More Things In Heaven and Earth Page 14

  I moved through the line expressing my condolences and was received with reserve and graciousness. Most of the family politely recited the labored and clumsy words that people say when speaking of the departed. As I made my way past them I noticed the curious absence of Toy McAnders. Having reached the end of the receiving line, I glanced around the room looking for a familiar face, but saw none. It seemed inappropriate to make an immediate exit out the front door, so I moved to one of the adjacent rooms where people were talking in more animated tones.

  Easing into the crowded room and wishing privately to be invisible, I tried my best to mask my awkwardness. But I felt painfully obvious and out of place. It seemed my presence had only brought further unease to an already heartrending situation. I felt foolish for having come.

  As I maneuvered through the crowd, I saw from across the room a face of amused but sympathetic assessment. Christine Chambers, wearing a neatly cut black dress, was looking directly at me. She stood in a small gathering with her back to one of the large windows. The soft, filtered light fell fairylike on her bare arms and cast a glow around her face. She looked fresh, wholesome, firmly molded. She was intoxicatingly beautiful. I stood hypnotized, trapped in the gentle net of her gaze. I was pressed with an incredible desire to talk to her, to apologize for the awful, insensitive things I had said, to somehow start afresh and find some common ground. Something in her fleeting glance seemed to read a confirmation of my attraction. For a brief second, the agony of my embarrassing isolation was forgotten. I was drawn in, enchanted.

  I looked away and moved to the far side of the room. Then I felt a friendly hand patting me on the back and turned to find Mayor Hickman.

  “Good to see you, Doc. You doing okay?”

  “Sure, fine. How are you?”

  “Oh, fine, fine, fine. Hmm, tough business, huh? Knox was a good man. The best.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. Can’t say I got much of a chance to know him.”

  “Yeah, that’s a shame. You would have liked him. Sad thing too—he didn’t quite make it to his one hundredth birthday. We had a big celebration planned.”

  I nodded. “So I heard.” The mayor talked nonstop for another few minutes. He had a remarkable ability to look you in the eye and, in a confiding manner, talk to you about absolutely nothing of importance. I never thought he was disingenuous; it had simply become his default mode of communicating, as if you were the one person he most needed to talk to. Even still, during the subtle nod, he would make quick surveys of those around him, working the room, assessing whom to talk to next based upon a highly refined calculation of influence and benefit. It was clear that Walt had a keen sense of political theater, but he was so darn friendly, so unreserved, you had to like the guy. At his core, he was a politician. Even still, the mention of Knox and the celebration only thickened the cloud of my own self-doubt.

  We talked cordially for a few more moments, and while I heard his words, my mind was only half engaged. I desperately wanted to maneuver for a view back across the room at Christine. After what seemed an eternity I closed my conversation with the mayor and stepped politely away, giving a short, furtive glance in Christine’s direction, but she was gone. I stepped into the crowded central hallway leading out the front and almost bumped headfirst into someone walking in the opposite direction. The man did not move, but instead looked at me with impassive reserve. It was Toy McAnders. Despite my clear six-inch advantage in height, his body language didn’t give the slightest pretense of yielding. We stared sharply at each other. Finally, I pursed my lips and gave him a subtle nod.

  “Toy,” I said softly while holding out my hand.

  Unlike most of his kinsmen, he had a well-groomed, polished appearance. His charcoal gray suit was well tailored and crisply complemented by a starched button-down shirt and silk tie. He was clean shaven, revealing the modest but handsomely strong facial features of his bloodline. He looked at me with a contemplative, calculating, and darkly confident face. Without the slightest change of expression, he lowered his gaze to study my outstretched hand. Then, in an awkward, deliberate motion, he extended his right hand in a firm grasp.

  “Doc.” He gave a slight nod.

  We stood silently. Neither of us offered anything more. I nodded again and proceeded to walk past, pausing only long enough to say thanks to the funeral staff member standing sentry at the front door. The short, gray-haired man insisted on shaking my hand as I passed. After we shook, I once again glanced down the hallway at Toy.

  At that moment I noticed something curious. He was rubbing his chin with the thumb of his left hand. This, coupled with the ungainly nature of his handshake, told me that Toy was likely left-handed. But what was truly interesting was the position of his left thumb. It curved backward at such an angle it seemed to be made of rubber. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on under his intense and brooding surface. Without access to that deeper knowledge, I found myself gathering only the physical minutiae my medical training would allow me.

  I stepped onto the porch, exhaling a deep sigh. Moving slowly down the wide steps, I took off my suit jacket, threw it over my shoulder, and began to make my way back to the clinic. About a half block down the street I noticed a car parked with the motor running. In it was a young woman who was apparently waiting for someone. After looking in her direction for a few moments, I realized she was staring at me. I recognized her as Sarah Akins, the young mother with the infant I’d examined the week before. When she realized I was looking back at her, she pulled the car down a side street and was quickly gone from view. I didn’t recall seeing her inside the funeral home. Yet it seemed clear she was either waiting for someone there or deliberating whether to attend. It was an odd, curious moment, but was soon lost to the larger shadows hanging over me: the looming sense of doubt about Knox’s death that had taken over all my thoughts.

