Inheritance: A Novel Part 12

Nothing happened.

Hawkeye Bravo's spotlight flooded the scene. Paul watched shadows dancing on the ground. He saw clouds of dust fill the air.

Where are you, you little s.h.i.t? Come on, I know you're there. Show me.

And then a scream filled the air. He didn't so much hear it, as felt it. The sound was high-pitched, terrified, laced with pain. It was like an icepick jammed into his ear.

Paul ducked back behind the corner of the boxcar and waited and listened. He heard a dull thud, something heavy landing in the dirt up ahead. Peering under the bottom lip of the boxcar, he saw something white on the ground near the entrance where the kid had climbed inside. In the glow of the helicopter's spotlight, whatever it was had a blue cast to it.

Paul waited for it to move.

It didn't.

He swallowed, took a deep breath, then, with his gun up and ready, Paul charged into the gap between the two rows of boxcars.

And stopped.

There, next to the open door of the boxcar, was a dead Angora goat. "Oh my G.o.d," he said. The animal was on its side, but its chin was flat on the ground, the neck twisted at a horrible angle. Its eyes were open and gla.s.sy, its tongue hanging from its mouth. Even from three boxcars away, Paul could tell the animal's chest was torn wide open.

From the boxcar, he heard the sickening crunch of breaking bones, and beneath that, a wet, shlopping sound.

In his heart he knew what that sound was, though his mind refused to get around it. His hands dropped to his side, and he walked forward to the open doors of the boxcar, not even glancing at the dead goat on the ground at his feet.

Inside, he saw a man in a white, heavily starched long-sleeved shirt, black Stetson hat, and black pants. The man was kneeling over the supine body of the teenager Paul had been chasing, the boy's chest ripped open, his face warped by a look of profound terror.

An unfinished lattice sculpture of sticks and baling wire was propped up in the middle of the boxcar.

Martin Henninger painted three symbols across the boy's forehead, chanting, "emet, emet, emet." Then he rose to his feet and turned to look at Paul. The whole front of his shirt was stained with blood, the shirt sleeves red all the way up to his biceps. His face was exactly as Paul remembered it, lean and hard, his dark eyes completely devoid of emotion.

Paul sucked in a breath. His knees felt weak from fear, and he could almost feel the blood draining from his face.

"Come in here, boy," Martin Henninger said. "I've got something to tell you, and we don't have much time."

Paul just stood there.

"Now, boy."

Paul flinched. His body remembered the anger in that voice, even after all the years that had pa.s.sed since the last beating he had taken at this man's hands. He put his hands on the ledge of the boxcar and pulled himself inside.

Then he stood there, facing his father.

Martin Henninger stepped forward.

"I told you you've been marked. Don't you remember that? I told you I'd be coming to finish this. You got a charge to keep, boy. I mean to pa.s.s it on to you."

Paul shook his head. His eyes were wide open.

"No," he said. "No, no, no."

"You remember what we talked about?" Martin Henninger touched his chest to where the aerator's spikes had pushed through his body. "You remember? The night you gave me this? Yeah, you remember. I can see it on your face. Paul, this thing I'm asking of you, this responsibility, you don't choose it. It chooses you."

Paul shook his head again.

His father pointed at Paul's forehead, blood dripping from his fingers onto the metal floor of the boxcar. "Paul, I got so much I've got to tell you. You still have so much to learn. And I ain't got much time to do it in."

"Daddy, no." Paul backed away. "Daddy, please, I don't want it."

"Don't cry around me, boy. It makes me furious to see you acting like a p.u.s.s.y. I'm gonna come for you, real soon. You hear me? You get yourself ready."

Paul took another step back and hit the wall. There was no place left to go.

The helicopter's spotlight flickered all around him. His hair whipped in the rotor wash. His father came closer.

"I'll see you again real soon, Paul. Mind that mark I put on you. Your time is coming."

Paul looked away from his father's face, and saw dust pouring out from under his father's shirt. It was coming out from under the sleeves at his wrist and pouring over the collar b.u.t.toned at his neck.

Martin Henninger's face was coming apart as more and more of his skin turned to dust.

