All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(77)

As for the murders, the gun being on his property was the only thing to connect Junior to them. That made Cutcheon a suspect, too.

In the end it all came down to the kids’ statements. The girl wouldn’t talk and they had to hold her down to get fingerprints and a blood sample. That left us with her brother.

Against my better judgment, I went along with Cardoza’s idea to take the boy on a walk-through of that day. Kids are tough, but Donal sure didn’t want to go back to that house. I held his hand going up the drive, with half-a-dozen agents behind us, including Cardoza. Never mind that he had a boy that same age, he was looking out for his career.

“What were you doing before you went inside the house?” Cardoza said.

“I was outside,” Donal said.

“Where did you come from?”

“Outside. On the porch.”

I knew what Cardoza was trying for, but the kid’s story started with him standing on the porch.

“I was going to see Mama. Because Sandy and me heard the car coming back.”

I opened the door and, brave as can be, Donal went in. The place was mostly cleaned up, but there was a brown spot on the kitchen floor, where blood had stained the linoleum. Same in the hallway.

Donal walked us around the crime scene. Here was Daddy. Here was Mama. He pointed to where the gun had been in Mrs. Quinn’s hand, before he took it.

“Kellen says you can’t leave a gun lying around.”

“Kellen told you that on the day you found Mommy and Daddy?” Cardoza said.

“No. Before, when he let me and Wavy try his gun. He said, ‘You have to be careful. You can’t leave a gun lying around.’”

“He let you shoot his gun?”

“If we were careful and only pointed at the beer cans.”

“Was Kellen here to tell you to take the gun?” I don’t know how Cardoza figured to get the truth if he was going to keep feeding Donal lines.

“No, I was all by myself,” Donal said, the same way he said, “I was outside.” Like he’d practiced it.

“But you took the gun?”

“Because it wasn’t safe to leave it lying around.”

You couldn’t fault the kid on his logic. Or his gun habits. When my deputy found the pistol, the safety was on.

After the house, Donal showed us the route he took that day, more than five miles of hayfields and woods, to Cutcheon’s garage.

On the walk, Cardoza said to me, “He’s lying about what happened up at the house.” Like he was the only one could see that. “You think Barfoot threatened him?”

“Don’t seem to me he’s scared of Junior.”

“It just kills me. I keep seeing my son, walking all this way.” Cardoza seemed sincere, but he kept looking at his watch. The feds were set on proving Junior had time to go from the garage to the farmhouse and back. They didn’t have any eyewitnesses for that, aside from a neighbor who might have heard a motorcycle, but wasn’t sure what time.

It was hot and humid, like the day the Quinns were killed, and by the time we got to the garage, Cardoza and I were dripping with sweat. Junior would have been in worse shape, as much weight as he was carrying.

Donal showed us how he walked in through the open garage door and laid the gun on Junior’s workbench. Instead of knocking at the office door, he looked through a gap at the bottom of the blinds. Up on his toes, resting a hand on the windowsill.

“Wavy says it’s okay to watch. That’s how you learn things.”

“Who was in the office?” Cardoza said.

“Wavy and Kellen.”

“What were they doing when you looked in?”

“Fucking. Like Daddy does to Sandy on the kitchen table. When is Sandy coming back? I miss her.”

“I don’t know, son.” I doubted she was coming back. The feds had charged her with possession and intent to distribute.

“I’m thirsty. Can we get a pop out of Kellen’s fridge?”

“Did you do that on that day?” Cardoza said.

“No. I didn’t want Wavy to catch me spying.”

We were all thirsty from hiking, so we went into the office and got some drinks. Cardoza sat Donal down in the chair, perched himself on the corner of the desk, and said, “What do you mean by f*cking? What was Kellen doing to Wavy?”

“You know. On the table. Like cooking. Wavy says that’s how babies are made.”

“Maybe you could just tell me what you think it means.”

Donal took a drink of his pop and gave Cardoza a suspicious look. Apparently the rape charge wasn’t a problem for the feds anymore.

“Putting his thing in her. Making a baby. Except Daddy f*cks Sandy all the time and they never make a baby. But maybe Wavy and Kellen could make one.”

It would’ve been funny, if it wasn’t so messed up. Made me think a little harder about him asking, “Is Wavy okay?” Because of what he’d seen at the garage? I planned to ask Junior about that.

“So what did you do then?” Cardoza said.

“I left the gun here. Kellen would know what to do with it. I needed to tell somebody about Mama, so I went back to the house to see if he—” The boy went pale as ashes and snapped his mouth shut. He started to shivering so hard I reached out to take the pop bottle before he dropped it.