CHAPTER 30



The cab of the late model Silverado pickup truck was cleaner and roomier than most of the places I’d been staying at since I left Boston.

“I hope you don’t mind the mess. I coulda brought Mrs. A’s car, but I’ve gotta stop by the feed store this morning to get some food and hay for the horses, and it’s just a spell from Mr. Darby’s place, so--” Ronald began.

“No, no it’s fine,” I interrupted. Actually, it was more than fine. The cab was spotless; and it had a faint, pleasant farm-smell--of hay and horse--that had worked its way into the vinyl of the seats and the fabric of the floor mats off boots and blue jeans and saddle leather. It beat a new car scent by a mile.

We continued on in silence for a mile or two. I kind of felt I was being rude for not talking to Ronald. He must have spent a good portion of his early morning getting things ready for me at Stevie’s place, besides coming out to pick me up. I decided to try my best at small talk. First, I took a moment to size the man up.

He was probably just under six feet tall, thin with taut, lean arm muscles. His hair was short and trim above his Wesley ears, and he struck me as one of those guys who probably felt scruffy if he didn’t see a barber at least once a week. He was dressed casually, but outdoor work casual--black cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a polo shirt with East Hastings Dry Cleaners stenciled over his left breast. He seemed relaxed, very much at home in the cab of this truck, steering casually through the gentle curves of the back road we traveled along. I saw something in him that I’d seen in very few people--some reporters I’d worked with, a couple of cops, a bartender or two, and, of course, Jan--a contentment that came from doing what they loved to do.

“I take it from your shirt, that you work for Sue Ellen--er, Mrs. A--at the cleaners,” I said.

“Well, technically, I guess I work for the cleaners, but I actually spend most of my time helping out Mrs. A,” he answered, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Work for her long?” I asked.

“Since I got outta the navy, ’bout five or so years ago,” he replied, still focused on the road before us.

“Ah, the navy. Enjoy that?” I continued.

“Wasn’t a matter of enjoying--just a matter of serving my time. But, yeah, it was good for me, helped straighten me out,” he answered earnestly. “I was a bit of a...well, I got in a bunch of trouble when I was a kid. Navy helped me put that all behind me.”

“Sounds a little like Judge Kearney justice, if I’m not mistaken,” I said.

Ronald turned to me and smiled. “You know about that?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” I answered.

Judge Kearney was a very strict judge in East Hastings when I was growing up, and he did not suffer “hooligans,” as he called them, well, especially those who seemed to always be showing up in his courtroom. His sentences could be harsh, but he always gave young people who he viewed redeemable a choice--either go to prison or join the military. Most, wisely, chose the military.

I looked out the window at the passing countryside. This was the East Hastings I remembered, with its slight rolling hills, old stone homes with fenced in horse pastures and horse barns, and overgrown woods and small creeks running alongside the road.

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” I asked.

“Guess it depends on the question,” he answered.

“After you got out of the navy, why’d you come back to East Hastings?”

He took a few moments and I could tell he was weighing the question carefully.

“Well, the short answer is that this is where I’m from. I saw a lot of nice places during my tour but they all just sorta felt...I just sorta felt like a stranger everywhere I went. The long answer is that, well, before I had to join up I got a girl pregnant. I was young, we both were, and I didn’t want her to go through with it--” He looked over at me quickly to see if I was judging him. I wasn’t.

“She insisted on keeping the baby. That’s about when I got in trouble with Judge Kearney and--I’m not proud of this--I was kinda glad to get away to the navy.” Ronald turned his head and looked at me. It was his turn to size me up as we reached a straight stretch of road. “You always get people to open up with you like this?” he asked.

“No--well, yes--well sometimes. I ask a lot of questions. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” I answered.

“No, it’s okay.” He turned his attention back to the road. “So anyway, I go away and think that’s that. Dottie--that’s the mother, my wife now--has the baby. I just send some money back at first, trying to do the right thing, and in return, Dottie sends a few pictures of my little girl. She--we--had a girl. Being at sea I had a lot of time to think. I grew up a bit and realized I wanted to help raise that child, be in her life.”

“So the Judge Kearney justice worked.”

“Yeah, but it weren’t no piece of cake, let me tell ya. Sending me pictures was one thing, but when I came back, Dottie--she wanted nothing to do with me, though she let me spend time with my little girl. She was good about that, but, man--” He shook his head and laughed. “--woman was cold.”

He slowed down as we had to move into the incoming lane to make room for a group of runners, probably on a high school or college team, running along our side of road that had no shoulder.

