Grays Ridge Road was crawling with sheriff deputies and the vehicles of volunteer firemen when Aiden got there at four o’clock. The minute he saw the lights flashing and the procession of patrol cars, his heart sank. He knew they were there for one reason. He knew it had something to do with Thad.
Two deputies leaned against the back of one of the cruisers and faced in Aiden’s direction. They didn’t seem to be paying attention. One of the deputies slapped the back of his hand against the other one’s chest as he spoke. There was a driveway halfway between Aiden and them, and he hated to pull that close, hated to give them a chance to see him there, but he didn’t want to whip around right in the road either. They weren’t blocking anyone from passing and so turning around might seem stranger than just pulling on up.
When Aiden got closer, the deputy who swatted the other one took a dip of tobacco from his partner’s box of snuff and handed the can back. The deputy craned his head away from his body as he shoved a wad of tobacco into his bottom lip, then brushed tobacco he’d dropped off the chest of his uniform. The one he was bumming from must’ve said something funny right about then because he slapped his knee and went to poking and prodding at the other one’s stomach and chest, and before Aiden knew it, they were wrestling around behind the Crown Vic like two middle-school boys. They never even saw Aiden pull behind a graveyard of busted trucks onto a gravel drive that led to a farmhouse.
The driveway sank down a small hill where a grayed barn rotted into ruin at the bottom. Aiden had the windows down and could smell the dried hay in the barn when he tucked in on the far side and threw the Ranchero in reverse to turn around. The two deputies noticed him when he pulled back into the road, though, from the looks of it, they just as well might’ve figured he owned the place. One of the deputies threw up a hand and the other spit onto the pavement. Somehow the two bulls standing there were the only two in the whole sheriff’s office who didn’t know Aiden’s face, who didn’t know that car. Aiden waved and the one who’d spit nodded as he wheeled into the road and left them in the rearview.
The thoughts swarmed him once he got back to the two-lane highway and drove north toward Charleys Creek. There were so many cops. A dozen cars. Maybe twenty. Blue lights going crazy. There was no telling what all of those cops were doing, but the sheer number alone guaranteed they weren’t hanging around for coffee and donuts. There was a red Geo Tracker up ahead of those patrol cars. Aiden had seen that thing outside the Dietzes’ trailer. Aiden saw it at the end of Grays Ridge Road. He’d gotten out of the car and looked inside, for Christ’s sake. Thank God he hadn’t touched it. Had he touched it? Could you leave fingerprints in the rain? You could guarantee those pigs would dust for prints. That Tracker probably looked like it’d been rolled in flour by now. Probably had Aiden’s prints all over it. He was probably already fried. Hadn’t done a thing and he was fried.
Aiden was panicked, but he tried to stay calm by convincing himself that he didn’t really know anything at all. He didn’t know what had happened. The last time he saw Thad he was standing on the front porch of the Dietzes’ trailer and Doug and Julie and Meredith were all alive and breathing. Sure, he’d heard a couple gunshots, but for all he knew, Thad had just blown a few holes in the wall or given them a skylight in the ceiling. Maybe Thad just pulled off a couple rounds to scare them a little, and after he was done scaring them, maybe that’s when he took the SUV and headed back into the woods, back to the only place that felt remotely like home to him anymore.
At the head of Charleys Creek, Aiden could see the church parking lot filled with patrol cars, deputies everywhere. There were black-and-white Crown Vics and black-and-white Expeditions and dark gray unmarked Expeditions that were newer, with tinted windows. There were silver-and-black Chargers like the state troopers drove all parked bumper to bumper in the church parking lot like the whole Jackson County Sheriff’s Office was about to get baptized. Maybe they were having a funeral. Maybe some deputy from Little Canada had died, but surely he would have heard something if that had happened. April would have seen something about that on Facebook. She was always on Facebook. But she hadn’t said anything about someone dying. Then again, he hadn’t asked. They hadn’t talked about much at all over the last few days.
He headed down Charleys Creek and tried to convince himself that there were a thousand reasonable explanations that had absolutely nothing to do with Thad. When the flashing blue lights flew up behind him at Neddie Mountain, he figured there was probably just some tweaker who’d set off a burglar alarm or maybe a domestic dispute between some drunk and his old lady, the siren screaming past as he steered off into the ditch to keep from getting hit at Parker Gap. There was no telling where that deputy was headed so fast. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes off the seat and lit a smoke to stay calm. There was no need to worry. Everything was fine.