Paul's lip curled at it in disgust.

"Make yourself ready, Paul," his father said. "What's coming is coming soon."

And then he came apart, dissolving and drifting out of the boxcar like smoke on the wind.

Paul still had his face turned away from where his father had been, his eyes tightly closed, his nerves raw. But gradually, his breath came back, and with it his other senses stirred to life again. The helicopter's spotlight danced all over him, and in the glow he could see the broken body of the kid from the Cadillac crumpled up in the far corner of the boxcar.

His radio was buzzing with panicked voices. Somewhere in the jumble of noise he heard his own name being called, and he responded mechanically.

"44-70 Bravo."

"Are you okay, 44-70?"

The dispatcher sounded frantic.

"10-4, ma'am," he said. He stared at the gore in front of him, then keyed up his radio again and said, "But I think the suspect is dead."

From outside the car he heard other officers running for his location, and he stood there in shock, his skin gritty with something soot-like, and he wondered what in the h.e.l.l he was going to say to the others when they saw the mess at his feet.

Chapter 7.

Paul sat in the doorway of an open boxcar about seventy feet from where he had just watched his father murder that poor black kid. He had his Barber fifty cent piece out and he was rolling it absently across the back of his hand. Evidence technicians were all over the scene, taking pictures of the boxcar and the dead body inside it. He saw one of them point at the dead goat. Paul could read the man's lips and the expression on his face. What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do with this?

Earlier, the evidence technicians had run a line of yellow crime scene tape in a wide circle around the boxcar, and now Paul watched it flutter in the breeze. He felt like he was overheated, muddleheaded. People moved all around him, and it seemed so unreal. Everyone was busy, focused on their jobs. They moved with such purpose, while Paul, who just sat there, waiting, felt like he was drifting aimlessly. Nothing made sense, and the fact that everyone around him seemed so composed only added to his unease.

There was black, sooty grime on his hands. It was gritty to the touch, yet oily too. Growing up, Paul spent most of his summers picking peaches from the orchard on their land. His father kept the orchard as a way of making a little extra cash during the summer months. He and Paul would harvest the peaches by themselves, cart them back to the barn where his mother had hanged herself, and then box them up into white cardboard boxes for shipping to the produce terminal in South San Antonio. The boxes were treated with a thin, industrial grade wax that was supposed to keep the bugs out. That wax was gritty to the touch, and slick, a lot like the stuff he had on his hands now. But that sealant wax was clear; this stuff was black. He'd managed to wipe most of it off on his pant legs, but he could still feel it, and he didn't like the memories that came flooding up with it.

He tried to sort out the fractured images in his head. He remembered the kid running from the Cadillac, weaving through the rusted boxcars. He remembered the dead goat. And he remembered seeing his father inside that boxcar, the dead kid at his feet. After that, cover officers arrived to help him. They were led to the scene by Hawkeye's spotlight shining down from above, and Paul remembered seeing them appear in the flickering bluish-white light, guns drawn, shoulders bladed off in combat stances, then lowering their weapons in confusion and disgust, looking first at the dead goat on the ground, and then at Paul, and then at the puddle of blood spreading out from underneath the dead kid.

Collins had been the first to speak. He said, "Oh s.h.i.t," then got on the radio and started telling the dispatcher what they needed.

Paul climbed down from the boxcar after that and stood, trembling, while the others looked in at the mess. Seles looked at Paul, then at the dead body, and then back at Paul, and said, "He's ripped wide open. What in the h.e.l.l happened in there?"

Collins spun around and snapped at Paul. "Don't you say a f.u.c.king word, Paul. Don't you dare answer him." Then Collins stuck his finger in Seles' face. "What in the h.e.l.l's wrong with you? You don't ask him a d.a.m.n thing. You know better than that."

"Get your finger out of my face," Seles said.

Collins dismissed him with an angry wave of his hand, a gesture that was clearly meant to be insulting. "Man," he said to Seles, "you really f.u.c.king p.i.s.s me off, you know that?" He turned to Paul. "Henninger, you keep your mouth shut."

