The Righteous Path

by James D F Hannah

  “My department will do everything it can to catch these men, Iris. You have my word.”

  “How much is your word worth, Sheriff?”

  “I suppose that depends on who’s asking.”

  Iris stood up. Matt took a beat to appreciate the movement. “I’m going to go to the hospital,” she said and took a business card from her purse, set it on Matt’s desk. Matt reached into a drawer and handed Iris one of his own cards. He tried to give out as many as he could; since the cancer, he joked he didn’t know how long they would still be good.

  Iris dropped the card into her purse. “If you find out anything, please let me know, Sheriff. I’ll be in town for a while.”

  Matt walked Iris Warner to the door. “Thanks for stopping by, Ms. Warner.”

  He watched her walk to the elevator. She passed Crash through the metal doors as he exited and she entered. Crash walked into the office.

  “She’s something else, isn’t she?” she said.

  “People are almost invariably something else, Crash. The question is always what those things are.”

  Chapter 7

  Gloria Miller offered Matt coffee as she led him into the living room. He declined. Gloria’s double-wide was small but well kept, the air thick with a mixture of cigarette smoke and scented candles. Worn couch cushions threatened to expose the stuffing within. A half-empty coffee cup rested next to a half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray, which was next to a copy of one of those celebrity magazines about pretty people and their lives so many miles away.

  “I’m sorry about how the place looks,” Gloria said as they sat down, Gloria on the couch and Matt in a chair at her side. She sipped at her coffee. “There’s just so many hours in the day, and—”

  Matt reached out and touched her arm. “It’s fine, Gloria. Why don’t we relax here and talk, okay?”

  Gloria smiled but still seemed embarrassed. She looked the epitome of a farmer’s wife. A big-boned woman with a ruddy face and broad shoulders, dressed in a thin hoodie and blue jeans, with board-straight dark hair streaked with gray. Matt felt like he could put Gloria’s high school senior photo next to her that day and, other than the gray, she looked about the same as she had for the twenty-five-plus years he had known her.

  She took a deep breath, and it was a stuttering sound, a struggle to get the air into her lungs. Her eyes seemed tired, as though she hadn’t known sleep in days.

  “Micki’s gone,” she said.

  “Your daughter Micki?”

  She nodded. “Michelle, but no one’s called her that since she was little.” Gloria twisted her hands together. “She’s seventeen. It’s not like she’s a bad kid, Matt, but she makes some bad choices.”

  “That’s what they do, Gloria. They’re nothing but bad ideas and pushing boundaries. It’s why they call ’em teenagers. How long has she been missing?”

  “Three days. Please don’t think I’m a bad mom. It’s just me and her and her brothers, and I work double shifts at the plant—”

  “No judgments, Gloria.” He let his tone shift and his voice lighten so he could sound calming and soothing. He knew the routine, the approach to take in these circumstances. Kids, they disappeared all the time. Take off for a few days. More often than not, they showed up, metaphorical hat in hand, an understanding they had fucked up. Matt chalked it all up to rebellious streaks, something the kid needed to work out.

  “What happened?” he said.

  “Nothing. I mean, nothing more than usual. Me and her, we butt heads. She’s home with the boys more than she likes; she wants to have her a life, and I understand, but the boys, I can’t leave them by themselves, and it’s been hard since their dad left.”

  “Three days ago would put it at Saturday, right?”

  “Yes. I had an early shift, and then they needed me to take overtime, and I couldn’t say no to it, and when I got home, she wasn’t here.”

  “You still over at the cookie factory?”

  Gloria nodded. “Five, six days a week for almost fifteen years.”

  “Your sons, did they say anything about when she left?”

  “Alex said Micki got a phone call about four. She took the phone into her room and talked, and she came out with a bag and said she’d be gone for a while. I got home after six, and they were both sitting there staring at the TV, playing video games. I was pissed as hell because I had asked her to start dinner, and the boys hadn’t had lunch or anything.”

  “Does Micki have a cell phone?”

  Gloria laughed. “Hell no, and don’t think for a minute she’s done anything but whine about that. But I don’t have that kind of money, Matt.”

  “So the call came in on your land-line?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you check the caller ID?”

  “I did and called the number back, and all it did was ring and ring.”

  “You remember the number?”

  “Better than that.” She fished into her purse, bringing things out and setting them on her lap: a shabby and cheap-looking wallet, a small makeup bag, loose tissues, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, gum. She dug until she drew out a folded sheet of paper to give to Matt. Matt looked at the number and set the paper on the coffee table.

  “What about her friends? Have you talked to them? Or her girlfriends?”

  “I don’t know who Micki hangs out with. I’m at work so much—” Gloria’s cheeks flushed, her eyes rimmed with red.

  “We’ll go by the school. Her teachers will know who she’s friends with.”

  She wiped away the tears, streaking her makeup until black lines ran up from the corner of each eye. “I’m so embarrassed. We don’t have much, and I know we’re one of those families people look at and they’re ashamed for us, but I do the best I can with what I’ve got.”

