Hunter's Moon (30 page)

But perfection was a fleeting animal; she bent down and picked up his shirt.

The moon shone brightly around his shades; she could see everything in her son’s room clearly. He’d been writing earlier, and while she knew she shouldn’t, she crossed silently to his desk and bent down to inspect the handwritten pages. Jack was turning into a talented writer, and she loved that at the same time as she hated it. It reminded her of CJ, even as it teased her with the knowledge that, aside from the Baxter blood, her son had nothing in common with the boy she’d loved so long ago. Of late, many of the things happening in her life had that particular duality.

Ben, of course, encouraged Jack’s interest in writing. And unlike Julie, he didn’t seem at all bothered by how this interest reminded his wife of someone else. When he’d married her, Ben had made a promise that the past would stay the past. Not once had he broken that promise.

He wasn’t dumb. He knew how hard the last few weeks had been for her—how confusing it was to have CJ here. All he’d done was give her the space she needed so that she could figure out how to handle things. The problem was that she didn’t know how to do that. How did a person deal with emotions that had at one time been successfully dealt with when the one dealing with them anew was a different person? Not necessarily a better person, but certainly different.

She stayed in her son’s room for a long while but she never did read any of the words he’d written. When she left the room she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Back in the living room, she searched for some Mark Knopfler amid the CDs, popped in Shangri-la, and turned the volume down so it wouldn’t wake Ben or the kids.

The music started in time with her tears. She sank into Ben’s recliner and let them wash over her. And she didn’t even know what she was crying for beyond a general sense of loss, and a feeling of guilt that had dogged her steps since the moment CJ Baxter returned to town. At some point the tears turned into prayers, and a while after that the prayers turned into a peace that was like détente.

When the CD ended after sixty-six minutes, she didn’t notice.

The clouds kept the moon from dispensing all but the most meager light, and most of what might have fallen regardless was caught up in the tree branches, which seemed to soak up the illumination, even though their leaves had draped the cold ground below them.

Graham, though, didn’t need the moon’s help to find this spot.

He was cold, even in the heavy coat he wore, which was one of the ways that age left its mark. Even ten years ago he wouldn’t have felt the weather. Now the wetness of the woods got up into him, made his back ache.

It seemed appropriate, because this was the spot where Eddie had died.

The night was quiet except for a light wind that whistled through the hollow trunk of a tree behind him, and a lone owl that called from what could have been any direction.

Graham’s feet had found the spot, as they always did, until he was like a tree rooted to the earth. Or like a migrant bird that always returned to the same branch when the season changed.

He wasn’t overly sentimental, nor was he prone to harbor guilt for something that was long past—a quarter century past. But he was susceptible to introspection, to weighing how the contents of a single instant could so drastically alter the courses of several lives. And Graham was well aware of how the ripples from that day had reached shores more distant than he could have anticipated.

“I’m sorry you’re dead, Eddie,” Graham said.

The woods took the words and swallowed them up, and if either they or Eddie was inclined to grant any kind of forgiveness, they kept it to themselves.

Chapter 23

Of all the things that should have occupied CJ’s attention, there was only one that wouldn’t leave him alone while he finished his toast. Perhaps it was because, of all the other things he could have pondered, the one he chose to obsess over was also the one that had the least to do with him. The problem, though, was that the man responsible for the puzzle, and who sat next to him chewing on a piece of bacon, remained inscrutable on the subject.

“Oh, honey,” Maggie
tsk
ed at him. “I think you’re just going to have to accept the fact that he’s not all there.” She was walking by with a plate of food as she said it and she patted Dennis’s hand affectionately.

Dennis, who didn’t seem at all put out by the comment, took a sip of coffee and said, “She’s p-probably right.”

CJ was starting to suspect that was the only answer that made sense. After all, why would a multimillionaire still live with his parents, drive a beat-up Chevy truck, and bounce between low-paying, labor-intensive jobs? It wasn’t any of CJ’s business, but for some reason the question wouldn’t leave him alone.

He decided that he needed to find a new tactic, something to get Dennis to spill his guts. But before he had a chance to formulate one, the bell on the front door gave an emphatic jingle.

It wasn’t until he heard a few of the regulars snicker that CJ turned and saw Artie. During his short time in Adelia, CJ had pieced together enough to know that Maggie did, indeed, carry some kind of torch for CJ’s boss, and that it had something to do with the senior prom, although the details on the exact nature of the relationship were a bit hazy. What that told CJ was that Artie wasn’t entirely clueless regarding her affections, and that whatever it was that normally kept him out of the eatery had nothing to do with the food.

Artie stood in the doorway, scanning the crowd until he found his employee at the counter. Artie didn’t make it more than a few steps before CJ understood that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter, boss?” CJ asked.

Up close, it was obvious that Artie was agitated. He glanced around the restaurant, his eyes lingering for just a moment on Maggie, who was approaching them wearing a look of concern.

“It’s your mother,” Artie said, trying to keep his voice down, which might have worked had everyone in the place not been straining to hear.

Immediately several horrible possibilities flashed through CJ’s brain. He slid off the stool and took Artie by the arm. “What’s wrong?”

