CHAPTER 8
After waking up late at Rudy’s following a fitful few hours sleep in my booth, I raced down the empty stretch of pine tree-lined highway between my trailer and the prison. White clouds filled the sky and the air was fresh and cool, especially for May.
A quick shower had helped revive me, but my head throbbed, aching with every beat of my heart. As I drove, I thought about Nicole and the nightmares her death had resurrected. Like an old black and white film in an empty auditorium, they flickered in the theater of my mind.
It was why I didn’t sleep much… why it wasn’t restful when I did, and why I was speeding to work on the empty highway with a hangover and didn’t see the flashing blue lights until they were suddenly reflecting off my rearview mirror.
I pulled my truck to the side of the road and rolled down my window by hand since my old Chevy S10 didn’t have power anything, even when it was new nearly two decades before.
Since my dad was the sheriff of Potter County, and everyone in the small county recognized my truck, I had never been pulled over before. I glanced at my watch. When I looked back up, I caught sight of a young deputy in an ill-fitting green uniform swaggering toward me like John Wayne. The walk alone was enough to let me know it was my younger brother, Jake.
When he reached my window, he flipped open his ticket book and withdrew the small piece of toothpick from the corner of his mouth.
“This ain’t I-75, hot shot,” he said. “You ain’t in Atlanta anymore.”
I shook my head in disbelief. The only thing more absurd than the obviousness of his observation was the fact that it came from Jake, who more than anyone reminded me of just how true it was.
I found his slow, thick drawl more grating than usual, and though the last thing I needed this morning was getting into it with him, I lacked the restraint to resist.
“Thanks for the reminder, Officer,” I said, the sarcasm coming out with an edge that had nothing to do with Jake.
In my mirrors, the official lights on top of his car blinked ominously like silent alarm signals, and the passing drivers slowed to look, shaking their heads or blowing their horns when they recognized us.
Jake and I had never been close, but the enormous gulf between us had grown to infinity because I had moved away and he had not. Before, I had simply not quite fit in. Now, I was an outsider, and in addition to everything else, the gap between us had in many ways become cultural.
“Are you giving me a ticket or what?” I asked in frustration. “I really need to go.”
“What’s the rush?” he asked. “Inmates can’t wait until they’ve had their breakfast to get their religion?”
Sighing heavily and shaking my head, I cranked the truck and put it into gear.
“It’s Dad,” he said.
I killed the engine.
“He radioed and told me to stop you. He said he needs to talk to us. He’s on the way.”
He then swaggered back to his car, where he stayed, his lights still flashing, until Dad arrived a few minutes later.
My first thought was that something had happened to Mom, for it wouldn’t be much longer until someone’s needing to talk to me would involve the news no child wanted to hear. When Dad pulled up without the lights of his Blazer flashing, I could feel a little of the tension leave my body.
As he pulled in behind Jake, I got out of my truck, and we met beside Jake’s car where he leaned against it the way cool cops do, the toothpick back in his mouth.
“Sorry to hold you up, Son,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “What is it?”
Jack Jordan, the longtime sheriff of Potter County, Florida, looked younger than he was, his thick gray hair parted on the side, his dark skin deeply lined, but not wrinkled, and his deer-brown eyes soft and kind. He was fit and trim, especially for a man his age, and strong, but humble, content with a simple life of service, his authority resting gently on him like comfortable clothes.
“Tell me about what happened last night,” he said.
I did.
“Why weren’t we included in the investigation?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t either,” I said. “They sent me home.”
“Do you know how I found out?”
I shook my head.
“At the coffee shop,” he said. “I’m tired of not being included in the cases that involve the prison.”
“It’s as bad as havin’ a fuckin’ military base in our jurisdiction,” Jake said.
Waiting with nothing to say, I shifted my weight, noticing the wet grains of sand that stuck to the sides of my shoes and the dewbeaded grass blades clinging to the tassels on top. All around us, in the midst of seemingly endless rows of pine trees, the forest was waking up. Birds darted between the trees, piercing the last of the sun- filtering fog.
“I’m not saying I have to run the investigations,” Dad said, “but not to ever even be included makes me wonder if maybe something’s being covered up. I don’t know, it’s just disrespectful and…”
“You’re right. It is,” I said. “I should’ve called you, but I was in no condition. I’m sorry.”
The peaceful morning sounds of the rousing woods were interrupted by the crude mechanical noises of a diesel engine as a loaded log truck flew past us. We all turned our heads and closed our eyes as its wind-wake swirled sand and bits of trash around us, stinging our faces and tossing our hair.
“I’m not blaming you,” he said.
“I know,” I said, “but you’re right. You should be included.”
“Hell, yeah, he should,” Jake said. “It’s his county.”
Ignoring Jake, Dad said, “I’ve got a meeting scheduled with your warden, the secretary of the department, and a representative from the governor’s office.”
I nodded, not knowing quite what to say.
“Sorry to hold you up,” he said again, hesitating, and I knew there was something else he wanted to say.
I waited.
He looked down the long stretch of empty highway, then back at me. “In the meantime we’ll be doing a little investigation of our own.”
I nodded.
“And I’d like your help,” he said.
I could tell he found it difficult to ask, and I felt an awkward embarrassment for him.
“You helping with their investigation?” he asked.
“Whether they want me to or not.”
“Will you keep me informed?” he asked. “Let me do my job and be involved?”
How could I say no to the man who had never said no to me?
Nodding vigorously, I was amazed at how, even as a grown man, I still longed to please him and yearned for his approval.
CHAPTER 9
