“That’s no good.”“Buck.” Chris tried to distract Buck from watching Vin and Amanda standing in the ice cream line.
“No don’t stand there.” Apparently they moved out of his line of sight.
“Buck.”
“Don’t they know not to stand where I can’t see them?”
“Buck.”
“Get out of the way,” He was saying now to a grandmother who was too far away to hear him. “I can’t see them with you standing there.”
“Buck – would you stop staring at them? Let them get their ice cream in privacy.”
“Well I’m not staring at them right now on account of that old lady who’s standing in my way. Doesn’t she know this is important?”
“Buuuck.” Chris tried diverting his attention from Vin and Amanda by moving from the bench to sit on the hood of his truck, where Buck would have to look away from the front of the ice cream stand. But Buck couldn’t be influenced that easily.
“Okay, she got her ice cream, they should be coming this way. They’re – they’re - no! They went to sit at a table around the corner where I really can’t see them.” Buck finally turned to Chris. “Damn, she’s good.”
+ + + + + + +
After Amanda got her brownie sundae, Vin followed her to an empty picnic table at the other corner of the ice cream stand. She sat on the tabletop and put her feet on the attached bench. Vin did the same.
“I can’t believe how hot it is,” she said. “I’m so glad it’s Friday. I’m driving down to Erie to visit my sister tonight. I can have the air conditioning on the whole way.”
“Hot summer is supposed to bring a cold winter,” Vin said.
“After this heat, I might actually enjoy it.” She ate a spoonful of her ice cream. “What are you doing this weekend? Going anywhere?”
“Me? No. I don’t travel. I don’t like leaving home.”
“Really? Oh I love traveling. Just get in the car and go. Just go someplace just to see it. I love traveling.”
“Well –I always wanted to go see Bad Axe Michigan. Just the name of it, you know? That’d be a place to see.”
“So why don’t you go?”
“Go?”
“Yeah, this weekend, tomorrow. It’s only five or six hours away, that’s practically a day trip.”
“No – it’s gotta be longer than that,” Vin said. “You gotta go down around Cleveland, don’t you? Up through – whatever that is up there.” He traced the route in the air with his spoon.
“No, go across Canada. Cross at the Peace Bridge and head for Sarnia. It’s only a little more than three hundred miles. That’s as close as Albany, and closer than Boston.”
“So, not only do you want me to leave my home, I’m supposed to travel through a foreign country to boot?” Vin asked her, and smiled when he did it. He didn’t even realize that the attack was the furthest thing from him mind at the moment.
+ + + + + + +
Josiah had started out his morning puzzled to see Chris in his church. Now as he came into the church to catch a few minutes of prayer, he was puzzled to see JD, skulking in the narthex, looking perplexed.
Fridays they had Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at the church, and the first three pews were full of Mrs. Hanratty, Mrs. Kawalski and Mrs. Paolini. Josiah would no more make noise in front of them in a church than he would speed in front of a police officer, so he motioned JD to come to the front of the church so they could go to the rectory.
JD came up the aisle and dropped a fast genuflect. He caught the glares of the three women with their ponderous rosaries and black lace veils, and he executed a more reverent two knee genuflection before hurrying to follow Josiah.
“So, what brings you to the house of the Lord today?” Josiah asked him when they were out of earshot of the Avenging Angels in the front rows.
“Oh – nothing – just I was – and I knew you were – and I thought – maybe – we could – .”
“JD – is this about Vin?” Josiah decided to prompt him to just get to the point.
“Uh – yeah,” JD admitted. They went into the old kitchen and sat at the massive table. “I can’t talk to Buck ‘cause he’s mad at me. I wouldn’t even try to talk to Chris...”
“Have you thought about talking to Vin?”
“No,” JD said, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Why not?” Josiah asked evenly. “Why not talk to Vin about what happened to him?”
“Because what – how – he wouldn’t – I wouldn’t –.”
Instead of prompting this time, Josiah waited until there was nothing for JD to do but be coherent.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” he finally admitted.
“OK,” Josiah said. “That’s fair enough. What can I tell you?”
“Well – you’ve known Vin longer than any of us have and I just – I just –.” He seemed to get frustrated with himself. “I can’t figure out how he could let something like that happen to him.”
