Hometown Boys: Kelly Durrell, #2

Prologue

Troy grips the bone handle of the carving knife. The ten-inch blade lies across his thigh, bouncing as his leg judders like it has a life of its own. His armpits stink like rotten onions. With his left hand he rakes at the invisible bugs crawling on his forearm. Crawling everywhere. Nothing kills them. He only makes himself bleed.

Quit scratching. Nails’s voice growls through the flutter of the engine and the crunch of rock beneath tires. You’re gonna get blood on the seat.

Like it matters. Piece-of-shit Buick Century. Nails has a Cadillac, but he can’t afford to be spotted within twenty miles of here. The headlights spread over the narrow county road cutting between fields of high tasseled corn. Off east, the sky is tinged pink and silver, the first sliver of dawn. They come to a crossroads and Nails turns left.

From the seat behind him, Big Marla belches out smoke. We’re almost there.

Let’s go over your story again, Nails says. Why you doing this job?

Troy croaks out a laugh. ’Cause I got no fucking choice?

You know what happens if you rat to the cops.

What cops? You’re sneaking me into Canada. Remember?

That’s the plan. But we’d best be ready for the worst-case scenario. What are you gonna say if you get busted?

He owes me money. Some years ago—was it four? or five?—Troy worked for old man Durrell doing odd jobs. The last time, repairing a pole barn, he blew off work three days in a row and was too embarrassed to go back and get paid for the two days he did show up. But now he needs the money.

Why else?

I hate the whole fucking family. Kelly ruined my life. A supercharged rush shoots through his spine and buzzes his toes and fingertips. His mouth feels like leather and his teeth hurt. No way they’re gonna believe that shit.

They’ll believe it. From you they’ll believe it.

Just get me to Canada like you promised. Troy twists around in his seat and reaches toward Marla. Give me the pipe. I need to mellow out.

After, Nails says. You need to keep your edge.

I’m fucking shaking apart.

Marla hoots. Scared, chickenshit?

Troy catches her trading glancing with Nails in the rearview mirror. He isn’t supposed to understand the look passing between them, but he knows exactly why Nails brought her. To help him bury Troy’s body in a ravine somewhere. Dumb bitch thinks she’s tough. Even if she does weigh two hundred pounds, she’s just a woman.

Nails stops the car fifty yards short of the house. It sits back from the road, surrounded by oaks, and behind it are a big red barn, a couple of shiny new grain silos, and a monster combine parked in a clearing. Come out to the road when you’re done, and we’ll pick you up. Don’t forget the jewelry. You’re robbing them, remember. Take everything, even if it looks like shit.

Troy gets out of the car and starts walking. He hides the knife inside his jacket. The blade is too long and nasty to stick into the waistband of his jeans or under the pant leg. A beam of sunlight slants over the cornfield. The corn makes a freaky rustle as the wind stirs the familiar music of his first childhood memories. They used to live in a house outside Morrison. Then Dad ran off and Mom moved to the shitty apartment in town where he grew up, where she still lives.

He remembers the curve of Kelly’s smile and the way her fingertips stroked his arm as they lay together on Mama’s couch, watching Wheel of Fortune. Twenty years later, he still feels the hurt. She got her rocks off slumming with him, but when he fell in love with her, the bitch shut him down. She wasn’t about to gamble her ticket on the gravy train. Come graduation, he went on to scrounge for factory work as far away as Decatur while she lived la douche vita at the University of Illinois.

But George Durrell is just her uncle. He never did you any harm.

Don’t start thinking that shit.

Troy comes to the house and scuffs through dewy grass. A homemade swing hangs from a giant bur oak near the porch. Must be years since anyone swung in it. George’s kids are long grown. The porch looks fresh painted, white with dark blue trim. And perfect. George Durrell is a persnickety old bastard.

He climbs the steps and crosses the porch, hoping he looks halfway normal, just a guy shivering and hugging himself to stay warm in the early morning chill. Not a tweaker with a knife under his jacket.

He knocks softly rather than ring the bell, in case the old lady is sleeping. He wants her eyes to be closed. No one answers. George wouldn’t stay in bed past sunrise, old farmer that he is. Maybe they went on a trip or something. But George’s blue Ford pickup is parked in the driveway. Troy’s leg judders, his foot tap-tap-tapping on the white planks. It takes every bit of his willpower to make it stop.

