I talk to my father from my car late the following morning as I drive home from work. He spent the early morning at the police station in Carlisle, where they questioned him for two hours. I’d barely slept last night as the reality of what had taken place in my backyard sank in. A man had been tortured to death there—a good man who hadn’t deserved to die. Was there a chance my father might have to pay for his death?
“For a while there, I thought they were going to slap the handcuffs on me,” Daddy says, and I hear anxiety in his voice. “They asked me five different ways how, if I dropped my truck off at Buddy’s shop when I said I did, around six, it could possibly be gone when Buddy stopped by the shop an hour later. I said I don’t know, that they need to look at the people who had access to the shop and who could have gotten my keys. I think they believed me about not being in the Klan, but they know I was the injured party in my relationship with Ellie, so I had a motive.”
“I’m so sorry you have to go through this,” I say. Then I hesitate before adding what’s been on my mind. “Did you know before now that there was a … grave … in my yard?” I ask. “Is that why you didn’t want Jackson and me to build—”
“No!” he says. “I had no idea. I only knew something terrible had gone down there.”
I think of how Ellie must be feeling, knowing for sure now that it was Win in that grave. “Poor Ellie,” I say.
“I know,” he says. Then, “Listen, Kayla. I’m going to the Hockleys’ to talk to Buddy. We haven’t said more than ‘hey’ to each other in decades. He’s the only person who could know how someone had access to my keys. Can you come with me? I’d like another set of ears on the conversation.”
“Okay,” I say. “When?”
“How about now? I have a couple of hours till I pick Rainie up at school.”
I cringe at the thought of going to the Hockleys’ to pepper that sick old man with questions, but my father needs answers and who knows how much longer Buddy will be able to provide them—assuming he has any.
“I can meet you there in half an hour,” I say.
“Thanks, honey. See you then.”
I groan as I turn onto Shadow Ridge Lane. There’s a police van in my driveway—the same van that was there before I left for work that morning. The investigators are digging through my yard, looking for forty-five-year-old clues. I park next to the van and run into the house to wolf down an apple and a slice of cheese. I look at my forested yard through the glass walls as I eat, hoping that if they do find any clues today, they have nothing to do with my father.