“Let me ask you a question JD. If Vin came into this room right now and sat down at this table, would you get up and leave or would you stay and have dinner with him?”
“I think I’d leave,” JD said honestly, after considering it a minute.
“And if you heard someone talking about him, about what happened, and they said he asked for it, that he deserved it, if they said he wanted it, would you defend him, or would you keep quiet and pretend you hadn’t heard?”
Another moment of consideration passed.
“I can’t defend him if I don’t understand why he let it happen,” he tried.
Josiah took a deep breath and tried to keep his own frustration and anger from sounding in his voice. He tried to sound as casual as possible.
“JD – if you can’t approach Vin with the charity and compassion of a friend, then how is what happened to him any of your business?”
“Well – because –because –.” To his credit, Josiah thought, JD knew he had no legitimate answer. “I guess then it isn’t.”
“I guess it isn’t,” Josiah echoed. “Vin’s attackers picked the lock on his front door to break in. Buck didn’t ask Vin why he didn’t have a better lock on his door, he installed a deadbolt. Chris doesn’t ask why Vin can’t stay in his apartment alone yet, he’s giving him a safe place to live until he feels better. That’s what friends do JD. If you saw Vin bleeding on the sidewalk, would you want to know if it was his fault before you tried to stop the bleeding?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well there’s hope for you yet then,” Josiah said and smiled. “You want to stay for supper? We have Benediction at seven.”
“Uh, sure. Okay.”
“Good.” Josiah stood up from the table and went to the refrigerator to get supper underway. JD’s voice followed him.
“Ezra’s wondering why too. Why Vin let that happen.”
“JD – if Ezra jumped into a lake, would you jump in after him?”
In true JD fashion, he answered, “I don’t know. Why did he jump in?”
Josiah closed his eyes and prayed for strength.
EIGHTY-NINE
When Vin was done with his ice cream, he stood up to toss his trash in the nearby trash can. He realized how hot he was wearing Chris’ shirt over his t-shirt but his mind automatically emphasized that it didn’t matter how hot he was, he couldn’t take the long-sleeved shirt off, especially not in front of Amanda. She would see the bruises, she would know what happened.The thought of his bruises and the memory of how he got them came as shock to Vin as he realized that for the first time in a week, he hadn’t been thinking of them at all. That was not only amazing to him, it was – refreshing. He felt like he’d gotten a second wind after a week of holding his breath.
As he pondered this, it occurred to him that Amanda had already seen worse bruises on more of his body, across his back and over his rib cage; the fading bruises on his arms weren’t going to come as a surprise to her.
So he took Chris’s shirt off. As he sat down next to her again, he slid Chris shirt off and held it across his lap.
“So anyway,” Amanda went on, continuing another travel adventure. “I’m outside Gary Indiana, in a dead stop traffic jam, in my shaky land barge, wedged in between four tractor trailers, for an hour on a bridge that keeps bouncing with all the traffic coming in the opposite direction. An hour.”
“Tell me again why you think I should travel?”
“No really, it’s a lot of fun. You get to see new places, meet new people. You get to – to travel.”
“Yeah. Dead stop traffic jam on a dancing bridge. Where do I sign up?”
They laughed, then Amanda glanced down at her watch.
“Oh darn. I have to get going if I want to get to Erie by nightfall. My sister has this thing about me driving the Thruway after dark.” She threw out her own trash and Vin walked her back to her car.
“This was fun,” she said as she opened her car door. “We should do this every Friday.”
“Well you know I’m not going anywhere,” Vin said. He held the door for her and shut it after she was inside. “Drive safe,” he told her. “Keep your doors locked.”
“I will,” she promised. Vin watched her pull out of her parking spot and then turned – and was very surprised to see Chris and Buck sitting there. He had to have walked right past them to get to Amanda’s car.
“Yes, we are still here,” Chris said, apparently reading his surprise.
“Yeah, remember us?” Buck asked.
Vin looked down at himself, embarrassed, and pulled Chris’ shirt back on, but he smiled when he heard the car horn and saw Amanda waving him goodbye again.
