Chapter 10 #2
“And can we dispense with the formalities?” As she slipped in between the thin opening, she flashed him a smile. “Call me Hadley.”
Nick muttered a curse under his breath as she released her hold on the board.
He stood there for a few seconds debating with himself on whether he was actually going to place her in cuffs.
The three-ring circus such an arrest would create wasn’t worth it, which meant that he needed to get her out of there before Gleason caught them inside his barn.
“Damn it,” Nick muttered as he shifted the board and then maneuvered sideways through the small space.
His broad chest made his own entry significantly more difficult, and he muttered another string of expletives as his shirt caught on a protruding nail.
The fabric tore with an audible rip. “Son of a—”
“Careful,” Hadley called out. He wasn’t sure if that was humor in her voice until she continued with her warning. “You don’t want to cut yourself and, God forbid, leave any DNA behind.”
Nick managed to bite off his response as he finally stepped through the thin opening.
He gave his eyes time to adjust to the dim lighting seeping through the holes in the ceiling.
The afternoon sun cast slanted beams that highlighted Edgar Gleason's moonshine operation like it was center stage at a concert.
The setup was more elaborate than Nick recalled—copper pots connected by coiled condensers, rows of mason jars in various stages of filling, and wooden crates repurposed as workspaces.
The sharp smell of fermenting corn mash permeated the air, too, mingling with the earthier scents of aged wood and dust. Langley had convinced Nick to let him give a warning to Gleason regarding his little side business.
Nick was now wondering if Langley had made an investment instead.
"I believe the term you were looking for earlier is 'probable cause’, and we don’t have it," Nick reminded her as he slowly scanned the rest of the setup. He should arrest her on the spot for putting him in this situation. “Every police chief and sheriff over the years has turned a blind eye to Gleason’s operation.”
“The man is also in his seventies and hasn't hurt anyone. His moonshine is practically medicinal for some of the older folks around here,” Hadley explained as she moved deeper into the barn.
He turned his attention to her when she seemed focused not on the moonshine operation itself, but on the structure of the barn around it.
“Did you know that Old Man Gleason served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1971? Inherited this property from his father in 1972. He started the moonshine operation in 1976 after milk prices dropped, making dairy farming less profitable. Never married, either, though local gossip suggests a romantic tragedy in his youth.”
“And yet, he has somehow maintained this operation for over forty years without a single arrest or citation,” Nick replied wryly as he observed her more closely.
She had pulled out her phone and activated its flashlight as if she hadn’t put him in a compromising position. “What are you searching for, Hadley?”
If she wanted to be on a first-name basis, that was fine with him. It still wouldn’t stop him from slapping the cuffs on her wrists if she so much as touched one item in this barn that could taint the investigation.
Nick had taken Edgar Gleason’s statement himself back then. The man claimed to have no knowledge of any jars of moonshine being stolen from his property. Given that there was no proof to the contrary, there hadn’t been a way to prove differently.
“This.” Hadley directed the phone’s light toward the thick wooden support beam near the center of the barn. “This is what I'm really interested in.”
Nick approached her cautiously, sidestepping some equipment scattered across the dirt floor.
The beam Hadley illuminated was scored with dozens of initials carved into the aged wood.
Some were shallow and recent, and others had been weathered by decades past. She traced her finger along one set that appeared to spell R.M.
“Richie McCarthy,” Hadley stated before moving her light to reveal some of the other carvings. “It's a senior tradition to carve your initials after stealing your first jar of Gleason's moonshine. I just wanted to verify Richie's story before I question him about the night Missy disappeared.”
The dates beneath some carvings went back thirty years or more. The timeline marked a very long rebellion against small-town constraints of Whistlerun's youth. He figured out quickly how she had known about such tradition.
He chided himself for not noticing the markings when he was out here last year.
“And where are your initials?”
“Other side.” Hadley slowly walked around the beam and knelt, holding her phone steady.
