Beneath the Weight of Sadness (23 page)

And then the burning, blazing hatred had descended upon the fecundity, drying it up so that, like a seed pod in a desert of waste, I could feel myself grow so light that even the slightest breeze, the slightest stir of air, would take me so far from the center of my Truman that I would never be able to return.

And he had his breath blasting like a hot dry furnace on me and I was certain I would be pushed away, and that is when I saw the hand ready to reach out and pull him away so that I wouldn’t fly apart. And I waited then to see what he would do and then he turned and walked away from me and the room and I hurriedly picked up the wine and drank it and I could feel the weight of it holding me against the storm of his lingering breath, and then I knew I was protected.

Ethan

Two weeks after Truman’s death

I was standing at the corner of the bar in the sunroom fixing myself a martini exactly fourteen days after Truman was murdered. It was ten a.m. I had the pitcher raised, stirring the gin and the slight amount of vermouth. I looked up and Amy was standing at the French doors with the telephone receiver in her hand. She looked old and tired and sad. She held the receiver out to me, her hand trembling slightly.

“It’s for you.”

“Tell whoever it is I’m not in.” I picked up the martini glass in my left hand and began to pour from the pitcher.

“You tell them,” she said.

She put the receiver down on the back of a wingback chair and left the room. I watched her as she made her way toward the kitchen. Her walk was unsteady, I think, but I could’ve been wrong. When she disappeared from my sight, I took a sip of the gin. It was cold and clean tasting and it gave me an instant jolt back to where I’d been five hours before. I figured the entire pitcher would get me where I wanted to be, and I was determined to get there. My brother had called on the phone the evening before and he wanted me to come down and visit him for a week or so. He’d included Amy, but he knew it was only a gesture, and in honesty he had invited me because he wanted me away from my wife. He’d heard from someone, probably Susan or Lester, that I was having a bad time, that I was drinking too much. I would get drunk and then I would either pack or I wouldn’t and I would take a limo and fly to Charlotte. I’d booked a flight for the evening but I didn’t know if I would go. The thought of packing seemed daunting.

I contemplated whether to pick up the receiver still lying on the back of the chair. I thought it was probably my brother or sister. It was Sunday, and if it’d been Parachuk, Amy would’ve told me. Finally I answered.

“Ethan, John Collier here. I was about to hang up.” I was surprised to hear his voice. I hadn’t thought of him for years. “Jesus Christ, Ethan, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry for your loss. Truman…your grandfather called me last night in D.C. My God, this is just terrible.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

“I won’t ask how Amy is doing. I could just tell from her voice.”

There was a long pause on the line and I tried to think of the last time I’d seen John Collier. I guess it was the last time he’d campaigned. Amy and I had gone to the Sheridan for a victory dinner, but mostly we did it for my grandfather. Collier was a Republican and Amy and I didn’t care much for his politics. But he was a family friend and a good man when he wasn’t acting as a senator.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Ethan. Your grandfather tells me you have the local police trying to find out who the hell did this awful thing to your son. By God, I can’t tell you how shocked I was when Truman told me. It’s a damn awful thing to hear.”

Like most politicians, John Collier could talk. But it was nice of him to call. He didn’t have to do that. I was moved by the gesture. But I also knew he had something on his mind. I waited for him to speak.

“I’m sure the police are doing all they can over there, Ethan, but dammit, you should’ve called me. I know a few people in the bureau, you can well imagine, and I want them to get involved in this. Hell, Ethan, what’s it been now since…how long has it been?”

“It’s been two weeks.”

“That’s just it. Two weeks too long. Hell, there’s probably never been anything like this in that town of yours…what is it…Persia?”

“Yes,” I said and emptied my glass. I poured another as I listened to him.

“Your grandfather means a hell of a lot to me, Ethan, and I don’t want that old war horse feeling like he’s got his hands tied to his feet on this thing. I never heard him so upset as he was last night.”

