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“We took care of it,” I said.
“What was bothering you this morning?”
Part of me wanted to tell her what my cousin had said, that her son had survived the fall from the bridge and the trip through the gorge and went on to live two years on the run before committing suicide.
Instead, I said, “Just a rough night.”
“Uh-huh,” my grandmother said, unconvinced, and left me to my dinner, which was remarkably good even by Nana Mama’s high standards.
When I was done cleaning my plate, I went to our bedroom and found the door shut. I knocked, and Bree said, “It’s open.”
I went in, shut the door. Bree sat on the bed, studying her laptop.
In a low voice, I said, “I am sorry.”
She looked up and gave me a halfhearted smile. “I know you are.”
“There’s dinner waiting for you. Outstanding country ribs.”
“I’ll go eat in a minute,” she said.
“I can’t tell Nana Mama what Pinkie told me,” I said quietly.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I don’t…” I began and then rubbed at my temples. “I guess I don’t want her to hear any of it unless I can prove it’s all true.”
“Your uncle Cliff is in no position to corroborate the story,” Bree said.
“I know,” I said, and then saw how to solve two problems at once. “So I’m getting up early, driving to Raleigh, and catching a plane to Palm Beach.”
“Okay,” she said, confused. “Why?”
“It’s the closest airport to where my father killed himself,” I explained. “And it gets me out of Starksville for a day or two, which eliminates me as a target.”
“But what about Stefan? Despite what I said at the track practice, he could have been framed. Maybe by Bell.”
“Or Finn Davis,” I said. “Which is why you’re going to be careful while I’m gone, hang to the outside, and learn everything you can from the public record about the two of them.”
Bree thought about that, and then nodded. “That I can do.”
Chapter
54
Palm Beach, Florida
Driven by a hot wind, the flames roared and belched b
lack smoke into the late-morning sky. White egrets circled in the smoke, feasting on clouds of bugs fleeing the fire.
They were harvesting and burning sugarcane on both sides of Florida Route 441 as I headed west toward Lake Okeechobee, and twice I had to slow to a crawl, the smoke was so thick.
Finally I got upwind of the fire and the smoke was gone. I saw the sign welcoming me to Belle Glade. It was where my father had killed himself and as hard luck a place as I’d ever seen. I’d heard about the city, of course. Who in law enforcement hadn’t? As a municipality, Belle Glade used to have a murder rate the equivalent of a big metro area like DC or Chicago. After five minutes in Belle Glade, I could see some of the reasons why.
But I wasn’t there to diagnose and solve social ills, so I ignored the empty buildings and storefronts pocked with bullet holes and relied on Google Maps to lead me to the various churches around town. I wanted to find out how my father came to kill himself behind one of them.
There were a lot of churches in Belle Glade. At the first two, one for Baptists and another for Adventists, I got no helpful information. At St. Christopher’s Catholic Church, I talked with a priest painting the rectory door. Father Richard Lane was in his fifties and had only recently been transferred to Belle Glade.