Once we passed them, Ronald sped the truck back up and continued his story. “I wasn’t goin’ to give up, though. I wanted us to be a family. Dottie had a job at the cleaners, and I started going around there--finding excuses to stop and talk to her, about baby things at first. Mrs. A--she knew what the situation was--and one day, when I was at the cleaners, she started talking to me. She wanted to know how serious I was about gettin’ Dottie back. I told her I was going to do whatever it took. She tells me she’s very fond of Dottie, didn’t want to see her hurt, asked me my intentions. So I tell her everything, about how I know I screwed up, but that I’d changed. She listens to the whole story then says, ‘Well if you’re goin’ to keep comin’ around here, you might as well have a job.’ I start out making deliveries, get to spend more time around Dottie. Mrs. A even takes up my cause after a while, telling Dottie what a great job I’m doing, that I seem serious. She gives me more responsibilities--driving her kids to riding lessons and helping out around their place. Guess Dottie figured if Mrs. A was going to give me a chance, maybe she should too. We started taking Marcella--that’s my girl’s name--out on weekends together, I got invited over to dinner some nights, eventually I wore Dottie down.”

“Sounds like you’re a lucky man.”

“Sure am. I have my family, a real home, and I work for a great lady. Why would I want to be anywhere else?”

No need for an answer, so I looked out again at the countryside as we drove along. Was it really luck, though? Or did some people just deserve what they got and others, no matter how much they tried, just got the short end of every deal?

Ronald’s cell phone that was nested in a cradle attached to the dashboard rang. He pushed the speaker button on the phone. “Stacey, how’s it going?” he asked the caller.

“I got the car back to Stevie’s. Had to wait for a tow truck, had to pay cash--”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. Just keep your receipts.”

“Police wouldn’t let me drive it off the lot. Needs an inspection and a bit of work. Man, you should see this car. What a piece of--”

Ronald had reached out and ended the call. He turned to me.

“That’s Stacey. I asked him to look at your car. He’s pretty handy.”

“Oh, I see,” I said.

He drove a little farther and pulled off the road onto the beginning of a large driveway that had a four-foot white wooden gate, part of a long white fence that surrounded the property. “He’s doin’ a few other things for me so I should call him back,” he said. He removed the phone from the cradle, pushed the recall button, and held the phone to his ear. “Hi, yeah, Stacey, just wanted to get off the road to talk. So, what’s the story?”

I couldn’t hear what Stacey was saying, but I could tell the conversation was about me--and my car--from the way Ronald would look over at me while only answering Stacey with “Uh, huh, I see,” and “Okay, right.”

I turned to Ronald.

“Do you mind if I get out and stretch my legs?” I asked. “I’ve been sitting down for hours.”

“No, you go right ahead.” He turned his attention back to the phone. “Ho, wait, not you Stacey. Tell me exactly what you have in mind first.”

I opened the door to the truck and stood up. Funny, but I hadn’t realized I was still sore from Puddy’s beating until I tried to get out of the cab too quickly. A sharp pain struck my right ribcage, but, with a deep breath, I pulled myself out of the truck. The pain lessened as soon as I got upright.

I walked over to the gate, rested my forearms along its top railing, and looked out on the property. All of the places I ever lived were measured in square feet, so I was never good at estimating how large an acre actually was. This place had quite a few, though, inside the light brown paddock and estate fence that surrounded the place. There was a lovely two-story brick colonial house, with a perfectly matched addition that no doubt served as a family or dining room at back at the end of the long driveway. Off to the right of it was a converted horse barn, with three garage doors. As I stood watching, one of the garage doors opened and a red 5 Series BMW backed out of the garage. It wheeled back and turned in the ample driveway space, facing forward, and came down the long drive way toward me. I stepped back just as the gate began to open easily on tracks that were imbedded into the driveway. I turned and went back to the truck.

“Look, you just do with you have to. I’ll make some calls and make sure you can charge most of what you need to Mrs. A’s accounts,” Ronald said into the phone as I opened the door and climbed into the car. “Right. I’ll see you later.” He ended the call.

“It looks like we’re blocking the driveway,” I said, indicating the approaching car.

“Oh, sure,” he said, putting the car into drive and easing it forward to allow plenty of space for the owner’s car to pull out. It did and pulled up alongside the truck. The passenger window lowered and a woman leaned across from the driver’s seat. Ronald lowered the window of the Silverado. She was wearing large sunglasses and a paisley scarf over her hair.

“Hi, Ronald. Car trouble? There’s tools in the garage, you know,” she said.

“Hi, Betsy. No everything’s fine. Just wanted to make a phone call and I prefer to do it while I’m not moving,” he answered.

“Okay. How’s Sue Ellen doing?” she asked and I sensed genuine concern. “I haven’t spoken to her since the funeral.”

“About as well as to be expected,” Ronald said.

“Well, you take good care of her and remind her that Friday night, Paul and I are coming over with our special homemade chili and margaritas. You take care now.”

