Page 16 of The River We Remember

“There’s a lot of blood and his shotgun’s in the middle of it. It’s clear he did some serious drinking. So maybe a horrible accident. Or maybe he killed himself deliberately.”

“Jimmy Quinn? Suicide?” She sounded incredulous.

“I’ve seen stranger things.”

“Is it possible he was murdered?”

“Which of your neighbors do you want to accuse?”

She reached out her hand and ran her fingers slowly down the line of his cheekbone. “You’ll get to the bottom of it, Brody. I know you will. You’re very good at what you do.” She paused a heartbeat and added, “At everything you do.”

Hector, who was well trained, waited patiently at Brody’s side, but his tail was whipping the high grass behind him.

“Hey, there, boy,” Garnet said. She held out a big ham bone with plenty of meat still on it. “Bet you could eat, huh? Here.” She tossed the meaty bone a distance away. “Get it, boy.”

But the dog didn’t budge until Brody said, “Go on, Hector.”

A cloud hid the face of the moon. “Awfully dark out here, Brody,” Garnet said. “Luckily, I brought some light.” She reached into the pocket of her shorts and took out a candle stub and a matchbook. She struck one of the matches, lit the candle, and tilted it above the hood of Brody’s cruiser. After a few moments, she seated the stub in the melted wax that had dripped there. In the flickering light, she looked where Brody’s blanket lay. “If you spread that out a bit more, both of us could fit.”

The blanket had been folded in half, and Brody knelt and spread it out completely, smoothing the wrinkles into a uniform softness. When he stood up again and turned back to Garnet, he found that she’d already removed her blouse and bra. In the pale illumination from the single flame, her breasts were so beautiful that Brody’s breath caught and he whispered, “God, Garnet.”

She stepped to him, pressed herself against his chest, turned her face up, and kissed him with a hunger that was almost violent.

“It’s been too long, Brody,” she said. “You’re cruel sometimes.”

“Shut up,” he said and drew her down onto the blanket.

“SEPARATE BEDROOMS?” BRODY said. “Your suggestion or his?”

They lay together on the blanket, in the warm night and dim light of the flickering candle. Brody cradled Garnet in his arms.

“Tom snores so bad I can’t sleep some nights. And if I read in bed, he complains that my noisy page turning keeps him awake.”

Brody wondered if Garnet and her husband still had sex and, if so, how frequently. But he didn’t want to ask, didn’t really want to know the answer. Instead he said, “Do you get lonely? Does he?”

“He says he likes it, that he never has to worry about keeping me awake or me stealing all the covers.”

“And you?”

She was thoughtfully quiet. “If he just didn’t snore.” Then, as if eager to change the subject, she said, “Why would he kill himself?”

“Quinn? I don’t know.”

“He was such a bully. Bullies don’t kill themselves. They kill other people.”

“He had dark periods, Garnet. Terrible insomnia. He’d go off somewhere, isolate himself, drink until he was in a stupor.”

“I know. Tom found him asleep in our barn once, drunk and all drugged up.”

“He battled demons. Maybe this time the demons got the better of him.”

“Who found him?”

“Herman Ostberg.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Lives in Carthage, works at the gravel pit.”