“Have you seen him?” he asked without turning around.
“I went up to identify the body this afternoon.”
His father whirled around, furious. “This afternoon? Why the hell did you wait so long to come tell me, boy?”
Fiske stood up. “I’ve been trying to track you down all day. I left messages on your answering machine. I only knew you were here because I asked Mrs. German.”
“That should’ve been the first damn place you started,” his father countered. “Ida always knows where I am. You know that.” He took a step toward them, one fist balled up.
Sara, who had risen along with Fiske, shrank back. She glanced over at the shotgun and suddenly wondered if it was loaded.
Fiske moved closer to his father. “Pop, as soon as I found out, I called you. Then I went by your house. After that I had to go up to the morgue. It wasn’t any fun identifying Mike’s body, but I did it. And the rest of the day has been pretty much downhill from there.” He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling guilty that his father’s angry reaction was more painful to him than his brother’s death. “Let’s not argue about the timing, okay? That’s not going to bring Mike back.”
All the anger seemed to go out of Ed as he listened to those words. Calm, rational words that did nothing to explain or reduce the anguish he was feeling. They hadn’t invented the words that could do that, or the person to deliver them. Ed sat back down, his head swinging loosely from side to side. When he looked back up, there were tears in his eyes. “I always said you never had to chase bad news, it always got to you faster than anything good. A helluva lot faster.” There was a catch in his throat when he spoke. He absently crushed his cigarette out on the carpet.
“I know, Pop. I know.”
“Do they got whoever did this?”
“Not yet. They’re working on it. The detective in charge is first-rate. I’m sort of helping him.”
“D.C.?”
“Yes.”
“I never liked Mike being up there.”
He glared at Sara, who completely froze in the face of that accusing look.
He pointed a thick finger at her. “People kill you for nothing up there. Crazy bastards.”
“Pop, they’ll do that anywhere these days.”
Sara managed to find her voice. “I liked and deeply respected your son. Everyone at the Court thought he was wonderful. I’m so, so very sorry about this.”
“He was wonderful,” Ed said. “He damn sure was. Never figured out how we turned out such a one as Mike.”
Fiske looked down at the floor. Sara picked up on the pained expression on his face.
Ed looked around the trailer’s interior, memories of good times with his family nudging him from all corners. “Got his mother’s brains.” His lower lip trembled for an instant. “Least the one she used to have.” A low sob escaped from his mouth and he slumped to the floor.
Fiske knelt down next to his father and wrapped his arms around him, their shoulders shaking together.
Sara looked on, unsure of what to do. She was embarrassed at witnessing such a private moment, and wondered if she should just get up and flee to her car. Finally she simply looked down and closed her eyes, silently releasing her own tears onto the cheap carpet.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Sara sat on the porch and sipped on a warm can of beer. She was barefoot, her shoes next to her. She absently rubbed her toes and stared out into a darkness that was occasionally broken by the wink of a lightning bug. She swatted at a mosquito and then swiped off a trickle of sweat that meandered down her leg. Holding the beer can to her forehead, she contemplated getting into her car, cranking up the AC and trying to fall asleep.
The door opened and Fiske appeared. He had changed into faded jeans and an untucked short-sleeved shirt. He was barefoot as well. He held a plastic package strip with two beers dangling from it. He sat down beside her.