Wink of an Eye

by Lynn Chandler Willis

  He stared at the worn linoleum, then finally took a deep breath and looked at me. “I don’t think Tatum understands his dad was just a small part of this whole story. I’m afraid he’s going to be pretty disappointed when the only people who care whether Ryce killed himself or was murdered is the insurance company. His dad died a hero and the only thing people are going to remember is Sheriff Denny blew his brains out because one of his deputies was trafficking girls.”

  “As long as he knows his dad was a hero, does it matter what anyone else thinks?”

  “To a twelve-year-old?”

  He had a point. The sad fact was he was right—no one was going to remember a good cop was murdered. Tatum, along with Denny’s two daughters, would forever be thought of as the children of parents who killed themselves.

  “I’m ready!” Tatum yelled as he bounded into the living room. “Can we stop at the store and get a bag of ice?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I don’t know how long he thought we were going to be out there. Personally, I was looking forward to a nap sometime this afternoon thanks to Miss Sophia.

  “Got your life jacket?” Burke asked Tatum.

  “We’re not going swimming, Pops. We’re just going to take some pictures.”

  “You can swim in the sinkholes now?” The last I had heard the oil company that owned the land had installed mile after mile of chain-link fence to keep people from being swallowed up by the great holes.

  “Not supposed to,” Burke said. “But you know teenagers.”

  “Can we take Jasper?”

  I stared at Tatum as if he’d lost his freakin’ mind. The sandwiches, the cooler—I was humoring him. A dog in the van? Especially a yapping dog.

  “Me and Dad used to take him every Saturday morning out to the T Cross farm and let him run the cattle. He hasn’t been anywhere since…”

  Did he just play the guilt card? Burke was fighting off a grin so hard I thought his face was having some kind of spasm.

  “I gave him a bath last week so he doesn’t smell bad.”

  What the hell was I supposed to say? A few minutes later, I tossed the cooler in the back of the van while Tatum buckled up in the passenger seat. Jasper, smelling fresh and clean, had our backs from his perch on the console. Damn dog.

  “This is going to be the best science project ever.”

  I cut him a sideways glance and smiled. I picked up Highway 115 about two miles up the road, drove about a mile, then pulled into an old mom-and-pop gas station still offering full service. A man with a belly falling over his jeans started outside but I waved him off. “Just getting ice. But thanks anyway.”

  He nodded, then went back inside. I could see him through the dust-covered window standing beside the register, waiting to ring up his first sale of the day.

  A double-door aluminum ice box sat out front beside a wooden bench that looked as old as the man sitting on it. His skin was tanned and wrinkled as a raisin. He was wearing jeans that could stand a good wash and a short-sleeved plaid western shirt with pearl snaps. He tipped his straw hat and gave a curt nod as I headed into the store.

  “Traffic slow today?” I asked the man behind the register.

  He shook his head with disgust. “Not much happening on the highway today. You want a large bag or the small?”

  “Large.” Not that we needed it but I figured, as a small-business owner myself, I’d help the old guy out.

  “Two ninety-nine,” he said as he punched buttons on the ancient register.

  I handed him a five, then dropped the change in the mason jar on the counter collecting funds for a local guy fighting cancer.

  I bid the old man on the bench a good day as I grabbed a bag of ice. Tatum already had the cooler on the ground behind the van. Jasper was barking at the wind. I dumped the ice in the cooler, then helped Tatum spread it over a couple bottles of water. Jasper continued to bark. I sighed.

  “Your phone was ringing,” Tatum said as we climbed back into the van. “I didn’t answer it.”

  I raised my brows over the top of my sunglasses and looked at him. “You have my permission to answer but only if it’s your grandfather or my sister. Understood?”

  He nodded. “The caller ID said Claire. Isn’t she the one Rhonda doesn’t like?”

  I ignored his question and checked my missed calls. Sure enough, Claire had called. She didn’t leave a voice mail but she did send a text: Call me!

  I wondered if Ranger Rick had shown up at her house yet. Or if the husband she didn’t love was scrambling now to save his political career.

  “Is Claire your girlfriend?” Tatum asked. His curiosity jolted me back to the real world.

  “At one time she was.” I put the phone in the cup holder, then pulled back out onto Highway 115. I could feel his gaze on me, the questions bouncing around in that preteen head of his.

