The Night Visitors(67)

“Guilty,” he allows, blushing. “You were editor of the school newspaper and wrote an exposé of the money wasted in the school cafeteria. You couldn’t wait to shake the dust of this town off your feet. Didn’t you go to one of those fancy women’s colleges? Wellesley? Vassar?”

“Barnard,” I admit. “And it was an exposé on the food wasted that could be redirected to a food pantry. I made poor Mrs. Kaminsky, the head cafeteria manager, cry. I was kind of a shit.”

“You were doing what you thought was right,” he says. “And look—you’ve got your food pantry and shelter and crisis hotline. You’ve done a lot for this town and the county.”

“Some people say Sanctuary just draws bums to the town,” I say.

“Some people are assholes,” he counters. “I’ve always been proud to have a place like Sanctuary in our town. I never miss the Cookie Walk.”

I cringe. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you when we met at Stewart’s.”

“No worries,” he says, getting up to put a log in the stove. “You must see a couple dozen people a day.”

This is true, but how have I missed this nice guy who contributes food and services regularly and was a classmate? What else—and who else—have I been missing all these years while I barricaded myself in this house and the work of Sanctuary? Sure, I’ve been “doing good,” but how much of that was to appease my conscience for what my father did?

When I turn back to Wayne I see he has nodded off in his chair, coffee mug still in his hand. I take the mug from him and bring it and all the other dishes to the sink. It’s stopped snowing and the sky is lightening. I feel a pressure against my leg and for a moment I think about feeling that two nights ago and wondering if it was Caleb. But when I look down I find that it’s only Dulcie, looking up at me expectantly to be let out.

I guide her through the thicket of sleeping bodies and open the back door. There’s almost too much snow, but the overhang has kept enough off that I’m able to clear a pie-shaped wedge. While Dulcie lumbers a couple of feet into the deep snow and finds a place to pee, I stand on the stoop and watch the sunrise. It tinges the snow a creamy orange, so much like the Creamsicle bar I used to get from the Good Humor man that it makes me hungry. The sky above is a clear, radiant blue with a smattering of celestial bodies: Arcturus, Jupiter, Spica, and a waning crescent moon. Spica is the only star of the constellation visible, but I know Virgo is there. Justice.

I once asked my father the difference between justice and vengeance, and he told me the plot of a Greek play. Orestes has killed his own mother, Clytemnestra, because she killed his father, Agamemnon, which in turn was in revenge for him killing their daughter, Iphigenia.

Talk about a dysfunctional family! Doreen had exclaimed when I told her the plot of the play during one long, quiet shift.

The problem is that with his mother’s blood on his hands, Orestes is pursued by the Furies, the snake-haired, bat-winged agents of vengeance who hound their victims to a painful death. He flees first to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, where Apollo tells him to go on to Athens. There Athena has Orestes tried for his crime by a jury of Athenian citizens.

This is the birth of law, my father told me, triumphing over the old blood rules of vengeance.

The jury is split, but Athena casts a deciding vote for Orestes. The Furies don’t take it well. They rage against the Athenians and their city until Athena offers them an alternative: if they break the cycle of blood vengeance they will be worshipped by the Athenians under a new name: the Eumenides . . . or the Kindly Ones.

So basically she turned them into good furies by using positive reinforcement, Doreen said. Athena would have made a great third-grade teacher.

I smile, feeling like Doreen is standing here with me. Wait until she hears this story! Then I hear police sirens coming up the hill and remember I have others to tell my story to first. I can only hope my listeners are as well disposed as the old gods.

THEY TAKE US all into town to the police station to take our statements. I remind the officer—Tracy Bennerfield, who was in the third grade with Caleb—that they need to alert the Department of Child Welfare to be present on Oren’s behalf. Tracy bristles and says that she knows that, but I see her nudge her fellow officer to remember to make the call.

I can tell it’s not sitting well with anyone that a fellow officer has been killed. It’s going to sit even less well when I tell them the whole story. How likely are they to believe that Frank, an upstanding member of the community and one of their own, was willing to kill to cover up his father’s crime? I ask to use one of their phones to call Anita Esteban, who says she’ll be there in twenty minutes. Then I call Doreen. There’s no answer, but she’s probably sleeping off a late shift.

Anita’s at the station within fifteen minutes. I tell my story to her and I can see her eyes widen, but then she puts her hand on mine and says, “You’re the most honest person I know, Mattie. I believe you. But I gotta tell you, those officers aren’t going to like it.”

“I know,” I say, squeezing her hand. “Can you represent Alice too—and make sure Oren is looked after? I’d like to reach Doreen to keep an eye on Oren.”

I try Doreen again, but she still doesn’t answer.

I tell my story to the officer on duty and he asks me a dozen questions to trip me up, but I keep repeating only the same facts: Frank Barnes shot Davis. He aimed his firearm at me. I escaped and armed myself. I followed him out to the barn, where he held me at gunpoint and told me what really happened to my family thirty-four years ago. When I saw he meant to shoot me—and no doubt Oren and Alice too—I switched on the hay pulley to distract him. I meant only to disarm him but the hook hit him so hard it killed him.