Liars table, p.19
Liars' Table, page 19
My stomach tightened, fearing his best news was my worst news. I collapsed into the chair Bobby indicated. “The TV in the dayroom? The computers? Is that…?”
“Yeah, isn’t it awesome?”
“Awesome?”
Bobby’s smile faltered. He cocked his head. He probably expected me to be dancing a jig. He continued, caution in his voice, “I got to thinking last night and reached out to a buddy of mine who runs a couple of consignment stores down in Asheville.”
“Like one of those places people take their old furniture to?”
“Yeah, but wait until you hear the cool part. One of the businesses he owns buys stuff from those companies that clean out old motels and apartment buildings.” He pushed tools to the side of his workbench, planted his elbows on the cleared surface, and leaned toward me. “These big motel chains do a refresh every few years. They rip out the old carpet and put down new. They paint the walls. Put in new towels, sheets, and comforters. Then they install new furniture—beds, chairs, desks, everything.”
“I’m not following.”
“The first thing they have to do is get rid of all the old furnishings. Instead of paying dump fees, they sell it. My buddy buys it by the truckload and resells it through his stores. Couches, chairs, desks, bed frames, lamps, everything. Neat, huh?”
Cold fingers of dread threaded their way through my gut. “Neat.”
“When he’s down to stuff he can’t sell, he donates it to homeless shelters, halfway houses, places like that. Very little of it ever goes to the dump. It’s like he’s the master recycler, and he makes money doing it.” When I didn’t celebrate his friend’s ingenuity, Bobby’s smile slipped again, but he plowed ahead with his story. “Every motel room has a TV. It sounds crazy that they get rid of working electronics, but they aren’t buying high-end equipment. They buy them in bulk and want them all exactly the same to make it easy for their maintenance staff.” Bobby rolled his eyes. “I wish we could afford to do that.”
“Where does he get computers?”
“From the little business centers motels have. No one wants those machines because they aren’t very powerful, but they’re perfect for doing email.”
“You bought it all from him.” I leaned back in my chair and ran my hand through my hair. “But so fast? I thought you had to go slow.”
“That’s the coolest part. I told you he donates his leftover stuff to homeless shelters. So as far as the bosses know, because they don’t know about your little gift, he donated everything. They think he’s Mr. Citizen. Even had a reporter out here. They’re going to do a big article about it.”
“But you gave him the money.”
“Yeah, but look at what we got. All the TVs are working. I even have spares when one goes on the fritz. We have new computers. We got some chairs, tables, and lamps for the dayrooms. We got a good deal. He did us right.” Bobby paused and cocked his head. “You don’t seem happy. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“I’m just shocked.” I did my best to smile. He’d done better than I ever imagined. And faster. Much faster. “I couldn’t be happier. It’s great. You did really well.”
Bobby shook his head. “No, you’ve done good. Too bad no one will ever know, but your secret’s safe with me.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, though I couldn’t remember what about. My head buzzed the whole time. I was not sure if that was from getting banged around earlier or from my ever-growing panic. Now, even when I finally got the money back from the sheriff and added in what Wyatt, C.J., and I rounded up, I still might be short.
What a mess.
32
The electronic lock clicked shut behind me as I entered the dementia unit. Teresa was beaming from the nurses’ desk. “Did you hear? Bobby got some guy to donate TVs.”
I think I smiled. I tried to. Can’t say if I succeeded or not. “That’s great.”
Teresa didn’t pick up on my tense mood. She tilted her head toward Shelby, who was sitting with some other residents in front of the flickering TV screen. “Look how happy she is. They’ve all been so good this afternoon.”
I tried to be happy for them despite the gnawing of doom deep in my belly. The patients seemed to be in a better mood. My crossing of the dayroom went smoothly—simple nods and hellos to the residents. No one stopped me to tell me about a conspiracy or a planned escape or some other creation. No one argued with inanimate objects.
I came to the couch as a burst of canned laughter erupted from the tinny speaker. The people on the screen zinged one-liners at each other in some sitcom that seemed vaguely familiar. The child actors were neat and clean-cut. Their problems could be solved in a half hour. The residents gathered around smiled as if they understood every double entendre.
When the action on the screen faded to commercial, Shelby looked up at me and said, “How was work today, Purvis? Dinner’s almost ready, so wash up. I was just watching a little TV as it cooked.”
A warmth spread through me, calming my jittery nerves. I needed a pleasant surprise after a day of bad ones, and having Shelby call me by name meant the world to me. She might not be in the current year, but at least she knew who I was. I’d take whatever I could get and was determined to push the impending meeting out of my mind for the next hour. I just wanted a few good moments with her.
I sat beside her on the couch and took her offered hand. “Did you have a good day today, dear?”
She sighed. “Work was fine, but the school called. Jessica skipped classes again. I tried to talk to her about it, but you know how that goes. I’m worried what’s she going to do next.”
I squeezed her hand gently. “Me too, dear, me too.”
Jessica had been, to put it mildly, a surprising child.
