There was another long silence, a sigh on the other end of the line, and a hitch in Bud’s voice when he spoke again. It sounded like this call was costing him almost more effort than he could bear.
“Del, Jesus. All I can think about is her poor body lying there on that slab yesterday. Me and Mona went to claim her and she looked like a piece of meat, all bloated and—and wrong. My little girl, my little girl was a piece of meat on a slab.”
His next words were racked by sobs. I could hardly make them out.
“And I’m going to gut the son of a bitch that did it. I’m going to make him wish he’d never so much as looked at her.”
“Bud, you listen to me. Bud?”
There was only scraping and heavy breathing in response.
“I’m going to find this guy, Bud. Hattie’s got me for that. She doesn’t need her dad going to prison. Mona needs you, too, you know, and Greg needs you here for him when he gets home. You gotta remember them.”
I didn’t know if he heard me until the breathing evened out. The sun was starting to rise, turning the kitchen a deep, burning orange.
“Are you saying you’re going to arrest me?”
“Bud—”
“My girl is dead. I held her in my hands yesterday, held her sweet, bald head and watched her cry for the first time. I taught her how to drive a tractor on my lap with her little pigtails bouncing in my face. I watched her play a queen—a queen with all the power and wickedness you could imagine. She owned that stage. She lit it up. And I hugged her and told her what a good job she did and let her go. I just let her walk out of that school and die. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around and pick out her funeral dress while her killer walks around free.”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
“Damn it, Del. What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m telling you we’re in the middle of an ongoing investigation and you’ll know who killed Hattie the minute the cuffs are on him.”
There was a pause and then the line went dead. I dropped my forehead on to my hand.
After a minute, I got up and walked to the window, where the sky was lightening up behind the houses. Normally it was the kind of sunrise I liked to watch, all hellfire burning against the clouds, the kind where Bud and I would ignore a pull on the line to just sit in the boat and stare at the horizon. Over two decades we’d been fishing together. Every year he invited me to his house for Easter dinner and this year we’d all sat around their dining room table eating honey-glazed ham. Hattie’d been trying to get me to tell her how fast over the speed limit she could drive without getting pulled over, while Bud and Mona and I all laughed, and now she was never going to speed anywhere again. Bud, who’d told me to slap a ticket on her right then for “conspiracy to speed,” was threatening vigilantism. And I—if I couldn’t find Hattie’s killer fast and quiet enough—I might end up losing Bud, too.
The badge weighed heavy this morning. I downed the rest of my coffee and left the house with a blazing need to do something, anything, that would push this case forward.
I went to Carl Jacobs’s house. When Jake talked to Carl yesterday, he’d corroborated Lund’s story and most of their answers had matched dead-on. Both said they’d gone to Carl’s house after locking up the school, driving separately, Lund following Carl. They sat in Carl’s basement having a beer—Budweiser, by both accounts—and shot the shit for a while before Lund left. Carl estimated the time at 10:25, because he’d turned on the last of the news afterwards.
What wasn’t so clear was their topic of discussion. Lund said they talked about the play and about work. Carl didn’t remember straight off, according to Jake. Then he claimed they talked sports—how the Twins were looking this season. He didn’t think they’d talked about much else.
It was a quarter to seven when I got to his house, early enough that Carl wouldn’t have left for work yet. He answered the knock like he’d been waiting right on the other side, dressed and shaved for the day.
“Sheriff. Little early, isn’t it?” He glanced past me toward the cruiser.
“Early enough that you can spare a few minutes.” I nodded behind him and he let me in. His boy stood in the hallway, still in his pajamas but wide awake and half afraid, by the looks of him.
“Morning.” I tipped my hat to him, which put most kids at ease, but not this one. He just dropped his eyes to the floor, not moving.
“Maybe Lanie can watch him for a minute while we talk.”
“Lanie!” Carl shouted and his wife appeared, also in pajamas. She didn’t look very awake or pleased.
“What?” She didn’t greet me.
“I’ve got to talk to the sheriff.”
“Again?”
“Just get Josh ready, okay?”
She shook her head and collared the boy, taking him back down the hall and slamming a door.
Carl gestured me into the kitchen.
“Not a morning person, is she?” I asked pleasantly.
“What is it, Sheriff? I answered everything your deputy asked me and lost an entire period of class doing it. You know how people are looking at me?”
“How’s that?”
“Like I was—” He shook his head. “Like I had something to do with this mess.”
“Did you?”
“What are you asking me?”