“I love ice cream,” he said.
+ + + + + + +
On the way back to Chris house, Vin stared out the passenger window. His brain had the heavy dullness that accompanied his painkillers. He was thinking about his apartment. Maybe tomorrow he could try living there again. Or maybe just spend the day. Or the afternoon. Or maybe a half hour instead of fifteen minutes when they stopped by to get his tools to fix Josiah’s faucet.
Somewhere in there was a workable plan, Vin was pretty sure. He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.
+ + + + + + +
The drive from the ice cream stand to Chris’ house was much too quiet for Buck, who could see that no conversation was taking place between Chris and Vin in the truck in front of him.
“C’mon Larabee,” he complained. “It’s gonna take till you’re halfway up your driveway to ask him if he liked his ice cream, much less if he’s gonna meet her there again. I should’ve had Vin drive with me. Should never leave this kind of thing to an amateur.”
+ + + + + + +
He’d taken the shirt off. Chris still felt that surprise when he’d seen Vin walk past them with Chris’ shirt hanging over his arm. He’d barely taken the thing off to have a shower at home and here he was in his t-shirt out in the broad daylight with the fading bruises still shadows of purple and brown on his arms. Maybe things were looking up after all.
+ + + + + + +
When they pulled into the driveway and parked, Chris tapped Vin’s shoulder to wake him up. Vin lifted his head and blinked around. He said, “Oh,” and let himself out of the truck. Chris told him he’d shut the truck door for him and when Vin was in the house and Chris walked around the truck, Buck accosted him.
“You didn’t ask him one darn thing, did you? You had the whole twenty minutes to get here and you didn’t ask him one thing. You know I can’t ask him in front of Mary, now how am I supposed to find anything out? I can’t do this all on my own you know Chris. I was expecting a little back up from you.”
“He had the shirt off,” was all Chris could say.
Buck grinned. “Yeah he did.”
+ + + + + + +
Still dragging with weariness, Vin walked in through the front door. Cowboy ran to greet him, grumbling in his throat and rubbing the entire length of his body back and forth against Vin’s legs while Vin petted him. Billy ran past with a quick “Hi Vin!” and burst out of the house looking for his father. Cowboy chased after him.
Mary came into the hallway next, drying her hands on a dish towel.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Tired,” he all but mumbled. He thought Mary was giving him a look, so he added, “I only took one at a time, honest. See, I still got two left.” He wrangled the medicine bottle out of the shirt pocket and shook it to emphasize how many painkillers it still held.
“I wasn’t going to ask,” she told him. He could tell she was being honest. “I was just wondering how the day went.”
'Today' being the week anniversary. Vin’s mind turned over sluggishly. He knew that Mary knew, but he was too tired to process that information right now.
“Tired,” he said again, still close to mumbling. “M’gonna go sit on the deck. That all right? I just – get some air.”
“Of course – go on. I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.”
“Thanks.”
Vin walked through the family room and out onto the deck, and deposited himself into an Adirondack chair. He could fall asleep right now, and he didn’t think it was entirely painkillers. Something had changed. Like when he’d had bronchitis and after five days of pain, fever, and exhaustion it finally resolved, he’d spent nearly three days dead asleep recovering from it. That was what this felt like. As though his brain and his body had decided that now that the first week was over, it was time to move to the next level of healing.
Vin didn’t know if he liked that or not.
Chris and Buck came onto the deck and Chris handed Vin a glass of ice tea. They each took another chair.
“You fellas done talking about me?” Vin asked as he took the glass.
“No, but we figure we can catch up later,” Buck told him and smiled. “Unless you care to share now.”
“I think –,” Vin started to answer, though he knew it wasn’t the information Buck was none-too-subtly hinting around for. “I think maybe this weekend, I could maybe move back home.”
He looked at Chris as he said it, not sure what kind of answer he’d get. He wasn’t sure what kind of answer he wanted to get.
“Because you want to move back, or because you think you have to?” Chris asked.
“Both, I guess. Not ‘have to’ that I think you want me gone, but ‘have to’ because –,” Vin searched his mind for the words that conveyed what he felt. “ – because I’m not a coward and I’m tired of being scared. Living scared isn’t living.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be easy.”
