Free Hearts Left Behind by Derek Rempfer

quickly in greedy
little grass-stained hands and turned back toward his table.  “Another day
above ground,” he said, lifting his glass in a toast and nodding.  “You
boys be good now.”
    With the Old Man back at his table, I turned my
attention back to Charlie
    “Why d idn’t the Halperns ever report anything?”
    “Report what?  Missing a gallon of milk? 
They probably never even noticed.  Slim Jim walked into a dark house and
walked out of a dark house.”
    The door front slammed behind me as unknown patron
number one left the bar.  I peeked over at Keller who coddled his drink
and chomped on ice.  “Why didn’t you and Moose tell Sheriff Buck?”
    “Now, that’s a fair question.  I actually thought
about it.  I did,” he said with a rehearsed nod.  “But Moose talked
me out of it.  We would have caught
ourselves some serious licks for sneaking out and drinking like that. 
Hell, we were only, what, thirteen?  Plus Moose said that Slim Jim still
could have done it and we’d be risking our necks for some psychopath who we
already knew for sure was at least one kind of criminal.”
    I imagined the entire scene in my head, trying to make
sense of it.  I could see Moose and Charlie
leaning up against that old lumberyard shed, drinking Old Milwaukee or Pabst
Blue Ribbon or whatever they could get their underage hands on.  Along
comes Slim Jim, walking under the moonlight in his torn pants and blue-jean
jacket.
    “Why wouldn’t you guys have called him over when you
saw him?  He was your buddy, you hung out with
him earlier that very day, didn’t you?”
    “Well, for one we figured he would have wanted some of
our beer.  For two, playing with Ol ’ Creepy in
the park in broad daylight is one thing.  Hidden behind that barn at night
is something different altogether.  Especially that night. ”
    So Charlie and
Moose had watched everything.  Everything that happened that night and the
days that followed.  And they knew. 
    “I know I should have said something.  Even knew
it then.  But it was easier not to.  And with every day that passed,
it got easier.  An easy decision to make, a hard secret
to keep.   Know what I mean?  Like something heavy was hung on
me that night and I’ve walked with it ever since.  Shit, you realize that
up until this very moment Moose and I were the only two who had ever known that
secret?  And for the past seven years it’s been mine alone." 
    He drained his beer.  “Hell, I feel a little bit
lighter already.” 
    “I don’t know, man.  It doesn’t add up.  Why
would someone lie about seeing Slim Jim that day?  It just doesn’t make
sense.”
    “I don’t know,” Charlie said.  “I guess you gotta ask yourself what motivates a man to say something he know ain’t true.  No
reward.  No glory really.  What was in it for him?”
    He motioned for Stan to bring another round of drinks
over and then returned his attention to me.  “And let me throw one other
thing at ya there, Gaines.  You know that Slim
Jim is R-I- P’ing out in the Willow Grove cemetery,
right?”
    “No, I didn’t know that, but so what?”
    “So, he died in prison.  He didn’t have any
friends or family to claim his body – not here in Willow Grove anyway. 
You know what they do with guys like that when they die in prison?” 
    I shook my head. 
    “They cremate them.  The only way he gets a plot
and a tombstone in Willow Grove is if somebody pays to bring his body back here
and pay for the burial.  Would take a person feeling a
whole lot of sympathy to do something like that.”
    “Or someone feeling a whole lot of guilt,” I added.
    “Exactly.”
    Stan slid two fresh drinks in front of us, although I
hadn’t yet taken a sip of my last one.
    “On the tab, Stan,” Charlie said as he rose from his bar stool.  Then turning to me,
he said, “I’ve gotta hit the head.  Maybe you’ll
have the mystery solved by the time I get back, Sherlock.”
    For the