“Hey, hon,” he said sheepishly, “sorry that I’m so late. We just lost track of time.” Just as he was getting ready to start his speech, Missy turned around and spoke over her shoulder.
“I’m going for a jog. Youcan take care of this, can’t you?” She’d been getting ready to blow the grass off the walkway and drive; the blower was sitting on the lawn.
Miles knew enough not to respond.
After she’d gone inside to change, Miles got the cooler from the back of the car and brought it to the kitchen. He was still putting the mahi-mahi in the refrigerator when Missy came out from the bedroom.
“I was just putting the fish away…,” he started, and Missy clenched her jaw.
“What about doing what I asked you?”
“I’m going to-just let me finish here so this won’t spoil.”
Missy rolled her eyes. “Just forget it. I’ll do it when I get back.”
The martyr tone. Miles couldn’t stand that.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Just like you’d finish the lawn before you went out fishing?” He should have just bitten his lip and kept quiet. Yes, he’d spent the day fishing instead of working around the house; yes, he’d let her down. But in the whole scheme of things, it wasn’tthat big a deal, was it? It was just her brother and sister-in-law, after all. It wasn’t as if the president were coming. There wasn’t any reason to be irrational about the whole thing. Yep, he should have kept quiet. Judging from the way she looked at him after he’d said it, he would have been better off. When she slammed the door on her way out, Miles heard the windows rattle.
Once she’d been gone a little while, however, he knew he’d been wrong, and he regretted what he’d done. He’d been a jerk, and she was right to have called him on it.
He wouldn’t, however, get the chance to say he was sorry.
***
“Still smoking, huh?”
Charlie Curtis, the county sheriff, looked across the table at his friend just as Miles took his place at the table.
“I don’t smoke,” Miles answered quickly.
Charlie raised his hands. “I know, I know-you’ve already told me that. Hey, it’s fine with me if you want to delude yourself. But I’ll make sure to put the ashtrays out when you come by anyway.”
Miles laughed. Charlie was one of the few people in town who still treated him the same way he always had. They’d been friends for years; Charlie had been the one who suggested that Miles become a deputy sheriff, and he’d taken Miles under his wing as soon as Miles had finished his training. He was older-sixty-five, next March-and his hair was streaked with gray. He’d put on twenty pounds in the past few years, almost all of it around his middle. He wasn’t the type of sheriff who intimidated people on sight, but he was perceptive and diligent and had a way of getting the answers he needed. In the last three elections, no one had even bothered to run against him.
“I won’t be coming by,” Miles said, “unless you stop making these ridiculous accusations.”
They were sitting at a booth in the corner, and the waitress, harried by the lunchtime crowd, dropped off a pitcher of sweet tea and two glasses of ice on her way to the next table. Miles poured the tea and pushed Charlie’s glass toward him.
“Brenda will be disappointed,” Charlie said. “You know she starts going through withdrawals if you don’t bring Jonah by every now and then.” He took a sip from the glass. “So, you looking forward to meeting with Sarah today?” Miles looked up. “Who?”
“Jonah’s teacher.”
“Did your wife tell you that?”
Charlie smirked. Brenda worked at the school in the principal’s office and seemed to know everything that went on at the school. “Of course.” “What’s her name again?”
“Brenda,” Charlie said seriously.
Miles looked across the table, and Charlie feigned a look of sudden comprehension. “Oh-you mean the teacher? Sarah. Sarah Andrews.” Miles took a drink. “Is she a good teacher?” he asked. “I guess so. Brenda says she’s great and that the kids adore her, but then Brenda thinks everyone is great.” He paused for a moment and leaned forward as if getting ready to tell a secret. “But she did say that Sarah was attractive. A real looker, if you know what I mean.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“She also said that she was single.”
“And?”
“And nothing.” Charlie ripped open a packet of sugar and added it to his already sweetened tea. He shrugged. “I’m just letting you know what Brenda said.” “Well, good,” Miles said. “I appreciate that. I don’t know how I could have made it through the day without Brenda’s latest evaluation.”