  It was five in the afternoon. As I walked the few blocks to the clinic, I could see on the horizon the ominous black of a late summer storm front. Replacing the vibrant blue sky, the dark thunderclouds piling up in the west had thrown the streets into an eerie twilight.

  I felt a desperate frustration. Clearly, from all the comments I’d heard earlier that day at the clinic and now at the funeral home, Watervalley was mourning the loss of one of its prized citizens, a beloved man who had been a mainstay of stability and strength. It seemed that there was now a minor tear in the fabric of life in this small town, one that would take a measure of time to heal. Idiot chance had placed me in Knox’s path just as he was making his last step toward departure from the flesh. His death had been inevitable. But the sullen glances, the whispering huddles, the dropped conversations as I had moved about the funeral home plagued me with the feeling that, for some reason, I was being held to blame. I knew I had begun to doubt, in some small degree, my assessment of Knox, wondering if perhaps I had truly missed some indication of illness. It should be no surprise that others might be thinking the same.

  I arrived at the clinic’s back door at the very onset of a raging downpour that pelted me with a blowing fury. The clinic was closed and I let myself in, moving through the shadowed hallway to my office. The deluge poured against the large windows. Slowly I pulled my desk chair toward me. My charmed existence in Watervalley had been short-lived. With Hoot Wilson’s miraculous escape from death, I had made a glorious entrance to center stage. Knox’s death had placed me there again, except now I stood under the glaring light of doubt and suspicion. I sat down and leaned forward, holding my face in my hands.

  Eventually, I collapsed back against the chair and stared at the ceiling. In the silence of my office, a thought occurred to me. There was one person I could talk to. I grabbed my things and went home to change into jeans and a T-shirt. I decided to take a drive up to the hills.

  CHAPTER 17

  Questions

  By the time I pulled the Corolla onto the brick driveway of John Harris’s home, the rain had moved out, leaving the evening air
cooler, thick with dewy moisture. It was the cusp of early twilight, with darkness still a shaded hour away. A small, professionally engraved wooden sign at the entry read SUMMERPLACE. This struck me as curious, because John didn’t appear to be the estate-naming type. It would be a question for another time.

  I parked the car and rang the bell but noticed through the side transoms that no one appeared to be inside. Instinctively, I walked around the house toward the rear deck, calling out a strong “Hello.” I soon found John taking in the view from one of the two Adirondack chairs on the low plane of the lawn behind the house. He looked over his shoulder and immediately rose to meet me.

  “Well, now, damn, Doctor. What brings you up here?” Unlike our first encounter, this time John offered me a large, engaging smile. Given the events of the day, I was elated. Clearly he, like me, was glad to have company.

  “Ah, looking for fresh air, I guess. You said to come anytime.”

  “That I did,” responded John heartily, still bearing a relaxed, pleased grin. “Come join me. I’m having a Scotch. A damn good one—twenty-year Ardbeg. Best Islay there is.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but how about I just have a beer?”

  He gave me an incredulous look, not so much disappointed as surprised. He nodded in resignation. “All right, so be it. There’s beer in the fridge. Go help yourself.”

  I smiled, knowing that for him such an offer was the apex of hospitality. I made my way to the kitchen, grabbed a cold beer, and rejoined him in one of the Adirondack chairs.

  We sat quietly for a moment, staring into the far reaches of the valley below. To my surprise, it was John who broke the silence.

  “Well, Doc, I’m starting to worry about your sanity. First you move to the armpit of Tennessee and now you’re turning down twenty-year-old Scotch. Your condition is starting to appear serious.” There was a slight slurring in his voice.

  “How many of those have you had? You seem blithe and vocal tonight.”

  John smirked. “Blithe and vocal—rather linguistic of you, Doc. Humph. Well, I have explored the subtleties of the Scotch bottle with resolute thoroughness, if that is what you’re asking, smartass.”

  I smiled, shaking my head lightly. I downed a long draw of beer and took in the well-crafted details of the strong rock wall surrounding the property.

  “I gotta hand it to you, John. You’ve got a nice place here. Solid looking. With that rock wall, you could probably hold off a pretty good siege for several days.”

  “Why, is there a murmur in the village? Are they coming after me with torches and pitchforks?” No doubt John was in a state of full mirth.

  “Not hardly. Right now they’re all at Knox McAnders’s funeral. I take it you knew him?”

  “Hell, Doc, Knox was on a first-name basis with everybody in the valley and most of their pets. He was quite the man—friendly, smart as a whip, and completely dedicated to the community. Served on the school board for fiftysomething years. You look around this county, you’ll see his handiwork everywhere. The soccer complex, the new high school, the new library, the renovation of the Memorial Building—all those things were accomplished because Knox was quietly working in the background, building consensus, finding the money, making things happen. Yet you won’t find his name on a single one of them. That’s just how he was. He had a way of reading people, knowing what made them tick. He knew how to get things done.”

  “I only saw him briefly, at the clinic last week, but I have to admit there was something about him. He had this charmed way of looking at you and you knew he was reading your mind. Anyway, if there is a murmur in the village, I think it is more pointed in my direction. Comes with the territory.”

