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“Hardy and Eustis are the living embodiment of that.”
André opened his mouth to point out that Hardy had called the police on his supposed best friend.
“I know what you’re about to say,” she said, forestalling his remark. “Just believe me. They finish each other’s sentences. When they come into town, they always arrive together. But they’re both in their mideighties, and neither one of them has figured out how to tell the other one they care. I’d bet a dollar Eustis was worried about Hardy because he wasn’t answering his phone or something.”
“So... he decided to mow Hardy’s lawn?”
Lani waggled her head and snickered. “Probably the grass was bugging him, too.”
When they’d arrived at the address, André had immediately seen what Lani was talking about. The two octogenarians glared at each other from identical weather-beaten porches. And as he’d pretended to take Hardy’s statement, the two men had interrupted each other and finished the other’s sentences.
André had bitten the inside of his lip to keep from smiling as he listened to them. Even though each of the lots was over an acre in size, the houses themselves were barely one hundred feet apart and obviously designed by the same uninspired architect. He’d shaken his head, noting that Eustice’s yard was painfully tidy. Hardy’s was not.
Today, André had a real crime to solve.
Sitting forward, he planted his elbows on his desk, banging the wheels of his desk chair against the linoleum with a crash. Today’s problem was not two grumpy old men. And it certainly wasn’t Dante Castone. It couldn’t be. Why Dante waspossibly—André didn’t know for sure—hanging around Cooper Springs was irrelevant.
What mattered going forward were the remains discovered on Crook’s Trail behind town, between Cooper Springs and the much smaller town of Zenith. André had hiked the trail last summer just to prove to himself he could. He’d made it, but it hadn’t been easy. While it started with a deceptively gentle slope, the forested path quickly steepened, becoming a never-ending series of brutal switchbacks that had him dripping with sweat and his thighs shaking from exertion. The climb had been worth it, though. The stunning view of the region on that sunny, clear day had been an incredible reward. And he knew now, from experience, that the hike was a lot of effort for someone who wanted to hide a body or other criminal activity.
André ran a hand through his cropped hair as he stared at the questions he’d jotted down after talking to the rangers—Critter and Mags—as well as Forrest Cooper and Rufus Ferguson. They all knew the area better than he did. As part of their job, Critter and Mags were on the trails regularly. He briefly wondered if they were somehow involved but quickly dismissed the thought.
How long had the bones been there?That was a question for the medical examiner. But André suspected at least a year, very possibly longer. From the description, the bones were already calcified.
Why hadn’t anyone discovered the site before now?Critter and Mags thought the recent heavy rains were responsible. André would know more tomorrow after they hiked up and retrieved them.
At this point, he had to assume the worst, that the spot alongside a set of steep switchbacks was where the remains of the victim of a crime had been deposited. It was André’s job to name the victim and do his best to bring them justice.
On that warm summer day, the old-growth forest had made an impression on him. The verdant moss was strewn over rocks and fallen tree trunks like a thick blanket and had beckoned him to sit and rest a while. The forest had been surprisingly noisy too, with various birds calling to each other as they hunted for bugs and other foodstuffs. He’d read that the Deep—as the center, untrodden parts of the forest where humans never went was called—was very quiet.
That summer afternoon, André had spotted a raven. Not that he was a bird watcher, but the winged creature had been far too large to be a crow. André had read they nested in larger conifers, and the forest was full of trees with trunks so massive even two or three men couldn’t wrap their arms around them. Their caw sounded like something out of a horror movie, nothing like a crow’s.
Damn, tomorrow’s retrieval hike was going to be wet and miserable. Fall had arrived, bringing with it copious amounts of rain, a constant cloud cover, and ever-shortening days.
A knock on the office door brought him back to the present. A second later, Lani poked her head around the doorframe. “Ready, boss? Jayden’s waiting in the lobby.”
Jayden Harlow, discoverer of the remains, was getting a special ride home. Back when André had been a kid—and dinosaurs roamed the earth—getting a ride from the police had been kind of cool. Not for him, of course, since his dad had been The Man. André didn’t know how Jayden felt about it, but André was suspicious about his family situation. Why had the ninth grader been roaming Crook’s Trail in nasty rainy weather? And on a school day?
André planned to talk to Jayden’s mom, Lizzy, when he dropped him off. Just a check-in to see if he felt something was off. Lani’s older brother, Forrest, had informed André that Jayden’s dad was deployed overseas and therefore not around much. He suspected that basically being a single mom was hard on Lizzie. It wasn’t easy being the wife of a deployed soldier, but something in Forrest’s tone had told André he wasn’t a fan of her personally.
But then, Forrest wasn’t a fan of many people.
Jayden wasn’t in trouble—not yet. But nothing good came out of skipping school. If André could keep one kid from making poor decisions, he was doing his job right. It would be more than anyone had done for Gene.
André pushed the memory of his younger brother back into the mental box it belonged in. Some wounds just never healed. The only way to move on was to try and do better than the day before.
“Coming.”
The teen sat hunched into one of the plastic chairs crammed in the station’s “lobby” next to Carol Page’s desk, which was currently unoccupied. André was dreading her upcoming vacation. Carol seemed to know everything about Cooper Springs. He was only keeping ahead of things because of her knowledge of the town and Lani’s common sense.
Jayden glanced up when André entered the room, his expression wary.
“Ready to go home?” André asked.
Jayden shrugged, the wariness replaced by nonchalance. “I guess. Abby’s probably worried.”
“Who’s Abby?” he asked.
He should know the answer. Wasn’t that part of being a small-town sheriff?