Nick had followed, but he remained standing while staring down at her initials.
It was then he noticed another familiar set, which would explain Langley’s softness toward the old man.
“Senior year. A bunch of us snuck in here, each taking a jar.
And before you ask, the answer is yes. Edgar knows, and he purposefully leaves that board in the back loose.
It's his way of maintaining his reputation as the cantankerous old moonshiner, but he really just enjoys giving the kids some memories to share with their children someday.”
Nick found himself reevaluating both Hadley and Langley. She made Gleason out to be a sentimental old man. And Hadley, despite her years away, still understood the unwritten rules of Whistlerun.
"So you broke into Gleason’s barn to confirm that Richie McCarthy followed a senior tradition?" Nick asked, struggling to connect her actions to Missy's disappearance. “All the kids agreed that they stole the moonshine.”
“Not all. Only three out of the five, but I wanted to confirm that Missy was part of that group,” Hadley said as she stood to her full height. She was still a good five or six inches shorter than him. “Teens stick together. Like I said, I wanted to verify their story before speaking with them.”
Hadley finally shut off the light on her phone.
She tucked the device into the pocket on her blazer, but he remained in place to study some of the other markings.
He recalled some of the names from previous missing persons cases long before he was sheriff, and every single one of their initials was carved into the wood.
“Again, this has nothing to do with pinning accusations on either Martin Cox or Old Man Gleason,” Hadley prefaced once she had his full attention. “It’s about finding the pattern.”
There wasn’t a complete picture yet, but Hadley had connected the victims. Granted, such links probably weren’t hard to find in a place like Whistlerun, but they were there all the same.
Whoever Hadley Dawkins was hunting, she had approached the search with a methodical thoroughness that both impressed and unsettled him.
And whatever her personal motives might be, her professional focus seemed genuine.
Before Nick could ask if she had a suspect in mind, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He retrieved it, grimacing at the display before glancing apologetically at Hadley.
Karen's name glowed on the screen. His ex-wife's timing was as impeccable as ever. He’d sent her to voicemail earlier this morning, which meant ignoring this call would only result in an increasingly terse voicemail and another argument about co-parenting responsibilities.
“I need to take this,” Nick said, already stepping away toward the back of the barn. “I won’t be long.”
Hadley nodded, her attention drawn to the beam. She retrieved her phone and began to take pictures, which caused him to bite back a directive for her to stop. She was going a little far with this leniency thing.
With his frustration mounting, Nick pressed the phone to his ear.
“Karen,” Nick greeted, working hard to keep his tone neutral. “I'm in the middle of something. Can I call you back later?”
“No. I’ve tried calling you this morning to tell you that Emma’s dance instructor just informed me that the costume fee for the fall recital is due tomorrow,” Karen replied without preamble, her voice carrying the clipped efficiency that had once attracted him but now set his teeth on edge.
“It's two hundred dollars, and I've already covered the last two extracurricular expenses.”
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose, aware of Hadley's presence even though she remained at a respectful distance.
“Two hundred dollars for a costume she'll wear once?”
“It's not negotiable, Nick. The studio orders them custom-made.” Karen's irritation traveled clearly through the line. “I need you to Venmo me the money tonight.”
Every battle with Karen drained energy he needed elsewhere, and fighting over money in Hadley's earshot wasn't how he wanted to present himself professionally.
“Fine. I'll send it when I get home tonight,” Nick conceded, checking his watch. He hadn’t planned to be at the Gleason property for so long, and he was already late for a meeting with one of the county prosecutors. “You can—”
“Are you still taking Emma for Halloween? It falls on a Friday, which is technically your weekend, but I know how busy that time can be. I’ve also seen the media coverage about that young girl who went missing last year, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with Emma being there.”
The question carried subtle landmines. If he said yes, Karen would expect constant updates on Emma’s well-being. If he said no, he'd be portrayed as the father who chose work over spending time with his daughter.