Chapter 19
Arriving at the school shortly after the dismissal bell rang, Colly found Satchel, in his sun-sleeves and hat, waiting with his cousins beneath the covered walkway. They laughed and shouted as they bounced a small rubber ball back and forth in an improvised game.
Colly paused in the crowd of jostling children to watch. Satchel’s cheeks were rosy with exertion as he ran after the ball, catching it with the heels of his hands to safeguard his bandaged fingers.
After a few moments, Colly felt a nudge.
“Kids are amazingly resilient, huh?”
Colly turned. Brenda stood at her elbow.
“Oh God, your eye—what happened?”
“It’s nothing. Looks worse than it feels.” Colly was getting tired of the question. “Satchel did okay this afternoon?”
“He must have. I’ve been at the clinic, but Wanice would’ve called if anything happened.” Brenda hesitated. “I hope you don’t mind—I told Niall about the matches incident. Childhood compulsive disorders are his specialty.”
“Did he have any advice?”
“He’s giving it some thought. Which reminds me, he wants to cook for us Friday night.”
“I don’t know, Bren. I shouldn’t socialize with someone I’ve interviewed in a current case.”
“It’s impossible to keep clear boundaries in Crescent Bluff.” Brenda laughed. “You don’t suspect Niall, do you? He wasn’t even in Texas when Denny died.”
Colly shrugged noncommittally and glanced at her watch. Avery would arrive at the farmhouse in just over an hour. Colly longed for a nap, or at least a shower, before then. “I should get Satchel home.”
“What do I tell Niall about Friday?”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
Though he’d seemed happy enough while playing ball, Satchel was subdued on the ride home, answering Colly’s questions about his day with hunched shoulders and a mumbled “I dunno.”
Newland males have been stonewalling me this whole damn day , Colly thought irritably as she turned up the long drive. Is it genetic, or what?
The sight of a navy-blue Jeep in front of the farmhouse interrupted her musings. Through the tinted windows, she could see the outline of a man’s head.
Colly hit the brakes. “Stay here, Satch.”
Climbing out of the car, she approached the unfamiliar vehicle with a hand on her pistol. When she was fifteen feet from the Jeep, its driver’s-side door opened and a tall, slender figure emerged, looking out of place in a well-tailored suit and black wingtips.
Colly was both relieved and annoyed. Can’t I get five minutes to myself? She released the gun and said with more irritability than politeness, “What are you doing here, Dr. Shaw?”
Shaw appeared unperturbed. “Please, it’s Niall. I—wow, are you okay?” He gestured towards her forehead.
“Yeah, but I need to get a t-shirt that says, ‘You should see the other guy.’”
“One of those days?”
“You have no idea.”
“I won’t keep you long. Brenda told me what happened this morning with your grandson.” He reached into the Jeep and produced an orange gift bag.
Colly heard a noise and turned. Satchel was standing beside the car, staring curiously at the stranger.
He pointed to the gift bag. “What’s that?”
“Get out of the light, Satchel.” Colly hurried towards him.
“But it’s cloudy,” he whined as she pushed him into the car.
“That doesn’t matter.”
Colly drove the car beneath the red oak near the house and hustled Satchel onto the porch, motioning for Niall to join them. She introduced him as “a friend of Aunt Brenda’s.”
Niall smiled and shook Satchel’s hand. He held out the gift bag. “This is for you.”
Satchel’s eyes narrowed. “Today’s not my birthday.”
“I thought you might not have many toys here.”
Satchel looked at Colly. When she nodded, he reached for the bag, extracting a rectangular object made of clear plexiglass set in a blue stand. He turned the thing in his hands. “What is it?”
“An ant farm. You can watch them build their tunnels and nests. The queen’s there, in the corner, see?” Niall pointed. “She controls the worker ants, and those white things are her eggs. Careful, don’t shake it.”
Satchel held the plexiglass frame near his face, then looked up at Colly. “Can I take it inside?”
“Sure.” Colly unlocked the door. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Thank you,” Satchel murmured over his shoulder as he went into the house, holding the ant farm like an overfilled cup he was afraid might spill.
Colly closed the door behind him. “He loves it.”
Niall stood and dusted his knees. “It’s been in my office for years. The kids I treat for anxiety find it soothing.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s a hermetically sealed little world where all the rules work.”
“I’ll be sure to return it before we go back to Houston.”
“It’s a gift. I’ll get another one.” Niall hesitated, smiling. “At the risk of sounding forward, it’s hard to believe you’re a grandmother.”
Colly frowned. The remark was more personal than she liked, but it seemed well-intentioned. “My daughter was fifteen when Satchel was born.” She changed the subject. “Brenda says you specialize in compulsive disorders?”
“That’s my therapeutic focus. I research the links between brain structure and impulse control in kids with antisocial tendencies.”
“Psychopaths?”