“Oh, take it easy, Miles. You know she’s always on the lookout for you.”
“Tell her that I’m doing fine.”
“Hell, I know that. But Brenda worries about you. She knows you smoke, too, you know.”
“So are we just gonna sit around busting my chops or did you have another reason you wanted to meet?”
“Actually, I did. But I had to get you in the right frame of mind so you don’t blow your stack.”
“What are you talking about?”
As he asked, the waitress dropped off two plates of barbecue with coleslaw and hush puppies on the side, their usual order, and Charlie used the moment to collect his thoughts. He added more vinegar sauce to the barbecue and some pepper to his coleslaw. After deciding there was no easy way to say it, he just came out with it.
“Harvey Wellman decided to drop the charges against Otis Timson.” Harvey Wellman was the district attorney in Craven County. He’d spoken with Charlie earlier that morning and had offered to tell Miles, but Charlie had decided it would probably be better if he handled it.
Miles looked up at him. “What?”
“He didn’t have a case. Beck Swanson suddenly got a case of amnesia about what happened.”
“But I was there-”
“You got there after it happened. You didn’tsee it.”
“But I saw the blood. I saw the broken chair and table in the middle of the bar.
I saw the crowd that had gathered.”
“I know, I know. But what was Harvey supposed to do? Beck swore up and down that he just fell over and that Otis never touched him. He said he’d been confused that night, but now that his mind was clear, he remembered everything.” Miles suddenly lost his appetite, and he pushed his plate off to the side. “If I went down there again, I’m sure that I could find someone who saw what happened.”
Charlie shook his head. “I know it grates on you, but what good would it do? You know how many of Otis’s brothers were there that night. They’d also say that nothing happened-and who knows, maybe they were the ones who actually did it. Without Beck’s testimony, what choice did Harvey have? Besides, you know Otis.
He’ll do something else-just give him time.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
Miles and Otis Timson had a long history between them. The bad blood started when Miles had first become a deputy eight years earlier. He’d arrested Clyde Timson, Otis’s father, for assault when he’d thrown his wife through the screen door on their mobile home. Clyde had spent time in prison for that-though not as long as he should have-and over the years, five of his six sons had spent time in prison as well on offenses ranging from drug dealing to assault to car theft. To Miles, Otis posed the greatest danger simply because he was the smartest. Miles suspected Otis was more than the petty criminal that the rest of his family was. For one thing, he didn’t look the part. Unlike his brothers, he shied away from tattoos and kept his hair cut short; there were times he actually held down odd jobs, doing manual labor. He didn’t look like a criminal, but looks were deceiving. His name was loosely linked with various crimes, and townspeople frequently speculated that it was he who directed the flow of drugs into the county, though Miles had no way to prove that. All of their raids had come up empty, much to Miles’s frustration.
Otis also held on to a grudge.
He didn’t fully understand that until after Jonah was born. He’d arrested three of Otis’s brothers after a riot had broken out at their family reunion. A week after that, Missy was rocking four-month-old Jonah in the living room when a brick came crashing through the window. It nearly hit them, and a shard of glass cut Jonah’s cheek. Though he couldn’t prove it, Miles knew that Otis had somehow been responsible, and Miles showed up at the Timson compound-a series of decrepit mobile homes arranged in a semicircle on the outskirts of town-with three other deputies, their guns drawn. The Timsons came out peacefully and, without a word, held out their hands to be cuffed and were taken in. In the end, no charges were brought for lack of evidence. Miles was furious, and after the Timsons were released, he confronted Harvey Wellman outside his office. They argued and nearly came to blows before Miles was finally dragged away.
In the following years, there were other things: gunshots fired nearby, a mysterious fire in Miles’s garage, incidents that were more akin to adolescent pranks. But again, without witnesses, there was nothing Miles could do. Since Missy’s death it had been relatively quiet.
