When Ghosts Come Home

by Wiley Cash

  The television reporters and cameramen saw Winston as he approached, and they could tell something was afoot. They scrambled into a cluster at the edge of the asphalt. He recognized the crime reporter from the Wilmington Star News and the field reporter from the State Port Pilot just down the road in Southport. Nearly all of them held either a microphone, a tape recorder, or a camera.

  Winston pulled the notepad from his back pocket and flipped through it until he found the page on which he’d jotted his talking points in the grocery store parking lot. He took a deep breath. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Sheriff Winston Barnes. Last night, a little after four a.m., the sheriff’s office arrived on the scene here at the airport, where we discovered an airplane abandoned on the runway, along with the body of an individual.”

  “What was in the airplane?” asked the blond-haired reporter from Channel 3. “Can you tell us who was flying it?”

  Winston lifted his hand to show that he wasn’t done speaking, and then he continued. “At this time, the victim has been identified as Rodney Bellamy of Southport, and Mr. Bellamy’s family has been notified. We have no information that links Bellamy or his death to this aircraft, but I want to stress that this is an active investigation, and that the airport will remain closed until it is completed. If anyone has any information on the events of last night, you are encouraged to contact—” Winston watched a Chevy crew cab dually pull into the lot. frye and son construction was labeled on the side. The truck parked at the end of the row of cars on Winston’s right. “If anyone has any information, please contact the sheriff’s office. I will not be taking any questions at this time. Thank you.”

  But of course that didn’t keep the gaggle of reporters from calling out Winston’s name and shouting questions at him as he and Kepler walked past them. Winston gave them all a pinched smile and a couple of patient nods, but he didn’t stop to speak to them, and they didn’t follow.

  He and Kepler walked along the edge of the parking lot toward Marie’s car, and as Winston removed his keys from his pocket, Bradley Frye climbed out of his truck. Winston watched as Frye straightened his pants and made sure his shirt was tucked in. He noted the pistol Frye had holstered at his side. What in the hell is he doing with that? Winston thought.

  “Sheriff, Deputy,” Frye said, nodding at Winston and Kepler. His smooth, tan skin, blue eyes, and parted blond hair made him look ten years younger than his forty-one. His white polo shirt and khakis were clean and pressed crisp and straight. A first glance would take Bradley Frye for old money, but anyone who hung around him longer than a few minutes would discover that his family’s money was new, and it was spent on things like big trucks, expensive boats, and parcels of land where spec houses were thrown up overnight. Winston was more accustomed to arresting men like Bradley Frye for drunk driving or picking up prostitutes than he was accustomed to standing against them in an election.

  “Brad,” Winston said. He reached out and shook Frye’s hand. Kepler did the same. Winston noted a sense of embarrassment on Kepler’s behalf, and it endeared him to Winston, this small recognition of the awkwardness he found himself in as the two rivals stood toe-to-toe at a crime scene within earshot of the local media.

  “I thought I’d come by and see if I could help out,” Frye said. “I heard y’all might have your hands full this morning.” He looked out toward the runway, and then he looked over at the gathered group of reporters. A few of them were recording the scene on the runway where the ambulance had parked. Two paramedics lifted a stretcher holding Rodney’s covered body into the back of the ambulance. Rollins and Rountree stood by and watched.

  “We’re doing okay,” Winston said. “Things are moving along. Ain’t that right, Deputy Kepler?”

  “That’s right, Sheriff,” Kepler said, his voice quiet. “Moving along.”

  Winston looked at Frye. “But we appreciate you coming by.”

  “Heard y’all had a dead colored boy out there on the runway,” Frye said.

  For the moment, Winston ignored him and looked at Kepler. “You mind heading back out there? I’ll get somebody here soon to relieve you.” Kepler nodded, and then he turned and walked back toward the runway.

  Winston turned to face Frye. “Man,” he said.

  “What?”

  “He was a man,” Winston said. “You said ‘boy,’ but he was a man.”

  “Yeah, well,” Frye said, “y’all thinking drugs?”

  “We’re not thinking anything right now, Brad,” Winston said. “We’ve got an investigation to complete. There’s plenty of time for thinking later.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll see what the voters have to say about that next week, huh, Sheriff.” He smiled.

  “I guess we will,” Winston said.

  Frye squinted his eyes and looked out at the airplane on the runway. He smiled. “See some FBI fellows out there,” he said. “I bet that means it was drugs.” He crossed his arms. “Drugs from Mexico. And you got the coloreds out here waiting to unload them and move them through this county.”

  “That’s a great theory,” Winston said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”

  Frye put his hand on Winston’s shoulder to stop him as he tried to step past him toward Marie’s driver’s-side door. Winston looked over at the reporters. Most of them were now busy winding cords and loading equipment back into their vans.

  “You shoot him?” Frye asked.

  “Don’t touch me, Brad,” Winston said.

  “I know you took out a colored boy back in Gastonia. Good for you if you got this one too.” The ambulance drove past on its way out of the parking lot. “You just let me know what I can do, Sheriff,” Frye said. “I got a bunch of boys on my crew who’d be happy to lend a hand. I don’t plan to wait until I’m sworn in as sheriff to protect this county.”

