Page 8 of The River We Remember

Brody glanced at Colleen, who stood behind the sofa, at her mother’s back, with one hand laid gently on the woman’s shoulder. “Could we talk alone?”

“Colleen,” Marta said, “would you go and make some coffee for us?” She saw her other daughter watching from the kitchen doorway. “And, Bridget, you give your sister a hand, all right?”

“Yes, Mama,” Bridget replied.

When the girls had vanished into the kitchen, Marta said, “Where is he this time?”

Jimmy Quinn suffered from insomnia. Everyone knew it. He often dealt with the affliction by driving somewhere in the night and drinking himself into oblivion. Sometimes it was on one of his own properties, sometimes on the land of another family, as if Quinn considered all of Black Earth County his rightful domain. Brody would get the call from an irritated farmer. He would pick up one of the hired men and they would go and collect Quinn. Sometimes the hired man drove Quinn home, and sometimes Brody would haul him back to the jailhouse in Jewel because, when Quinn was drunk, he might take a blind swing at those trying to help him. Brody had plenty to keep him busy as sheriff without such runs, but he did it because, like most folks who understood the circumstances, he had great sympathy for Quinn’s family.

“He’s in Jewel, Marta.” Brody took a deep breath and gave her the rest. “At Brown’s Funeral Home.”

“The funeral home?” Marta thought about that a moment, then light flared in her dull eyes. “He’s… dead?”

“Yes, Marta. Your husband’s dead. I’m sorry.”

Her face, which had already been pale, went even whiter. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out for a while. Then, in little more than a whisper, “How?”

“I don’t know exactly. We pulled his body from the Alabaster earlier today.”

“Where?”

“Near the bridge on County Seven. My guess is that he went in somewhere upstream and his body floated down.”

Marta looked away, out one of the windows. “He went fishing yesterday,” she said quietly. “Or at least that’s where he said he was going. When he didn’t come home all night, I just figured… well, you know.”

“Yeah,” Brody said. “What time did he leave?”

“I don’t know exactly. Sometime near dark.”

“Did he say where he intended to fish?”

“No.”

“Did he take his truck?”

She nodded.

From the kitchen came the sound of a door opening and men’s voices, and Colleen speaking words that Brody couldn’t quite make out. Then James Patrick Quinn, Jr., strode into the living room. To avoid confusion with his father, most everyone simply called him J.P. He was eighteen and resembled his mother, with dark hair and a physical frame that would never equal Jimmy Quinn’s massive build. He was dressed in jeans soiled at both knees, probably from falling in the effort to round up the bull. His boots were caked with dried mud. He wore a Western-style shirt, colorful and with pearl snaps. He carried a brimmed straw hat in his hands.

“Your shoes, Patrick,” his mother said.

He didn’t seem to hear her. He came straight at Brody. “Where is he? Where’d he pass out this time?”

“Your father didn’t pass out,” Marta said quietly.

“No? Then where the hell is he?”

“In Jewel,” Marta said. “At the funeral home.”

“What, he killed somebody?” It was meant as an angry joke, but when he saw the look on his mother’s face, he understood. His own face took on a quizzical look. “He’s dead?”

“Daddy’s dead?” Colleen said from the kitchen doorway. Bridget stood behind her, almost hidden by her older sister.

Marta beckoned them. “Come in, children. Here, Bridget.” She patted the cushion beside her. “And, Colleen, here,” she said, patting the cushion on her other side.

The two girls did as they’d been told, moving mutely and with faces poised on the edge of some emotion, though Brody couldn’t tell yet what that would be. J.P. remained standing. He was holding his straw hat with both hands and staring at the polished wood floor under his dirty boots.

“The sheriff has just informed me that your father is dead. He was found in the Alabaster River this morning.”