Hunter's Moon (16 page)

CJ had decided to call it a night, to go back to the apartment that Artie was letting him use, and see to his dog, when the door opened. CJ swiveled on the stool, and it took a few seconds before he recognized his cousin Richard. The cruel one.

CJ hadn’t seen him since the day of Sal’s funeral, but that had been sufficient time to get a feel for what type of man he was. He’d caught a hint or two of conversation that mentioned his wife, Abby, and why she wasn’t there. That the black eye hadn’t healed to the point where she could go out in public.

“Richard,” CJ said as his cousin chose the seat next to him.

“Where have you been hiding?” Richard asked as Rick set a Bud in front of him.

“I haven’t been hiding,” CJ said. “Just busy.”

“Fair enough,” Richard said. He grabbed his bottle of beer and drained half of it in a few quick swallows. When he set the bottle back down, he leaned in closer to CJ, who had to stop himself from pulling back. “It’s just that you haven’t had much time for family since you’ve been back. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

CJ resisted the urge to offer Richard a breath mint.

“Like I said, I’ve been busy.”

Richard nodded and disengaged. He watched the hockey game for a while, during which time CJ fished around in his wallet for enough to cover his tab. He threw a twenty on the bar and stood.

“I’ll see you at six,” he said to Dennis, and the other man nodded.

CJ took a step away from the bar, but Richard’s hand shot out and wrapped around his arm.

“Hey, didn’t you used to date Julie? Ben’s wife?”

The question itself was innocuous enough, though CJ felt his face flush with anger, perhaps because of the nature of the person asking it. Without turning around he said, “That was a long time ago.”

“She still looks good, don’t she?” Richard’s hand tightened on CJ’s arm. “I wouldn’t mind . . .”

Had CJ stuck around to hear the rest of the sentence, he wasn’t certain what would have happened. He pulled his arm free and stalked away, his cousin’s laughter following him out the door.

Chapter 11

CJ finished stocking the shelf with paint thinner, caulk, and a number of other related items and stepped away, admiring his work. He let go of a large yawn. He’d been up early to work on the house with Dennis, and he was supposed to go over there when he got off here at the store. Years of sitting in front of a computer had left him unfit for manual labor, and he was feeling it this morning.

He liked the fact that Artie had left the place just as it was years ago, with the exceptions of a few new products and the scarecrow in the corner. CJ had heard Artie talking to Cadbury once or twice, when he thought he was alone, and CJ had decided that as long as he didn’t hear the scarecrow answer back, everything would be fine.

In the last hour, not a single customer had come in, and the customer traffic had been light enough over the week and a half CJ had worked here that he wondered how Artie could afford to pay him. Not that CJ would have demanded it of him; the man had given him a place to stay—him and Thor—and didn’t begrudge the dog making himself at home in the hardware store. Right now, Thoreau was curled up by the front door, catching a stream of sunlight that came through the glass, content as could be. In the short time he’d been here, Thor had taken to small-town life, enough so that CJ felt a bit guilty about keeping him as a house dog for so long. An animal like Thor was meant for the wide-open places afforded by a town like Adelia, not the kitchen of a home in the middle of a subdivision.

As if he knew he was being watched, Thor opened his eyes and raised his head. CJ saw just the barest hint of a wag touch the tip of the dog’s tail but he didn’t encourage it, and in a few seconds the dog lowered his head to resume his nap.

For some reason, watching the dog made him think of Janet. Even though every conversation he’d had with her since leaving Tennessee had been just short of caustic, he almost missed the phone calls. While the conversations had been decidedly one-sided, and while she definitely hadn’t been referring to him in endearing terms, he found he enjoyed hearing her voice. Working on his marriage was one of the things his men’s group had been arming him for just before things took a quick trip south. He’d have probably bungled the whole thing anyway; he hadn’t been a quick, or even willing, study. He hated the whole men’s group thing. He liked the guys well enough, had even begun to think of a few of them as friends, but it didn’t take him long to realize that baring his soul to a group of men he’d known for only three months wasn’t high on his to-do list.

CJ’s conversion had caught him by surprise, because it was something that had happened without his having been aware that he’d been looking for it. The whole thing had just sort of snuck up on him—although that did nothing to make it any less meaningful, or welcome. Even so, it had been difficult for him to admit he had a need that he had to rely on someone else to fill, especially when he’d spent the last half of his life steering clear of problematic entanglements. He suspected that was a clue as to why his marriage was in the process of failing.

Pastor Stan hadn’t needed his psychology degree to recognize that. He’d accused CJ of “emotional truncation”—a term the pastor had coined and seemed particularly pleased by—and suggested that joining the Wednesday morning men’s group was the tonic he needed. It would provide, in Stan’s words, “a fellowship of like men who were learning what it meant to live in grace.” CJ had laughed at that, right in front of the pastor, and he’d only felt a little badly about it. One of the things that had always bugged him about Christians was their ability to take plain old words and turn them into these aphorisms that were like some kind of alternately pithy or pretentious religious code. He’d had a fear early on that whatever made Christians talk that way somehow would infect him and trickle into his writing.

Still, he’d joined the men’s group, and it hadn’t been all bad. Had things with Janet not taken such a downward turn with the revelation of her affair, he might have even been able to use some of what these more seasoned Christians were teaching him to win her back. He’d thought about giving Stan a call but had decided against it. It had been nice to pretend that he didn’t have another life waiting for him hundreds of miles away—one with a mortgage, an editor, a litigious reviewer, a men’s group, and a blank computer screen just waiting to parrot back his words. And the prospect of writing the article about Graham allowed him to stay where he was without feeling too guilty about it. Maybe it would give him time to get his head straight despite the ghosts from his past that tormented him, and those had shown themselves to be no respecter of geography anyway.

