Chapter 6 - What Remains in the Living Room
The living room smelled of dried lavender and stale cedar, a domestic lie maintained for church potlucks and school board barbecues.
I didn't turn on the overhead light. The amber pulse of Sheriff Bob Miller’s cruiser in the driveway threw rhythmic slices of shadow across the floral wallpaper and the framed photographs lining the mantelpiece: Dennis smiling in a tailored navy blazer at the Dawson County Chamber of Commerce gala; Dennis cutting a ribbon outside the new municipal library wing; Dennis with his arm draped around my shoulders at our wedding eight years ago, looking down at me with an expression everyone had called devotion.
I walked past the mantel without breaking stride.
On the corner of the low, chintz sofa, half-tucked beneath an embroidered throw pillow, lay General Pickles. The plush green fabric was faded at the snout where Meadow had chewed on it during teething; one black plastic eye was missing, replaced five years ago by a mismatched navy button I had sewn on with 3-0 braided silk suture. One of his stubby felt horns was bent permanently to the left.
I picked him up. The synthetic stuffing was cold.
Beneath the couch, peeking out from the dust ruffle, was a single sheet of heavy construction paper. I crouched, keeping my spine straight and my ears tuned to the kitchen behind me. Silence from the hallway. Dennis was still on the floor nursing his separated joint, and Miller was frozen in the doorway, staring at the ruin of his municipal empire.
I pulled the paper into the faint light.
It was Meadow’s drawing. A lopsided house with smoke curling from a chimney in erratic loops, two yellow sunflowers taller than the roof, and three stick figures holding hands. At the top, in clumsy, purple crayon capitals, she had written: *FOR AUNT SERENA.*
Across the middle of the paper was the distinct tread of a men's size-eleven work boot, imprinted in dried field clay. Dennis’s heel had torn through the purple letters.
I folded the paper carefully into quarters and slid it into my interior coat pocket alongside Serena’s unlocked phone. General Pickles went under my left arm, pressed against the rubber curve of Meadow’s yellow boot.
I walked out through the front door, letting the brass latch click into place behind me.
The night air had the sharp, metallic bite of an impending freeze. The wind cut across the open sorghum fields to the north, carrying the scent of drying stalks and tractor grease. At the foot of the porch steps, I paused. Miller’s cruiser sat idling in the gravel, its headlights cutting two glaring cones of white dust through the dark. Miller himself hadn't come out. He was likely inside, whispering frantically with Dennis over the kitchen counter, trying to figure out which offshore LLC or destroyed ledger would save him from an unannounced visit by the Department of Justice.
They didn't matter anymore. They were fixed targets in a grid square that was already marked for mortar fire.
I climbed into my Dodge, placed General Pickles and the rain boot on the passenger seat beside my trauma kit, and turned the ignition. The Cummins diesel groaned, caught, and settled into its heavy, subterranean rumble. I backed down the quarter-mile driveway without headlights, relying on the red glow of my taillights against the flanking windbreak of cedar trees.
Only when my tires hit the blacktop of County Road 14 did I pull the headlight knob.
I dialed David Vance on hands-free. The ring tone pulsed twice before the connection clicked.
"Vance," came the flat, gravelly voice.
"I’m leaving the house," I said. "Serena ran south toward Interstate 80 in her blue Civic. Dennis is incapacitated at the residence with an anterior shoulder dislocation. Sheriff Miller is on-site, attempting damage control."
"The State Patrol unit out of North Platte just crossed county lines," Vance said, the sound of keyboard clatter audible in the background. "Two cruisers, Lieutenant Harris leading. I’ve formally requested a federal detainer on Dennis Hawthorne for interstate bank fraud and obstruction involving federal grant funds. The paper will hit the Dawson County clerk’s desk by seven tomorrow morning, but Harris has authority to secure the residence as an active crime scene right now."
"Tell Harris the stairs are the primary physical site," I said, shifting into fourth gear. "Blood transfer on the lower risers, impact marks on the bottom newel post. And Dennis’s boot tread matches the crushed debris at the base."
"Understood," Vance said. A brief pause followed, the background clatter stopping. "How is Meadow?"
"Stable. Clavicle fracture, concussion, contusions."
"And you?"
"I’m her mother, David," I said, watching the yellow dashed lines disappear beneath the hood. "I have the perimeter."
May you like
"Don't do anything that complicates my indictment, Tori."
"The indictment is your mission," I said, and ended the call.
