The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [105]
Bodecker turned and watched the doctor cram a long piece of breaded fish into his mouth and swallow. “Heck, he don’t even chew it, does he?”
“And he can do it all goddamn day,” she said.
“So what’s going on?”
She pushed back a loose lock of hair. “Well, I figured I should tell you before you hear it from someone else.”
This was it, he thought, one in the oven, another worry to pour on his ulcer. Probably doesn’t even know the daddy’s name. “You ain’t in trouble, are you?” he said.
“What? You mean pregnant?” She lit a cigarette. “Jesus, Lee. You never give me a break.”
“Okay, what is it then?”
She blew a smoke ring over his head and winked. “I got myself engaged.”
“You mean to be married?”
“Well, yeah,” she said with a little laugh. “What other kind is there?”
“I’ll be damned. What’s his name?”
“Carl. Carl Henderson.”
“Henderson,” Bodecker repeated, as he poured some cream in his coffee from a tiny metal pitcher. “He one of them you went to school with? That bunch over off Plug Run?”
“Oh, shit, Lee,” she said, “them boys are half retarded, you know that. Carl ain’t even from around here. He grew up on the south side of Columbus.”
“What’s he do? For a living, I mean.”
“He’s a photographer.”
“Oh, so he’s got one of those studios?”
She stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and shook her head. “Not right now,” she said. “A setup like that don’t come cheap.”
“Well, how does he make his money then?”
She rolled her eyes, let out a sigh. “Don’t worry, he gets by.”
“In other words, he ain’t working.”
“I seen his camera and everything.”
“Shit, Sandy, Florence has got a camera, but I sure wouldn’t call her a photographer.” He looked back into the kitchen, where the grill cook was standing at an open refrigerator with his T-shirt pulled up, trying to get cooled off. He couldn’t help but wonder if Henry had ever fucked her. People said he was hung like a Shetland pony. “Where in the hell did you meet this guy?”
“Right over there,” Sandy said, pointing at a table in the corner.
“How long ago was that?”
“Last week,” she said. “Don’t worry, Lee. He’s a nice guy.” Within a month they were married.
Two hours later, he was back at the jail. He had a bottle of whiskey in a brown paper bag. The shoe box of photographs and the rolls of film were in the trunk of his cruiser. He locked the door to his office and poured himself a drink in a coffee cup. It was the first one he’d had in over a year, but he couldn’t say that he enjoyed it. Florence called just as he was getting ready to have another. “I heard what happened,” she said. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I know I should have.”
“So it’s true? Sandy’s dead?”
“Her and that no-good sonofabitch both.”
“My God, it’s hard to believe. Weren’t they on vacation?”
“I believe Carl was a lot worse than I ever gave him credit for.”
“You don’t sound right, Lee. Why don’t you come on home?”
“I still got some work to do. Might be at it all night, the way things look.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“No,” he said, looking at the bottle sitting on the desk, “not really.”
“Lee?”
“Yeah, Flo.”
“You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
51
ARVIN SAW THE NEWSPAPER IN THE RACK outside the doughnut shop when he went to get some coffee the next morning. He bought a copy and took it back to his room and read that the local sheriff’s sister and husband had been found murdered. They were returning from a vacation in Virginia Beach. There was no mention of a suspect, but there was a photo of Sheriff Lee Bodecker alongside the story. Arvin recognized him as the same man who was on duty the night his father killed himself. Goddamn, he whispered. Hurriedly, he packed his stuff and started out the door. He stopped and went back inside. Taking the Calvary picture down off the wall, he wrapped it in the newspaper and stuck it in his bag.
Arvin began walking west on Main Street. At the edge of town, a logging truck headed for Bainbridge picked him up and dropped him off at the corner of Route