“That’s not a clinical term, but essentially, yes—kids with potential in that direction, anyway.”
Remembering her earlier conversation with Brenda, Colly felt the familiar pang of worry. She wanted to ask more questions, but Avery, who disliked Shaw intensely, was due at the farmhouse soon. Colly didn’t want to risk a tense encounter while Satchel was within earshot.
“Well, thanks for the ant farm,” she said a little abruptly. “It was kind of you to think of Satchel.”
Niall took the hint without offense. “Not at all.” He trotted down the steps, then paused. “Did Brenda mention dinner Friday? I hope you’re free.”
“She did. But I don’t know.”
“It’ll be a nice break. Great food, pleasant company, Walmart’s finest Pinot.” He grinned.
Colly murmured something noncommittal.
“No pressure. Things are complicated, I realize.” Pulling a pen and business card from his pocket, he jotted something down and handed the card to Colly. “My personal number. If Satchel’s struggling, call any time.”
Inside, Colly found Satchel in the living room, sitting on the floor with his chin on the edge of the coffee table. He’d set the ant farm in front of him and was staring intently at it.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Colly ruffled his hair.
He looked up. “We didn’t ask what to feed them.”
“We’ll google it.”
“What if Google’s wrong?”
“I’ll ask Dr. Shaw, then.” Her head throbbing, Colly checked the time—fifteen minutes until Avery would arrive. No time for a nap, but with luck she could grab a shower.
She went to the kitchen, returning with apple slices and cheese crackers on a plate. She set them on the coffee table. “There you go, buddy. I’m going upstairs to clean up.”
Satchel rubbed his bandaged fingers against the edge of the coffee table. “Can you change my bandages first? They’re itchy.”
Colly sighed. “Okay, but hurry.”
In the second-floor bathroom, she carefully unwrapped the gauze from his fingers and was relieved to see that the burns were minor, the skin red and in a few places blistered but otherwise intact. She held his hands under cold water and scrubbed them vigorously with antibacterial soap.
“Ow!”
“Sorry, bud. We have to keep these clean.”
After patting his fingers dry, she retaped the wounds with fresh gauze from a first-aid kit she found in the cupboard. As she was putting it away, she heard a sharp knock on the front door downstairs.
Satchel stiffened. “Take out your gun, Grandma.”
Colly glanced out of the bathroom window. A squad car sat by the carport.
So much for a shower , she thought. “It’s just Avery, Satch.”
“The girl with purple hair?” He sounded hopeful.
Colly nodded. “Go show her your ant farm. I’ll be down in a sec.”
Satchel raced for the stairs. When he’d gone, Colly checked herself in the bathroom mirror. The entire orbit of her eye had turned dark indigo-purple. She looked, Colly thought, like the bad guy in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. She took two more ibuprofen, then washed her face and changed her dirt-stained top. As she started down the stairs, she heard voices and paused on the landing to listen.
“You did it on purpose? That’s dumb,” Avery was saying.
“It helps.”
“Bullshit.”
“Grandma thinks I’m crazy, too. I can tell.”
“I didn’t say crazy, I said dumb—it tells everyone you’re weak and scared. They’ll pick on you worse.”
A long pause. “You don’t know.”
Torn between curiosity and the urge to intervene, Colly crept low enough on the stairs to peer through the archway. Avery was on the sofa. Satchel sat on the floor with his back to her, staring at the ant farm on the coffee table. His cheeks were bright pink, and he seemed to be fighting tears.
“Think I never got teased?” Avery leaned forward suddenly, tapping Satchel on the shoulder so that he turned to look. “They used to call me ‘Two-Face.’” She pointed to the white scar on her cheek.
“What is that?”
“A burn. Happened when I was about your age.”
Satchel’s eyes widened. “Can I touch it?”
“Don’t be a jerk.”
“What did you do when they teased you?”
Avery shrugged. “Beat ’em up. Tried to, anyway.”
“I’m a lot smaller than the boy who called me names.”
“Who was it?”
“His name’s Clay.”
“Clay McReedy?” Avery snorted. “He’s a little shit—all the McReedys are. What did he call you?”
Satchel gnawed his lip. “ Sasquatch . He said that’s what my name sounds like. Hey, stop that.”
Avery had fallen back against the cushions, laughing. “Sorry, dude.” She wiped her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby. You gotta stand up for yourself.”
Satchel turned back to the ant farm. “I don’t know how.”
“If you can’t use your fists, be a smart-ass. Tell Clay, ‘I’d rather be a Sasquatch than a pile of wet dirt.’ That’s what his name means.”
Satchel smiled, but he shook his head. “He’d hurt me.”
“You’re gonna get hurt no matter what. But you can take the fun out of it for him.”
Okay, that’s enough , Colly thought, continuing noisily down the steps.
When she entered the living room, Satchel jumped up. “Did you hear what we were talking about?”
