Текст книги "Hollow World"

Автор книги: Michael J. Sullivan

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Warren focused on the two moving the cattle. He stood up. “Goddammit, Hig! Just kick her in the ass! Where the hell is that stick I gave you?”

“I…ah…” Hig, who was wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, looked lost.

“You need to teach Dolly who’s boss.” Warren shook his head. “All these bald bastards ain’t got no gumption.”

“ Gumption?Since when did you become a regular on Hee Haw?”

“Comes with the territory, my friend.”

Warren resumed his seat, and Ellis marveled. Four days earlier, Warren couldn’t belly-up to the bar and rest his elbows at the same time. As he sat back down, Ellis could once again see the old fullback.

“So how was it you arrived ahead of me if you left seven years later?”

“Not a clue,” Warren replied. “Flunked science, remember?”

“What have you been doing?”

Warren grinned, first at Ellis, then at Pax. “Working my ass off, is what. You can tell, can’t you?”

“Yeah—you look good for Santa Claus.”

“Funny guy.” He hooked a thumb at Ellis while looking at Pax. “Been a laugh a minute, hasn’t he?”

Again Pax didn’t reply, but only stood holding the tall glass of untasted tea.

“I popped in up north in the woods. I’m guessing you did too. Only you were probably smart enough to follow the river, right? I didn’t. I just thought the world was fucked, you know? Everything gone. So I dug in, built a lean-to and eventually a cabin.”

“You built a cabin?”

“We ain’t talking the kind on the maple syrup bottle. The place was a hovel, mostly made of fallen trees, thick branches, and shit, with a sod roof that leaked. Bugs everywhere too. That first winter was hell, but it kept me alive.”

“How’d you eat?”

“I brought my Browning Lightweight Stalker with the scope. It’s just like hunting up north, except the forests around here are packed with game. I’d kill one deer and be set with food for a week. Wasted a lot until I discovered how to cure it. Puked on bad meat a few times, working out the kinks. And this”—he slapped his stomach where his belly used to be—“is what a nearly all-protein diet and constant exercise does for you. Shows you what clean living can do for a man, eh?”

“So how’d you end up here? You eventually find the river?”

“Nope. I never had reason to go south. Most of the best hunting was north of my cabin. Wasn’t until the baldies found me that I realized I wasn’t the last person on the planet. They stumbled on my cabin like yuppie tourists discovering a UFO. Freaked them the hell out when they saw me. Granted, I looked like a bear—not much need to shave—but they were the ones buck naked. Little Ken dolls—all of them.”

Ellis smiled.

“You thought so too, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“They were skittish as hell. Anywho…they stared for a long time, kinda like your friend here.” He winked at Pax, who was watching every move Warren made. “Eventually I asked what they were staring at, and they freaked again. Guess they didn’t think I could speak or something. We started talking then, and the more I learned the more I was sickened to discover what became of mankind. No more women—you know about that?”

Ellis nodded.

“Everyone masturbates now. Everyone lives underground in one big video game or something. I started setting a few of them straight, telling them how it used to be, how people were supposed to live—like I was doing in my cabin. I talked about taking responsibility for themselves and not relying on others for anything. Talked about individualism, and it turns out these folks are starved for it. That’s why they get these weird tattoos and dress up. They’re all identical, so they have to do something to tell each other apart. So I straightened them out, you know? They saw me as this mystic wise man, like that guru the Beatles hung with.”

“Did they believe you about traveling through time?”

“Never told them about that. They were already spooked. Thought I was a Darwin—which I guess is like a Bigfoot to us. They asked if they could come and visit again. I said sure, but only if they didn’t tell anyone else. I didn’t want a bunch of these hairless clones turning me into a sideshow attraction. They kept their word, ’cause only the same ones ever returned. They’d ask to invite a couple of others, and I said that was okay. I kinda liked the company, you know. Nice having people listen when I talked about society’s problems and the right way to fix them, not to mention finally getting some respect, you know? Some really became convinced I was right, and they decided to move to the purity of rustic life. Soon I had a compound of five cabins. Then Dex had the bright idea of moving down here. They had a fucking farm—a whole town—no one told me. Dex arranged for us to be the caretakers at Firestone. I guess there’s always been people that took turns living here and keeping the place up—mostly college types doing some kind of research or community service or just back-to-earth nuts. We’ve been here about a year and keep to ourselves.”

“You’ve only been out here then? Didn’t you ever go to Hollow World?”