“And none of us ever ran away from something just ‘cause it was hard,” Vin answered. “Y’got an opinion Bucklin?” he asked when he saw Buck giving him a serious look.
“Well, I agree with Chris that it probably won’t be easy. I also agree with you that it’s something you have to try. I think it might be a bit too early still, but it ain’t an ‘all or nothing’ proposition anyway.”
Vin nodded that he agreed, and still looked to Chris for a definitive answer.
“You’ll be closer to Nettie,” Chris said.
“Yeah, I know.” It wasn’t like that situation wasn’t constantly on Vin’s mind along with everything else. “I don’t have to see her, if I don’t go outside much. And I expect I won’t be going outside much.”
But Chris didn’t answer; Vin could see him pondering it behind his eyes.
“I got y’all on speed dial anyway. I got the deadbolt on my door.” He drank some of his ice tea. “I’m not saying I’m looking forward to it, but I guess I gotta try.”
From inside the house, they heard a sudden crash of dishes followed by a loud, definite curse.
“All right,” Chris finally agreed as he stood up to head back inside. “But you have to tell Mary.”
NINETY
Nettie took a load of laundry out of her drier and folded it into her laundry basket. She’d been going almost nonstop since yesterday evening, doing housekeeping and yard work, trying to keep from thinking about Vin.Part of her wanted to drive right back over to Chris’ house and shake some sense into that boy. Tell him that no matter what, she loved him like her son and that would never change, no matter how foolish either of them acted.
Another part of her wanted to give him the time he needed to heal, to deal with all the physical and emotional wounds he was carrying around right now, and not add the burden of her own impatience to his shoulders.
And another part of her just wanted to be able to walk up to him, take him in her arms, and hold onto him until he did heal, because she knew, like maybe none of his friends did, how much he needed physical affection.
She also knew that her second option was her only real option at the moment, so the lawns were mowed, the garden was weeded, the woodwork gleamed, the floors sparkled, and laundry was all done. This load was mostly towels and washcloths. A gray zip up sweatshirt fell into her hands though and she had to study it awhile before she recognized it.
Vin’s.
He’d been wearing it back in March when he came over for dinner then said he didn’t feel well. He had a fever and got too hot under the blanket she’d put over him and took the sweatshirt off. How it got into her laundry now or where it’d been in the mean time she had no clue.
She shook it out and laid it on the top of the washing machine to zip up before folding it. Touching it was like having Vin within reach again and she smiled as she smoothed it out on top of her clean towels.
Well, the boy was a fool, but he was family. Sooner or later he’d come to realize that.
+ + + + + + +
Chris went into the kitchen and found Mary getting out the broom and dustpan to sweep up a shattered glass. “Let me get that.” He took the dustpan from her and crouched down to hold it while she swept up the glass. He didn’t want Vin to move home, not yet anyway. The attack was still too recent and Vin’s reaction to it probably hadn’t even hit bottom yet. He didn’t want to force him to stay, and he didn’t want to just hold the door while he left either.
“Vin thinks it’s time he moved home,” he said, not looking up at Mary until he said the next part. “He thinks it’s time he stopped being afraid.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to let him be on his own. Not yet.” She didn’t say why and Chris realized she didn’t know that he knew.
With a stifled groan of discomfort, Chris got to his feet and threw out the broken glass. “He told me about the pills. Trying to take all his pills at once last night.” He took the broom from Mary and put it and the dustpan back in their little closet next to the pantry. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea either, but we can’t force him to stay here.”
“Can’t you convince him it’s a better idea to stay at least until after Labor Day?”
“I can try.”
+ + + + + + +
Vin was still in the Adirondack chair with his eyes closed when he heard the sliding glass door slide open and Chris walked out. A few seconds later Buck said,
“Oh, right. I was gonna help Mary with that.” And he went into the house, sliding the sliding glass door shut again. Vin squinted one eye open and watched Chris walk around and take Buck’s vacated chair. He didn’t like this.
Chris tapped his knee, “C’mon, we really should talk about this.” And Vin opened his eyes.
“Do we have to talk about anything right now? I’m so tired I’m falling asleep.”
