beauty. He crashed it not far from here, going too fast, and he just lost control. That’s all there was to it. Nobody else was hurt, thank God, but my friend, he was killed instantly. I don’t know, ever since then, I see one of these cars and I just think … death.” He gave a little smile and a little shrug.
“Well, that is a story with a sad ending,” said Milo.
“Isn’t it just?” The man smiled at them, for real this time, though there wasn’t much friendliness in it. “How are you folks? My name is Theodore Roosevelt, no relation to the big man, I’m afraid. You can call me Teddy. As you can probably tell by the badge, I’m the sheriff ’round these parts. If no one has bothered to do it, I bid you welcome to Springton. Now what brings you nice people to our little town, I wonder?”
“Just passing through.”
“Ah, that old staple. Just passing through. It’s hard to make new friends when everyone’s just passing through, that ever strike you as a truism? I’m collecting them – truisms, that is. Collecting them, coming up with them, going to put them all into a book when I’m done, try and get it published some day. Kind of going for a homespun sort of feel, you know? Going to call it Words of Wisdom, something hokey like that. Hokiness sells.”
“That another truism?”
Teddy smiled. “I guess it is. Might not include it in the collection, though. So is this a family trip?”
“That’s what it is,” said Milo.
“You and the kids, on a family trip. Your wife not come with you?”
“I’m afraid she’s not with us anymore.”
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that, Mr Sebastian. I am truly sorry.”
The air went quiet around them.
“You checked the plates, huh?” said Milo.
“One of the perks of being the sheriff,” Teddy answered. “Funny, your details mention nothing about you having a family.”
Milo nodded. “The kids were born out of wedlock. They’re very self-conscious about it.”
“Very,” said Glen.
“Your kids don’t look a whole lot like you,” Teddy said. “Also, from what I hear from a certain elderly librarian, your son is Irish.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “We get people like you passing through all the time. Oh, and by ‘people like you’, I don’t mean the Irish. I mean gawkers. What I like to call bloodhounds. They hear about our town, hear we used to have a serial killer, and they come sniffing around, thinking how exciting it all is, how fun. But the wounds that man made still haven’t closed over, and you walking around asking clumsy questions is just going to get people’s backs up.”
“It’s my fault,” said Glen, his shoulders drooping. “I’m not his son, I’m his nephew. Yes, I’m from Ireland. But I’m dying. I don’t have long left.”
“That so?”
“It is. I came over here to see America before I … before I pass on. And yeah, you’re right, I asked to come to Springton because of the serial killer. I’ve always been fascinated with that stuff. A kind of morbid curiosity, I suppose. But I never intended to upset anyone, Sheriff. I’m really sorry.”
“What’s your name, son?”
“Glen, sir.”
“Well, Glen, I’m sorry to hear of your ill-health. What have you got, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Lupus,” said Glen.
Teddy frowned. “Is that fatal?”
“Oh yes,” said Glen. “Very.”
“You sure? I don’t think it is.”
“It’s not always fatal,” Glen said quickly. “If you get treatment for it, no, it’s not fatal. Rarely fatal. But I have a rare form of lupus that is very fatal.”
“Glen, forgive me for asking this, but do you know what lupus is? A friend of mine has lupus, a reverend. His joints get all swollen up, he gets rashes, he’s tired all the time, and his hair even fell out.”
Glen nodded. “I have the other kind of lupus.”
“The kind that has none of those symptoms?”
Glen bit his lip for a moment. “I get the feeling you’re not believing me.”
Teddy sighed. “You’re not too bright, son, and that’s okay. There’s no law against being stupid. There’s also no law against being a bloodhound, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop pestering people with questions – especially my daughter.”
“Your daughter?”
Teddy nodded. “She works in the library. She’s the librarian who is not elderly.”
“Ah,” said Milo. “Heather called you.”
“She may have mentioned it during one of our regular father-daughter chats.”
“So are you going to run us out of town?”
Teddy chuckled. “I don’t think I have to do anything quite so dramatic, do you? Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s getting late in the day and, as you folks aren’t from around here, I’d like to invite you to stay overnight in our little town.”
“That’s mighty Christian of you.”
“And to save you some money, you’ll be staying with us, my wife and I. Have a good home-cooked meal. That sound good?”
“We really couldn’t impose,” said Milo.
“It is not an imposition, I assure you,” said Teddy. “I insist on you staying with us. That okay with you?”
Milo glanced at Amber, and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “That’d be great.”
“Excellent,” Teddy said, beaming. “I’ll tell her to make up the rooms. Our bed-and-breakfast rates are quite competitive, just so you know.”
SHERIFF ROOSEVELT’S PLACE WAS a neat little house out on the edge of town. It had pebbles instead of grass in the front yard, and a path of cobblelock paving. Mrs Roosevelt – Ella-May – was a handsome woman who struck Amber as someone playing at running a B&B. She had a way about her, a way of asking questions and getting answers, that suggested a whipsmart mind, even in her advancing years. Running a B&B seemed a rather tame endeavour for someone like her.
The house looked like a picture-perfect amalgamation of various local tourism brochures. Everything was pretty, with a restrained, folksy charm. Milo and Glen had to share the twin beds in the double room, but
