Hick showered at the station, inhaling the steam, and coughing hard to clear the smoke from his lungs. He let the water wash over him, stinging all the cuts and bruises, scrubbing the black soot and grime from his face and hands. Finally, he switched the water off. He toweled off, grabbed his extra uniform, and put it on.
For the first time in months, he really looked in the mirror. Jake Prescott was right. He was thinner. His ear was swollen, and the cuts and bruises from Claire dragging him were angry and bloody. A sense of finality draped over him, not unpleasant, but absolute. This job was too much for him. It was time to resign. He pinned on his badge and remembered the first time he had put it on. Back then, he had little concern as to whether he lived or died. Now, he thought of Maggie, thought of the baby in Belgium, and the baby in the slough, and for the first time in years, remembered the preciousness of life.
He walked into the main office of the station and tied his tie. Wayne Murphy was standing by the bars. “Please, Sheriff,” he begged, “you gotta let me go with you. This is the biggest story to hit these parts in its history. I got to be there to watch it unfold.”
Hick silently tightened the tie and put his hat on.
Wayne looked desperate. “Sheriff, the town has a right to know.”
Hick turned to him. “Do they, Wayne? Do they have a right to have everything they ever believed true swept out from under them? You don’t know what it’s like to live in a world you can’t comprehend. Sometimes the truth is more than a body can stand.”
“But I swear to you. I won’t embellish anything. I’ll just report the facts.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Hick heard Adam’s car stop and Adam and Wash entered. Wash was pale, shaken. He said little, but Hick could see it in his eyes, doubt and disbelief, the truth taunting him like a mischievous child.
Wash silently sat down and Adam marched to the back of the station. He threw open the gun case and pulled out three pistols. Wash looked up dully. “You really think we’ll need those?”
Adam squinted one eye and peered into the cylinder. He closed it and told Wash, “She killed that baby in cold blood, Wash. Premeditated. She tried to kill Hick. I ain’t takin’ no chances.”
Hick strapped the holster on. He hadn’t carried a gun since the war. It felt heavy around his waist, with the weight of life and death in its barrel.
Lastly, Wash put his gun on and shook his head in anger. “Goin’ up to arrest Claire Thompson with guns and handcuffs like she was some goddamned criminal.”
“She’s a murderer, Wash,” Adam said in a quiet voice.
Wash sniffed. “I don’t believe it. Hick, surely you made a mistake?”
Hick paused and then said, “Wash, I wish to God I had.”
The three men turned to leave and Wayne Murphy made one final appeal. “Boys, please. You gotta take me with you. I’m beggin’ you.”
Hick turned to him. “Wayne, you’ve been privy to more than you deserve already. Claire Thompson destroyed that baby … don’t let her destroy the town, too. I can’t stop you from putting this in the paper, but I can keep all the salacious details out. I can, at least, spare those boys that.”
Hick closed the door hearing as Murphy shouted, “Wait!” The men locked the door of the station behind them.
The drive to the Thompson house was made in silence, the only sound that of gravel grinding beneath tires. The moonlight bounced off the occasional puddle, its brilliance startling in the darkness. The rays danced in and out of the cotton rows as they sped past them. Hick tilted his head and leaned slightly out of the window in order to breathe in the damp air. He filled his lungs with it.
The fireworks began in town. Hick watched as a bright flurry of sparks tumbled from the black sky. The boom followed. Adam stopped the car down the road and turned the lights out. Claire was never one for celebrations. Even on the Fourth of July they kept farmer’s hours. At nine o’clock, the Thompson household was dark.
“We need to be careful,” Adam whispered. “I don’t want them boys to know nothing.”
The other two men nodded in agreement.
Quietly, they closed the car doors and crossed the yard. Another blast of color lighted the sky, followed by the inevitable explosion. Hick envisioned Jack and Floyd crouched before their bedroom window watching. There was no way they could be asleep.
They climbed the porch steps and Adam knocked quietly. Moments later, the door opened and Claire peered out. She seemed frail in her old-fashioned nightgown and night cap. The bright moonlight made her appear washed out and older, less capable than she seemed in the daylight. She opened the door a little wider and said, “Adam? What’s wrong?” She looked at him and then at Wash, and when her eyes landed on Hick, there was a flash of surprise followed by resignation. “Won’t you come in?”
They followed her into the house. It was dark, the only sound inside, the ticking of the old grandfather clock that stood in the entryway. She led them to the sitting room, as if this were any other visit, and there was nothing out of the ordinary in receiving visitors in her nightgown.
Instead of sitting, the three men stood, Adam’s arms crossed. While he could look stern, Hick was weary; his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped. Wash stood motionless, his face clearly betraying the idea that he didn’t believe Claire was guilty.
She rubbed an arthritic knuckle and then looked down at it. “I guess I know why you’re here,” she finally said.
“Why don’t you remind us,” Adam responded.