Chris took a breath and seemed to be mentally condensing his remarks.
“Just think about staying here another week. Until after Labor Day. Just until-.”
“Until you know I won’t off myself when you’re not looking?”
“Yeah,” Chris said, an honest answer that surprised Vin. “That’s pretty much it. I know you Vin. You have to be almost dying to admit you might need help, much less ask for it. Even with this -.” Chris gestured vaguely toward him. “You came over here last Saturday because I needed help, not because you did. I want you here where I can see how you’re feeling, even if you don’t want to tell me. If you’re by yourself and something happens, you know you won’t ask for help.”
“I’ve asked you for help.”
“Yeah, when you’re car is at the garage and you need a ride to work. If it’s 3am and you can’t sleep because all you can think about is what happened and what you did do and what you didn’t do and what you wish you would’ve done – would you call me? Or would you sit there alone in the dark, staring at those damn pill bottles, thinking that I wouldn’t want to hear from you at 3am, even if the whole world was setting on you so hard you couldn’t breathe?”
Vin stared at Chris.
“I’ve been taken care of myself a long time now.” His voice had an edge to it, he could hear it. Chris was right - anticipating having to ask for help was like anticipating an MRI: unless he was dying, it wasn’t going to happen. “I don’t expect you’d be making that phone call to me either.”
For a second it looked like Chris was going to argue the point, then he took another breath and gave a half smile.
“No, I don’t expect I would. Not about something like this. If we had a power outage at work I’d call you first thing, no matter what time it was. But if I was just feeling sorry for myself, or even downright depressed, I’d pick up a beer before I’d pick up the phone.”
“So I’ll lay in some beer before I move home.”
“Root beer,” Chris emphasized, adding unnecessarily, “You’re on painkillers.”
“Yeah.”
Neither said anything else for a minute. Then Chris lifted his head as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him.
“Or – you never know. The power could go out at your apartment. You could call me for that. If you need to. Anytime.”
Vin considered this verbal sleight of hand. It’d be a way of saving face for both of them.
“Or even if the lights are just starting to flicker?” he asked.
“Even if your knife drawer is stuck and you can’t get it open.”
“Okay,” Vin conceded. “I can do that. That’d be OK.”
“Okay.” Chris stood up and held his hand out for Vin’s empty glass of ice tea. “Dinner’s got another twelve minutes. I think we’re gonna eat out here.”
“I’ll be here.”
+ + + + + + +
“He shouldn’t be on his own, not yet,” Mary continued her argument with Buck.
“Mary, you got no say over it. None of us do. Not even Chris. If Vin doesn’t want to stay, he’s not going to stay.”
Chris came into the kitchen and set Vin’s glass into the sink.
“Well?” Mary asked, when Chris didn’t volunteer. “Did you convince him to stay?”
“No, he’s going to try it on his own.”
“Chris,” Mary started to argue again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t worry – he promised to call me if his knife drawer gets stuck. Buck – you wanna help me get the picnic table set up?”
“What?” Mary had no idea what he was talking about. “What has a knife drawer got to do with anything?” But Buck snapped his fingers in appreciation.
“Chris! That is a great idea! That’ll work for the both of you. I’m gonna have to remember that.”
They walked back to the yard and Mary watched them go, still puzzling over Chris’ remark and his lack of explanation.
“Men,” she said. “I’d kill him if he wasn’t so damn handsome.”
NINETY-ONE
Dinner went OK, out at the picnic table in the yard. Dessert was strawberry shortcake, with some of the strawberries still a little frozen in their heavy syrup. Vin was tired and distracted through most of the meal. He was picturing in his mind what he needed to do back at home. The apartment was clean enough, that was for sure, but the rooms and furniture and belongings still bore the scars of them breaking in and ransacking his home. He couldn’t decide if he should just burn anything and everything that had their mark, or try to live with it, or repair it, or what.He didn’t think he could live with constant reminders, but then again, he’d have reminders the rest of his life whenever he saw the scars on his body.
A cell phone rang then and Buck pulled it out of his pocket.
“Wilmington,” he answered. “Yeah – Gus – have you got something?” He stood up from the picnic bench and walked away. After a moment’s hesitation on the top step of the deck, still on the phone, he went into the house.
