“The house was back here with the barn. The Bannings farm the land now—you know Bob? No, I guess not. Anyway.” He stopped to let me catch my breath. He didn’t seem winded at all. “The old house got sold and moved into Smith County. But the barn’s still here. You’ll see.”
We walked on, the trees closing in behind us. Maples and walnuts, no pines to speak of. I greeted the trees silently, old friends, as we continued up the low rise. At last the weathered gray barn was revealed. The high roof caved in on itself in one spot, and the big sliding door on the front was off its rails, propped askew against the entrance.
I had been going along with the drive, the hike, the history lesson, thinking that eventually I would know why I was there. Now that I stood in the middle of an abandoned farm, surrounded by nothing, I still had no ideas. The fact that I had gone along with a man I hardly knew to an isolated location without telling anyone where I was—I hadn’t been thinking clearly. I leaned my head back on my shoulders to see the widow’s peak of the barn, where white paint peeled off in slow strips.
“Not up there,” Sheriff Keller said. He went up to the loose door and eased it open a foot. “In here.”
I hesitated.
“That does sound creepy doesn’t it? Look,” he said. He walked back to me, fiddling with his gun holster. “You can hold onto this. You can unload all six bullets on me if you need to.” He took the gun out and offered it to me on his palm.
I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my wrist. “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to give that up. Plus I don’t know how to shoot,” I said. “I’ll have to lick you with my bare hands if you try anything funny.”
Keller’s gaze felt heavy. When I met it, he looked away.
“We’ll fix your gun inexperience some other day, Deputy. How about if I stay out here, and you take a peek inside? You’ll see it, don’t worry.” He walked off a few feet, reholstering his gun and leaving me to the black slash of the barn door.
I tiptoed up to the entrance as though the barn were asleep. I put one hand on the unhinged door, turning sideways to duck my head into the opening. Rays of sunshine cut through cracks between the uneven slats of the high walls. A shaft of light beamed through the hole in the roof.
I saw the writing immediately, but didn’t rush to it. The inside of the barn felt like a church. The air was cool, and the light hazy and silver. I took a slow breath and slid inside.
Ambitious shoots of green inched their way through the cracks in the wall and back out again toward the light. Through the opening up in the rafters, I saw the outstretched limb of a hearty cottonwood. A set of ladder steps led up to a loft that spanned the length of the barn. I smelled hay in the dark corners, wool, mildew, rot. Lingering smoke. Neglect and decay. I stood at the foot of the stairs and peered up into the dark upper floor.
On the long wall of the loft, vandals had been at work. The entire wall was covered with spray paint. I hardly needed to focus to recognize some of it as the work of the boys who were already troubling the school.
In the doorway, the sheriff said, “What do you think?”
I waved him inside. “I think you and Mr. Jeffries are looking for the same thing.”
He snorted, lowering his head to fit the bill of his cap through the door.
“What?”
“Ah.” He sighed. “Nothing.”
“No, really. What?” I stood with crossed arms.
“Oh. Already, huh?”
“What are you trying to say?” I thought of Joshua’s pronouncement that Joe liked little boys. It was pure crap, the kind of thing boys say to cut someone down. Surely the sheriff wouldn’t be making juvenile jokes.
“It’s nothing. Nothing.” He wouldn’t look at me. “Joe Jeffries likes to compete. He always has, and he probably always will.” He shuffled the dirt floor with a boot heel and looked down at the line he’d scraped there. “I just mean that if there’s something new and shiny to have, Joe Jeffries will want to have it first.”
Now I saw the joke he was actually making. “New and shiny, huh?”
“Or elusive. You know. Hard to get.”
I turned back to the job at hand. “Will this ladder hold?”
“It did for the kids, so I imagine it will for us. If we go up one at a time.”
I put a foot on the lowest rung and put all my weight on it. When nothing creaked, I started the climb. At the top, I leaned over the side. “Do you smell smoke?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, grasping the ladder and making his way up. “That’s why we’re here. A little graffiti, Bob Banning don’t mind. A little fire? Well. He minds.”
