The Beasts Of Valhalla

2

We finished the lunch my mother had insisted on making. My parents, Garth, Janet, and I sat in silence at the table, staring into our empty coffee cups. Sparkling motes of dust floated in beams of golden sunlight, and the muffled laughter of a horde of young nieces and nephews could be heard outside in the yard. John Dernhelm, Janet's husband, emerged from the kitchen, wiped his eyes, then went out the door. Two burly uncles sat in a corner of the adjacent living room, talking in low voices, discussing weather and corn prices. Their wives sat at opposite ends of a worn sofa, crocheting.

My father disappeared for a few moments, then returned with a jug of corn liquor, surprising me, since I had never seen him or my mother drink so much as a glass of wine. He poured small glasses half full for everyone. My second surprise came when I drank the potion and came to an instant, complete understanding of why such stuff is called white lightning. My father offered me a second helping, and I covered my glass with a hand that already felt numb.

"To everything there is a season," my mother said softly, daintily touching a linen napkin to her thin, trembling lips.

"Amen," my father added in a voice that rumbled out of his chest like distant thunder but was also, always, gentle.

"To everything there is a season," Janet repeated in a small voice. "This, too, shall pass."

It meant that a kind of unofficial mourning period had passed, following Tommy into the ground. Now we could speak of other things. Farmers don't have a lot of time for things like grief or self-pity; there are always animals to be cared for, crops to be tended. Fences to be mended.

"I would like to say something," my mother said in a voice so low it could barely be heard. She paused, pushed back a stray, gossamer strand of silver hair with a frail, liver-spotted hand. She turned, looked at me with her faded, violet eyes, and a smile wreathed her face. She reached across Garth and took my hand in hers. "It's so good to have Garth and Robby with us. I'm sorry it has to be such a sad occasion that brings you here, Robby, but it's wonderful to have you home after so many, many years."

"I'm sorry, Mom," I mumbled at the tablecloth.

"Your mother wasn't looking for an apology, son," my father said. "All of us understand. Nobody's ever written more letters than you, and you've brought us to New York many times. She's just saying that we love you, and we're very proud of you."

Garth, sensing that I was close to tears, came to my rescue. "Poor Mongo's just a social cripple," he said, somberly shaking his head and winking at Janet.

"Stop that, Garth!" my mother said, whacking my brother on a broad shoulder. "And what is this 'Mongo' business? Robby is Robby. You, of all people, shouldn't talk like that about your brother. You love him more than anybody, if that's possible."

That embarrassed everyone but my mother, and for a few moments we lapsed back into awkward silence. It was Janet who finally spoke. Her voice was low, quavering.

"Robby? What did Coop Lugmor want?"

Garth and I exchanged glances. I looked down at the table, shrugged. "Nothing. He was just drunk and feeling sorry for himself."

Janet sat trembling for a few seconds, then stifled a sob as she abruptly rose and rushed into a small sewing room. I went after her, closed the door. I sat down beside her on the small sofa, took her hands away from her face and kissed them. Gradually she stopped sobbing.

"Thank you for coming, Robby."

"Please don't thank me, Janet."

"I know how it hurts you. You haven't been here in seventeen years."

"It hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be." "Still."

"Tommy was very special to me. You know that."

Janet nodded. Tears welled again in her eyes, but she didn't sob. "And you were certainly special to him." She pressed my hand to her wet cheek. Long, fine hair the texture and color of corn silk fell across my wrist. "We've never been close, Robby, have we?"

"I feel close to you now."

"It was my fault. I was a snot-nosed kid, and as lousy a sister as Garth was good a brother. You embarrassed me, Robby."

"That's all right-I embarrassed me, too." She glanced at me quickly, her face clenched in hurt. Janet wasn't used to my brand of humor. I smiled, added: "What's past is past, Janet."

She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. "What I just said has been sticking in my throat for a long, long time, Robby. I wanted to get it behind me, and I just did. I love you."

"And I love you."

She kissed me again, then quickly looked away-but not before I had glimpsed something dark, perhaps a question, moving in her eyes. I cleared my throat, said softly: "Lugmor was bellyaching about the way Jake Bolesh handled the investigation. He doesn't think Jake did a very good job, and he doesn't agree with the findings." I paused, touched Janet's wrist. "What do you think?"

It seemed to me that Janet considered her answer very carefully. "I haven't had much time to think about anything but the fact that my son is dead," she said after some time.