There are footsteps behind the door and then it opens. George stares at him, mouth open. The smells of coffee and bacon drift from inside. Troy Ingram? What’s wrong, son?

Don’t call me that.

He needs to say something normal, talk his way into the house.

Then George’s stare drops to the steel blade pointed at him. Oh, my God.

How did that happen? It’s too soon.

Troy hears a faint click as the light in the old man’s eyes shifts.

He slams against George and drives the blade into his pouchy stomach. Knife through butter, Grandma used to say. He giggles as the old man slumps against him and bleats into his ear. Gripping the knife handle with both hands, he cranks the blade until his palms are slippery with blood. He catches the old man by the armpit and eases him to the floor, onto his back, one leg straight and the other bent outward. Blood pulses in dark sheets from his cored-out stomach. From his crotch to his chest is one gory mess. Breath stutters from his hanging mouth. His eyes bulge from their sockets.

Using his shirttail to grab the knife handle, Troy bends down and pulls out the blade. Blood gushes from the wound, but not much. He’s dizzy—sewer gas from the punctured guts, maybe, or just bending over too fast. He braces his arms against the floor until he feels steady enough to stand. The old man gurgles like a drain clearing out. Life draining out of him, just like that. You never wanted this.

Troy steps over the body and heads for the stairs. He hopes the carpet muffles his footsteps as he climbs. His own hound-dog panting fills his skull and drowns out every other sound. He peers into the dim upstairs hall. There are six doors. One to a bathroom, open. Another so narrow it has to be a closet. Four doors to bedrooms, all shut.

He guides himself along a wall that crawls with shadowy sunflowers. He comes to the nearest door and turns the knob nice and slow, then gives it a push. The door creeps open and he squeezes inside. Bingo. The old lady is snoring away in a king-sized bed. One hot afternoon, she came outside with lemonade for him and the other handyman.

Troy is clenching his teeth so hard his jaw aches. His whole body begins to tremble. Not just his muscles, but every layer from bone to skin vibrates at different frequencies. The aftershock of what he did, just now hitting. You got to get through this. He unlocks his lungs and lets the air come streaming out. He pads to her bedside and raises the knife, its blade and handle wet with blood. Cut her throat before she wakes up and knows. Curled on her side, facing away from him, she isn’t giving him a clean slice at her throat. He squints at the stiff old-lady curls, dented where she slept on them.

Grab her by the hair.

He wrenches her head around, torquing her neck and stretching her throat for the blade. Her eyes pop open. They glisten like pools of thin greenish mucus in her wrinkled face. He brings the knife down hard, more chopping than slicing. He just wants to get the job done without causing her undue pain. He severs her neck clean to the bone. A geyser of blood sprays his face, blinding him. He tastes salt on his lips and feels a stab of panic. He tries wiping his eyes on her sheets, but they are soaked with blood. He gropes until he finds a dry spot, a ruffle at the bottom, and knuckles the cloth into his gluey eyes. He glances at the head lolling off the pillow, the gaping wound in her neck. For a terrible instant he wonders how he came to be standing in this bedroom, clutching a knife from his mother’s kitchen.

The old man’s wallet is on the dresser beside the keys to the pickup. He takes them both. The old lady’s purse is on a chair with a needlepoint seat. He digs through the purse and finds her wallet. When he opens it and takes the cash, a plastic booklet of photos tumbles out. Two boys in Little League uniforms stare up from the photo on top. He guesses the boys’ ages to be eight and ten. They stand in front of a playing field, the older kid leaning jauntily on a bat, the younger one squinting and scowling at the camera. Two tough guys. The photo looks too recent for either boy to be her son, Ray. Grandkids, most like.

Fuck the jewelry.

Going downstairs, Troy slips and lands on his butt. A jolt of pain rocks his spine, but he launches himself up and keeps moving. At the front door, he glances down long enough to keep from tripping over old man Durrell’s body.

Soft air clings to him. The day is already heating up. Down the road Nails and Marla are ready to waste his ass, expecting him to sacrifice himself to save his mom. But they’ll leave her alone long as you stay gone. They know you’ll cause a shitload of trouble if she gets hurt.

Trotting to the driveway, he squints at the sunlight gleaming off the massive chrome grille of George’s truck, a Ford F-350 Super Duty with a tow package and a V-8 diesel. Troy giggles. Fucking chariot of the sun. He presses the keypad and climbs into the driver’s seat and realizes he no longer has the knife. He left it lying on the floor beside the old lady’s photos of her grandkids.