  Winston shrugged off Frye’s hand. He looked down at the gun on Frye’s belt, an expensive Browning Hi Power with a mother-of-pearl handle that Winston couldn’t imagine Frye even figuring out how to hold, much less shoot.

  “You can start by leaving that sidearm at home,” he said. “It’s illegal to open carry, and I’d hate to have to jail my opponent so close to the election.”

  “Would you now?” Frye said.

  “I would,” Winston said, “but I will. Get back in your daddy’s truck, Brad. Go to work.”

  Marie was standing behind the screen door when Winston pulled into the driveway. She waved, and he forced a smile instead of waving back. The truth was, his hands were shaking, just as they had been shaking since his stare-down with Bradley Frye. How had Frye known about what had happened in Gastonia? How would anyone know about that? To have it resurrected now was a shock that Winston was struggling to handle, compounding his worry over Marie, his grief for Colleen, and the appearance of this airplane that seemed to have fallen from the sky to land beside Rodney Bellamy’s dead body. And now the investigation was being taken from him and turned over to the FBI, and everyone was watching him just as Marie stood at the door and watched him now.

  He climbed out of Marie’s car, and she opened the door as he stepped onto the porch.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Winston said. He squeezed her hand and walked into the hallway and opened the closet door and put his holster and pistol away. When he hung up his jacket, he realized that he was still wearing his white T-shirt from the night before. He walked into the kitchen where Marie had set out a plate with a ham sandwich and some potato chips on it. She followed behind him. He went to the sink and washed his hands.

  “How was Rodney’s wife?” Marie asked.

  “Bad,” Winston said. “Bad, like you’d expect.”

  “Did you see the baby?”

  “Yeah,” Winston said. He snapped a paper towel from the roll where it hung beneath the cabinet.

  “Did you talk to Ed?”

  “I did, Marie.” Winston turned and looked at her. He kept drying his hands. “I did. I
t was awful. All of it. All of it was awful.” He bent and opened the cabinet beneath the sink and tossed the paper towel into the trash can that was hidden there.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Of course. Of course it was awful.” She looked at the table, where the plate of food waited for him. “I made you a sandwich,” she said. “I thought you could use something to eat.”

  “I’m really not that hungry,” Winston said.

  “Well, I think you need to try to—”

  “Why’d you call Glenn, Marie? Really? Why’d you call him?”

  He watched her step away from him as if his question had been a physical thing that had struck her. She put her hand to her chest as if to finger a necklace, but there was nothing there. She smoothed back her hair instead and set her face as if she were readying herself to take on whatever he was going to say.

  “We already talked about this, Winston,” she said. “I apologized.”

  “That’s not what I asked you, Marie,” he said. He leaned his waist against the counter, his hands reaching back to brace himself. “I asked why you called him. Do you not think I can do my job?”

  “Of course you can do your job, Winston.”

  “Well, no one else seems to think I can. The Wilmington FBI is in on this now, Marie. They’re taking over the investigation, making it look like I can’t do this job anymore. And if I don’t keep this job, then I don’t keep our insurance, and then what’s going to happen, Marie? To us, to you? I’m not going to work for Bradley Frye.”

  “And I won’t ask you to,” Marie said. “We’ll find a way to make it.” She raised her hands, dropped them to her sides. “I’ll go back to work. I can go back next school year. There’s bound to be—”

  “Work?” Winston said. “Marie, you can’t even get out of bed some days. We don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

  Her face changed. What had been hard suddenly softened, but not toward him.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Winston. I’m sorry to be letting you down.”

  “Jesus,” he said. He walked toward the kitchen table and took a seat where she’d left the plate of food waiting. He picked up half the sandwich, and then he dropped it onto his plate. “It’s not about that,” he said. “It’s about me needing to keep this job. It’s about people believing I can still do it. Leonard Dorsey called the damn FBI, and Bradley Frye’s showing up at the scene as if he’s already been sworn in.” He picked up the sandwich again, took a bite. He chewed, the taste of it not even registering. “It feels like it’s being pulled away from me, Marie.” He swallowed, looked up at her where she still stood in the kitchen. “And I never thought you’d be one of the people pulling it.”

  “What do you mean, I’m pulling something away from you?” Marie asked. She walked to the table, sat down across from him. “I’m not trying to take something from you. I never have. Me calling Glenn has nothing to do with your job. It has to do with me loving you and not wanting you out there alone if you don’t have to be. I mean, Jesus, Winston, somebody shot Rodney Bellamy last night. And you were out there. In the dark. That could’ve been you.”

  Marie put her hands on the table, intertwined her fingers. Winston stared at her hands, her wrists, registered how thin they were before they disappeared into the buttoned cuffs of her long-sleeved blouse. He knew she worried about him, and he knew he was taking out on her what he could not take out on Leonard Dorsey or Bradley Frye or the FBI or, hell, Rodney Bellamy for being there on that runway last night.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

  “Don’t explain,” Marie said. “Don’t explain.” She raised her eyes to his, her mouth curving up in a slight smile. “I was right, by the way.”

