The sheriff, on the other hand . . . she was not even certain he was human.
As soon as the two patrol cars came to a halt in the parking lot, Molly and Jack were hustled into the station as though there might be reporters lurking around, ready to ask questions. Or, she thought, even some sort of co-conspirators waiting to break them free. She only wished she had some co-conspirators.
In the movies and on television, the police always split up the suspects to question them separately, see if their stories could be shaken. Molly figured Sheriff Tackett didn't watch much TV because he marched them right down the hall on the first floor to the back of the building with the pure anger of his physical presence alone.
Molly was first through the door. The room was about fourteen feet square with bars on the windows and a long wooden table in the middle with five metal chairs around it. The table itself had been defaced over the course of years by pens, pencils, pocket knives and markers - even a few burns from lighters - so that it now looked like the average truck-stop bathroom wall.
"Sit down," the sheriff ordered. The first words he had spoken since getting them into the car.
Jack bristled at the instruction. Molly watched as he turned on the two officers. Vance laid a hand on his nightstick, but there was a frown on his face that said he didn't understand any of this. Molly thought that was good. If he did not understand, maybe he would be willing to listen. Tackett, though, was another story.
When Jack stood up to him, the sheriff only smiled thinly, like he wanted Jack to do something stupid.
"Hey," Molly said, voice soft, cracking from lack of use.
Jack glanced at her, then sighed. "You gonna take these cuffs off ?" he asked the sheriff.
Tackett hesitated a moment, then nodded for Vance to release them. The deputy's keys rattled as he unlocked the handcuffs.
"Have a seat," the sheriff instructed.
The metal chairs scraped on the linoleum floor as they sat down.
The window beyond the metal bars was open and a sweet summer-night breeze blew into the room. Tackett turned and pulled the door shut, closing all four of them in the room together, and the wind died. It became still in the room, and Molly could almost feel, almost smell, the tension. Deputy Vance leaned against a wall, his arms crossed.
Sheriff Tackett was a man past his prime, his gut protruding over his gun belt, his mustache hiding his upper lip in a drape of steel gray, his hair receding. But despite that outward appearance, he fixed them in a piercing gaze as though his eyes might leak acid at any moment.
With a sudden movement that made Molly flinch, Tackett pulled out a metal chair and sat down in it. He slumped a little, but regarded them with cruel indifference. Jack did not flinch. He just waited.
"So, you're tourists?" Tackett asked.
Jack sighed and glanced at Molly. He shrugged slightly, as if to tell her it did not matter what they said.
"Yes," Molly replied. Her eyes ticked toward Deputy Vance, who gazed at her with open curiosity.
Tackett grunted. "Tourists. But you knew Kenny Oberst was dead before anyone else. Except maybe Kenny. You're up in the woods, loaded for bear - "
"Those guns weren't ours," Molly interrupted. "Those others you picked up, I don't know where they came from. But the one I was holding when you came into the clearing? I had just found it on the ground and picked it up."
Deputy Vance stepped away from the wall. He walked across the small room scratching his head, but he did not look at anyone, only at the bars across the window.
"We heard shots. A lot of them. That's what drew us to you," the deputy said. "No one else was in that clearing except you and the dead girl. But let's set her aside for a second. What do you think we'll find when we tow in your vehicle and search through it?"
Jack glared at him, turned his head to stretch his neck muscles. Molly heard a pop from his neck and shivered.
"We get a phone call, right?" Jack asked.
"Right," the sheriff replied. His smile was nasty. "But not just yet."
"I want a lawyer," Molly said quickly.
"Don't we all?" Tackett replied. "You'll get one. But first we're just chatting a little. You two don't mind, right? I mean, you're just tourists. You didn't do anything.
Didn't fire any guns. Didn't murder Ned Meredith and his daughter."
Jack crossed his arms and glared at the sheriff. It was a contest. Neither of them was going to give an inch. Molly turned to look at Deputy Vance again, and she could sense him sizing her up. He was not as dim as she had thought. In fact, she was beginning to think he was a lot smarter than anyone would guess, and a lot better at his job. That might be their one hope.
"We didn't kill anyone," Jack said, voice cold and emotionless. "We went up there to save that girl's life. Risked our own lives."
"And you did this unarmed?" the sheriff asked quickly.
Jack frowned, about to argue the point, but then he realized what the sheriff had done; he had almost gotten Jack to admit the guns were theirs. That was a charge that would stick, no matter what else happened. Jack gave the sheriff back an eerie mirror image of his creepy smile.
There's something so shuddery about the sheriff, Molly thought. As though, at any moment, he might lose it completely.
"He was a friend of yours, this Ned?" Molly asked.
Tackett's face reddened. He stared at her as though he would hurt her. "Yes. You could say that."
Vance sat on the edge
