J. J. White

 Chapter 24

Father Spears held the chalice above the casket and chanted, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory, hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest.” The priest lowered the chalice to his lips and kissed it respectfully.

Gavin laughed to himself. All this for an empty casket.

“A funny thing about Vermont in the winter months. You can’t bury a body until the ground thaws.” The funeral director brought up the fact while Gavin was taking care of the arrangements for burial. “We have to store the bodies in refrigeration until sometime late April or May when the ground is soft enough for burial.” The director continued, in what seemed to Gavin, a condescending tone.

Later at the church, the priest insisted bodies must be present to have a mass performed for the dead. There was no way around the canons of the church. No way, until Gavin offered five hundred dollars to the priest to overlook the canons, this one time. Apparently, everyone had a price. A valuable lesson he could, and would, use in his travels. Maybe even to Russia if everything went as planned. A teenager shouldn’t have to take care of funeral arrangements, but he had little choice with no help available from his mother, did he?

The police said it had been an accident, though Gavin knew better. Someone had tried to kill him and he could only think of two people who wanted him dead, Sharon Blodgett and Carol Gero. The Geros had been trying to sabotage his success either for reasons of vengeance or jealousy, he wasn’t sure which. He wouldn’t put murder past them. After all, he broke up with their precious daughter, and she had told him at the ski lodge, no one broke up with her.

Gavin wasn’t as sure of  his suspicions about Sharon, though. She was angry, yet didn’t seem to be the type who would try to kill his family. Maybe she told her parents that he threatened her the day they broke up. Maybe her father thought he was protecting her.

Gavin turned his head to look at the mourners. Louise Daley’s eyes narrowed when they made contact with his. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but what if the Daleys still held a grudge? Could Louise Daley have hired someone to kill him? More likely, one of her boys would do the work for her. Gavin smiled and nodded to her. She didn’t acknowledge him and continued her stare. He lowered his gaze and looked for a friendlier face.

Mary Sinclair, Steve’s mother, nodded politely to him when their eyes met, but he wasn’t falling for her insincere gaze. She had the same motivation as Louise Daley to have him killed. She’d lost her son also, hadn’t she? Losing her son sounded better than saying her son was murdered. Murdered by him.

The community seemed to be convinced Gavin’s encounter with near death was an accident, that his father had come home drunk, just as he had hundreds of times, and accidentally knocked himself out in the garage, while inadvertently leaving the Buick running. He hated the old man, but he knew Big Bob could hold his liquor and would not have left the engine running after shutting the garage door, regardless of how drunk he was.

No, someone had wanted to kill Gavin and had no problem murdering his entire family in order to accomplish the deed. The carbon monoxide was supposed to seep into the house and silently kill them all. And whoever the killer was, whether hired by the Geros, Blodgetts, Daleys or Sinclairs, would have succeeded had it not been for Judy’s remaining gerbil, Mickey. The gerbil squealed and smashed itself hard against its cage before it succumbed to the Buick’s exhaust gases. The noise awoke a groggy Judy, who then woke her mother.

The killer had only succeeded in killing his father, something Gavin had secretly wished would happen for years.

Father Spears called the congregation to Holy Communion. Gavin stood with what remained of his immediate family. His Nana Westbrook in Ohio refused to attend Big Bob’s funeral. She promised years ago, she would never come to her son-in-laws funeral, regardless of her daughter’s pleadings. Gavin was sure, except for himself, no one hated his father more than his Nana.

Bonnie held Gavin’s right hand while Judy held his left. His mother squeezed hard as she knelt to receive the Eucharist. Later, back in the front pew, she leaned over to whisper in his ear. “It’s so sad he can’t be buried. This isn’t right, Gavin. It’s awful to think he’s just lying there in that funeral home—in that damn awful place—cold and—”

She rested her head on Gavin’s shoulder and cried for the first time since his father’s death. What was wrong with her? What did she see in his father that he didn’t? God damn him to hell.

The priest placed the chalice back into the tabernacle and turned to the mourners, asking musically, “Would someone from the family like to say something about our son, Bob Weaver?”

When no one stood, an uncomfortable silence filled the church for a moment until Gavin suddenly rose.

