Chapter 26
After the boys have been questioned, Zoey locks them in a jail cell so they get a taste of it.
A glimpse into a future they’ll want to avoid.
She then joins Clay and Judd in her office.
Judd has brewed a pot of coffee, which seems necessary as the sky lightens outside Zoey’s office window.
They compare the boys’ stories and find them consistent.
“My guess is they’re not lying,” says Zoey. “Their bulbs don’t burn bright enough to concoct those details, memorize them all, and recall them under pressure.”
“Seems that way,” says Judd.
“I want to hold off with charges,” she says.
“At least for now. It may be unavoidable, but I hate for kids to have that on their record. That’s partly up to you, though, Judd, since you were the one who was assaulted.
Clay, your truck was stolen. You’re free to press charges now and that will be that. ”
Clay watches something change in his father. Soften. Maybe it’s just fatigue—they haven’t slept in twenty-four hours. But Judd seems to have embraced Zoey’s ability as a police officer. Or if not embraced, then accepted.
“No need to press charges right now,” says Judd. “We can think about it for a little bit. The boys may know more than they’ve told us. I don’t think they’re holding back—they just might have overlooked something that could be important. Let’s stay on their better sides as long as we can manage.”
“We’ll take them to where they found Teddy’s things,” says Zoey.
“See if the stuff’s still there. And I’ll talk to them about the stolen bike and tell them to stay clear of Braedon and Daniel.
Then we’ll drop them at their homes and I’ll talk to their parents and tell them that, for now, the boys are cooperating with our investigation.
I won’t go into more details. Hopefully, those three boys will feel indebted to us and who knows, like Judd said, maybe help us out down the line. ”
“Clay,” says Judd, “you want to take home the Becker boy? Talk to Steph personally?” Zoey throws an inquisitive glance at Judd. “Clay knows her pretty well. They dated in high school. Now he gets his hair done at her beauty parlor.”
Zoey turns toward Clay. “Nails, too?”
Clay offers Zoey a flat, “Fingers and toes.” He then turns to his father and says, “Zoey should talk to all the parents. Including Thomas’s. Better that they hear it from a uniform.”
“You sure?” says Zoey. “I don’t want to douse the flames of a rekindling romance.”
“I’m sure,” says Clay. “And there is no rekindling romance. I think Steph may have found a new beau already. And by beau, I mean boy. I saw them looking at each other at Knut’s.”
“As long as he’s over eighteen,” says Zoey, “that’s none of my business. Okay if we take your truck, Clay? It won’t help matters if they’re seen being dropped off in a squad car.”
Miller’s Bluff was also named after the bigamist Leon Miller.
Since Liar’s Creek flows right by it, the townspeople thought it appropriate to use another meaning of the word bluff to further disparage Leon Miller’s lack of veracity.
A small park sits at the base of Miller’s Bluff.
It has a basketball court, horseshoe pit, picnic tables, and three built-in grills.
Liar’s Creek runs along the base of the bluff, crossable over an arched wooden bridge for foot and bike traffic only.
The bridge provides access to two trailheads, one for hikers and one for mountain bikers.
It’s a beautiful bluff unless you make it to the top where you’re greeted by a cell phone tower and defunct power line.
Graham leads them up the bike trailhead on foot. Markey and Thomas follow close behind, and two steps behind trudge Clay, Judd, and Zoey. It’s about a fifteen-minute hike up to the spot where the boys found Teddy.
“It’s gone,” says Graham. “It was right here.”
“You sure this is the spot?” says Judd.
“Positive,” says Graham. “The stuff was right on that area of small stones. That’s where I knelt down to pick up the earring.”
Judd lowers himself to the ground and, on his hands and knees, looks closely at a bed of small stones that were most likely helped down the bluff by recent rains. “Don’t see any blood,” says Judd. “Or anything else.”
Now Clay is down next to him. He crawls around the stones and goes up the hill.
“Careful,” says Zoey. “I’ll order a forensics team from Rochester. Have them comb through it for hair and fibers.”
“There are broken branches up here,” says Clay. “Teddy could have fallen through this area and landed on the rocks. Somehow shed the hoodie and earring…” Clay shakes his head. Again he turns to the boys and says, “Are you sure there wasn’t anything other than the things you found?”
“Like what?”
“Like a beer can,” says Judd. “Maybe a whiskey bottle?”