“Or a big one.”
“Exactly. The place is a tinderbox looking for a match.” He reached the platform, rising from a crouch straight into the sloped ceiling of the barn. The top of his head slammed into a low rafter. He hissed in pain and flinched away, both hands to his head.
“You’re OK?”
“Not as OK as I was a minute ago. I think I ripped my hat.”
“You’ve got about a hundred of those, though.”
He took off the hat to show me the flap of fabric torn from in its crown. “Two,” he said, as though I had accused him of something. He patted gently at the back of his head and looked at his fingers.
“Bleeding?”
“I’ll live. So? What do you think?”
“Of the artistry?” I went to the wall and studied it. “What I said. You and Joe are looking for the same kids. Here’s some of their work. Three boys, probably between twelve and fourteen. The school isn’t that big, is it? Small town, small-town school?”
“It’s got more than three boys between the ages of twelve and fourteen. And I can’t force a confession,” he said.
I turned back toward the long wall. Some of the paint seemed dull. I studied a particular foul phrase for a second. It was a different author. “Some of this is older than the other stuff. It’s layered.”
“It’s an old hangout,” he said, gesturing toward a dark corner. In it, the remnants of squatting: a plaid blanket thrown over old newspapers, fast-food bags, and empty bottles of beer and cola. “Like I said, Bob’s not worried about the paint so much. So over the years . . .” He waved his hand over the tableau.
“But the fire—”
“Right. He thinks the last set of kids here might have had a campfire down below. There are signs of one just under the loft, pretty recent.”
I was back at the wall, walking the length of the loft until I found a prolific section in the most recent layer. The vandals had put down a fresh layer of white paint with a roller, and then unleashed themselves upon their canvas. “Advanced planning. Nice. Here’s your pro,” I said, one hand upon the section I was sure was Steve Ransey’s doing. His hand was as steady as any trained artist. In blue: his Mona Lisa, her monstrous breasts exposed.
“Your follower right next door.” I drew a pointed finger along the bottom of a large red SMITHIES SWALLOW. “Smith County rivals, I’m assuming. Classy. And here’s our clumsy fellow,” I added, letting my hand pause over another rendition of his favorite four-letter expletive, this time in green.
Keller had followed me along the wall. “What about that one?” He had his hands stuffed into his front pockets, gesturing with a nod to the wall beyond my shoulder.
I turned. I could have taken my time. I could have spent a few minutes drawing it out for him. But I realized the instant I saw the words that, as with most of what happened in and around his town, he must already know. “That. That is Joshua’s handwriting.”
He waited as I kneeled on the loft floor next to it. I traced the outline of a big black L with my finger.
“It’s dry,” he said.
“I know. It’s just been a long time. Since I saw . . . it’s not important.”
“It’s him, then. You’re sure?”
I sat back on my heels and took in the words. In black, unsteady letters:
LIAR GO TO HELL
&nbs
p; “Absolutely sure.”
The sheriff stood behind me. “Just the four of them, you think?”
I nodded and bowed my head. I thought of the package of photos placed in my path, the requests that had brought me along to this spot. The sheriff was the shepherd, and I was the sheep. “You knew it was Joshua, didn’t you?”
“I thought . . . maybe.”
“You didn’t bring me out here to tell you for sure, though,” I said to the loft floor. Behind me, his boots shuffled in place. I wanted to fly past him, off the loft and through the door, down the lane, into my truck. Reverse, retreat. “You didn’t need me to tell you what you already knew.”
“I didn’t know. I had a feeling.”
“A vibration?”
“Why are you mad at me now? I didn’t put the can in your kid’s hand. I only brought you out here—”
“To make sure I knew how badly I was falling down? Sheriff Keller, I hardly need anyone to tell me.” I stood and faced him. He took a step backward. “I have the reminder living in my house, remember. When he’s not brightening up the walls of old barns, he’s finding new ways of making me feel like shit for giving birth to him.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Will you arrest him?”