“It’s all right dear, you don’t have to say anything,” Bonnie said, touching his arm lightly. Gavin smiled oddly to her, wriggled out of the pew, and walked up to the altar. He held his hands outstretched, inviting the mourners to join him. He watched gleefully as they shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

Gavin spoke softly in monotone,

“Lo, death has reared himself a throne,

in a strange city lying alone.

Far down within the dim west,

where the good and the bad and the worst and the best,

have gone to their eternal rest.”

The poem’s effect on the friends and family of Big Bob Weaver was exactly the one Gavin had hoped for. Absolute silence rang through the church. Not a cough, sneeze, a shuffling of feet, or even a quiet word—just absolute silence.

He expected as much. No one had anything good to say about Big Bob Weaver because there was nothing good about him. Anyone spouting accolades about the man would be instantly pegged a hypocrite. Gavin wasn’t about to say anything good of a man who was now surely fighting the fires of hell. The poem was enough. Let them try to figure out its meaning, as if they even could.

Gavin waved nonchalantly to the casket and sat back down in the pew. His mother looked confused. He whispered to her, “Poe.” She shrugged and turned back to the priest. She obviously had no idea what he meant. It was like being around small children all the time. Small, ignorant children.

The good parishioners of St John Vianey’s saw something they had never seen before, their priest, facing them from the altar—speechless. It was an odd sight. Nearly as odd as Gavin’s morose recitation of Edgar Allen Poe’s death poem. He was willing to wager Poe’s work had never been orated in the Roman Catholic Church before, at least not in South Burlington. He thought perhaps it should be. The priest finally muttered a few words about some good in everyone. An outright abomination if he was referring to Big Bob Weaver.

He’d had enough of the hypocrisy. Gavin stood up, wiped his eyes, and left the pew as if he were too upset to hear anymore about his beloved father. As he passed the pews in the rear of the church, he gestured for John Bergeron to join him outside. Once there, he lit a filtered cigarette and offered one to John. John nervously eyed the doors to the church and eagerly pulled one out of the pack of Winstons.

Gavin blew some smoke out of his nostrils. “Are we still going hunting, Saturday?”

“Jesus, Gavin—you’re pop’s lying dead in that casket. How can you think about that now?”

“Nobody’s in the casket, retard. It’s empty. They can’t bury him until the ground thaws. At least that’s what they told me.”

“Well, where is he? He’s not just laying out some—”

“No. He’s in a big refrigerator—a Norge, I think.”

“God damn.” John sucked hard on the Winston.

Gavin slapped his friend’s shoulder playfully. “So are we going or not? I need some practice. I get Big Bob’s thirty ought six now. No more twenty twos. I need a lot of practice with the scope. What do you think?”

Gavin could tell John was staring at the black spot over his injury. He had seen a lot of that lately. Eyes would start on his face and inevitably drift upward. He knew they wondered about it.

John rubbed the cigarette out with his shoe. “Yeah, I guess so. My dad wants to leave Friday night so you might want to come over around four. Hey what the hell was that poetry thing all about?”

Gavin smiled, flipped the cigarette butt onto the stairs, and nudged John toward the doors. “C’mon let’s go back inside.”

* * *

There was plenty of snow left on the ground and some still weighed heavy on the branches of the firs lining the trail. The wooded areas around Bennington were renowned for good deer hunting. Each year, hunters from Vermont and neighboring states trekked through the same trail Gavin, John Bergeron, and John’s father, Peter followed to a favorite clearing known as a gathering spot for many does and a few bucks.

Gavin’s breath turned to fog as he struggled to keep up with the more experienced Bergerons. It had been ten years since Gavin had gone hunting with his father in these same hills. He had shot numerous times at bucks with his small caliber rifle only to see, in each instance, the buck fly away from the scene, followed by his does.

It felt good to smell the cold air mixed with the mint scent of firs and rotted birch trees. The strap on his Weatherby Sporter, bolt-action rifle, rubbed mercilessly against his back, cutting a painful groove into his shoulder. He slipped it off and held the rifle loosely under his arm. It felt heavy. Heavy enough to probably sling it back over his shoulder in a few minutes. Gavin stepped on a toppled tree and jumped over a branch back to the path. The bolt slapped against the stock and made a clicking sound. Peter Bergeron turned toward Gavin.

“You’ve got the safety on there, don’t you, Gavin? Can’t be jumping off logs with a gun that can stop a small elephant, you know. Don’t want to end up like Mr. Parmenter now do I?”