“Do I look like an eavesdropper? Listen, Satch, Avery and I need to discuss something. We’re going to walk around the yard. You can play with your ant farm, or watch TV.” Colly handed him her phone. “If you need me, call Avery’s number—I’ve pulled it up.”
In the kitchen, she pulled two longnecks from the fridge. “Russ stocked the place with some basics. I think we both could use a beer.” Colly rummaged in a drawer for a bottle opener.
“You shouldn’t drink with a possible concussion.”
“I’ll risk it.”
Carrying their beers, they went out through the carport and around to the backyard. Colly was surprised to see patches of blue sky through breaks in the clouds.
“Let’s get farther away. I don’t want Satchel hearing this.”
Behind the house, the weed-choked remnants of a footpath led through a pasture to a timber-pole barn. Its wooden siding was ragged with dry rot, the tin roof dimpled by countless hail storms.
“Think it’s safe to go out there?” Colly asked.
“There’s probably rats.”
“I don’t care about rats. It’s snakes I can’t handle.”
“Where there’s one, there’s usually the other. But this time of day we should be fine. Just watch your step.”
The air was surprisingly cool inside the barn. The ground, a pulpy humus of decayed dung and straw, sank beneath their feet, giving off a sweet, musky odor. Colly looked around. Piles of corroded machine parts and rotted tractor tires lined the walls. Doves cooed in the hazy dimness of the rafters.
An overturned metal water trough sat beside a support pole near the door. Colly brushed away the cobwebs and sat down.
“Thanks for meeting me here. From now on, I think it’s wise to keep things between the two of us as much as possible.”
Avery crossed her arms. “Why are we cutting Russ out of the loop? He’s my boss.”
“Russ has a conflict of interest.”
“No more than he did yesterday.”
“Yesterday I didn’t know he’s Lowell’s alibi for the afternoon Denny was killed.”
“Haven’t you read the file?”
“Not thoroughly. I haven’t had time.” Colly paused. It was difficult to know how much to say. But she needed Avery to understand the necessity of discretion. “I know we haven’t gotten off to the best start. But you need to trust me.”
“You think Russ is part of some cover-up?”
“We should err on the side of caution.”
“You’re talking in riddles. Did something happen?”
Colly sighed. “Yes, but it may have an innocent explanation, so I’d rather keep it to myself, for now.”
“I don’t like it.”
“We won’t cut him out entirely. As a practical matter, we can’t. But he’s under pressure from a lot of directions. Let’s do what we can to minimize it—for his sake, and for the investigation’s.”
Avery scowled at her boots. “I’ll play it your way, for now.”
“Thank you.” Colly exhaled. “Okay, tell me what you found out at the turbine plant. We’ll compare notes.”
Avery brushed back a strand of purple hair and sat down on the trough. “No one would talk to me at the plant. But after I left, one of the fiberglass packers called me. Lori Lambreth. I went to high school with her. She said Lowell’s been erratic the last year or so, losing his shit for no reason, coming to work drunk. And get this—last March, he got into a shouting match with Jace Hoyer. They were in Lowell’s office. All the line workers heard them. Then Lowell came out and announced Jace was fired.”
“We already knew that.”
“Yeah, but a few minutes later, Lori walked by Jace’s workstation when he was packing up. She saw him log into his computer and print some papers, and she asked what he was doing. He said he’d be damned if he’d let Lowell throw him under the bus—he was taking some insurance with him.”
“She doesn’t know what the papers were?”
“Spreadsheets of some kind.”
“Did Lowell give an explanation for firing Hoyer?”
“He sent around an internal memo saying Jace broke safety regulations bringing Denny to the plant.”
“Lowell confirmed that today at the bluffs.”
“Lori says that was a load of crap, though. Jolene was right. Denny’d been coming around for months. Everyone liked him, even Lowell. He was the plant’s unofficial gofer.”
“Does Lori know why Lowell lied?”
“If she does, she didn’t tell me. There was another big blow-up a few weeks later. Lori wasn’t there, but she heard about it. Jace showed up at a job site, screaming and carrying on. Punched Lowell in the face. The workmen had to pull them apart.”
“What was that about?”
“No idea.” Avery tipped up her longneck and swallowed. “What do you think?”
“It’s odd neither Lowell or Jace mentioned any of this.” Colly narrated a quick rundown of her interview with Lowell. “We need to talk to both of them again—Jace first, if we can find him.”
She checked her watch. Satchel was alone in the house and she needed to get back. She stood too quickly, and her vision darkened. The floor pitched like a wave. Colly stumbled, and Avery grabbed her arm.
“You okay?”
“Just a headrush.”
Avery started to answer, but then her phone rang. She pulled it out, and her face reddened. “For you.”
Colly took the phone and glanced at the caller ID. “‘Queen Bitch’? Seriously?” She raised it to her ear. “What is it, Satch?”
“Uncle Russ is here.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I think something bad happened. He looks upset.”