News of Shelby’s pregnancy got out quickly in our small town, and congratulations poured in. The women at church gathered for a baby shower, helping us with the baby supplies we suddenly needed. C.J. showed up unannounced one day with paint and brushes to get a nursery together. We began to think we would be prepared when Jessica surprised us again by coming three weeks before her due date.
The contractions hit in the middle of night with little warning. By the time we realized it wasn’t a false alarm, they were coming fast and furious. We barely made it to the hospital before Jessica made a grand entrance before Shelby’s doctor even arrived.
We were expecting Jeffrey, not Jessica. We were told such things are rare—even rarer nowadays, but this was forty years ago. Sometimes a boy was born when the parents expected a girl because important body parts had been hidden during the ultrasound. In our case, though, the technician mistook a shadow, or maybe the umbilical cord, and declared we were having a boy. Those baby shower clothes and the light-blue paint C.J. had spread on the nursery walls needed some updating.
Not that we should have bothered. Jessica never cared the least for girly things. She preferred riding a dirt bike or an ATV on the backwoods trails to dresses and dolls. Despite Shelby’s efforts to entice her with old family recipes, Jessica never wanted to be in the kitchen.
That should have made it easier for me. I could have taken her fishing and camping. Spent time teaching her how to build a campfire, how to handle a gun, how to whittle a stick, how to tie a knot, and how to care for animals. Those were the things I could have taught her.
I tried, but I couldn’t help but notice her eyes, her chin, her nose, and the shape of her mouth. The older she grew, the more obvious it became. She was going to be taller than her mother or me with a heavier frame. It challenged me, every day, to see how much Jessica resembled Horace. She looked like what she was—his daughter, not mine.
Shelby and I avoided any mention of it, doing our best not to open old wounds. We certainly never mentioned it to Jessica. What was the point of burdening a little girl with the dirty secret of her conception?
That didn’t keep the details from her, though. She figured things out. Maybe on her own. Maybe through the curse of small-town gossip. You don’t keep something like an affair a secret in Millerton. Women whispered about it during book club meetings or civic fundraisers. Old men discussed it over breakfast with their buddies. Maybe a child overheard it, shared it at school, and it got back to the target. Accidentally. Or maliciously.
She was eleven the day she marched into my little workshop behind the house and demanded to know if I was her real dad. I’ve replayed that moment a thousand times. I should’ve gotten up from my stool and wrapped her up in my arms.
But when I heard her voice, I heard Horace. When I looked at the fierceness in her eyes, I saw Horace glaring back at me. When I saw the way she set her jaw as she demanded to know the truth, I saw Horace commanding a room like he always had. The pain of Shelby’s betrayal burned, and it paralyzed me. Instead of going to her, I hesitated.
I’d give anything to have that moment over. I’ve agonized over that conversation, thought of all the different ways it could have gone.
Things grew more difficult in her teen years. Jessica had always had perfect grades and eagerly did her homework, but she lost interest in school, and her grades plummeted. She snuck out her window and hung out with boys, drinking beer and smoking pot. We tried to enforce curfews but only succeeded in escalating conflicts.
Shortly after she turned sixteen, she and Shelby were in a terrible fight. I came home from work and felt the tension, but neither one of them would talk about it. Jessica went to her room, barricaded the door, and threw things against the wall. Shelby locked herself in the bathroom and cried. I bounced between their doors, up and down the stairs, trying to find out what it was about, but ended up eating dinner alone and confused.
That was, I now realize, the end. A few days later, Jessica was gone.
I had never forgiven myself for not loving her enough. I vowed when she came home, it would be different. I would love her unconditionally. I would tell her that none of it mattered. I would tell her she was my daughter, no matter we didn’t share genetics.
I never got the chance. When we received the phone call that she had died, it crushed me to the core. I knew that moment in my workshop, that small piece of time that only Jessica and I knew about, was the root of everything that happened afterward.
When we were told she had left a son, we were shocked. I had a chance to redeem myself. I didn’t know how I would ever be able to explain to him how I had failed his mother. I vowed to Jessica in a silent prayer that I would make up for all my failings to her. I would start by telling him the whole story. Then he could judge me as he wished.
When I met him for the first time, I knew I would never do that. Under the shaggy hair and dirty skin, the face of Horace Pearson stared back at me. The boy was the spitting image of his grandfather.
In the years since, I had never told him what happened before his mother left Millerton. I had never apologized for chasing her away. I had never explained why I didn’t treat her as my daughter.
Worst of all, I had never called him my grandson.
33
Dusk settled over the mountains as C.J., Wyatt and I arrived at the nearly empty parking lot of the Coogan’s Cove picnic area. C.J. and I had spent many days fishing here, but we were usually long gone before the sun dropped. The road to the cove was narrow and winding with rock outcroppings rising along the edge of one side and steep drop-offs on the other. It wasn’t an easy drive in the daylight but became downright perilous at night.
A scattering of cars remained after a summer day of hiking and fishing. A few people would be down by the river, packing up their fishing gear. Others would be completing day hikes. Only two small groups of people used the picnic area as far as we noticed.
