Halfway to the barn I stopped and looked back. The parking lot had disappeared under a slight rise in the land. I couldn’t see the cruiser anymore. Had Hattie looked back? Was Tommy—alibi-less Tommy, who didn’t know why she’d broke up with him; horny, angry, hormone-riddled Tommy—following her?
I hadn’t followed Angie. When she left, over thirty years ago, I’d let her go. I was angry, maybe even angry and drunk enough a few of those dark nights to kill somebody, but I never pursued her. She made her choice just like I’d made mine. I’d chosen war. She chose Iowa. She sent the divorce papers in the mail and got herself married to a pharmaceutical salesman the next spring. I went to school on the GI Bill, got a patrol job in Wabash County, and didn’t have anything good to say to anybody until Bud started waving at me from across Lake Crosby.
He was only a few years younger than me, but it was the difference between being drafted or not. He and Mona were newlyweds starting out on the farm and that first summer all we talked about was fish. Just a quick wave and confirmation on what was biting. I could handle that. By the next summer, he got me to come over a few times and Mona would fry up our catch. The year after that we took our first trip to Lake Michigan. He was the first person to put up a Goodman for Sheriff sign in his yard, until he realized no one would see it and then he stuck it on the back of his pickup truck instead.
By the time I heard from Angie again, when she sent a letter congratulating me on getting appointed sheriff, all the hard feelings were gone and that was probably all due to Bud. I wrote her back and she sent me a Christmas card every year after that until the year she died. There was usually a picture included of her and her husband and some kids who were on the chubby side. She was a handsome woman, stayed that way, too.
I turned back toward the barn and kept walking. It had been awhile since I’d had Angie on the brain, but I supposed it made sense. Carl and Lanie. Hattie and Tommy. Relationships hitting their breaking point. Tearing apart.
The yellow tape was still all over the barn, courtesy of the crime scene boys. I ducked under it and went inside. Stagnant water, mildew, and rotting wood were the smells that greeted me, just like they would have greeted Hattie. She’d left Tommy and walked to the barn. Then she’d had sex with someone in the barn. Then she was killed by someone in the barn. That was up to three different people who could’ve interacted with her. Or just one.
I paced, not caring one bit about the wood hollering under my boots. It could fall if it wanted to fall. I was narrowing in on the timeline, the story, but it didn’t mean anything if I couldn’t put it with a suspect. I needed that DNA back, needed to know who was lying to me so I could lean on them until they told me exactly what happened, not to mention get a warrant to search every inch of their life for that murder weapon.
I pulled out my phone and dialed the number before I could think about it too much.
“Sheriff Goodman,” she greeted me on the third ring.
“Fran, I need that DNA. Who do you know in the Minneapolis crime lab?”
“I’m well, thank you. And you?”
“I’m serious.”
She dropped the sarcastic tone. “And why is your murder any more important than any of the other thousand bodies that come through my morgue every year? Because it’s yours? Because Cowboy Goodman needs to save the day?”
“There’s no day to save, Fran. She’s dead.” I kept pacing, trying not to curse because I knew it riled her. “This isn’t about me. You can take shots at me until the cows come home, okay? You’re probably right—you always are—but this is my friend’s child. His baby girl. I’ve got two prime suspects for the semen and I need to know which one it is and I need to know today, while there’s any shred of evidence left.”
She was quiet after my rant. I kept walking, ready to argue with whatever she said next, until she sighed.
“All right, Del. I have a few contacts. I’ll make a call.”
“Good. Good.” I ducked out of the barn and started making a sweep along the perimeter of the building. It was old ground, already covered, but the momentum soothed me. “You tell them I need it today.”
“What you need and what they can do are two unrelated things. I’ll ask them to expedite the samples. That’s all.”
I squatted down by a tuft of dead grass outside the window, pushed it aside, and saw a mouse skeleton. It was picked clean and almost completely intact. “Thanks, Fran. I owe you one.”
“One what, exactly?”
“I’ll take you out in the cruiser someday. We’ll give tickets to out-of-staters.”
She laughed—actually laughed out loud, which was a small miracle—but then became suddenly serious again and sent me in an entirely new direction.
“If you really want to track down this murderer, Del,” she said, “there’s someone else you need to talk to.”
PETER / Friday, February 15, 2008
IT WAS amazing how life simply kept moving forward. You could do the most despicable, amoral thing you’d ever imagined and just drive home afterwards. Go to work. Get your dry cleaning. Pick up some wine at the liquor store and chat with the parents of the best friend of the girl you’d slept with behind your wife’s back. Pay for your wine. Go home.
Mary scarcely acknowledged my trip to Minneapolis in January. I’d taken the money for the hotel out of my personal savings account, which she would never see. When I got back, she’d asked about the friend I told her I was visiting. I said he was fine and it was good to catch up with him. She went back to mopping the floor and I went upstairs, laid on our bed, and relived every detail of what happened that weekend: Hattie’s confession at the restaurant, what followed on the hotel bed. And on the desk. And in the shower. Dear God, strike me down.