Everybody's Fool

Dougie Reneges

THOUGH NOW HALF its former size, the section of Hill sitting in the middle of the road looked only slightly less bizarre under the bright afternoon sun than it had under last night’s full moon. The partially exposed caskets had been dug out of the turf and loaded onto a flatbed, presumably to be interred again somewhere else. Raymer recognized Sully’s odd friend Rub Squeers among the men hacking away with pickaxes and spades at what remained of the wandering hill, no doubt searching for other caskets. Overseeing this work were Mayor Gus Moynihan; the town manager, Roger Graham; and Arnie Delacroix, from Public Works, who was in charge of Hilldale’s day-to-day operations.

Gus was talking on his cellular telephone but was the first to notice Raymer’s approach. He quickly hung up, slipping the phone into its pretentious little holster. “Here he is,” he proclaimed, “our man of the hour.”

Unsure how sarcastic this was, Raymer simply said “Here” and handed Gus the envelope that contained his resignation. The other two men were staring at him, slack jawed, so he said, “What?”

“You look…,” Roger began, then paused, apparently stumped for the right word.

“Demented?” Arnie suggested.

“Yes, that’s it,” Roger confirmed.

Dougie, Raymer figured, staring out at these men. As if Raymer had given him permission to make his presence known and felt.

“Is that blood on your forehead?” Arnie wanted to know. “And in your hair?”

“Not to mention on your shirt?” Roger said, pointing at the rust-colored smudges on Raymer’s sleeve.

Gus was now examining Raymer’s envelope with distaste, because it, too, bore traces of blood.

“Sorry,” said Raymer, reluctantly showing them the palm of his right hand.

“Whoa!” All three men stepped back.

“What is that?” Roger demanded. “A gunshot wound?”

Raymer couldn’t blame him for thinking so. That’s what it looked like. The swelling was worse than the last time he looked, the skin an angrier red. His fingers looked like overcooked sausages, and the wound itself was oozing. “It’s sort of a burn,” he told them. “It itches.”

“It’s infected, is what it is,” Gus said, horrified. “Go to the emergency room and have it looked at. That’s an order.”

“Aren’t you going to read that?” Raymer asked, proud of his perfect if tiny rhetorical triangle.

“No need,” Gus said, folding the envelope and putting it in his jacket pocket. “Charice already told me. You can’t quit. Okay, it’s true. This morning when I saw that picture in the newspaper I was ready to carve out your gizzard with a butter knife, but since then you took out a major bad guy single-handedly. Saved a bunch of people on that bus from being snakebit.”

Raymer, though pleased by the positive spin Gus was putting on those events, was all too aware that the truth was different. William Smith, or whatever his real name might be, was at best a minor bad guy who’d taken himself out. Nor had Raymer really saved anybody from being snakebit. If he hadn’t tried to arrest Smith, the snake would’ve remained safely in the box.

“And it looks like that man you found out in the woods is going to make it. Joe Whatever. That was first-rate police work. You saved his life.”

“I’m still quitting, though.”

If Gus heard this he gave no sign, and before Raymer could prevent him he reached up and put a hand on his forehead. “Jesus, Doug, you’re burning up. Go to the hospital and get on antibiotics for that hand. And eat some ibuprofen. Then go home and make yourself presentable. You can’t go on television looking like Jeffrey Dahmer.”

“Television?”

“The evening news shows.”

“Not a chance. You have my resignation in your pocket.”

“Never happened. You never wrote it.”

“I can’t go on TV. I’ll look like a fool.”

“I’ll be right there with you.”

“Then we’ll both look like fools.”

“It’ll be a piece of cake. They’ll ask you what happened and you tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“The truth.”

“And when they ask me about the photo in the Dumbocrat?”

“They won’t. I just got off the phone with one of the producers. All they care about is the bus station. They want you to be a hero.”

“What if they ask me about digging up the judge?”

“They won’t, I’m telling you.”

“Wait,” said Arnie. “Somebody dug up Judge Flatt?”

“Of course not,” Gus told him. “Doug’s just exhausted and confused. Look at him. The man’s hallucinating.”

“Yeah, but do we want him on television?” Roger asked, not unreasonably.

“He just needs some antibiotics to bring his fever down,” Gus said. “That and a nap. He can sleep in the car. He’ll be fine. In fact, show the reporters your hand. Tell ’em it’s a snakebite. They’ll eat it up.”

Just then Raymer heard his name being called and saw Miller hurrying toward him excitedly. “Guess what?” he said.

“You found the wheel boots?”

“In the maintenance shed. Right where you said they’d be. How’d you know, Chief?”

“You can stop calling me that. I just resigned.”

Miller looked genuinely terrified at this news, as if it meant he himself would now be given the position. Which probably would happen in the fullness of time. It had happened to Raymer, after all. “You can’t resign, Chief.”

“That’s what I just told him,” Gus said, and Miller nodded eagerly, happy to have his judgment confirmed by someone in authority.

“Just watch me,” Raymer said.

Roger was now wincing like people do at a horror movie whose plot involves a chain saw.

