THE ERODING CLIFFS RAN A twisting mile before the road swept the bay and vanished into the tall oaks of Clearwater Cove. Walk followed the line, never edging past thirty.
He’d left Duchess and Robin then driven to the King house, bagged leaves from the path and picked litter from the yard. He’d tended it weekly for thirty years, part of his staid routine.
At the station he checked in with Leah Tallow on the front desk, just the two of them, Walk on call every day of his life. From the window he watched seasons change and vacationers come and go. Hampers were left. Wine and cheese and chocolate that saw him punch another hole in his belt each year.
They had an auxiliary, Louanne, she came in when they needed her, parades, shows, or times when she was just plain bored of tending to her yard.
“You all set for today, return of the King?”
“I’ve been ready thirty years.” He tried to keep his smile in check. “I’m heading out, I’ll pick up pastries on the way back.”
He strolled up Main, same every morning, the practiced walk, the cop stride he’d seen on TV. He’d tried a mustache, like Magnum, made notes when watching Forensic Files, and once even bought a beige raincoat. If a real case ever came in, he’d be ready.
Flags hung from streetlamps, shiny SUVs parked nose to tail and green awnings cast shade over a spotless sidewalk. He saw the Pattersons’ Mercedes double parked, wouldn’t write it up, maybe just offer a friendly warning when he next saw Curtis.
He quickened by the butcher’s but Milton came out fast, then stood on the stoop, whites splashed red, a cloth in his hand like he could rid the stains from his palms.
“Morning, Walk.” Milton was hairy. Thick swirls sprouted from every inch of him, the kind of man who had to shave to his eyeline three times a day in case a passing zookeeper shot him with a tranquilizer dart.
Strung deer in the window, so fresh a day back it had been roaming the Mendocino. Milton hunted, during the season he’d close up and don his deerstalker, load the Comanche with rifles and sheets and a cooler of beer. Walk had gone with him one time, couldn’t find an excuse that lasted long enough.
“Did you talk to Brandon Rock yet?” Milton spit the name, every word labored, like he’d run clean out of breath during a decent conversation.
“On my list.”
Brandon Rock had a Mustang that misfired so bad half the street called it in the first time it happened. It was becoming a nuisance.
“I heard about her. Star. Again.” Milton dabbed sweat from his head with the bloody cloth. Rumor had it he ate nothing but meat, and it was taking a toll.
“She’s alright. Sick, this time she was just sick.”
“I saw it all. Damn shame … with those children.”
Milton lived directly across from Star. He took the kind of interest in her and the kids that spoke more of a lonely life than the dwindling Neighborhood Watch group the man commanded.
“You always see it all, Milton. Maybe you should’ve been a cop.”
Milton waved a hand. “I got enough on with the Watch. 10-51 the other night.”
“Wrecker needed.”
Milton used police codes liberally, and badly.
“She’s lucky she’s got you looking out for her.” Milton pulled a toothpick from his pocket and got to work on a piece of flesh lodged between his two front teeth. “I was thinking of Vincent King. Is it today? People said it’s today.”
“It is.” Walk bent, picked up a soda can and dropped it into the trash, the sun warm on his neck.
Milton whistled. “Thirty years, Walk.”
It would’ve been ten, worst case ten, but for a fight inside. Walk didn’t ever get the full report, just knew his childhood friend had two deaths on his hands. Ten years became thirty, manslaughter became murder, a boy became a man.
“I still think about that day. Us walking the woodland. So, he is coming back to the Cape?”
“Far as I know.”
“You can send him here, if he needs anything. Actually, tell you what, Walk. How about I put a couple trotters aside for him. How does that sound?”
Walk searched for the words.
“So.” Milton cleared his throat and looked down at the ground. “The sky tonight … supermoon. It’ll be a sight, and I just got myself a new Celestron. I mean, I need to set things up, but if you wanted to stop by—”
“I’ve got something on. Another time?”
“Sure. But come here after your shift, I can give you the neck.” Milton nodded toward the deer.
“Please, God, no.” Walk backed away, then patted his stomach. “I need to lose—”
“Don’t worry, it’s lean. If you stew it right it’s a decent cut. I’d offer up the heart but once I get a sear on it that flavor just sings.”
Walk closed his eyes, the nausea creeping up. His hands shook. Milton noticed, looked like he wanted to say something more so Walk moved on fast.
He saw no one around so popped a couple of pills. He was acutely and painfully aware of his dependency.
He moved past cafés and storefronts, said hello to a few, helped Mrs. Astor load grocery bags into her car, listened as Felix Coke bent his ear about the traffic on Fullerton.
He stopped by Brant’s Delicatessen, rows of pastries and cheeses filled the window.
“Hey, Chief Walker.”
Alice Owen, hair pulled back and a full face of makeup despite the workout clothes. She carried some kind of miniature cross so skinny Walk counted off its ribs as it trembled. He reached forward to pet it and watched the teeth bare.