  “Oh, really? So that’s what has you all mopey looking. You believe they think you’re to blame for Knox’s death?” Even on the fringe of being sloshed, John’s insight was painfully accurate.

  “Oh, hard to say. I haven’t quite figured these people out. They’ve all been nice. Still, I can’t help but think that sometimes it’s just a veneer. Seems to be an underlying mind-set of suspicion.”

  “Humph.” John chortled. “Hell’s bells, Luke. Did you think your Buckhead urbanity would stumble on many common denominators among these denominational commoners?”

  “Clever. Anyway, looks likes news travels fast.”

  “Knox McAnders’s death is a big event, Doc. You didn’t see? The paper ran a special edition.”

  “Really? What did it say was the cause of death?”

  Curious, John carefully read the tone and nature of my question. “Natural causes. Isn’t that what your report said?”

  I was considerably relieved. “Yeah—well, sure. Heart failure, to be exact. My God, you know the man was ninety-nine.”

  “Ninety-nine, ten months, and two days to be exact, according to the paper. And spry till the last. Pretty darn good if you ask me.” John sat staring intently down toward the town, as if he could focus in on the steps of the funeral home. In a low and casually sarcastic voice he added, “And I’m sure the god of all the little people in the valley thought that was pretty darn good too.”

  “Well, now, that’s interesting. Given your inference that he’s not your god, you seem to have a pretty strong insight into what’s on his mind.”

  “That’s right, sawbones. We parted amiably several years ago. Since then we get along just fine. Besides, I’m looking for a new god.”

  “A new one?”

  “Yep, a new one. I’ll tell you what I want. I want a god who will stand up for jackasses. We don’t get the support we need.”

  “Ha. Well, good luck with that.” I shook my head and laughed. John loved it. He held up his glass.

  “To Knox McAnders, a fine old Scotsman. He left behind some pretty good family and a lot of dumbass neighbors.”

  “Powerful speech, John. Thanks for sharing. Dumbass neighbors, huh? So where does that leave us?”

  John looked over at me ponderously, drunkenly, still with his glass held skyward.

  “Sport, that leaves us high on a hill, drinking damn good Scotch, overlooking all of them. You and me, a smartass and a jackass, respectively.”

  We laughed spontaneously, sympathetically, our voices echoing into the reaches of the growing darkness. Perhaps we both had been looking for something to laugh about, and John’s wit and sarcasm were the only tonics available.

  “Yeah, here’s to Knox McAnders, my first patient in Watervalley.”

  “Oh, cheer up, Doc. Another ten or fifteen years, nobody will be remembering that.”

  “Thanks, John. That’s very comforting.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  Bolder shadows were now covering the west wall of the valley, the last rays of sun hovering over the cathedral of trees rimming the tops of the far hills. My mind stirred.

  “So John. I’m curious. How does this all work for you? You’ve got this great place, incredible view, a couple of great cars, but, uh . . .” I struggled with how to properly frame my words. “But you don’t seem to be connected.”

  “Sawbones, if you have a question, spit it out.”

  “Why do you live up here all alone?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’ve found a certain gratifying ease in living a self-centered life. There are a whole lot less birthdays to remember.”

  “I’ll take that one under advisement.”

  John poured more Scotch into his short glass. “My life’s no different from anybody else’s. Things happen. You deal with them. I deal with them in my own way just like anybody. But I’m more of an up-and-outer than a down-and-outer.”

  I smiled at the remark. Then my thoughts took a different direction. “Hey, tell me something, Mr. Up-and-Outer. Toy McAnders—what do you know about him?”

  John smiled. He spoke slowly, stoically. “Tough one to figure out, isn’t he? Toy is one of the best athletes the valley ever produced. Made All-State in baseball and basketball several years ago. He’s a lefty. Almost won the sta
te baseball pennant single-handedly. Could have gone off to school, but never did.”

  “Not enough horsepower between his ears?”

  “No, that isn’t his problem. He’s plenty smart. He just loves farming and loved his grandfather Knox.”

  “I guess there’s no crime in that.”

  “Small towns have opinions on everything. They judge you pretty sharply if you do well and leave or if you do well and stay. Toy’s a tough, quiet kid. His senior year a couple of thugs tried to steal Knox’s wallet while he was waiting for Toy after a basketball game. It happened in the school parking lot. Toy waded into the middle of it and beat the crap out of both of them. As the story goes, each one had forty pounds on him. There was a beautiful swiftness to his sense of justice. For him, the time for inquiries was after the fight was over.”

  “Interesting story. So Toy is one tough fellow?”

  John nodded. “Ever since, an entire mythology has grown up around him. I don’t think he’s mean or anything, but no doubt he’s got a murky side to him. In towns like Watervalley, you have your mayors and councilmen, but you also have chieftains, people with weight and influence. I’d say for his generation: Toy is that guy. Everybody in the town knows Toy, just like they knew Knox. But I bet you not thirty of them have had a conversation with him.”

  I stared into the evening, taking in all that John had said.

  “Anyway, not long after that, Toy moved in with Knox. He finished high school and worked the farm. Not much money there, though. I think he has an evening job at the cabinet factory.”