“No,” says Graham. “We didn’t find anything like that.”
“Well,” says Zoey, “if Teddy came to and walked down the bike path, his footprints could have been erased by bike tires. This trail gets a lot of use this time of year.”
Judd looks at his watch and says, “Hardware store should be open. Let’s go see if we can identify that saw and get you boys home.”
Braedon opens his eyes and looks at the digital clock on the nightstand.
It’s 8:14 AM. Something smells delicious.
He slips out from underneath the quilt, puts his feet on the floor, and stands.
Clay told him this room hasn’t changed one bit since Clay was Braedon’s age.
Sue and Carol call it the Map Room because framed maps cover the walls.
Maps of where, Braedon isn’t sure. They’re old. Not Middle-earth old, but old.
He slept in his clothes, which at twelve is more of a treat than uncomfortable, so he pads out of the room in stocking feet, descends the stairs, and follows his nose into the kitchen.
“Hey!” says Sue. “There he is. What’ll it be for breakfast, young man?”
“Whatever you’re making smells great,” says Braedon.
“That would be my famous pancake sandwich. One big sausage patty between two pancakes and the whole thing smothered in butter and maple syrup. They’re your dad’s favorite.
And what’ll you be washing your pancake sandwich down with?
Orange juice? Coffee? Milk? A cuppa? Isn’t that what you call it in Ireland? ”
“Yes,” says Braedon. “But orange juice, please.”
“The prince has awoken!” This from Carol as she enters the room carrying a bouquet of fresh-picked flowers from the garden.
She has perfect silver hair that falls to her shoulders, long and thick and bright like metal.
Soft green almond-shaped eyes in browned skin from her hours in the garden and on the river.
“For you, my liege,” she says, handing Braedon a daffodil.
Braedon can’t help but laugh. “Thank you.”
“I got Marty opening up the shop this morning, so I figure you and I might find something fun to do.”
“Yeah,” says Braedon. Although he barely knows Sue and Carol (he’s met Sue a few times at the police station and Carol a few times at the fly shop), he feels like he belongs in their home.
Both women were and maybe still are surrogate mothers to his father, and that makes them surrogate grandmothers to Braedon.
That’s where the belonging feeling comes from.
Sue and Carol are like family. When you meet a relative for the first time—even at the age of eleven or twelve or thirty-five, there’s an immediate comfort level.
“I was thinking,” says Carol, “we could spend some time at the fly-tying bench.”
“Sure…” says Braedon, trying to sound upbeat about the idea.
“I know you’re not a fly-fisher. Your dad complains to me about it every time he’s in the shop. You like fishing with your grandpa Judd, right?”
Braedon nods.
“Well, guess what. Fly-tying isn’t just for making flies.
You can also make lures for fishing the way you and your grandpa do.
Lures to catch bass, walleye, northern pike, even muskies.
Big old honkers made of buck tail and silver spoons and colored beads and feathers.
We can make ’em in brown, olive, chartreuse, white, yellow, red.
There is no shortage of supplies in this house.
What do you think about surprising your grandpa Judd with a whole mess of them? Handmade by the prince himself!”
Braedon laughs. “I don’t know how.”
“I’ll teach you. I got a book about making plunker lures around here somewhere. Otherwise we’ll resort to YouTube.”
“One pancake sandwich hot and ready to be eaten,” says Sue. She sets the plate on the kitchen table and retrieves a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator.
“Thank you,” says Braedon. He sits at the kitchen table and feels so grateful he might cry.
Grateful for Sue and Carol. Grateful for his grandpa Judd.
Grateful for his father moving them to Riverwood, Minnesota.
He’s a boy who’s never had a mother. His father tries to be both, father and mother.
And he had Siobhan, his full-time nanny for the first eleven years of his life.
She was motherlike, but she never loved him the way a person does when they choose to be your mother.
Loving Braedon and being there for him was Siobhan’s job.
Not her pleasure. But Judd and Deb and Teddy and Sue and Carol, they not only love Braedon, they love loving Braedon.
Like a real mother would. He misses Emily and his other friends in Ireland.
He misses the language and the sea, the League of Ireland Premier Division on the telly.
He misses the culture and pride of the Irish people.
But the abundance of love Braedon feels in Riverwood fills him with more warmth than just-out-of-the-oven soda bread and beef stew.
Even with the trouble he had last night, he can’t imagine living anywhere else.