The Slow Moon (3 page)

Four

W
HEN THE SHERIFF
arrived, Raymond Butler was already waiting at the Davenports’ house. Before Crow came downstairs, he heard his mother crying, a sound like small birds or the squeal of wind coming around the edge of an old door. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and could see her, dressed now, her hair undone around her shoulders. Her long skirt made her look like a saint. When Crow entered the room, his mother walked out.

“They have to take you in, son,” Carl told Crow. “I wanted to keep you out of jail, but you’ll need to stay there tonight. Sophie’s mother signed a warrant, and the D.A.’s bringing charges against you. I’ll post bail tomorrow.”

“We can’t do anything now, Crow. Because it’s Sunday.” Raymond Butler wore a suit. “I’m fairly sure we can set a preliminary hearing tomorrow afternoon, then you can go home. Even if they find probable cause, you can go home.”

Helen came back into the room to protest.

“I’ll take care of this, Helen,” Butler told her. “Don’t worry.”

Two policemen approached Crow with handcuffs, reading him his rights.

“Don’t handcuff him,” said Helen. They did anyway. She followed them out to the car.

“What’s this?” one of the detectives asked about the mud in the mudroom.

“I went fishing the other day,” Carl said. “Helen refused to clean it up. Said I should do it myself.” He hugged Helen as though this was all a big joke between them. She whispered something to Carl, which he ignored.

“Don’t worry,” he said to her. He got in the police car with Crow. “We’ll get this settled.”

Raymond Butler drove his own car to the station. Helen turned and went to the sunroom. A shudder went down her back as she heard the police car pull away.

The road where Crow lived was in the best part of town. The Davenport sawmill had passed from grandfather to father, then to Carl, and the land surrounding it had become valuable. Anyone who lived on this land benefited from its prestige, their credit lines quickly approved.

The road had been carved out through a thick forest, and the house overlooked the Tennessee River, with a view of the mountains. Part of the road remained unpaved, but homes crept in, parcels of land sold off one, two at a time. Helen had urged Carl to sell some land and start a trust fund for both sons.

“I don’t want to stay here,” Crow had told his mother. “I don’t want to live in one place all my life.”

“If you leave,” she warned, “you might not be able to live as well as you do now.”

“Maybe I want to live a different way. Maybe Johnny will want to take over the mills.” His younger brother had always been more willing to please.

“Fine for you to say now,” Helen countered. “You haven’t had to struggle yet.”

“I’ve struggled,” said Crow, but under his breath.

Crow dreamed of far-off places, tempted even by the posters that advertised the navy or marines. He wanted to fly planes. His friend Tom had a brother who was a navy pilot, so he took that as a reason to believe that his own dream could take shape.

Until he was thirteen, Crow had built model airplanes, and he could identify even the most obscure fighter jets, such as the Grumman Wildcat, or bombers such as the B-47. As a child he liked to watch a plane until it was almost out of sight, until he became not the one watching, but the one flying. On his tenth birthday his father took him in a small plane piloted by a friend. Crow sat in the pilot’s seat for a short time and steered the plane left and right. He felt the thrill of taking charge of something so much larger than himself. And even though, after landing, Crow vomited on the tarmac, he could not wait to get back inside the plane, to take off and veer into a cloud.

“If these boys want a good start, they can help me at the mill.” Carl could not stifle his desire to turn the business over to his sons. “Let them run it with me.” He hated the thought of a stranger taking it over.

“Johnny might be interested,” Helen had told him. “But not Crow. You’re going to have to face that, Carl.”

“I’m not sure Johnny’s capable, Helen.”

“Stop. Just stop it, Carl.”

“I’ve tried. You know I’ve tried.” Carl gave his wife an accusing look. He still thought of her as beautiful. Her skin was warm and when he touched her he felt the natural heat of her body. Her neck was white and smooth, and he thought of putting his hand on her shoulder, but didn’t.

Carl was cheating on her. Helen could see it in his body—his swagger, his shoulders at an angle. She had almost confronted him several times, but could not imagine what life would be like after a confrontation. Helen used to think she was courageous. She didn’t think so now. Except when they lay in bed, mostly asleep, he hardly ever touched her anymore.

Over the last few years, the mood between them had grown sullen, argumentative. What lay so large between them was not anything they said out loud. Maybe it wasn’t even the time Carl spent with Ava. But the frustration of secret anger grew, enlarged into a shadow, so that awkward politeness replaced their previous teasing. They both found it hard to imagine how they could get their love back to what it was.

By three o’clock on Sunday afternoon Crow was in a jail cell. He had denied repeatedly the accusation made by the district attorney, though he acknowledged being in the woods with Sophie. When they finally left, Crow asked his father, “How is she?” He had asked before, but no one answered him specifically.

“We don’t know,” Carl told him. “She hasn’t said anything.”

Crow stood up. “Has anybody
asked
her?” He thought she might still be unconscious. “Can’t she say anything?” He wanted her to tell the truth.

“No. She’s awake. She’ll be all right. She’s just not talking about what happened to her.”

The cell was small and smelled of urine and mildew, yet they talked as if they were sitting in somebody’s living room.

