Page 32 of The Bright Lands

“Christ, I miss smoking.” Mayfield paced the stuffy room.

“If nothing else, KT and Jamal agree on one thing.” Clark popped the soles of her feet free of her heavy heels—the only pair she owned—which she’d dug from behind the boots in her closet early this morning at Mayfield’s request. She wondered if the street clothes she was wearing made her look less intimidating than if she were in her deputy’s uniform, as the investigator had said, or if she just looked like she was too uncomfortable to be any sort of threat. “Both of those boys say they got home around nine.”

Mayfield fumbled with the air-conditioner only to find it was dead. “And what does that tell you?”

Clark hesitated. “That they had a story planned out in advance. Maybe.”

“Maybe. They sure didn’t plan it well.” Mayfield looked at her again. “You’ve got a knack for this, you know.”

Clark looked down at her notes. The interviews had made her heart race worse than a brawl in the dirt, but they’d also made her giddy in a way that was almost embarrassing. She had always suspected she would be good at investigative work; she prayed Mayfield didn’t notice the little smile his words had sent over her face.

“We’re fortunate they’re both eighteen,” Clark said. “Should we care that they didn’t ask for attorneys?”

“I’d have been more suspicious if theyhad. Try calling that number the Staler boy gave you, the one supposed to belong to this mystery brother of his. I bet you a dime KT himself will answer it with a sock stuffed in his mouth.”

Clark reached for her phone. She’d half expected to see a message from Joel—saying what, she couldn’t guess—but instead there was only the daily email from her father’s nursing home, checking in to say that yesterday he enjoyed pea soup and asked his nurse why the lights outside were so funny.

Clark filed the email, punched in the number KT had given them, listened to it ring.

There was a knock at the door. Coach Parter slipped his considerable bulk through a surprisingly narrow crack. For a time he only stared at Mayfield, patting his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Lord, Grady, you might have warned us.” Parter leaned against the door frame, wiping sweat from his meaty arms. “Principal Mathers is beside himself. I’m sweating enough to salt a fish—you know how I sweat at bad news.”

“It’s a bad situation.”

“Christ almighty, the Whitley boy. And just five days before the Stallions game.”

Mayfield narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure the team will find a way to carry on.”

To Clark’s surprise, a man picked up her call. She turned away from the men and introduced herself.

As she spoke into the phone, Parter shook his head, said to Mayfield, “I come to say they’re canceling class today. They’ll announce it soon. You need to talk with the team, I’m assuming?”

Mayfield said, “We’ll talk to the boys today, yes. We’d also like to speak to Bethany Tanner, Mr. Whitley’s girlfriend.”

“Bethany?” Parter looked up. “I heard one of her friends took her home. The news hit that girl awful hard. You won’t turn the boys’ screws today, will you, Grady?”

Mayfield picked at a nail. “I’m sure we’ll just have a chat.”

Parter looked dubious but seemed to realize there was little he could do. He promised to gather the team, shimmied back into the hall. Clark lowered the phone, more puzzled than when she had picked it up a moment ago.

“Somebodylives at that address in Galveston,” she said to Mayfield. “He says his name is Floyd Tillery and he wants to know—are we free to come see him tomorrow morning?”

JOEL

Joel sank into a padded chair in the funeral parlor’s lobby. He stared at a painting of an incandescent Jesus looming over a man sliding out from beneath a rusted truck.

He thought of the jersey that hung on his brother’s wall: #1 CHRIST.

At the thought of his brother, he craved pills.

Joel had given his statement twice at the station, once directly to the sheriff and the county attorney and again to Mayfield and Clark, a plate of untouched sandwiches resting between them on a sticky table. In each instance, Joel repeated exactly what he had told Mayfield on Saturday: he had last seen Dylan at the football field.

Joel did not tell the police about the painkillers he had discovered in Dylan’s room.

He had been asked, twice, if he could imagine a connection between his own return to Bentley and his brother’s death. Joel had thought Mayfield was joking the first time he asked. No, Joel had told the investigator, he couldn’t, and finally Mayfield had seemed satisfied with his answer, or had at least let it go.

Joel had not let it go.