The gardening supplies were next on his list. The first time CJ worked at Kaddy’s, he would never have considered rearranging Artie’s shelves, even though the setup seemed counterintuitive even to a teenager. Now he worked under the philosophy that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. He was halfway through the project, organizing the lawn maintenance supplies in one section, the gardening supplies in another area, with the fertilizers and weed killers between them, followed by mulch and landscape rock samples near the front to catch the eye of those entering the store, when the front door creaked open.

Artie took two steps into his store, careful to avoid kicking or stepping on Thor, and stopped to assess the work of his only employee. CJ gave his boss a wink before proceeding to pull a handful of pine mulch from a bag and dropping it into a shallow tray, where he smoothed it before sliding the tray into position.

Finally, after what seemed like a long time, Artie said, “That’s certainly eye-catching.”

CJ took a step back to admire his handiwork, brushing his hands clean on his work pants. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”

Artie nodded and took another few seconds to peruse the display with a critical eye. Then, almost hesitantly, he said, “I sell quite a bit of mulch.”

“True, but now you’ll sell more of it out of season.” When Artie didn’t respond, CJ turned to look at him. “See, in season you lower your prices to compete with the big-box stores. So you sell a lot but your profit margin is low. This way, you treat mulch as an impulse purchase. More people buying it out of season when the price is higher.”

Artie appeared to be digesting this explanation, perhaps even appreciating it. Then he just shrugged and aimed his next words to Cadbury. “The boy leaves town and becomes a famous writer, and along the way he picks up skills in product placement. How about that?”

CJ looked over at Cadbury, half expecting some kind of response. He had to do a double take because, for just an instant, it looked as if the scarecrow had winked at him.

Artie crossed the floor, stopping next to CJ and taking a closer look at his afternoon’s work.

“I suppose it will work,” he said.

“Give it a try. If it doesn’t increase sales in a month, I’ll put it back the way it was.”

That earned him a raised eyebrow from Artie. “So are you saying you’re going to be here a month from now?”

CJ frowned. He opened his mouth as if he would say something, but then shut it. Instead he stood next to his boss, who had returned to admiring a few square feet of entrepreneurial fancy with a good deal more interest than the thing deserved. After a time, CJ said, “I’d better go finish that cabinet.”

Artie nodded, a smile on his face, but before CJ could grab a broom, the door opened and CJ turned when he heard Thor give a low growl.

“Hello, little brother,” Graham said, after giving the dog a look to be sure it wasn’t going to bite. “You think it’s smart to have a vicious animal around customers?”

CJ shrugged. “He’s never growled at anyone else.”

If that bothered Graham, he chose not to show it.

“Do you have a few minutes? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“I have some work to do in the back. You can come along if you want.”

He turned his back on his brother and walked away, and after a pause, Graham followed.

“I’m starting my last big campaign push this Friday,” Graham said.

“Good luck with that,” CJ said as he picked up a palm sander and goggles. Artie had told CJ that he could putter around in the back whenever things were slow up front, and CJ was using that freedom to use some of the skills that saw their birth in this very room twenty years earlier. Even so, he wanted anything he made to have some use—preferably by Artie. So he’d decided on a new display unit: a maple cabinet with extendable shelves and a pair of glass doors. He thought it would complement the front counter, and just maybe Artie would see fit to get rid of the scarecrow in order to accommodate it.

“Daniel thought it would be better to wait a few weeks after Sal’s funeral.”

“So as to capitalize on legacy without appearing unseemly,” CJ said. He started to sand one of the shelves he’d cut that morning.

Graham ignored the slight. Raising his voice to carry over the sound of the palm sander, he said, “I’d like you to be there at the press conference.”

“Where?”

“Albany.”

CJ smiled and shook his head. “I have to work.”

At that, the genial look Graham wore disappeared, leaving an irritation that must have been sensed beyond the back room, because Thor chose that moment to come through the door. The dog gave Graham a single look before crossing to his master’s side.

“Yeah, about that,” Graham said. “What are you doing working in a hardware store?”

“A guy’s got to pay the bills somehow,” CJ answered.

He put down the sander and tossed the goggles onto a workbench. He selected a hammer from among the three well-worn specimens hanging on the tool board. All the while, he never looked at Graham but knew the exasperated expression he would be aiming at CJ’s back. But, ever the politician, Graham didn’t answer right away. He took time to compose himself and then sat down on an old desk that Artie kept in the back.

“Look, I’m not going to pretend to understand what’s going on with you—why you’ve turned Sal’s funeral into an opportunity to take a lousy job and live in a lousy apartment. But since you’re here, I thought we could—”

“Use me as political good fortune? Famous writer comes back to small town to support brother’s senate candidacy?”

“I thought we could spend some time together, catch up. It’s been a long time.”

It amazed CJ that Graham seemed able to ignore the elephant in the room. Even during the years when CJ had forced it to a place in his brain where he wasn’t able to constantly access it— when he could carry on as if nothing had happened, even enjoy growing up with the man who now sat near him—not one word had been spoken—not since the night of the shooting, not since the night Graham came to his room.

With that thought, he rooted around the top of the workbench for a container of nails he was sure he’d secured from the front of the store. He pushed aside a handful of tools he’d used through the course of the morning, along with a container of wood glue he’d forgotten to cap, and a T-square that he nudged just hard enough to make tumble to the floor.

“What are you doing?” an irritated Graham asked.

“Looking for a nail.”

As CJ continued his search, his brother released a sharp laugh.

“You mean like the one that holds you to your cross of mediocrity?” Graham asked.

The comment reached CJ just as he found the wood nails hidden behind the router. His hand closed on the container and stayed there, and he didn’t move again until Graham had gone.