The Green Mile(105)

'If he comes back,' she echoed. 'How likely is that?'

I shook my head to indicate I had no idea. But I did, actually; I didn't think he was going to come back, not in 1932, not in '42 or '52, either. In that I was right. Percy Wetmore stayed at Briar Ridge until it burned flat in 1944. Seventeen inmates were killed in that fire, but Percy wasn't one of them. Still silent and blank in every regard - the word I learned to describe that state is catatonic - he was led out by one of the guards long before the fire reached his wing. He went on to another institution - I don't remember the name and guess it doesn't matter, anyway - and died in 1965. So far as I know, the last time he ever spoke was when he told us we could clock him out at quitting time... unless we wanted to explain why he had left early.

The irony was that we never had to explain much of anything. Percy had gone crazy and shot William Wharton to death. That was what we told, and so far as it went, every word was true. When Anderson asked Brutal how Percy had seemed before the shooting and Brutal answered with one word - "Quiet" - I had a terrible moment when I felt that I might burst out laughing. Because that was true, too, Percy had been quiet, for most of his shift he'd had a swatch of friction-tape across his mouth and the best he'd been able to come up with was mmmph, mmmph, mmmph.

Curtis kept Percy there until eight o'clock, Percy as silent as a cigar-store Indian but a lot more eerie. By then Hal Moores had arrived, looking grim but competent, ready to climb back into the saddle. Curtis Anderson let him do just that, and with a sigh of relief the rest of us could almost hear. The bewildered, frightened old man was gone; it was the Warden who strode up to Percy, grabbed him by the shoulders with his big hands, and shook him hard.

'Son!' he shouted into Percy's blank face - a face that was already starting to soften like wax, I thought. 'Son! Do you hear me? Talk to me if you hear me! I want to know what happened!'

Nothing from Percy, of course. Anderson wanted to get the Warden aside, discuss how they were going to handle it - it was a political hot potato if there had ever been one - but Moores put him off, at least for the time being, and drew me down the Mile. John Coffey was lying on his bunk with his face to the wall, legs dangling outrageously, as they always did. He appeared to be sleeping and probably was... but he wasn't always what he appeared, as we had found out.

'Did what happened at my house have anything to do with what happened here when you got back?' Moores asked in a low voice. 'I'll cover you as much as I can, even if it means my job, but I have to know.'

I shook my head. When I spoke, I also kept my voice low-pitched. There were now almost a dozen screws milling around at the head of the aisle. Another was photographing Wharton in his cell. Curtis Anderson had turned to watch that, and for the time being, only Brutal was watching us. 'No, sir. We got John back into his cell just like you see, then let Percy out of the restraint room, where we'd stashed him for safekeeping. I thought he'd be hot under the collar, but he wasn't. Just asked for his sidearm and baton. He didn't say anything else, just walked off up the corridor. Then, when he got to Wharton's cell he pulled his gun and started shooting.'

'Do You think being in the restraint room... something to his mind?'

'No, sir.'

'Did you put him in the straitjacket?'

'No, sir. There was no need.'

'He was quiet? Didn't struggle?'

'No struggle.'

'Even when he saw you meant to put him in restraint room, he was quiet and didn't struggle.'

'That's right.' I felt an urge to embroider on this to give Percy at least a line or two - and conquered it. Simpler would be better, and I knew it. 'There, was no fuss. He just went over into one of the far corners and sat down.'

'Didn't speak of Wharton then?'

'No, sir. '

'Didn't speak of Coffey, either?'

I shook my head.

'Could Percy have been laying for Wharton? Did he have something against the man?'

'That might be,' I said, lowering my voice even more. 'Percy was careless about where he walked, Hal. One time Wharton reached out, grabbed him up against the bars, and messed him over some.' I paused. 'Felt him up, you could say.'

'No worse than that? just... "messed him over"... and that was all?'

'Yes, but it was pretty bad for Percy, just the same. Wharton said something about how he'd rather screw Percy than Percy's sister.'

'Urn.' Moores kept looking sideways at John Coffey, as if he needed constant reassurance that Coffey was a real person, actually in the world. 'It doesn't explain what's happened to him, but it goes a good piece toward explaining why it was Wharton he turned on and not Coffey or one of you men. And speaking of your men, Paul, will they all tell the same story?'

'Yes, sir,' I told him. 'And they will,' I said to Jan, starting in on the soup she brought to the table. 'I'll see to it.'

'You did lie,' she said. 'You lied to Hal.'

Well, that's a wife for you, isn't it? Always poking around for moth-holes in your best suit, and finding one more often than not.

'I guess, if you want to look at it that way. I didn't tell him anything we both won't be able to live with, though. Hal's in the clear, I think. He wasn't even there, after all. He was home tending his wife until Curtis called him.'