LATE MORNING, the middle of Harley’s night, he stretched on the couch, head resting on the crook of his elbow. The TV screen flipped but all he saw was Pam with the girl on her hip. It took an extra two fingers of bourbon to put the warm buzz between his ears, another for him to stop piecing everything together.
First he thought she’d been covering for Paul. She’d been messing with Harley to keep him off Paul’s trail, for whatever purpose. But the Avark bit and Paul’s jail cell ramblings about his brother’s wife cleared things up. If they hadn’t, the look on his face would’ve. Paul was tickled as could be, getting Harley and Pam in the same room. Paul had been the reel-to-reel that played in Harley’s head on endless loop the night before last: the cracking twigs and rustling grass, the distant engines. Paul was Ecklund’s possum, and Paul set fire to the roof sealant. Which meant the vision of Paul getting his jollies watching Harley come and go from the home place wasn’t paranoid. Paul had seen his sister-in-law and Harley get acquainted. Which also meant Harley might now have two Reddick boys to contend with.
The rest of it, the theft, the fire, the why of it all, Harley had no idea.
The TV picture rose, lowered, and flipped. In between, two Phyllis Dillers filled the screen. At the bottom was her head, at the top her shoulders and chest. He set his glass on the end table, made his eyes shut.
The ring of the phone jerked him from sleep. An anchorman on TV wore a thick necktie and thicker hair. Harley’s heart raced. He thought he’d slept to the ten o’clock news. Then he checked the window. Sun glared around the drape like a solar eclipse. He made his way to the phone.
“It’s me,” she said.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Meet me where we were the other night?”
The burst of a laugh came before he could stop it. “Hell, no.”
She said nothing for a bit. Then, “I’ll be there anyway. If you want to know, that’s where I’ll be.” She hung up.
AS SOON AS he walked in the portable, Harley saw Glenn’s mouth ringed in a thin, perfectly round white line. The bottle of antacid sat on the desk like a mug of coffee might have, within reach of his thick, short fingers.
Glenn’s job had been killing him since he was a deputy. He wasn’t suited for it. Never was. He’d never wanted it and never asked for it. He’d inherited it. Half the people saw the last name and thought they were voting his dad in again. The rest checked him on the ballot because he’d been put up unopposed.
Harley made his way to the coffee maker. “You need to goddamn retire, Glenn.”
“Doris Luschen’s place got hit.”
Harley stopped, mid-pour, and kept his back turned. “When?”
“Services were ten-thirty, went till, I don’t know. Noon? The daughter-in-law called. Same one that called in the welfare check. Doris probably died to get away from her. Said it happened during the funeral or church reception or—I don’t know what. Harley, that woman knew every bobby pin in the bathroom drawer. Every chicken leg in the icebox. Probably had those little colored-dot price tags stuck on every one of the old lady’s things before she so much as sneezed.”
Harley went to his desk with a cup of coffee not brewed black enough. He needed something stronger to help him to get his bearings.
“Came in and stole some preserves, a loaf from the bread box, gas can from the garage, and then, what do you know, all of Doris’s damn clothes. Her goddamn clothes.”
Harley pictured Doris leaned back against the Mercury, evaporating. The sight of her foot at the bottom of the stairs. There was a lot to tell Glenn, but right now he needed defusing. “Hell, Glenn. I don’t know.”
Glenn gave a muted, airy burp, and the words that followed were windy. “We get another fire call, find another empty farmhouse burnt, this time Doris Luschen’s clothes—weirder it is, worse it winds up. I don’t need to tell you. Look at that thing down in Junco.”
“You got some stuff—” Harley gestured with a finger, let Glenn know about the Mylanta.
Glenn’s eyes roved the office like some corner might hold a pile of Doris Luschen’s underwear. He opened the pen drawer of his desk, pulled out a napkin, and dabbed it with his tongue. He worked it around his mouth. The paper blew up in little gusts like a bird’s broken wing. “This is the kind of thing escalates. Like that thing down in Junco. Starts out somebody breaks in places, paints public stalls with his stool, ends with somebody drowned in manure.” He looked like he was on the verge of a cardiac arrest.
“Before you get any more worked up, remember that’s Junco. This is Madson.”
Glenn took a pause for breath and considered it. “I guess,” he admitted. “Guess a few more branches on the family tree down there would help.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Harley took a sip of weak coffee, contemplating what was next. “You already been down there? Doris’s place?”
“Couldn’t have dusted for prints, for all the good it’d do. Would’ve been all smudged up by that damned daughter-in-law. Just into everything.” He made the low, airy burp again, put his stubby fingers to his sternum, and rubbed. “You’ve got to feel for Doris’s boy. Married to a woman like that.”
THAT NIGHT, HARLEY’S attention never strayed far from the rearview as he drove through town. He patrolled north to south, then east to west. As it happened, that left Virginia Reddick’s place for last. No sign of her son’s truck.
Outside Madson, he made the rounds of the empty homesteads. The Schneider place was quiet. The Rasmussen house, quiet. The old Carberry farmstead, quiet.
Harley walked around the Knudsen place again. The front door was still locked, same with the brooder house. The horse barn held only the moldy bales and generator. The hay barn with the old Plymouth and discarded window screens looked no different than before.
All that left was the home place, which was the last place he needed to be. He’d try to get in and get out before she showed.
But when he turned down the drive, it was already too late. He saw the shine off the back bumper and the angle of her legs, not hidden deep enough in the grass.