“I brought you out here,” the sheriff said quietly, “so that you could talk to him yourself. Bob’s not interested in sending these kids to jail.”
I remembered the reverent face of Bea Ransey leaving Keller’s office. All those years, someone had kept her no-good son from being sent up. Keller did the same for Steve. All these boys from troubled homes—and now Joshua. Another boy from another desperate family. “You save them all, do you?”
“I haven’t saved anyone lately.” I could only see his outline against the little light flooding in from the ruined roof, could barely see how he hung his head. The register of his voice had turned toward darkness—a switch thrown in the dark. I could feel him in the air; I really could feel something like . . . vibrations. Coming from him. Somehow, in the dark, I could understand something that I hadn’t before. He was laid bare. I could read his voice as easily as I could read the love written into Aidan’s name on his mother’s grocery list. “I’ve been working ten days, days and nights, on Aidan’s case, but I’m no closer than I was the first day,” he said, his voice gone thin and hoarse. “Nobody is getting saved on my watch.”
I could nearly hear his heart beating through the words he chose. I had never met anyone who said exactly who they were. But he’d gone silent, waiting for what I’d say.
“Keep talking,” I said.
A beat passed. The stilted loft air thickened; I couldn’t breathe, because I could read this, too. In the next second, he reached across the void for me and I was enclosed, the bare skin of my arms electrified against his. He put a hand against the back of my neck and pressed his mouth against mine. I met him, freeing my arms to reach for his hair, his rough cheeks and jaw, to drag my palms down the front of his shirt to feel his chest. I didn’t have enough hands for the skin I needed. I wanted to grab fistfuls. I leaned into the flat of his hands, pressing my body into his.
He put a hand on either side of my face and pulled away. He could see me, though his face was still shadowed. He dipped toward me again, and drew his tongue lightly over a corner of my mouth.
“What are you doing?” I said, starting to smile as his mouth grazed my ear.
“Licking you,” he murmured. “With my bare hands.”
I laughed. He smiled against my lips and slid his hands under my shirt and against my hungry skin.
Chapter Twenty
A woman’s voice woke me from a doze. I lurched for my shirt.
Where—?
I took a moment, not quite believing the dark, the dank smell.
“’s the radio.”
The afternoon rebuilt itself in a rush of memory. Oh, no.
Keller lay on the old wool blanket next to me. “The radio. It’s wherever my pants are.” He rose up on an elbow and blinked into the corner of the loft and up at me.
“Back there.”
“Right.” We both peered down the length of the loft. “You’re going to make me do that walk naked?”
“Your radio.”
“You’ve got that shirt.” The smile he gave me—if he could just keep doing that. If he could just keep me from thinking too much.
“Go on, I want to watch you fetch your boots,” I said.
“Hey,” he said, rising to a hunchbacked position under the eaves. “I’ve got my socks on, and so my dignity.”
“If you say so.”
He leaned low to kiss me. He had just begun to convince me when the radio squawked again. He groaned and pulled away. “Right back. Don’t forget what you were thinking there.”
I watched his ghost figure cross the dull light. The socks were ridiculous, but the rest of him required serious contemplation. He rifled through the clothing on the floor and came up with the radio from his belt. He stood with his naked ass to me and called into the dark with authority, “Yep.”
“Sheriff Keller!” It was easier to hear Sherry’s voice now that she had been liberated from the folds of his pants. “Oh, I’m so glad—look, Erickson’s people called, and they’ve got something going down, I don’t know what. He wants you to meet them here, pronto, he says.”
I sat up.
“Any ideas? Does it sound like they found him?”
Sherry said, “I don’t know. I just—maybe. It’s big, whatever it is. He’s bringing his own media, he said.”
The muscles across his back tensed. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure I was listening, and then up at the opening in the roof. “His own media. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Did you go take a look for Banning?”
