It's 9AM

CHAPTER ONE

The neon lights fought a valiant battle against the sunlight, but failed.

“When did you clean the windows?”

Jake Burbank sat on his stool at the end of the well worn bar and nursed a half tumbler full of amber whiskey.

This particular vintage was from Rock Town Distillery in Little Rock, up the road from where they were by forty five minutes or so, depending on the drive.

“Yesterday,” Amber said to him.

She had introduced him to Rock Town, as she called it, as was her prerogative as owner of the bar and number one contact for any salesperson who stepped through the door, whether they represented liquor or credit card point of sales systems or the latest, a wave of knock off perfume salesmen staying at the Holiday Inn on the Interstate.

“You can tell?” she asked.

Amber was always busy doing something.

She had to be.

Working a bar was an exercise in manual labor and psychology.

There were always glasses to be cleaned, and though her little honky tonk was small, there were still three tables, a flat top grill, and accoutrements that went with it all.

Bar tools, cooking tools, eating tools.

She wasn’t quite OCD, though that level of ability to attend detail would help. But she was a person who liked a clean place for her clientele to drink.

Jake squinted at the glass.

“I think I liked the tint better.”

“That wasn’t tint,” she told him.

He made a gesture for a refill, then leaned across the bar to retrieve the bottle himself so she wouldn’t have to stop wiping.

Plus, he was a little more generous with the pour than she might have been.

“It was smoke stains.”

Jake took another sip of the Rock Town bourbon rolled it across his tongue.

“No one smokes in here.”

She shook her head.

“They haven’t been cleaned in that long?”

Again, the head shook.

“You’re slacking.”

She grinned and dropped her dirty bar rag into a bucket that would make it’s way to the washing machine back at her place. Amber replaced it with another.

“I thought it was tint too,” she told him. “One accidental smudge told the truth.”

Jake studied her small bar in the increased daylight leaking through the windows.

At the moment, it belonged to the two of them, but that was no surprise.

She opened the doors at eleven to start serving a very small lunch crowd who worked at the Court House and a few buildings around downtown, but the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the area was still under way.

Which kept the crowds to a minimum during the daytime, and that’s the way Jake liked it.

Except, he mused, he liked it after dark too, when the neon flickered and the people inside were there for one reason.

Drinking.

It was his favorite pastime.

The door to the sidewalk cracked open and a head peeked in.

“Are you open yet?”

Which sounded meek coming from the man who made it.

Jake eyeballed Detective Travis and wondered at the source of meekness. The man had, after all, attempted to arrest him for murder, extortion and any other charge he could think of on more than one occasion.

Jake was his favorite suspect, and if he could lay all the sins of Pine Bluff on his feet, he would.

Amber waved the detective in and noted how he stared at Jake.

“I’ve got your bail money in the safe.”

“I won’t need it today,” Jake faked a smile. “Will I Travis?”

The man moved across the clean wooden floors and fumbled himself up on the farthest stool away from Jake.

“I’m not here to arrest you,” he mumbled.

“Are you here to eat or just take up space from my paying lunch crowd?” Amber spun a cardboard coaster in front of the man and waited.

He scanned the simple printed food menu taped over the row of bottles on the wall.

“Cheeseburger,” he said.

“You want one?” Amber glanced at Jake as she retrieved patties from a refrigerator under the back bar.

Jake swirled the bourbon in her direction.

“I’m on a diet.”

She put a hand on her hip.

“Did you eat last night?”

He tilted his head and considered the question for a moment, then shrugged. He didn’t know.

“You had lunch yesterday,” she put a second patty on the grill. “I know that cause I made it for you. Jesus Jake, man can’t live on bourbon alone.”

“Has anyone ever tried?” he cracked a smile.

“Yeah, you,” she scraped a metal spatula under the sizzling meat and flipped it. The smell of burgers wafted through the tiny bar and his stomach gave a loud gurgle of pleasured anticipation that they all heard.

“Never heard your stomach growl for bourbon like that,” Amber giggled.

“I guess I could eat,” he snickered back.

Travis sat hunched over a bottle of beer, one hand holding the neck like he wanted to choke it, the other peeling the label into small shreds on the bar.

He glared at the bottle, glared at Jake, and took a deep breath, like he had reached a decision.

“I’m not here to arrest you,” he growled and gripped the bottle tighter. “I’m here to hire you.”

