Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [117]
When Brady got to the ripped and shredded aluminum that had been the skin of his trailer, he saw his sawed-off shotgun and some shells strewn about. The toilet lay on its side. The kitchen table was on its top, three remaining legs pointing skyward.
And there, protruding from under the refrigerator, were the torso and legs of Peter.
Brady climbed through the junk and pushed with all his weight, rolling the giant box off his brother. Peter’s head had been crushed, and a metal rod of some sort had run him through, just above the abdomen. Unable to keep from shaking, Brady forced himself to press his fingers to the boy’s neck, feeling his carotid artery for a pulse.
Brady slid to sit next to the body and hung his head. Racking sobs attacked him, and he rolled over to embrace his bloody brother. Suddenly realizing his mother could see him, he looked up quickly to see her slowly approach.
“Stay there, Ma!” he wailed. “You don’t want to see this!”
“Is it Petey?”
“Yeah!”
“Is he dead?”
“Yeah!”
She stopped about halfway and stood staring, hands deep in her pockets. She had never been much of a mother, Brady knew, but nobody deserved this.
He realized the kitchen table was askew and grabbed a leg to see what was underneath. And there it was, that thing that was so important that Brady had made Peter promise to be there to take delivery of it. The top of the cookie tin was gone, but the rest was otherwise intact, packed tightly with small bricks of marijuana, and the bottom—if the pusher could be trusted—lined with packets of methamphetamine.
Tears streaming, Brady put the tin in his lap and separated the cellophane packs of grass. Sure enough, crystal meth.
If anything should have made Brady Darby fling this garbage into the debris, it should have been the body of his own brother not three feet away. But, Brady realized, the dope and the check in his pocket constituted the entirety of his worldly goods. That and his brother’s automobile.
What in the world kind of a brother was he? Forgive me, Petey. I’m hopeless.
Brady couldn’t just leave his mother standing there in the freezing rain. He emptied the tin and stuffed everything into his pockets, then covered his brother’s head with a shirt. He pulled Peter’s wallet from his pocket, emptied it of cash—about twenty dollars—and took the driver’s license.
“Just a minute, Ma!” he called out, then jogged to an ambulance down the way. He told an EMT about his brother, left the man his own name and Peter’s license, and asked him to call his work number to tell him where they would take the body.
Then Brady went back and retrieved his shotgun, tucking it down his pants and grabbing as many shells as he could fit into his jacket pockets.
When he got to his mother, she said, “We had insurance, you know.”
Insurance? That was what she was thinking about with her son lying dead? Well, he was no better, covering his own tail and worrying about his dope deals.
“Yeah?”
“Um-hm. I think the trailer was worth like four thousand dollars. That’ll give me a down payment on a new one.”
Brady wanted to smack her, scream at her. Truth be told, he wanted to shoot her. But maybe this was how parents reacted when they were in shock.
“Where’d you park?” he said. “I’m stuck in a ditch and will need a tow, so . . .”
She started walking. “You think Petey’s school insurance covers this?” she said.
“Covers what?”
“An act of God. Sometimes it doesn’t, you know. And I don’t even know if it’s life insurance. Maybe it’s just personal injury, something like that. High schools don’t insure kids against death, do they? I mean at home?”
Brady glared at her. “What if they do, Ma? Would that be good news? Would that make your day?”
“Well, sure, ’course, in a way. I mean, I don’t know how much it’d be, but maybe with that and the four grand, I wouldn’t need a loan on a new place.”
She