The Clearing of Travis Coble Read online

  “Maybe he was just mad at me for killing his brother.”

  Myers nodded, conceding the point, “But like you said, you didn’t kill your parents, and you didn’t kill your brothers. And now,” Myers lowered his voice, hoping he would convey the right mixture of sympathy and sincerity, “you have to live up here in the mountains by yourself. Like Constance Blackwood in the Shirley Jackson novel, you are shunned, a curiosity. You can’t tell me that the accusations aren’t the reason for your continued celibacy, Mr. Coble.”

  “I do alright,” Coble said, his gaze flinty.

  The professor suppressed a grin. “Ah, you may have the occasional lover, Travis. That’s to be expected. You’re a handsome man. But do you have a wife? Do you have children?”

  “Do you?”

  “I...”

  “Do you have a wife, Doc?”

  Myers laced his fingers. “I don’t think that’s relevant.”

  “You sit there scribbling and pretend you know everything there is to know about me. To you, I’m a dumb hick. Hell, you probably think I did slaughter my family. How do I know Carl didn’t send you? You’re so goddamned interested in bringing him up over and over, what if you’re not a professor at all? What if you’re a detective here to feel me out to see whether or not it’s okay for him to show his face?”

  Myers uttered a breathless little grunt.

  “Don’t have nothing to say?” Coble laughed, an ugly, mirthless sound. “Which one of us is worse, the one who still gets laid even though ‘Half the town,’ as you put it, believes I butchered my family, or the one who has a position and a title but still can’t get it up?”

  Myers scowled. “I can assure you—”

  “Then why no ring?” Coble spat a gob of tobacco juice between his steel-toed boots. “You the dirty old teacher chases girls around desks?”

  “I’ve never—”

  “Or maybe you prefer the boys, Doc.”

  “Don’t call me Doc.”

  Coble laughed and slapped his knee. “Hit a nerve with that one, did I?”

  “You most certainly did not, Mr. Coble, you—”

  “‘Most certainly did not, Mr. Coble,’” Travis mimicked. He rocked in his lawn chair and crowed.

  “Stop that!”

  “‘Stop that!’” Coble repeated in a childish falsetto. He continued to laugh, a messy stream of tobacco juice running down his cheek.

  “Stop impersonating me!” Dick barked.

  “Likes the boys, does he!”

  “Damn you, Coble.” Myers stood up, fuming. I’ll kill you! he thought. I’ll kill you with my bare hands!

  Coble stamped the concrete and hugged himself gleefully. Myers ran a hand through his hair and straightened his belt. He sucked in trembling breath. He couldn’t believe the crafty little wretch had gotten the better of him. He had to regain control.

  He moved to the edge of the porch and stared out at the woods. “Yes, laugh all you want, Travis. Get it out of your system.” Myers nodded. “I understand how lonely a man might get living way out here in the middle of the damn woods.” He donned a wintry smile. “You know, Travis, I’m sure I’d get nasty too if I were in your shoes. Women afraid of me. Men distrustful. I guess I’d want to lash out too.”

  Coble giggled and wiped a tear from his eye. “Aw, Doc, don’t take it so hard. It is kinda like you said. I don’t know why I said those things to you.”

  Myers watched Travis over his shoulder. The man’s voice was contrite, but the grin still tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  “I do like women, you know,” Myers said.

  Coble spat and smiled. “Hell, Doc. I know that. I was just messin’ with you.”

  Dick nodded. “Okay, Travis. Fine. Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, I’d like to get to the real purpose of my visit.”

  “And what’s that?” Coble asked, still giggling.

  “I’d like for you to tell me how it really feels to be an outcast. To be a misfit.” Myers circled back to his plastic bucket but didn’t sit. “To be hated. Reviled. But not for anything you actually did, but for something you didn’t do.” He eased down on the bucket and favored Coble with his most benevolent look. “Travis, I’d like to shepherd you back into the world of the living.”

  Coble wiped his eyes but made no reply.

  “Most psychologists want to know about the feelings and thoughts their subjects experience. And to a certain extent, I am interested in what you’re thinking and feeling. But for a different reason. I believe that you afford a person in my position a unique opportunity, Travis. Did I tell you that I once wanted to be a detective?”