Warren made a melodramatic shudder. “No interest in that. They tell me about it. Popping through portals, device orgies, designer pets, fake sun, everybody always naked and not a pair of tits to be seen. They can keep that crap.” He spread out his arms. “I have all this to myself. A whole world of God’s beauty.”

Right then Pax dropped the glass of tea. It shattered in a burst of bronze liquid.

They both looked at Pax, who remained focused on Warren. “You ordered the murder of Pol-789.”

“I what?” Warren started to laugh, but stopped and stared, puzzled. “What did you say?”

“You’re Ren. You ordered the killing and replacement of Pol. You wanted a spy on the inside.”

“I hope there’s a joke in there somewhere,” Warren said. “Not neighborly for a guest to come on a body’s porch and accuse them of murder.”

“You’re the one hunting us—the one that sent the search party—you wanted Ellis Rogers to be brought to you.”

Warren nodded. “Asked is more like it. Once I discovered there was a Hollow World, I asked about Ellis. And I told everyone that if they ever found another guy like me—going by the name of Ellis—to have him visit. Isn’t that how you got here? How else did you know how to find me?”

“You’re a liar as well as a murderer,” Pax declared.

Warren’s face darkened as he stood up.

“Excuse us a second, Warren.” Ellis took hold of Pax’s arm and pulled. They climbed down the porch, moving away. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ren is a murderer. He killed Pol-789 and very likely Geo-24. Maybe others.”

“That’s ridiculous. I witnessed the murder. I saw who killed Geo-24, remember? And that person is dead now. Why would you think Warren had anything to do with that?”

Pax hesitated. “I can’t—I can’t tell you.”

Ellis’s brows rose. “You’re accusing a friend of mine of murder, but you can’t tell me why?”

“I’m sorry. You just have to trust me.”

Ellis sighed. He looked around at the few others working the farm, then back at Pax. Whatever threat they expected hadn’t materialized. He’d anticipated—he didn’t know what, actually—maybe a modern mafia or perhaps shadowy troglodytes. Instead, they had found Warren, his oldest friend, pretending to be Pa from Little House on the Prairie. For the first time, Ellis questioned if there had ever been a threat. After they caught the killer of Geo-24, everything had been fine until Pax became convinced Pol was an impostor. And why was that? There had never been any evidence of danger.

“Why did you think Pol was an impostor?”

“I…I just did.”

“Pax—I need a little more than that.”

“I know. I just can’t give it to you.” A miserable frown formed on Pax’s lips.

“Why not?”

“Because—because you won’t believe me, and if you do…you could hate me. I don’t want you to hate me.”

“What in the world could make me—”

“I can’t tell you!” Pax shouted.

“Okay, okay.” Ellis held up his hands. Then a thought crossed his mind. “Why do you live with Vin?”

“What?” Pax asked incredulously.

“When I first arrived, Alva insisted you were not crazy. Why would she say that?”

Pax took a step back and could no longer look him in the face. “Alva said that?”

“One of the first things I was told. Why would Alva feel it necessary to assure me you weren’t crazy?”

Pax looked at the ground, at the gravel beneath their feet, crushed stone and dirt. “I’ve had some trouble.”

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is Vin there to watch you? That’s why you need permission to invite guests into your own home, isn’t it?”

Pax took a deep shuddering breath while still studying the fine surface of Firestone Lane. “Vin has been very kind to me.”

“Why is Vin there, Pax? What’s wrong with you?”

“You just have to trust me. Ren is a killer.”

“Do you think he’s going to kill me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s planning, but he’s planning something, and it’s not good.” Pax looked up, eyes pleading. “We should leave. Warn Hollow World.”

“Warn them of what?”

“I don’t know!” Pax screamed, fists tight. A pair of nearby birds took flight at the outburst.

Ellis reached out and Pax folded into his arms. Pax was shaking. “I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you trust me?” Ellis asked.

He felt Pax nod against his chest. “Yes.”

“Then this is what I think you need to do. You said it was Warren who was after us. Who wanted me to come here. That means no one is chasing us now. So I think you should go home.”

“What? No, I—”

“I’ll stay and talk to Warren and find out what’s going on—if anything.”

“You can’t.” Pax pulled back.

“You’ve had a stressful couple of days. You were almost killed, then suffered a brutal operation, and topped it off with a can of Dinty Moore stew. Anyone would be upset.”

“I’m not leaving you. You don’t even have a portal.”

“You can come back tomorrow, okay?”

“I can’t leave you alone with a killer!”

“Look, I’ve known Warren since I was fifteen! He’s not a killer.”

