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The song floated like balm over the speakers in the darkened bar in Clear River. Waylon Jennings, longing to get back to the basics of love and a pain-free life in Luckenbach, Texas.

The music played while, in a quiet corner, several men were gathered at a table, huddled over a skyline of glasses and bottles. And as the song revered a simpler life, they talked quietly about death.

“What was it like, watching Hyde go to his maker?” Clay Smith asked Vern Hamilton.

Vern glanced round at the faces of men from the sheriff’s office and police. In their line of work, they’d confronted death at highway wrecks, where bodies were entwined in twisted metal, deaths at shootings, fires, drownings and suicides. But Vern was the only one here who’d witnessed an execution.

He stared into his beer, as if it would carry him back to the viewing window in Huntsville, then shook his head thoughtfully.

“Like watching someone go to sleep. It looked peaceful.”

A pensive air fell over the men as they each absorbed his account.

“Peaceful,” Clay repeated, shaking his head. “A shame he didn’t suffer like the girls he killed. It’s good he’s in the ground. Good riddance, I say. It’s done.”

The group punctuated Clay’s words with another pull on their beers, a subtle toast to the end of a violent chapter in the county’s history.

“How’d you do it, Vern?” Eugene Cobb, a detective with the county, asked. “Every time Blake and I approached him, he shut us down.” Cobb had chiseled features, but his recent divorce had carved lines into his groggy face, making him look older than he was. “You go see him at Polunsky in Livingston and prod him to confess? I mean…wow.”

The edges of Vern’s silver mustache drooped and he traded a quick glance with Sheriff Bob Ellerd, then Blake Mallory.

“He’d always been a suspect,” Vern said.

Ellerd nodded and drank some beer as Vern continued.

“As you know, it started when Tyler detectives put Hyde near the woods at the time of the murders. All the similarities with Jenna Dupree, and some physical evidence left at the scene, were consistent with Wild Pines.”

“But you had nothing strong enough to charge him?” Clay said.

“No, not at the time,” Vern said.

“But before Hyde surfaced—” Garth Reeger nodded, his focus landing on Vern “—they were looking hard at your daughter for the murders.”

All eyes turned to Reeger, who was regarded as a pariah by most at the sheriff’s office. He hadn’t been invited to join the group. He happened to arrive at the bar and, upon greeting his colleagues at the table, was, after a brief hesitation, permitted to pull up a chair, momentarily changing the mood. Reeger had mostly remained silent and the others tolerated his presence. But now, as he engaged in the conversation, Ellerd saw Vern’s jaw tensing.

“That’s right, Garth,” Ellerd said. “Eve Trainor and Ben Mc Graw, the first leads, were convinced that Carrie had a falling-out at school with Abby and Erin and resolved it in Wild Pines Forest.”

“And what was the cause of death?” Reeger asked.

Ellerd, Vern, Cobb and Mallory exchanged glances.

“That’s never been revealed,” Mallory said. “It was always held back to protect the case.”

“If it’s over, there’s nothing to protect,” Reeger said.

“Most people always speculated it was gunshot wounds,” Ellerd said. “That turned out to be the cause, of course.”

“So, when Hyde confessed, you recovered the murder weapon?” Clay asked.

“No,” Ellerd said. “Hyde said he threw it and the casings somewhere in the Sabine River, in the Piney Woods. It’s never been recovered.”

Clay saw that Vern appeared pensive, lost in his thoughts.

“Damn, Vern, you been through hell with this for so long,” Reeger said. “Carrie not remembering anything? Maybe that’s a blessing.”

Vern stared at Reeger.

“She nearly died running for her life,” Vern said. “A bone chip from her skull cut into her brain.”

“It was good that you got her to California,” Clay said.

After a gulp of beer, Reeger nodded in agreement. “It sure was,” Reeger said, nodding. “She marries Luke, of the LAPD. They make you a granddaddy. Then Luke comes to work here, for lower pay and a slower pace after his troubles in LA. Kinda like on-the-job therapy.”

“You got a point to make, Reeger?” Vern said.

Reeger drank again. “Just that Luke Conway is something, all right.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vern said.

“I’m talking about him sticking his nose in my zone. In my investigation. He just seems awfully interested in things near Fawn Ridge and River Road and I can’t figure out why.”

“Drop it,” Ellerd said.

“Is this why you came here?” Vern said. “To make insinuations about my family?”

“I’m just saying, something’s a little off with Luke Conway.”

“I said drop it, Garth,” Ellerd said.

“Garth.” Clay turned to Reeger. “You got a mighty short memory, buddy. Fact is, Luke was assigned to cover for you while you were in Austin. The construction folks at Fawn called to ask why you were draggin’ your ass on the theft of forty thousand in material and tools from their site. And, as I recall, Luke suggested he might know a way you could solve it. But your ego shut him down.”

Reeger’s face reddened as he bit back on his anger, then downed the remainder of his beer.

“I’m just sayin’ there’s something not right,” Reeger said, reaching into his pocket. He tossed some bills on the table. “Not right.”

Once Reeger had left, the others shook their heads, some of them smiling.

“Yep, something’s not right. With Reeger,” Clay said.

The men passed another hour talking and slowing their drinking. At one point, Vern, being the proud grandpa, took out his phone and showed off pictures of Emily.

“Vern,” Mallory said, “it’s got to feel good having Carrie back home with your grandbaby and Luke, especially with all this awful Hyde business done.”

“It’s the best medicine, given the time I got left.”

“Yeah,” Clay said, “colon cancer. That’s a hell of a thing, Vern. A hell of a thing.”

“You play the hand you’re dealt.”

“How you doing these days?” Ellerd asked.

Vern shrugged. “No pain, just living every day.”

“Well, your detective instincts and skill are as sharp as ever,” Mallory said. “I’m amazed that after all these years, you succeeded in getting Hyde to confess.”

Vern peered into his beer.

“Sometimes when a man is close to death, his sense of what’s right and what’s wrong becomes crystalline. It can become more than his conscience can bear.”

***

Mallory had the least to drink and was the designated driver, taking the others home in his pickup with the crew cab.

After arriving home, alone in the dim light, Vern went to his office. Sitting at his desk, he looked at his framed pictures of his family while reflecting on the conversations at the bar.

In his tired, semi-inebriated state, he considered Luke. Vern understood fully the regret and trauma Luke carried. Then, looking upon Doreen’s smiling face, the melody of her favorite song came to him, along with memories of holding her while they danced in the kitchen.

Then her job, their arguments, his suspicions.

Her death.

How it’d cleaved him, left him a broken man.

Those vile rumors that he’d killed Doreen.

Vern swallowed hard.

Lord, he missed her.

Then Carrie, the lone survivor in the woods. He thought about how he almost lost her. Making sure she moved away, to live with Pearl in California. Her meeting Luke, becoming a mother.

The doctor, telling him he was terminal, running out of time.

Hyde’s confession, clearing the case.

The girls were shot. The gun never found.

The questions at the bar echoed in his mind: How did he get Hyde to confess?

Sometimes a man’s conscience becomes more than he can bear.

Vern took stock of his study, his citations, plaques, guns and books on investigative techniques.

And sometimes, the truth will remain buried even if I have to take it to my grave.