“Do they know who beat her up like that?” Crow asked.

“It was more than that,” his father said. “It was much worse.”

Crow waited a long moment before he said, “Listen, Dad. I think I should tell you something.”

“Raymond Butler says the hearing is at one o’clock tomorrow. After that we can post bail, then you can come home.”

“Listen—”

“No. Don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear anything.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Won’t matter what I think. Just shut up, son. Just shut up now.” Carl had tears in his voice, if not his eyes. An emanation swept over them like continents crashing against each other—father and son moving, fracturing, then tearing apart. “I’ve got to go. I’ll need to tell your mother what’s going on. She’ll want to come see you tonight.”

“Here?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“But I don’t want her here.”

When his father left, Crow felt ill from the sour odor of the cell. The overhead light would be turned off at ten, but he wished it could be turned off now. He didn’t want to see anything. He wanted to pretend he was somewhere else. But when the lights finally went off, he wished for them to be on again, the darkness proved so pervasive.

“I didn’t hurt Sophie,” Crow had told Butler earlier. “I would never hurt her. Ask her, she’ll say I didn’t do it. Did you ask her?”

“As of this moment she’s not saying anything,” Butler had said.

That night Crow imagined himself running. His feet could not carry him away fast enough. He didn’t know that hunger could be translated so quickly into shame. He didn’t know that life could spiral down so fast.

Maybe tomorrow he would discover that what happened had not really happened at all. Maybe what happened would melt away. Everything seemed wrong now, whereas yesterday everything had seemed right. Could it change back again? If only he could rewind his life back to the moment when Sophie took off her blouse, to when he ached with desire.

Crow turned his head to see the stars through the small, high window—their remote breath coming toward him. He wanted that ice light to get here. He wanted to be waiting somewhere beside water, and to see that starlight fall to its spongy end.

Five

O
N
S
UNDAY MORNING,
Judge Aurelia Bailey stepped out onto her porch. She wore a bathrobe she had worn for ten years. She had opened the tall windows in her house to let in morning air. Wind chimes in the yard drowsed in a mild breeze. She stood on the porch steps and let the sun seep into her, tilting her head to get more, her eyes closed. She had knocked on Bobby’s door to wake him, but he didn’t answer. She had thought he wanted to go fishing this morning.

Aurelia loved the sun in Tennessee, knowing it was different here than other places—as were the river, trees, and broad wings of hawks. When she saw these things in other settings, they seemed like pale imitations of what she had already seen here. On a map the town of South Pittsburg might not be noticed; even driving through on Main Street, a visitor might not stop, or comment. But Aurelia’s bones were full of the dust of oak, woven with red clay. She knew this, believed it, without mentioning it to anyone.

When she opened her eyes, she felt polished, shiny for the day. A light sweat formed on her forehead and lips, between her breasts. She missed having a man in her life, though she never mentioned this to anyone either.

She clipped her hair back and went to Bobby’s room to try again to wake him. She opened the door. A pile of dirty clothes blocked her path, and she lifted them into the hall. An old Labrador beside the bed gazed up, uninterested, and curtains swung easily across the desk. Clothes and shoes lay strewn everywhere. Bobby slept with his Atlanta Braves cap turned sideways on his head. He often slept in his cap.

Aurelia stood a moment watching Bobby breathe. His feet hung off the end of the bed. She decided to let him sleep late. She couldn’t remember when he had grown so long.

The dog raised himself with a sigh and a shake and followed her to the kitchen, where she filled two stainless steel bowls with water and food. “I’ll tell you what I think, Dog,” she said. Years ago they had named the dog Dog. “I think maybe it’s a good thing that I’m still alone. What man could stand my long hours? My not-cooking? That’s what I think.”

Dog turned away, embarrassed by her lies. He ate voraciously, then scratched on the kitchen door to go out. Aurelia watched him do his business and made a mental note to remind Bobby to clean up the yard. Dog ambled back in and returned to Bobby’s room.

Sometimes Aurelia missed Robert. After all these years she still felt shame over her abandonment of him; though at the time nothing had seemed harsh enough. The evening she had left with Bobby in her arms was now a strange memory; and as she dressed and showered she thought how much easier it would have been if Robert had just had an affair, just cheated on her in some regular way.

She sipped her second cup of coffee, letting the Sunday morning grow wide before she left to put in a few extra hours of work at the courthouse. A blue Buick pulled into the driveway, and she knew the car belonged to Roland Dunphy, the postmaster.

“Brought some mail for you, Judge. You hadn’t checked your box in a while.”

“Roland, I could’ve gotten that tomorrow. You didn’t have to come by on Sunday.” Aurelia took the pack of letters from him. The car was full of kids, one a classmate of Bobby’s. “Hello, Lester,” she said, nodding to him in the backseat.

“Hey, Judge Bailey.” Lester sounded friendly, but he didn’t look at her; his friendliness seemed false. He did not ask about Bobby.

Years ago, Lester played catcher on the Little League baseball team, and he often came to the house with Bobby and Crow. Often Aurelia would walk in to find Lester and Crow leaning into her refrigerator.