“Must be work,” Chris said.
“Since I don’t think he’s dating a girl named Gus,” Vin agreed. The hair on the back of his neck stood up though when Buck came back onto the deck and looked right at him.
“I need to talk to you Vin,” he said, his voice deep and serious. Vin didn’t think he’d be able to draw a breath to answer.
“Uh – sure. Inside?”
“I’d prefer it.”
“Vin?” Chris asked. Asking you want me to come with?. Vin looked at him, then at Buck, but Buck shook his head.
“Not yet Chris. I need a minute with Vin.”
OK, this was not good.
Vin’s legs were shaking as he stood up and followed Buck through the sliding glass doors, through the family room and out into the front hallway. He couldn’t imagine what Buck wanted to say to him, but he felt like throwing up all the same.
“We’ve got an ID on one of your attackers.”
“What?” Vin asked, as much because he couldn’t believe it as that he was sure he couldn’t have heard correctly.
“We got a match through AFIS, through fingerprints. My friend Gus in Latents ran ‘em for me.”
“You know who one of them is?” He had to ask, after a pause of continued disbelief. The inclination to throw up was getting worse.
“Yes, we do.” Buck sounded like he was using his official cop voice. “That’s why I didn’t want Chris in here. He’d strangle me for the information then go find the guy and kill him.”
For a moment Vin couldn’t think why that would be such a bad idea. Then another thought occurred to him.
“You’ve got his address? Does he live near me? What was he arrested for before that you’ve got his fingerprints? He couldn’t break in and hurt Nettie could he?”
“No, he doesn’t live near you. But that’s only him. We don’t know about the other two,” Buck paused. “Yet.”
“Yet? What does ‘yet’ mean?” To his own ears Vin sounded panicked. ‘Yet’ didn’t sound like an idea he wanted to be part of.
“I mean – we can pick this guy up and bring him in for questioning.”
“NO.” The forceful answer came out without thought or coherent reason behind it. “No – no – what – no.” Vin shook his head and turned to walk away from Buck.
“Vin -.”
“No. Pick him up? Talk to him? Look at him? Go to trial? What - no.”
“Don’t jump ahead to trial Vin. It doesn’t have to go to trial, but we can sure put the fear of God into him in the meantime. Besides – they did assault you physically. We can get them on breaking and entering, burglary if they took anything from your house, plus trying to molest your little friend Maria there. It doesn’t have to be the rape.”
“Can’t you just go kill him?” Vin asked with some desperation. “Can’t you just hunt him down and shoot him and leave him lying there bleeding wishing for death because it just hurts too much? Can’t you just do that?”
“Don’t think it hadn’t crossed my mind,” Buck said. He looked at Vin a minute, some thought or decision being worked out behind his eyes.
“He ain’t an angel anyhow Vin,” he said after that minute. “If nothing else, we’ll keep an eye on him. He’s bound to cross the line again and we can get him for the next crime he commits.”
“Yeah.” Vin let out on a dispirited sigh. He thought he should thank Buck for letting him know, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Are you gonna tell Chris?”
It seemed for a second that Buck was going to say ‘No’ or hedge his answer. But he nodded. “Yeah. If I can get him alone, I’m going to tell him.”
“Yeah,” Vin said again. Suddenly the house seemed too small and too close. “I just – I’m gonna be out on the front porch.”
“All right.”
+ + + + + + +
Buck watched Vin walk onto the front porch and stiffly lower himself to sitting. Then he turned back to the family room and sliding glass doors – and was not surprised to find that Chris has inched his way from the picnic table and was now on the top step of the deck. He gave a whistle and waved Chris in.
“What’s going on?” Chris asked as soon as he set foot in the family room. His eyes swept behind Buck, looking for Vin no doubt.
“We ID’d one of his attackers,” Buck said, bracing himself for Chris’ reaction.
“Who is it?”
“Chris – we have to talk about this.”
“Talk hell –.”
“Chris.” Buck enunciated his words. “We have to talk about this. C’mon out to the kitchen and let’s sit.”