CHAPTER

“Ever since Maggie left the force,” Travis stopped peeling the label but still wouldn’t make eye contact with Jake. “I thought it would open up some paths for me, you know? She was always being eyed for promotion, marked by the higher ups to go places. One of those types.”

Jake imagined he would have made air quotes around the word “those” if his hands hadn’t been occupied.

“It didn’t?” Amber asked in a voice that all professional drink slingers had, pitched low and curious, designed to make the speaker keep talking and buy another drink.

She slid the finished burger in front of him, and he left it untouched.

Jake had no such compunction.

The meat was grilled crispy on the outside, a fringe of char from the well used grill, and juicy on the inside. She nestled it on a bun with mayo, iceberg lettuce, tomato and onion, all pre-sliced. He wondered if she used the same bar knife for the lemons and limes for mixed drinks.

Then nodded as he took a big delicious bite.

Of course she used the same knife. No need to dirty a second one she would only have to wash later.

“How it is?”

“Perfect,” he mumbled around the mush in his mouth.

His stomach roared again in agreement.

“It did not,” Travis concurred. “No paths. No extra eyes on. To the powers that be, I’m just another detective.”

Maybe if you stopped looking at me for every sin in the city, Jake almost said, but took another bite of his burger instead.

“I feel like all I need is one big case to crack,” Travis lifted his bun and took away the lettuce and onion. He resettled the new stack and pressed it down with the heel of his hand.

“And then I got it.”

“Which one?” Jake asked in sincere curiosity.

Travis eyed his sandwich, then lifted it.

“Eat first,” he said. “You won’t want to after I tell you.”

They finished their burgers in quiet companionship, the long bar between them. Amber set up her lunch prep.

The thing about a small place with regulars is they were very regular in habit. She could predict almost every lunch order that would come through the door.

It was great for her weekly shopping trips to restock.

Jake had a head start on his lunch and finished first, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin.

He reached for the Rock Town to refill his glass but the curly haired bartender intercepted him before he could pour.

She pushed a beer in front of him instead, knowing he would refuse a soda or God forbid, water.

“Brings out the taste better.”

He sniffed like he was on the verge of mock tears but accepted the longneck. Beer would help him concentrate on Travis anyway.

It was good to have friends who kept him fed and close to his right mind, he smiled at her.

As close to right as his mind could get anyway.

Travis stared at the last bite of his burger as if he was surprised it was gone so fast.

“That is a damn tasty burger.”

“Family secret,” Amber took away their paper plates and deposited them in the trashcan.

“Now what’s going to take away the appetite I didn’t know I had?”

The detective sighed.

“You heard about the girl by the river?”

Jake nodded.

“Bad business,” the detective continued. “Twenty five year old female goes running on a country road, goes missing. Four day search turns up nothing. No body. No witnesses, nothing.”

“The media ate it up,” said Jake.

He remembered the rest, but Travis filled him in.

“One of the searchers did it. Confessed on day five, took us right to the body. Raped. Strangled. Mutilated and buried,” he ticked them off on his finger. “We don’t know what order that was in yet.”

Jake grunted.

Bad business was right.

“Suspect is married, two kids, everyday farmer. His wife was friend’s with the victim. They all went to high school together, church every Sunday and Wednesday.”

“He confessed,” said Jake and tried to wash the taste of the crime out of his mouth.

He had seen it on the news, and got a first hand account from his friend Deonte who organized several of the search parties.

Travis took a small sip himself and finally looked at Jake.

“Why did he do it?”

Jake shook his head.

“Not your wheelhouse.”

Travis shrugged.

“Law and Order, I know. You’re supposed to be the order part, and I stick to the law side.”

“I’m not order anymore,” said Jake. “I’m not on any side.”

“I hunt bad guys.”

“There’s no bad guy to hunt,” said Jake. “He confessed.”

“Yes,” Travis agreed, but the look on his face was unsatisfied as he studied Jake.

“I want to hire you to find out why.”

CHAPTER

Jake held a business card in his hand, turning it over and over again.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen one. Maggie had a whole box embossed with her out of date information from her time on the PB PD.

He had never had one with Travis’ number on it.

“Cop gone?” Deonte stuck his head through the door and gave an exaggerated look around the still empty bar.

The lunch crowd had come for burgers and beers, or sodas, and gone back into their federal, state or local offices, the bulk of which made up the buildings around Main Street.