“He hasn’t called me since the funeral,” I said, not sure why I would impart that information.

“Too damn upset, I imagine. And I know you and Amy can’t be thinking of anything right at the moment. Hell, Ethan, I’ve been thinking about nothing else since I was told last night! I can’t imagine how you two are coping. Anyway, I’m going to get some agents involved in this. Whoever the son of a bitch is who did this has to be found and brought to justice.”

The gin was making me a little drunk, and I felt like laughing. I knew John Collier was sincere in what he said. But he was a politician after all, and it seemed like he was talking to one of his constituents, which I guess he was. But I knew he was close to my grandfather and so I was touched by his concern. Old Truman was eighty-seven and not in the best of health. He had an appetite for good food and good whiskey and fine cigars. I knew I’d have to call him in a few days to make sure he knew I was thinking of him. The fact that he’d learned Truman was gay and was still devastated by his death was very important to me, and would’ve been to Truman, too.

“I can’t do anything right now, John. I’m flying down to my brother’s later today, and I’m just not capable of doing much beyond getting out of bed each morning, for the time being.”

“You don’t have to worry about a thing, Ethan. I’ll take care of everything. How is Amy?”

“She’s holding her own,” I lied.

“Well, you’ll both be in my prayers, you can damn well be sure of that. I have to stay down here in this godforsaken town for some important votes, but as soon as I get back up there I’m going to come and see you two.”

“That will be nice, John,” I lied again.

“Is there anything I can do in the meantime, Ethan?”

“No, thank you. There really isn’t. I’m just taking it a day at a time.”

“Well, you just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“I will, John, and I appreciate the call.”

“You take care now, and call Truman. He’ll wanna here from you.”

I hung up the phone and drained my second glass. I didn’t really want the FBI involved. I was afraid it would set Amy off even more. Plus, I didn’t know what they could do that Nelson Parachuk wasn’t already doing. I supposed they could cross-reference similar cases to see if there had been other murders of gays in the area, but I could feel in all parts of me that this murder had not been done by some transient. Whoever had killed Truman lived in this town—about that, at least, I agreed with Amy. I decided I’d drink the rest of my pitcher and then call on Nelson Parachuk on a Sunday morning. I knew where he lived, and now that I’d once again been reminded that grief wasn’t enough in this situation, I wanted some answers about who killed my Truman.

I was sure Wendy Parachuk thought I was a Jehovah’s Witness, or maybe a salesman, until I identified myself. Instantly her look of irritation turned to sympathy. She was a pretty woman with blonde hair and a small nose with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge. She had a slight figure and an attractive smile. I knew I’d seen her in town, but I couldn’t place her in a specific context. She opened the door and invited me into a modest but very neat and clean house. If they had children, they were made to look after their own messes, or else Nelson Parachuk’s wife was a stay-at-home mom. Either way, the house was immaculate. That boded well, I thought, for Parachuk’s investigative thoroughness. Maybe.

She led me into what must’ve served as both a TV room and a study, with a wall of bookshelves bracketing a window looking onto the corner of another ranch-style house nearby. The television was on, quietly, in the corner, a Sunday news show discussing the economic woes of the country and world. I sat at the edge of an ottoman as Wendy Parachuk went to tell her husband I was here. I was impressed she wasn’t disturbed by my visit, but it could be that the four glasses of gin had clouded my judgment. I scanned the books as I waited: mostly historical biographies and historical novels, the same kind of material I was interested in. At the end of one shelf was a length of books devoted to children. It was either for their own children or grandchildren; it was hard to tell the age of either of the adult Parachuks.

Parachuk entered soon after, wearing a pair of wool slacks, a white shirt and a cardigan sweater. He had comfortable slippers on his feet. He’d just shaved, which was evident by a small patch of shaving cream just beneath his right ear. He smelled of toiletries.

“I’m sorry to call on a Sunday,” I said.

