Page 9 of The River We Remember

“Was he swimming or something?” Colleen asked, then looked at Brody.

“We don’t know yet exactly what happened,” Brody told her. “We retrieved his body and took it to the funeral home in town. That’s about it at the moment. I’m sorry.”

There was a period of silence while Brody’s words soaked in, then J.P. said, “Hell, I’m not.”

“Patrick,” his mother said, so harshly that even Brody jerked back a little.

J.P. looked down at the floor once more and again went silent.

“Your mother said he was going fishing. Is that what you all understood?” Brody asked of them in general.

“I dunno.” Bridget shrugged, and Brody couldn’t tell if her blank look was confusion or numbness in the face of such a sudden and overwhelming consideration as the death of her father.

“Bridget wasn’t here last night,” Marta said. “She was at a sleepover with some friends. At the Baldwins’ house.”

“I was asleep in my bedroom,” Colleen said. “I didn’t even hear his truck leave.”

Brody glanced at Quinn’s son. “Did he say anything to you?”

“I was out on a date last night,” J.P. replied. “Wouldn’t have mattered, though. He never tells me anything except that I’m not pulling my weight.”

One of the hired men stepped in from the kitchen. “Coffee’s perking, Mrs. Quinn.”

“Remove it from the burner, Able, and then would you come in here for a moment? And bring Tyler with you.”

The man stepped away from the door and reappeared a few moments later with the other hired hand. They came into the living room and stood beside J.P.

“Something’s happened,” Marta said. “Something terrible.”

“Yeah, we overheard. Sorry, Mrs. Quinn, couldn’t help it.” Able Grange poked a thumb back toward the kitchen.

Grange was small but powerfully built, in his late twenties, and recently married. He farmed for both his father-in-law and Quinn, trying to bank enough money so he could someday buy and work his own land.

The other man was Tyler Creasy. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and gaunt, cheeks that were hollows in a horse face. He’d removed his hat when he came into the living room, an old red ball cap, exposing a scalp with only a few long wisps of hay-colored hair remaining. Brody and Creasy had a history; not a good one. The sheriff had known Creasy since they were both boys but never known him well. Creasy came from an extended family that lived along the river south of Jewel in a place folks called Creasy Hollow. They were a bunch that kept to themselves and Tyler, the youngest, was no exception. He’d been a quiet kid, a loner, as Brody recalled. Then, like so many young men, on graduation from high school he went away to war and came back changed. Darker. Harder. Brody had hauled him in a number of times for a variety of reasons, usually involving alcohol and fisticuffs. At the moment, Creasy’s hostility was clear in the way he eyed the sheriff.

Brody asked, “Did Jimmy say anything to either of you yesterday about going fishing?”

“Didn’t say anything to me,” Grange said.

“Me, neither,” Creasy said.

Brody looked behind the two hired men, as if searching. “Where’s Noah Bluestone?”

“Jimmy let him go a couple of days ago,” Creasy said.

“Why was that?”

“They had words,” Creasy replied. “Jimmy said he didn’t have no need for an uppity Indian and told him to get off the place.”

“Any idea what they argued about?”

“Bluestone was stealing gas from the pump. Filling his own truck.”

Brody looked at Marta and the children. “And his wife, Kyoko Bluestone? She worked for you, too, right? And Jimmy let her go as well?”

Marta nodded. “He said the girls could do Kyoko’s work here in the house.”

Brody tried to think if there was anything more he should ask, anything else he should say before he approached the final piece of the unpleasant business.