The only thing I hate more than someone addressing me as Junior is the look of suspicion in the portly sheriff’s eyes as they dart between Pop’s covered body and me, still in his clutches.
“I got a letter from him asking me to come home,” I answer around the lump forming in my throat as my eyes drift back to the cloth. My stomach wretches and I regret my earlier tuna sandwich. “He can’t be dead, he just can’t be. You have to do something for him,” I urge.
“He’s gone, boy. We won’t want to make any assumptions until the coroner can examine the body,” Devries exhales loudly through his nostrils, “but it was likely a natural death. Unnatural deaths just don’t happen around these parts. That’s more likely in that big ole’ city you’re living in. Your father hasn’t been well for some time but even so, it is department procedure to eliminate any other possible cause. Starting with how long you’ve been in town and why you’ve returned.”
“I told you, I got a letter from Pop asking me to come home,” I reply shortly as the hair on the back of my neck raises. Something isn’t right here.
“Do you still have the letter?” Sheriff Devries asks his tone sharpening.
Something about the way Devries asks makes me feel the need to be defensive. Without understanding why I find myself saying, “No, I left it back at my apartment in the city, why?”
Devries shakes his head dismissively, “Might have given us an insight into his frame of mind, that’s all, son.”
My skin crawls, “but you said you thought it was a natural death. You’re acting like it was a suicide or murder or something.”
“Now why would you say murder, Chance?” Devries tries to loom over me intimidatingly.
“I didn’t say it was murder,” I say, frustrated by his tone. “I said that’s what you’re acting like it is.”
Devries’s face shutters into an unreadable mask. “I think it would be best if you came down to the station and answered a few questions.”
“What? You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I exclaim. “You actually think I did something to my Pop?”
“I know you and your father have been estranged for some time,” Devries replies, “and I find it a little unusual that you blow back into down on the same day your father is found dead.”
“But I found him,” I remind him. “I’m the one that called 911.”
“A likely story,” Devries muses. “Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“No way,” I exhale hard. “I didn’t do anything wrong and you’re treating me like a suspect in a crime.”
I try to back away but the police chief grabs my wrist and twists it and me around before I can react.
“I didn’t want to do this,” Devries murmurs as he produces a set of handcuffs from his belt. “Chancellor Jordan the third, you are under arrest for the suspected murder of your father. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford an attorney one will be provided to you. Do you understand these rights as I’ve read them?”
“This is insane,” I mutter as Chief Devries hauls me out of the house I grew up in and shoves me into the back seat of his cruiser.
Back in my Mustang, Pop’s letter lays hidden in the map, out of sight.
CurseBreaker Page 21