"Of course," I sighed, sorry I had brought up the subject.

"Besides," she said with a shudder. "What's to think about? Why shouldn't Jake do a good job? They've said such terrible things about Tommy and Rodney. Why would Jake lie about something like that?"

"You'd have to answer that," I said carefully. "I don't live here. Can you think of any reason for Jake to lie?"

"Not really."

"Not really?"

"No. It's just that everything happened so fast. Tommy disappears for a week, and the next thing you know they find both him and Rodney Lugmor shot to death near the creek on Coop Lugmor's farm. Then they printed that… stuff… in the newspaper, and Jake was giving press conferences. Why would Jake and the reporters say such horrible things if they weren't true?" She covered her face with her hands, but her voice came through clear and bitter. "They couldn't even wait until those boys were in the ground."

I squeezed my sister's hand, but Janet no longer needed my solace; she was angry now, not grief-stricken; in some corner of her mind that wasn't flooded with tears, she had obviously been doing a lot of thinking. "Did you ever find out where Tommy had been for that week, or why he'd gone?"

Janet shook her head. "He called me once, just to say he was all right and not to worry. He said there were things he had to sort out in his mind before he made a decision."

"Do you have any idea what he was talking about?"

"No." She got to her feet and began to pace. The starched black material of her dress crackled like flames from a combustible mixture of rage, confusion, and grief. She abruptly stopped pacing and turned to me. I thought she would burst into tears again, but she didn't. "Robby," she said hoarsely, "you know how to find out about things. Would it be possible for you…? Maybe…?"

"Janet, please sit down." She did. I stroked her back, continued: "Let me tell you what a private detective does; he runs up a big phone bill and he spends a lot of money for good shoes to walk around in. All the time he's talking to people he knows, contacts in important places like the police department, Motor Vehicle, the telephone company, and a dozen different licensing agencies. Private detectives need friends; if not friends, people who think they may be paid back someday in bits and pieces of information. You can move almost anything-certainly nations, and probably the planet itself-if you have a strong enough lever of information."

"You really believe that, Robby?"

"I've learned it. I know a secret that nations would sacrifice tens of thousands of men in order to share."

"What-?"

"What I'm saying is that I don't even have a license to operate here, and if I did it wouldn't be worth the match it would take to burn it. I don't have any contacts here, Janet, and the county sheriff isn't exactly an old boyhood chum. Do you understand? In Peru County I was, and always will be, a freak. When I'm here, I think of myself as a freak. I wouldn't exactly be taken seriously. I think you know I'd do anything for you and Tommy, but this is a situation where anything I might try to do would be counter productive. I don't mind these people laughing at me, but I wouldn't want them laughing at you and the rest of the family."

"They're already laughing, Robby; snickering behind their hands. When school starts in September, don't you think it's going to be hell for the other kids?"

Having nothing to say, I folded my hands in my lap and stared at them. I felt shriveled inside, but I knew I was right; the situation was far too delicate and serious to tolerate token gestures.

"They take you pretty seriously in New York," Janet persisted.

"That's because in New York you can't tell the freaks from the straights without a very detailed score card."

Janet looked at me for a long time. "Robby, I don't think I like your sense of humor," she said at last.

"You'll get used to it," I said with a smile. "I intend to see a lot more of you after this." I waited for a response. Janet, stony-faced, simply continued to stare at me. "I'll tell you what can be done," I continued quietly. "You have serious questions about the scope of Jake Bolesh's investigation, and that's what I'm going to tell the State Police. I'm going to find you a good lawyer. He or she will know a competent P.I. who knows the territory and can work here."

Janet slowly, sadly, shook her head. "I can do that myself, and I don't want to bring in strangers until I've had more time to think about it. I have to talk it over with John."

"Of course," I said, feeling like a trapped animal gnawing on its own leg. No matter how hard I chewed, I knew I wasn't going to get free; if I went back to New York, I would just be carrying the trap with me.

"Are you and Garth leaving soon?"

"In an hour or so," I said, glancing at my watch."We have to catch a six-o'clock flight, and it's a three-hour drive to the airport." Janet said nothing, and it didn't take me too long to realize what I was going to do. "Janet, if you're certain it's what you want, I'll stick around for a few days and see what I can find out."

Janet slowly raised her head. Tears filled her eyes, rolled down her cheeks. She smiled wanly, nodded.

"Mongo, you sure you don't want me to stay?"

