“Boss.”
Hix looked up from his computer with the picture of the sketch the artist had drawn of a man who looked like a lot of men but with a goodly number of lines on his face and long hair.
It wasn’t much. Then again a convenience store clerk in a large-ish town saw his fair share of people, so it was better than nothing.
Which meant it was something.
And now Hal was at his door.
“Yeah?”
“Gemini Jones here to see you.”
Goddamn it.
Greta.
“He says he might have something on the Calloway case,” Hal continued.
Surprised, Hix looked to the windows, saw Jones standing by Hal’s desk, then he looked back to Hal.
“Would you bring him back?”
“Sure thing,” Hal said, disappeared from his door and Hix closed the email on his computer, minimized everything he had opened, got up and had just flipped the whiteboard when Hal brought Gemini in.
“Thanks, Hal,” he said and went to Gemini, hand out. “Gemini.”
“Hix, or do I call you Sheriff now?” he asked on an upturn of his lips and a firm shake of Hix’s hand.
“Hix is good.”
The man was in trousers and a dress shirt, no tie, but looking dapper, which was his way even out of the Dew Drop and in rural Nebraska.
They let go but Hix kept his hand up and motioned to the chairs. “Have a seat.”
Gemini moved to a chair. Hix moved behind his desk.
He sat, Gemini was already folded in.
“You want some coffee?” Hix offered. “Or you wanna just share why you’re here?”
“I know we’re both busy so let’s just get to it, yes?”
Hix nodded.
Gemini got to it.
“I know a young woman who had cause to drive through Grant County Monday evening on the way to see her momma in McCook.”
Hix felt his neck grow tight.
Gemini kept talking.
“Now, you see, her momma read the Guide’s website when word started getting out and mentioned what she read around her daughter. Her daughter then mentioned something to her momma. And they immediately realized their moral dilemma.”
“Gemini, please just give it to me straight,” Hix requested, speaking evenly and trying to hold on to his patience.
“All right, Hix, you see, the dilemma is, this girl, she’s out on parole and that parole is contingent on a variety of things, including her not leaving her local area, which happens to be in Kansas. So if she comes forward sharing what she saw, she might do damage to all that good behavior she showed. And since she’s trying to find her way to a righteous path that would be a shame.”
“If she witnessed Nathan Calloway having his life ended in a violent way and she’s sitting on that—” Hix started.
Gemini shook his head. “No. But she did see a man in a white truck pull over for a man who was walking along 56. She says that man didn’t look all that good, drifter, vagabond. She’d had that truck trailing her for several miles after it had pulled out from a ranch behind her. The man on the road saw the oncoming cars, lifted his arm to flag them down, she drove by. She saw in her rearview the truck slowed and stopped.”
Christ.
They had a witness.
“She needs to make a statement and she needs to look at a sketch.”
“Hix—”
“I’ll personally talk to her parole officer if you can assure me she’s here only to see her mother.”
“Her momma’s got diabetes, had a spell. She’s okay now but it’s been a while since they’ve seen each other and she felt it worth the risk to make a visit. So yes, Hix, I can assure you she’s here to see her mother.” He lifted both hands and dropped them. “She’s a good kid. She makes stupid decisions and spends time with people who aren’t worthy of it. But she’s trying to get smart about that and she’s had a helluva lesson to teach her that’s the way to go. She does right, comes forward, it bites her in the ass, this could be a catalyst for very bad things.”
“I’ll print out the sketch we have. Give it to you. If it looks like who she saw flagged Calloway down, please just confirm that to me. But if she’s willing to come in and make a statement, I’ll do everything in my power to see she doesn’t get hooked back into the system. I’ll even drive down there and talk to her parole officer myself. And if she can improve on this sketch, I’ll buy her mother flowers.”
Gemini smiled. “I’ll take the sketch.”
Hix turned to his computer and set it to printing.
As it did that, he looked back to Gemini. “She said Calloway pulled over, was it, in her estimation, a Good Samaritan-type of thing?”
Gemini nodded.
“This man on the road, was he alone?” Hix pressed.
Gemini nodded again. “Alone. Tall. Brawny. Dirty clothes. Haggard. Sunburned. Leathery. Carrying a canvas duffle on his back. She says she wouldn’t have pulled over, but she also says, at the time she passed them, she thought God was good, making men like the man in that truck who had the kindness to do it.”
At his words, Hix couldn’t stop himself from lifting his arms, putting his elbows to the edge of his desk, linking his fingers and resting his forehead to them, such was the weight of that statement not coming true.
“I know,” Gemini said quietly. “Tests your faith, shit like this. Putting that young man there. Putting my girl in a bad position. How an act of kindness that leads to an act of what might be desperation or even insanity could tear like a tidal wave through so many lives.”
Hix lifted his forehead, put his chin to his hands and gave him an understatement.
“Yeah.” He sat back and rested his arms to the arms of his chair. “She give you more?”
Gemini shook his head but said, “Just what he was wearing. Jeans, beat-up canvas jacket, even though it was hot outside, long, brown hair.”
And they had their suspect.
They just had to find the fucker.
He turned to the printer on the credenza behind him, nabbed the sketch and got up, walking it around the desk to where Gemini had also left his seat and was standing.
He handed him the sketch. “I hope she does the right thing and I’ll again give you my promise I’ll do right by her if she does.”
“Charity’s a good kid, she’ll do right,” Gemini replied, dropping a name and doing it on purpose.
She’d be coming in.
Hix wanted to howl with relief.
“If she doesn’t,” Gemini kept on, “she’ll have to break more laws getting away from her momma who’ll tan her ass.”
And that was the rest.
Her mother had already solved this dilemma. Charity had always been coming in. Gemini had just showed first to broker the deal to make it safe for her to do it.
Hix gave him a small grin, this time, the way Gemini did it and why, not bothered in the slightest he’d been played.
Gemini lifted the sketch. “I’ll be in touch.”
Hix tagged a card from the holder on the outer edge of his desk and gave it to Gemini. “My card. Call direct.”
Gemini lifted the card too, smiled and walked out.
He’d barely touched the front door to push outside before Hal and Donna were in his office.