But another part of me knows I have to go there. Nothing will make sense until I do. “I have to see it for myself, T.J.”
He shakes his head and keeps driving. We stop before we reach the barn. He pulls the car off the gravel road, but keeps the engine running. We’re about half a mile from the barn and house. “This isn’t a good idea, Hope. It’s too dangerous.”
“Nobody’s there, remember?”
“What about Caroline Johnson? If you’re right and she did murder her husband, she’s not going to want us snooping around.”
“She’s not going to know. But you don’t have to come. I mean it.” I unbuckle my seat belt. I don’t need a partner. I don’t need anybody. It’s Jeremy and me, the way it’s always been, and that’s fine with me. “Thanks for driving me out here. I’ll just walk home when I’m done.”
I get out of the car and start walking toward the barn.
Behind me, I hear the engine shut off and a car door open and close. Then T.J. calls up, “Will you wait until I get the flashlights?”
Purple clouds race across the sky now, making shadows dance on the path. We walk past an Amish pasture, where hay is stacked in crisscrossed bundles, lined in straight rows like nature’s soldiers ready to attack. The only sound is the crunch, crunch of gravel under our feet.
When the path dips, we run straight into a cloud of tiny bugs. As if they’ve been waiting all night for us, they swarm, landing on our heads, arms, and legs. I swat wildly at them, smashing a few on my arms, brushing them off my face.
T.J. grabs my hand and takes off. “Run!”
I run. I’m an arm’s length behind him, trying to catch up. His grip is tight. The bug cloud thins and finally drifts away behind us.
We slow down. I take my hand back and stop to catch my breath. My side aches.
“Are you okay?” T.J. asks, circling back for me.
“What was that back there?” My voice comes in spurts.
“Bugs. I’ve seen them like that a couple of times out here in the mornings. Once I saw Chase running like he was on fire, with a cloud of those things after him. There’s a bog down that hill, where the bugs hang out. They’re the same kind of bugs that helped the Cleveland Indians beat the Yankees in a play-off game a few years ago. It was all over the news.”
“They’re wicked.”
He brushes my hair with his hand. I don’t want to think that he’s brushing out bugs. If I were going to give up this crime scene trip and go home to bed, this would be the moment to do it.
We start walking again. “So why do you come by the barn?” I don’t think he ever answered that. “Or why did you?”
“I wanted to get used to horses. I don’t like being afraid of things.” He pauses a minute. “And I guess I used to like to talk to Coach.”
It’s what I thought. “Chase mentioned something about you and Coach having problems, something about your mom and the cookies?”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” he says, but it comes out too quickly. “It was mostly the guys. But Coach shouldn’t have laughed. They took their cue from him. Anyway, it’s over. Forget it.”
We’re at the last stand of sheltering trees. The barn is out in the open about a hundred feet away, with the house another hundred feet beyond that.
“Let’s do it,” I whisper.
We run, crouched like we’re dodging bullets. When we reach the entrance to the barn, we both just stand there, looking in.
T.J. breaks the spell. “Last chance to turn back.”
I stare into the barn, toward the stalls, the place where they found Coach’s body. There’s no crime scene tape anywhere, no chalk-line drawing of the body. “I’m sorry, T.J. You don’t have to come in. Really. But I do. I have to try to understand. I have to do that much for Jeremy.”
“All right. But we better get going before the sun comes up. There’s a light on in the Johnson house. For all we know, that woman could be calling the police right now.”
I glance behind us toward the house. He’s right. I see the light through the window. But I can’t worry about that now. I take a few steps into the barn. My eyes adjust to the dark, and I point to a spot just inside the door where a stall forms a right angle with the wall. “That’s where Jeremy put his bat when he came to the barn. If he’d brought his gloves, he would have dropped those there too.”
“Keep going.”
I stare at the exact spot where Jeremy would have left his bat. “He parked his bat there because it scared the horses. Then he’d get down to business and haul manure or groom the horses. He loved it here.” I’m picturing everything in my mind as I talk. “He even loved cleaning out the stalls. Coach taught him how to brush the horses, and Jer was really good with them.” I smile over at T.J. and can tell he’s listening. “Coach paid him a salary. Jeremy was so proud of that, even though Rita got all the checks.”
I take a few steps deeper inside the barn and inhale the scents of sawdust, manure, and horse. The smells are strong, even after so much time, but mold and must are mixed in with them. “Did you know Coach taught Jeremy how to ride?”
T.J. nods.
“He learned fast too.” I can almost see Jeremy riding Sugar, Mrs. McCray’s old pinto, bareback. Jeremy’s mouth is open, probably catching all kinds of bugs. His green backpack of empty jars bounces on his back. It was a miracle none of his jars ever broke that way.
I feel myself getting choked up. I have to stop it. This isn’t why I came here.
We move toward the last stall, the one Coach was found lying outside of. The whole barn feels eerie, as if ghost horses have taken the place of the former boarders.
“Whose horse was in that stall the morning…?” T.J.’s voice fades.
“Lancer, Mrs. McCray’s show horse. She boarded two horses here-Sugar, the old pinto Jeremy rode, and Lancer, a bay gelding she rode for dressage.”
We’re standing in front of the stall. For all I know, my feet are in the exact place where Coach was lying. I should have come sooner, when things were fresh, when I might have seen something. I turn on my flashlight and shine it on the floor.
“What are you looking for, Hope?”
I point the beam of light on the sawdust. There are feces now-mice, rats. I can almost hear the squeals of frightened horses, the thump of the bat, Coach’s cry.
“Hope, are you okay?” T.J. grabs me by the shoulders. “You look like you’re going to faint.”
“I’m okay,” I whisper. I try to focus on Jeremy again. “Jeremy would have been so excited-that’s why he got up early that morning. He put on his Panther uniform, like he did every game day, and wore it to the barn, even though he knew he’d be mucking out stalls. He’d have his backpack of jars too.”
“You need to hurry, Hope.” T.J. glances over his shoulder.
“I know. But I have to think it through, the whole thing. Because I can feel it. I’m missing something.” I turn back and stare at the sawdust beneath my feet. I can see the shadow of blood there, but I know it’s in my head. “Jeremy would have looked around for Coach. They said he rode Sugar that morning. Maybe when he didn’t see Coach, he decided to go for a ride.” I look over at T.J. “That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
I keep going. “Normally, Jer would never ride before he finished chores. I guess he might have wanted to ride so bad that he went ahead. Coach wouldn’t have minded.” This part of my story is shaky, and I know it. Why would he ride that morning, on a game day? Why would he ride without doing his chores? “Maybe Coach told Jeremy to go riding, and he’d clean the stalls himself.”
“Okay. Move on, Hope,” T.J. urges.
“And that’s when Caroline saw her opening,” I continue, visualizing her hobbling to the stable. “Opportunity. Means. She sees Jeremy take off on Sugar, and that is her cue. So she comes to the barn, brings her own gloves or puts on Jeremy’s, picks up the bat, and-”
“Can we go now, Hope? Please?”