DAVID PETERSON IS STANDING TRANSFIXED on the front porch, a pair of brand-new hedge clippers from Peterson’s Garden Shop in his hands, as Mr. Hart finishes this last bit of his story.
Chief McKenzie was the tip-off man?
That’s what the caller said.
I knew it! That double-crossing rat. Was it to stop Marina from seeing Billy Brady? Or because the Black Duck was running liquor in the New York mob’s territory? Or was Roger Campbell paying him for information?
Mr. Hart shrugs. Any one of those reasons would do. And probably would’ve done if Ralph McKenzie had made that call.
Wait a minute. He didn’t?
No.
But, who did?
Mr. Hart turns to look at the progress David has been making on the bushes over the front windows. You sure are clearing a space there. I’ll be sunbathing in the parlor before long.
Who called? David asks again.
It wasn’t the chief. He wasn’t at home when Manny brought Marina back from Tom Morrison’s that night. Jeddy McKenzie was there, though.
David stares at the old man. Manny Biggs ratted on the Black Duck? His own cousin was on board.
He was playing for more money, I guess. He knew he’d get paid for his information, probably a lot more than Billy would’ve paid him for rounding up the truckers in Harveston.
So Manny told Jeddy about the Black Duck’s trip out to the Mary Logan that night.
I believe so. Left a message for the chief is probably what happened.
And Jeddy called the Coast Guard?
He had to. It was police business. He was stepping into his father’s shoes.
How did you find this out?
Jeddy told me.
David sits down on a porch chair. When?
I stopped by his room on the way out of the McKenzies’ house that morning. I wanted to tell him the Black Duck had been caught. He said he’d made the call. “How could you?” I asked him. “You don’t know what you did.’’
“I know what I did,” Jeddy said. “I was following the law.”
David looks out across the lawn, which needs cutting. Out by the road, a single dead, leafless tree limb is poking through the swirl of greenery. It should be taken down before it causes harm by falling itself, he thinks. It might drop on a car coming in the driveway, or a person walking out there.
What happened was the chief packed up. He and Jeddy left town. Everybody wanted to get rid of Chief McKenzie by then. The Black Duck was a hero to our folks. They all read the newspaper article and thought the chief had been the tip-off man. He covered for Jeddy, and they went down south to . . .
North Carolina, David says.
That’s right.
And Jeddy never came back.
No. I never saw him again. Marina visited every few years. After the chief died, that is. She couldn’t forgive her father for what she thought he’d done to Billy Brady. She never guessed the truth. I wasn’t going to tell her and Jeddy certainly wasn’t, either.
You must hate him, David says to Mr. Hart. You must hate Jeddy McKenzie’s guts.
I don’t. It was all too much for him, I think. He’d believed in his father, and in police business, and in the clear divide of right and wrong. Fog wasn’t something Jeddy could deal with.
Mr. Hart takes his glasses off and wipes his eyes. The thing is, he was a good kid. Like you. He was trying to find his way, trying his best to do what was right.
For a long moment, they sit quietly together, gazing at the yard. Then David gets up and starts in again on the bushes with the new hedge clippers.
He can’t imagine how he’ll ever be able to write all this down.