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I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find, but it isn’t this.
In the center of the room, propped up by sawhorses and a large sheet of plywood, is an elaborate model train set. The terrain is unfinished, but the tracks are laid out over papier-mâché hills and it’s easy to see the potential of what it could look like when it’s completed. Parker’s children are too young to do this themselves, so it must be something Josie or Parker, or both of them, do with the kids.
I pull my eyes away from the train set and keep searching.
The rest of the room is in various stages of remodeling and cluttered with storage. The cinderblock walls are partially concealed by sheetrock, spackled but not painted. A shag rug lies across part of the floor, but otherwise rough concrete is exposed. One wall is hidden by rusted metal shelving full of glass jars of food—beans and pickles and spaghetti sauce—presumably made from food grown in the Longbaughs’ garden. A water heater stands in one corner near an open door, revealing a tiny bathroom inside.
I spot a pile of storage containers—plastic bins, cardboard file boxes, wooden crates—and one in particular catches my eyes. It’s wooden and stenciled with the faded wordsDANGER EXPLOSIVES, like an old box that dynamite could have been stored in.
I step quietly over to the wooden crate and—slowly, carefully—lift the lid.
CHAPTER 12
I LET OUT a sigh of relief when I see what’s inside.
Comic books.
I fan through the stack quickly—Wolverine, Avengers, Ghost Rider—and put the lid back on the crate. When Parker’s kids asked if Daddy had anywhere they could store their comics, they must have had a good laugh when he handed over an old dynamite crate.
Maybe there’s something else here. I reach for the top of a file box when I hear the creak of footsteps coming down the stairs. I bolt upright and pretend like I’m studying the model train display, the way the tracks cross rivers and roadways.
Josie comes down, sees what I’m looking at, and smiles.
“Parker acts like he does this for the kids, but they’re not really interested,” she says. “Who would have thought a tough-as-nails Texas Ranger would find joy in making dioramas?”
“Seems like he’s changed a bit.”
“Only for the better,” Josie says, and her face lights up with a smile.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch,” I say.
Josie offers her forgiveness with a shrug.
“Communication is a two-way street,” she says. “Parker couldn’t care less about some of his old colleagues, but he has a real fondness for some. You’re one of them. When he quit the Rangers, it was so hard on him that I think he just needed to make a clean break. He didn’t keep in contact with anyone.”
She reaches over and takes my arm and we start up the stairs together.
“I think it’s been really good for him to see you tonight,” she says. “I hope you’ll come back while you’re in town.”
Once again, I feel guilty for treating Parker as a crime suspect. But once Josie and I step outside together, I find Parker walking out of the barn with Ellis and Harvey. From the far-off glow of the firelight, they seem to glance my way and pick up their pace, a little too quick to put some distance between themselves and where they’ve just been. Are they hiding something in the barn?
I tell myself my mind might just be playing tricks on me. A detective needs to be careful of confirmation bias. Sometimes you want to believe something so bad that you interpret the clues to give you the outcome you want. But, in this case, I actually don’t want Parker to be involved. So you’d think I’d brush off anything suspicious. Instead, even simple glances between these men seem to be setting off alarm bells in my brain.
One thing’s for certain: I need more information.
Unfortunately, I’m not going to get it tonight.
The party is winding down and it’s time to go home. Candace holds her sleeping boy in her arms. Angie is ushering her three children toward the car. I tell the Currys and the Kilpatricks that it was nice meeting them. Then I wait for both families to leave before I give Josie a hug. When I offer my hand to Parker to shake, he ignores it and throws his arms around me for a hug. Stunned for a moment, I embrace him back.
“I missed you, brother,” he says.
He’s had a little bit too much to drink—I can smell it on his breath and in the sweat on his skin—but the sentiment pulls at my heartstrings.
“Missed you, too.”
As I climb into my truck, Josie and Parker wave goodbye and I toot my horn in a final farewell. Not in any hurry to get back to my hotel, I slow down as I pass the grain elevator. Lit only by moonlight and surrounded by cornfields, the building looks ominous, abandoned and monolithic out here where there isn’t anything else but field after field. The main building is a good three stories tall, with a steeply slanted roof on the second level and a trio of wide, squat silos attached. Checking to make sure there aren’t any cars behind me, I pull into the driveway, circle behind the building, and kill the lights. Hidden from view from the road, I step out.
The corn whispers in the breeze.