“He is, and he’s lying.”

“You need to trust me this time. Warren’s not going to hurt me.” He put his hand on Pax’s shoulder. “You go home. Take a nice waterfall shower. Have Cha look at that shoulder. Eat a solid meal, and have a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow at this time, port back here. By then I’ll know a lot more and we can discuss what to do next, okay?”

“Why can’t we both go home, do all that stuff, and then both come back?”

“Because I need to talk to Warren, and…some of what I have to say is private.”

Pax stared. Ellis could see tears brewing. “I’m scared.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“I’m scared for both of us.”

“Go home and rest. Maybe talk to Vin.”

A tear slipped. “Be very careful.”

“I will.”

Pax reached up for the Port-a-Call. “Alva’s right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not crazy.”

 

Chapter Nine

All in Good Time

“Your friend seems a little upset,” Warren said as Ellis sat back on the rocker beside him.

Pax was gone. Ellis had seen the familiar Gothic dining room through the portal and felt a desire to go along. Pax’s place was already more of a home to him than anywhere he’d known since his childhood, but he did feel better now that Pax wasn’t here. He could speak more freely, and he had some issues to address with his old friend.

“Pax has been under some stress—been investigating some murders.”

“Didn’t think they had those in Hollow World. The hairless been telling me they got rid of murder, death, warfare—both the regular kind and class—death, racism, sexism, poverty, all that shit.”

“Well, someone made an exception.”

“So what’s the bug up his butt?”

“ His?”

Warren smirked. “His, her, its—whatever. Didn’t seem like stress. Acted sorta jealous of me. You two trying out some new-age sex toys? I hear they have this thing called a—”

“It’s not like that,” Ellis said, louder than he’d planned.

“Good. I thought maybe you were going native, walking on the other side of the road, so to speak.”

“I said it’s not like that.”

“Just saying, it seemed that way. And you never know. You hear about guys that go to prison and figure they got no choice, you know?”

“Like I said, Pax has just been under a lot of stress. We’ve been through a lot these last few days.”

“Yeah, well, we all have our crosses to bear. But damn, it’s good to see you. I’ve been wondering if you’d ever show up. Thought you might have gotten something wrong and fried your ass.”

The day was winding down. The lazy light of late afternoon reminded Ellis of after-school time, even to that day. Warren was right; it was hot out. He could see the heat waves rising, making the fields blurry, and hear the cicadas whining as loudly as the traffic used to be on old Michigan Avenue. Ellis, who still hadn’t seen a calendar, reasserted his belief that it was mid– to late summer. He could smell the grass and the scent of manure coming from the barn, and hear a horse snorting. There was corn in one of the fields, and it had to be elephant-eye high.

“Like your piece,” Warren said.

“My what?”

“Your gun.” Warren pointed at the holster. Ellis had almost forgotten it was there. It appeared invisible to everyone else. “Lemme see it.”

He only had a fraction of hesitation before pulling it out and handing it over. After all, this was Warren.

The two had met in the tenth grade—when Warren had also been known by just Ren,because two syllables were one too many for high schoolers to deal with, and in 1971 Warwas as unpopular as Nixon. They had shared a locker that Warren kept crammed with excess football gear that he had refused to leave in the gym. Old number forty-eight—the jersey was always there. In those three years, Ellis didn’t think his friend had ever washed the thing, and he’d had to hold his breath whenever he went for his books. Ellis didn’t care for the moose he had been forced to share space with until Ricky “the Dick” Downs targeted him.

Ellis was struggling to get his physics book past the set of shoulder pads when Ricky showed up and thought it might be fun to bounce him like a basketball. Ellis got in one good punch, but back then he’d only weighed one twenty, and the feeble blow just made Ricky mad. The Dick howled and punched Ellis in the stomach. Blowing his wind out wasn’t going to be enough to sate Ricky after having been hit. That boy had a mean streak. While he liked to pretend he got his nickname from the size of his prick, everyone knew Ricky the Dick was the sort to kick dogs for laughs.

“Now I’m gonna learn ya why fighting back is a bad idea.” The Dick had told him. “There’s a pecking order to the world, and God put you at the bottom.”

Ellis expected he’d be waking up in an ambulance, but that’s when Warren showed up. Like a game of Stratego, where a sergeant took a scout but a marshal took everything, the scenario played out; Ellis was the geek; Ricky was a basketball player with big sweaty hands, jabbing elbows, and a love of intimidation, but Warren was an offensive fullback on the football team. The “Eckard Express” they had called him on the field, and Ellis caught just a glimpse of Ricky in his Led Zeppelin T-shirt flying across the hall. He had left a dent in locker 243 before collapsing to the tile with a grunt followed by tears.

