Thirty-Eight
FIRST THING IN the morning I’m the one who calls Burt Webb and describes to him, as straightforwardly as possible, what had happened, and I ask if I should come in and file some kind of report.
“You sure it was Roof Crockett’s voice?” he asks when I finish.
“Can I swear to that? No, I can’t,” I say. “But am I sure of it? Yeah, Burt, I’m sure it was him.”
“But he’s the one who called them off?” Burt says. “Why?”
“Ask him” is my answer.
There’s a long pause then at his end.
“I’m sorry that this happened to you, Silas, especially after what all you’ve been through,” he says. “And you can come in and file a report with us if you want to. But I have to tell you that the jurisdiction on something like this is going to end up belonging to Nash Hader.”
“But why?”
There’s another lengthy pause before he finally says, “Because it might involve the Crockett family, that’s why.”
“So it’s like that.”
“Not because that’s the way it should be,” Burt says. “Just because that’s the way it is.”
The headquarters for the county police in Cross Rivers is on North Main Street, an address I’ve always found amusing, for the simple reason that there is no South Main Street in our town.
It’s a long, modern one-story building, with the jail cells all the way in the back.
The cop at the front desk takes my information, tells me to wait, walks back through a squad room full of cubicles, comes back in less than a minute, and says, “I can show you back to Sheriff Hader’s office now if you’ll follow me.”
Hader doesn’t get up from behind his desk, his hat sitting to his left like some sort of hood ornament. The walls are decorated with various plaques and awards and so many certificates, I idly wonder if he might have bought some of them on eBay just for show.
What I don’t see is any kind of framed photograph, like the one still hanging in my father’s den, of him stepping on Nash Hader in the big game the way you’d step on a bug.
“Take a seat,” Hader says. “Hear there might have been some trouble at your place last night.”
I take a seat across from a desk as big as Briar Crockett’s, suddenly feeling as if I’m taking a tour of the biggest assholes in town.
Or maybe all of western North Carolina.
“Not might have, Sheriff. Did.”
“Then how come you didn’t call it in right after it happened?” he asks mildly.
“I was too busy attending to my dog,” I say. “The one those chickenshits ran over after they stopped beating on me.”
“How’s the dog?”
“Survived, with a broken leg.” I give him a curious look, tilting my head slightly to one side. “And I’m feeling much better than I expected I would today, thanks for asking.”
He grins at me. “You want to tell me your version of what you say happened,” he says, “or just give me a bunch of your usual smart talk?”
What you say happened.
He moves some papers in front of him around.
“I assume there were no witnesses,” he says. “Other than the dog, of course.”
I take him through it the way I did with Burt Webb. What they did. What was said before they took off.
“You say you think you might have recognized Roof Crockett’s voice,” Hader says when I’m finished. “But there’s no way for you to prove it was him, correct?”
“It was him.”
“Talking through a mask, and right after you say you took a hit upside your head,” Hader says. “Not much of a positive ID, son.”
I say, “Not your son.”
He nods, as if I’ve just confirmed something to him. “You really do think you’re still a hot shit around here, don’t you?”
“Well,” I say, “as much as anybody can be without a badge.”
His eyes narrow down into a squint I’m certain has to require some practice, maybe even in a mirror. Maybe he thinks it makes him look tough, something to go with acting as tough as he always has. I just think it makes him look nearsighted.
“You still want to make a statement,” he says, “you can make it to Sergeant Morecombe. He’s the one who brought you back here.”
“I just gave my statement to you,” I say. “Now I’m sort of curious as to what you’re going to do about it.”
“Look into it, of course,” he says. “First thing, of course.”
“Will that involve bringing in Roof Crockett for questioning?” I ask. “See if he’s got an alibi for the time in question?”
“Telling me how to do my job again?”
“Just asking you to get out from behind that desk,” I say, before adding, “or up from underneath it, where the Crocketts are concerned.”
He smiles at me now, as if he’s not going to give me the satisfaction of clapping back at the insult I’d just thrown across his desk at him. The smile makes me think of a horse showing its teeth.
Or, in Nash Hader’s case, a horse’s ass.
“You really do have a lot to say for a sorry has-been,” he says.
I get up out of my chair and give him a two-fingered salute.
“Better than being a sorry never-been, am I right, Sheriff?”
I leave the way I came in, no thought of stopping back at Sergeant Morecombe’s desk, just heading back outside and walking to where I’d parked the truck.
Singing to myself as I reach into the pocket of my jeans for my keys.
The words of Mr. Johnny Cash, the Man in Black himself.
There’s a man goin’ round takin’ names
And he decides who to free and who to blame…