Page 17 of The River We Remember

“He just stumbled onto Jimmy Quinn here?”

“Not here.” This part Brody had known he would have to tell her, but he hated the thought of it. Still, it had to be done sometime. “We found his body at the swimming hole.”

“No, Brody, you didn’t.”

“As nearly as I can tell, he went into the Alabaster here, drifted downriver, and finally got caught up in a snag of driftwood.”

“Oh, Brody, I wish you hadn’t told me. My memories of that place, of us there, are so special.”

That swimming hole was the first place they’d ever made love. It had happened in the late spring before his father’s death, before Tom had come home to take over the farm. Garnet had been Tom’s girl, had been expected to marry him. But there’d always been a spark between her and Tom’s wild younger brother, and in that final spring, it had blazed into the kind of passion that drove Romeo and Juliet to their fatal ends. But in Black Earth County, people didn’t kill themselves over love. They went ahead and did what was expected of them.

She rolled away from Brody.

“It’s okay, Garnet.”

“No, it isn’t. I don’t have much of you, but I’ve always had those lovely memories. Now…”

“They’re still lovely, Garnet. They always will be. And we’re still creating memories.”

She put herself against him, her back to his chest. “I hate this, Brody.”

“Then leave him.”

“I can’t.” Her breath caught a little, and Brody realized she was crying. “He’s a good man, really. It’s not his fault that I love his brother. And he’s a wonderful father.”

“And you’re Catholic,” Brody said, without trying to hide his bitterness at all the arguments she was able to mount against his wish.

From high up on Fordham Ridge came the howl of a coyote, and Brody and Garnet both fell silent, maybe listening for the call to come again. Or maybe it was something else they were hoping might come to them out of the night, an answer to an impossible situation.

“I should go,” Garnet said.

She sat up. The candle stub had burned nearly completely down, and the wick had begun to sputter. Brody watched her dress in the last gasps of light. Just before she turned back to him, the candle flame died, and they were both in the dark again.

He drew himself up from the blanket and stood naked before her. “Stay.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Someday?”

She kissed him, lingered in his embrace long enough to understand that he wanted more of her, and she finally stepped back. “Keep that thought, Brody. And don’t stay away so long in the future. Bye, Hector,” she called and returned to her car.

When the headlights came on, Brody felt naked and silly and vulnerable in the light. He stepped behind his cruiser and watched her maneuver a U-turn in the high grass.

“Bye, love,” she called to him as she drove away.

When she’d gone, Brody picked up his clothes and dressed. He opened the door of his cruiser, reached into the glove box, and pulled out a flashlight. He clicked the beam on and searched the ground at the edge of the blanket until he found the condom he’d used and had discarded. Too often as he patrolled Black Earth County, he’d seen its like despoiling lovely, isolated places, and he didn’t want to be guilty of the same. He took the collapsible spade he kept in his trunk, dug a small hole, and buried the condom where the wildflowers would grow over it. When he’d finished, he returned to the blanket and sat down. Hector trotted to him, bone in mouth, and lay at his side. After that, Brody sat wide awake for a very long time, thinking about that condom and wondering what, under other circumstances, might have grown from the seed it held.

CHAPTER NINE

BRODY WOKE WITH his back and shoulders sore from the night sleeping on the ground. The sun had just risen. The birds on Inkpaduta Bend were already singing and arguing. He rolled to his side, and there was Hector, breathing into his face, eyes open, blinking patiently.

Brody wanted to go back to sleep, but Hector stood up, gave a woof, and stared toward the county road several hundred yards down the Bend. Then Brody heard what the mutt had heard: a vehicle approaching. He threw off his blanket and got to his feet. In the fresh light of that early morning, Conrad Graff’s pickup rolled toward him. Graff pulled the truck up beside Brody’s cruiser and got out.

Brody looked at his watch. “It’s not even six, Connie.”

Graff wore his Stetson. He’d wedged a hand-rolled cigarette between his lips. He knelt and scratched Hector’s head. He felt around for a moment, then pulled something from the dog’s fur and studied it. He took his cigarette from his mouth and touched the ember to what he picked off the dog.

“Still tick season, Brody. Might want to check yourself.”