“Are you sure you didn’t dream this?”
“Huh-uh. I know I didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“ ’Cause I found this when I was up on the hill behind Richie’s last night.”
He dug in his pocket and came up with a brass button.
“What is it?”
“Miss Cummings’ button. From her coat. Last night.”
Susan held the button between finger and thumb.
“This should be helpful, Jimmy. Thank you.” She reached across the table and touched his hand. “Now I need you to think real hard.”
“All right.”
“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
“I don’t think so.”
She saw that evasive look in his eyes.
“Are you hiding something, Jimmy?”
“Hiding something?”
He had begun to lick his lips nervously, and look around the kitchen, as if for an escape route.
“Is there something else you should tell me?”
Just then, she heard a vehicle in her driveway.
She got up and walked to the window.
Amy and Sam were just now pulling in.
She turned away from the window just as Jimmy bolted from the table and fled to the back door.
“Jimmy! Stop!”
But Jimmy didn’t even slow down. “They’ll put me in that hospital again!” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Jimmy!” she shouted again.
But he was out the door before she could reach him.
She didn’t bother to chase him. He probably wouldn’t go far. Not with Amy here. He always wanted to see Amy.
The poor guy, Susan thought as she walked out to greet Amy and Sam.
That’s why he ran...
Then Amy and Sam were coming up the walk...
6
Just as she was leaving Sam’s car, Amy saw Jimmy dash from the farmhouse and run between some of the outbuildings.
“Where was Jimmy off to?” Amy said.
Susan looked excited. “I think I can prove that Richie didn’t kill that girl.”
Amy had been so worried about Richie that she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard.
“What’re you talking about?” Amy said, obviously stunned by the words.
Susan grabbed her arm. “Jimmy said he saw Senator Cummings and his sister put the body behind Richie’s last night.”
“Senator Cummings?” Amy said. “God, are you serious?”
“He tell you this just now?” Sam said.
“Yes.”
“Why was he running away?”
“I’m not sure. He just seemed spooked suddenly. I guess I scared him off a little. I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to tell me — and he looked... guilty or something.”
“You know Jimmy and his stories,” Sam said. “We’d need more than his word.” Then, “You know, though, that’s funny. I did see Senator Cummings and Helen last night. I had to help push their car out of the mud.”
“He said that Helen Cummings dropped this on the hill last night.”
She handed him the button.
“Then Richie’s going to be free!” Amy said, feeling some hope again.
For as much as Jimmy liked to talk out his fantasies, everybody in town knew that because of the way he moved around the town, Jimmy picked up all sorts of stray information.
“I don’t know how else he would’ve come by a button belonging to Helen Cummings, do you?” Susan said to Sam.
“No, I can’t either, actually. But we’re not sure it is her button.”
“I’m going to go see if I can find him,” Amy said.
She spent the next ten minutes walking between the outbuildings. Looking in the new barn. Looking in the old barn. Seeing if he might be hiding in the silo.
Not a sign of him.
Then, when she was about to give up, she walked past an old storage shed... and heard something moving around inside.
She paused outside the door... listened.
Something moving around in there...
Only one way to find out.
She reached out and gripped the door handle.
She could envision Jimmy crouched down in there, just hoping she’d go away.
All she had to do was open the door and—
She jerked the door open, flung it backward, and then peered inside to the dusty darkness.
She heard a growl and saw a flash of white-and-brown fur...
...and then she was very painfully knocked to the ground.
Susan’s dog Andy probably weighed ninety pounds. Or more, given the way Susan felt as she picked herself up from the ground.
She dusted herself off and peered once again into the darkness of the shed.
Empty.
She started walking around the outbuildings again, calling his name.
Maybe she’d missed him the first time she’d checked out the farmyard here.
Maybe the barns would be worth another walk through...
And that was when she saw him.
Her vantage point was between two outbuildings where she saw Jimmy out in the field...
He’d been crouching out there, hiding...
And now he was up and running away from the farm... toward the woods.
Why is he running? she wondered.
He only fled like this when he was scared.
What had scared him so badly?
When she got back to Sam and Susan, Sam said, “The Chief is around here somewhere. I’ve got a call in to him. I asked him to stop out here.”
They were still in the yard by the back porch.
“You think he’ll believe Jimmy?” Amy said.
“I hope so.”
“I knew he couldn’t have done it,” Amy said. “I knew it.”
“I just can’t figure out what Senator Cummings would have to do with any of this,” Susan said.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Hard to believe a politician would be involved in something illegal.”
Then he smiled.
“God, for a minute there, I thought you were serious.”
“Yeah, my high regard for politicians and all,” Sam said. Then he told them about helping the Senator and his sister extricate themselves from the mud last night.
“Maybe the body was in the trunk,” Amy said.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Sam said.
“C’mon,” Susan said to Amy. “I’ve got some fresh coffee made. Might as well relax while we can.”
7
It was kind of strange... but as he ran... instead of thinking of all the people pursuing him... Richie looked around him and thought of all the things he should have done with his life...
He should have spent time in the woods... like this...
He should have gone fishing and hunting, the way he had when he was a boy...
He should have bought himself an acreage and lived on what he grew in the good Iowa soil...
The harder and longer he ran, the more his life came into focus... and the less appealing it became.
Drink and drugs and women he didn’t care about... with Susan there all the time... waiting for him. With his sister Amy urging him to finally grow up and be a man and take responsibility for himself.
He looked up and saw a hawk soar skyward... and almost cried at the thought of that kind of freedom... to rise above... to transcend the earth that way...
Maybe he could still pull it off...
If he could just prove that he didn’t kill Darcy...
God, getting involved with Darcy had been so stupid...
He ran on, a lone and desperate man... through woods and clearings and then woods again... intoxicated with the smells of the forest... of mold... of damp, rich earth... of leaves and foliage... of pine and mint...