  Coble examined his dirt-crusted fingernails. “You don’t say.”

  “I did. I did, Travis. But eventually I became convinced that the life of a detective wasn’t for me. Not enough money. Bad hours. And to be honest with you, I didn’t think I’d be any good at it. You know how on those detective shows there’s always some giveaway that tells who the killer is?”

  Coble looked up at him, interested.

  Myers went on, “Well, I’d notice little clues here and there, many times before the detectives themselves would see them.”

  Gazing out at the forest, he crossed his legs and sighed. “But I could never see the ending coming. I never knew how things would turn out.”

  He glanced at Coble.

  “Don’t you see? I could find the clues. Separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. But I could never put them together in the right way. I’d decide who the guilty party was and how he did it, but I was never right. Then, when I saw how things fit together at hour’s end, I couldn’t understand why I didn’t see it before.”

  Coble eyed him steadily.

  Myers went on. “I think I know what happened to your brothers, Travis.”

  Coble didn’t blink.

  “I believe your Uncle Carl murdered them.”

  When Coble didn’t respond, Myers uncrossed his legs and rested his palms on his knees.

  “That’s right, Travis. I believe your Uncle Carl killed your brothers because one of them did something he shouldn’t have.” He paused to choose his words carefully. “Travis, please tell me about your youngest brother.”

  Coble looked away. “Don’t wanna talk about Ike right now.”

  “But don’t you see, Travis? It fits together perfectly. I don’t think it would be unfair to say that Ike was what one would call ‘slow.’”

  Travis’s black eyes flashed a warning, but Myers forced himself to stare back. He went on slowly, “Ike was only eleven then. He probably spent a lot of time playing in the woods. Your uncle and his family lived on the other side of the mountain. In a house not much different than yours.”

  Myers softened his tone. “Carl had two daughters, didn’t he?”

  Coble leaned over and spat. “Kate and Sadie.”

  “And they were a trifle older than Ike, weren’t they?”

  Travis nodded.

  “Two girls in their early or middle teens would have been quite a temptation for a boy like Ike. Especially when one takes his…condition into account.”

  Shifting on the bucket, Myers continued. “Ike wasn’t strong mentally, but his physical strength was extraordinary. He wouldn’t have understood how to express his desire for his female cousins, so he attempted to take one of them by brute force. Maybe your Uncle Carl came upon them while it was happening. Maybe he saw his daughter lying on the ground bleeding. Whatever the case might have been, he became enraged. This house and your Uncle Carl’s are on the same mountain, but they’re separated by miles of trees. It would have been easy for a man in his state—furious and seeking revenge—to track down and slay Ike. Your little brother was powerfully built, Travis, but he was only eleven.”

  The wad of tobacco grew still in Coble’s mouth. He betrayed no sign of emotion or of even having heard Myers’s theory, but Dick was certain that Coble was thinking hard.

  “As for B.J., there could be any n
umber of ways in which he could have gotten involved in the incident. Perhaps he was hunting in the woods when Ike and Carl ran by. It could be that Ike had already been shot to death, and B.J. stumbled upon his body. He would have been so overcome with wrath that he might not have thought to come back to the house to get you. So he embarked on a mission of vengeance.”

  Myers let his voice go flat. “But Carl killed him, too.”

  In the silence that followed, Myers could hear the chittering of some small animal. A squirrel maybe, or a chipmunk. He waited a moment longer, letting it all sink in.

  “It’s also possible that your brothers were with your female cousins when Carl found them. The sex might have been consensual, which wouldn’t have mattered to Carl. Seeing his daughters coupling with their first cousins, especially when one of the boys was mentally challenged, was too much to bear. Maybe there was only one of the girls but both of your brothers. Maybe the sex wasn’t consensual.”

  Now Travis was grinning. Myers felt his earlier rage rekindle. “Might I ask what’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, Doc.” Travis’s grin flared brighter. “I’m just enjoyin’ the sound of your voice.”

  “Fine, Travis. Explain to me where I went wrong.”

