Tumbleweeds (57 page)

“You felt nothing for the boy when you pulled the trigger, Ron?”

“Nothing. Zilch. He knocked up my daughter and left her just like he did Cathy Benson.”

Sadness for the dismal waste of a good—a great—man gone wrong filled Deke from his boot tops up. He needed a moment. He was taller than Ron and looked beyond his head to a black streak of mold that had begun a descent down the once bright kitchen wall. Finally, he drew in a breath and addressed Ron directly to his face. “Trey was sterile, Coach—from the mumps at sixteen. He couldn’t possibly have gotten Tara pregnant.”

Ron Turner jerked his head back as if to avoid a blow. “The hell you say. He fathered Cathy’s child.”

“No, Ron. One of the reasons Trey came back was to confess to Cathy before he died that he was not Will’s father.”

Ron gawked, his eyes rheumy prisms of disbelief. Deke could guess the trail of his thoughts. He was remembering the time when Trey fell sick during spring training his sophomore year. The whole town had held its breath waiting for the diagnosis of the ailment that had felled its promising quarterback. Mumps, the health report came back, and the population had expelled its breath. The local paper had carried the story of the head coach’s visit to his player’s sickbed and his admiration for a boy who had borne his pain and put off going to the doctor rather than disappoint his team and coaches. Deke could see realization of his terrible mistake dawn in Ron’s stare, but any compassion he might have felt was snuffed by imagining the look in Trey’s eyes when his old coach pulled the trigger.

“Then, who—?” Ron whispered.

“Not for me to say.”

Ron crumpled against the countertop like a collapsed puppet. A
sickly gray overcame the fiery red of his face. “John Caldwell,” he said, dazed. “Will Benson has to be John’s son… God have mercy. What have I done?”

“How’d you know where to find Trey?” Deke asked.

Ron pulled himself away from the counter and walked stiffly toward the fireplace in the sitting room to take down the picture of his wife and daughter from the mantle. Staring at it, he said, “Tony Willis told me. He ran into Trey at the high school. He’d stopped by for old times’ sake. He thought a reunion with my one and only All-State quarterback would perk me up. He suggested that I drive out to Harbison House and surprise him.” Ron replaced the photograph. “How’d you figure it out?”

“I saw the red carnations at the cemetery on the graves of your wife and daughter and read the attached card. Then it started coming together. Melissa filled in the rest.” Anger at the tragic senselessness of it all sharpened his tone and forced him to say, “You killed a dying and innocent man, Coach. According to Melissa, Trey would never have touched Tara—out of his devotion and respect for you.”

Ron shut his lids tightly and weaved a second. “She knew how much I cared for him…. Oh, God. Oh, Trey… Trey, forgive me, forgive me….”

After a moment, Ron opened his eyes. “You know, Deke, you always were one hell of a policeman. Too bad you’re still not on the force. Tell you what. Give me a minute, and you can take me in. Randy Wallace certainly doesn’t deserve the honor. He was ready to hang Will and any fool would know he’s too decent to kill anybody. I regret with all my heart the hell I’ve put that boy and his mother through. They were like family to me. You’ll let them know how sorry I am and that I wouldn’t have let Will take the rap? I just needed time to sober up.”

“You can tell them yourself, Ron.”

“Right,” he said. “Well, let me go take a leak and get a blazer. I want to look good for the papers. Turn that coffeemaker off, will you?”

He was gone for less than a minute when Deke heard the shot. For the second time that day, he called himself a fool, worse than a fool, when he gazed at the envelope in his hand. He’d been an idiot not to have guessed what Ron had in mind.

W
ITH
S
ILVA BESIDE HER
, Cathy sat on the porch stoop of her son’s rented ranch house and recalled that this was the second time she’d experienced this moment. The first happened twenty-two years ago when she’d waited on her grandmother’s front porch for John Caldwell to drop by before he headed for Loyola University. She’d been three months pregnant then, Trey was two weeks gone, and the anticipation of seeing John’s battered pickup draw before the house for the last time had felt like a knife blade imbedded in her chest. Then, like now, she’d held out faint hope that John would marry her, be the father of her child. Now, like then, her dream was not to be. It was the second time she had lost him to God.

She’d thought they’d been given their lives back the night Deke Tyson brought them news that Ron Turner had written a letter confessing to the murder of Trey Don Hall and then killed himself. She and John and Will had gathered for one last evening together before their son was to be formally charged with murder the next morning. But John had come to say that
he
had confessed to the killing and would be arrested in Will’s place. He had presented Randy a far more compelling motive than Will’s and the evidence to back it up. In great shock, Will had listened to his father explain the proof that was sure to convict him.

“But, Dad, you were a kid back then, and you didn’t kill Trey!”

“Neither did you.”

“You’re not going in my place. I won’t let you. You’re too
old
!”

“And you’re too young. You’re my son.”

“And you’re my father!”

They’d held each other, everybody crying, when into the wailing
had come Deke’s ring of the doorbell, followed a short while later by Lawrence Statton arriving with his briefcase.

The next day, better news, again delivered by Deke. He’d asked Randy what he planned to do with the bag containing the incriminating evidence against John Caldwell.

Randy’s brow had puckered. “What evidence? You mean this?” He’d handed the marked box containing the pouch to Deke. “How about tossing this into the trash when you get back to Amarillo and giving Father John back his drinking glass?”

