“Your mother home?” he asks.
Isaac hollers and Fran appears, her arms wrapped around a basket of half-folded laundry. She invites Cooper into the living room and, after exiling Isaac back to his room, inspects the trading card that Cooper just handed over. While she does, Cooper marvels at the living room again—he’s been here plenty of times, but he’s always struck anew by all the books. Since the day she arrived she’s surrounded herself, patiently building a collection. She quickly filled the small, standard-issue bookshelf they all get—Cooper’s got maybe two, three throwaway paperbacks on his shelves right now—then she squirreled away the other volumes, discards mostly, collected from the library or from the new books that arrive sporadically with Spiro’s weekly commissary supplies. It doesn’t matter: Fran wants them all. Every surface in her living room now holds a small collection, in haphazard piles or standing up straight, spines rigid. That’s all she does when she has the time. She reads.
“Sure, it’s his,” she says finally, “but Isaac would never do anything like that.” She holds out the card to Cooper with finality, as though the issue is settled and the topic is closed.
“I know it seems unlikely, Fran, but someone trashed that shop. It wasn’t me, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you, and I don’t imagine it was old Buster Ford. And you know Isaac has been acting out lately—”
“Come on, Cal, that was months ago.”
Cal—it’s been a long while since she regularly called him that, he thinks. She turns away from him and goes back to folding her laundry—another signal to tell him she’s done with this topic.
“He set a fire, Fran. These things escalate—”
“It was a pile of grass and sticks in my front yard. He found some matches in the kitchen. Boys do that. I bet you did it, too, when you were a kid. I bet you did a lot worse.”
Cooper did—plenty worse. He doesn’t mention that. “Plus, he broke that window—”
“You don’t know that was him—”
“We both know it was him, Fran. Doris Agnew saw him do it.”
Fran sweeps stray hairs back from her ponytail, tied hastily. She picks up a kids’ t-shirt. In her fingers the shirt looks frail and impossibly small. When she answers, it’s in a low voice, to be sure Isaac won’t hear from his room. “Look, I’m not saying he doesn’t misbehave. Or that living here isn’t taking a toll on him. We both know that it is. But I was up until midnight last night. He was sound asleep the whole time.”
Cooper holds out the card again. “Then explain this.”
“That’s my whole point, Cal. I don’t know how someone got those cards, but I do know for a fact that Isaac would never leave any of his cards behind. He loves those cards. They’re like treasures to him. He even stores them in a special box. He would never scatter them all over the place. It makes no sense.”
“I’m not saying I’m sure it was Isaac,” says Cooper. “In fact, there’s reason to believe it wasn’t. There was graffiti there, too, in the shop, some Latin saying. But if it wasn’t him, then it’s someone who wants us to think it was. And that makes me nervous, too.”
“Then I don’t know why you’re wasting your time here,” Fran says. “Accusing me? Accusing my son?”
“You know I’m only concerned about him. About both of you.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“There’s just something happening right now,” Cooper says. “The thing with Colfax. Now Gable.”
“Funny you didn’t mention any of this at the town meeting yesterday.” She folds a pair of jeans, her motions controlled and precise, her creases crisp. “Is that why you broke things off between us? To give me an easy way out?”
“I’ve told you I’ll help you any way I can.”
“Look, I’m happy to leave, if you, or anyone, can give me some idea of what exactly is waiting for us out there if we do.”
As she folds mechanically, Cooper glances at her left hand and the series of numbers tattooed like a cuff around her wrist. He asked her about it once, in a very different moment of intimacy, one which seems very long ago to him right now. Calling each other by first names, quietly, huddled together in the dark.
“There may not be anyone out there hunting you,” he says. “Maybe you just—”
“What? Maybe I’m an innocent?” She almost laughs at the thought. “Isn’t that what everyone here wants to believe? I may not know why I’m here, Cal, but I do know, at some point, it was my only option. And that scares the hell out of me.”
“Look, just ask him about the card,” says Cooper. “I’m not going to punish him. But I do need to know what’s going on in my town.”
“You worry about your town. I’ll worry about my son,” she says.
Cooper wants to say more, but what exactly, he’s not sure. But he does have an idea. Not a new one exactly, but one he’s been waiting for the right moment to act on. Well, this sure as hell feels like the right moment, he thinks. He nods to her, then excuses himself from the house without another word.
Cooper eats his lunch alone at home. The shades are drawn. It’s nearly two P.M.
At quarter to two, he rises, clears his dishes, and washes the plate in the sink. He sets the cutlery in the drying rack. He wipes his hands on a towel, then heads out to the police station.
Back in the harsh sunlight, ambling through the middle of town, Cooper watches as people gather in front of the commissary, collecting provisions; it’s Tuesday, so end-of-cycle allotment discounts kick in to clear out space for the new shipment Wednesday morning. Cooper spots white-haired Buster Ford in his overalls loading up a little red wagon with groceries. Ford gives him a friendly nod.
“Any leads?” he calls out.
“We’re working on it, Buster,” says Cooper. “Closing in on a few promising possibilities.”
A few other stragglers, their arms freighted with bags, free their hands to wave a greeting to the sheriff. He smiles back each time, doing his best to look calm, optimistic, and in control. It’s a look he’s practiced enough to pull off.
He heads to the police trailer, which is empty, thankfully, so he doesn’t have to make any excuses to chase off his deputies. Cooper closes the door behind him. He takes his seat by the fax machine and checks his watch.
At two P.M., the machine barks to life. Paper starts stuttering out. He rips the page clear of the machine.
The paper contains one word in large letters across the top: Tomorrow. Then, in smaller script, beneath that: 9 mm in the mail.
Under that: a photo.
A mug shot actually. He recognizes the person right away.
It’s a photo of Gerald Dean.