Jack Parmenter had gone hunting with his ten-year-old son, Jack Jr. a little over a year ago, south of Waterbury. Young Jack tripped over a tree similar to the one Gavin had just traversed and blew a hole an inch wide in his father’s back. The tragedy produced countless articles espousing the benefits of training our young in not only in the mechanics of the rifle, but in its dangers, also.

“No sir,” Gavin replied, strapping the rifle back over his shoulder. “If I shoot you, sir, it won’t be an accident.”

Peter Bergeron chuckled. “Well, that’s good to know you’ll only shoot me if you intend to. Good to know. How long’s it been since you’ve hunted up here? Me and your papa made this a yearly trek, you know.”

“He knows, Dad,” John interrupted. “Gavin doesn’t need to keep hearing about his pop. He just died, you know.”

“I know son, and I was talking to Gavin. You’ll know when I’m talking to you. When I start a sentence with John, then that’s a good indication I’m speaking to you, son. Now you just keep an eye out for does. Where they are, bucks are.”

“Yes sir,” John said quietly.

Gavin had almost forgotten the question when John’s father repeated it.

“Been how long son?”

“Ten years, sir. The last time was right here with my father. I don’t mind the hunt so much, but I didn’t like gutting the bucks later in the garage.”

“Well if we get one, we’ll bleed it here. No sense bloodying up the house. Marjorie never liked it when we hung the buck on the hook above the garage drain. She didn’t mind the extra meat though. First one we see, we’ll let you take a crack at it. Don’t see the need of a scope myself, but it should help you with your aim. Damn crutch, those things. Never liked ’em.”

John rolled his eyes. Gavin just smirked. He wasn’t there to hunt deer; he was there to become familiar with the rifle the old man left him. Someone wanted him dead, and Gavin had to have some way to defend himself, didn’t he? The rifle would have to do for now, but eventually he’d need a pistol, too.

“So you’re going to Cleveland, I hear,” Peter Bergeron said without looking back at the boys. His head swiveled side to side, searching for deer or other hunters, Gavin guessed.

“Yes sir,” Gavin said. “Next month, I have a show at the armory and then a chess tournament downtown.”

“What’ll happen if you win?” John asked.

“If I win there and then again in Boston, I’ll be ranked high enough to enter a tournament in Moscow.”

Peter Bergeron shook his head. “I hope you mean Moscow, Idaho, and not that blood-sucking commie city overseas. I wouldn’t let my son touch the same soil as those turncoats.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have a father anymore, do I?”

John’s father turned back like he was going to challenge Gavin, but just shook his head and sighed. “Listen, Gavin. We risked our asses for those commies in the war and look how they repay us by trying to nuke Florida. All I’m saying is you might reconsider your plans. There’s bad blood right now.”

“I’ll take it into consideration Mr. Bergeron, but I—”

Before Gavin could finish, John hushed him and pointed to the clearing. A group of does crossed the meadow lazily, followed by a large buck sporting a good-sized rack of antlers.

“Let me see your rifle, Gavin,” Pete Bergeron said, reaching for the Sporter. He peered through the scope at the deer.

“Eight point buck, maybe ten. I’d say 200 pounds. He’ll be too preoccupied with all those does to be paying any attention to us.”

He handed the rifle back to Gavin.

“All right boy. Let’s see what that fancy scope can do from way up here.”

“Hurry up, Gavin,” John said, lying down on the ridge in a gap of birches.” “Here’s a spot.”

Gavin flipped the safety off and lay next to John. He tried to ignore the omnipresent numbers and colors floating in his brain. He needed to concentrate on the beautiful tan buck. The huge size of the deer reminded him of Big Bob towering over everyone. The crosshairs of the scope danced from doe to doe, seemingly avoiding the big buck. Gavin opened his left eye to spot the antlers and then lined the scope in its general direction. There it was, snorting and stomping its hoofs at the disinterested females, heavy white puffs of frozen breath shooting out its large nostrils.

A hundred yards away, he figured. A simple kill. Gavin lined the crosshairs on a spot directly below the left shoulder of the buck, caressed the trigger, and held his breath. He flinched at the loud report, but still managed to see the puff of dirt a few feet over the buck’s head.

“Nice shot,” John said.

Gavin would need to get the scope adjusted and practice some more. Who knows, he may even have some use for the rifle right there in South Burlington. There was always that possibility.