“What?” Raymer said.

“Stop scratching it!” the other man screamed.

—

YOU SHOULD THINK about it, said Dougie.

What?

Going on TV.

No chance.

Just let me do the talking.

Yeah, right.

It was tempting, though. Not that he considered himself a hero. But it did buoy his spirits to think that Gus was willing to pretend he was one on live television. They wouldn’t be telling any outright lies. If Joe Gaghan survived his injuries, then Raymer had, in fact, saved a life. By all accounts the life of a complete fucking asshole, but still. At least his mother would be happy. It was also true that he really had done some solid police work in locating William Smith. Okay, he hadn’t, as Gus suggested, pulled it off single-handedly. It was Dougie who’d led him, practically by the nose, from evidence to inference to hypothesis to solution, by asking all the right questions. And when Raymer had been paralyzed by the sight of the serpent, it was Dougie who’d snatched it and put it back in the box. Still, he’d used Raymer’s hand, so that was something.

We’re a team, said Dougie, who as usual was eavesdropping. That’s how you should think of it. As a partnership.

Except you don’t exist, Raymer replied. You’re an electrical charge, and as soon as I finish here I’m heading to Gert’s and drinking beer for the rest of the afternoon and evening. And every time I go to the head I’m going to piss a little bit of you onto the urinal cakes. That’s how you should think of it.

Where are we going? Dougie wanted to know.

You know where.

Yeah, but why?

Fuck off, Raymer barked, surprised that his voice sounded more like Dougie’s than his own. Leave us alone.

Becka’s grave looked different now. The rose petals that had blanketed the ground last night had mostly blown away, the few remaining now brown and curling in the sun, along with the denuded, thorny stems. Farther down the row, under a hedge, Raymer spotted the plastic cone that had held the roses her boyfriend had left there. Always, Peter Sullivan had written. Why not name him? Raymer had made the identical pledge to the same woman before God and family and friends, both he and Becka swearing I do, only to discover a few short years later that they didn’t. With her death Always had transitioned to Nevermore for all three of them.

The sky above was a deep, reassuring cloudless blue that Raymer found gratifying. In the unlikely event that Ghost Becka actually existed, if she was still intent on frying him, she’d have a hell of a time manufacturing a charge out of such benign atmospherics. Best not to taunt her, though, so he just said, “It’s me, Becka. I’m back. How about that, right? Two visits in twenty-four hours after none for…” He paused here, deciding on a new tack. “I’ve been doing some soul-searching, and I just wanted you to know…” But this thought trailed away as well.

What did he want her to know? That he forgave her? (He wasn’t sure about this.) That he understood? (Did he?) And did he even know for a fact that she’d fallen for Sully’s son because he was smart and good looking and educated and could talk about all the things Becka had been so hungry to discuss? Maybe it was none of that. Maybe it was just hot sex. Also, he didn’t have any evidence that it was Peter Sullivan. Better to stick to what he did know.

“I just wanted to tell you I risked my life today. Apprehended a criminal. Also saved somebody’s life, or so they tell me. Oh, and I figured out where Sully stashed those wheel clamps. I told you it was him. Anyway, for once you would’ve been proud of me.”

Silence. He half expected a little sarcasm from Dougie, but none was forthcoming.

“I don’t think I ever made you proud back when you were alive. I feel bad about that. Maybe you wouldn’t have been all that proud of me even today. Because mostly, I admit, I’m still the same, well, the same guy you married. I still make a mess of things. I just wanted you to know that — for me? — this has been a pretty good day. The first really good one since you died. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m through blaming you for finding somebody…better. So I think it’s time, you and me, we made a deal.”

He gave her time to…what? Provide some kind of sign?

“Because I think I finally figured out what you want, and why you’ve been so upset with me. I think you want your privacy. Is that it, Becka? You want me to not know what was in your heart? You want to keep that secret.”

He paused here, again giving her time to consider.

“Anyhow, that’s my deal. If you’re interested. You get to keep your secret and I get to figure out what comes next. Would that work for you? I think maybe I know who the man is. But I won’t bother him, I promise. I won’t ask him how it happened. Which one of you it was. Because, you’re right, it’s none of my business. So…what do you say?”

There was the smallest breath of breeze just then, gently lifting Raymer’s hair as it had on Charice’s porch. He felt himself smile.

“Chief Raymer?”

The voice was so near that he assumed it must be Dougie doing a weird impression, but he turned and saw it was Rub Squeers. He was holding something, and it took Raymer a moment to realize what it was.

“I fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-found this yesterday—” said Rub, perspiring with the effort of speech. “At the buh-buh-buh-buh—”

“Bottom of the grave?”

“Bottom of the grave,” Rub agreed, clearly relieved to be understood.

Raymer took the remote from him.

When the other man was gone, Raymer stood with his back to Becka’s grave, turning the device over in his hands. Once again the breeze lifted his hair.

But when he turned around again, it was Dougie who spoke in a voice that sounded just like Raymer’s own, No deal, toots.

After all, it wasn’t like he and Becka had shook on it.