“I don’t mind,” he said, his smile genuine and appealing.

He had an Eastern European face, square and serious. Now that I was seeing him for the second time, I realized he must have been in his early fifties or late forties, which meant he’d married a woman who hadn’t aged much or was much younger. I guessed that the books at the end of the shelf were either reminders of a past they both shared, or for grandchildren. I hadn’t noticed any pictures in the room.

“I’ve come to ask about the progress made on Truman’s…” I couldn’t finish the question and I suddenly felt tears welling in my eyes.

He sat down in an overstuffed chair opposite me. He folded his hands together, his arms resting on his knees.

“We’ve canvassed who may have seen or heard something in the area where we found Truman.” He shook his head. “Nothing to this point, I’m afraid to say. I spoke with Carly Rodenbaugh and she didn’t really have any ideas to help us with. Her boyfriend was Tommy Beck.”

“Yes, Tommy Beck. Did you speak with him?”

“I did, actually. Aside from having an overbearing father and a slight jealous streak…”

“What do you mean ‘slight jealous streak’?”

He looked at me for a flash of a second, not with anger, but perhaps with frustration. Some emotion I couldn’t discern.

“He had a fight with a boy last summer. It had something to do with Carly. I wouldn’t have known about it except that Carly told me when I interviewed her. She said she thought he was jealous of Truman, too, but she wasn’t certain of that. No red flags went up when I questioned him. I haven’t erased him from the list of people of interest, but he seemed not to be the type who would do what was done to your son. Getting into a fistfight is one thing…”

“It’s been two weeks, detective. My wife is having a lot of trouble with this. I’m having a lot of trouble with this.”

“We’re doing as much as we can. I questioned Logan Marsh and there wasn’t much there.” I saw a shift in his demeanor for a flash. What did that mean? “We’ve questioned most of the friends Truman had on Facebook, those who seemed relevant or who seemed like they might know something. We are going to go over that list again. We are going to go from house to house, business to business, in the area of the square once again to see if anyone heard anything, saw anything. We suspect the weapon was a baseball bat but we haven’t turned anything up.”

“Did you search the Beck boy’s house for a bat? He plays baseball, doesn’t he?”

“We have to have reasonable cause to do something like that.” He looked at me with something close to admonishment, and I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. “It didn’t help that your wife called Mrs. Beck accusing either her son or husband of the crime.”

“She’s sick with grief,” I said too loudly. “And nothing’s been done to find the killer.”

I looked down at the floor and shook my head.

“Amy goes between not believing he’s dead to wondering why the killer hasn’t been caught.” I looked up at his eyes. “She’s on medication, but it really isn’t helping. Nothing is helping us.”

“I’ve contacted the state police to ask for more help than they’ve given. I need more manpower to check out any and all leads, but we haven’t been left with much. The heavy rain after your son’s death made all of this more difficult. We’ve been over every part of that area. There is not a shred of evidence. No footprints, no hair, no clothing fibers, no prints or traces of blood other than Truman’s.”

“What does that mean? Does it mean you’ve given up?”

“No, it doesn’t at all. We have to keep interviewing people who knew Truman or people he had contact with on Facebook. Of course, the other problem is we never found his cell phone. Maybe that would give us some insight into who he’d last had contact with. There’s a long process we have to go through in order to get the cell phone records. We should get them soon. I don’t know. We’ve sent out a description of the murder to all the police agencies in the nation to see if there’s any matches similar to that of Truman.”

He sat forward in his chair. “I know it’s not much to go on here, but I’m convinced this crime was not committed by a transient. I think someone had a grudge against Truman or against his lifestyle.”

He looked at me closely, leaning in even further. “Some sick son of a bitch did this, Mr. Engroff. Some sick son of a bitch in this town, and I want to find him. If you’ll forgive me for saying this, your son was a good boy. I’ve done enough investigation now to know your son was a very good and very bright boy.”