She sat down in the rocker and wrung her hands. “I still don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
“How can you say that, Claire? You took that baby and—” Hick’s voice was louder than he meant it to be. Claire quickly held up a hand. She stood up and moved across the room and closed the door to the boys’ bedroom.
Returning to her chair, she said, “You have to know, that baby didn’t suffer. I wouldn’t have let her suffer.”
“You let her die,” Adam returned.
“Yes,” Claire admitted. “What kind of life would she have had? She had a half-wit for a mother, and a mouse for a father. Ross never could pick the right woman. I never wanted him to marry the first one, but he did. I told him from the start she’d be no use to him. Pretty and dainty. What good is a woman like that to a man, I ask you? I knew she’d never survive childbirth. I told him so. How she begged him to bring the doctor….” Claire shook her head in disgust. “Weak and soft.”
The three men stood unmoving as she continued, “I knew I’d end up raising those boys. I wasn’t about to raise the child of a moron, too.”
“Bill and Rose would have taken her,” Hick argued.
Claire laughed a bitter laugh. “They would have taken me, too. Ross had no business being around that child, he was too old. Even if her mind worked fine, and we all know it didn’t, it would have been wrong. I know what would have happened. Everything I worked so hard for would have been gone.”
“So you had to kill the baby?” Adam asked, his voice rising a little.
“I disposed of a problem, plain and simple. No one knew Iva Lee was pregnant, Ross told me that. There would have been no one on earth to mourn for that child but Ross, and I figured he deserved it. I told him so. I told him if he couldn’t solve his own problems, I’d solve them for him.”
“What happened to Ross?” Hick asked.
“Ross was meek and gutless,” Claire replied in disgust. “He reminded me of his father. I watched my husband come home from the fields, every day his hands bleeding. He wanted a large family, plenty of children. After Ross, I bore child after child, puny, sickly … weak. I knew they’d be nothing but trouble.” She shook her head. “Mr. Thompson always cried when his babies died, like the world was gonna miss out on something wonderful. He hadn’t carried those children for nine months. They were strangers to him. I knew those children, I nurtured them in my womb and then they were born worthless. A little chloral hydrate in the baby bottle and they just went to sleep. Oh, they never suffered … it’s the livin’ that do that.”
Hick felt his legs grow weak as he stared at Claire Thompson. The six little tombstones in the cemetery flashed before his eyes. Pam had once told him their mother sat in her room for two months after his brother died of meningitis. She never even opened the curtains. Did Claire ever mourn the children she murdered?
Silence filled the room, heavy and stifling. It was finally broken by Adam. “Claire, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Birdie Lee Stanton. You have the right to remain silent. If you—”
Claire interrupted. “Excuse me, please.” She was very pale. “I need a glass of water. Can I get anyone anything? No? I’ll be right back.”
Hick followed her back to the kitchen. She stood before the sink, stooped, her hands grasping it for support. She heard his step. “I know what you must think of me,” she said without turning around. Behind her, Hick saw a bright flash in the sky. “I’m really not a devil. I loved my children. I love my grandchildren.” She turned to him. “I want you to take the boys, Hick. Once I’m gone they’ll have no one on earth to care for them. Jack and Floyd think of you and Adam as family already. I don’t reckon I’ll be back here any time soon.”
“No, ma’am.”
The fields were briefly illuminated by the silver sparks. “I wish it wasn’t so dark,” she said as another boom reverberated through the room. “I’d give anything to see it all one last time. Just to say good-bye.”
Hick watched as she raised the glass to her lips and a sudden thought occurred to him. Just before it reached her mouth, he placed his hand over the rim. He glanced at the counter and saw the bottle of chloral hydrate sitting there. His eyes met hers and then he shook his head. “Not like this, Miss Thompson.”
She dropped the glass into the sink, splinters of glass cascading against the white porcelain. Her head drooped.
“Now what happens?” she asked in a small voice.
“You’ll go to jail. It’ll be in the papers. There’ll be a scandal.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t help you. You brought this on yourself.”
“Ross brought this on me.”
Hick looked into Claire’s aged eyes. Did they ever tear when her children drew their last breath? “You brought this on yourself when you decided to end that child’s life. Ross was ready to be a man and take responsibility for what he did. You took something away from Rose and Bill Stanton, something that can’t ever be replaced.”
“But was I really so wrong?”
“Granny?” a voice called from the doorway. Hick and Claire looked over and saw Jack. “What’s happening?”
Adam was behind the child, grave and resolute.
Claire’s face grew sad. She crossed the room to her grandson and stared at him for a moment as if seeing him for the first time. She reached out her hand and stroked his cheek. “Jack, I’m going away for a while.”
The finale of the fireworks show lit the sky as they led Claire to the police car in handcuffs. Hick saw her glance at the bright sparks as they rained down from the sky, their light briefly illuminating her face. For an instant he thought he saw remorse written there. It was a brief, flitting moment and he realized it was only his own wishful thinking.