The principal had wanted to suspend Warren and Ricky both. He wasn’t interested in the excuses of two thugs, but Ellis was a straight-A student with no record of trouble. When he spoke on Warren’s behalf, Ricky the Dick received suspension for a month, and Warren only got a talking-to.

After that, Warren and he became best friends, his only friend for forty-three years. Ellis never was good at making new ones, and those he found had bigger dreams than Detroit could support. Warren, on the other hand, was steadfast, and the two settled together like sediment at the bottom of a lake. They were like Vietnam vets who could only fully relate to other combat vets—Warren understood him.

“Browning, right? Nice little weapon.” He turned the pistol side-to-side and peered one-eyed along the barrel, aiming down the length of Firestone Lane. “Funny, isn’t it? I told you I didn’t want to see the future, that I’d rather go to the past, but I wasn’t thinking back far enough. The Old West—that, my friend, was the realsweet spot. When every man had a pistol on his hip, and every crime ended in a hanging. You just went out, built a house, and lived your life, and if anyone tried to stop you. Bam! What happens in Tombstone…stays in Tombstone. Now here we are in the future but toting guns, living on a farm, and all on a planet with few people and no rules—except those we make.”

Ellis could hear Pax’s voice in his head, screaming, You gave him your gun! The man is a murderer!

He watched Warren play with the pistol, his two missing fingers making it more of a challenge to hold properly.

Two missing fingers. Same hand, same fingers; coincidencedidn’t cover that adequately. There had to be a connection, but this was Warren Eckard in front of him. He’d known the man all his life. He grew up with him, had his first beer with him. They saw the first Star Warsmovie at the Americana Theater together. Warren was like his brother—a close, protective older brother who’d always watched out for Ellis.

Only…he was different too.

Not just the white hair and beard or the weight loss—there was something in the way he talked. Warren had never been a happy man. He’d spent his entire adult life complaining about how he had gotten screwed. First there had been his mother and teachers who insisted he do better in school, forcing him to quit the football team when his grades had failed to meet expectations, and ruining what he knewwas a promising career. Later it had been his bosses, his wives—who had become ex-wives—who never understood his worth. Then there was the government, incompetent and corrupt that destroyed everything. He’d spent years preaching from the pulpit of a bar stool. Many people heard; no one listened. Not even Ellis. He found it hard to heed a voice that dripped of so much self-pity, but all that was gone now. The unfocused grumblings were replaced with a strange optimism that made Ellis wonder if he really knew his old friend anymore.

But it’s still Warren, isn’t it?

Ellis watched him holding the gun and had to repress a desire to ask for it back.

“I was right too. This is the life.” Warren looked over with a sage expression that was another new part of his attire. “It’s hard. Don’t get me wrong. I thought I might die that first winter. Actually ate bugs. Nearly died trying out different berries, until I could tell the good from the bad. That’s the trick of it, learning the good from the bad. Knowing which things you can trust to help keep you alive and those that will sicken and kill you. But My Lord, Ellis, that spring—it was like what all those Bible thumpers used to talk about—a come-to-meeting with God. I felt born again. I crawled out of that grave of dirt and sticks into a new life, a new dawn for old Warren Eckard.”

Warren checked the pistol’s magazine, slapped it back in, slipped off the safety, and cocked it.

Ellis felt his heart quicken.

“I realized there was nothing holding me back anymore. I was free. I could do anything I wanted. No one around to stop me anymore. No laws at all, you know?” He gave Ellis a wicked old-man grin and a wink that shortened Ellis’s breath.

What kind of laws we talking here, Warren?

“If I fucked up, it’d be my own fault. I didn’t think anyone else existed, so I felt like Adam. Just me and God walking in Eden, before that bitch, Eve, showed up and ruined everything.” He chuckled and looked at Ellis. “Why you so quiet?”

“Can I have my gun back?”

He laughed. “Am I making you nervous?”

“Well, you don’t have a good track record after taking the safety guard off mechanical devices. Just concerned you might make a matched set of missing digits by shooting yourself in the foot.”

Warren offered the sort of smile that Ellis couldn’t read: amused, polite, condescending? Then he slipped the safety back on, lowered the hammer, and handed the pistol back before taking another sip of his tea.

“I’m actually surprised you’re enjoying this so much.” Ellis felt his heart coast as he checked the pistol, assuring himself that the safety was indeed on. “No beer, no ice, no football, no women. Not like you.”