Can’t think about that shit.

He adjusts the seat and starts the engine. The gas tank is almost full. Haven’t driven one of these babies in a while, but you never forget. Since the truck faces the road, he guns it out of the driveway, swerves, and floors the gas. Behind him, Nails will see the dust kicked up by the wheels and chase after him. But the Century is no match for the Super Duty. Troy will run his ass off the road, if need be. He just has to make it to Decatur, somewhere crowded where he has a friend or two.

1

Homecoming

Kelly stands in the receiving line near the rose-draped caskets of her murdered aunt and uncle. People file past—people she has not seen in years, some of whose names she has forgotten. They clasp her hand and offer their condolences and tears. Some of the women buss her cheek, swamping her with perfume. But after moving on, they cast backward furtive glances and speculating stares. Aunt Rena, standing beside her in the line, leans to her ear and whispers. Ignore them, dear. It doesn’t look that bad.

The scar. Seven months ago, she survived a fire, and a shiny mottled scar cuts a swath from her left ear to her jaw. Who can blame people for staring, wondering?

After the funeral she drifts into the lobby of the Methodist church. Throughout childhood she attended services and Sunday school in this building. Now the church feels empty, as though most of her memories have been moved into storage.

Hey, Kelly.

She wheels toward the voice. She needs a moment to recognize Stephanie Born. In high school Steph was a willowy girl with huge, luminous eyes, who dreamed of a career as a supermodel. She had everything planned out. After graduation would come a move to Chicago and a chic apartment in Old Town shared with two or three other girls. Then a contract with Ford Models or Elite. Eventually she’d move to SoHo in New York and appear on the covers of Mademoiselle and Vogue. She dreamed with the kind of certainty that dies in adulthood.

Steph is overweight and dressed in brown poly slacks that hug her butt and belly. Her gray eyes are her best feature, but they protrude slightly, as if their sockets have shrunk. She lays her hand on Kelly’s arm. I'm sorry.

Kelly nods her thanks. How have you been?

Steph tilts her head and curves her lips in a smile, a pose she affected in high school to look sophisticated. I married Guy Phillips. Remember him?

Kelly vaguely recognizes the name. She searches her memory, but Guy Phillips refuses to come out of hiding.

He was in band, Steph says. He played the xylophone.

I never went to the games.

No. I guess you and Troy had other things— She clamps her shapely lips together and blushes. I'm sorry.

It's okay.

I just wanna say, so you know, I think what they’re saying is total bullshit.

What are they saying?

Steph studies Kelly’s face, her gaze pulling to the unburned side. You don’t know? She glances around at the people crowding the lobby of the church, some chatting in small groups while others thread their way to the doors. She seizes Kelly by the wrist and leads her into a coatroom that smells of mildew. Empty wire hangers cram a metal rod opposite a small hexagonal window.

People are saying … he killed them because of you. Because he hates your family for making you break up with him. She speaks in a rush, dumping the news as if she can no longer keep it in.

For a moment Kelly is stunned; then she laughs. But her old friend’s serious face stops her. How do you know this, anyway?

Troy confessed. One thing about Steph has not changed. Her gaze sticks like glue. Whether she’s talking or listening, the gray eyes never look away. Even if she possessed the drive for a career in modeling, that relentless stare would have ruined her chances.

Who’s spreading the story? Kelly asks. The cops?

Anyone with a brain knows it’s bullshit. Even his mom knows it’s bullshit.

You talked to his mom?

No, but I heard.

Every small town brews gossip, but this story makes no sense. So why didn't he kill my parents? They live right here in Morrison. Why drive seven miles into the country and kill my aunt and uncle? They had nothing to do with us breaking up.

That’s not the only weird thing, Steph says. He didn’t drive himself out there. They found his car parked outside his mom’s place. He got away by stealing your uncle’s truck. Cory Drake saw him driving toward the highway and called 911 because the window was down and there was blood … She clamps her hand over her mouth and then lets it drop. But you don’t need to hear all that.

The silence between them stretches into awkwardness.

How long are you gonna be in town? Steph asks.

A couple of weeks.

Come and see me, okay? We need to catch up.

Kelly leaves the coatroom feeling old.

