Living Witness(17)

The cough came from behind him again, and this time he turned. It was hard to do, because he was standing right up against the plate-glass window that formed the front wall of the store and was wedged in between two tall stacks of tires. Hale ’n’ Hardy, tires, that was the name of the store. He’d started it with his brother–in–law when they’d both been out of high school maybe ten years, and they still had it now, after all this time. In another month or so, they were going to open a branch out on the highway in a new strip mall that was going up with a Wal-Mart as an anchor. Franklin Hale wasn’t afraid of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart was for people who already knew what they were doing. Hale ’n’ Hardy was for people who didn’t know a lug nut from a banana split.

The cough was coming from Louise Brooker. Louise always coughed, or “hmmed,” or something like that, instead of using actual words when she wanted to get his attention. It drove Franklin crazy. He kept himself from yelling at her by reminding himself that she couldn’t live a very happy life. She was plain as ditch water. She had the kind of figure you’d be more likely to see on a mule than a woman. She had nothing to look forward to in her life. The feminists had gotten to her, that was what Franklin thought, back when she was young, before she joined Franklin’s church, the feminists must have gotten to her, and now what was going to happen to her? She was going to die old and alone, with nobody to talk to but her cats.

Franklin hired all his help from people he met at church. He would never hire somebody who wasn’t a Christian to work in one of his stores. You could never tell with people who weren’t Christians. Some of them were all right, but most of them had no morals. How could they have morals? They didn’t believe in a God that gave out rules for living.

Louise was hovering. Franklin hated hovering.

“What is it?” he asked her.

Louise cleared her throat again. “It’s that man. From the place in Michigan. The law place.”

“The Ave Maria School of Law.”

“No,” Louise said, sounding desperate. “The other place. The one with institute in its name.”

“The Discovery Institute,” Franklin said. “That one’s in Oregon.”

“Yes, excuse me. I’m sorry. I really am very bad at remembering things. Anyway, he’s called here before. He wants to talk to you.”

“All right,” Franklin said. He didn’t move. Annie-Vic was coming closer and closer. She didn’t look like she was breathing hard. How could anybody be in that kind of shape at the age of ninety-one? She probably didn’t even believe in death. She probably thought she was going to live forever. That was why she was the way she was.

Louise coughed again.

“All right,” Franklin said, without turning his head.

Annie-Vic was coming right up to the window. She was right on the other side of the plate glass. Her face was flushed, but it was flushed in a good way, a healthy way. Her hair was coming loose of that bun she always put it in. Franklin wanted to shove his hand through the glass and grab her by the neck and shake her and shake her and shake her until the bones broke into pieces and her head came loose. He could almost see the blood on the sidewalk, the deep, thick red spreading out against the white of the pavement. The pavement was very white. It was that kind of chalk white it got when it had been covered with rock salt and then the salt had melted. Annie-Vic was pumping and pumping and pumping and Franklin was thinking about blood, and then she was gone.

“Mr. Hale . . .” Louise said, close to hysterical.

Franklin Hale turned away from the window. His head hurt again. His muscles felt as if they belonged in somebody else’s body. He felt the way he did when he and Marcey almost made love but didn’t quite, and then she turned away from him and left him hanging.

“I’m coming,” he said, to forestall another sigh.

Then he strode right past Louise and to the back, where his office was.



9



Annie-Vic didn’t usually power walk all the way home after she’d taken her exercise. It had been at least a decade since she’d been able to do that without feeling that she was about to fall over at the end of it. Today, though, she was feeling invigorated, and she was fairly sure it wasn’t because of the weather. My, but growing up in a town like this developed your antennae, and coming back to it after having been away made those antennae sharp. Or maybe not sharp. Maybe antennae couldn’t be sharp. She couldn’t remember, and for once she didn’t care. If she had been one of those people who thought everything happened for a reason, she would have decided that the reason she had never just bolted from Snow Hill and not looked back was because of this day.