Page 8 of Where the Fields Don’t Reach

“There’s a letter,” Hadley said, hoping the additional facts would explain the urban legend a little better. “A Methodist minister in Cane County wrote a letter in eighteen-eighty-six to a colleague in Little Rock about a young woman in his congregation who had walked into a cornfield east of what’s now the Cox place and never came back. He said it was the Threshing Man. He said it was the third missing girl he had known of in his ministry. I read that letter in a county historical society photocopy when I was sixteen and trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t.”

“The eighteen-eighties,” Julian said rather slowly, especially for him.

“My grandmother used to tell me about a story her own grandmother told her,” Hadley shared, the memory vivid. “Two girls, both eighteen, walked into a cornfield together one October night around 1910, outside a small farming community called Cane Springs that isn’t on the map anymore. The girls walked in side by side, and only one of them came back out. The one who came back was barefoot. Her shoes had been new the week before, and they were never found in the field, even though three dozen men searched the rows for days afterward. She would not say what had happened to them. She would not say what had happened to her friend, either. She lived another sixty-one years, married a farmer’s son, raised five children, and went to her own grave without ever putting her feet into another pair of shoes. Is there any truth to the tale? I don’t know, but my grandmother believed it. My mother believed it. This entire town still believes it. The eighteen-eighties Methodist letter wasn’t Emanuel Telfort, Julian. The Threshing Man existed long before the Telforts ever settled in these parts.”

Hadley forced herself to pick up the mug again.

“There you have it, Ramos.” Hadley reverted to his surname to lighten the mood. “The bottom line is that these stories are older than dirt. Telfort was just the killer in our lifetime, and his son tried to carry on his horrific legacy. Whatever Rena is putting up over at the convenience store is something her grandmother taught her, and her grandmother’s grandmother taught her grandmother. It’s a ritual. Habit. It’s how this part of the world handles the harvest.”

“Hadley, I’ve got to ask.” Julian rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uneasy after hearing such chilling tales. “You don’t believe in this urban legend, do you?”

“I believe what I solved last year,” Hadley reluctantly replied, giving him what he wanted with a small smile. “You should know that the talismans are used for more than just the Threshing Man. Some of them are made to ward off tornadoes, and some are for trying to get their husbands to stop drinking.”

“Right.” Julian looked at her for a long second more, then let it go. He even forced a laugh, as if to chase away the tension in the air. “All right, then.”

She gave him another smile behind the rim of her mug.

“How’s the Langley case coming?” Julian asked, the segue smooth and pointed at once.

A part of Hadley wished that Julian had kept asking his question about the Threshing Man. Anything was better than rehashing the investigation into former Police Chief Reed Langley. The man Hadley had once been in love with, before she’d left town at eighteen and spent the next twelve years not speaking to him. The man whose desk Julian was currently sitting at, who seemed completely oblivious to her irritation. Or maybe he was perfectly aware of the discomfort it caused her, which was why he’d settled into the chair in the first place.

“Nowhere,” Hadley finally managed to reply.

“Nowhere?” Julian asked, frowning.

“There’s no physical evidence,” Hadley replied, tamping down her frustration. “The truck burned hot enough to take everything that mattered. There were no usable prints in this office, because half the town had been in and out of here for weeks before he died. He went to meet someone that night, and that someone didn’t want him to walk away alive. Well, they succeeded, and I’m at a loss as to why.”

“Hadley,” Julian said quietly.

“What?”

“That last part isn’t like you,” Julian replied, monitoring her movements as she pushed away from her desk. She set her coffee down again, intending to pull the side drawer open and snatch the bottle of antacids she kept in the front. She stopped herself just in time, because she didn’t want or need a lecture from him about her health. “You don’t give up. That’s what made you a great detective.”

“I can’t create evidence where there is none, Julian.”

“Then go back to the basics.” Julian lowered his legs and leaned forward. “People usually get killed for one of four things. Lust, love, loathing, or loot. The rest of it is paperwork.”

“I’d be guessing at each.” Hadley needed something to do if she wasn’t going to retrieve the bottle of antacids, so she took the time to turn on her computer. “And before you bring up Kalen Telfort again, I believe his claim that he didn’t kill Reed. I don’t think his murder had anything to do with the investigation into Missy Claymont’s disappearance or the Telforts. Which leaves me with⁠—”

“Lust. The married girlfriend, the jealous boyfriend, the affair somebody didn’t know about,” Julian recited, lifting three fingers in a row. He then lowered them to start again. “Love. The fight that went too far. The protective parent. The friend who couldn’t take it one more time.”

“Reed was engaged to be married. They were happy, and there was no gossip floating around this town to indicate otherwise.” Hadley let her computer do its thing as she reached for her mug. She really needed a refill. “Loathing, on the other hand, is something I could work with, considering Reed was the police chief. A grudge. A slight. Maybe something that festered. Unfortunately, I’ve been over his reports and found nothing that would indicate he’d pissed someone off enough for them to resort to murder.”

“What about loot?” Julian asked as his cell phone rang. He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he finished his point. “Did he owe someone money? Did he have a life insurance policy? Who benefited monetarily with him out of the picture?”

“Reed’s finances came back clean, and he only had enough life insurance to cover his burial,” Hadley informed him before gesturing toward his cell phone. “Answer it, Julian.”

“Ramos.” Julian listened intently, his gaze steady on Hadley. He then checked his watch. “I can be there in thirty. Yeah. Just tell him to wait.”

“Duty calls,” Julian announced after disconnecting the call. He stood, leaving the chair pushed back as he stepped around the desk. He closed the distance between them, embracing her one last time, mindful of her coffee. “Seriously, don’t be such a stranger, Hadley. I mean it. Pick up the damn phone when I call.”

“I will,” Hadley promised, giving him a pat on the arm as he stepped away. “Tell everyone hi for me.”

“And let you out of returning a text or an email? I don’t think so,” Julian said with a laugh. He walked toward the door, grabbed the knob, but stopped short of pulling it open. Instead, he glanced her way before pointedly staring at Reed’s desk. The one she had not touched in almost a year. “Whether or not you catch the sick bastard who killed Langley, maybe it’s time to say goodbye. I’ve never met the man, but from everything I’ve heard, he wouldn’t want you stuck in the past. You know where to reach me if you need anything.”

Julian didn’t wait for her to respond. He pulled the front door open and stepped out into the bright September morning, the door closing gently behind him.

The first thing Hadley did was walk around her desk, open the drawer, and retrieve the bottle of antacids. As she chewed, her gaze went to the chair Julian had been sitting in. She thought about Mason, probably alone in his shed on a Monday morning, with the radio on or the radio off, sober or already two beers in, no way to know which from here.