*

She kicks off her pumps and stretches out on the bed in her old room. No trace of her teenage years remains here. The bedspread, embroidered with green vines and purple flowers, feels scratchy new. The walls are no longer white but celery green. Her old posters—Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge and van Gogh’s Starry Night—have been replaced by three watercolors with identical frames. Horses graze in a sunny meadow. A willow tree bends picturesquely over a river. An inspirational sunbeam pierces the storm clouds above a field.

Everything in the room matches everything else, even the watercolors. The sculpted plush carpet is insipid green and reeks of chemicals. Kelly considers opening a window, but the weather outside is ninety degrees and humid, the air pregnant with rain.

She fishes her phone from her bag and sends a text to Cash Peterson, her only reason for staying in Boulder, Colorado, her home for the past eight years.

Survived the funeral. The family’s downstairs. I’m trying to avoid them as long as possible.

Seconds later the phone dings, startling her. Cash, a police detective, usually takes a while to answer his texts. She reads, Hang in there.

Kelly wants to get his take on the gossip that she heard from Stephanie, an exchange too complicated for a text. She asks, Skype tonight?

His reply comes immediately. Midnight CDT?

As she sends her okay, a shadow touches the edge of her vision.

Her mother stands in the doorway, frowning. She wears the same auburn pageboy, a shade too red, that she wore at Kelly’s college graduation ceremony. Puffy skin blurs her shapely cheekbones. Her eyes are glazed. People are wondering where you are.

Do they think I’m hiding in shame?

Of course not. No one with any brains believes that nonsense. But they’re worried about you. Come down and eat.

If they don’t believe it, why were they all staring?

They weren’t all staring. Don’t be so self-conscious. And anyway, most of them have cleared out. It’s mostly the family now.

With a sigh Kelly swings her legs off the bed and stands.

Her mother offers a pained smile. Don’t forget your shoes.

They give me blisters.

Well, find yourself something more comfortable. Just don’t come downstairs barefoot.

Kelly stows the pumps in the closet and slips into a pair of comfortable flats. Then she follows her mother down the stairs.

At the bottom, they enter the hallway connecting the formal parlor and dining room at the front of the house to the family room and kitchen in back. Her mother heads toward the murmur of voices emerging from the family room, so Kelly goes the other way. An ostentatious crystal chandelier hangs from the vaulted ceiling of the foyer. French doors with cut-glass panes open into the dining room, where a buffet is spread on the massive table: pasta salads, lettuce salads, hard rolls, deviled eggs, dishes of homemade corn relish and mustard pickles, bowls of corn and peas, and a half-eaten haunch of roast beef that looks as if animals have been tearing at it. Cakes, pies, and a platter of cookies crowd the sideboard. Aunt Rena is setting out paper plates, napkins, and tableware.

Guests sit eating and chatting in straight-backed chairs along the wall, plates on their knees. An elderly man nods, his mouth full. After a moment his name comes to her—Joe Ritchter, the Sheetrock supplier to her father’s construction company. She smiles back wanly.

Where were you? Aunt Rena tosses out the question without looking at Kelly. Rena is Dad and Uncle George’s only sister, and she bustles around like the woman in charge.

Upstairs resting.

Ray and Heidi are in the other room.

Her cousins, the grieving children of Sarah and George.

Is Ray feeling better? During the funeral he wept into a cotton handkerchief embroidered with his initials.

Rena gives an impatient sniff. I wouldn’t think so. His father’s still dead. His mother too, but George’s death matters more to Rena. He was her brother, her blood.

Kelly opens her mouth to ask about Rena’s children, then gives up. She won’t ever change her mind about me.

Three years ago, Kelly’s sister died in a car accident, pregnant with her first child. Kelly’s duty was clear—to find a husband and produce offspring while she still could. Instead she stayed single.

She drifts into the family room. Twenty or more people are sitting and standing around. Others are outside on the enclosed porch, visible through the patio doors and a row of huge windows. The older children are playing soccer on the lawn behind the swimming pool. It might have been a party except for the subdued voices. Women cluster around the TV with their toddlers. Hand puppets mouth at each other on the sixty-five-inch screen, the sound muted.

A tiny girl sprawls on the carpet, her cheeks flushed and her eyes dreamy. Which one is she? The daughter of one of Rena’s four children? The grandchild of one of Mom’s two siblings?