“I was a man of no account in a world of wealth. Now I’m a king in a land of absence. Everything is before me. You see, it’s like I was a leftover part in a completed picture, but now the world is a blank canvas.”

“When did you become a philosopher? Four days ago the most eloquent thing coming out of your mouth was the jingle of a beer commercial.”

“That’s part of it. No TV, no radio, no Internet, and precious few books—with no diversions, a man thinks…a lot. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching, and I realized that I was a poor man, who also didn’t have any money,” he said with an amused look, watching to see if Ellis caught the twist of words.

He gave a slight smile.

Warren returned it with a wink. “The world has been erased. We can build whatever we want. We can be the founding fathers of a new civilization. Do it right this time.”

“There’s already a civilization. Millions of people might disagree with your vision of the future. From what I’ve heard, they consider the surface kinda sacred.”

“You’ve spent time with them. You know what they’re like. A bunch of children. They won’t fight. We’re like that Spanish guy that landed in Mexico…”

“Cortés?”

“Yeah—him. He whipped the whole country of Mexico with just a handful of men.”

“He defeated the Aztec Empire with five hundred men, advanced technology, and smallpox.”

“Yeah, whatever. We’re like him. We’re the only two realmen left in the world. The rest are—I don’t know, really, but they synthesized aggression out of them. They remind me of my second wife. They’ll scream and pout, but the worst they’ll ever do is call you names and occasionally throw something. We could rule this world with nothing more than our fists and a hunting knife, and yet we both have guns. That practically makes us gods.”

Or devils.

He smirked at the look on Ellis’s face. “Relax. I’m not applying to be the next Hitler, just saying the baldies are content living underground, so there’s no reason we can’t make a town for ourselves right here. Why should they care?”

“They might.”

Warren seemed to ponder this, sipping his tea thoughtfully. Inside, there was a banging of pots and pans and the clap of a cupboard.

Ellis looked down at his gun. Funny that he hadn’t put it away. He always had in the past. He set the pistol in his lap, slid his backpack between his feet, and pulled out his coat.

“You cold?” Warren asked.

“No.” The single word sounded ominous, but maybe only to Ellis, because he alone knew what was coming next.

Ellis pulled the letters out of his coat pocket, where they’d been since 2014. He had considered not mentioning them. What good could come from bringing them up now? Peggy was dead, that whole world gone. For Ellis, however, the hurt was only a few days old, and there was no going forward until he dealt with that wound. His mother had taught him the best way to avoid infection was to pour a solid dose of hydrogen peroxide on deep cuts. It would hurt like hell, but it had to be done before any kind of bandage could be put on—before any healing could take place.

Ellis didn’t say a word. He just handed over the letters. Warren looked at them, puzzled, shuffling through the small stack. “Oh,” he finally said, understanding filling his eyes. “Damn, these are really old. Peggy kept these, huh?”

Ellis only glared.

“What?” Warren asked. Not a trace of guilt, not a hint of remorse.

“You were fucking my wife.”

“Yeah, I was.”

“Right after my son died, you were screwing Peggy.”

Warren was nodding like one of those stupid bobbleheads on a car dashboard.

“Have you got anything to say?”

Warren shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Ellis? That was over two thousand years ago.”

“Not for me. I just found out.”

Warren nodded with a fair-enoughexpression. “So, you want me to say I’m sorry. Is that it?” Warren looked over at the pistol, still in Ellis’s lap. “Or are you planning on killing me?”

Is this how these things happen?The subconscious just takes control? Is that the real reason he sent Pax away? Was he ashamed of what he might do? Pax thought so well of him; he didn’t want to ruin that. Wasn’t it always the same thing in the aftermath of a shooting?

He was a peaceful man, Officer. Never had a bad word to say about anyone. Don’t know how he could have done it. It just wasn’t like him.

He looked back at Warren. “I don’t want you to say you’re sorry—I want you to actually besorry.”

“Okay.”

Okay?

“Goddammit, Warren! You were my friend. My only realfriend. You had all kinds of women. I had one.”

But you weren’t doing anything with her no more, were you, buddy? You and Peggy hadn’t shared so much as a real kiss in months. And I was getting fat and not the looker I once was. So we did it. I had her in your bed on that nice lavender comforter. Used to sneak up there three times a week to rock that headboard against the wall. Glad you didn’t come home from work early. As they say, if the bed’s a-rockin’, don’t come up the stairs. Peggy even kept her high heels on.

