Читать книгу Maggie Boylan - Michael Henson - Страница 11

Timothy Weatherstone

IT WAS Timothy Weatherstone’s first day as a deputy and his first official act was to take the cuffs off Maggie Boylan. Insufficient evidence, said her lawyer. Case dismissed, said the judge.

“Score one for you, Maggie,” said the sheriff.

“I didn’t know we was keeping score.”

“Oh, we’re keeping score,” he said. “And one of these days, we’ll win.” The sheriff was lean as a fox, dressed in his sharp-pressed, black-and-gray uniform with gold sunrise patches at the shoulders and a shining gold badge on his chest. Maggie was lean as well, but perilously lean, like a fox half-starved. She wore a sweatshirt and blue jeans busted out at the bony knees. “So you’re free to go,” the sheriff said. “Until next time.”

She looked at the sheriff and then looked away as if she might spit but thought the better of it. She rubbed her wrists where the cuffs had bit them, then looked up to see who had set her loose. “Timmy Weatherstone, is that you?”

Weatherstone winced to hear Maggie call him “Timmy.” He was sure that Tom Burke, the other deputy in the room, was grinning behind his back. Here he was, the rookie, fresh out of college, trying to prove himself, trying to stand up as a professional, and first thing, he gets called “Timmy” by the likes of Maggie Boylan, raggedy, strung-out, withered-to-the-bone Maggie Boylan.

“You don’t remember me,” she said. “But I used to hang with your mother when you was just a baby.”

He did not remember, but he knew the stories and did not want to be reminded.

“We used to call her Aunt Jenny, she was so good to us spite of all her trouble. I used to give you your bottle and change your diaper. That was before she got saved and quit running with us wild young girls. And now you’re a deputy.”

“It’s his first day on the job, Maggie,” said the sheriff. “Don’t ruin it for him.”

“I wouldn’t ruin nothing for him,” Maggie said. “He worked too hard to get here.” She stood to put on her coat—a big, blue denim barn coat that hung off her shoulders and covered her hands so that she had to roll back the cuffs. “He could of been on this side of the table, except he straightened up.”

“That was years ago, Maggie,” said the sheriff.

“You’re right. He’s made something of himself,” she said. “If your mother was here, she’d be proud.”

Tim Weatherstone did not want to hear his mother mentioned by the likes of Maggie Boylan and would have said so. But after six months, even at the mention of his mother, the words still piled up in his throat.

The sheriff pointed to Maggie’s tent of a coat. “Isn’t that Gary’s jacket?”

“I don’t reckon it’s none of your business, but yes it’s his jacket. He don’t need it where you got him.”

“No, I don’t suppose he does.”

She looked into the property bin. “Is this everything?”

“You signed the receipt.”

“But I had a ten-dollar bill in my pocket.”

“You signed the receipt, Maggie. It says fifty-seven cents on the receipt. Fifty-seven cents is what you get.”

Maggie glared at Thomas Burke and he looked away.

“You were intoxicated at the time you signed that receipt,” the sheriff said. “You might have been in a blackout.” He looked at Maggie and he looked at the deputy with the sharp edge of his eye.

“Somebody blacked me out of my money,” Maggie said. She muttered something else, low and indecipherable, and continued to mutter as she signed for the rest of her property.

“What would you do with ten dollars anyway, Maggie?”

“I’d walk over to the Square Deal Grill and get me something to eat for one thing, cause what you people feed a body ain’t fit to patch a sidewalk.”

“Gary seems to like it good enough.”

“Gary don’t speak up for hisself like I do.”

“No, I don’t suppose he does,” the sheriff said. “But then, you can’t please everybody.”

“Well, it’ll please me to get the fuck out of here.” She pushed back the sleeves of her coat and picked up her fifty-seven cents. She stuffed the coins into the pocket of her jeans, looked up at Tim Weatherstone, and gave him a once-over from the badge on his chest to his spit-polished shoes.

“I don’t reckon you could give me a ride home, could you, Timmy?”

“You got a free ride here, Maggie,” the sheriff said. “You only get the one.”

“I didn’t ask you,” she said.

“But he answers to me.”

Maggie gave Tim Weatherstone the once-over once again and said, “You look good, Timmy, all spiffed out and trim and ironed all sharp. You done good for yourself. Just don’t forget . . .”

She paused and rubbed her wrists again. She glanced a reproach toward Burke and one toward the sheriff, then looked back to Timothy Weatherstone and said, “Don’t forget where you come from.”

* * *

TIMOTHY WEATHERSTONE knew where he came from. He came from a house a mile up the holler road from Maggie Boylan herself, though the house he lived in was now, six months after his mother’s death, nearly bare as the cell of a monk. His older brother and his older sister had come down, one from Cleveland, the other from Columbus, each with a pickup truck and a list. They left him with a bed, a dresser, a kitchen table, four rooms full of echoes, and some pictures on the walls.

* * *

AS SOON as Maggie Boylan was out the door, the sheriff was on his feet. He checked to be sure she was gone down the hall, then he went to the window to be sure she was gone out of the building. Satisfied, he called Deputy Burke into his office.

Tom Burke rose. He was a big man, round at the gut and round at the shoulders, and he rose slowly. Weatherstone, who had the lean body of a runner, watched him with a mixture of pity and contempt. It must take two full yards of leather, he thought, just to make his gun belt.

“Sit down,” the sheriff said. Then he kicked shut the door.