Not the Main Street itself, which was bracketed by four blocks of abandoned structures or buildings in the process of rehabilitation and restoration.

The blocks behind and beyond Main Street.

“How long did you wait for him to go?” Jake said as his tall black friend slid onto the stool next to him and accepted an icy long neck from Amber.

“Been waiting a long time, it felt like.”

“Are you eating?” Amber bent over to retrieve a patty.

“Couldn’t wait,” Deonte shook his head. “Sorry. Had to get me some Rich’s.”

Jake’s stomach gurgled again at the mention of the infamous drive in.

“That’s enough out of you,” Amber pointed, talking to his belly.

“Second best burger in PB,” Jake defended.

“And don’t you forget who is number one.”

She moved to straighten and clean the tables.

It would be slow until four thirty when the offices around them began to close and folks drifted in for a happy hour libation.

Jake slid the card across the bar to Deonte, who adjusted it with the very tip of his fingernail but didn’t pick it up.

“I know who he was.”

“Wants to hire me?”

“Ain’t he trying to arrest you for something?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“That never stopped him before.”

Jake nodded and took an appreciative sip of beer.

“She got you on the light stuff, huh?” Deonte matched him. “What she want you thinking clear about? Cause if you say the man want to hire you, you obviously done made a dumb ass decision.”

“If I said yes.”

“If you said yes.”

They sipped.

“Did you?”

“Say yes?”

“Yes?”

“I did.”

“Guess you just a natural dumb ass then.”

“Not natural,” said Jake. “I have to work hard to keep at it.”

“Whatever he want to hire you for,” Deonte said. “He probably trying to set you up for it. He want you to go somewhere and put your DNA and fingerprints and such all over a place?”

“Nothing like that.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

Jake shook his head.

“I’m not sure.”

“Then what he want you to do?”

“You know that girl by the river?”

Deonte nodded and drained his beer.

He set the empty close to the other side of the bar and waited for Amber to notice so he could order another.

Jake noted the angry flash of his eyes as he did it.

“You know my baby niece run on that same road,” he said. “Got her a track scholarship up in Fayetteville next year. Me thinking he could have picked her instead, makes me a little worked up.”

Jake waited.

“They got the boy did it. Got him in protective custody all by his self. I can’t get to him.”

“He confessed,” said Jake. “You could let justice handle this one.”

“All the more reason,” Deonte sighed. “I’m just doing my civic duty, you know what I’m saying. Save the taxpayers and all that shit.”

“If they pull him out of protection.”

“He’s got to come out sometime. Why the detective want to hire you about it? They got their man. Now it’s up to the courts.”

“Or you.”

“Me, yeah,” Deonte took another proffered beer and swallowed it down. “It’s already been up to me.”

“Travis wants me to find out why.”

“Cause he’s fucked up in the head.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“Dog goes wild, you don’t ask why,” Deonte said. “You take it out in the woods and put it down.”

“You’re going to take care of that part.”

“Yes. I am,” his teeth gnashed.

“Travis said it doesn’t make sense. Wants me to look into it.”

Deonte considered this for a moment.

“Alright.”

“You’re gonna wait?”

His gangster friend looked at him like a babe in the woods.

“I give the man forty eight hours inside, lawyer man. I can stretch it to seventy two, but after that, it’s out of my hands.”

He rubbed his palms together as if washing his hands of it.

“It is literally in your hands,” Jake countered. “One word from you and whatever you have planned gets stopped.”

Deonte laughed, surprising Jake.

“That’s not how these things work. You put ‘em in motion, they get like big old snowballs rolling down a hill. They can’t be stopped.”

“Stop the motion,” Jake said again, but his voice didn’t have much conviction.

“Too late,” Deonte said. “Like I said, we got us about seventy two hours to get you what you need. After that-,”

“We?”

“Yeah. You making dumb ass decisions like going to work the cop who wants your ass busted more than he wants to breathe means you need a woke set of eyes on this.”

“I could use your help.”

“Help?” Deonte nudged the business card on the bar back toward Jake. “You call up that new benefactor of yours and tell him you got a partner gonna need some daily expenses. Starting with this lunch.”

“I thought you ate at Rich’s.”

“Yeah,” Deonte motioned for another beer for each of them. “But you didn’t.”

CHAPTER

JAke tucked the receipt in his wallet.

It had been awhile since he had expensed anything, but he remembered that receipts were the key.

Although he wasn’t quite sure how that would play out with an individual paying, as was the case with Detective Travis.