“Would you mind holding on to Lady while I pick something up? I’ll just be a second.”
“Sure.” He reached for the leash.
“Oh, you can’t put her down. She’s just been clipped and her nails are tender.”
“The claws?”
Alice thrust the dog into his arms and headed inside.
He watched through the window as she placed an order then stopped and talked with another vacationer. Ten minutes passed, the dog panting into his face.
When Alice finally made it back she was laden with bags so he carried the dog over to her SUV and waited while she loaded it. She thanked him, then reached into a paper bag and handed him a cannoli. He made a fuss of trying not to take it, then waited till he was clear of Main before eating it down in two bites.
He walked along Cassidy then cut through onto Ivy Ranch Road. At Star’s place he stood on the porch a while, listening to the music play inside.
Star opened the door before he could knock, met him with the kind of smile that kept him from giving up on her. Hollowed out but beautiful, beaten down but her eyes still shone. She wore a pink apron like she’d been baking. Walk knew the cupboards were bare.
“Good afternoon, Chief Walker.”
In spite of himself he couldn’t help the smile.
There was a fan moving slow, drywall bare in spots, drapes pulled from their rings like Star couldn’t close out the day quick enough. The radio played loud, Skynyrd sang about Alabama as Star danced her way through the kitchen, loading a garbage bag with empty beers bottles and packs of Lucky Strike. She grinned at him, looking like a kid as she did. She still had that way, vulnerable, troubled and trouble.
She spun once, then tossed a foil ashtray into the sack.
Above the fireplace was a photo, the two of them, fourteen, ready and waiting for the future to come at them.
“How’s your head?”
“Never better. I’m thinking clear now, Walk. Thanks and all … last night. But I think maybe I needed it, you know. One last time. Now I’m seeing right.” She tapped her head, then moved on, still dancing. “The kids, they didn’t see nothing, right?”
“Are we going to talk about it, today?”
As the music faded out she finally stopped moving, wiped the sweat from her head and tied her hair back. “It’ll come and it’ll go. Does Duchess know?”
Star asking him about her own daughter.
“The whole town knows.”
“You think he’s changed?”
“We all have.”
“Not you, Walk.” She aimed for admiration but all he heard was disdain.
He hadn’t seen Vincent in five years, though he’d tried often. The visits were close at first, he’d ride with Gracie King in the old Regal. It had been cold and hard, the judge sending a fifteen-year-old boy to a men’s prison. Star’s father took the stand, told of Sissy, of the kind of girl she was becoming. They showed photos of the scene, little legs, blood on a small hand. They called in Principal Hutch, and he told about the kind of boy Vincent was. Trouble.
And then it was Walk’s turn, and his father had looked on, brown shirt, honest face. He was foreman at Tallow Construction, they had a factory that smoked away dreams two towns over. That same summer Walk had gone with him, for orientation. He’d stood in coveralls and watched, all the grays, the pipes and scaffold so intricate like bowels, a cathedral of metals.
In that courtroom Walk met his father’s proud gaze and offered up the kind of unabridged truth that sealed his friend’s fate.
“I don’t need to be looking back anymore,” Star said.
He made coffee. They took it out to the deck, birds on the swing-set flapping lazy and high when Walk settled into an old chair.
She fanned her face. “You going to get him?”
“He said not to. I wrote him.”
“But you’ll go anyway.”
“I will.”
“Don’t tell him … about me and all.” Her knee bounced, she tapped the chair with her finger. All energy before the real purge came.
“He’ll ask.”
“I don’t want him here. I don’t think I can, in my house.”
“Okay.”
She lit a cigarette and closed her eyes.
“So, there’s a program, a new one, over in—”
“Save it.” She held up a hand. “I told you. It’s behind me now.”
They’d tried counseling, Walk had driven her to Blair Peak each month for a lifetime, the shrink seemed to get through, progress had been good. Walk would drop her, leave her and head to a diner to wait. Three hours, sometimes more before she called. Some days the kids would ride the hours with them, silent in the back, looking on as their innocence trailed the cruiser, slipping further behind.
“It can’t … this can’t go on.”
“Still popping pills, Walk?”
He wanted to tell her it was different, but then he wondered how. They were the afflicted. Plain and simple.
She reached over and squeezed his hand, no harm meant.
“I think you’ve got cream on your shirt.”
He glanced down and she laughed.
“Look at us. You know, sometimes I still feel it.”
“What?”
“Fifteen, baby.”
“We’re getting old.”
She blew a perfect smoke ring. “Not me, Walk. You’re getting older and me, I’m just getting started.”
He laughed hard, and then she laughed too. And that was them, Walk and Star, thirty years unwinding till all that was left was a couple of kids talking shit and making jokes.
They passed another hour in easy silence, neither saying it but both knowing there was only one thing on their minds. Vincent King was coming home.