  “No one thinks anything like that about you, Gloria.”

  “It’s sweet of you to lie, Matt, but I live in this town, and the people here, they’re how they are. I’ve talked shit about folks with less than me because that’s what we do.”

  Matt called Crash on his cell phone. Gave her the number and asked her to run it down. Crash said sure, took down the number, and hung up.

  Matt returned his phone to his pocket. “I’ll need a picture of Micki? Something we can pass around to the deputies.”

  Gloria went back into her purse and brought out an envelope and handed it to Matt. “I had to go back to the drug-store and print these out. You know, no one has real pictures anymore; everything’s digital and on your phone these days.”

  Matt pulled out the top photo from the envelope. Micki Miller had the look of a teenager who rebelled by looking like every other teenager who rebelled, with long hair dyed black, unbrushed, and matted into knots. She lined her eyes with thick black makeup, and her lips were a vivid red, her skin the color of paper. She was still round on the edges, though, without those hard pieces that kids got from working so hard to grow up too fast. Micki Miller looked like a teenager, and she battled against it with everything in her. Her AC/DC T-shirt was frayed and faded, a thrift store buy and not an overpriced vintage reproduction, and she wore a scowl in obvious distaste at having her picture taken.

  Matt slid the photo back in and set the envelope aside. He laid his hand on Gloria’s shoulder.

  “She’s a kid. We’ll find her hiding out with friends somewhere, I can almost guarantee.”

  Gloria looked down at Matt’s hand and tried to smile, but there wasn’t much behind it. She wasn’t a woman who could afford to muster too much hope.

  “People saying you’re sick,” she said. “That true?”

  Matt brought back his hand. “How did you hear?”

  “Red Raymond was talking about it on break. Said he’d heard from someone else. They’re saying it’s cancer.”

  “It is.”

  “What kind?”

  “Liver.”

  Gloria sniffed and wiped at her nose wit
h the back of her hand. “Damn but I’m sorry, Matt. How bad is it?”

  “You ever known any cancer that’s good?”

  “Don’t suppose I have.”

  “I’m gonna be fine. Looking at options. I’ll be around a while. Been alive this long, I don’t see a good reason to stop yet.”

  Matt and Gloria stood, and Gloria patted Matt on the shoulder. “That’s good to know. I always liked you.”

  Matt smiled. “You’re an excellent judge of character then, Gloria.”

  Chapter 8

  Crash knocked on Matt’s office door. Matt called out, “Enter!”

  Crash walked in and set a manila folder on the desk.

  Matt glanced at it, then to Crash.

  “That the report on the telephone number?” Matt said.

  “It is.”

  “It looks formal. You put it in a folder and everything.”

  “Presentation counts.”

  “If you’re in a cooking competition, yes.” He flipped the folder open and thumbed through the pages. “Are you going to make me read this thing, or can you save me the trouble and tell me what I need to know?”

  “The number goes to a pay-as-you-go cell phone you pick up at Walmart. Purchased with cash two months ago. The account’s been re-upped a few times through cards you buy for that provider.”

  “Cards also paid for with cash, I would suppose.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Matt tipped his glasses to the end of his nose. “Did you call me sir?”

  “I did.”

  “Stop that shit. Makes me sound old.”

  “If we want to pick at nits, you’re older than I am. And you are the sheriff. I thought I’d try out a new level of respecting authority.”

  “Are you working to be a pain in the ass today?”

  “Somewhat. How’s it working?”

  “Like a charm.”

  Crash sat down in the visitor’s chair. Matt nodded and went back to the folder’s contents.

  “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  Crash crossed her legs, right leg at the left knee, and rested her forearms on the chair arms.

  “What was the deal with Mrs. Miller’s husband?” she said.

  Matt looked up from the report.

  “How do you know about her husband?” he said.

  “I might have looked up the entire family after you called.”

  Matt nodded. “His name was Tyson Miller. He and Gloria got married out of high school. Gloria was raised in one of those churches where the women aren’t supposed to cut their hair, and they wear denim skirts to the knees. She rebelled against her parents by marrying Tyson. The Millers, they’re a family with weight.”

  “Money?”

  “A different weight. It’s the kind you get from a pit bull on logging chains in the front yard, and kids get warned not to trick-or-trick at your house, and you’ve got cars on blocks, but there’s no VINs or registration, so even though you know they stole the cars, you can’t prove it.”

  “They’re thugs.”

  “The term thug implies intelligence and organization the Millers don’t have. The whole family’ll spend a day working to scam a dollar when they could have worked a real job and made ten bucks. They’ll sell you whatever prescription they get, be it OxyContin or antibiotics. Two of ’em died from electrocution while stealing copper wire, the second one buying it four months after the first one, because the first one dying didn’t teach them anything.”

  “They sound like slow learners.”

