When Hernandez returned to the car he looked for the peach, but it was gone. He didn't feel any more at ease than when he first saw it. He closed eyes and pushed out a big sigh. His day had started with a schedule. A plan. Simple. Purpose built and purpose driven. Now... Andy Currie... The old man might be, hell, must be, senile. But he said he would testify. Against ... +more+
"It's the same man. No doubt." "How do you know that?" The whole time they talked, Hernandez kept looking at the skin of old Mr. Sneed's hard, ancient, calloused hands and the faded wear of the old man's cotton shirt. "The way he done it. The way the boy was layin' there." The old man answered this as he answered everything the officer asked, as though patiently stating the obvious and with ... +more+
The old man never stopped shaking. He shook as he ushered Hernandez through the back door and into the kitchen. He shook as he asked his wife to give them privacy. He shook as she brought them coffee. He shook as he sat across from Hernandez at the kitchen table and he shook as he sipped his coffee with milk and sugar. Hernandez could not remember him shaking the day ... +more+
He stands where they found the body the day before. He turns slowly around, looking through the heavy fruited orchard, down the narrow dirt access road the killer almost certainly drove. He stops. What? Something there. Across the road in a tree. A reflection of metal up in limb. Not high up. Perhaps at the level of his chest. He walks toward it with great care not to ... +more+
An arrest, a trip to the morgue, and the pavement only just beginning to warm under the morning sun, but Hernandez knows even with so much of it still ahead, his day won't get any better. Before starting the squad car to leave the county morgue parking lot, he glances in the cardboard box sitting in the passenger seat. It ... +more+
He had come to her before. The bushy grey-haired man from The Brenlee News smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes and a made a point of her calling him Phil instead of Bergoyan. He was the only person from town who had said any more than 'Sorry' to her about her son. Most acted as though she didn't speak English and/or avoided her entirely. Tomas' teacher and Ms. ... +more+
Neto did not stay out of it. He did not keep what he'd heard to himself. He made, or tried to make, trouble for Ken Sneed. The trouble he made didn't amount to much. By the time he went to the sheriff with what little he knew, they had already picked up Mike Boone and built a case against him as the murderer of Tomas Coates. The sheriff knew Ken Sneed. ... +more+
When she finally went inside after rolling Kenneth Sneed on his side so he wouldn't die in his sleep on her front lawn, Neto was sitting on the couch near the front door. "You heard that?" She asked him. "Maria, what's going on?" "Neto, I told you to go to bed." "Does he know who did this?" "Forget you heard anything, mijo." He shook his head. "This is no good, Maria." "I know. So, don't say anything. ... +more+
"You up, kiddo?" "Yeah." Where is it? "You gonna get out of bed?" "Yeah." Maybe he hid it. Maybe he took it with him. Mom's hand on my stomach feels good. "You know, you don't have to go to school today." "I know." It doesn't matter. He's not dead. "The police are going to be there." They know. "Why?" "They'll want to talk to you and the other kids about Gabriel." "But..." They know everything already. They have ... +more+
Walt Bishop enjoyed the impression he thought his long grey pony tail made on the law enforcement squares he worked with every day and was certain it afforded him some natural hippie intimacy with any officer or county employee of color that came out as a "hey I'm an outsider too" attitude. Hernandez didn't get it, but he wasn't above using it. "Hola amigo." Walt's stands and extends a hand across ... +more+