Anna was silent all the way to the parking lot. They slid onto their seats and Henry started the car. The only noise was the rush of cold air, the thrum of the tires. As they were turning onto Highway 53, Henry could wait no longer.
“Who’s Joey?”
“Imaginary friend. When Willard was twelve or thirteen. Lasted a whole summer.”
“Maybe this time it’s somebody real.”
“Or maybe that’s what I’d like it to be. It’s pretty much why I hired you, isn’t it? Find someone else to blame—anyone but my brother? Well, here’s an alternate theory: Maybe that’s what Willard is doing, too. He used Joey the same way.”
“Like some kind of bad boy alter ego?”
She nodded.
“Joey was Willard’s excuse for doing pretty much anything he knew he wasn’t supposed to do, so maybe that’s what he’s doing now.”
“Then why did he look scared?”
“You thought he looked scared?”
“Yes. When you were asking him for a name, anyway.”
“I thought he looked horrified. At himself. You saw how he reacted when I told him Mom and Dad weren’t getting up. I think maybe it’s just hitting him what he’s done.”
“Well, you know him better than I do. Still, his eyes…”
“What?”
“I’ve seen that look before, and I don’t think it’s horror, or self-loathing. He’s scared of something. Or somebody.”
They drove another mile toward Poston, green fields of ripening corn and soybeans flying past them in full sunlight. Anna drummed her fingers on the dashboard.
“Maybe you’re right. I was so upset I didn’t know what to think.” She laughed harshly. “And now I get to go meet Washam Poultry, aiding and abetting in the corporate slaughter of sixty thousand birds. You don’t have a smoke on you, do you?”
“Sorry. Gave it up.”
She switched on the radio, one of those classic rock stations, and it of course just happened to be playing “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads, which made her laugh again, harder this time. Henry reached over to switch it off but she stayed his hand.
“No, no. Leave it on.”
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything. When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Then she switched it off, shook her head, and wiped her eyes.
“Isn’t that just perfect? Like my whole fucking day, my whole fucking life. Sorry, I shouldn’t be unloading on you.”
“At seventy-five a day I’d say you’ve earned the right.”
“Oh, yes. I almost forgot. My big ‘investigation’!” She made quote marks in the air. Then she took a deep breath. “Oh, Willard, you poor, dumb bastard. What were you thinking?”
She pounded the dashboard and sobbed loudly, but only once. Henry looked away as she blew her nose. The car had slowed to forty-five, and a big semi rig blew around them in the passing lane with a shriek of its air horn and a blast of grit.
Anna reached over and pressed the horn.
“You, too, asshole!”
Henry waited a few beats and then, in what he hoped was a calming tone, said, “I’m guessing Willard must have had it pretty rough. Growing up, I mean.”
“Oh, God yes.” She settled back into her seat. “Most of it started when he turned five or six, school age. I was around twelve, right when you’re starting to worry about where you fit in, right when having a brother like Willard was the worst possible thing to have on your teen résumé. So for a while I just tuned it out.”
“Understandable. Hormones and all that.”
“Then one Saturday when I was sleeping in I heard him crying and screaming. I looked out the window and they were chasing him right through our yard. His own damn yard. I flew out the back door in my PJs, mad as hell, the wrath of God. And from then on I had his back. Of course by the time he hit twelve I was off to college, way up north. And I’ll admit it was a relief to leave it behind. Later I felt like I’d deserted him at his greatest hour of need, but I guess I needed a life.”
“We all do at that age.”
“Then, after my freshman year, that was the summer of Joey. Willard probably just needed someone else to take the heat, or to do his acting up.”
They were cruising along at sixty now. The only features on the flat horizon were a distant line of trees and a couple of chicken houses. Anna switched off the air and rolled down her window. The stench of chicken manure came in on the breeze like something you could touch.
“Jesus, what a stink,” she said. “They use it for fertilizer. That and about a thousand chemicals. Pesticide and everything else. Maybe that’s what finally got to him.” She paused. “So you think this person might actually be real?”
“Like I said, to me he looked scared. Imaginary friends aren’t usually scary. At the very least we might as well ask around, like you said earlier. See if anybody ever saw him with somebody else—hanging out, maybe, or hunting in the woods.”
“Sounds so dark and sinister now, doesn’t it? The idea of Willard out there on his own with a rifle?”
“Or not on his own.”
She nodded, looking straight ahead.
“You’re right, we should check.”
They were nearing town when she practically grabbed the wheel.
“Turn into that store up there!”
He braked hard and swerved into the parking lot of a convenience store in a slide of gravel. She unlatched the door.
“If we’re really going to do this, then I need cigarettes. Backsliders Anonymous. Want anything?”
“Beer. A six of anything that isn’t light.”
“The rye’s not enough to keep you going?”
He smiled but didn’t answer.
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”
They hopped out of the car, and bustled off to buy their supplies.