the sheriff to think that Jeffrey wanted to be able to reach into the coat if he needed to.
Jeffrey closed the car door. The lane was covered in fall leaves, the trees bending over to block out the light. It would've been gorgeous if Jeffrey hadn't had the powerful suspicion that he'd been brought out here for some kind of ambush.
'This way.' Valentine started strolling down the lane, slow enough for Jeffrey to catch up.
Jeffrey said, 'I didn't plan on going for a walk.'
'Pretty day for it, though. Might want to zip up your jacket.'
'I'm fine,' Jeffrey assured him.
Valentine reached up and tugged a bright orange leaf from an overhanging branch. He twirled it in his fingers as he talked. 'Good country folk live out here. Real simple people. Most of them, they just wanna go to work, come home to the wife and kids, maybe have enough money left over at the end of the week to get a couple of beers and watch the football game on TV.'
Jeffrey kept his hands at his sides. There was a way you walked when you were carrying a gun, like you had brass ones swinging to your knees. ' Grant County 's not that much different.'
'Guess not.' Valentine let Jeffrey get a foot or so ahead of him. The move was subtle, but Jeffrey knew the other man was looking for the telltale bulge of a gun at his back.
Valentine said, 'Most small towns are alike, I think. Politics and all that crap blurs things, but we all have the same goals whether we're in south Georgia or south France or Timbuktu. We want to feel safe. We want our kids to go to good schools and have the opportunities we didn't. We want to live our lives and feel like we've got some control over our destinies.'
He was sounding like a different person now, the aw-shucks gestures and good-ol'-boy slang all but gone.
'What's this leading up to, Jake?'
He gave Jeffrey a lazy smile. 'This way.' He pointed to a small trail that cut through the woods.
'What's down there?'
'See for yourself.'
This time, Valentine took the lead and Jeffrey followed, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling as they went deeper into the forest. The trail didn't appear to be well-used. The ground sloped downward and Jeffrey slowed his pace, putting some distance between himself and the sheriff. Valentine didn't seem to notice. He kept walking, still twirling the leaf. It wasn't until he reached a small clearing that he stopped, waiting for Jeffrey.
'Lookit this,' Valentine said. He pointed to a sloped rock with a hole in it. A long section of white PVC pipe was propped up against the hole. A trickle of water fed into the pipe.
'It's a natural spring,' Jeffrey said, more than a little surprised. He knelt down to check it out before he could think about what he was doing. He looked up at the sheriff, waited for the man to make his move.
'Here.' Valentine offered his hand, helped Jeffrey stand. 'The pipe goes down the hill here.' He started walking, following the pipe's path. The woods started to clear and the trees thinned out as they made their way down the slope toward what looked like an abandoned shack. Jeffrey guessed they walked about fifty yards before they reached a huge plastic holding tank of springwater. Jeffrey could hear the water dripping into the tank, saw the larger plastic pipe feeding into a shack sitting in the middle of a clearing.
'Plumbing,' Valentine told Jeffrey. 'Springwater goes into the hookup at the house. Cold as a witch's tit if you wanna take a shower, but pretty damn smart, don't you think?'
'Yeah,' Jeffrey agreed. He could see a beat-up Ford parked in front of the shack. A long wire ran from the roof to an electric pole. Except for the small satellite dish angled off the roof, he could be looking at a home circa the Great Depression.
Valentine said, 'Just got electricity out here a few years ago. Liked to took forever for the county to do it. Grover had to do most of the work himself.'
'This is where Boyd Gibson's father lives?'
'Course it is. Where'd you think I was taking you?' Valentine took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He was sweating as bad as Jeffrey, and it suddenly occurred to him that Jake Valentine had been just as wary during their tense walk through the woods as Jeffrey had been.
Valentine pointed to a dilapidated wooden picnic table tucked back into the woods. It'd obviously been there for a while; kudzu had taken over. Valentine told Jeffrey, 'Me and Boyd used to sit up there and smoke weed when we was kids. Skipped school all the time, always in trouble. Now, it was his brother, Larry, who was the jock. Me and Boyd were the stoners.' He was quiet for a moment, seemed to be reflecting as he stared at the picnic table. 'Boyd's old man hated my guts. Mind you, I wasn't crazy about him, either. He beat his wife to an early grave and then he started hauling off on his sons. Beat me once, too – blamed me for getting Boyd hooked and I think maybe he's right.' He rubbed his jaw as if in memory of a punch. 'Maybe I'm just fooling myself because I sure as hell drink too much, but with drugs I think that some folks can take it or leave it. I tried a little bit of everything: coke, speed, dope. It was nice, but then I met Myra and she didn't stand for that kind of thing so I just left it behind. Boyd couldn't do that. He got into meth real heavy, started shooting up, which was something I was always too chicken to do – needles scare the crap out of me. Once Boyd started putting that shit in his veins, he never looked back. You and Sara got kids?'
Jeffrey was taken aback by the sudden question. 'We're trying.'
' Myra says she won't bring a baby into this world without knowing he's gonna have a daddy.'
Jeffrey and Sara had talked about the same thing many times. 'It's dangerous work being a cop, but you can't put your life on hold because of it.'
Valentine nodded, looking back at the picnic table. Jeffrey could see the beginnings of a bald spot on the crown of the man's head. That would explain why he wore a hat all the time. Jeffrey's father had been an asshole of the highest degree, but Jeffrey took comfort in the fact that his old man had died with a full head of hair.
Valentine said, ' Myra and me, we knew each other in high school – well, the kind of way you know who the bad folks are and who the good folks are. Her family moved to town my sophomore year. Big city girl.' He laughed at a private joke. ' Myra was the good one, in case you need to be told. Real religious, loves the Lord. She was pretty surprised when I showed up at the same college as her, thought I was just some dumb pothead who'd end up slinging tires at the factory. I had to work my ass off to convince her I wasn't just some fool chasing a piece of tail.' He chuckled again. 'That was ten years ago, and she hasn't changed a bit. God, but she's pretty. Smart as a whip and don't mind putting me in my place, which I probably need more often than not. Now, I can't even imagine what my life was like without her. Miserable, I guess. Maybe I'd be in jail instead of running the place. Could've just as easily been me as Boyd thrown through your window last night.'
Jeffrey crossed his arms, wondering if what he was hearing was the truth or some carefully planned story to get his defenses down. Valentine hadn't exactly been forthcoming over the last few days, and now he was laying down his life story like he was testifying at a tent revival.
Valentine leaned back on his heel, put his hat on his head. 'You wanted to know who's been setting fires, who chased off Hank and got his place closed down?' He glanced back at the small house as if to make sure no one was listening. 'Answer to both questions is Boyd Gibson. He was working the bar, slinging Bud Light with meth chasers, when the ATF came in. As far as who stabbed him, I've got me some ideas, but I'm gonna have to trust you a hell of a lot more before I tell you that.'
'Did he torch the Escalade?'
'Wouldn't be surprised.'
'Why did my detective run?'
'I gather she's as hardheaded and arrogant as her boss. I arrested her