Her father raises his hand and beckons from a couch near a window. He leans back with his legs wide and one arm extended behind Heidi, who props one foot on the coffee table where their plates sit. At least her paddock boot looks relatively clean. That rude foot must rankle Mom. It adds to the insult of Heidi’s overall appearance—no makeup, her sandy hair pulled into a ponytail held with a rubber band.

Ray has shed his tie and jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. He sits across from Kelly’s father and Heidi, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, one hand clutching his jaw and the other drooping as though weighed by his Rolex.

They must have heard the gossip about Kelly. They might even believe it. She gathers paper plates and plastic forks from the coffee table. Let me just clean up this mess and I’ll be right back. From the kitchen she can circle through the dining room and escape upstairs.

You can get that later, sweetheart. Her father waves toward an armchair matching the one where Ray sits. Ray’s leaving in a few minutes. He’s got a long drive home.

Kelly reluctantly sits.

Straightening his spine, Ray seems to drop his grief like a backpack full of stones. Have you thought about my offer?

Her father chuckles. Your offer to take my money?

This is gonna be a ten bagger.

I’m a couple of years from retirement. I can’t afford that kind of speculation.

It’s not speculation, Uncle Jack. Invest five hundred grand and in a year, you’ll cash out with five million. You and Aunt Pam can go on a world cruise. The program has been tested. It’s solid, it works. It’s gonna change forever the way investors strategize puts and calls. Ray unreels the pitch with practiced smoothness, but desperation edges his voice. Kelly wonders how many people have blown him off. Plenty—or he wouldn’t be hawking the investment at his parents’ funeral.

Look here, her father says. I don’t know squat about computers or software, and I don’t bet on what I don’t understand.

I do understand it and I’m telling you—

Then invest your money.

Ray’s face reddens. I am. I’m telling you it’s once in a lifetime.

Not my lifetime. Kelly’s father shoots her a pleading look.

How are you guys holding up? she asks her cousins.

Ray wrings his hands, lurching back into grief mode. I can’t believe they’re gone.

It’s been hard, Heidi says. Dad was always right there if I needed help. Now it’s all on me.

It’s too much for you, Ray says. You should hire a pro to manage the farm.

Heidi glares at her brother. "I am a pro, thanks to Dad."

Anyway, I’m sorry about Uncle George and Aunt Sarah.

Why do I feel like I’m apologizing for Troy?

He used a butcher knife. Ray touches his throat. Mom’s neck was cut to the spine.

Don’t talk about it, Heidi says.

Why not?

Because I don’t want to think about it.

Kelly ought to know … Ray looks to Kelly’s father as though asking for permission to go on.

It’s a load of crap, her father says. Troy Ingram is a dirtbag junkie and every damn word out of his mouth is crap.

It’s okay, Kelly says. I already know.

A frown knots her father’s face. I wish they’d all just shut their traps.

Well, they won’t, Heidi says.

How the hell do they know what Troy said to the cops anyway? Kelly asks. Was it in the paper?

Heidi snorts. Someone just made up that story. I bet Troy never said anything. She sounds more consoling than convinced.

How did you hear about it?

Heidi stares at her boots. I’m not sure. I talked to so many people.

It was Aunt Pam, Ray says. At the visitation … He winces and twists his mouth.

What did she say? Kelly asks, her voice tight.

Nothing much, Heidi says. She was pissed that her hairdresser gossiped about it.

Kelly pushes down a surge of anger that leaves her feeling like sullen teenager. Why does she do that? It only makes things worse.

Her father rubs his forehead and sighs. You know how she is.

Kelly knows, all right. Her mother must have brooded over the gossip until its stench filled her head, and then complained about it to Heidi and whoever else would listen.

Ray, Delia Durrell calls from a chair near the TV. We should get going.

He jumps to his feet. Where are the kids?

In the backyard.

I’ll go get them.

As Ray hurries away, Delia offers a smile. We should come down here more often. He’s not nearly this responsive at home. Her honey-blond hair frames her face in perfect curls. She wears a sleek black sheath with a tailored jacket and pointy-toed black pumps with kitten heels. A fat diamond ring decorates her finger. At the funeral Kelly stole an up-close look at her watch, a Jaeger-LeCoultre with a rose gold case banded with diamonds. Most of the women in the room wear pants and loose tops, the kind of clothes Delia might throw on for housecleaning—if her maid failed to show up. She flashes like bling in a dirt road. But she belongs here in a way