Hunter's Moon, Chuck Logan [i am reading a book TXT] 📗

showed up in Franky Murphy’s mailbox. Palming off the diary was a modest touch of black propaganda in which Harry detected the hand of Tim Randall, and now Franky had a hell of a story going and Harry, inevitably, would be part of it.

Lots was going on. Harry had no trouble getting an indefinite leave of absence from his work. A strident national ad hoc gay and lesbian coalition demanded that Bud’s Medal of Honor be reissued posthumously to its rightful owner.

He didn’t relish testifying at the grand jury coming up in Maston County.

There was a sticky question concerning the disposition of the Maston fortune where Becky’s rights as the surviving daughter of the deceased spouse were concerned. A flock of lawyers hovered over Maston County to puzzle that one out.

Becky had, as Dale Talme predicted, landed on her feet. She sent Harry a simple thank-you card. The enclosed photograph portrayed a seriously beautiful high school senior. Eyes uplifted, chin raised slightly to the future. After her name, she had written simply: “Vale-dictorian.”

A preliminary reading of Bud Maston’s will revealed that he had left Harry an amount of money that, after taxes, would exceed a half a million dollars—ostensibly a gratuity for saving his life, more likely the iron prison parachute he had mentioned. Dorothy’s father advised Harry to stay clear of the will until after the grand jury.

Bud had included a thoughtful line in the will, something about hoping that Harry would openly enjoy the money, since he and Harry had been unable to openly enjoy the love they bore for each other.

HUNTER’S MOON / 399

Harry shifted from foot to foot in his icy dress shoes next to another open grave and heard a demented cackle that could have been Bud laughing in Hell. But it was just a raven with a broken wing that had been left behind, hopping among the gravestones in the tired snow on this endless white day.

Mitch wheeled up to the hole in the ground. He’d slapped a hell of a wax job on Cox’s truck and the marine dress blue crackled smartly among the tidy white markers. Mitch nodded at Harry. He did not get out of the warm cab. A disgruntled federal employee, who was not real happy about working on the third Thursday in November, engaged him in conversation.

Harry watched an argument commence between Mitch and the groundskeeper about how they were going to move the casket from the truck onto the drop apparatus set up over the grave. There was no funeral party. No pallbearers. No flag. Just three TV vans and reporters and photogs from the two local papers and Sherry Rawlins from Duluth. She walked over and flipped open her notebook.

The expression on his face stayed her questions and she drifted back to the pack as the clouds stacked up like black cannonballs in the cold pewter sky at 1 P.M. on this gloomy Thanksgiving day.

Harry lit a cigarette and watched. He wore his new suit. He was not wearing an overcoat. He had not shined his shoes. He was freezing his ass. He wasn’t carrying no coffin.

Necessity and the cold weather dictated that the only available able-bodied souls—the press—would carry the coffin the last few dozen feet.

Being carted to the worms by TV and print reporters was probably the loneliest fate that could befall a body and Harry thought it a just epitaph for Bud, who had so loved the lime-light. After they lowered the box, they scrambled out of the way and the shooters snapped their shot of Harry standing there without a coat looking like a bandleader in a black

400 / CHUCK LOGAN

suit—or maybe the Angel of Death—against the rows of white dragon teeth.

No thoughts came as he dragged on his cigarette. There were beginnings, middles, and ends. This ending would stay with him forever. His mouth and tongue felt like he’d spent his life licking the bottom of an ashtray.

He glanced at the green Prelude parked on the service road. Maybe it was time to quit. Make Linda happy. Harry walked past the grave, paused, and threw his cigarettes into the hole ahead of the backhoe poised to fill it in. “Day is done, motherfucker,” he said under his breath.

Linda drove back to his apartment and they went up and he tossed off his suit on his new king-sized bed and put on his old corduroy sports jacket, a pair of jeans, and some comfortable shoes. Randall and Dorothy were expecting them.

He eyed the phone. He’d made a vow on the plane trip back from Arizona, along the lines of: if I get out of this alive and not in jail—I swear I’ll do this thing…

He got out his phone directory and called the number in Michigan.

A man answered.

“Is Kate there?” Harry asked.

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Her husband,” said Harry.

“I believe I’m her husband,” said the man.

Polite fucker. Harry sighed and felt his belly tighten. “Her ex-husband.”

Seconds passed. Very long seconds. “Harry?” And her voice was the wild bullet of his youth going right through his heart.

“Kate,” he said.

“Harry?” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Ah, lookit. I came into some money and I thought—well, I should talk to the boy, you know, about…school.

He must be close to graduation—”

“Next year,” she said quickly. Then more slowly, “Uh, I don’t know, Harry. That’s…real thoughtful but, uh, maybe you should give me some time…to prepare…”

HUNTER’S MOON / 401

“Let me talk to him, okay? Please?”

Long sigh on the other end. “Uh, okay. Just a minute.”

Harry waited. He began to sweat.

“Look, I don’t want to talk to you,” said a hard young voice. “I sure as hell don’t want to talk to you on Thanksgiving.”

Harry put both hands to the receiver, as if the voice were Braille and he could touch it.

“I…thought it’s time we should talk,” he said.

“Why? We never have before. Far as I’m concerned you’re just noise in a piece of plastic—”

“Wait,” said Harry. “Goddamnit, I’m your father!”

But the line was dead. A little shaky,