CHAPTER 10
As a younger man, Roy Calloway had liked telling people he was “tougher than a two-dollar steak.” He could go for days on just a few hours of sleep and hadn’t taken a sick day in thirty-plus years. At sixty-two, it was getting harder to keep those kinds of hours, or to convince himself that he wanted to. He’d been knocked down by the flu twice the last year, the first time for a week, the second for three days. Finlay had served as the acting sheriff, and Calloway’s wife had been quick to point out that the town hadn’t burned to the ground or suffered a crime wave without him.
Calloway hung his coat on the hook behind the door and took a moment to admire the rainbow trout he’d caught on the Yakima River the previous October. The fish was a beauty, twenty-three inches and just under four pounds, with a colorful underbelly. Nora had had it stuffed and hung it on his office wall when Calloway had been out. Lately, she’d been after him hard to retire; the fish was meant to serve as a daily reminder there were more to catch. Subtle his wife was not. Calloway had told her the town still needed him, that Finlay wasn’t ready. What he hadn’t said was that he still needed the town, and the job. A man could only fish and golf so much, and he’d never been much for travelling. He couldn’t stand the thought of becoming one of “those guys” wearing the white, soft-soled orthotics, standing on the deck of a cruise ship pretending to have something in common with everyone besides being one step from the grave.
“Chief?” The voice came through the phone speaker.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Thought I saw you sneak in. Vance Clark’s here to see you.”
Calloway looked up at the clock: 6:37 p.m. He wasn’t the only one working late. He’d been expecting a visit from Cedar Grove’s Prosecuting Attorney, but had thought it would not be until the morning.
“Chief?”
“Send him back.”
Calloway sat at his desk beneath the sign his staff had given him the year he had become Sheriff.
Rule #1: The Chief is always right.
Rule #2: See Rule #1.
He wondered.
Clark’s shadow passed the smoked-glass panes leading to Calloway’s office door. He knocked once and entered with a limp. Years of running had taken their toll on Clark’s knees.
Calloway rocked back in his chair and put his boots up on the corner of his desk. “Knee bothering you?”
“Aches when the weather starts to get cold.” Clark shut the door. He had a hangdog look about him but that was not unusual. A monk’s ring of hair displayed a full brow that seemed perpetually furrowed.
“Maybe it’s time to give up the running,” Calloway said, though he knew Clark wouldn’t stop running for the same reason he wouldn’t stop being Sheriff. What else would he do?
“Maybe.” Clark sat. The fluorescent tubes hummed overhead. One had an annoying tick and occasionally flickered, as if about to go out. “I heard the news.”
“Yeah, it’s Sarah.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We don’t do anything.”
Clark’s brow creased. “And if they find something in the grave that contradicts the evidence?”
Calloway lowered his boots to the floor. “It’s been twenty years, Vance. I’ll convince her that, now that we’ve found Sarah, it’s time to let the dead bury the dead.”
“What if you can’t?”
“I will.”
“You couldn’t before.”
Calloway flicked the head of the Félix Hernández bobblehead doll his grandson had given him for Christmas and watched it bob and twitch. “Well, this time I’ll just have to do a better job of it.”
After a moment of seemingly deep thought, Clark said, “Are you driving down for the autopsy?”
“I sent Finlay. He found the body.”
Clark exhaled and swore under his breath.
“We were all in agreement, Vance. What’s done is done. Sitting here worrying about something that may never happen isn’t going to change anything.”
“Things have already changed, Roy.”