  “About what?”

  “About it being an airplane.”

  Winston smiled too. “I don’t remember there being a debate about that,” he said.

  “Well, I was the first to say it at least,” she said.

  “I can’t eat all this,” he said. He picked up the other half of the sandwich and reached across the table. Marie took it from him and allowed herself a small bite.

  “I bet it was drugs,” she said. She reached to the middle of the table and lifted a napkin from the holder. She wiped her mouth, crumpled the napkin in her hand. “Drugs from South America. That’s probably what the FBI thinks too. That’s why they’re getting involved.” She stared at Winston for a long moment as if doing so could get him to reveal everything he’d seen and heard and felt in the hours he’d been away from her. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she finally said.

  Winston looked down at his plate of potato chips. He knew that by now word had spread around the island. Marie’s friends had probably been calling the house all morning, asking questions once they heard that a plane had crash-landed and been abandoned at the airport. By now everyone probably knew that a body had been found.

  “Debbie said this happens where her sister lives down in Florida all the time. She said they’re always catching Colombians trying to unload cocaine from airplanes.”

  Winston raised his eyebrows in mock curiosity. “Is that what Debbie said?”

  “Yep,” Marie said.

  “Well, I sure hope these aren’t the same Colombians,” Winston said. “I’ll talk to Debbie before I write my report.”

  “Don’t be cute,” Marie said. She smiled at him, and her smile felt good to Winston.

  “Did Debbie ever see any photos of those boys from Colombia? I’ll deputize her and give her a gun if she did. Let her take up the night watch out there on the runway.”

  “I’ll put her on night watch in our driveway,” Marie said. “Keep you in this house at night so I can get some sleep.”

  “I’m just glad to see you eating something,” Winston said.

  The phone rang in the kitchen.

  “I bet that’s Debbie with some hot leads,” he said.

  Marie stood from the table and tossed her wadded-up napkin at him. “You sit,” she said. “I’ll get it. You’ve done enough investigating today.”

  Marie picked up the phone from its cradle on the wall beside the sliding glass door. Her back was to Winston.

  “Hello?” she said, and then she turned around and looked at him. “Hey, honey,” she said, her words and the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes telling Winston that Colleen was on the other end. He stood from the table, but she raised her finger to send him a signal that let him know that she wanted to hear her daughter’s voice for as long as she could. It would be his turn after that. She crossed her arms and leaned her back against the wall, the sunlight coming in the sliding glass door playing on her skin, hollowing out her cheeks, and glinting on her hair. “How are things down in Dallas?”

  Winston sat back down and took another bite of his sandwich, suddenly hungry and willing to eat because he didn’t know what else to do while he waited. He watched Marie as she knitted her eyebrows together. She looked at him.

  “Oh,” she said, “in Wilmington?” She put her hand over the receiver and said, “She’s at the airport in Wilmington.”

  Winston stood up from the table and walked toward Marie, his mind alive with scenarios and possibilities. Had Colleen and Scott planned a surprise trip home? Had they separated? Did she need him to pick her up?

  “What happened?” he whispered, but Marie raised her finger to silence him again.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Marie said, her voice softer than Winston had heard it in a long time. “It’s okay, honey. We’ll come get you.” She looked at Winston, widening her eyes as if sending him a cue to speak a line that only he could speak or to take some action that only he could take. “Your father’s already on his way.”

  Chapter 4

  “Those white folks are probably going to eat you,” Kelvin had said. “That’s what they do to Black people up there in the country.”

  Jay wasn’t supposed to have been hanging around Kelvin after what had happened, a
nd he’d known he’d be in even more trouble if his parents caught them together. After all, it had been Kelvin’s fault that Jay had been sent up to the country in the first place. Jay shouldn’t have trusted him, but Kelvin was fifteen, a year older than Jay, with an older brother named Terry who’d already finished high school and had a job at the shoe store in the mall in Decatur. Terry had called them both babies whenever he’d seen them hanging out at Kelvin’s house after school.

  “Y’all babies found your peckers yet?”

  “Y’all babies still watch cartoons?”

  “Y’all babies getting sent to juvie?”

  And, for a while, Jay thought for certain they would be sent to juvie.

  The plan had been that they would walk into Wright’s corner store just like they’d walked into it every day since they’d been old enough to walk home from school. Kelvin would distract Mr. Wright by talking to him, and Jay would make his way to the back of the store, where he would slip two bottles of MD 20/20 from the cooler and slide them into the waist of his jeans before cinching his belt tight. If anything went sideways, Kelvin would use their code word—Thriller—and the mission would be aborted. Jay had wondered why they couldn’t switch places, why he couldn’t distract Mr. Wright while Kelvin pinched the liquor. Kelvin had brushed that suggestion aside. “Because you can’t talk like I can,” he’d said. But it was his brother Terry’s talking that had gotten the whole thing started.