  “Sure enough, Doc.” With one grimy index finger, Coble scooped out the dark ball of tobacco and flung it into the yard. Taking his time about it, he pinched himself a fresh wad of Red Man, housed it in one stubbly cheek, and settled into his lawn chair. A noisome aroma tickled at Myers’s nostrils, a combination of the apple cider scent of the tobacco leaves and Coble’s eye-watering body odor. Good God, did the man ever bathe? Myers had a sudden vision of Coble slathering himself in cow blood, his crazed white eyes gaping out of a slimy vermilion mask, and capering about the slaughterhouse like a deranged butcher.

  Coble reached down, adjusted his crotch with languid relish. “It’s really good of you to come all the way here to study me and try an’ clear my name, but your theory about Ike and our cousins don’t hold no water. First of all, both Sadie and Kate where there for the takin’ whenever anybody wanted ’em. Weren’t known for playin’ hard to get, those two.”

  Coble’s voice had risen in pitch and grown more jocular. Myers understood that Travis was playing a part now. He’d done the same thing at the trial. When he spoke this way, he was concealing something. Behind the country twang lurked something dark and manipulative. Myers hoped the Dictaphone wouldn’t run out of tape. He’d want to go back through it all later, study Coble’s voice patterns, his modulations. In fact, his room at the bed-and-breakfast sounded very good to him now. The air up here in the mountains had a fulsome, pitchy texture, like burying one’s face in a bed of pine needles and taking a deep drag.

  But that wasn’t quite right, he corrected. The atmosphere was so goddamn thick he couldn’t get a decent inhalation. And thinking about it just made things worse. Myers was alarmed to find he was growing lightheaded. If only he’d brought water. Just one good gulp.

  Heedless of Myers’s discomfort, Coble went on. “Heck, I even took a piece every now and then myself. I expect that Daddy did too.” He giggled, a high, ugly sound. “So there goes your rape fantasy, Doc. Can’t rape the willing, I always say.”

  As if to drive home the point, Coble reached down and squeezed his crotch as though he were crumpling a sheet of paper.

  Myers sipped in strained breath, rode out a wave of wooziness. “Okay, Travis. They weren’t raped. That doesn’t alter the rest of what I said.”

  “Rest was bullshit too.” Coble paused to glance at Myers out of the corners of his eyes. “Except for one thing.”

  “And what was that?”

  “I’m thinkin’ Ike maybe was snoopin’ round Carl’s house, and I’m thinkin’ maybe he did find sumpin’ he wasn’t s’posed to find.” Coble paused, his lips parted slightly. Inside the crafty mouth Myers could see the wad of tobacco bobbing like some larval insect squirming to break free of its cocoon.

  Myers armed sweat from his forehead, blew out foul-tasting air. “Well, what was his big discovery?”

  Coble shook his head and laughed. “You’re dumber ’n hell, Doc.”

  “That’s entirely possible,” Myers said and used his steno pad to fan his face. God, it was hot. Equatorial. The sweat had soaked through his boxer shorts entirely, made him feel absurdly like an overgrown toddler stewing in a wet diaper. A green-bottle fly lit on his arm to drink from the beads of perspiration pooling there. The mosquitoes had found him, as well. Good luck, he wanted to say to them. I’m so dehydrated my blood’s probably like syrup.

  Coble said, “Maybe you got it backwards.”

  Myers waited, but his poise and his consciousness were both splintering. He couldn’t endure the heat much longer. It took all his effort to make sense of what Coble was saying.

  “Maybe,” Travis said, “it was Carl doing the snooping. Maybe he found something that made him mad or maybe even scared.”

  Myers felt a tremor of unease.

  “Could be Uncle Carl found out what happened to his brother and his sister-in-law, but before he could do something about it, some other body did something about it.”

  Myers loosened his collar. What was it now, a hundred degrees? A hundred and ten? And Christ—he checked his watch—it wasn’t even noon yet. Paper or no paper, he needed something to drink fast. The heat was making him nauseous. Plump gnats buzzed around his ears.

  “Something wrong, Doc?”

  Coble’s unctuous voice was maddening, the blood smell oozing out of him unbearable. Myers had to leave before he said something he’d regret. He couldn’t jeopardize the paper.

