in case they were up to something, so I got my bike from beside the garage and left. I was pretty sure that Zelia had something to do with Cappy’s absence and sure enough, as I went toward the church I met Zack and Angus zigzagging down the hill, slow as they could, no Cappy.
He stayed behind. They’re gonna meet in the graveyard at dark, said Zack.
All three of us were crushed by the thought, even though we’d given up on Zelia day one. We rode back to the party, which was ramping up with jiggers stepping out onto the grass and Grandma Ignatia in the middle showing off her fancy steps. We ate as much as we could, then sneaked beers and poured the beer into empty soda cans. We drank and hung out listening to the band, watching Whitey hang on Sonja as they two-stepped until it grew late. My father said I should ride my bike home, and I did, wobbling into the yard. I took Pearl up to my room and was just falling asleep when I heard my parents coming home. I heard them walk up the stairs talking together in low voices and then I heard them enter their bedroom the way they always had before. I heard them shut their door with that final small click that meant everything was safe and good.
If things could stay that way, safe and good, if the attacker would die in jail. If he would kill himself. I couldn’t live with the if.
I need to know, I said to my father the next morning. You’ve got to tell me what the carcass looks like.
I’ll tell you when I can, Joe.
Does Mom know he could get out?
My father waved his finger across his lips. Not exactly, no. Well, yes. But we haven’t spoken. It would set her back, he said quickly. His face contorted. He put his hand over his features as if to erase them.
I have to look out for her, watch for him.
He nodded, and after a while he rose and with a heavy tread walked to his desk. As he fumbled in his pocket for his keys, I saw the vulnerable brown eggshell of his head, the wisps of white. He had begun to lock this particular drawer, but now he opened it and withdrew a file. He opened the file, walked over to me, and drew out a photograph. A mug shot. He put the photograph in my hands.
You mother hasn’t decided whether to tell anybody else, he said. It’s her call. So don’t talk about this.
A handsome but not good-looking powerful man with a pallid complexion and black shining eyes that showed no white, just the speck of livid life. His half-open mouth was filled with perfect white teeth and his lips were thin and red. It was the customer. The man who’d bought gas the day before I quit.
I’ve seen him before, I said. Linden Lark. He bought gas at Whitey’s.
My father didn’t look at me, but his jaw flattened, his lips went hard.
When?
Must have been just before he was picked up.
My father pinched the picture back and slid it into the file. I could see that it hurt his fingers to touch the photograph, that the mute image emitted a jagged force. He slammed the file back in the drawer, then stood staring at the papers scattered over his desk. He unclenched the hand over his heart, opened it, fingered a shirt button.
Bought gas at Whitey’s.
We heard my mother outside. She was pounding slim poles she’d cut down into the ground, setting them alongside her tomato plants. Next she would rip old sheets into strips to bind their acrid, musky stems, so that they could safely climb. Already the plants bore star-shaped flowers colored a soft, bitter yellow.
He’s studied us, said my father softly. Knows we can’t hold him. Thinks he can get away. Like his uncle.
What do you mean?
The lynching. You know that.
Old history, Dad.
Lark’s great-uncle was in the lynching party. Thus, I think, the contempt.
I wonder if he even knows how people here keep track of that, I said.
We know the families of the men who were hanged. We know the families of the men who hanged them. We even know our people were innocent of the crime they were hung for. A local historian had dredged that up and proved it.
Outside, my mother was putting away the tools. They jangled in her bucket. She cranked on the hose