But then there was no more denying what he already knew when Aiden pulled through the hedge of laurel that lined the drive into April’s property. There was one patrol car parked at Thad’s trailer and a deputy stood on the porch. Aiden didn’t look at him, but he could feel the deputy’s eyes watching him as he crept past and looped around the switchback to climb the drive to April’s house. There was an unmarked Expedition and another black-and-white Crown Vic parked at April’s, and Aiden could see her on the front stoop in a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt. April tapped her foot as fast as she could and had one hand gripping the bicep of her opposite arm, the other hand holding a cigarette up by her face.
Two officers stood by April on the stoop and they both turned to look at Aiden as he put the car in park and killed the engine. There was a young deputy with a high-and-tight crew cut who wore the standard black slacks, tan dress shirt, and metal badge as all the others. He was thin, and the bulletproof vest under his uniform made his torso look like it didn’t belong on the rest of his body. He stood there with his hands braced on his belt as Aiden stepped out of the car. Aiden recognized him as the deputy who’d blown past on Charleys Creek, a deputy he’d had run-ins with for years. The other officer was higher in the department, probably a lieutenant or major, who wore khaki cargo pants and a light gray polo shirt, the gold star embroidered on his chest rather than pinned to him. He walked over more like an old farmer than a lawman and met Aiden halfway between the car and the house.
“How are we this afternoon, Mr. McCall?”
Aiden’s cigarette had burned out between his fingers but he didn’t toss it into the yard and he didn’t move to light another. He just stood there with the butt held between his fingers. “I’m all right, I guess.”
“That’s good to hear,” the officer said. “I don’t know if you remember me or not, but I’m Lieutenant Shelton and I was wondering if I might have a word with you.”
“Have I done something?” Aiden looked confused and flicked his eyes up to April, who looked at him now almost pitifully.
“Well, no. Not that I’m aware of. We just had some questions we needed to ask you.” Lieutenant Shelton looked at Aiden with squinted eyes and tilted his head a bit to the side. “Now, you look like you’ve been in a fight with somebody, that bruise there on your face and the way you was limping. You been fighting?”
Aiden wasn’t quite sure what to say. He wasn’t in the right mind for questions. But before he could think of a lie, April came off the stoop and walked toward them.
“I already told him about you and Thad getting into that fight over wanting to go see those girls,” April said.
“Mrs. Trantham, I’m going to need you to go back over there with my deputy while I have a word with Mr. McCall.”
“Now, I don’t know why I’d have to do that. I haven’t done anything wrong,” April said. “This is my property and I’ve been more than cooperative with you and your deputies, so I don’t know why I need to go stand over there if I don’t want to.”
“You can’t interrupt while I’m in the middle of talking,” Lieutenant Shelton said. He didn’t turn to look at her. He just cut his eyes to the side to glance her way. “When was the last time you saw or spoke with Thad Broom, Mr. McCall?”
“Now, I’ve already told you that too,” April shouted. She spoke quickly and with anger and there was little Lieutenant Shelton could do to interrupt her, him interjecting, “Mrs. Trantham! Mrs. Trantham!” every two or three words but none of it doing anything to shut her up. “I told you the last time either one of us saw or heard from Thad was two nights ago, when him and Aiden got into that fight because Aiden didn’t want to take him over there to see those girls. He knew how much trouble they were. I told you, Aiden, just—”
“Mrs. Trantham, you’re about to go to jail!” Lieutenant Shelton yelled. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? Just one more word!”
“What for? You tell me what law I’m breaking!”
“Just one more word!”
“You’re going to have to charge me with something to take me to jail,” April said.
“Failure to obey. Obstruction. I’ll charge you with anything I come up with on that ride from here to Sylva,” Lieutenant Shelton said. “Now, if you’ve got any sense about you at all, you’ll walk back over there to the house and wait with my deputy.”
The lieutenant stood there with his finger pointed back to the house and the deputy came off the stoop to take April if she wouldn’t go. She slid a pack of cigarettes she’d had stashed in her waistband, lit one, and stood there tapping her foot against the ground, settling her hands just how she’d had them moments earlier. Smoke rose against her face and she chewed on the inside of her cheek as she scowled at Lieutenant Shelton like she just might skin him alive. Only when the deputy came up behind her and placed his hand on her elbow did she turn.
Aiden wanted a cigarette too and realized he was still holding the one that’d burned out between his fingers. He dropped the butt into the pea gravel, but didn’t move any farther than that. His smokes were still in the car on the bench seat, and he was afraid to move. He was afraid to do anything without being told. Aiden just hoped that what April had said was all she had told them. He hoped she hadn’t gone into any details that he might not know. He hoped that, if he stuck with what she said, their stories would match up and everything would be all right, that everything would be over soon. He still didn’t know what had happened, what Thad had done, or maybe what had happened to him. All Aiden knew for sure was that he was nearing the end. One way or another, he was about to find out.