  “Look Travis,” he said. “I haven’t been well over the past few days. I’ve had a nasty cold.” He faked a cough. “I suggest we continue this conversation tomorrow. How about the restaurant I passed as I was leaving town?”

  “The White Giant?”

  Myers stood and leaned against a barrel to steady himself. “I don’t know,” he muttered.

  “I forget the name of the place.”

  Coble hadn’t risen. “Whatever you say, Professor.”

  Myers cleared his throat. “Good. Noon tomorrow. Will you meet me there at noon?”

  “’Course.” Coble grinned amiably.

  “I’ll be going then.” Without shaking hands he turned to go. He was afraid he’d vomit before he reached the Civic. Already he could taste the bile percolating in the back of his mouth.

  Walking briskly around the side of the house, Dick noted the way the shadows in the yard had shrunk, how the patches of sun had reformed and spread. Keeping his eyes on the ground ahead of him, he concentrated on controlling his gorge and pushing forward. He sensed movement behind him. Was Travis following him?

  No matter. He’d be on his way soon enough. Maybe he already had enough for his paper. He’d need to go over the tape later, get his thoughts straight.

  Myers stopped, frowning. He patted his hip pocket. Swinging his satchel off his shoulder, he knelt and scrambled through its contents.

  He’d left the Dictaphone on the back porch.

  Whirling, he beheld Coble ten feet away holding the recorder out to him. Myers took a step in that direction and stopped. Something was wrong. He swiveled his head back to the road and realized what it was.

  The Civic was gone.

  Myers stood, mouth agape, and stared at where his car had been. Coble hadn’t left his sight. The car couldn’t have been taken because there was no one out here to take it.

  His gaze shifted to the mailbox. He heard the Dictaphone click on. Coble edged closer.

  “Somethin’ you want to ask me, Professor?”

  Nodding, Myers reached out and caressed the mailbox’s dull, gunmetal surface. His eyes were glazed and distant.

  Coble spoke softly. “Think, Doc. Put the pieces together.”

  Myers found that his mouth had gone dry.

  “Whose house is this, Travis?”

  Coble was also looking at
the mailbox. Myers could see, under the years of dust and corrosion, where a name had been painted on the metal and later scratched out. In the blazing noon light, Myers thought he could make out one of the letters of the scratched-out name.

  “This isn’t the house I saw at the library, is it Travis?”

  “I expect not.” Coble watched him hungrily. “Looks sort of the same, though, don’t it.”

  Dick forced himself to look away from the mailbox, from the letters that might have spelled CARL COBLE.

  His nostrils caught the scent of rotten meat. His vision blurred and spun through the weedy yard. He was lathered with sweat and dizzy with the meat smell and he knew he should be looking for something but he couldn’t remember what it was.

  Then his eyes paused on the Barbie doll. The holes where its arms and legs should have been. The reek of fly-blown meat clotted in his throat.

  He whispered, “How did you kill them, Travis?”

  Coble stood very close now, his eyes also on the dismembered doll. “Pretty, ain’t she?”

  Myers’s eyes fluttered. He took a step backward to brace himself.

  “How did you murder your uncle?”

  Coble’s arm rose and blotted out what sun there was. Then Myers felt pain explode in his neck.

  He landed on his stomach, his mouth opening and closing like a dying carp. He felt Coble’s workboot wriggle under his shoulder and he could smell the old leather as it lifted him and rolled him over onto his back. The smells of cooked blood and rotten meat grew overpowering and Dick started to gag, and try as he might to cover his nose with his arms they only lay limp and useless at his sides.

  Through his bleary eyes and the stink he could see three faces staring down at him and all three faces were different. There was Travis and there was a bigger, younger Travis, and opposite them was a drooling hulk of a man, his head and face pockmarked and tufted with red hair. The bigger Travis balled his hand into a fist and the fist crashed down.

  * * *

  Beneath the merciless gonging in his brain, he felt the ground biting his back and the sun scorching his eyelids. An urge to vomit rolled through him, and it was only a slow-dawning, nameless dread that enabled him to choke it back.