He decided that having a receipt could prove something, if not to the Detective, then to the IRS, should they ever wonder.

He snorted.

Maybe one day he would earn enough for the IRS to care if he took ten bucks off for lunch.

Though, knowing the government, they wanted their ten percent of that ten bucks no matter what, even if it cost them twenty dollars to collect it.

That was part of the problem.

Bueracracies.

They were built at every level of government, and the police were just as bad as the IRS or any other agency.

Which is what Travis was running against.

Red tape that blocked his way.

In the eyes of the police, they had the killer.

Now it was up to the DA to tell everyone why, or at least prove that the killer did it.

With a confession, there was little to prove.

Jake sat behind the wheel in his ancient pick up truck and studied the steering wheel for a few moments.

He was parked in a space on Main Street, bracketed by an old Department Store on one side and more empty buildings on the other.

He could see the gold dome the courthouse glowing in his rear view mirror, strategic lighting glancing up to the heavens to highlight the color and tinge.

He liked it.

Liked it a lot.

It gave him a sense of place, and sometimes, in his world, there was nothing better than knowing a place.

It was familiar and traditional, the same color, the same light, the same everything since he was a child.

The dome of the courthouse was a solid reminder, and he used it to anchor his mind for a few moments as he sat in the truck.

The Public Defender would try to get the confession thrown out, or go for a plea deal. Arkansas still had the death penalty, so a deal could be made for the killer to spend the rest of his life in prison, instead of getting the needle.

The sets of lawyers for prosecution and defense could argue all they wanted, Jake thought.

The killer’s future had been decided by a gangster crimelord.

Seventy two hours.

The problem was Jake had no idea where to start.

He hadn’t had much to drink tonight because he wanted a clear head to come up with a plan.

Except a few beers per hour for eight hours or so tended to fog the mind, especially since he turned down the offer of a burger for dinner and Amanda was too busy to insist.

The entire situation was a buzz kill, and he hated it.

Hated the fact that he said yes, he would help.

Hated that his friend made him an accessory to a murder that hadn’t been committed yet, and hated that he didn’t even consider it a real murder.

Inmates died in prison all the time, and men who would rape, kill and hide a beautiful young woman deserved everything they got.

He tried to muster up some personal outrage at his own sense of frontier justice and couldn’t.

He laid down across the bench seat instead and closed his eyes.

Jake may not have had a buzz, but that didn’t mean the all day drinking didn’t affect him.

He figured a few hours of nap could clear his head enough for the drive home.

CHAPTER

The tapping on the window woke him up.

Jake cracked open a bleary eye, blinking through a crusty layer of eye boogers that threatened to keep him blind.

He rubbed them with a knuckle, and finally was able to see.

Maggie stood at the window, early morning sun highlighting streaks in her auburn hair.

He snorted in a deep breath and stretched as he sat up and cranked the window down in his old pick up.

“Morning officer,” he tried to grin around a raspy sandpaper tongue.

It earned a smirk.

She stood in the road, one hand on her pistol though that was habit more than necessity. She wore a khaki uniform shirt under a form fitting bullet proof vest and faded blue jeans with hiking boots.

When she took over for the retired Sheriff Jake grew up with, Dub Brassel, she adopted the dress code he used for the underfunded county department.

They would provide gear and uniform tops, but the personnel could wear jeans.

Dub thought it kept them connected to the community, but he had become Sheriff in a time when long haired hippies were skipping showers and signing petitions to be allowed to wear blue jeans to high school.

Still, Jake thought as he blinked away the fog of sleep, Maggie wore the uni well.

Like it was made for her.

Her utility belt rested just below a narrow waist and emphasized the curve of her hips in the denim.

She reached up and drooped a silver pair of chrome aviator shades to the tip of her nose.

“You couldn’t drive home?”

“I only meant to take a nap.”

“It’s almost seven.”

“Crap,” Jake sighed.

He cracked open the door and stepped out beside her, both of them ignoring the creaks and pops of his body unfolding into the street.

He stood and stretched and she waited.

“Breakfast?” Maggie asked after he finished.

He nodded and joined her on the sidewalk.

While most of downtown was abandoned potential, a couple of enterprising entrepreneurs had moved in and set up shop.

Jake liked their optimism.

Scratch that.

He loved it.

Deonte’s cousin had done a lot of work to help the city recover and start growing again, but the uphill battle sometimes felt like a stalemate.

