but not a stranger in sight. He turned, shut the door, locked it. He leaned once more against his desk and grinned. “You know, it’s just the two of us here. All my deputies are out patrolling. Grace is having her lunch.”
“Then tell me the truth. You said it wouldn’t matter.”
“You want the truth? All right. Why the hell not? You really surprised your daddy.”
“My father? Don’t you try to bring my father into this. It was you I saw.”
The sheriff laughed. “You really believe that? You lived another twelve years with your mama’s murderer, at least with the guy who paid for it. Don’t be stupid, Austin, of course your daddy was in on it. You know what else? After he left, Townsend called me once a week, told me how you didn’t have a clue, not even an inkling of what had happened, didn’t even seem to remember your mother, didn’t seem to care. I stewed over it, worried about it, but after a few years, ended up letting it go.
“Then he called me, what was it—oh yeah, must have been nearly twenty years ago, scared out of his gourd that you were suddenly asking questions, and he worried you were going to remember. Your daddy was always a pathetic excuse for a man. He knew what had to be done, but he didn’t have the guts to do it.” Sheriff Harms shrugged. “I knew I should go right up to Boston and shoot your ass. I was planning my trip, didn’t tell your daddy, of course, no telling what he’d have done, but then you just up and disappeared right after you graduated high school. I couldn’t believe you did that, neither could your father. But you were gone. Poof, gone. I thought maybe you’d come back, but you didn’t. I thought I’d find you. After all, you were only a kid, eighteen years old, and what did you know? I’ll tell you, I checked you out as if you were a fugitive, looked all over for you, but there wasn’t a single sign of you. No credit cards, no licenses, nothing at all.
“Then here came the Internet, every year better and better. It should have been a piece of cake, but it wasn’t. I still couldn’t find hide nor hair of you. How did you do it, Austin?”
“Actually, I bought an entire new identity, not all that hard when you hit the streets in Boston.”
“Not bad for a puling little rich kid.”
“Do you know I kept trying to make myself remember, but I couldn’t? Just shadows, voices, until this afternoon when I finally went into the house, and walked into the bathroom where you murdered my mother, and then I climbed up into the attic.
“All right, Sheriff, tell me you’re making this up about my father being involved. Tell me what happened.”
Sheriff Harms laughed, stroked his fingers over the barrel of his gun, and began to toss it from his right to his left hand, again and again, knowing that Austin was looking at it. He wanted to scare him, make him worry that he might not live through this little drama, at least not for long. Maybe a nice car accident off the cliff road into Long’s Quarry, with his wife in the car beside him.
Martin said, “There’s no reason for you not to tell me, no reason for you to keep saying that my father was a part of it. You’re just too chicken to tell the truth, aren’t you, Sheriff? All you can do is throw the blame on someone else.”
“Nah, why would I even care what you thought? Hey, I know Townsend’s your dad, that you believed in him for eighteen years, but the fact is you must have known way down in your gut there was something wrong about your daddy, why else would you have skipped Boston, disappeared, never contacted him again?