barely heard. For on that warm August night, with the first tendrils of fall still three weeks away and the trees holding steadfastly to their summer foliage, it had been Thomas, the familiar brown cowlick of hair rising like a question mark from the top of his head as he stood looking up at the unfamiliar faces all around him.
Ben dropped to his knees and swept his startled son into his arms. ‘Jesus Christ, you scared me!’ he scolded him, hugging the boy tightly. The man in the purple vest and lime-green bow tie (‘Fresh peanuts! Get your fresh peanuts here!’) glanced over at them suspiciously.
Ben muttered a prayer of gratitude, then stood up, holding Thomas in his arms as he began to make his way toward Susan through the thinning horde.
‘They git away from ya, those little ones.’
Ben turned in the direction of the voice, and found himself facing the peanut hawker, whose yellowed eyes stared back at him accusingly.
‘Pardon?’
The man considered him for a moment. The olive shirt beneath his purple vest was dark with sweat stains and his black boots were caked with mud and flecks of trodden hay. He sneered at Ben with a rotten, toothless mouth. ‘Ya oughta watch ya kid more closely nex’ time,’ he admonished Ben, and spat another wad of maroon phlegm onto the ground, where it seemed to twist and hiss like a pat of butter on the scorched brown earth before it finally lay quiet and dead. He leered at Ben contemptuously, his buckled jaw listing to the right at an impossible angle as if it were dislocated from his skull. Still, his mandible moved up and down as he chewed, and bits of mashed peanut shells spilled out from between his twisted lips like dead insects and came to rest at his feet. ‘Kid like that needs ta be watched.’
Ben, not knowing what to say, simply stood there, transfixed, staring back at the man.
‘Yaah,’ the peanut hawker said to himself after a moment’s consideration, as if suddenly coming to some irrefutable conclusion. He spat again on the ground, then wiped his mouth absently with the back of his hand. ‘Kid like that’ll jus’ slip away from ya, if ya not careful wit’ ’im.’ He paused for a moment, reflectively. Then he unfurled a gnarled, accusatory index finger and held it out in Thomas’s direction. Ben pulled the boy closer against himself, turning slightly so that his own body was between his son and the figure in the purple vest.
‘Ya nevah know what a boy gonna do when he git out ’n the world,’ the man said, observing Thomas with a predatory gaze. The volume of his voice began to rise now, high above the crowd like a Bible-thumping preacher before a spellbound congregation. ‘Ya think ’e’s safe, mistah. But ’e ain’t! Ya think ya gotcha boy back now. But ya don’t! You don’ know whe’ah ’e’s been, who ’e’s been consortin’ wit’. Jus’ lookit ’im. ’E’S BEEN EATIN’ PEANUTS! AN’ THE’AH ROTTEN! EV’RY LAS’ ONE!!’
And with that, Ben turned to look at his son, whom he held protectively in his arms. Thomas turned his face upward, glancing at Ben with a doomed expression of guilt and horror. It was obvious now that the boy was sick. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know.’ Then his small body convulsed sharply, and he vomited an enormous torrent of bloody, macerated peanuts onto the ground at Ben’s feet.
Sam Garston was the sort of man who made it seem as if the job of county sheriff had been established not so much because there was a need for it, but because the Jefferson County legislature realized that they needed to come up with some way to make use of the man’s talent and steadfast dedication to public service. Having moved his family to the area thirteen years ago, Ben had not known Sam for as long as some of the true locals. Nevertheless, his position as medical examiner brought him into contact with Sam frequently enough that he felt he knew the man fairly well. He was not surprised, therefore, to find a Jefferson County patrol car parked in front of the Coroner’s Office at nine o’clock on this bright Saturday morning and the six-foot-five, 260-pound chief of police leaning casually against the wall of the building, waiting for Ben to arrive.
‘Good morning, Chief,’ Ben greeted him as he ascended the six steps to the building’s front door.
‘It’s a nice one,’ Garston agreed amicably, squinting slightly as he surveyed the blue sky above. His left thumb was tucked casually into his gun belt, and the large man seemed to lean against the building with enough purpose to make one wonder whether he perhaps moonlighted as a structural support beam for the CO’s front exterior façade. As Sam pushed away from the building’s wall with his right foot Ben could almost feel the CO shift slightly as it resumed responsibility for the entire weight of its frame.
‘Thought I might actually beat you here this morning, Sam,’ Ben commented as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside. A fine mist of dust floated within the identical sunbeams cast through the lobby’s two large front windows. The CO was old, erected at least eighty years ago, and had served as county post office for many distinguished decades before its eventual reassignment. The floors were swept and mopped five days a week by a janitor who took pride in his work and did his job well. Nevertheless, the dust inhabiting the old building had apparently decided long ago that it had a right to be there, and returned every evening after the lights went out and the place was locked up tight. It provided a familiar welcome on mornings like this when Ben was the first to arrive and startle it up from its resting place on the wooden floorboards.
‘You won’t be beating me anywhere showing up at nine a.m.,’ the big man countered. ‘Far as I see it, day’s almost half over. Been up since five-thirty, and waiting here for you since eight. Hell, I’m almost ready for lunch.’
Ben unlocked the door to his small office, and the two men entered. Ben walked behind his desk and sat down in a swivel chair on plastic rollers that tilted slightly to the left. Garston stood next to the only other chair in the room, his head nearly brushing against the low tile ceiling. His massive frame eclipsed the token ray of light emanating from the hallway just outside, and Ben switched on the desk lamp.
‘Have a seat, Sam,’ he said, indicating the vacant chair. The chief descended upon the hapless piece of furniture, which groaned in modest protest. The look of guarded anticipation that darted across Sam’s face suggested to Ben that more than a few chairs had failed him unexpectedly during his tenure on this earth. Ben was grateful when this one did not. He liked Sam, who was sharp as a tack and conducted his job with surprising kindness and decency.
‘Looks like this one’s gonna hold,’ Sam observed, optimistically glancing down at the chair beneath him.
Ben smiled. ‘If it don’t, we’ll take it out back and shoot it.’
‘Won’t be the first time,’ the chief commented. He interlocked his fingers and cracked the knuckles loudly, the noise reverberating off the walls of the small office. It was a bad habit he’d abandoned twenty years ago at the request of his wife, but it occasionally resurfaced during times of stress. He looked up guiltily. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘No problem.’
Sam took a deep breath and let it out. ‘So, what’ve you got?’
Ben opened the left drawer of his desk and pulled out a dark green file. It contained multiple