Big business wouldn’t come to the delta region because they wanted population to support the minimum wage jobs they would pay and people wouldn’t move to a town without jobs.

That left anemic growth to small business people, like the woman who opened up The Corner coffee shop.

Jake knew it as a Men’s clothing boutique, but the racks of suits and shelves of button down shirts disappeared a decade ago.

Myrna, the new owner, moved all of it out, set up a half dozen bistro tables and turned the check out counter into a coffee bar.

The aroma of fresh roasted West Rock coffee surrounded the entrance like an aromatic fog, and the smell of fresh baked pastries washed out when Maggie opened the door to a jingle.

Myrna waved from the latte machine, took one look at Jake and poured him a black coffee in the biggest mug she had.

Jake took the soup bowl sized mug from her with a heartfelt grin and plopped into one of the chairs while he let Maggie order for both of them.

She sat across from him with a large latte in a to go cup, which made him raise his eyebrows in curiosity.

He didn’t ask about it though.

“Heard a rumor about you,” she sipped.

“This town runs on rumors.”

“Every town runs on rumors.”

“Did someone see me sleeping it off in the truck and complain?” he finished half the cup of java as Myrna delivered two egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches almost overflowing the plates.

“Don’t you live four blocks from here?” she asked and didn’t’ wait for the answer.

He did, but he still didn’t want to drive the distance.

The truth was, last night, he forgot he didn’t live in the country anymore.

Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the shock of going to work with Travis, but for a moment, Jake Burbank didn’t remember he lived in an Airstream trailer behind a historic home he was restoring.

“What?” Maggie asked after the look on his face.

“Just thinking about my old homestead,” he sighed.

She nodded and let it go.

His home had been burned to the ground half a year ago by some nefarious types who did not like him, and the real estate developer who had been after his tiny parcel of hold out land finally got his wish and Jake sold.

“No complaints,” Maggie interrupted. “Travis called me.”

“Did he want a date?”

“He said you were working for him.”

Jake tore picked through the edge of his sandwich, breaking off small bites at a time to make sure his stomach and last night’s exploits wouldn’t revolt at the addition.

“He had some questions.”

“Are you a PI now?”

He shrugged and chanced a bigger bite.

“There’s nothing private about it if he’s telling everybody.”

“I’m not everybody,” she shook her hair.

It was pulled back in a tight, business like ponytail, but a couple of strands had gone stray and straggled along one of her sculpted cheeks.

“I think he wanted me to watch out for you.”

“Do I need watching out for?”

She took a bite of her sandwich.

“I mean, before this last little bit, I had a quiet life.”

She held up a finger.

“You don’t have to talk about that,” he told her and she nodded. “Maybe not quiet, but people left me alone.”

“The people around here are worked up about what happened to that girl,” she said. “That’s why he’s sending you to ask.”

“So they can take their anger out on me.”

“I don’t know if he’s thinking that far, but he wouldn’t care if it happened. I would.”

Jake remembered Deonte’s quiet rage and the declaration that judge, jury and executioner had decided the fate of the suspect before he even had a trial.

“He said he wanted to know why.”

“That’s what he told me,” she studied Jake. “But can you get that answer for him?”

He shrugged and finished off the toasted tasty breakfast.

“Can you get the answer without getting hurt?”

“No one wants to hurt me,” he started to say and stopped at her smirk.

“Except for those guys and they’re pretty well kept in check.”

“Just be careful,” she grabbed his empty plate, added it to her own and chucked them in the trash bin.

Jake ordered a large coffee to go and traded the soup bowl sized mug for it as Maggie paid for breakfast.

She walked him back to his truck and he thought she looked distracted, or worried.

He decided it was probably both.

“He just wants an answer,” he tested to see if that’s what she was thinking about.

“Travis never wanted answers before,” she told him. “He wanted the bad guys behind bars and sometimes truth be damned.”

She leaned up and brushed her lips against his cheek before walking back to her patrol truck parked behind his.

“He thinks you’re a bad guy,” Maggie called to him. “He thinks you are THE bad guy. Remember that.”

Jake watched her climb up into the big 4 x 4 and wave as she drove out.

He pushed back into his own truck and took a moment to collect his thoughts.

Travis did have an opinion about him and changing it would be like moving the course of the river, he thought.

Which meant maybe the request wasn’t exactly what it seemed.

