“Yes,” Susan said. “And not only saw them. She came to his cabin and threatened him.”
“Helen Cummings did?”
“Yes, Chief,” Susan said. “Helen Cummings did.”
Hadley’s mouth twisted into a sour expression. “Two of the finest people I’ve ever known. And you three are trying to get me to believe that they killed a young girl.”
“All we’re saying is show her the button, Chief,” Sam said. “And ask her about it.”
“You know what she’d think of me if I asked her about it, Sam? She’d think I was the most ungrateful son of a bitch in the whole state. And you know what? I wouldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t blame her at all. Whenever anybody in this town needed anything, the Senator and his sister were there. And now we’re going to repay them by accusing them of murder because some crazy bastard like Jimmy said he saw them?”
He paused and looked at Sam. “You remember what I told you yesterday? I said never make me choose between you and the Cummingses. You remember that, Sam?”
“I remember.”
“Well, that’s the position you’re putting me in. You’re making me choose. And you know who I’m going to choose, Sam?”
“My brother didn’t kill that girl,” Amy said.
“He did, Amy. Of course he did. I know that’s a terrible thing for me to say but it also happens to be the truth. He did kill her, Amy. He was drunk and he was pissed off that she’d followed him into the bar and he got carried away and he killed her. He’ll get second-degree... maybe even manslaughter... but he did kill her. He really did.”
He put the gold button on his thumb, then flipped it back to Amy.
“I don’t have time for this bullshit,” he said. “I need to stop that brother of yours before he kills somebody else.” His jaw muscles were once again massive lumps. “Now tell me where he is.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“How about you, Susan?”
“I don’t know, either, Chief.”
“You know, Sam, you’d be out of a job if you had anything to do with hiding Richie.”
“I’m not hiding him, Chief. And I don’t know where he is.”
Chief Hadley was just about to speak again when he was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle in the farm driveway.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
The Land Rover belonging to Senator Cummings was just now being parked next to Hadley’s car.
“You don’t say a damned word to them,” Hadley said. “You understand me?”
As soon as Helen stepped down from the Land Rover, Amy looked at her jacket, seeing if it had brass buttons.
“Afternoon, folks,” David said in his best amiable aw-shucks voice.
Everybody nodded as David and Helen reached them.
“We were just over the hill,” Helen said. “We saw you pulling in, so we thought we’d see what was going on.”
Helen was speaking only to Hadley. That was a trick of hers, Amy had long ago noted. She always addressed her remarks to the person in charge. Never any of the lessers.
“Any word yet on Richie?” she said.
Hadley shook his head. “Afraid not.”
Helen surprised Amy by reaching over and touching her gently on the arm. “I’m sorry about this, dear. We’ll help you in any way you want us to.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Senator Cummings said. “To help.” Once again, he was doing folksy to the max.
Amy watched them and almost smiled. They were damned good, no doubt about that.
Just last night they’d killed a girl. But you’d never know it now.
“I appreciate that,” Amy said, almost gagging on her words.
She scanned Helen’s coat again. Wrong color, wrong style for buttons like the brass one now in Amy’s pocket.
Then she noticed the Land Rover that sat in the driveway. She should look in there, too. A lot of people left jackets in their vehicles.
“I need a drink of water,” Amy said. “I’ll be right back.”
“We’re sorry about all this,” Helen said again.
“We certainly are,” David said.
Amy nodded her thanks and then started walking to the house, moving at an angle that would bring her within inches of the Land Rover.
They started talking again, behind her, about how the search was going.
Amy didn’t listen. She knew she would have only a few seconds to look inside the windows of the vehicle. Any more time, and she’d look suspicious.
She reached the front fender and began peering inside as she slowly walked toward the house.
Nothing in the front seat.
Slowly... slowly...
The backseat was cluttered with a couple of seat cushions with Hawkeye black and gold... with a number of paperback political thrillers... with a small picnic basket.
But no jacket.
She knew she’d never have the simple good luck to just find the jacket...
One last chance.
But as she saw the back cargo area, she saw no jacket there, either... just a spare tire, a couple of sun-faded copies of People, a gold-and-black Hawkeye football blanket that covered about a third of the storage area, and a cloth carrying bag that read Carry Me to Kenwood Cleaners.
No jacket...
She had just given up, just started to walk directly to the farmhouse, where she’d play out the charade of getting a drink of water... when she saw the edge of a sleeve peeking out from the mouth of the bag. She hadn’t been able to see the sleeve, because of the way the bag was angled, until she reached the rear bumper.
She saw a brass button identical to the one she held in her hand.
Excitement raced through her. She felt she’d just been given a shot of pure adrenaline.
She could barely control herself. She wanted to open the hatch and reach in and grab the bag and then hold the jacket up for inspection.
She looked back to Sam and the others.
Helen was watching her suspiciously.
Amy felt great frustration. This was the perfect moment... Sam was here and so was Chief Hadley.
But how was she ever going to get the jacket out of the back?
2
The line shack dated back to the time of the flappers, when rural areas were finally getting electricity. In those days, the shack was a good, clean place to sleep and eat evenings when you couldn’t get back home. The electrical company used the shack for various purposes until the late sixties, when a new power substation was built sixteen miles to the east. Then ownership of the shack changed hands... the raccoons and badgers and snakes and occasional wrens and ravens took over... and inside the cabin young boys and girls still in the experimental stage struggled with awkward kisses and vastly misunderstood urges... and some tried out cigarettes for the first time, and then marijuana... and drifters driven here in rain sometimes cowered in the rotting corners overnight... one hobo from Ruiz, Oklahoma, being found dead and decomposed by two sixth-grade girls picking mushrooms for a class science project.
The thing was... for all the kids that had played in and around the shack for three generations... only a few of them knew about the root cellar. The man who’d designed the cabin thought that the root cellar would be a great idea because, just as the pioneers had used such cellars to store produce and vegetables, the linemen could do the same thing... until power was strung all the way out here. And after the shack had power, the root cellar could be used for additional storage space.
Steve Arnette knew about the cellar because he and Susan and Richie used to play up here... and because one day Susan found the trapdoor and wondered if it led anywhere... and then they found the cellar.