Hick had little recollection of Ross. He’d gone to high school with Adam, but in Hick’s memory, he was just another sunburned, hard-working farmer. Of course, the Thompsons were highly respected in town. They were frugal and stoic, never ones to crave comfort. It was a well-known fact that Claire Thompson didn’t believe in doctors. After Ross’s birth, she had six increasingly difficult labors producing six sickly children that lived only days. When Jake Prescott tried to persuade her to let him assist with her labor her response was always the same: pain in childbirth was God’s curse, and she would take her punishment without a doctor’s help.
In the case of Ross’s wife, the final labor took both mother and child. Hick was at home from Basic Training when this happened and he remembered that Jake was enraged. “It could have been prevented,” he repeated over and over again.
Hick leaned forward, his chin near the steering wheel, trying to will the car to move faster. “How am I going to tell Claire?” was his first thought, and then it occurred to him that perhaps it would be best if he didn’t. She had been through so much in her life, outliving her husband and children. Why add to her pain?
The truck stood in the yard, its presence there now seemed foreboding. He approached it and paused with his hand on the door handle, not sure of what he was looking for and afraid of what he might find.
Finally, he flung open the door. Steam smacked him in the face and a hot, strong smell of mildew filled the air with dank sweetness. He climbed in, and the humidity clung to him, wrapping itself around his body. His shirt stuck to his underarms, his chest heaved trying to breathe the hot, soggy air.
He glanced underneath the seat. The car was filled with sand and dried, caked mud. Mold grew along the bottoms of the doors, and dried grass and leaves hung from the brake pedal and clutch. He maneuvered around the steering wheel, lay across the seat, and opened the glove box. It was filled with sand and gravel, thick and hard, coming off in chunks beneath his finger. Beneath that, there were a few papers, molded and unreadable.
He looked on the floor of the passenger side. Besides an empty soda bottle, there was gravel and sand littered about, left behind from the water that had seeped in from under the floorboard. He grabbed the bottle and sat up when something caught his eye. Lying across the seat, he reached beneath it, pulling out a hair ribbon. It was mud-stained and already rotting, but little hints of pink showed through the grime. Claire had never worn such a ribbon.
He felt guilty holding it, as if some long dead secret had been dug up that should have stayed buried. He closed his eyes and gripped the hair ribbon. In his mind, he recalled Ross at his wife’s funeral, a miserable, heartbroken man left with two small boys and an uneasy guilt because he wouldn’t get the doctor. “That boy is devastated,” Hick’s father said after the funeral. “If it weren’t for his mother, he’d have to farm those kids out.” How had that heartbroken man sunk so low as to sleep with Iva Lee?
He crawled out of the truck, even the stifling heat of July seemed cool by comparison. He took off his hat and ran his sleeve over his eyes to dry the sweat that was burning them. He put his hat back on and turned, running straight into Claire.
“Miss Thompson! You scared the bejesus out of me.”
“Is there something I can help you with, Sheriff?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. I was just finishing up some paperwork. That’s all.”
“About Ross?”
“Yes, ma’am.
She seemed to be scrutinizing him and he felt uncomfortable. “And what did you find?”
“Nothing new. I just needed to go through the truck once more.”
“What’s in your hands?”
He glanced down at the hair ribbon and soda bottle. He clasped the ribbon in his fist and thrust it into his pocket. “Nothing really.” He held up the bottle. “Just a few odds and ends. The truck is pretty much empty. You plannin’ on sending it to the dump any time soon?”
“Perhaps,” she replied. “You’re awful jumpy. Is something the matter?”
The ribbon felt heavy in his pant’s pocket. He wanted to hide the truth from her if he could. “No. Everything’s fine.”
She glanced at the bottle. “What are you doing with that?”
“I was just cleaning the car out.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You can return it for the deposit if you want.”
“I would like the bottle,” Claire told him. He handed it to her and, after a pause, she said, “Hick, be honest. What else did you find?” She held out her hand, and with a feeling of resignation, he reached into his pocket and handed her the hair ribbon. He expected her to appear confused, but instead she just looked at it and shook her head. “A little hair ribbon.”
Feeling curious, Hick asked, “Ma’am, this might seem an odd question, but can you tell me what Ross’s frame of mind was on the day of his accident.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
He tried to sound nonchalant when he replied, “Oh, you know. Was he upset about something? Depressed maybe? Angry?”
Her face grew pale. “Hick Blackburn, what are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything. It’s my job to ask questions.”
Her eyes shifted. She raised her hand to smooth the hair that was pulled back. Hick noticed the knuckles on her hand were arthritic, severely so, and he recalled Iva Lee mentioning “bulby” hands. A wave of realization swept over him, stealing his breath and making his heart skip. The revelation that Claire Thompson could be the murderer of the baby in the slough washed over him. His knees almost buckled.
“Is there anything the matter?”
“No, ma’am. I just need to get back to the station, that’s all.” He desperately needed to speak with Adam. He screwed up one investigation by not waiting for Wash and Adam to give their input. He would not make that mistake again. Not on something this important.
“You look pale. Come inside and have a glass of iced tea.”
“No, thank you,” Hick replied, turning to leave.
“Please, Sheriff,” Claire begged, “just for a minute. You look peaked. Sit down and cool off. I know it was hot in that truck.”
He turned to her. The pleading in her eyes made him feel sorry for her, and suddenly he doubted his instincts. He felt foolish. “A glass of tea would be nice. Thank you.”
He followed her up the steps and into the house, sitting down in the front room while Claire went to the kitchen. “I saw the boys in town playing baseball,” he called to her.
She joined him with the iced tea in her hand. “I expect most everyone’s in town today for the Fourth of July.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, taking the glass from her and drinking down a large gulp of tea.
“Is your tea okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s just what I needed. I appreciate you going to the trouble.”
She smiled. “No trouble at all.”
He finished and she rose and took the glass back to the kitchen. He waited politely for her return. After about five minutes she came back. “Sorry I was gone so long. It generally takes about five minutes.”
“What?”
“Chloral hydrate. The dose you just took generally takes about five minutes to work.”
He rose from the chair and felt suddenly dizzy; the room was spinning beneath him. He wanted to speak, but his speech slurred. Glancing at Claire’s face, he felt suddenly impressed with how hard it looked. Everyone knew her life had not been an easy one. She worked like a dog for everything she had, but the face that stared at him was harsh, it seemed to be waiting for something.
“Don’t look at me that way, Hick. I feel bad enough about this as it is. You know I can’t let you tell anyone what you know.”
He tried to walk to the door but fell, crashing hard onto the floor. His eyes questioned her, and Claire seemed to understand. She stood over him. “That son of mine,” she said shaking her head. “I know a man has his needs, I didn’t expect him to stay home and be a monk. But he was going to marry her. My son, Ross Thompson, going to marry an imbecile! What do you think I should have done … sit back and let him make a laughing stock out of the whole family? By God, I wasn’t about to let that happen.”
Hick lay on his stomach. He could hear her words, and most of what she said registered in his mind. His body was limp He couldn’t move a muscle, he couldn’t feel anything, he couldn’t speak.
“You were a good son to your daddy right up to the last. You would’ve never done him the way Ross did me. I’m sorry to have to do this.” Those were the last words he heard, and then everything went dark.