“Boy,” said Gordon.
“How’s that?”
“There’s just one boy in there.”
The waitress told him to sit wherever he liked and he took the booth in the far corner with his back to the wall. The lunch hour was over and the place was empty but for one old man at the counter, the old man stirring his spoon round and round in a white china mug. From where Gordon sat he could see the plug of skin-colored plastic fitted into the old man’s ear.
The waitress came over and said, “What can I getcha, hon?” and Gordon ordered a coffee.
“That’s it?”
His eyes went to the patch of bright pink on her neck—burn scar, or birthmark maybe—and back to her face. “That’s it for now, thanks.”
“All right. I’m gonna brew you some fresh—how’s that sound?”
“That sounds jim-dandy.”
“Ha,” she said, “‘jim-dandy,’ I like that,” and went away again.
The tabletop was striped with lighter bands of laminate and after a while he connected the stripes to the window slats to his left, and he put his hands into the light to see it bend around them. He’d not slept and his own mind seemed feverish to him, jammed full of voices and images, some of them real and some of them having come some other way into his head in the long hours since the boy showed up in his driveway, when was that—yesterday. And now here he sat in a diner in Iowa waiting on a man who was sheriff now but who back then was just another half-wit deputy pawing through her dresser drawers, lifting up her mattress, digging his fingers into her jewelry box—
The white china mug that dropped suddenly into his vision made him jump, and the waitress put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Oh gosh, sorry there, hon—maybe I should of brought you decaf!”
“Maybe so.”
“You sure you don’t want nothin else?”
Moran appeared at her side. “This man giving you trouble, Rhonda?”
“Oh no, Sheriff. I just snuck up on him and scared him.”
“Well, how about you scare me up a cup of what he’s having, hey?”
She went away again, and Moran got out of his jacket and tossed it on the booth seat opposite Gordon, tossed his hat on top of that and sat down. He set his phone on the table, off to the side, and slid his napkin and silverware over there too. The two men were silent, looking around the diner, until the waitress returned with a second mug and the pot of coffee.
“There you go, Sheriff. How about you, hon, can I top you off?”
“No, thanks.”
“Anything to eat, Sheriff?”
“No, dear, that’s all,” Moran said, and she went away again.
Moran raised his mug and sipped and set it down again. He sat watching Gordon. Then he said, “Well, Gordon. I’m gonna go ahead and guess you’ve got something on your mind here.”
Gordon was looking down into his own mug. The oily surface of the coffee, the wisps of steam in the bands of light. He rocked the mug a bit to see the liquid move.
“I’m trying to pick someplace to begin,” he said.
“The beginning generally gets the job done, in my experience.”
“The beginning goes a long ways back, Sheriff.”
“Then you best get started.”
The old man at the counter sat watching them over his shoulder. Gordon stared at him until the old man faced forward again.
“Don’t mind old Harold there,” Moran said. “He couldn’t hear a firecracker in a football helmet.”
Gordon placed one hand over the other on the tabletop and looked at the sheriff. “A man told me a story yesterday.”
“Who was the man?”
“Danny Young.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “I had a feeling you were gonna say that name. I had a little talk with that SOB not two days ago. Told me somebody took a potshot at him. You’d think he might’ve gotten the hint.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t say it was. Could have been any number of people. Did he think it was you?”
“I believe it crossed his mind.”
“Did you uncross it?”
“Tried to.”
Moran lifted his mug. Gordon watched him.
“How was it you came to have a talk with him?” Gordon said.
“How’s that?”
“Said you had a little talk with him not two days ago.”
Moran drew his thumb and forefinger down the corners of his mouth. “I had some business up there anyhow, with the Sutter case—those two girls—and a man told me he’d seen him in town so I swung by the house for a chat. Was that part of his story?”
“No, that wasn’t part of it.”
“Well,” said Moran. “You’ve got my attention, Gordon.”
“He said you pulled him over that night.”
“That night?”
“In the park. Ten years ago. Said you pulled him over as he was coming out of the park.”
Moran was silent. He raised a hand to scratch at the side of his nose and lowered the hand again. “That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Yes, sir. Because, the thing is, I don’t remember that ever coming up before.”
Moran looked off through the window slats to his right. “Well, that was ten years ago, Gordon.”
“I’d of remembered that. No way I’d of forgot that.”
Moran turned back to him. “Not sure what fish you’re after here, Gordon.”
“I’m just asking you, Sheriff. Did you pull the boy over that night?”
Moran held his eyes. Did not look away or blink. “I pulled him over, Gordon. He’d been in the park and I gave him a warning and let him go.”
“And then you told Sutter about it. After my daughter… You told Sutter about pulling the boy over?”
“Of course I told him.”
“Then why wasn’t it on the record? Why wasn’t it in the report?”
“I have no idea. You’d have to ask Sheriff Sutter about that.”
Gordon stared at him. Moran staring back. Finally the sheriff looked at his watch. “Was that all you wanted to know, Gordon?”
“No. The boy said something else.”
Moran waited. He opened his hands. “What else did he say?”
“Not so much what he said as what he showed me.”
“What did he show you?”
“Showed me the pocket from the shirt she was wearing that night. The blouse she was wearing.”
The waitress came by and put her fingers on the tabletop. “You boys all right here?”
Moran looked away from Gordon and gave her a smile. “We’re good, Rhonda. Thank you.” She moved on and he watched her go, or seemed to. Then slowly turned back to Gordon.
“The pocket from her blouse,” Moran said. “And what makes you think it was the pocket from her blouse?”
“Well, I had a long night, Sheriff. I had plenty of time to think things through. And one thing I thought was, what would even give him the idea to bring a fake? How would he even know about it?”
“Unless he was the one ripped it off her blouse. I’m sorry to be blunt about it.”
“Unless he was the one,” said Gordon. “And in that case, why bring it at all? And why now?”
“Those are good questions. Did you get the answers?”
“I got his answers.”
“What were they?”
“As to the why, he believes that pocket was put on his truck, on the license plate, by somebody else, and there wasn’t nobody else could of done that between the park and when he found it but one man, and that was the man who pulled him over.”
“Unless it happened before the park. At the bar, for instance.”
“I thought about that too. But nobody said anything happened at the bar. Nobody said anything about a torn blouse when she left there.”
Moran raised his coffee and sipped and set it down again. “And why now?”