CHAPTER TWENTY
It was just over a week later that Keith first realized he was being watched.
The car was parked up the street from his house, a silver Ford Fusion with tinted windows. He could just make out the silhouette of a broad-shouldered man in shades behind the steering wheel. Keith checked out the kitchen window five or six times before he was sure. The car and its driver were there for hours, watching his front door.
Either this is amateur hour, Keith thought, or Lamb wants me to see him and be intimidated.
He’d expected something like this since the lawsuit was announced. Lamb and his deputies would be watching his every move now. They’d drop in on the witnesses they’d intimidated to begin with. No doubt someone would be keeping an eye on Eli too.
It was a clumsy, desperate move, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. Lamb would lash out any way he could.
Keith’s knee twinged as he stepped out onto his front porch and locked the door behind him. He couldn’t remember the accident, but he still felt its effect in his bones and joints, and in the lingering aches and pains throughout his body. He avoided glancing left or right as he made his way down the steps and straight to his car.
As he’d expected, the Fusion tailed him ineptly. He watched it in his rearview, a few cars behind him. It would have been easy to lose him, but Keith had nothing to hide. Not today, anyway; he was just going to the office. He amused himself by slowing down and speeding up, forcing the driver to pace himself accordingly.
At the office, the puppy—which Veronica had started calling “Pony” as a joke that ended up sticking—scampered toward Keith, wagging and capering around his shins. He knelt down and scooped her up in his arms, and she licked his chin. Then he looked up and realized Veronica was there in front of him, looking almost as eager as the puppy.
“You’re not going believe this,” she said.
Behind her, at reception, Mac gave a smug smile. Keith looked back and forth between them.
“Hmm. The atmosphere’s a half shade less doleful than usual. What’s with this relatively unfettered joy?”
Veronica grabbed his sleeve and dragged him toward Mac’s desk. “Just wait. Mac, you have it up?”
“I sure do.”
Mac had the Neptune Register’s website opened on her largest monitor. Keith stood behind her chair to watch as she clicked on a link. Then his jaw dropped.
“Sheriff’s Race Heats Up as New Candidate Enters the Stage?” he read out loud.
Veronica clapped her hands a few times, schoolgirl style, but he barely noticed. He’d just seen the subtitle beneath the headline.
Retired Army Brigadier General Marcia Langdon announced her campaign this morning, stating that the time has come for change in Neptune.
Marcia Langdon. It couldn’t possibly be the same Marcia Langdon.
But the accompanying photo was unmistakable. She was thirty-plus years older, in military uniform, but he recognized her raptor nose, her heavy jaw. More than anything he recognized her eyes—sharp and hard as a flint spearhead.
Citing departmental corruption and system-wide incompetence, Marcia Langdon announced Thursday afternoon that she would run against incumbent Dan Lamb in the sheriff’s race this November. Langdon, who retired from active service in 2013, moved back to her hometown of Neptune last year after ending a thirty-year career in the US Army.
He skimmed ahead. She’d been awarded the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, and the Bronze Star Medal. She’d climbed the ranks in CID, holding command for the last seven years of her military tenure.
The article included a quote from Langdon herself near the bottom of the page. “I grew up here. This is my home. And as much as I was looking forward to retirement, I can’t in good conscience stand by and watch the Sheriff’s Department run roughshod over the basic tenets of justice.”
“Did you notice how she used the words ‘conscience’ and ‘Sheriff’s Department’ in the same sentence?” Veronica looked up, eyes dancing.
Keith smiled slightly. “Yes. Yes I did.”
Veronica stared at him incredulously. “I thought you’d be thrilled, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A ghost? Maybe. He could still see Bobby “Tauntaun” Langdon, his face paper white as Deputy O’Hare shoved him in the backseat of the cruiser. Could still picture Langdon’s mother, a messy, weak-chinned woman in a denim housecoat, crying on the street as they drove away. And Marcia. Seventeen years old, her slacks pressed with precise creases and her face an impenetrable mask, watching from the porch.
“No, it’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just…I haven’t seen her in a long time. It’s just kind of surprising.”
“You know her?” Veronica suddenly looked interested. He smiled a little.
“I used to. Like I said, it’s been a long time. And she’s been busy.”
“What was she like?”
He looked at the picture again, not sure how to answer. After a long moment, he said, “Honest. And…determined. Very determined.”
They were the kindest words he could think to use. Veronica seemed not to notice his hesitation.
“I’ll take it,” she said.
Mac leaned back in her chair and looked up at them. “Think she’s got a chance? It’s so late in the game, and Lamb’s been fund-raising for months now.”
“I don’t know, but they mention the lawsuit,” Veronica said. “Quote: ‘The department has been rocked by a series of scandals in the past year. A pending lawsuit, Navarro vs. Balboa County, alleges that deputies planted evidence on thirty-year-old Eli Navarro during an armed robbery investigation. Mr. Navarro was acquitted of all criminal charges, but in October his lawyers will try to prove that the county unconstitutionally targeted him and falsified their findings to gain a conviction.’?”
“?‘Sheriff Dan Lamb could not be reached for comment at press time.’?” Mac read.
Veronica smirked. “God, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the Sheriff’s Department right now.”
“Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re not,” Keith said. He frowned. “Stay clear of Lamb for the next few months, all right? Between the trial and the election, he’s going to be on the warpath.”
Pony wriggled against his chest, and he knelt down to put her on the ground, ignoring the achy pull in his back. Marcia Langdon for sheriff. It made a sick kind of sense. No, that’s not fair, he thought. You don’t know what really happened. You don’t really know what went down in the Langdon house that afternoon in 1982, in the hours before we busted down their door. You just know the rumors. He suddenly realized he was one of the last people around who’d even remember that much. Most of the other kids from the block had moved away, died, or burned out.
Thirty-three years was a long time; a lot could have changed. But looking at the photo, he couldn’t help but see the shadow of the teenage girl who’d turned in her own brother.