  “Why isn’t she your girlfriend now?”

  “Sometimes things don’t work out the way you want them to. Important life lesson, remember that.”

  The old man in the store had been right. The highway was deserted. A lone jackrabbit skittered alongside the road, then veered to the left and disappeared behind a cluster of sagebrush. Although it wasn’t even lunchtime yet, the heat rose in transparent waves from the worn asphalt and shimmered against the horizon.

  “Is Sophia your girlfriend now?”

  I glanced over at the pint-sized Romeo and shook my head. “Why are you so interested in my love life? Who says someone has to have a girlfriend?”

  My phone buzzed and I was glad to answer it. It was Claire and she was upset.

  “An agent from the Rangers’ office called this morning. What am I supposed to tell him, Gypsy?”

  “I guess the truth is out of the question?”

  She sniffled. “Gypsy … how do I get out of this without involving Steven?”

  Was she honestly trying to protect him, or just trying to keep it from him. “I have a tape, Claire. There’s a couple conversations between you and Mark on it.”

  “Gypsy, please. I can explain. How soon can you get here?”

  “I don’t know. I’m kind of tied up right now.” I glanced over at Tatum, thankful for the excuse.

  She chuckled sadly. “Tell her to untie you. I need you more.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m actually out at the sinkholes overseeing a photo shoot for a science project.”

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to keep you from that.” She chuckled but I knew she was crying. “Gypsy, I need you.”

  Damn her! My heart shattered into a million pieces and damn if she wasn’t stabbing me with one of the sharp edges. “Claire … just answer the questions. Just tell him the truth. Rick seemed to be a good guy.”

  There was dead silence on the other end. After a long moment, she finally sniffled again. “Okay. Will you call me when you get through?”

  I wanted to tell her no. But I couldn’t. “Yeah, I’ll call you. It’s going to be okay, Claire. You’ll get through this.”

  “I love you, Gypsy. I always have and I always will. Just remember that, okay?”

  “Claire—everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Tell me that you’ll remember how much I love you, Gypsy.”

  I was starting to get a little worried. Claire had a flare for the dramatic but this wasn’t her usual crisis tone. “Let me finish here and I’ll swing by, okay? Maybe I can be there when Rick gets there.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, then finally agreed. “Okay. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  I clicked the phone off, then returned it to the cup holder.

  Tatum was staring at me. When I glanced at him, he quickly turned and stared out the dusty windshield. A minute or so passed. “Thanks,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Not dumping me for a girl.”

  I laughed. “Today’s not over yet.”

  He grinned. He was quiet the rest of the way out to the sinkholes. I wonde
red what was going through his mind. School, his dad, girls, more girls. I wasn’t much older than he is now when Claire and I became an item. Even then when we would talk about the future, she couldn’t wait until she would run the ranch, and I couldn’t wait to leave.

  I pulled off the highway and drove slowly around the perimeter of the great Wink sinkhole number 2. Wink, Texas had a Roy Orbison museum, sidewalks, and two impressive sinkholes. The second, formed twenty-two years to the day after the first one appeared, was much larger than the first one. Aerial photographs resembled one gigantic moon crater filled with water, except no one knew for sure how deep the sinkhole was. Divers had been known to go over a hundred feet down and still not reach the bottom. The hole was several hundred feet wide and equally as long, surrounded by a weathered chain-link fence. Multiple cracks in the dry ground spiderwebbed their way from the hole to the fence and sometimes beyond. The brown earth baked in the oppressive heat.

  “You sure this is safe?” I asked. To hell with the life jacket—I wasn’t sure it was safe to even walk around the hole.

  “There’s a big section of the fence on that side that’s torn away,” he said, pointing to the west side.

  I glanced at him. “And how do you know this?”

  He grinned sheepishly. “Dad brought me out here one time just to tell me not to ever come out here.”

  I fought back a grin as the van fought the hard ground beneath the wheels. The ground was cracked and parched. I pulled to a stop outside a section of fence that was rolled back like the top of a sardine can. “Close enough?”

  He was smiling so I figured that was a yes. After we climbed out of the van, I stood near the back and stretched, raising my arms to the Sun God that saw fit to cool things down for us today with an expected high of only 96 degrees. I yawned. Between the energy-zapping heat and Sophia’s snoring, I was more than ready for a nap.

