With a jolt, Rachel realized that Joe and Joey had fallen out in the spring of the same year that Marvin Cartwright had moved away, a month or so before the attacks in the Dells had begun.
“What is it?” Joe asked.
She folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. “I’m going to have a drink before going to bed. Join me?”
“I’ll keep you company,” he said.
They went upstairs, where Rachel took a bottle of Glenmorangie single malt whisky down from the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard. “I keep this around for emergencies.” She took a tumbler from the cupboard and poured herself a generous shot. The smoky aroma filled the room. “Sure you won’t change your mind?”
“A finger,” he said.
She got down another glass and poured him a shot, to which he added a few drops of water from the filter jug in the refrigerator. She knew that that was supposed to be the proper way to drink single malt, a drop or two of water to bring out the flavours, but she preferred hers unadulterated. They went back down to the basement, to what had been the TV room when they were growing up. The television had long since been relocated upstairs and the old overstuffed sofa and matching chairs smelled of dust and disuse. Her nose twitched as she stifled a sneeze. She sipped her whisky. It helped.
“A couple a years ago some wannabe gang bangers beat some poor bastard half to death in the main parking lot of the conservation area,” she said. “Just for the hell of it, apparently. Do you think that’s what happened to Marvin Cartwright?”
“Possibly,” her brother replied. “He was a long way from the parking lot, though.”
“Who do you think did it then?”
“I haven’t any idea.”
“But you’ve thought about it, haven’t you? I can see it in your eyes. You can’t help it. It’s the cop in you.”
“I haven’t been a police officer for almost thirty years. There isn’t any cop left in me.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do, Joe.” She couldn’t bring herself to call him Shoe. “I remember when you graduated from the police college. You were so proud you almost actually smiled when your photograph was taken, and you never smiled when your photograph was taken. Being a cop was the perfect job for you. I’ll bet a day doesn’t go by that you don’t — ” Her mouth snapped shut, chopping off the words, but it was too late. She saw the brief flash of pain at the memory of Sara’s death, killed on duty by a drunk driver the day after he’d proposed, and she’d accepted. Christ, could she have been any more stupid and insensitive? “Joe, I’m sorry.”
“Forget it,” he said. He sipped his whisky.
Maybe if he hadn’t moved to Vancouver after Sara died, Rachel thought, if she’d seen more of him, she wouldn’t keep forgetting that he wasn’t the big, dumb lummox too many people seemed to think he was. Not by a long shot. He wasn’t always so easy to read, though; like that old Star Trek character, the half-alien Mr. Spock, Joe pretty much kept his feelings to himself. Which didn’t mean he didn’t have any. He’d simply learned early, maybe too early, not to let much, if anything, show. Why, how, or exactly when, Rachel wasn’t sure. One incident stood out in her mind.
When Joe was thirteen, he’d fallen while playing capture the flag in the woods, landing on an old board and driving a rusty nail through the palm of his left hand. Rachel and Marty had been helping Rachel’s mother bake cookies when Joe had walked into the kitchen and calmly proclaimed, “I think I need to go to the doctor.” Rachel’s mother had almost fainted at the sight of the rusty four-inch spike through his hand, but Joe had been so cool and matter-of-fact about it Rachel had said incredulously, “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Sure it hurts,” he replied. “Look, it goes right through.” He showed her and Marty the bloody inch of nail sticking out of the back of his hand.
“Neat,” Marty said. “How come it isn’t bleeding much?”
“The nail is plugging the hole, I guess.”
Rachel’s mother had been so shaken she’d had to get Mrs. Levinson next door to drive them to the doctor’s office. Rachel and Marty went, too, and both watched, fascinated, as the doctor sprayed Joe’s hand with something that smelled harsh and cold, pulled the nail from his hand with a pair of funny-looking pliers, then cleaned out the wound with a fat orange toothpick. All while Joe sat absolutely still and expressionless. After the doctor bandaged his hand and gave him a tetanus shot, he complimented Joe on how brave he’d been. Rachel thought he was incredibly brave too, even though she’d seen the muscles in his jaw twitch and the single tear that had escaped from the corner of his eye. Marty had just stared at him with an expression of total adoration on her face.
“Big deal,” Hal, then seventeen, had said when Rachel told him of Joe’s mishap. “What’s he want, a medal or a chest to pin it on?” But Rachel had known even then that if it had been Hal, he’d have run whimpering to their mother for comfort, then bellowed and thrashed and cried as the doctor had tried to treat him.
“Rae?” Joe said.
“What? Oh, sorry. I was someplace else.” She tossed back the remainder of her whisky and stood up. “I’m for bed. See you in the morning.” She paused, one foot on the bottom step of the stairs. “Or not, if you sleep late. We have to start setting up for the homecoming festival at eight.”
“Let me know if you need another strong back,” he said.
“We’ve plenty of those,” she said. “Most come with weak minds attached.”
“So one more won’t hurt.”
She smiled. “G’night,” she said, and climbed the stairs.
chapter ten
Saturday, August 5
Shoe was awakened by a spike of sunlight through the high window facing the foot of the bed. The bed was in the basement bedroom his father had built when Hal had turned twelve and had needed a room of his own. Shoe had inherited the bedroom when Hal had gone away to McGill University in Montreal to study business. His wristwatch, propped against the base of the lamp on the bedside table, read a few minutes to six. Still slightly jetlagged, he thought about closing the curtain so he could catch another hour of sleep, but he could hear the creak of floorboards and the quiet mutter of morning radio from upstairs. He got up, showered, dressed, then followed the smell of coffee up to the kitchen. Rachel, dressed in loose drawstring pants and a body-hugging tank top that complemented her compact muscularity, stood barefoot at the stove. She was laying strips of bacon in an ancient and blackened cast iron frying pan.
“I found your stash,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, I made a pot.”
“Not at all,” he said. He poured a mug of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.
“Should I do you some bacon?”
“No, thank you,” Shoe replied. He didn’t go out of his way to avoid fatty meats, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten bacon. It smelled good as it began to sizzle quietly in the pan. She put the package away in the fridge.
“In his letter, Mr. Cartwright wrote that he hoped Joey and I would patch things up,” Shoe said. “I wasn’t aware that Joey knew him.” Even though Joey had been his best and closest friend, he added to himself.
“Mr. Cartwright had a shelf full of chess trophies in his living room,” Rachel said, turning the bacon in the pan. “I remember Joey telling me that he gave demonstrations at the junior high school chess club. He’d play a dozen games at a time. When I asked Mr. Cartwright about it, he told me Joey was the only person who ever came close to beating