Even with the storm clouds rolled away, they had all known their lives would never be the same. The town had once again shown its fickle colors in rushing to judgment against her and Will. Morgan Petroleum had granted Will’s request for a transfer. The café was still closed, with Bebe and Odell on paid vacation leave. And John…

Cathy sighed. She’d assumed that with his reputation intact, his achievements unmarred, a son publicly acknowledged and accepted as his, John would continue his work in the parish he loved. She should have known better. He would continue to live out his penance.

“I can’t stay, Cathy,” he’d said. “I can no longer accept from the Harbisons the love and devotion I don’t deserve. I can’t continue living a lie in their presence. They’ll be all right now without me. They’ll have Father Philip. He’ll take my position at Harbison House, and no doubt in time Lou and Betty will come to dote on him as they have on me.”

While they had waited to hear in what light the Church would view his long-ago transgression, she’d secretly and shamelessly hoped that the upheaval in his life and his love for her and their son would sway John to leave the priesthood and marry her. Trey had willed her his condominium in California. Its sale would give them the money to start over somewhere else.

The bishop of the diocese delivered his verdict. The Church would take no action against John for the deed perpetrated before entering
the Order of the Jesuits, but it would grant his request to be relieved of his duties as pastor of St. Matthew’s and director of Harbison House.

“Let’s take a drive, Cathy,” he’d invited her the day he heard. “I’ll pick you up.”

That was a week ago. It was a drive down memory lane. They passed by her grandmother’s house, now the home of a couple with two young children. The porch swing was still there, and a dog lay stretched out in the front yard, keeping watch over a toddler on a tricycle. Cathy’s eyes had grown moist.

Next, they swung by John’s old house. The owner had attempted to renovate it, but halfheartedly. It still retained an uncared-for look, but yellow roses climbed the trellis of his mother’s gazebo in back. The appearance of Kersey Elementary School and the surrounding playground was virtually unchanged since she and the boys had pushed open its heavy, storm-fitted doors. It had remained a cheerless-looking place, the grass around it hard packed, unfriendly to tender young elbows and knees.

Finally they had turned toward the high school. Neither had said much, but the cab of the truck was filled with their thoughts and feelings, their good-byes. John parked in the space where Old Red had spent much of its life, next to the spot that had been home to Trey’s Mustang. Summer school had begun. Voices from the ball field drifted to them as they got out in the June sun and mild wind. Like in the old days, they leaned against warm vehicle metal and folded their arms.

“We had some good times, Cathy.”

“Yes, we did.”

“He loved us, you know.”

“I know.”

“Do you forgive him?”

“In time.”

They spoke profile to profile. John did not turn his head to her when he asked, “When did you fall in love with me, Cathy?”

She should have been shocked that he knew, but she was beyond shock. She had kept her attention diverted as well, watching a scrap of paper pirouette in the gentle wind as if twirling to a song.
Jack’s in love with someone who loves my brother Jim, and he’s in love with someone not in love with him.

Such was life.

“I don’t believe there was an exact moment,” she said. “One day, years ago, the feeling was just there. How long have you known?”

“For some time. One day the knowledge was just there.”

“It wasn’t by default. I want you to know that.”

“I’ve always known that.”

The heat of the metal was soothing to their backs. The day was crystal clear. After a while, John said, “I’m leaving, Cathy. I’ve asked to be reassigned to teach at Loyola.”

She looked off across the road to where the prairie began. The wildflowers were dying. Didn’t they always? But they’d bloom again in spring. “When?” she asked.

“In a week’s time.”

“Why so soon? Classes don’t start until fall, do they?”

“They want me for the summer session.”

“Oh.”

He unlocked his arms and took her hand. “What are you going to do?”

In that instant, she made up her mind. “Turn the café over to Bebe, and use money from the sale of Trey’s condo to go to medical school.”

She felt his surprise but his lack of it, too. “Trey would like that.”

“At fifty, I’ll probably be the oldest doctor on record to graduate.”

He squeezed her hand encouragingly. “And the finest one, too.”

They would share holidays and vacations, summer breaks, outings, and Sunday evening telephone calls. Distance would not separate them. They were family. She could live with that.

She heard a rumble at the gate far down the road. Silva shot out from under her hand as Will’s Wrangler came into view. Father and son sat in the front. Will had been helping his dad pack. The Silverado had been turned in to the parish, and in a little while Will would be driving John to New Orleans. Lunch was waiting, their last meal together for a while. Cathy stood to greet them and lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sting of the sun.

Pour 2 cups of yellow cornmeal into a good-sized mixing bowl.

Sprinkle the top with salt.

Pour
boiling
water over the mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until it resembles soft mush.

Drop by tablespoons into hot oil. Fry until brown and crispy. Turn over and cook the other side until brown and crispy.

Drain on paper towels and serve with molasses or honey.

Enjoy.

Embarking on the idea for this novel meant entering territory I had never been before or ever thought to enter. A Protestant, I knew nothing about the Catholic Order of the Jesuits. An armchair reader in the room my husband and I share while he watches football games on Sunday afternoons, all I knew about the sport was that the teams wear differently colored uniforms. Yet somehow I felt the urge to write about a priest and a quarterback and a girl who serves up hamburgers, and so my journey into the unknown began. I will be forever grateful to those who shed light on my way and left me with an understanding of and respect for worlds I would never have known. Without their input, I could not have accomplished my tale. Any errors in details and information rest at my feet alone. I am in debt to the following:

Michael S. Bourg, executive director for advancement, Jesuits of the New Orleans Province. Mike, our time with you in New Orleans and later in San Antonio at Our Lady of Guadalupe and points beyond… magical.

Father Martin (Marty) Elsner, SJ, who long ago and far away counseled the difference between a Hollywood ending and the real deal.