A family at the nearest picnic table packed the remnants of their dinner. A boy of maybe ten gripped a red Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket overflowing with debris. He managed to carry it without losing any contents to the nearest bear-proof trash can and waited for a teenaged girl. She bobbed her head, dancing to music I guessed streamed through her white earbuds, though I never understood how people enjoyed walking around with noisy Q-tips shoved in their ears all day. She rolled her eyes in response to her little brother’s pleas for help. With an exaggerated sigh, she opened the metal door and waited while he dumped the contents. Dad slipped his arm around Mom and whispered to her, the two of them giggling as they followed the kids to a shiny sedan with an overflowing luggage carrier strapped to the top. Minutes later, they left for their hotel or to complete their journey home or wherever they were headed.
At a far picnic table in a shadowy corner, a young couple kissed and groped each other. Probably high schoolers enjoying the last evenings of their summer break, they ignored their untouched and cooling food on the table, far more intent on tasting each other. They didn’t react to the arrival of a car containing three nervous men. I doubted they knew we were there at all.
After I shut off the ignition, only the sound of the ticking of the cooling engine filled the air. I glanced at my watch. “Ten minutes early.”
C.J. said, “Maybe he isn’t here yet.”
“That’s the car he was driving yesterday.” I pointed to a space occupied by an Explorer a dozen slots away in the parking lot.
Wyatt’s head swiveled as he surveyed the woods. “He would’ve wanted to get here early, familiarize himself with the area. Make sure you didn’t set him up somehow.”
C.J. groaned. “So he’s watching us.”
I pushed open the driver’s door and winced at the creak of the hinges echoing in the silence of the parking lot. The female half of the couple broke away from her partner and looked at me.
I leaned against the hood of the car, doing my best to appear braver than I felt. “Let’s get this over with.”
Together, we climbed the wood-chip-covered path to the rear of the picnic area. The young couple glared in irritation at the interruption. Apparently, they had come up for enough air to recognize this wasn’t their bedroom or the back seat of their car.
When we reached the top of the hill, the forest thickened into shadows so dense we couldn’t see if anyone waited. A small wooden sign with an arrow pointed down a dark trail weaving to the river below. We huddled and debated what to do.
I couldn’t see the tattooed man but assumed he was watching us. “His move.”
We didn’t have to wait long until a voice came from the shadows. “Who are they?”
I turned in the direction it came from but couldn’t find the source. “My friends.”
“The young one… Is that your grandson?”
Wyatt nodded but didn’t speak.
“And the big old dude. I’m guessing that’s Cody.”
C.J. replied, “Cody Joe.”
“Cody Joe? How quaint.” A twig snapped in the woods. I thought a shadow shifted, but I wasn’t sure. “Cute how you left out the Joe part. Thought maybe if I went looking for Cody, no one would realize who I was asking about?”
I could only shrug in defense. I had been protecting my friend and wasn’t ashamed about that. No sense in arguing.
“Why did all three of you come? You could’ve brought the money by yourself and not put them at risk.”
I didn’t like him thinking of risk in the same way I did. That made it all too real. It also confirmed we had made the right decision. “They wouldn’t let me.”
Wyatt spoke up. “We thought it would be safer this way.”
“For him, maybe. Not for me. And sure not for you, Grandson.”
The gurgling of the rushing water of the river had muffled our ability to pinpoint the man’s location. The metallic sound of the slide being pulled back on a pistol clanged through the woods. My heart skipped a beat. I held my breath and braced myself for a shot, but none came.
The tattooed man materialized from the shadows with a pistol held to his side. “Thought I would even the odds. Three on one didn’t seem fair.”
My bladder felt full. I wouldn’t have been surprised to feel a stream running down my leg. Fortunately, I was an old man. I only dribbled. No one noticed. “No need for a gun.”
“As long as no one does anything stupid, you’re right.”
I swallowed, trying to lubricate my throat to keep my voice from cracking, but I didn’t have any saliva.
The tattooed man motioned with his free hand to the nearby picnic table. “Put the money there and back up. If it’s all there, this’ll be over.”
The moment of truth. “I wish I could.”
His eyes narrowed, the gun clenched in one hand as the open hand slowly fell to his side. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have it yet.”
The tattooed man stood stock still, puzzlement spreading across his face. “Why would you come without it?”
“What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?”
“Gone to your house and killed you.”
“That was my guess. I’m trying to avoid that.” I spread my arms wide, my best “we’ve come in peace” look. I doubted it worked. “I’m getting your money back. I’ll have it tomorrow morning. As soon as it’s in my hands, I’ll drive over to Knoxville and deliver it to you. Promise.”
“Promise?” The tattooed man stared into the woods at the spot he had come from. Through gritted teeth, he said, “You promised you’d have it tonight.”
“No, actually, I didn’t.”
The man closed the distance between us in a flash and jammed his pistol against my head, the cold metal digging into his skin. “You calling me a liar?” he yelled.
I’ve always been told your life flashes before your eyes in moments like that. It didn’t for me. I only saw the potential future. The tattooed man pulling the trigger and everything being over in a flash. Wyatt leaping forward to defend me and taking the bullet instead. C.J. trying to use his bulk to wrestle the gun away and failing. I needed to calm things before any of those things happened. “No. Never. I just meant…”
