I WASN’T CRAZY about the idea. My tongue always ties in knots the second I walk into the police station. Sergeant Hurley is only a few weeks from retirement but he’s built like a tank and can still stare down the toughest crook. I always feel like he can see right through me. Like he knows all my secrets. Knows I sell eggs and dairy products under the counter at Aunt Penny’s, even though he never says a word. There was no way I could look him in the eye and ask him about the dead man who might be my father.
Constable Jessica Swan is the other reason my tongue ties in knots. I can’t remember ever feeling before the pure joy I feel when she smiles. When she puts her arms around me. When she tilts her head to mine and says, “Rick, you’re impossible.”
We’re taking it slow and, so far, privately. I stay away from the station, and she comes out to the farm to visit. She laughs at the idea of anything staying secret in Lake Madrid. But I don’t want all the tongues wagging in the Lion’s Head. I’m sure she’ll get tired of me, or get posted away, and then I’ll have to face all the loser looks in town. I get enough of those looks already.
So I didn’t take Gus’s suggestion. The police station could wait. Maybe someone else in town would have a better memory than Gus and Nancy. Instead I steered my truck back to the farm. Coming up the lane, I saw Steve squatting in the front yard beside his truck. His truck was jacked up, and one wheel lay on a tarp on the ground, surrounded by tools and parts and the dog. Chevy jumped up at the sight of me and raced down the lane, tail wagging.
“Brakes acting up,” Steve said as I came over. The tools and materials were laid out on the tarp in neat rows. Right next to him was my shotgun, shiny and oiled. Steve shrugged like it was the most natural thing in the world. “It won’t blow up in your face now. I hope you don’t mind I borrowed some tools from your shed too.”
I should have said thank you, but the words wouldn’t come. I picked up the shotgun. He was in the army. It’s probably just force of habit, I thought as I locked it back in its case. Then I came back to watch him. Changing the brakes is an easy job, but he worked even faster than I do and reached for the right tool without even looking. It was like watching myself.
“Been doing this since I built my first go-kart when I was ten,” he said with a grin. “That’s when I knew this was going to be my life.” He nodded to one of the sheds in my back field. “I see you got a couple of go-karts of your own back there. We could go racing sometime.”
I avoided his eyes. “I haven’t tried them out in years.”
He hefted the wheel back into place and tightened the lug nuts. After doing a test drive, he climbed down from the truck and wiped his hands. “Done. Time for a beer and a catch-up. You got a look on your face.”
I wish everyone would stop reading my mind, I thought, going inside for the beer. I filled him in on the man who had frozen to death. “Did your father like winter sports? Ever drive a snowmobile?” I asked.
Steve was staring at the ground. He looked sad. “My mother didn’t tell me much. No time. But I was always a bit of a daredevil, liked machines and speed and stuff. Sometimes she’d complain I was just like my father. She said he’d go snowmobiling and dirt biking in the foothills west of Calgary. I thought she meant my stepdad. But I never remembered him doing that, so maybe she meant my real father.”
“What else did she say about him?”
He lifted his beer. “Well, she didn’t like any alcohol in the house. My father—I mean, Harry—hardly drank, but when I was a teenager…hell, what eighteen-year-old doesn’t get into the beer? And in the service, overseas, jeez, we spent half our time buzzed. When I came home it helped with the pain from this.” He pointed to his leg. “But I’d catch my mother watching me. Not like she disapproved. More like she was worried. So maybe booze was a problem. For our father, I mean.” He nodded at my beer, which I had barely touched. “What about you? Is that why you don’t drink?”
I shook my head. I don’t drink because I don’t like the taste or the feeling. Or how stupid people act when they get drunk. But I used to like speed. As a kid I raced that go-kart full speed down the gravel road and tore up the logging trails on my dirt bike. I still love to ride, but my joy of speed is gone. Ever since I identified what was left of my mother’s body plastered against the rock face she’d run into.