ON THE FIFTEEN--MILE drive to Saw Pole after the funeral, I kept my eyes down or aimed at the window because I didn’t want Randy to think I was interested in conversation. I was feeling as charged as a frayed electrical wire, edgy and nervous. I scratched at the bump on my left shoulder and couldn’t stop thinking about Dad being lowered into the ground and dirt thrown on top of his coffin.
Randy spat tobacco juice into a brushed--metal container at regular intervals. The sloppy sound of it, the moist ptoo, unraveled my nerves further. After another endless night in the dark, empty house, during which the dogs had started at every little noise, and the strain of the funeral and now the will reading, I imagined opening my mouth and screaming until I passed out.
The Dodge came to a stop in front of a limestone building on the corner that housed Mr. Keith Dooley’s law office. Saw Pole’s main street was soupy with mud because the town didn’t have the money for asphalt. Dad told me that back during its heyday the town had paved streets. But when family farms went into foreclosure and the oil wells dried up, so had town funds. The streets were never repaved.
I saw a few other cars parked on Main Street, which is a slow--down point on the two--lane state highway that cuts through town. There are signs pointing every direction, but it’s as if an invisible electric fence encircles the town, and the only way out is to die. There’s a little post office, a grocery store, the Farmers National Bank, a beauty parlor called Clips and Curls for Guys and Girls, and a restaurant with the name The Cozy Corner Café. I’d never been inside of any of these businesses, only seen them through car windows. To me they were just facades on the set of a not--very--interesting small--town soap opera.
Randy switched off the truck, but I needed to sit for a moment to psych myself up to get out. So I did what I normally did when I was afraid, and that was to recite the opening to Offender NYC, which is actually the title on a black screen with several voices saying the NYCPD’s oath: “I do solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge my duties as a police officer with the New York City Police Department to the best of my ability, so help me God.”
I recited very quietly with my face to the window, but Randy heard me.
“Are you praying or something?” he asked me.
I didn’t answer, but got out of the truck and strode toward the office building, with Randy jogging to catch up. I knew the only way I’d get through the will reading would be to pretend Deirdre was at my elbow, my personal bodyguard, along with Detective Mandy Quirke, as if we’d just attended Captain Barrigan’s funeral after he was killed in the first episode of season nine.
I opened the door and Randy tried to take it from me, tried to get me to go in first. But I held on until he got the hint to go on in, which he did with a sigh. I followed and located all the exits. OODA Loop activated. Two doors, one front, one back. Six windows. A staircase. The outer room had a conference table with six chairs. The actual office was at the back of the building, thirty feet from where I stood. Although I sensed no physical threat, something tripped my inner alarm. Was it because I was so overtired and overemotional? Or was it something else?
One of the men I’d seen at the funeral stood up from a desk in that inner office. His face had skin the texture of oatmeal and he wore a powder--blue suit. His squarish wire--rimmed glasses accentuated the rectangular shape of his large forehead. The glasses kept sliding down his nose, so the tops of the frames bisected his colorless eyes and he had to tip his head back to look at me.
“Hello, Petty,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me or not. I’m Keith Dooley. I met you when you were not but yay high.” He held his hand palm down at hip level.
I had no recollection of him before the funeral, but he’d obviously known the younger me. Hearing him describe what I didn’t remember made me feel like a ghost, watching events and -people from an alternate lifetime that never happened to me. He waited for me to respond, but I didn’t.
“We’ll be watching the video out there,” Mr. Dooley said. “Let me grab a few things.”
Video? What kind of video would we be watching? Randy sat down at the conference table, but I remained standing, taking in the lawyer’s outer office. It was dim and musty. Through the door to the inner office, I saw that Mr. Dooley’s desk was U--shaped and mounded with bulging file folders, documents, and different colored papers spilling out. How could he find anything in there?
Mr. Dooley rolled a metal cart out of his office. On top of it were a TV and a VCR. He positioned the cart at one end of the table, plugged the machines’ electrical cords into a wall outlet and switched them both on.
“We all ready?” Mr. Dooley said. He held up a VHS tape for us to see before sliding it into the top--loading VCR.