  “Closer to no learners, but they’re persistent, which I guess counts for something. Gloria married Tyson and from what I understand, things were okay the first few years. Gloria miscarried before her daughter came around, and she worked to keep things together while Tyson focused on doing what Millers do, which was as little as possible. He’d get busted on some minor shit—dealing pot or selling stolen tools from the car parts store—but nothing enough to hang him, and besides, he had a wife and kids, and he wasn’t what anyone would have called a menace except to himself. He was smart enough to keep out of the worst of things and stupid enough to keep landing in annoying shit.”

  “She said he’s gone, though. He doing time somewhere?”

  “Nothing simple like that. He just disappeared. Damndest thing. The little girl couldn’t have been much more than a year or two old. Hell, the post office probably has his missing persons posters hanging on the wall still. Gloria called up and said he had left one morning and never came home. Like the earth sucked him underneath.”

  “Weird.”

  “I suppose. He was nothing but a crook, but there wasn’t anything that said Tyson would have walked out on ’em that way. No real historical precedent for a Miller leaving Parker County, either. But it stuck Gloria raising her daughter, and then she had the twins on accident a few years ago. Far as I know, she’s been working double shifts at that factory, trying to make the ends meet.”

  “Awful lot of work raising kids by yourself. Can’t imagine his family’s got much to contribute.”

  “They’re as useful as tits on a boar hog. Gloria’s like the rest of us, working out of our leagues and overcompensating for the shortcomings.”

  “It sounds like seeing a shrink has paid off for you.”

  “I took up meditation too. Someone recommended it for the cancer.”

  “Is it working?”

  “I still have cancer, so no, but I’m not as worried about it, so yes.”

  “I realized the other day, Steve Jobs had liver cancer too, didn’t he?”

  “He did.”

  Crash waited a beat.

  “He died from it.”

  Matt nodded. “He did.”

  Another beat.

  “I’m sorry, Matt.”

  “Why? I didn’t know Steve Jobs.”

  Crash smiled. It was a painful expression.

  Matt came out of his chair and around the desk, leaning his ass against it. “Go by the high school in the morning and talk to the principal. See if there’s anyone from Micki Miller’s classes she was friends with. I can almost promise you that cell phone number belongs to a boy.”

  “Or a girl. High school kids, they don’t give a fuck these days.”

  “I have the same amount of fucks to give, but regardless, the number goes to someone Micki’s involved with, and if we find that person, we find out where she is.”

  “What about the Campbell home invasion?”

  “What about it? Please tell me the neighbors saw something.”

  “We checked up and down the street and no one said they saw anything.”

  “To be expected. Any word on Mrs. Campbell?”

  “Nothing new. She’s still unconscious. They’re trying to keep the brain swelling down, but there are other medical issues at play. She’s an old woman. None of it sounds good.”

  “If that happens, this becomes a homicide case.”

  “That might be enough to make the state police come in.”

  “Fuck but I hope not. Last thing I need in my life is Jackie Hall showing up at my door.”

  “He’s that lieutenant you don’t like, right?”

  “He is.”

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  “Because he doesn’t like me.”

  “Then why doesn’t he like you?”

  “It’s got something to do with me not liking him.”

  “This sounds extremely cyclical.”

  “Round and round the world spins, I guess.”

  Crash rose to her feet. “Might not be the worst thing, having the state investigate. Would be one less worry on our heads.”

  “Would be, but I’d rather it not happen if we can make that so.”

  “This is nothing but a matter of pride for you, isn’t it?”

  “I’m a guy, Crash. Pride keeps us going most days.”

  She shook her head. “You all ne
ver stop being little boys, do you?”

  “We do not; we just keep wanting bigger toys.”

  Chapter 9

  The Campbell house looked more inviting in the daylight, the sun casting off the shadows and lighting the house like a painting hung in a church vestibule. Matt knew that through the darkness, under whirling police car lights, anywhere could seem sinister.

  Matt knocked on the front door and hooked his thumbs into the top of his pants, resting his hands over his gun belt. He had opted to wear a full uniform today, to seem more official. It didn’t fit well, and he had studied himself in the mirror before leaving the house this morning. He felt like a child playing dress up, wearing his big brother’s hand-me-downs. The top button was fastened, and he wore the black tie with it, but the collar was too large and hung loose, and it made him seem even smaller and thinner than he was.

  He heard movement from inside, a man’s voice muttering, and the rhythmic thuds of a cane landing against the floor. The big wooden door creaked on its hinges, and Gary Campbell stared at Matt through the screen door. His face was still splashed with purple bruises, but they had changed to a mustard-like yellow, blending with a mixture of age spots. Campbell narrowed his eyes behind large rimless glasses as he pursed his lips together.

  “Sheriff,” Campbell said.

  “Mr. Campbell. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine, all things supposed. What can I do for you?”

  “If you’re up for it, I’d like to talk to you a little more about the attack the other night.”

  Campbell shook his head. “Talked to you at the hospital. Talked to your deputies. I’m well and done talking. You should be out there catching these people.”

  “I’m just asking for five minutes of your time, to see if there’s anything else from that night.”