Until the latest arrest.
Charlie glanced up from his food, his expression serious. “Listen, you and I both know he’s guilty as hell, but don’t even think about handling this on your own. You don’t want this thing to escalate like it did before. You’ve got Jonah to think about now, and you’re not always there to watch out for him.” Miles looked out the window as Charlie went on.
“Look-he’ll do something stupid again, and if there’s a case, I’ll be the first to come down on him. You know that. But don’t go looking for trouble-he’s bad news. So stay away from him.”
Miles still didn’t respond.
“Let it go, you got that?” Charlie was speaking now not simply as a friend, but as Miles’s boss as well.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I just told you why.”
Miles looked at Charlie closely. “But there’s something else, isn’t there.” Charlie held Miles’s gaze for a long moment. “Look… Otis says you got a little rough when you arrested him, and he filed a complaint-” Miles slammed his hand against the table, the noise reverberating throughout the restaurant. People at the next table jumped and turned to stare, but Miles didn’t notice.
“That’s crap-”
Charlie raised his hands to stop him. “Hell, I know that, and I told Harvey that, too, and Harvey isn’t gonna do anything with it. But you and him aren’t exactly best friends, and he knows what you’re like when you get worked up. Even though he’s not gonna press it, he thinks it’s possible that Otis is telling the truth and he told me to tell you to lay off.”
“So what am I supposed to do if I see Otis committing a crime? Look the other way?”
“Hell, no-don’t be stupid. I’d come down on you if you did that. Just keep your distance for a while, until all this blows over, unless there’s no other choice. I’m telling you this for your own good, okay?”
It took a moment before Miles finally sighed. “Fine,” he answered. Even as he spoke, however, he knew that he and Otis weren’t finished with one another yet.
Chapter 3
Three hours after meeting with Charlie, Miles pulled into a parking space in front of Grayton Elementary School just as classes were being dismissed. Three school buses were idling and students began drifting toward them, clustering in groups of four or six. Miles saw Jonah at the same time his son saw him. Jonah waved happily and ran toward the car; Miles knew that in a few more years, once adolescence settled in, Jonah wouldn’t do that anymore. Jonah leapt into his open arms and Miles squeezed him tight, enjoying the closeness while he could. “Hey, champ, how was school?”
Jonah pulled back. “It was fine. How’s work going?”
“It’s better now that I’m done.”
“Did you arrest anyone today?”
Miles shook his head. “Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Listen, do you want to get some ice cream after I finish up here?”
Jonah nodded enthusiastically and Miles put him down. “Fair enough. We’ll do that.” He bent lower and met his son’s eyes. “Do you think you’ll be okay on the playground while I talk to your teacher? Or do you want to wait inside?” “I’m not a little kid anymore, Dad. Besides, Mark has to stay, too. His mom’s at the doctor’s office.”
Miles looked up and saw Jonah’s best friend waiting impatiently near a basketball hoop. Miles tucked Jonah’s shirt back in.
“Well, you two stay together, okay? And don’t go wandering, either of you.”
“We won’t.”
“All right, then-but be careful.”
Jonah handed his father his backpack and scrambled off. Miles tossed it onto the front seat and started through the parking lot, weaving among the cars. A few kids shouted greetings, as did some mothers who drove their kids home from school. Miles stopped and visited with some of them, waiting until the commotion outside finally began to die down. Once the buses were on their way and most of the cars were gone, the teachers headed back inside. Miles took one last glance in Jonah’s direction before following them into the school. As soon as he entered the building, he was hit with a blast of hot air. The school was nearly forty years old, and though the cooling system had been replaced more than once over the years, it wasn’t up to the task during the first few weeks of school, when summer was still bearing down hard. Miles could feel himself begin to sweat almost immediately, and he tugged at the front of his shirt, fanning himself as he made his way down the hallway. Jonah’s classroom, he knew, was in the far corner. When he got there, the classroom was empty.