Ellis realized his finger was inside the trigger guard of the gun.

“You really want the truth?” Warren’s eyes glanced at the gun in Ellis’s lap. “She was mad at you. Hated you. Blamed you for Isley’s death—but you already know that.” Warren rubbed his thumb thoughtfully along the side of his near-empty glass. “I was with her that day. I had stopped by to borrow your ladder just as she was coming home. We went to the garage, and we found Isley together. She screamed, and I held her while she cried.

“Then a month or two later, when she started writing me letters, I figured it was because we shared this moment, you know? But I think she was just trying to hurt you. It wasn’t like she wanted me. She wanted to get back at you. I didn’t know that beforehand. It was only the one time—but you already know that from the letters.” Warren handed them back to Ellis.

“We were in the back of her car parked in the corner of a Denny’s parking lot where we went after the bar had closed. Both of us were drunk. Wasn’t my finest hour by a long shot. I guess I thought I was helping her—and I was, just not the way I thought. I figured I was lending comfort to a woman cut off from her husband. Instead, I was providing her with the means to punish you. Course it didn’t turn out that way, because you never found out—until now. Like one of those World War II mines that blows off a kid’s foot fifty years later. She could have told you—don’t know why she didn’t. She’d also said she was going to get a divorce. Didn’t do that either. If you want to know what I think, I honestly believe that even though she wanted to, she just couldn’t stop loving you.”

Warren swallowed the last of his tea—Ellis just swallowed.

“Her revenge backfired in the end. After you did your vanishing act, Peggy became convinced you killed yourself because of those letters. I tried to tell her about the time machine, but you can imagine her reaction. When I insisted that’s what happened, she stopped taking my calls. Never got any response to my emails. She moved to Florida about a year later—but I doubt it was just to get away from me. Never remarried.”

Ellis’s gaze had drifted away from Warren to the fields, but snapped back at the sound of those last two words.

“How’d she die?”

Warren raised an eyebrow. “How should I know?”

“You said she never remarried. If she was still alive when you left, you would have said you don’t know if she ever remarried.”

“Mr. M.I.T.”

“So how did she die?”

Warren sighed. “Car accident.”

“Anyone else hurt?”

“She was alone. Hit a cement freeway viaduct.”

Ellis narrowed his eyes. “Bad weather?”

“Drunk, I was told.” Warren held his stare for half a minute. “At the funeral, her sister, what’s-her-name—the one in Omaha—Sandy! Sandy mentioned Peggy had begun drinking after you left. They tried to get her help. Tried to get her to AA or something. Didn’t work, I guess.” Warren watched him a second. He must have looked upset, because Warren felt it was necessary to add, “She, ah—she finally forgave you—for Isley and such.”

“How would you know?”

“That photo, the one she took of you and Isley at Cedar Point—the one she folded you out of? Sandy said she found it among her things. The fold was bent back, and Peggy had written the words I’m sorryacross it with a black Sharpie.”

Ellis began to sob.

The kitchen of the Firestone Farm smelled wonderful. Moist air, born of baking bread, bubbling pots on a cast-iron stove, and meat cooking in the oven made Ellis think of childhood Thanksgivings, Christmases, and Easters. Shadowy figures worked in the streams of light entering the windows and screen door. That, too, reminded Ellis of holidays—of years ago when he was very young, and they used to visit his grandmother. Her house was old enough to have a coal chute, and in the basement she had an icebox and a concrete basin with an angled side where a washboard would attach. His grandmother’s place had been wired for electricity but wasn’t native to it, and many of the rooms were left dark.

The Firestone Farm lacked sound as well as light. The silence was surprising and far more noticeable than Ellis would have expected. For nearly sixty years he’d known the sounds of the inside: air-conditioning fans, the rattle and hum of refrigerators, the buzz of fluorescents, the squawk of television, and the music of radios and stereos. The farm had only the scuffle of bare feet, and the slow tick of a wall clock, which dominated the audio landscape as a metronome setting the room’s tempo. Unlike the coziness of smells and light, the lack of sound was disturbing—the dead atmosphere of a power outage.

They had all paused when he entered, turning while holding clay pots of steaming vegetables. They stared with the same looks Ellis had seen on the students at the crime scene. Maybe they had heard him crying. He’d sobbed for some time while Warren politely took his pistol for a walk to the barn, granting him some privacy. By the time he had returned, Ellis had stopped crying and was feeling empty and achy, as if he’d thrown up. They sat for a long while in silence before someone called them in for dinner.