Chris followed him into the kitchen – grudgingly Buck could tell. He yanked a chair out and sat down hard in it.
“So talk.”
Buck took a deep breath. “Since JD heard this being talked about at the University, I need to have this guy’s name run through your files, see if he’s a student there. Believe me Chris, if there was a way of getting that done without letting you know about it, I’d do it. I’d go straight to Travis except I’d have to explain why I’m not involving you.” He could tell that Chris wasn’t agreeing, either verbally or non-verbally.
“We need to do this by the book Chris,” Buck told him, then realized that might not be the tack to use. “We need to do this in the way that’s the least likely to bring more pain and shame down on Vin. Some way that’s likely to give him the best sense that he can finally put this behind him and get on with his life without looking over his shoulder every minute of the day.”
Chris narrowed his eyes, thinking about it.
“What do you need me to do?” He finally asked. “Besides promising not to rip their heads off and hang them from the University Tower?”
“All right - I need you to find out if he is or ever was a student at St. Michael’s. If so, we can talk to some of his friends, maybe get a line on who the other two perps are. Can you access the school computer from home?”
“Yeah, we can use the computer in the family room.” As they stood up, Chris asked, “Where’s Vin? I think I should talk to him first.”
+ + + + + + +
Vin found he couldn’t sit too long in one spot. He paced the short walkway from the porch to the driveway and back again a few times. He could feel his heart pounding and the nausea he felt before was now compounded with lightheadedness.
Knowing the name and address of one of the attackers was halfway to making them real people and Vin didn’t want them to be real people. He wanted them to stay the unknown, unnamed, blur of pain and fear that they’d been this whole week. If they stayed the monsters in the closet he could pretend they didn’t exist and live his life around their constant, shadowy presence and only have to worry about avoiding them inside his mind. If they were real – he didn’t want them to be real.
“Vin?” Chris’ voice reached him from the porch. Vin stopped pacing but couldn’t walk the ten or fifteen feet that was between him and the porch. He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I thought this day was turning out pretty good, but this just sucks.”
“Yeah, it does,” Chris agreed.
“I don’t want them to be real,” Vin said, and Chris gave him a grim look.
“If they’re real, they’re easier to kill.”
NINETY-TWO
6pm found Vin sitting on Chris’ front porch with his arms around his knees, and his head resting on his arms. Around him the heat of the afternoon seemed to be pressing hard against him even as it also seemed to suck the life out of him. He knew he could go inside where it was cooler with the fans, but he didn’t think he could stand to be near anybody just now.So – true to the luck Vin felt he’d been having all day, the front door opened and Mary came out. Vin lifted his head. His nerves were stretched so thin and his muscles were so coiled for flight that if she as much as looked like she was going to sit down, he was out of there.
But she only handed him a tall glass of iced tea and let her hand rest on his head a moment before going back into the house.
+ + + + + + +
Sequestered behind the folding doors of the family room, Buck pushed Chris for a promise before he’d hand over any information.
“I mean it Chris. I don’t want to give you access to this information only to have to arrest you tonight for assault with intent to kill.”
“You won’t have to worry about the intent part.” Chris said. “If I start it, I’ll finish it.”
“Chris.”
“I’m not promising you anything Buck.”
“Then get me into your system and get out of the room.”
“The hell I will.”
“I mean it Chris. On campus you might be able to get away with ‘I fired three warning shots into the suspect’s head’ but not on my turf.”
“Don’t worry about what happens after I get the information. You do your job and let me do what I have to do.”
“”Chris.” Buck growled again. And the argument continued.
+ + + + + + +
6:30 pm found Vin still sitting on the front porch. He’d finished the ice tea but was still dying of the heat and his own anxiety. He could hear Chris and Buck from the family room. He could guess what they were arguing about, even if he couldn’t really make out the words. He wanted to die. He wanted to sink into the ground and rest there peacefully until so much time had passed that nobody remembered what had happened, what was happening, what would happen.
Chris wanted to kill the bastards, which Vin was all for. Buck wanted to put the fear of God into them, which was OK too.