“He call?”
“Yep.”
“Let him know it’ll be taken care of?”
“Sure, but, Sheriff? Pronto?”
“Pronto.” He threw the radio to the floorboards and said, “As soon as I’m wearing pants.”
“Aidan?” I said.
“Something to do with him. The attorney general is on his way.” He stood looking at the pile of clothes at his feet.
“There’s no way to know, is there? Good or bad?”
He sighed and pulled out his boxers. I watched him dress, keen for his movements, for the details of his body before they were buttoned away. “Only by getting back to the station and hearing it along with the reporters, I guess,” he said, zipping his uniform pants. “Aren’t you going to get dressed?” He reached down for some of my things at his feet and walked them over.
I crumpled the clothes against my chest.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, but I knew. As soon as I got dressed, and we climbed down from our bed in the sky, as soon as we slid out of the broken door and scrambled down the hill toward our trucks, it would be over. Whatever it was, this magic. In the half-light of the loft, I had shed more than clothes. Outside the barn, I would never be able to live with this. I stood and, finding each piece in turn, retreated within my wardrobe. “What time is it?”
“After five,” he said.
“I’m late.”
“I guess the attorney general is trying to make the six o’clock report, so there’s not another day on Aidan Watch. Do you think—”
“What?”
“Nah. Nothing.”
“Seriously?” I fumbled with the knot in the lace of my shoe, rushing now. Joshua would be home any minute. I hadn’t left a note. Most of all, I didn’t want another scene. I didn’t want another fight. I would do anything to avoid it. I would even cancel the date with Joe, and not because I had the scent of another man’s cologne on my neck. I didn’t want any of this. All I wanted was to sit Joshua down and talk. Really talk. I was tired of talking around things, of withholding. Sparing him the truth wasn’t working anymore. Maybe telling him the truth would change things.
“OK,�
�� he said. “Do you think—knowing what you know about Leila from her handwriting—do you think she could have done anything to hurt Aidan?”
“No.” I stood up, dusting the back of my jeans.
“Not a chance? Not a single chance that she would do something—”
“No. Not even to keep him from his father.” We faced each other at the top of the ladder, the sheriff’s head ducked under the close ceiling. I thought for a moment. Could I say that? How much had I hurt Joshua to keep him from Ray? But the sheriff meant something else. “Not even to save him,” I said.
He nodded. “What do you think I’m about to go see?”
Only one image came to mind: Leila Ransey, shadowed face, hunched shoulders, shackles at hand and foot. Arms empty. “I don’t know. Madame Zonda could tell you.”
“I was really counting on that woman to be full of shit.” He waved me toward the ladder, holding the top rung. Body sore, I took my time. He followed, quick, skipping the last rung with a stretching step to the dirt.
“Look, before I go . . .” At the barn door opening, I reached my hand out into the sun. “Those forms—they’re not originals.”
“Oh, come on now. This again?”
“That’s not what I meant.” What I wanted to know, really, was if he needed them back. When we left in the night with all our things packed around us, did I need to drop them into the mail? “I’m not sure I understand it all yet but—I’ll have something for you soon.”
I crouched to slide out the door, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the barn. “What?” I said.
“Don’t—don’t leave it here.” He stepped closer, pressing the length of his body against mine, his lips against my temple. “You know what I mean.”
I closed my eyes and accepted the full embrace of his breath and touch, enjoying the way my body felt stretched and skinned. Bruised, even.
I knew what he meant, but it was already gone. I broke away and slipped out of the barn, the sun in my eyes.
WE DROVE THE dirt roads like teenagers, kicking gravel and skidding at corners. Near downtown Parks, we parted ways. I decided to take an extra turn around the courthouse to see if Joshua was using my absence to hang out with his artisan friends, but the square was busy. One side of the street had been blocked off, a series of media trucks parked in a row and guarded by a variety of uniforms.
The Day I Died Page 16