Seles got into Collins' face. Collins' eyes narrowed.

"What are you gonna do?" Collins said, clearly taunting him. "You want something?"

Paul just stood there and watched them squaring off, posturing each other. Collins' nostrils flared. His eyes were slitted, unblinking. His mouth was curled into a smile. Both men had their guns in their hand, though they were making an exaggerated gesture of keeping them tucked down, against their thighs. Paul could tell from just one look that this wasn't about him. Not directly, anyway. These two had it in for each other, and Paul was just the excuse.

"Come on and do it if you're gonna do it," Collins said.

Mike showed up then.

"Knock it off," he ordered, and his voice cut through the air like a blast of arctic air. They were all the same rank, all of them patrolmen, but Mike entered their little circle with all the clout of deputy chief, and not one of them dared to question his right to give orders.

Mike forced his way into the crowd.

"Collins," he said, "you cool it. Now! I said now! Holster your gun." He turned to Seles. "You and Barris go secure the perimeter. We're gonna have the press all over this place in a few minutes and we need to have our crime scene under control before then. Don't let anybody in here until we can get EMS to p.r.o.nounce him. And n.o.body talks to Paul about this until he's had a chance to talk to an attorney."

"Attorney?" Paul said. "Why do I...?"

Mike grabbed his shoulder and half led, half pushed him towards the boxcar.

"Don't worry about this," Mike said. "Just go have a seat over there. Garwin will be here in a few minutes. He'll tell you what's gonna happen."

"But why do I need an attorney? I don't understand. I didn't...I didn't do that."

"n.o.body said you did. Just try to relax, okay? And remember, don't say a word until you've talked to your attorney. You'll have to tell Garwin what happened, but beyond that, you keep your mouth shut, understand?"

Paul hesitated, but eventually said, "Okay."

Mike gave him a friendly smile.

"Trust me, you'll be fine."

Fine, Paul thought. Yeah, right. Didn't you hear? I got a charge to keep?

He'd been sitting in this boxcar now for a long time, and he still hadn't been able to sort it out in his head. Earlier in the evening, when he'd sensed his mother's presence staring back at him from that dead girl in the Escalade, he'd thought he was losing his mind. But what he'd just seen didn't allow him the luxury of that kind of doubt. There was no way to explain away what he had seen in that boxcar. That was his father. No amount of self-doubt was going to change that. And, as if he really needed anything else in the way of proof, there was that dead body over there, underneath that yellow tarp. And the dead goat. And the stick lattice sculpture they'd discovered afterward tucked back in the dark of the boxcar. Those things were as real as the coin in his hand. They couldn't be pushed aside.

The more he thought about it, the faster he moved the Barber fifty cent piece back and forth between his hands. All he wanted to do was turn his mind off, let the hands work themselves. It was easier not to think.

He forced himself to slow down and worked on a few simple vanishings.

You've got a charge to keep, boy.

"Hey."

Paul flinched.

He looked to his right and saw Wes standing there, leaning against the boxcar.

"You okay?" Wes asked.

"Yeah," Paul admitted. "Sorry, you startled me."

"Yeah, well, that's understandable. You've been through a lot."

Paul nodded.

"Garwin sent me over here," Wes said. "I'm supposed to stay with you in case the news tries to talk to you."

"Oh. Okay. Thanks, I guess."

"I'm not doing you a favor. It's required. Read your General Manual."

"Oh." Paul waited for Wes to say something, but he just stood there. "So, is Garwin gonna be coming around any time soon?"

"Eventually," Wes said.

Wes dug his phone out of his pocket and went back to his Facebook page. Paul watched him, then looked across the train yard, where CSI technicians were retracing the path of his foot pursuit with cameras and other equipment he didn't recognize.

He turned back to Wes. "So, what happens next?"

Wes looked up from his phone. He seemed annoyed. "Huh?"

"I'm sorry. You're busy."

Wes nodded, then went back to his phone.

Paul let his legs swing free, like a little kid in a big chair. He hated this, the feeling that he'd been put on the back burner and left to simmer.

He said, "Hey, Wes?"