CHAPTER

Since he didn’t know where to start, he decided to drive.

The old truck rumbled to life and he dropped it in gear and pulled a U-turn across the almost empty Main Street.

The road ended at the Courthouse and he turned left until he rolled past 79 where it rolled past the University on the other side of the lake.

If he turned left here, it would take him home.

He could shower and wake up more, let the fat and protien and caffeine get into his system so his mind could work.

Jake figured he would need a lot of his mind for this particular task, especially if it was some sort of set up.

If it wasn’t, if Travis was for real, then finding the why was important too.

What makes a normal man snap?

Jake had some experience with it.

He snapped too, and not so long ago.

Then, his friend had been in danger and he was going up against some very bad men. Men who hurt people.

Men who kidnapped cops and threatened to kill them.

Jake had descended to criminal acts, and then coordinated with a criminal to cover those acts up.

It never bothered him. Not once.

And that fact, the fact that he could kill so callously and without remorse did weigh on his conscious.

More so than the act itself.

But turning right would take him toward the crime scene out by the river.

He decided to start there, just to get a feel for it.

That’s how cops did it, right?

Study the scene of the crime. Gather witness testimony.

It’s what lawyers did too, he thought. Except he had hardly been a lawyer long enough to get to know the routine of it.

Still, he decided, it would be a good start.

The wind through the window was beginning to warm as the sun beamed down.

Traffic was congested all the way to the University entrance, then petered out as he passed the football stadium.

He thought about stopping to gas up, and to grab a soda or something for the ride.

What he really wanted was a beer or three, just a prelude to his afternoon plans. But if he planned to talk to anyone, he wanted to do it without the smell of alcohol on his breath.

Plus he wasn’t sure how far the trip would take him.

There was a country road involved, he recalled, and sometimes one country road would lead to another and then another still until he ended up somewhere else.

That was a great part of exploring backroads, when the wind came through the window and dried the sun sweat on the back of his neck, the warm cab of the truck almost like a cocoon.

He passed PJ’s Dance Club and kept going.

River bottom fields let him know when he was close to the bridge, soybeans stretching to the horizon.

The bridge was the highest point for miles, and as he topped it, Jake could see fields on both sides of the river, looking flat and infinite.

He wasn’t as familiar with this area as he was with others surrounding Pine Bluff.

He knew the highway rolled towards Stuttgart, the duck hunting capital of North America, and the soil between the two cities was rich, fertile farmland.

They had been cotton fields until the late sixties, when the market fell out of cotton and farmers switched over to soybeans.

Now the soybean fields were being crowded by fish farmers, and he could see the glimmer of sunlight on pond water off to the side of the roads as he turned left onto Highway 31.

He was looking for Gunter Road, where the girl was running.

According to the Commercial, she had a route and a routine.

By the look of her picture in the paper, she was religious with the routine, and Jake suspected the route was locked in stone as well.

The memory of it formed in his mind.

The road formed a large oblong rectangle, and was usually as populated as the Sahara.

There would be farmers riding tractors, and a couple of workers at the fish farms, but nothing else, not until he reached the cluster of homes that was part township she called home.

He passed Gunter because the sign was almost knocked over.

Tire tracks left skidmarks on the road where someone tried to make the sharp turn a little too tight and almost took the marker out.

Lucky for Jake, there was zero traffic.

He backed his truck up, turned onto Gunter and kept going.

CHAPTER

He didn’t know what he was looking to find.

Not exactly.

The crime had happened weeks ago.

Almost a month, if his hazy memory served him correct.

Gunter jogged right after half a mile and he followed it, meandering through the soybean fields.

The sun felt hotter out here where there was no shade, no breaks in the direct light unless a cloud decided to fly over.

Sweat popped up on his forehead faster than the wind through the window could dry it.

He wondered at the type of personality it took to run along a road such as this. No water, no shade, no traffic.

Nothing to bother with but the run itself.

Jake supposed there was a beauty in it, and took the left when the road made it so.

He was getting closer now.

The suspect picked her up somewhere along this part of the road where nothing but field and farm and fish ponds as far as the eye could see.

He wondered if he came up from behind, or passed her or how it happened, and shivered at the thought of it.

Dark tidings.

They were far from where he worked, far from the man’s farm and Jake wondered what he was doing over here.

Gunter ended at McKinley and Jake turned right.

She was picked up on this road, and they found her body further north.

