Chapter 18
Hadley Dawkins
The hospital parking lot ran half empty under the tall sodium lamps. The pools of light didn’t quite reach one another, so the lot came in patches. Bright, then dark, then bright again. Hadley pulled her Equinox into a slot near the middle and cut the engine.
Past the last row of cars, the ground fell away to a field.
Beyond the edge, the dark was complete, the kind that only came where the county gave way to open ground.
A wind moved through it, carrying the dry rasp of the corn across the asphalt.
Even here, in a hospital parking lot in Emberwood, the fields found a way to make themselves known.
The evening had gotten away from her by degrees.
She’d meant to drive straight from Holloway to Emberwood and catch Nora before her shift let out, but a call had come in halfway there.
Warren, half a register short of frantic, reporting that some of the folding tables for the church garage sale had gone missing off the First Baptist lot.
To hear him tell it, a daylight robbery had rolled through the heart of Whistlerun.
It had taken Hadley the better part of twenty minutes to work out that the tables were down by the creek, propped on cinder blocks and pressed into service as skateboard ramps by Tucker and Cody Wheeler.
She’d called the boys’ parents, who’d hauled the pair to the church by their collars to apologize to Warren and the volunteers in person.
The entire situation had eaten the last of the daylight.
She should have put off Nora until morning.
Hadley had nearly talked herself into it, too.
But the day’s charge still hadn’t burned off.
The leftover current of standing in that lobby and witnessing Roland Mercer’s body meet the tile left the sound of it running through her mind on a loop she couldn’t stop.
Sleep wasn’t going to come easy either way.
And Nora worked twelve-hour shifts that ended at nine, which made tonight the kind of chance that wouldn’t come around again for days.
It hadn’t helped that Hadley had come upon a fender bender at the edge of Emberwood, one car nosed into another at a four-way stop.
No one had been hurt, but both drivers were a good deal louder than the damage warranted.
She’d radioed it to one of Nick’s deputies and waited until he rolled up to take it off her hands.
By the clock on the dash, there was a very good chance Nora had already ended her shift and gone home.
Hadley got out from behind the wheel anyway and started for the entrance.
She’d check inside before she drove over to Nora’s apartment.
Hadley wasn’t halfway down the walk when the automatic doors slid open, and Nora came through them, adjusting the strap of her tote with one hand, a travel mug in the other.
Her auburn hair had been scraped back off her face, and she was still in her scrubs, the pale green washed grayish under the lot lights.
She caught sight of Hadley and frowned.
Then the frown gave way to something worse.
Hope.
“You found something.” Nora didn’t break stride until they’d reached one another. “Did you make an arrest?”
“Not yet.” Hadley tipped her head toward a bench set against the low brick wall by the doors, half in the light and half out of it. “Will you sit with me a minute?”
Nora walked to the bench without a word and lowered herself onto it, settling the tote beside her. She never once moved her gaze off Hadley. Out past the cars, the corn went on whispering, and a moth batted itself against the lamp overhead, throwing a small flickering shadow across the two of them.
“I’m not sure you heard, but Roland Mercer died today.” Hadley unfastened her blazer as she made herself comfortable. “His death is being ruled a homicide.”
“I heard about what happened at the college. It’s just horrible.
” Nora kept her hold on the travel mug, no tension in it, no tightening of her grip around the base.
“My mother left me a voice message. Roland’s related to my cousin through marriage, but Mom’s never been close with her side of the family.
There was a falling out years back, before I was even born, something over my grandfather’s land and who got what when he passed.
I get the Christmas card, and that’s about the size of it. ”
“But you were at the wedding.” Hadley pushed a little harder, having already put Nora at the reception through a few minutes on social media. “Your cousin’s wedding. To Roland’s sister.”
“I was, though it was more for show than anything. Mom and I sat in a back pew, went to the reception, and left not long after the cake.” Nora’s voice began to get an edge to it, and it was obvious she was attempting to connect the dots.
“I spoke maybe three words to Roland, and only because we ended up next to each other in the buffet line. He was odd, Hadley. Not unkind, just off. I couldn’t tell you a single real thing about him. ”
Nora shook her head slowly, as if she’d finally reached a conclusion.
“Why are you asking me about Roland Mercer, Hadley? What does he have to do with Reed?”
Hadley had held everything back when they’d spoken earlier in the week. This time, she decided to give a little. Maybe some of the pieces would knock a memory or two loose.
“A week before Reed was killed, he wrote Roland Mercer a citation for trespassing on a piece of property in Whistlerun. Then he buried it. Never filed it. I found it in his desk earlier this week with a note on the folder, saying he wanted to talk to me about it.”
“Reed never mentioned it to me.” Nora’s eyes narrowed as she worked at a connection she couldn’t quite find. “Are you saying whoever killed Reed…killed Roland?”
Hadley didn’t have an answer, which was the reason she pushed on with the interview.
She asked whether Reed had ever brought up the Mercer family, whether Nora had heard any talk of Roland’s research, whether anything or anyone about that wedding or that side of the family had ever circled back around.
Nora answered each one plainly, and it all added up to nothing, right up until the questions pressed a little too close.
“I’m sorry.” Nora’s voice broke, and she turned the back of her hand against her eyes. “I just miss him so much, Hadley. It’s been almost a year, and the ache in my chest never loosens. Some days I can’t get a full breath. Like there’s a hand pressing down on my sternum and it won’t ease up.”
Hadley wasn’t sure she was the right person for Nora to share such emotions.
There was a lot of tangled history that should have kept her hands in her lap.
Instead, her palm found its way to a slow circle across Nora’s back.
After a moment, she drew a breath that shuddered going in and came out a little steadier.
“God. I’m sorry.” Nora let out a small, wet laugh and tucked a loose strand behind her ear. “I’ve had a rotten day from the jump, and you did not sign up to watch me fall apart on a bench.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me.” Hadley drew her arm back and stood. Nora didn’t need pity piled on top of everything else, and it was plain enough she had nothing more to give on Roland Mercer. “I’ll keep you posted. Anything I can tell you, I will.”
Nora rose as well, settling the tote back on her shoulder.
“I think I’ll call my cousin. Whatever’s between our families, he’d talk to me about Roland’s research if I asked.” Nora frowned as she turned toward the parking lot. “You said he was obsessed with the Threshing Man?”
“He was. I’m working the case alongside the sheriff.
” Hadley fell into step with her. “Once everything’s processed, I’ll have access to all of it.
The maps, the boxes, the research. I’ll go through every page to see if any of it leads back to Reed or Whistlerun.
Chances are there’s nothing to find. I might be chasing thin air, so please don’t set your hopes on it. ”
Nora stayed quiet until they reached the curb. She stopped under a buzzing lamp, the dark fields breathing off to the west, and then, without warning, she stepped in and put her arms around Hadley. It caught her off guard. She brought one arm up and returned the embrace, a little awkwardly.
“It’s okay if it leads nowhere.” Nora had spoken against her shoulder. She then drew back, mindful of the mug in her hand. “Don’t you see? It means you haven’t given up on him. That’s more than anyone else has given me in eleven months.”
Nora managed something close to a smile and walked off toward the well-lit end of the lot.
Hadley stayed near the curb. The wind had picked up, and the corn rasped low and steady beyond the field’s edge, a hundred dry voices moving at once.
She stood, listened to them for a moment, and wondered if they’d been trying to tell this county something important for a very long time.