For, like, a minute after Iz told me about the sheriff’s car, I completely froze; all I could focus on was this series of film clips playing across the Trav’s-Head Cinema—outtakes from every show I’d ever seen where the cop comes to the door to deliver the news that somebody’s croaked. Who was dead? Gram? Ma? Then somehow, without really knowing how it happened, I was standing in Gram’s kitchen looking at her and this big dude in a uniform sitting at the table with coffee mugs and cookies in front of them.
“Is something wrong with my mom?” I had to push the words out past an invisible hand that was around my throat, choking me.
“Your mother is fine,” said Gram. Her face had its usual unreadable expression and she didn’t look as if she’d been involved in a five-cow pileup or any other kind of emergency.
The guy got to his feet. “You’re Travis?” he said, only it wasn’t really a question. “I’m Deputy Anderson. Why don’t you sit here so we can have a little talk.”
He towered over me, making it clear I didn’t have much of a choice. I sat on the edge of the chair across from Gram, and he sat down at the head of the table, where he could keep his eyes on both of us.
Gram spoke up. “Deputy Anderson and I have been discussing—”
But he interrupted her. “Thank you, ma’am—I can take it from here.” I had been waiting to see if he was good cop or bad cop, but it seemed as if he had everything mixed up. Interrupting an old lady put you in the bad cop camp, right? But then sticking the “ma’am” in there kind of muddied the water.
Deputy Dude kept on talking. “I got a call after lunch from Mr. Svengrud down at the Big Store. Said you’d been in today spending a bit of money.”
Far as I could tell, there weren’t any hidden question marks anywhere, but it was clear he expected an answer from me.
“Uh—yeah?” I couldn’t resist turning my answer into a somewhat snotty question even though I was pretty sure that was a Taser on his belt. I mean, was it against the law to spend money around here?
Deputy Dude tossed me a look that convinced me to dial it down a notch. “Where else did you spend money in town today?”
“I bought some stuff for Gram at the grocery store, and I stopped for some burgers at the café and a soda at the gas station,” I said.
He nodded after each place I mentioned, and I noticed he was making marks in a little notebook. What was going down here? Had the good people of Cowpoke decided to run the son of a bank robber out of town on some trumped-up shoplifting charge or something?
“Well, Travis . . .” Deputy Dude paused really long, like he was giving me time to confess to an ax murder before slapping the cuffs on me.
That barfy feeling from earlier was taking over my guts again; whatever was left of the pancakes, the burgers, and the caffeine was slamming around my insides, wrestling to see what would make it out first. I clamped my lips together, and I guess the deputy took that as the prisoner’s refusing to narc, because he settled his big, beefy forearms onto the table and leaned in toward me to drop his atomic bomb.
“Looks like somebody was in town today spending money that came from that bank burglary a few years back. The one that the FBI figures your father was involved in.”
There was dead quiet in the kitchen while I watched the mushroom cloud explode across that screen inside my skull.
Sometime after the explosion, I realized Deputy Dude was still talking. “And I want to be real careful here about not jumping to conclusions, but the fact is, turns out you spent money every place the cash turned up. So I need to ask you—”
Gram surged to her feet. For a minute I thought she was going to latch on to Deputy Dude’s ear and yank him right on out of her kitchen, but instead she nabbed the plate of cookies out of his reach and stood glaring at him.
“Kyle Anderson!” she said, and you could hear a rattlesnake shaking its tail behind each word. “If you’re insinuating—”
“Mrs. Stoiska—” He tried using his long-arm-of-the-law voice, but it was obvious that Gram was going to win this round.
She talked right over him. “Let me make one thing perfectly clear.” She limp-marched over and put her hand on the doorknob. “Every penny that Travis spent in town today came out of my pocket. It was my money. If you’re accusing me of something, I’ll call my lawyer so we can talk about the matter further. But my grandson is off-limits. The boy hasn’t done anything wrong. And I’d like you to leave my home.”
Deputy Dude walked over to the door. It was clear from the way his face tightened up that he thought Gram’s story was plenty fishy. But finally he lifted his hat for a moment, tilted his head toward Gram, and then settled the hat back down with a tap.
“Just doing my best to try to make things easier for you and the boy, Mrs. Stoiska,” he said. “Because soon it could be out of my hands; how it all plays out from here will depend on the FBI. The two of you may be in for a few hard questions from them.”
He looked over at me. “I understand that your grandma wants to protect you. But the fact is, there’s been no sign of that money for fourteen years. Then you show up, and two days later some of the money turns up, too. If you know anything, it could save you a lot of trouble if you tell me before the big guns get here.”
He turned and nodded one last time to Gram. “You know how to find me if either one of you has any more to say on the subject. And for now it would be best if your grandson stays a while longer rather than head right back to California. I think it’s likely we’re going to need to talk to both of you again soon.”
Then he walked out of Gram’s kitchen.