Aubrey’s pathological need to be admired had met up with another pathological need.
“She started out across the bare land to the river, and I bumped along behind her. She looked back once and laughed, and then I got a little mad, so I speeded up. She started running.” And Connor smiled again. “Then she wasn’t laughing.”
He stopped. He smiled. He said nothing.
“And you hit her with the truck?” Shawn said, as if he were still holding out some hope that there had been a huge mistake.
“She made a bigger thump than the dog, that’s for sure! She actually went up in the air.”
Fiji could not stand that Bobo was hearing this. But he would not leave, and she would not ask him to.
“And she came down on the slope down to the river,” Connor said, in a matter-of-fact way. “I went down there to check.”
“Because you wanted to see what had happened?” Fiji said, having to struggle to get the words out of her throat.
“Yeah, well . . . yeah. Because that’s the moment, you know, the great moment. She wasn’t quite dead.”
“Did you kill her?” Fiji said. Tears were streaming down the witch’s face.
“We keep an old poker in the truck for dealing with snakes,” he said. “Not the same one I used on Mrs. Ames,” he added in a careful aside.
No one spoke.
“Her chest bones were all cracked. I poked a hole in one of the cracks,” he added, by way of explanation. He seemed lost in his reminiscence of the big moment. “But it did look like she’d been shot.”
“So you got the gun Bobo had used for target shooting,” Fiji said.
“Well, he’d left it in his truck, and the truck wasn’t locked,” Connor said. “But that was days later.”
Creek squatted down as if her knees could not hold her any longer.
“I washed the truck,” the boy said. “That same day.”
“Who did he kill before? This Mrs. Ames?” Fiji asked Shawn. But Shawn did not answer. He’d looked at the Gorgon’s face; it was his son’s.
But Creek answered. “Three-plus years ago he killed our next-door neighbor,” she said. “My mom had just died. Connor was really not talking to anyone, and we were pretty worried about him. While Dad and I were in the backyard raking leaves, Mrs. Ames came over with yet another casserole. Connor had got it in his head that she wanted to marry Dad and replace Mom. So he hit her with the fireplace poker. She must have had a thin skull.”
Fiji thought, I knew it. Thin skull. Connor had a bad history with fireplace pokers.
“And you covered it up.” Bobo was angry; not as angry as he would be later on, probably.
“No, we called the police!” Creek said, and she was a little angry, too. “Since he was a minor, they never tried him. The court psych evaluation said he was mentally disturbed, and his mother had just died, so they put him in a home for kids like him. He got therapy,” she added defensively. “I mean, we tried.”
“But then when he got out, he killed a cat,” Shawn said, finally finding his voice. He might have been a million years old. “We found it. We knew he’d done it. So we had to move. We thought if we moved to a really quiet place, if we limited his exposure to other people . . . if we were careful to stay out of the news, all of us . . . then none of the past publicity would catch up with him, no one would know about his juvenile record, and he’d have a chance to straighten out.”
“Are you happy with how that worked out?” Creek said to her father. “All that we did, coming to live here, no friends, no family, no money, we did all that for Connor, and this is what it’s come to. I almost got to college and got away, but no, the paperwork went missing.” Her hands were clenched in fists.
“I got the paperwork out of the mailbox and ripped it up,” Connor said.
“What?” She looked at him blankly, as if his words made no sense.
And his father was looking at him the same way. “Connor . . . why? Why didn’t you want your sister to go to college?”
“I’d be lonely, and you’d make me do every damn thing around here,” Connor said. “Wouldn’t you?” And he actually sounded accusatory.
There fell a stunned silence. Until Connor began shifting around, looking bored and antsy. Lemuel had let go of him, but he moved a little closer as Connor fidgeted.
“What will we do?” Shawn asked, as if to himself, his voice despairing. Fiji did not know if she wanted to slap him or comfort him. He looked around at the small crowd in the store, meeting their eyes in turn. “What will you do?”
Fiji could not think of what to say.
“He should die,” Olivia said.
None of the others offered an opinion.
“But I’m me,” the boy said. He gave a shrug, smiled. “I’m just a boy.”
“There are plenty of boys,” Lemuel said. “As you said about your sister’s puppy.”
“Uncle Lem,” Creek said. It wasn’t clear what she was pleading with him to do. Maybe she didn’t know herself.
“Don’t kill him,” Shawn begged. “We’ve gone through so much with him.”
“But what has that gotten you?” Olivia said. “No gratitude, no obedience, no change in his behavior. Just your own lives ruined. And wherever you run, it’ll be the same.”
“He’s got the taste for it now,” Fiji said, almost inaudibly.
Connor didn’t plead for his life or offer any rebuttal. He waited, with a calm face, for whatever would happen next. He could not conceive of the world going on without him, Fiji could tell.
“What is your judgment, Bobo?” Olivia asked. “Creek lost her dog, but you lost your lover.”
“I wish he could understand,” Bobo said. “I wish he could be cured. But if he were, how could he live with himself?” He stared at the boy and seemed more puzzled than furious. “I don’t think Connor will ever understand. He’ll keep killing people as long as he’s alive. I know Shawn and Creek will be better off without him.”
“But he’s my son,” Shawn said. “He’s my son. I can’t bear to lose him.”
“Do you deny that he’ll kill again?” Olivia said, oh-so-reasonably.
“No.” Creek sounded sure.
“Do you think any help you can get him will stop him? Cure him?” Fiji asked.
“No,” Creek said again.