He passed a farmhouse that looked empty at the moment, but a scattering of children’s toys in the yard, and an above ground swimming pool in the back yard said they wouldn’t be away long.

Maybe just at work, or the kids gone to a practice of some kind. Baseball or soccor or gymnastics or dance.

The police would have interviewed them, asked what they had seen, asked if they knew the victim and the suspect.

They would have.

St. Mark’s Church was up ahead on the right, according to a sign just past the farmhouse, but he was looking for a road on the left before he got there.

It was in front of a tree break, a long collection of pine and willow and oak that stretched along a deep irrigation ditch.

Calling it a road was being generous.

It was a path between the field and the trees, used mostly by tractors and good old boys as a cut through between the two major roadways.

Jake pulled onto it and slowed to a crawl.

A makeshift memorial was under the trees, an alter of flowers, and crosses, of candles and a teddy bear. Someone had carved her name in a piece of wood and nailed it to the tree.

Sydney Green.

And someone else, or maybe it was the self same wood worker had transposed a picture of her blond smiling face onto a piece of plywood and put it on the tree as well.

It was the size of a poster that teenagers and college students hung on their walls, and maybe Sidney aspired to be that type of model at one point.

The kind adored by millions, wanted by them, and dreamed of by them.

She had the look for it.

Jake slowed to a stop just past the memorial and got out.

It was not quite on the corner where the path met the road and what looked like a game trail led to the irrigation ditch.

Calling it a ditch was a bit of a misnomer, Jake thought.

It was more like a man made creek, with both sides bordered bu thick groves of trees.

He planned to walk down to the water, follow the narrow but well worn trail that led past the memorial, just to see.

But right now, he checked out what people had left behind.

There was a bible tucked in there, rain stained and brittle, and bottles filled with scraps of paper, notes to the deceased, and verses from the Bible.

More flowers than he could count, both in bottles and bouquets just tossed on the ground.

And the picture.

Her eyes looked like they were staring at him, an accident of shadow and light.

Still, it made him feel the heat and sweat and Jake wanted a drink more than anything in the world at the moment.

Just something cold to wash the taste of loss out of his mouth.

He hated that he was so familar with it.

The path to the ditch was easy to follow along the flat ground.

When he reached the slope, it was a sharp twelve foot drop to the mud brown water below.

It churned and flowed at a steady pace, the tickle of the ripple against the bank soothing.

The trees kept it shaded along the shore, but further out, sunlight cut a yellow stripe down the center of the ditch.

Jake saw a different kind of memorial here, a lover’s lane of sorts. Cast off condoms, empty bottles of beer, and wine scattered around a small clearing that circled a burned out hole in the ground.

He had seen dozens before.

Kids. Teenagers were always looking for a place to park, a place to make out or do it, unbothered by parents or police.

He had done it himself, hunting for private places, which was why he was so familiar with the backroads around the county.

Jake made his way back to the truck and stopped to look at the memorial again.

She still watched him.

“Sorry Sydney,” he told the picture. “I’ll do my best to figure it out.”

He didn’t know why he made the promise to the girl by the river, and if pressed later, he couldn’t come up with a reason.

He just know she needed justice, a little more than eye for an eye that Deonte promised.

Maybe her spirit needed to know why too.

CHAPTER

He saw the flash of sunlight on a windshield as he walked through the trees back to the cutoff road.

Cut through, he corrected.

This jaunt through the fields cut nothing off.

By the time he made it to his truck, a County Sheriff patrol car pulled in behind him.

He saw Wayne Elton behind the wheel and tried not to groan.

Not many people in Pine Bluff liked Jake, and he was okay with that.

He was used to the role of pariah.

There were a few, like Travis and Elton who turned their general dislike into an active antagonism.

The Deputy hauled the bulk of his belly out from behind the wheel and stood holding the door and the roof of his car while he caught his breath from the effort.

“Hell you doing out here?” he wheezed.

“Paying respects.”

Jake was sure the man was giving him a big old stink eye from behind his wraparound Oakley’s.

“Didn’t know you knew her.”

“I know a lot of people you don’t know.”

Jake kept both hands on the bed of his truck, in easy view, until he found out what the Deputy wanted.

“You seen the Sheriff?” he sneered.

Jake heard the disdain in his voice.

Elton thought he should have replaced Dub Brassel when he left office. The good old boy’s network didn’t like it when women didn’t keep their place.

