SCHOOL ENDS AT NOON. IT is explained as a safety precaution. Soon the teens rush to their vehicles with laughs and hoots. Hastings shepherds the underclassmen to the buses, watches the surrounding trees. Now would be the perfect time for a shooter to rip apart dozens on the sidewalk, the vulnerable and exposed herd. But he doesn’t mind the absurdity. The kids seem comforted by his height and his gun.
He sees the girl. A couple of boys invite her to drink beer at the house of some boy called Soupie. She declines and goes to her black Ford pickup. He’s familiar with it. She carries the fat well. She moves with latent grace. Her face holds secrets.
Later, at the station, Sheriff Wharton briefs his crew, all the town’s seven officers cramped in a small conference room. He’s a sixty-year-old, firm-hearted patriarch from an idyllic Norman Rockwell painting. He passes out candy during town parades. His largest problems are drunks speeding down Main Street and twentysomethings overdosing on meth. He tells them now that this situation escalated from an accident to arson to murder. They’re officially investigating the killing of Steven Forsythe in conjunction with the destruction of Demont’s property at Slope Creek. Demont is pushing the feds for an ecoterrorism charge. Until then, this will be conducted in-house without state interference, as the event occurred within Barnesville municipal limits, and Steven Forsythe was a good man, father, war hero, and citizen who lived in this town and paid taxes.
“No witnesses. No camera. No prints.” He points a laser that is also a pen at a dry-erase board. A red dot jerks alongside a listing of facts. “This is what we got. Steven radioed to Demont he was chasing a black truck. Said someone blew up the tank. Sam found pipe chunks scattered around that fence, and Demont’s boys in space suits brought us some more. One brought me a goddamn briefcase handle. Samsonite. We sent them all to the lab in Saint Clairsville for testing. But we don’t got to wait for them. We already know the results.”
“Way to go, Mongoloid.” Durum flashes a thumbs-up to Sam.
“We’re dealing with pipe bombs, several of them. Homemade.”
“Did terrorists do this?” Sam says.
“What?”
“Terrorists, Boss.”
Wharton leans in closer. “I beg your pardon?”
“Was it an act of terror?” He swallows. “Did terrorists blow it up and kill Steve?”
Nobody seems to know whether to laugh. They all look to Wharton for an answer. But he doesn’t know what to say either.
“Did we find any nine-millimeter casings?” Hastings says. “Around the tank?”
“Yes,” Wharton says. “Steve carried a Glock 19. Had three missing from the magazine. We retrieved three brass. He fired them all about a mile from where he was killed.”
“Does Demont allow their guards to carry?”
“Be shit security if they didn’t.”
“There were no shotgun shells found,” Hastings says. “No other cases at all. Everything suggests Steven fired first.”
“Well, that shouldn’t surprise anyone in this room. We all knew Steve. I’m sure he saw enough over there to make him shoot first without question. We’ll never know his side of it, Hastings. He can’t tell us.” He points to the back of the room. “Durum, check if any hospitals reported gunshot victims last night. Doubt it, but do it anyway. Hastings, we’re looking for a black truck. Too bad our soldier didn’t get the model. Pull those DMV records and get us a list of people to talk to. Sam and Mertz and Fitzpatrick, you guys go out and see what the town’s saying. If this is what it looks like, it’s one of our own. Go to the vocal ones, the ones at all the town hall water meetings, all these environmentalist assholes who pretend like they don’t drive cars or heat their homes.”
He watches them start to move. They scribble a couple of notes.
“We still looking for Randy?” Sam says.
“This is priority. I’m not worried about a missing dealer. He’ll come back, or he won’t.”
Many in town suspect Wharton of colluding with Demont, making sure health complaints are left unaddressed and unresolved. He drives a new $60,000 pickup truck and recently built an additional wing on his house for the grandchildren to play.
Hastings raises his hand. “It was an accident, yes?”
“An accident?”
“Steve. Someone shot out his tire. Double-aught buckshot, two rounds. That’s eighteen pieces of shot at close range. Tokarski tweezed one from Steve’s neck. One. That’s not precise shooting. Whoever shot him, it wasn’t intentional.”
“That hardly matters to me, Hastings. And I know it doesn’t matter to Donna Forsythe.”
The other officers watch him carefully.
“It speaks to motive. This person didn’t plan on killing him. And if Steve did shoot first, that would help explain the escalation.”
“All interesting thoughts, Hastings. But nobody here gives a shit.” Wharton points to the door. “Go do your jobs, guys. Let’s get a lead, get some suspects, find out who killed our boy.”