Kevin shrugged again. “It’s great, Mom. Thanks.”
Sandy didn’t want to push it. Tonight. Tonight, she promised herself, she was going to get to the bottom of whatever was happening with her son. Hopefully, her job wouldn’t keep her out too late. “Come straight home after school. Mrs. Kobritz will be here. She’ll feed you dinner and stay with you until I get home. Homework first, okay? No games until the homework is done.” She caught him rolling his eyes. “What? You want to spend next summer in math class too?”
She couldn’t understand how her son, a kid who lived to toss dice around a table full of other sweet-natured dorks yelling about casting spells and killing orcs, could have failed his math class. She loved him dearly, and understood that his heart did not belong on a ball field or hockey rink. Kevin forever had his head buried in some book or was playing some space shoot-’em-up game that was far too complicated for her. Math should be easy for him. Maybe he just wasn’t getting it, it was that simple. Maybe she was letting her own impressions of middle school cloud her reasoning. Back then, it seemed like if you were a smart kid, you were smart in every subject.
Sandy hadn’t been one of the smart kids.
The phone rang. Kevin sensed a chance to escape and left his cereal and disappeared upstairs to find his shoes. She stood at the kitchen counter and watched him go. Tonight, she promised herself again. She answered the phone and immediately wished she hadn’t. “Hello?”
“They told me you hadn’t managed to make it into the office yet.”
Sandy recognized that flat drawl, that condescending tone, forever insinuating that she could never measure up as a genuine law enforcement officer. “Sheriff Hoyt.” His call was about as welcome as a fart at the dinner table.
“You heard about this mess down in Haiti? Fire wiped out a goddamn island.” His words sounded like a jackhammer driving a railroad spike into old concrete.
“I, maybe, I don’t know. Haven’t been watching the news much this morning.”
“Ain’t surprised. Keeping up on current events does tend to get in the way of you gals’ soap operas and reality television, don’t it?”
Sandy started to ask, “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
Sheriff Hoyt interrupted. “If you’d been paying attention, you’d know that one of our own lost somebody down there.” He told Sandy all about Bob Morton Jr. and how the Allagro facility had been destroyed by eco-terrorists. “Bob Morton. He’s one of us. One of the good guys. We’re going to give him our full support. Least we can do as Americans. His boy’s funeral and memorial is scheduled for tomorrow. Gonna need you there, to help with all the overflow traffic. Media, tragedy groupies, fuck knows. Think you can handle that?”
“You’re asking me if I think I can direct traffic?”
“Yep.”
“I think I can handle traffic.”
“Good. Funeral is at the First Baptist. Starts at nine sharp. Gonna need you out there early. Take Main and Third. I want you out there right in the middle of the street. Don’t be shy now. You and that half-wit deputy steer ever-body over to the parking lot at the Stop ’n Save. Citizens’ll have to walk to the service. My boys’ll be there, case you need help, positioned all down Third, watching ever-body. State Department’s worried there might be follow-up attacks. Need you on your toes for this one. You send any troublemakers our way. We’ll take care of any tree huggers looking for a fight.”
Sandy said slowly, “Okay, Sheriff.”
“That is, whenever you get into the office. No rush.” A high cackle. “This job may not be clocked, Chief Chisel. However, taxpayers do expect you to show up once in a while.”
Bob tried not to grunt as he strained against the toilet in the only bathroom. The house was damned quiet, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself or his new houseguest. Most days, he was regular as clockwork. This morning, though, his body wasn’t responding. Funny thing was, it felt like he had a basketball jammed up in there, but apparently it wasn’t in any mood to cut loose.
Maybe it was the booze.
Maybe it was the thought of the ashes of his son in the front room on the mantel.
He zipped up and flushed the empty toilet. It wouldn’t look right to spend all morning on the commode. He had things to do. Cochran had explained that, as a leader of the community, Bob had a responsibility. An obligation. The terrorist attack on the island had created a lot of turmoil and suspicion. It was up to Bob to set things straight in the town.
He washed his hands and was comforted at the thought that Cochran was in his house, looking out for him and Belinda, like a lawyer from hell. They hadn’t had any more visitors from the media since Cochran had run those parasites from WGON off his farm. Bob was secretly thrilled that his very own attack dog was armed.
Cochran answered the phone now.
Belinda never really ventured from their bedroom anymore, poor thing. She was taking the death of their only child awfully hard. A few women from the church had stopped by, and after Bob told Cochran they were okay, they had all trooped upstairs to sit with his wife. Bob hoped that might have helped to snap his wife out of her darkness, maybe get her back in the kitchen, but no luck. She still wouldn’t come out. Bob and Cochran had been forced to make sandwiches to feed themselves.
At least they would get a decent breakfast this morning.
It was time to visit the Korner Kafe.
The Korner Kafe had been nestled at the intersection of Highway 67 and Main Street as far back as Bob could remember. Some of his first memories were gobbling down chili dogs for lunch there with his father. Somewhere along the years, maybe from the very beginning, a few unwritten rules had been established regarding each of the meals for the Korner Kafe’s diners. Lunch was reserved for the farmers to bring their children. The adults were silent, leaving the kids to chatter. Dinner was for the wives. But breakfast?
Breakfast was reserved for the men. The farmers.
Business was conducted at breakfast.
And in Parker’s Mill, the Korner Kafe was the only place to take care of business. Handshakes sealed the deal. Paperwork was signed on the Formica countertops. The rest of it, such as filing paperwork with city hall, was pure formality. If you expected the rest of the men to take you seriously, you damn well showed up no later than six a.m., at least five days a week. The place was closed on Sundays.
Bob and Cochran stepped through the door at seven-thirty. Protocol permitted Bob to show up late; he’d lost his son, after all. Cochran followed behind; he was trying to blend in, at least a little. He’d left his suit and tie back at the farm and now wore a New Holland cap and plaid shirt with jeans and work boots.
Esther, the only waitress in the place, turned down the volume on the TV, perpetually tuned to Fox News, in deference to Bob’s mourning. Somewhere on the far side of forty, Esther favored bras that had been hammered into torpedo shapes in the fifties, and sported a platinum blond dye job that looked like it might have been achieved using the same bleach the busboy splashed on the floor at the end of each day.
Bob always sat in the most enviable spot in the diner, the red stool at the end of the counter. The spot was reserved exclusively for him; he wasn’t only the richest farmer in the valley, he was also the farmer with the most acreage under his control. The Korner Kafe was shaped like a large L; those with the most power sat closest to the ninety-degree corner where the cash register resided. If you weren’t a farmer, and instead some nameless trucker passing through on his way to Chicago or St. Louis, you sat in one of the booths. Only local farmers had the right to sit at the counter.