“Like I told you the last time we spoke, Sheriff, she ran off. We had a disagreement, she said she didn’t love me or the boy anymore, and in the morning she was gone. There’s nothing else to tell.”
Lance crept down the hall and peeked one eye around the corner of the kitchen to peer into the entryway. His father’s thin form blocked part of the doorway as pale gray light streamed in around him. A man stood on their front stoop, dressed in a faded leather jacket with fur surrounding the collar that once might have been white but was now closer to dull beige. The man’s black baseball cap was pulled down tight over a rounded face, but Lance could still make out a set of shining eyes beneath the brim along with thick lips that were now pressed together, draining them of any color. The sheriff’s right hand was pushed deeply into the pocket of his leather jacket, but the other rested on the butt of an automatic pistol that hung from his duty belt. He was looking at Lance’s father like a person studying a snake that they had almost stepped on, considering its fate.
“I find that very hard to believe, Tony,” the sheriff said with a voice that sounded like rocks sliding down a rusty chute. Lance’s father stood still within the doorway. Both men stared at each other for a moment that stretched, and stretched, until Lance almost felt it snap when the sheriff’s eyes shifted over to his own. Lance froze as the sheriff stared at him and then raised his chin in his direction.
“Lance, isn’t it?”
Lance’s father turned and threw a glance down the hallway that would have killed. Without thinking, Lance stepped free of his hiding place and stood where both men could see him and nodded.
“Come here a moment, will you, son?” the sheriff said, as he motioned vaguely with the hand that wasn’t on the butt of the gun. Lance hesitated as his eyes met the blazing circles within his father’s skull, but he willed his feet to move one after the other across the linoleum of the kitchen until he was even with the doorway. He broke the fiery gaze with his father and turned it instead to the sheriff, who stood in the cold air of the October morning.
“Put your shoes on and step outside with me a minute, will you, son?” The sheriff’s voice was now softer and calm.
“Sheriff, I don’t want him outside. He’s been sick with mono and I don’t want him getting worse again.”
The sheriff’s eyes flitted back to Anthony’s and he squinted, as if the other man had become hard to see.
“I’m gonna have a talk with the young man, if he doesn’t object. Do you mind talking with me, son?” The sheriff’s eyes never left Anthony’s, but nonetheless, he stepped back to let Lance pass as the young boy slipped on his shoes and stepped outside.
Lance shivered in the crisp pre-Halloween air, but moved away from the warmth of the house in spite of his shaking flesh. The sheriff looked at Lance’s father for just a moment longer, and then turned from the doorway and followed Lance down the few steps onto the hard-packed drive.
When the older man knelt before him, Lance realized that the sheriff’s eyes were a soft shade of brown, which clashed with the rough features that adorned the rest of his face. Lance looked back into the sheriff’s eyes and waited. The older man studied him, pinning Lance to the spot under his scrutiny. At last, when Lance thought that all the sheriff was going to do was stare at him to glean information from his mind, he spoke in a low voice.
“Lance, do you know who I am?”
Lance nodded but didn’t break eye contact with the sheriff.
“So, you know that you’re safe telling me whatever you want, right?”
Uncertainty rose within Lance. Words longed to spill free of his mouth. Words that his father would kill him for. Words that were crawling up his vocal cords; they sat at the front of his mouth, dangling from his tongue like a troupe of obscene monkeys. Lance swallowed and nodded.