Page 10 of The River We Remember

“I guess that’s it for now, folks. Except…” Brody hesitated. “Marta, I’m going to need someone to come in and make a positive identification.”

“I’ll do that,” J.P. volunteered.

“No,” Marta said. “I’ll do it. When would you like me to come, Sheriff?”

“Would tomorrow morning work?”

“Yes. And I’ll talk to the people at the funeral home then, too, about the burial arrangements.”

“What about his other children?” Brody asked. “Terence and Fiona? Would you like me to break the news to them?”

Marta shook her head. “I’ll make those calls.”

Brody stood. “Again, I’m sorry to have to bring such bad news.”

But looking at those folks, Brody thought they didn’t seem to be taking it badly. They were surprised, sure, but grieving? Not at all. At least not yet. Brody knew a thing or two about death and its aftermath and knew that it sometimes took a while for the grief to set in.

J.P. saw him to the door.

“I’ll bring my mother tomorrow,” the boy said. “Would ten do?”

Brody looked into the young man’s eyes and didn’t see any of Jimmy Quinn there—the bully, the brute, the blustering Irish giant. He found that reassuring.

“Ten’ll be just fine,” he said.

CHAPTER SIX

THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT and county jail were housed in a long, narrow, red-brick building that in 1958 was already half a century old. The sheriff’s office occupied the small front room. Behind a metal security door was a block of six cells. Upstairs was a living area that, while he wore the badge, was Brody’s. The jail was seldom occupied for long. Most crimes in Black Earth County were simple affairs, and sentences usually lasted no more than a few days, or maybe a week or two. Lengthier stays were generally farmed out to the much grander jail in Worthington, a larger town in the adjoining county with, apparently, a more vigorous population of miscreants.

Brody parked on the street. When he entered the jailhouse, Hector leapt to his feet and came trotting to greet him, tail wagging like a crazy metronome. Deputy Asa Fielding was there, but not alone. Gordon Landis was with him. Landis had once been a police officer in Saint Paul. He claimed to have left the force of his own volition, but rumors circulated that he was let go because of his cruelty in handling offenders. He’d returned to Jewel and taken over the running of the Alabaster Inn, which his family owned. Brody didn’t like the man. His official nickname was Gordy, but out of his hearing Brody and his deputies often referred to him as “Gory” because he was easily inclined to share publicly the unpleasant details of the car wrecks and other bloody incidents he claimed to have been involved with while in uniform.

“Heard about Jimmy Quinn,” Landis said. “Heard you found him in the river, chewed up by catfish. True?”

Brody wasn’t happy that Quinn’s death was already public knowledge. He trusted Asa Fielding and Sam Wicklow, so he figured it had been Herman Ostberg who’d opened his big mouth. Brody simply gave Landis a nod.

“He kill himself or somebody do that for him?”

“We just got the investigation under way,” Brody replied.

“Whoo-ee, this’ll set folks back on their heels.” Landis laughed as if it were an entertaining joke. “You need a hand, you let me know.”

“Will do.”

Landis looked toward the cellblock. “Klein giving you any trouble?”

“Felix? Only on the chessboard, Gordy.”

“Well, listen good,” Landis said, loud enough that Felix could hear from his jail cell. “Next time he decides to use the parking lot of the Alabaster Inn as his private toilet, I’ll cut off his pecker and shove it up his ass.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Brody said.

When Landis had gone, Asa said, “Fred Brown called from the funeral home. Wants you to call him back.”

“Did he say why?”

“Nope. But I’m just the deputy here.”

Asa Fielding was a strapping young man. He’d been a bit of a hellion in his teenage years, but he’d gone into the service during the Korean War, had served his entire tour of duty as an MP, and had come back with a respect for authority he hadn’t shown before. He’d married Suzie Thorndike, former cheerleader and his high school sweetheart. When an opening had come up for a deputy, Brody had hired him. Asa had proved himself to be a man of restraint, and because of his size, he was good to have along when Brody was trying to subdue a guy who’d had too much to drink and was just itching for a fight. Asa was his deputy and his colleague, but Brody didn’t think of him as a friend. In truth, Brody had few of those.