Carnal Innocence

she’d just tell him how she’d fallen off the porch or something.” His head dropped. Shame weighed almost as heavy as fear. “Ruthanne says how she likes it. She likes getting beat on. But that don’t seem right.”
    Burns decided there was no use trying to explain the psychology and the cycle of abuse. That was a job for social workers and shrinks. “No, it doesn’t. Did he hit Ruthanne, too?”
    He smirked, the way brothers do over their sisters. “She’s pretty good at getting out of the way.”
    “How about Vernon?”
    “They’d whip up on each other sometimes.” Cy made a quick, dismissive move of the shoulders. “Mostly they hung together. Vernon was Daddy’s favorite. He took the most after Daddy. Inside and out, my ma said. They were alike inside and out.”
    “How about Edda Lou? Did your father hit her?”
    “She was always butting him, daring him, like. She hit back at him. Once she split his head with a bottle when he used the belt on her. That’s when she moved out. She moved into town and never came around the house anymore.”
    “Did he say things about Edda Lou, too? The way he did about Miss Waverly?”
    A wasp circled down to investigate Cy’s Coke and was batted away. “We weren’t supposed to say her name. Sometimes he got worked up and said how she was a whore of Babylon. Vernon would try to get Daddy riled up about her. He wanted to go fetch her from town and bring her home so they could punish her. Vernon would say how it was their duty as her family and as Christians, but I don’t think he believed in that like Daddy did. Vernon just likes to hit people.” He said it simply, as if he’d just commented that Vernon liked ice cream sundaes. “Then Daddy found out she was seeing Mr. Tucker and he said how she’d be better off dead. And he beat Ma.”
    Tucker pressed his fingers against his eyes and wondered if the guilt would ever pass.
    “Cy, do you remember when your father and Mr. Longstreet argued?”
    Tucker dropped his hands. He nearly laughed. The euphemistic “argument” still showed in fading bruises on his ribs.
    “I guess I do. Daddy came home with his face ail busted up.”
    “And what about two nights before that.” The night Edda Lou was murdered. “Do you recall if he had one of his moods?”
    It was the first question Cy had to think about. His eyes lost some of their glassy fear as he considered. Absently, he took another swipe at the persistent wasp. “I can’t recollect for sure. When he got wind that Edda Lou was supposed to be pregnant, he was real fired up. But I don’t know which night that was.”
    Burns prodded for a few minutes, trying to jog the boy’s memory without tipping him off to the reason. Inthe end. He backed off. He still had Ruthanne and Mavis Hatinger. Their memories might be keener.
    “All right, Cy, just a few more questions. The knife you took to your father. Did he often carry it?”
    “Only when he was going hunting and such. A buck’s too big to carry as a rule.”
    “Could you estimate how many times he might have carried it in, say, the last six or seven months?”
    “Four or five times. Maybe more. He was partial to squirrel meat.”
    “Did he ever threaten you or any member of your family with the knife? Did he ever boast about punishing someone with it?”
    “He was going to gut Mr. Tucker.” Cy covered his face with his hands, muffling his voice. “He said how I had to bring Mr. Tucker back down to the culvert, and he told me he was going to gut him like a rabbit. He was going to carve off his privates. ’Cause it was divine justice. He was going to cut him up like Edda Lou. And if I went against him, if I didn’t honor my father, then he’d cut out my eyes because the eye offended him. And the Lord says you’re supposed to. Please, Mr. Tucker.” He didn’t weep, but kept his hands over his face like a kid in a horror movie trying to block out the monster. “Please, I don’t want to think about it no more.”
    “It’s all right, Cy.” Tucker rose to stand behind him. “Leave him be, Burns.”
    Burns turned off the recorder, put that and his pad in his pocket. “I’m not heartless, Longstreet.” As he pushed back from the table he looked from the trembling boy to the man who stood as his protector. “And I’m very aware that there are more victims here than are buried in your cemetery.” He wished fleetingly that he was capable of offering compassion as easily as Tucker, with the