Page 30 of Where the Fields Don’t Reach

“You don’t believe Mr. Mercer is writing a book?” Hadley took the opening. She’d used the elevator in the other hallway, but she was close enough to Knox to have full sight of the staircase. A section of the railing on the upper landing had been roped off, two orange cones set in front of a stretch of clear plastic tarp that had been zip-tied across a gap where the balusters should have been. There was no sight of Roland, so she figured he must have already reached a lower level. “Why is that?”

“Roland has been claiming for years that he’s been writing a book, but no one has ever seen one page of it.” Knox glanced toward the staircase in something close to pity. “I think he just likes the attention. I tune out most of his ramblings. He’s good with the students, and that’s all that counts. And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe some supernatural entity has been stalking Cane County’s cornfields since the eighteen hundreds.”

“Did Mr. Mercer ever mention what he’s searching for when he’s out in the fields?”

“When he’s…” Knox repeated her as if he wasn’t sure he understood her question. His eyes widened once he comprehended her meaning. “Did he destroy someone’s property? Is that why you’re here?”

“No,” Hadley replied, wanting to suppress any rumors to the contrary. “Someone trespassed on private property, and I was merely covering all my bases.”

“Well, Roland was telling you the truth about Friday. I did call him at home, and he answered.” Knox checked his watch, the kind that synced to a phone. “I’m sorry, but I’m late for class. Is there anything else that I can help you with?”

“No,” Hadley replied, but only after noticing two individuals ascending the open staircase. They were too absorbed in their own conversation to notice an officer of the law. “I appreciate your time, Mr. Hudson.”

Hadley had parked on the opposite side of the building, so she retraced her steps down the hallway. She considered reentering Roland’s office to take another look around, but she didn’t have a warrant, and she wouldn’t risk the case being thrown out if she discovered that he did have something to do with Reed’s death. When she reached the elevator and chose the ground floor, she pulled up the map photo on her phone.

She’d gotten a clean shot. Clear enough that the small, black lettering resolved when she zoomed in. The pushpins appeared scattered at first. Random. Earl Vinton’s east field had one. So did the large stretch of woods belonging to Mr. Cox behind the festival, along with a string of other cornfields running down the eastern edge of town. None of the locations surprised her, except one.

A lone, red pushpin marked a thin dirt road at the back of the county. One that didn’t show on most maps, and one that was only known to people born and raised in Whistlerun.

It was the dirt road where they’d found Reed’s truck.

What was left of it.

What was left of him.

12

Hadley Dawkins

September 2026

Tuesday – 7:32 pm

The gravel lot beside the Watering Hole had filled in since sundown, pickups and a couple of sedans nosed in at angles that suggested nobody had given much thought to any order. Hadley had left her own vehicle at the station and walked the two blocks down Main.

She stopped at the edge of the lot for a moment, in no hurry.

She usually avoided the place. When she’d first taken over as police chief, half the town hadn’t been sure it had been the right decision, and she’d figured the cleanest way to handle that doubt was to keep her distance. Let them grow used to her wearing the badge. Yet what had made Reed so good at the job was the very thing she’d been holding herself back from.

He’d been one of them, woven all the way in.

Then again, maybe that was what had gotten him killed.

Hadley leaned her head back and stared at the stars. She rarely took the time to appreciate the Ozarks, the way the dark out here went deep and clean and let the entire sky come down close. It was nothing like the washed-out city glow she’d chosen to live under for close to twelve years. Behind the structure, the corn gave off its low, dry rasp, leaves stirring in a breeze she could barely feel, as if to remind her the Threshing Man was out there somewhere among the rows.

She supposed the old legend had been at the edge of her thoughts all day anyway, given that she’d spent most of the afternoon on her laptop digging into Roland Mercer. She’d finally gotten confirmation: six years back, Mercer had been cited for trespassing out by the eastern fields, on the property bordering Earl Vinton’s land. A judge had dismissed the charge without so much as a fine.

She had Roland to thank for steering her down that road. His answer to her question this morning had lodged in her like a splinter she couldn’t leave alone, and it had taken several phone calls to the right people before the answers came loose. Now she had proof that his trespassing wasn’t a one-time thing. She just wasn’t sure yet what to do with it.

There was one man who might know how a citation came to die on a judge’s desk in this county. The man who had worn the badge before Reed ever pinned it on, and who took his supper at the Watering Hole most evenings, in the same booth, with the same measure of bourbon.

A battered truck swung into the lot, gravel popping under its tires. The interruption pulled her attention back to the matter at hand. She crossed the lot and hauled the door open. The heavy smell of fryer grease met her, along with a low country twang turning over on the jukebox.

The Watering Hole had been a warehouse once and had never entirely stopped looking like one. Photographs of Whistlerun crowded the walls, the images gone grainy with age, most of them belonging to people she’d only ever known as headstones. Behind the bar, a glass case held a row of war medals that caught the light when the door swung shut behind her.

Sam Cashman stood at the tap, a rag over one shoulder, measuring just how much foam climbed the glass. He’d been her brother’s closest friend once, back before the worst thing that could happen to them came true. Where the years in prison had carved Mason down to something lean and spare, drink had done the opposite to Sam, leaving him soft and worn past his age. As she closed the distance to the counter, she feigned ignorance over the slight tremor in his hands.

“Chief Dawkins.” Sam settled the glass in front of Keith Bennett, one of the regulars, then pulled the rag off his shoulder and wiped his fingers while he studied her. “Is this an official visit?”