I shook my head, leaned back on the car fender, and crossed my arms over my chest. "There's no sense in both of us wasting our time, and I know you're anxious to get back on the Madden case. Besides, Jake Bolesh has your old job. He'll remember me as the dwarf he pounded on, but he'll remember you as the dwarfs big brother who pounded on him. He's a good man for you to stay away from."

"He's a good man for you to stay away from."

"Oh, I don't know," I replied with a shrug. "If Ben's Country Kitchen still caters for the county jail, how bad can the food be?"

"I'm not concerned about Bolesh putting you in jail, Mongo," Garth said seriously, "I'm worried that you'll kill the son-of-a-bitch if he hassles you. The kid he used to beat up didn't have a black belt in karate."

"Your concern is touching."

"Don't forget, Robby," Garth said, pinching my cheek, "I'm the one who loves you most."

"Kiss my ass, Garth."

My brother laughed. "Very good. I'd say you're in the right frame of mind to do battle."

"You think there's going to be a battle?"

"Not really," Garth said evenly. "If I thought so, I'd stick around. I'm glad you're staying, though. It will make Janet feel better."

"You think Jake handled this properly?"

Garth took some time to consider his answer. "Like it or not, I think you have to give Bolesh the benefit of the doubt. I've been back here a few times, and you haven't. You were born here, but you're a New Yorker through and through; for you, Peru County might as well be a foreign country. These are good people, Mongo. They keep on reelecting Bolesh, so he must be doing something right."

"What about the speed of the investigation?"

Garth shrugged. "Here things like that tend to go the way the county sheriff wants them to. As much as it twists my guts to say so, Bolesh may have been doing the family a favor. It was a messy scene out there, Mongo, and Bolesh had enough sensitivity to keep the news photographers away. Tommy took a shotgun slug through the chest; the Lugmor kid put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger."

"A shotgun?!"

"Guns-sometimes even shotguns-are as common with the kids out here as peashooters in New York. The gunstock had Rodney Lugmor's prints all over it, and there were the letters. It looks like the kids had something hot and heavy going, and they couldn't handle it. It had gotten completely out of hand. They were both afraid people were going to find out. At the end they got together to try and figure out what to do, and they decided that the answer was to die together. It's a bitch, Mongo, but it looks like the straight dope."

"You seem to know a hell of a lot."

"I made some phone calls, Mongo. Naturally, I had some questions of my own."

"Thanks for telling me."

"I spent maybe forty-five minutes on the phone yesterday afternoon, talking to people I trust. I didn't have a chance to get you alone, and I couldn't see the sense in stirring up any more emotion by questioning the investigation. I didn't know Janet had doubts."

"Coop Lugmor has doubts."

"Lugmor's a heavy drunk, Mongo, an alcoholic. He's been going downhill for a decade-just not fast enough to finally put himself out of his misery. The guy had nothing to begin with, and now he's gone out of his head worrying about people calling his dead brother queer. Our merry memories aside, I think Bolesh may have simply wanted to get it all out in the open fast so it could be done with."

Annoyed, I pushed off the car and kicked at a clod of dirt. "You knew what Janet and I had talked about earlier. Why didn't you tell her you were satisfied with the investigation? It would have put her mind at ease, and I'd be flying my ass out of Peru County."

Garth stared at me for some time before he finally answered. "Janet came to you and I think that's significant. It's not going to hurt you to spend a few extra days around here, Mongo. You've got a lot of relatives you haven't seen or spoken to since you were a kid. They're very interested in you, but they're also very sensitive about your feelings. You have to make the first move, show them you're not as crazy or arrogant or whatever as everyone thinks you are."

"Is this what the NYPD calls 'sensitive social management'?"

"Classes at the university don't start for a month, and I know you don't have any big business pending because you've been goofing off for the past three weeks. Spend some time here. Ask some questions, satisfy yourself that everything's been done that can be done. You put Janet's mind at ease. While you're at it, you'll spend a lot of good time with Mom and Dad and get to know the rest of your family. They're part of you, brother. Fill in your empty spaces."

It should have been time for me to come up with something appropriately sarcastic. Instead, I said: "Okay."

"Anything you want me to do for you when I get back to the city?"

"Yeah. Check with my answering service. If I've got any important calls, touch base for me. Tell them I'll be back in a week."

"Will do." Garth smiled, tapped me on the shoulder with a big, meaty fist. "This is going to be good for you, Mongo. Now I'm going to sit with Mom and Dad for a few minutes."