HAYWOOD HUNG UP HIS CELL PHONE and put it back in his pocket.
How had this gotten so out of control?
Frank and Earl had just told him how the mystery woman who had showed up in Coldwater had spotted them parked on the side of the road outside Michael’s place. They also mentioned how they were in pursuit of her, which he sternly advised them to stop. The last thing he needed was for this woman to go to the police, claiming that she was being stalked and harassed. Anything and everything that brought in the prospect of the cops coming up to town and sniffing around filled him with anxiety.
He couldn’t be everywhere at once, and even if he could, that in itself would bring suspicion on him. It was good he was at Jackson’s store when the authorities showed up and pronounced a heart attack. It was good to be at the crash scene when the investigators ruled a simple accident. He was worried about Kyle flapping his guilty conscience to the police, and he had worked extra hard to get Tami to go and sit with her on-again, off-again boyfriend at the hospital. As long as Kyle knew he hadn’t lost everything, he could be trusted to keep his lips zipped.
Now Frank and Earl were causing new problems.
When he heard that this woman was in town snooping around not long after they had buried Michael at Springer’s Grove, a slow, creeping dread had invaded every pore of his body. He felt like he was barely keeping it together, and every time he got one loose end tied down, another one would rise to take its place.
He had told the boys to just keep an eye on what she was up to, not chase her down the roads, putting a scare into her, adding to her curiosity about what could be happening in Coldwater.
This lady’s appearance in town, though impossibly ill-timed, was not catastrophic. He could deal with it, as long as the boys stopped acting irrationally. Stupidly.
He hated that his fate was tied to such ignorant people as Kyle, Frank, and Earl.
But he had made that decision without thinking it through.
Haywood had gone to his oldest friends in Coldwater that day when he decided to bury Michael. He went to the familiar, rather than thinking of the aftereffects. The life after the act that would bind them all together for the rest of their days. He didn’t think about who could handle the burden, the guilt, the anxiety. He just thought of those available at the time.
Even as they had sat in the back of Gilly’s waiting for Michael to come in that evening, Haywood knew it had been a mistake including Kyle and Earl. Their vocal hesitation and backtracking was the only conversation in the bar.
“Are you sure about this?” Kyle had asked.
“Yeah, man, I mean, should we be doing this?” Earl added.
“It needs to be done, for everyone’s safety,” Haywood said.
“But . . . if what you said about him is true . . .”
“Yeah, how are we not going to bite it . . .”
“Boys, we’ve already talked about this. We’ve already decided.”
Silence would fill the room for a breath, and then they would start again.
“Are you really sure about this?”
And even now, sitting in the passenger seat of Clinton’s SUV, bouncing through the rough terrain of the north woods, Haywood could hear Kyle’s voice in his head.
“Are you sure about this?”
He had been, hadn’t he? Michael was dangerous. Haywood knew, without doubt, the ex-con had killed Morrison. He would be driving east of town and see Michael walking into Coldwater, passing him on the shoulder, and the bile would rise up in his throat at the sight of him, and he wanted nothing more than to swerve the wheel and plow the man over, avenging the murder of his friend.
And if Michael had killed Morrison, why wouldn’t he kill again . . . and again . . . and again.
The boys did not see the depth of danger they were in. To entertain the presence of evil was to invite it in and let it fester until it would unleash itself on the world. How could he, an upstanding citizen, a decent man, allow this cancer to reside in his community? The state might have deemed Michael fit for release from prison, but no one had thought to consult with the people who would be forced to live every day of their lives with him as their neighbor.
The state had failed, just as it failed at almost everything it did.
Haywood was not going to leave his fate and the fate of his town to bureaucrats and lawyers sitting in their offices a hundred miles away. They had done nothing when Morrison was found in the woods last spring. They had written it off as an accident and headed back to the city before his friend’s body was cold. They had no interest in the welfare of the people of Coldwater. It was up to Haywood to fill that vacuum. His right. His divine right to protect himself.
Morrison’s death in the woods, it was a sign. A sign that the evil in Michael was coming alive again. The boogeyman stories from Michael’s past were true. He had come home to Coldwater and planned on continuing his murderous ways.
Then Old Man Jackson and James confirmed the power that was being unleashed on them. Haywood was not about to wait for it to happen to him.