“Will do,” Ronald answered as the window in the BMW closed. He eased the truck out after the BMW had pulled away. “That’s Mrs. Wilkins. Nice lady. Her daughters and Shelly and Anne, those are the Augustino girls, ride horses together.”

“Seemed like she genuinely cares about Sue Ellen,” I said, watching as she put some distance between us and the BMW.

“Yes, she does. Lots of people do,” he answered then was quiet for a moment. He looked over at me. “So you mind answerin’ a question for me?”

“Sure, guess it’s only fair. Of course, it depends on the question,” I said and, for a moment, we shared a smile.

“Well, I was just wonderin’ ’bout the history ’tween you and Mrs. A. You know that she told me to tell you that she’s not mad anymore. What’d you do to make her mad at you?” he asked.

Now it was my turn to sit and work out how much I wanted to say. Ronald was pretty honest with me. He deserved the same.

“It all has to do with the river. I was working at the Chronicle and I exposed a company that was dumping chemicals into the river,” I said.

“That was you did that? I remember my folks talking about it. We used to swim in the river when we were kids. One summer my cousin, Celia, got real sick. They blamed it on the stuff in the river,” he answered.

“Yeah, quite a few people got sick. Anyway, it turned out some of the chemicals were coming from the dry cleaners. Sue Ellen had been working there all through high school and adored old man Augustino, Tony’s father. Although it was never proven that he knew anything about the dumping--they only had a contract with the company that was dumping the crap--I guess the old man felt responsible. He had a stroke shortly after the news broke and died a couple of weeks later. Sue Ellen blamed me and never talked to me again,” I said.

“Do you think he knew?” Ronald asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know the man, but, by all accounts, he was a good man, gave a lot of kids their first jobs, sponsored little league teams, set up scholarships for kids that couldn’t have otherwise afforded to go to college. But it turned out that the bid the cleaners accepted from the company that was guilty was way lower than all the others. If he was involved in negotiating the contract, he should have suspected something,” I said.

“I don’t see how Mrs. A could blame you for that,” he said.

“Yeah, well she was pretty angry and really hurting, and I guess she had to take it out on someone. I wrote her a few times after I went away to school, but never heard back.” I said.

“Well, I’m thinking she could use a friend, right about now,” he said.

He slowed down as he made the turn onto the dirt road that led to Stevie’s place. The truck took the potholes and ruts in the road pretty smoothly. The house came into view and it looked a lot less menacing and a lot more dilapidated in the daylight than it had the night before. I remembered seeing Puddy’s dead body lying on the floor and wondered if maybe I wouldn’t be a little more comfortable--and safer--if it wasn’t too late to move back to the motel. He pulled to a stop in front of the house.

“I’ve got somebody coming around to put on some new locks for the doors and windows,” Ronald said, seemingly reading my mind. “Ms. A’s brother had a sorta open door policy, from what I hear. He didn’t mind people just dropping by. She didn’t think you’d mind a little more security.”

It seemed Sue Ellen had thought of everything. I relaxed a little. It would be nice to have my own bed and a place to sit and think things through.

“Um, Ronald. You said you heard Stevie had an open-door policy. What else did you hear about him?” I asked.

The question appeared to make him a little uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “I don’t put much trust in rumors, usually just a lota people talkin’ about things they know nothing about,” he answered.

“Sure, sure, I understand, but you said Sue Ellen needed a friend, and...well, best way I can help her is if I find out a little more about what happened to Stevie,” I said.

He gave me a quick glance. “So it’s true what they’re saying? You are here to find out who killed Mrs. A’s brother?”

“Who’s saying that?” I asked.

He gave out a quick little laugh. “You know how it is in a town like East Hastings--people see things, people talk,” he answered. “Now that you tell me how you’re the one who cleaned up the river I know why.”

“Ronald, that was a long time ago. Right now, I just--I’m not--” I said starting to explain for the umpteenth time that I was not writing a story. “Look, I’m just a little curious about what happened. Sue Ellen, Stevie, and I were... friends...at one time. That’s all. People can think what they want.”

“Well, around here people don’t forget things. Remember I told you about my cousin getting stabbed? Turned out the reason the guy did it was because of something Larry did to him when they were both in third grade. Do you believe that? The man carried around hard feelings for twenty years waiting for the opportunity to stick a knife in my cousin.”

“Somebody told me the reason people use knives around here is because they’re more personal,” I said.

“Yeah, I can agree with that,” Ronald answered.

“Do you carry a knife, Ronald?” I asked.

‘Oh, yeah, just for work, mind you. You want me to pick one up for you?” he said.

“No, that’s okay,” I said. “I’d probably just cut myself and, if there is one thing I try to avoid, it’s the sight of my own blood.