“I had breakfast with her this morning,” Jake said in a neutral tone.

Elton finally caught his breath and waddled toward Jake’s truck.

“You been drinking?”

“Not yet.”

“What have you got in the truck?”

“Coffee.”

“Mind if I take a peek?”

“I do.”

The deputy caught himself on the back of the truck bed and held his considerable bulk still.

It took a moment for him to catch his breath from the ten foot effort of walking from car to truck.

“You got something to hide?”

Jake shook his head.

“Just my search and seizure rights.”

Elton stared at him.

At least that’s what Jake thought he was doing.

It was hard to tell with the shades on.

“I got probable cause.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t have to say to you,” Elton smacked past thick lips. “And you ain’t gonna sue cause your girlfriend is the Sheriff.”

The rotund Deputy used the back of the truck bed as a rail to assist him to the driver’s door.

He cracked it open and began his search.

It didn’t take long.

Jake only had the coffee cup from breakfast resting on the seat cover.

Elton picked it up, tilted the lid up and sniffed it.

He tossed it over his shoulder into the field behind him as he watched Jake for a reaction, then leaned back in and felt under the seats.

“Glove box?” he called out.

Jake kept his mouth shut.

All that was in there was a copy of his insurance card and current registration.

Deonte had armed him in the past, but Jake had kept the pistol in his Airstream yesterday, and today he was glad of it.

The Deputy would have found a way to make him pay for having a weapon, he could feel it.

Elton finished the fruitless search and swayed back to the tailgate where Jake waited.

“I don’t like you being out here,” he slurred, jowls so large they didn’t move as he talked.

“I was out enjoying the weather with a drive,” Jake said. “I stopped at a memorial to pay my respects.”

“Yeah, well, I got a call about a suspicious character,” Elton huffed. “You don’t look all that suspicious, but I’m not taking any chances.”

“Called?” Jake wondered aloud.

He hadn’t seen anyone, no other cars, no farmers riding the rows.

As far as he knew, no one had seen him.

Was Elton using it as an excuse to justify the violation of his rights?

“Old lady lives behind the house in one of them, what you call it’s? An in-law quarter, you know, those pre-built cabins you can buy? I was going to get one for deer camp next year,” Elton retrieved a stained handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat off his head.

Jake thought the thin cloth had seen more than it’s fair share of use.

“Guess she’s pretty smart. She took one look at you and called it in. Skulking is what she said.”

“Skulking?” Jake asked.

“That’s what she said.”

Jake glanced toward the only house he had passed.

It was on the far side of the field, nothing more than a smudge on the horizon. Maybe she saw him, he thought. If she had eagle eyes.

“Is this your normal patrol?”

“I’m done talking to you,” Elton pushed off from the tailgate and teetered toward his open driver’s door on the patrol car.

“Did the old lady call it in when that guy dumped the body?”

Elton caught the door and rested a moment, wheezing until his breath came back.

It was a wonder the man hadn’t had a heart attack yet, Jake thought. It would only be a matter of time before they found him in the car, his ticker gone and quit.

Jake wondered how he wrote tickets or chased suspects or did anything that involved protecting and serving.

“She didn’t see anything,” said Elton. “Did the interview myself.”

Dub had been a big boy too, but Jake couldn’t recall the big bellied ex-Sheriff huffing and puffing like that.

Elton folded himself into the patrol car, then struggled to shut the door.

Jake stepped over to the other side of the farm road.

“You know she can’t see me from here,” he pointed. “She called when I drove past, and I don’t think you come out here for every car that drives by her house.”

He still couldn’t see the deputy’s eyes, but the sunglasses were locked on him. He made one last lunge, caught the strap and let his weight fall back into the seat as he pulled the door with him.

He didn’t answer Jake.

Elton pulled a k turn, almost backing into Jake’s pick up as he lined up to go back the way he came.

He jammed the gas all the way to the floor and sprayed the truck and Jake with dirt, small rocks and a plume of dust as he rocketed the patrol car out onto McKinney.

Jake waved away the dust with a cough and sighed as he saw the dirt settle on his truck.

It didn’t matter, he guessed as he climbed back in. He would have had to get it washed anyway.

He glanced at the smudge of a farmhouse again.

Did she have eagle eyes? Or binoculars?

Or was Elton lying?

The soybeans didn’t answer and the trees weren’t commenting.

He fired up his truck and eased away from the memorial, the promise he made fresh on his mind.