“Can’t find anything to eat,” they’d say, without embarrassment.

“Look in the pantry.” Aurelia usually bought extra food for them, but as they grew into teenagers and switched their focus from baseball to rock music, she couldn’t keep enough on hand. They could finish off a family-sized bag of Doritos in minutes. She loved their gangly bodies pushing at each other.

“I’m on my way to church anyway.” Roland Dunphy was a Catholic with a large family, and they went to mass on Sunday morning.

Later, in her office, Aurelia would wonder what Roland knew, or what Lester was hiding, but on this morning she waved as they drove off. She had a strange feeling about the day, a mood she couldn’t shake off, a bad feeling. She had always been superstitious—recognizing intuitions, premonitions. She thought that Roland had almost said something to her but held back.

She went to Bobby’s room again and lifted the cap from his head. “Bobby?” she whispered.

“I want to sleep,” he said, and turned over.

“I thought you and Crow were going fishing this morning,” she said. “Are you sick?” He looked sick.

“I don’t feel good,” he admitted.

She checked his head for a fever.

“Don’t.” He pushed her hand away.

“I’m going to the office in about an hour,” she said. She closed the door, lifting the pile of clothes to take to the washer. Everything smelled of mildew. She washed two loads before she left the house. It was still early. She didn’t think about Roland and Lester anymore until she went to her office and saw a rash of messages and memos—all of them urgent. She called the district attorney.

“Jeb, what’s happened?”

“Sophie Chabot is in the hospital, Judge,” Jeb told her. “She was assaulted.”

Aurelia took in a breath.

“The Davenport boy was placed under arrest. He came in this morning, early. The police are talking to other people who were at the party in the Fairchild house. Did they talk to Bobby yet?”

“No.” Aurelia couldn’t think straight. The accusation of Crow Davenport had to be a mistake. Crow and Bobby were best friends. She knew Crow as if he were her own. If Crow could be accused of something, then she had to consider the possibility that Bobby might also be accused. She didn’t know how any of it could be true. “Crow’s in jail? Now?”

“Police got a 9-1-1 call about one o’clock this morning. Male. He told us someone was hurt, and where. Didn’t identify himself.”

“How’s Sophie? How bad is it?”

“She’s conscious, but she’s not talking. She was raped, Judge.”

“She won’t say what happened?”

“I don’t think she remembers.”

“They did a rape kit, then?”

“They did. Rita is livid. Wants to sue the Fairchilds. Wants to crucify Crow! She won’t let anybody touch her daughter. Sophie screams if anybody touches her.”

“Well.”

“We know that Crow Davenport was with Sophie last night,” said Jeb. “We know that. And the thing is, they found his wallet near her. And a blanket.”

“My God, Jeb.” Aurelia found it difficult to stay in the mode of judge. She felt simpleminded, confused. “They pick up anybody else?”

“They’re looking into it. A lot of kids were at that party. Half the kids in town, probably.” Jeb cleared his throat. “We’re looking at the possibility that this was done by more than one person. What my guys found at the scene indicates multiple attackers. Maybe some men who like to hang around the high school. We’ve suspected they’re selling drugs. It’s just another angle to look at.”

The judge waited a moment, then said, “I guess the media will be all over this.”

“Already are,” said Jeb. “They’re playing up how such a privileged boy could get caught in something like this. The whole town’s riled up.” Jeb sighed. “And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Sophie has bruises on her arms and thighs, her face. It’s obvious that somebody went after her pretty bad.”

The impact of his words proved stunning, hard. At that moment Judge Bailey thought something monstrous was moving beneath the skin of the town, and that it might change the appearance of everything.

“Why didn’t somebody call me last night?” She sat down in her high-backed judge’s chair. “I know these people. Why didn’t somebody call me?”

“Crow admitted being with the girl and even said they left the party and went to the woods. He said they’d been kissing, but that he didn’t hurt her. He swore he didn’t hurt her.”

Aurelia cursed under her breath.

Jeb spoke again. “His dad’s hired a lawyer. Raymond Butler. We asked Crow a few questions, but his lawyer wouldn’t let him answer any more.”

“Raymond Butler’s such a slick bastard,” she said. “But he’s sure good in the courtroom, if it comes to that.” She waited a moment. “I hope this doesn’t go to trial, Jeb.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The judge didn’t speak for a long moment, and Jeb thought the line was disconnected. “Judge?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Then she asked, “What time did this happen?”

“About midnight, we think. You can’t serve as judge on this case,” said Jeb.

“You’re right about that,” said Aurelia. Aurelia was a powerful woman in this town. It was difficult to think of another judge stepping in to fill her role as protector of the community, but given the fact that Crow was Bobby’s best friend, there was no way she could take this on.

“I’ll call a county judge from Jasper,” said Jeb. “We should have someone who doesn’t live here, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” said Aurelia. “But will you call me after the hearing tomorrow?”

“Sure,” said Jeb.

Judge Bailey set in order the papers on her desk, made a few more calls, then dialed her own number. “Bobby?” she said when he answered in a sleepy voice. “You up?”

“Yeah.”

She had no idea how to say the next thing.