“Why didn’t he stay there, where he found them?” Brutal asked. “Why take them south along the riverbank? Any idea?”
“I bet he did stay put, at first,” I said. “At the trial, they kept talking about a big trampled area, all the grass squashed flat. And John Coffey’s a big man.”
“John Coffey’s a fucking giant,” Harry said, pitching his voice very low so my wife wouldn’t hear him cuss if she happened to be listening.
“Maybe he panicked when he saw that what he was doing wasn’t working. Or maybe he got the idea that
the killer was still there, in the woods upstream, watching him. Coffey’s big, you know, but not real brave. Harry, remember him asking if we left a light on in the block after bedtime?”
“Yeah. I remember thinking how funny that was, what with the size of him.” Harry looked shaken and thoughtful.
“Well, if he didn’t kill the little girls, who did?” Dean asked.
I shook my head. “Someone else. Someone white would be my best guess. The prosecutor made a big deal about how it would have taken a strong man to kill a dog as big as the one the Dettericks kept, but-”
“That’s crap,” Brutus rumbled. “A strong twelve year-old girl could break a big dog’s neck, if she took the dog by surprise and knew where to grab. If Coffey didn’t do it, it could have been damned near anyone …
any man, that is. We’ll probably never know.”
I said, “Unless he does it again.”
“We wouldn’t know even then, if he did it down Texas or over in California,” Harry said.
Brutal leaned back, screwed his fists into his eyes like a tired child, then dropped them into his lap again.
“This is a nightmare,” he said. “We’ve got a man who may be innocent – who probably is innocent – and he’s going to walk the Green Mile just as sure as God made tall trees and little fishes. What are we supposed to do about it? If we start in with that healing-fingers shit, everyone is going to laugh their asses off, and he’ll end up in the Fry-O-Lator just the same.”
“Let’s worry about that later,” I said, because I didn’t have the slightest idea how to answer him. “The question right now is what we do – or don’t do – about Melly. I’d say step back and take a few days to think it over, but I believe every day we wait raises the chances that he won’t be able to help her.”
“Remember him holding his hands out for the mouse?” Brutal asked. “‘Give im to me while there’s still time,’ he said. While there’s still time.”
“I remember.”
Brutal considered, then nodded. “I’m in. I feel bad about Del, too, but mostly I think I just want to see what happens when he touches her. Probably nothing will, but maybe …”
“I doubt like hell we even get the big dummy off the block,” Harry said, then sighed and nodded. “But who gives a shit? Count me in.”
“Me, too,” Dean said. “Who stays on the block, Paul? Do we draw straws for it?”
“No, sir,” I said. “No straws. You stay.”
“Just like that? The hell you say!” Dean replied, hurt and angry. He whipped off his spectacles and began to polish them furiously on his shirt. “What kind of a bum deal is that?”
“The kind you get if you’re young enough to have kids still in school,” Brutal said. “Harry and me’s bachelors. Paul’s married, but his kids are grown and off on their own, at least. This is a mucho crazy stunt we’re planning here; I think we’re almost sure to get caught.” He gazed at me soberly. “One thing you didn’t mention, Paul, is that if we do manage to get him out of the slam and then Coffey’s healing fingers don’t work, Hal Moores is apt to turn us in himself.” He gave me a chance to reply to this, maybe
to rebut it, but I couldn’t and so I kept my mouth shut. Brutal turned back to Dean and went on. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re apt to lose your job, too, but at least you’d have a chance to get clear of prison if the heat really came down. Percy’s going to think it was a prank; if you’re on the duty desk, you can say you thought the same thing and we never told you any different.”