Page 60 of Smoke and Roses

“H.S.,” I say as I fold my hands on the desk. “I think it’s Hank Simmons.”

He nods and looks pained about it. “I’ve known since you handed me that receipt. I rode with Hank a few years as a rookie. He trained me. Was the best lawman I ever knew.”

For a moment, Gabe looks out the window. “Records show Hank was the deputy who took the report from Carol the morning after Danielle Hayes went missing. He was the one who told the entire valley she ran off to Portland.”

Shit. This isn’t good. I don’t say anything as I turn this development over in my head.

“I didn’t want it to be him,” Gabe says, his tone quiet. “I ran all fifteen names anyway. Hoping something would come up. Harold Sorensen was in Arizona that month. Helen Smoot’s truck was in the shop. The Sutton boys were in jail for a bar fight, if you can believe it.”

Gabe almost smiles but his expression quickly hardens.

“Hank bought a tractor in 2008. A Kubota with a front loader. He sold it in 2010. On May 15, 2009, he was off shift from six p.m. until he came in at seven the next morning to take Carol’s report. And the Tuesday after, the day that chain got bought, he was off again.”

“Jesus,” I say, dragging my hand over my jaw. “Did he hurt her?”

“No.” Gabe says it fast and hard. “No. I’d stake my badge on that. Hank Simmons never hurt anybody in his life who didn’t have it coming.”

Gabe’s eyes are hard when he looks at me. “Whatever he did that night, Travis, he did it for that girl. Not to her.”

Tension ripples in my muscles as I sit back in the chair. “Then why didn’t he ever say anything?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? Here’s the thing. I can go out there with a badge and ask him. He’ll tell me what he wants me to know and not a word more. I know him. He trained me. Or⁠—”

He swings his gaze to me again.

“Or what?”

“Or somebody goes out there who isn’t a cop. I know he’s been watching you and the way you are with Lindsey through the window at Marlene’s for a month.”

Hank has been in the diner window. His words echo from last night. She was a good, brave girl.

“Does Lindsey know?” Gabe asks.

I tell him, “She knows I’ve wondered. She doesn’t know it’s him.”

“You going to tell her?”

I think about her face in the shop last night. All those people, all those stories. The way she laughed when Carol laughed. The way she looked at me at the end, like she wanted to say something and decided not to.

If I tell her it was Hank, kind old Hank who buys a yellow rose every Friday, who she’s known since she was born, it’s going to break her. But she deserves the truth.

“Right now,” I say, my own voice hard. “Soon as I leave here.”

Gabe nods slowly, like that’s the answer he was hoping for.

“Son,” he says. “I’ve been married twelve years. Can I give you some advice?”

“Go ahead.”

“When you tell her, don’t fix it.” He folds his hand around a coffee mug. “You’re going to want to. Every man in this county wants to fix it. Make a plan, make a call, drive out there and get answers so she doesn’t have to. Just tell her, and stand there. Let her decide what happens next. It’s her best friend.”

I look at the receipt for the chain on Gabe’s desk as the puzzle comes together in my mind. “Yes, sir,” I say.

The station’s slow at 1700 on a Thursday. Engine 1 is backed into the bay with her compartment doors open, and Rob is doing bottle checks.

“Sarge. You’re off today.”

“Paycheck.”