“About that note, Tiffany.” Miranda’s eyes grew weary-looking.
“Then they’ll take a statement from the other boy too, that Breadwin boy, and want to find another home for him most likely.”
“What about the note?” asked Tiffany.
“I was going to tell you, but then the constable showed up. And we did just meet each other.” Miranda picked up a plate and held it with both hands. “Fischer’s dad isn’t at the armory, Tiffany. My husband is—I’m a widow, Tiffany.”
“And then,” droned Bobby, “when he gets to feeling better in the hospital, they’ll take down a statement from that Breadwin boy’s father, though he ain’t fit for fathering in my opinion. So. Oh well.”
Tiffany and Miranda both spun at the sink. Bobby crunched a cookie.
“What did you say, Constable?”
Bobby turned in his chair, had to rock a bit on his haunches to do so.
“Say again, miss?”
“What did you say about the boy’s father?” Miranda’s voice was metered and quiet. She gripped the plate in both hands. Soap suds dropped to the floor.
“It’s nothing out of the ordinary, miss. If his father is found to be unfit, as they say, the state will find the boy another place to live. But they’ll find him a good home. Plenty of good foster families in the county. In fact, I remember—”
“The father, Bobby!” shouted Tiffany.
“Oh, now why are we getting upset?”
Miranda straightened herself to her full height. The fire was back in her eyes. She cut an imposing figure for such a slender woman. “Constable. The man my son shot. Jack Breadwin. Is he dead or isn’t he?”
Bobby rocked in his seat. “Oh my word, no. You were thinking he was dead? He’s a bit shook up, I’m sure, but he lives.”
The constable grew uncomfortable under the women’s glares, rocked his weight in his seat again. He chuckled, and then he stopped, cleared his throat.
“Miss, that man they say your boy shot at was just grazed. Skimmed him right here—zip—over his left ear. Knocked him out cold as potatoes. He lost blood, but he’ll come around.” Bobby brightened. “And when he does come around, the county will take his statement and find that Breadwin boy a nice home.”
“Tiffany,” said Miranda, without removing her eyes from the man eating her father’s cookies.
“Yes.”
“Get your things.”
“We can go now?”
“Immediately.”
THE MARIGAMIE COUNTY HOSPITAL REMINDED TIFFANY OF HER high school. It was a multistory brick building with crumbling mortar. The lawn was mowed neatly enough, but the grass grew poorly under the pine trees, and the foundation hedges were overgrown and blocked some of the windows. She’d been there once for an appendectomy, and when she split a stitch from coughing, the doctor came in with what looked like a staple gun. She entered now with the additional trepidation of Miranda’s unclear plan.
The smell of burnt coffee permeated the entranceway and lobby. A very tidy-looking nurse about twenty years old sat in a chair behind the information desk. She wore scrubs with kittens on them.
“And can you spell the last name for me, please?” she asked. Tiffany looked around. There was no one else there. The sound of the nurse’s typing filled the quiet lobby. A clock on the wall read 4:35 a.m. It had taken them an hour and twenty minutes to drive here, despite the way Miranda pushed her father’s truck down the highway at speeds that made the tires shake and pieces of hay straw roil in the cab.
“It’s Breadwin,” said Miranda, “just like it sounds.”
The nurse mouthed the letters as she typed. “Relation?” she asked.
“I’m his wife,” Miranda said without blinking.
Tiffany closed her eyes as Miranda said the words. Miranda hadn’t said anything about that on the drive. The plan was to visit the front desk, confirm the man was living—to be certain—and then go after the boys. I cannot allow, Miranda said as they first climbed into Teddy’s truck, my son to spend another night in the forest thinking he has killed a man. And when Tiffany asked her why they didn’t just join the search right away—why go to the hospital at all?—Miranda told her that she needed to see for herself. How did the sheriff and my father not know about this? Why was I not told about this? Why is this man not being questioned? She slapped her hand on the steering wheel as she spoke. Thank God my father is out there. Tiffany felt the urge to defend Cal. To be fair, his only link to the world was the radio attached to Bobby’s belt, which wasn’t saying much. So he couldn’t have been informed after the fact. But Miranda had a point. Why hadn’t Cal known beforehand? Surely he felt for a pulse when he found the man lying in the kitchen, talked to the ambulance crew. Tiffany didn’t know what to say, so she frowned at the mile markers speeding past in the darkness.
“Mrs. Breadwin, I can get you started with a bracelet. Your husband is in CC203. I will need identification.”
“I didn’t bring identification. And it’s over an hour’s drive home.” Tiffany watched Miranda swallow between words.
“Mrs. Breadwin.” The young nurse blushed slightly, opened her mouth before she spoke. “I can’t let you visit without identification. However, general visitors are allowed on the second floor beginning at six a.m.”
“Can’t you let us up for a moment? We just need to see him, my daughter and I.”
Tiffany tried to brighten her countenance and smiled at the nurse without breathing. She feared she looked like a crazy person. Perhaps she was.
“Does your daughter have ID?” the nurse asked.
“I don’t drive” was Tiffany’s tight-lipped response.
The nurse looked at her and then at Miranda. Tiffany pretended not to see suspicion in her eyes. Certainly there was a page in the nurses’ manual that said to be suspicious of people without identification, who claim not to drive, who have purple bangs. It was right next to the page about selecting
