Forty-Seven
THE AMBULANCE WITH Riley Millsap’s body inside is gone.
The onlookers, who have come from the stadium to the crime scene, have started to disperse.
“Riley Millsap was one of the girls in the truck the day I found the three punks dealing drugs about fifty yards from here,” I say to Burt Webb.
He and I are standing under the sign that says “Silas Tucker Field.”
“She’s the one I talked to. The one I basically told to run away from those punks.”
“Not fast enough or far enough,” Burt Webb says.
“Nash Hader knows who those guys are, by the way,” I tell him. “I could never prove it, but I’m pretty sure one of them fired the shot into my windshield.”
“If they work for the Crocketts,” he says, “it won’t do much good for me to find out who they are or even haul them in for questioning.”
“Like you’re going up against the Mafia.”
“No, man,” he says. “Not like going up against them. That’s exactly what we’re doing. The Southern Mafia.”
“Or Briar Crockett’s.”
“Same difference,” Burt Webb says.
We start walking toward where EJ and Taylor and Abby are waiting for us in front of the gym, near where Burt parked his squad car and I parked my truck.
Burt gives them the girl’s name and I recount how I’d spoken to Riley Millsap a few days ago.
Burt says he has to drive over to the hospital now, where Riley Millsap’s parents will be waiting for him.
Abby starts to cry.
I ask her if she knew the girl.
“No,” she says. “It’s just so awful.”
I hug her, then Taylor, then EJ. Like we’re standing outside a funeral.
I tell Burt I can give Taylor a ride home.
There is just the sound now of one siren in the distance, and after that it’s as if the whole town has gone silent, the cheers I’d heard a few minutes before like one more memory from inside the football stadium.
Burt kisses Taylor and tells her he’ll see her when he sees her.
To me, he says, “We’ll talk.”
“Count on that,” I say.
Then it’s Taylor McCarter Webb who quietly says, “It’s their fucking town.”