The nausea had quieted down to just a general feeling of unease and anxiety, stuck in his throat and giving him a headache. If he could just get hold of all the thoughts and images and ideas swirling around in his head maybe he could try again to make sense of everything. If he could get it in some kind of order, maybe he could figure out how to go on living from this point.
+ + + + + + +
“Buck -.”
“Chris -.”
“Buck -.”
“Chris -.”
A standoff was in progress in front of the Larabee home computer. Buck couldn’t get the information unless Chris logged him on, and Chris wouldn’t log him on unless he got his own share of the information.
“Chris – I mean it. Think about this from Vin’s point of view. What good’s it gonna do him if you go and kill or maim or squash those bugs? You want that headline news? ‘University Security Head kills friend’s rapist’? Hell, that won’t just make the six o’clock news, it’ll probably be all over CNN.
“I’m gonna be honest Chris, killing those perps might fly or even be admirable if the victim was a woman. But how’s it gonna look to the people who’d make snide remarks anyway about what happened to Vin if his male friend evens the score? It’ll start out with he’s gay and you’re jealous and get worse from there. Do you want that?”
Chris didn’t have to think about it. He knew Buck was right. He couldn’t – he wouldn’t – risk the whole world finding out what happened to Vin. If that meant not disemboweling the criminals, well then – he’d just have to find a quieter way of making their life a living hell. In the meantime…
He sat down at the computer and logged into the school’s computer system.
“You push F11 to search and CTL-F11 to clear the screen. It searches by name or social security number. The records go back to the early 80’s.” He stood again and gave Buck his word,
“If he is on campus, I promise, I will let you handle it through the proper channels. OK?”
“Allright Chris. You let me handle this. You take care of Vin.”
+ + + + + + +
By the time the evening was closing in on 7pm, Vin had resorted to prayer. He had a decent faith he figured. Nowhere near as deep as Josiah’s he knew, and he would never presume to say he had a better faith than anybody else. He figured he must be somewhere in the middle, far from perfect but never giving up the struggle. Sometimes he turned to the Lord immediately, with formal prayer and a lengthy discussion of what was needed. Sometimes it was his last act of desperation, like tonight, short and to the point.
“Just help me get through this.”
He had his eyes closed and his head resting in his hands. He couldn’t think of any other way of phrasing his prayer. He sure had no clue how to get through this ordeal, so all he could do was trust that the Lord had an idea and might be inclined to share it.
If his Dad was here – and just thinking that brought tears to Vin’s eyes. If his Dad was here he could get through anything, because his Dad would protect him. He’d tell Vin how to get on with his life.
A sudden thought occurred to Vin, so startling that he sat up as he considered it.
‘When the hell did I give them permission to run my life? They mighta took an hour out of it but who says they get any more than that? Why am I sitting here feeling sorry for myself when I should just be getting on with it? It’s my life and they’re not gonna have a say in it anymore.’
The front door opened and Vin turned. Chris was coming out, carrying two coffee mugs. Vin must’ve had a particular look on his face because Chris raised his eyebrows and asked,
“What?”
“I’m having one of my ‘good’ moments. I figured out I’m not gonna let them run my life anymore, even in absentia. There’s enough other things in this world I can be afraid of if I want to be, it’s not gonna be them. I’m not gonna wear myself out making exceptions for them being alive in the world. Bucklin says if they screwed up once, they’ll likely screw up again and the law’ll get ‘em eventually. They gotta be on the look out, not me.”
While he was speaking, Chris took a seat next to him on the concrete porch slab and handed over a big cup of coffee.
“Sounds like somebody had an epiphany.”
“No. Maybe. I was just thinking what my Dad would say if he was here. He was always saying, ‘If they don’t like it, too bad about them’.”
“I’m with your Dad.”
“Because you want to be Chris, or ‘cause Buck insisted?”
“A little of both I guess.” Chris admitted after a pause.
Vin nodded and started to take a sip, but stopped.
“Coffee? It’s a thousand degrees out here. Why are we drinking coffee?”
“Have you taken pain meds recently?”
“Not since before dinner.” Vin answered, confused. “What’s that got to do with coffee?”
“The kind of day we’re having here,” Chris said and touched his mug to Vin’s. “For creamer, I used Bailey’s Irish Cream.”
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