Artie didn’t answer right away. He looked around at the faces pointed their way and then, leaning toward CJ, he whispered, “I don’t know much except that she took a shot at your uncle Edward.”

By the time they arrived at CJ’s mother’s house, Artie had filled him in—at least as much as he was able. Just as Artie was about to open the store, Julie had come pounding on the door looking for CJ. Apparently CJ’s father had sent Edward over to the house to try and procure the Winchester. From what CJ had gleaned, it had been some time since the last such foray, but had this one held to form, Edward would have either been turned away at the door, or even invited in for tea before being sent away empty-handed. Instead, Dorothy met him with a gun— oddly enough, the same gun Edward had been sent to collect and that the leak in the attic had damaged. To hear Artie tell it, who’d heard it secondhand, she’d chased Edward from the porch, followed him into the yard, and fired a single shot in his general direction.

When Artie stopped his truck it didn’t take CJ long to see that whatever had happened here this morning had spiraled into something ugly. He saw his father’s truck first, and then the old man talking with a police officer. At first he didn’t see Edward, but a closer look revealed the Korean War vet on the other side of George’s truck, keeping a barrier between himself and the house. Apparently Dorothy had been asking for CJ, vowing to shoot anyone else who tried to approach the house.

CJ joined his father by the squad car, its blue lights flashing.

“Are you the son?” the cop asked him. His face was familiar but not enough so that CJ could place it.

“I’m one of them.” He gestured toward the house. “What’s going on?”

“Your mother’s in there with a gun,” George answered. “She fired a shot at Edward.”

“Aiming at you by proxy, I imagine,” CJ said.

His father gave him a look that reminded CJ of how his face set right before he squeezed the trigger with a ten-point in his sights. Undaunted, CJ returned it.

“We’ve been playing around for too long now, you understand?” George said. “It’s time I got back what’s mine.”

CJ didn’t answer right away, and when he did it was with a headshake and a half smile.

“I don’t think so, Pop. This is sport to you—just the same as if you were sitting in a tree stand. When she gives you your stuff, the game’s over, and I don’t think you want that. Not really.”

For the briefest of moments CJ thought his father might hit him; George’s fist clenched as if caught in a spasm. Then the impression was gone, giving way to a wry smile.

“You know all about games, don’t you, son?” George said.

The cop bounced his eyes between the both of them, finally alighting on CJ.

“Boy, you’ve changed since high school,” the cop said to him.

It was then that CJ placed him. His name was Matt Hinkle, and he’d been a year ahead of CJ in school. Kind of a mousy kid back then; probably more appropriate to call him wiry now.

“How are you, Matt?” CJ said.

It appeared that Matt wasn’t sure how he was. He took off his hat and ran a hand through thinning hair, then looked at the house as if he could see the threat lurking behind the door and the drawn blinds.

“I don’t want to have to hurt your mom, CJ. But she can’t go and shoot a gun within the city limits, much less shoot
at
someone.”

CJ grunted, turning to regard his childhood home alongside his childhood acquaintance. After a while he said, “Who’s to say she was actually shooting at anyone?” As Matt turned to face him, CJ asked, “Were there any witnesses?”

Officer Hinkle’s face made the transition from puzzlement to near incredulity in record time. Without breaking eye contact with CJ, he gestured behind him with his thumb. “Your uncle. He’s the one she shot at.”

CJ nodded. “Um-hmm.” He glanced over at Edward, who was still watching the house from behind George’s Chevy Tahoe.

CJ called out, “Uncle Edward, how much have you had to drink today?”

Obscured as he was by the truck, it was difficult to determine Edward’s reaction to the question, or if indeed he had even heard it. So CJ excused himself from his father and Matt and went to talk with his uncle.

“What do you mean how much have I had to drink?” Edward asked once CJ was close enough that their conversation would remain their own.

“A fifth already, you think?” CJ prodded.

As far back as he could remember, Edward had started the day with a little something, to chase away the pain the war had left him with, he’d explained. CJ had long understood that it wasn’t the physical pain his uncle had needed help with, but for what CJ had in mind this morning it didn’t matter what served as Edward’s inspiration.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Edward snapped, his face flushing.

“Nothing really.” CJ paused, then caught Edward’s eyes.

“Unless you actually think my mom shot at you. Then it might mean something.”

Edward’s eyes narrowed. He knew he was being played, but he wasn’t sure how.

“What are you getting at?”

“How many DUIs do you have, Uncle Edward?” CJ asked it with a smile, yet there was no missing the threat.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’m pretty sure my old school friend Officer Hinkle would be happy to pull the Breathalyzer out of his car.”

CJ felt genuine discomfort as recognition of his betrayal took roost in Edward’s eyes. His uncle had never been anything but kind to him; his only sin was that he knew the family’s dirty little secret, and he’d carried it in silence with the rest of them. Of course so had CJ, so who was he to judge? But it didn’t take long before Edward’s pained expression gave way to one of the more pleading variety.

“Come on, CJ. I just came over here for your father. I’ve got no bone to pick with your mom.”

“And she doesn’t have one with you,” CJ said.

Edward looked down at his shoes, worn and mud-splattered. For all of his sixty-plus years he looked like a petulant child. And what he said next did little to dispel that impression. “But she took a shot at me,” he complained.