Box. Part 10

Crazy.

Sheriff Carson Boyd follows me to the Clayton police station to get a statement. Tells his dispatcher to run a check on me. Tells him to do an internet search for good measure.

Three hours later, he says, "Tell me about the letter."

"What letter?"

"The one we found in the console."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

It takes another half-hour to convince him I know nothing about a letter, or who wrote it. Then he leaves the room a few minutes, comes back and says, "You ought to thank Trudy for writing that letter."

"What letter?"

"Let's don't start that again," he says. "Trudy wrote a letter while Scooter was interrogating you in the barn. Her letter corroborates your story, not hers."

"She has a different story?"

"She and Scooter gave different accounts of the hangman's noose we found on the floor, how the barn roof caved in, and how you may have acquired those rope burns around your neck."

"She's trying to protect her father, and he's trying to protect his job."

"Thanks Sherlock, but we'll draw our own conclusions if it's all the same to you."

He follows me to the Dew Drop Inn and waits for me to check in. Then gives me a warning not to leave town.

"I'd like to check on Trudy," I say.

"Did I just tell you not to leave town?"

"It's twenty miles from here!"

"You'll have to wait till tomorrow," he says.

"Is she okay?"

"Why wouldn't she be?"

"Her husband beat her up pretty badly."

"Visiting hours start at eight. Seven if you're family. Tell me you're not a blood relative."

I frown.

He says, "Tomorrow when you visit Trudy at the hospital?"

"Yeah?"

"There'll be a police officer in the room."

"I've got nothing to hide."

"Maybe not. But you're a magnet for trouble like I've never seen."

"You think?"

"Let's review. You're driving through town on the way to Ralston to hook up with a lady you met on the internet named Faith Hemphill."

"That's right."

"You stop at Alice T's for a bite to eat. After dinner you steal my deputy's handcuffs and chain his daughter, our homecoming queen, to the fence behind the restaurant."

"Yes."

"And this was her idea."

"That's right."

"Moments later my deputy catches you feeling up his daughter and somehow gets the impression you're molesting her, so he knocks you unconscious."

I nod.

"They drive you to Jake Thatcher's barn. In the s.p.a.ce of twenty minutes all the following happens: One. My deputy ties you to a chair. Two. Unties you. Three. Kicks you in the nuts. Four. Hangs you. Five. His daughtera"our homecoming queena"willingly gives you a hand job while her father lies on the floor of the barn, unconscious, roof caved in, with a broken leg."

"That's right."

"After the hand job, but before you call the ambulance, Trudy's husband, Darrell, who's also her brother, drives up, pulls Trudy from the car, and beats her up. As this is going on, you pretend to drive away, but suddenly back up and crash your car into Darrell, to save Trudy from further harm."

"Exactly."

"You check Darrell's vital signs, administer morphine, and do the same for Trudy and Scooter."

"Except that I gave Scooter the morphine twenty minutes earlier."

"Before the hand job."

"That's right."

"So before you drive into our sleepy little town, everything's running smoothly. You stop to get a bite to eat, and two hours later three people are in the hospital."

"I was also hung, don't forget."

He looks at my neck, then stares me down and says, "Don't leave town till I say you can."

"Other than visiting Trudy at the hospital?"

"Other than that," he says.

Trudy Lake.

"STOP INTERRUPTIN' ME," I tell Dr. Box. "My head hurts."

"I'm sorry," he says, "but you're not making any sense."

"Then let me tell it like a story."

"Okay."

"And don't interrupt me," I say.

"Fine. Tell it."

I take a deep breath and say, "Lucy and Lori were identical twins. So alike, even their parents couldn't tell them apart."

"Wait," Dr. Box says. "Twins? They're not related to Cletus and Renfro, are they?"

"Around here, we're all pretty much related one way or other."

"It would be fascinating to chart your family tree."

"Johnny Appleseed couldn't chart our family tree!"

I shake the cobwebs from my head and start in again.

"Lucy and Lori were identical twins."

"You've said that three times already. And you've already told me Lucy was your mother."

"Hush! I mean it! Or I'll start over."

"Sorry."

"This ain't an easy story to tell, you know."

"I have no way of knowing that. You haven't told me anything yet."

I give him a look and start in a fourth time. "Twenty years ago, before I was born, Lucy, who later became my mom, was livin' thirty miles away, in Rowena. Her twin sister Lori met a guy from Clayton, at a dance. His name was Will, and he worked nights at a convenience store. Lori and Will dated a couple of times, and Lori agreed to a third date, but took sick that day. Will had gone to a lot of trouble to take off work and borrow a car, and Lori didn't have the heart to cancel the date, so she asked my mom to stand in for her. They were supposed to go to the movies, but wound up gettin' drunk. One thing led to another, and my mom had s.e.x with him.

"Did she tell your Aunt Lori?"

"Yes, of course. They told each other everything."

"And Lori was okay with it?"

"She was disappointed, but it's not like she and Will were in love or anything."

"Go on."

"All that week Lori got sicker and sicker. The next week Will got shot and killed durin' a robbery at the store. A month later, mom discovered she was pregnant. Happened the same day Aunt Lori was diagnosed with cancer."

"Whoa. That's a lot to keep up with."

"Wait till you hear the rest. Aunt Lori was dyin', and wanted the joy of raisin' a baby. Mom didn't want the baby. So they traded names."

"What do you mean?"

"Mom had the baby while pretendin' to be Aunt Lori. When Darrell was born, she turned him over to be raised by Lori, and amazingly, Lori's health improved. The next year Mom moved to Clayton, met Scooter. They got married and had me. When I was fourteen, Aunt Lori got sick again, and Mom moved her and Darrell into our home to take care of them."

"How old was Darrell?"

"Sixteen."

"Okay. Go on."

"So anyway, Darrell and I spent a lot of time in the bas.e.m.e.nt and back yard, and started developin' feelin's for each other."

"You and your brother."

"Yes, but at the time we thought he was my cousin."

Dr. Box shakes his head in frustration. "And that would have been okay?"

"This ain't New York, where eight million people walk the streets. This is Clayton, Kentucky, where there ain't but a few hundred people my age in the whole county."

"You're saying cousins often fall in love and get married in Wilford County?"

"Well, of course they do!"

He shakes his head again.

I say, "You want to go ahead and paint a big red letter on my forehead, or do you want to hear the rest of the story?"

He waves for me to continue, so I say, "No one knew about me and Darrell's relationship, and one afternoon when I was sixteen we ran off and got married and never told anyone. It was a stupid thing to do, more like a joke, you know?"

"This might surprise you," Dr. Box says, "but no. None of this makes any sense to me."

"Well, anyway, we didn't tell anyone. We kept livin' with our parents, kept goin' to school, actin' like cousins. Him, cookin' crystal meth with his friends. Me, workin' part-time at the restaurant. After high school I switched to full time. Aunt Lori got sicker and sicker, and one day her number came up."

"She died?"