18

“It’s Patterson,” the voice said.

“What’s the word?” I found myself hopeful. Maybe the dogs had already found her.

“A bit of good news and … some bad,” he said. “The bad news is that the dogs haven’t found anything yet. We’ll keep them out here, but they’re just circling the same damned area over and over, and there’s nothing there. We’ve even had a helicopter up this morning because there’s places in the cornfield where it’s flat out hard to get to, but they didn’t see anything either. We’ll keep them out here until either they give us something definitive or they wear themselves out, but generally by this point they would have found a scent if they were going to.”

“And the good news?” I had no idea what he could possibly say that was going to be good if Mary hadn’t been found.

“We got a confession today.”

“A confession? From who?”

“Johnny Waters. He confessed the whole thing to one of my deputies. Got it all on tape. It’s compelling.”

“So, what did he do with her?”

“Well, that’s the thing. She knocked him over the head with a rock, and now it’s just a matter of finding her.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You just said the dogs weren’t getting anywhere.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean she’s not out there somewhere. Their handler says the cornfield confuses them. She could have very easily gone the other direction, up Summer Mountain and gotten lost in those woods. We’ll find her.”

I was silent, trying to make sense of it.

“Earl?”

“Yeah?”

“This is good news. It means she’s out there. We’ve just got to find her.”

“Did he say anything about Ronnie?”

“He said Ronnie wasn’t involved.”

“What about Jefferson?”

“It was Johnny from the beginning. Just Johnny.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would Ronnie make up that story about Jefferson?”

“I already explained it to you once. Ronnie has been out to get Jefferson for some time.”

“Doesn’t add up.”

“It’s a confession. And a strong one. He goes into some detail about the whole thing. Calling Jefferson was part of the ruse. He was going to say she escaped at the stream. He won’t say what he was going to do to her because … well, why would he confess to something he didn’t ever get a chance to do? But you can figure it out for yourself. A stream is a good place to wash up afterward.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does.”

It felt like anything but good news to me. I couldn’t get my head around Johnny confessing.

“You still there, Earl?”

“Yeah. Has Johnny had any visitors?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Can you check?”

“Sure. I’ll check. You think somebody talked him into it?”

“Or threatened him.”

“Okay,” Patterson said. “I’ll keep it in mind. My deputy said you were snooping around the cornfield earlier. Find anything?”

I was about to tell him about the water tower and the binoculars, but suddenly it felt wisest to just keep it to myself. Maybe it was learning about Johnny’s suspicious and sudden confession, or maybe it was just my gut, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that the fewer people who knew about this, the better.

“Nothing of any interest.”

*   *   *

After I told Rufus the news, he agreed I’d done the right thing about keeping the info from the sheriff.

“I can’t help but think he was threatened,” I said.

“Well, you should be able to check the surveillance footage at the jail. If Patterson tells you nobody signed in, push the issue. Ask to see the footage.”

“Okay.” I picked up the binoculars and leaned against the corrugated side of the water tower, pressing them to the opening.

I moved them slowly, taking in the detail of the corn but also wondering how they were really helpful. Sure, they gave the viewer a close-up, but only of the corn stalks, which were too dense to reveal anything useful. I lifted the binoculars, searching for something on the horizon. I saw the train tracks and followed them until they disappeared inside thick trees.

I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to use binoculars from here. They were essentially useless.

“You see anything?” Rufus asked.

“Kernels of damn corn,” I said. “And leaves. There’s nothing to see. The water tower isn’t tall enough to see what’s actually inside the field, under the stalks.”

“There’s got to be a reason this stuff is here,” Rufus said.

“I agree, but damned if I know what it is.”

I picked the binoculars up again and made another sweep, this time focusing on the cornfield, taking it slow to see if there was something hidden in the details. Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees.

I put the binoculars down and pressed my face against the opening, to see if I would fare any better without them. Now I could see Patterson standing near Deputy Nichols. They were talking about something. Nichols glanced toward the water tower. I ducked back quickly.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.