He didn't answer-just picked up his pipe in a hand that was shakin the tiniest little bit and went to work lightin it again. He never ast another question; the last question that was ast of me that day was ast by Garrett Thibodeau. McAuliffe didn't ask it because it didn't matter, at least not to him. It meant somethin to Garrett, though, and it meant even more to me, because nothing was going to end when I walked out of the Town Office Building that day; in some ways, me walkin out was gonna be just the beginning. That last question and the way I answered it mattered plenty, because it's usually the things that wouldn't mean squat in a courtroom that get whispered about the most over back fences while women hang out their warsh or out on the lobster-boats while men are sittin with their backs against the pilothouse n eatin their lunches. Those things may not send you to prison, but they can hang you in the eyes of the town.
“Why in God's name did you buy him a bottle of liquor in the first place?” Garrett kinda bleated. “What got into you, Dolores?”
“I thought he'd leave me alone if he had somethin to drink,” I said. “I thought we could sit together in peace n watch the eclipse n he'd leave me alone.”
I didn't cry, not really, but I felt one tear go rollin down my cheek. I sometimes think that's the reason I was able to go on livin on Little Tall for the next thirty years-that one single tear. If not for that, they mighta driven me out with their whisperin and carpin and pointin at me from behind their hands-ayuh, in the end they mighta. I'm tough, but I don't know if anyone's tough enough to stand up to thirty years of gossip n little anonymous notes sayin things like “You got away with murder. “ I did get a few of those-and I got a pretty good idear of who sent em, too, although that ain't neither here nor there at this late date-but they stopped by the time school let back in that fall. And so I guess you could say that I owe all the rest of my life, includin this part here, to that single tear… and to Garrett puttin the word out that in the end I hadn't been too stony-hearted to cry for Joe. There wasn't nothing calculated about it, either, and don't you go thinkin there was. I was thinkin about how sorry I was that Joe'd suffered the way the little bandbox Scotsman said he had. In spite of everything he'd done and how I'd come to hate him since I'd first found out what he was tryin to do to Selena, I'd never intended for him to suffer. I thought the fall'd kill him, Andy-I swear on the name of God I thought the fall'd kill him outright.
Poor old Garrett Thibodeau went as red's a stopsign. He fumbled a wad of Kleenex out of the box of em on his desk and kinda groped it out at me without lookin-I imagine he thought that first tear meant I was gonna go a gusher-and apologized for puttin me through “such a stressful interrogation. “ I bet those were just about the biggest words he knew.
McAuliffe gave out a humph! sound at that, said somethin about how he'd be at the inquest to hear my statement taken, and then he left-stalked out, actually, n slammed the door behind him hard enough to rattle the glass. Garrett gave him time to clear out n then walked me to the door, holdin my arm but still not lookin at me (it was actually sorta comical) and mutterin all the time. I ain't sure what he was mutterin about, but I s'pose that, whatever it was, it was really Garrett's way of sayin he was sorry. That man had a tender heart and couldn't stand to see someone unhappy, I'll say that for him… and I'll say somethin else for Little Tall: where else could a man like that not only be constable for almost twenty years but get a dinner in his honor complete with a standin ovation at the end of it when lie finally retired? I'll tell you what I think-a place where a tender-hearted man can succeed as an officer of the law ain't such a bad place to spend your life. Not at all. Even so, I was never gladder to hear a door close behind me than I was when Garrett's clicked shut that day.
So that was the bugger, and the inquest the next day wasn't nothing compared to it. McAuliffe ast me many of the same questions, and they were hard questions, but they didn't have no power over me anymore, and we both knew it. My one tear was all very well, but McAuliffe's questions-plus the fact that everyone could see he was pissed like a bear at me-went a long way toward startin the talk which has run on the island ever since. Oh well; there would have been some talk no matter what, ain't that right?