  I watched Tatum fill his backpack with a couple bottles of water and two sandwiches. “Got the camera?” he asked like an experienced expedition leader.

  “Camera, check.”

  Jasper was out of the van herding tumbleweeds. I don’t know where he was herding them to, but he was intent on getting them there.

  Tatum closed the back of the van. “Gonna lock it?”

  I looked around at the desolation surrounding us. “Unless the tumbleweeds get fed up with Jasper and decide to drive off, I think we’ll be okay.”

  Tatum wiggled into the backpack, then called for his dog. I tagged along, cussing the sun with each step. The heat was excruciatingly painful and oppressive. My shirt was already wet and clinging to my back. Sweat rolled from my brow, streaking the lenses of my sunglasses. Jasper stopped at the edge of the sinkhole and barked at the water.

  “That girl you were talking to earlier … was she involved in my dad’s murder?”

  I felt like I had just taken a punch to the gut. Whatever air I had in my lungs was sealed there, suspended in time for a brief moment. “Not directly.”

  “But she was involved.”

  I stopped walking. I didn’t like where the conversation was going. And I certainly didn’t like being grilled by a twelve-year-old kid. “She didn’t kill your father, Tatum.”

  “Then why is the Rangers’ office going to question her?”

  “A lot of people are questioned in the process of an investigation. Come on, you know that. What’s up?”

  He shook his head, then continued on to the hole.

  “Tatum—what’s going on?” I caught up with him near the edge of the crater.

  He shook his head again. “Nothing. Camera ready?”

  Damn kid. They could be more tight-lipped than a KGB agent. I handed him the camera and reminded him to remove the lens cap. “Do you know how to set the exposure?”

  “It’s this button here on the top, right?”

  I showed him how, then showed him how to adjust the focus. He snapped off a few, which brought a smile back to his sunburned face.

  “You didn’t bring a tripod, did you?”

  I glared at him, then laughed. “Do I look like I’ve got a tripod on me?” I showed him to improvise by kneeling on one knee and holding the camera on the other. “Your knee’s a little steadier than your hands.”

  “Cool. Can I take some looking over the edge?”

  I hesitated, remembering Burke asking if he had his life jacket. And something Rhonda had said earlier about a pool party and his nonexistent swimming skills. “Um … why don’t you let me take those. Just in case. If anything happens, my phone’s in the cup holder.”

  We laughed but my heart was steadily increasing its pace as I carefully stepped over cracks in the earth. Jasper was at the edge, barking at the air. I planted my feet at the edge, the toes of my right foot actually over the edge. I held the camera out front and snapped a couple rounds aimed straight into the water. “That’s going to be good enough because I’m coming back to safer ground now.”

  I carefully stepped backward, then handed him the camera. He switched to preview and went crazy over the pictures. “This is like the coolest thing ever! You know what would make it even cooler—a video. If I could set up a DVR player at my exhibit and show a video and—”

  “Tatum … videos are for when you have action. There is no action here.” I swept my arm over the great sinkhole. “Unless the damn thing sinks some more, it’s going to be a pretty boring video.”

  He finally settled down. “You don’t think just using pictures is going to be boring?”

  “We’ll come up with something.”

  We walked all the way around the perimeter, taking turns shooting at different angles. Jasper ran ahead barking at the dirt. When we got back close to the van, we sat down on the hard dirt and each had a bottle of water.

  “Want your sandwich now?” he asked as he rummaged through his backpack for the sandwiches.

  “Sure.” I wasn’t the least bit hungry but didn’t want to disappoint him.

  We sat there in the baking heat eating warm bologna sandwiches and drinking tepid bottled water.

  “So, you going to tell me what was going on a little while ago?” I asked. I remembered when I was his age, I had so many things to say, but no one to say them to.

  He tossed a pinch of bread to Jasper. “I was just thinkin’ how many people know the truth about my dad but no one ever came forward.”

  “As long as you know the truth, that’s what matters.”

  He cut his eyes at me, followed by a slight grin. “That’s a load of crap.”

  I sighed. “You’re right. It’s a load of crap. I used to tell people my old man joined the army and was off fighting a war in some foreign country.” I took a long drink of the water.

  “You think they knew the truth?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t even know what the truth was. I don’t know if anyone other than him knows why he left.”

  “Do you still miss him? I mean, I know you’re old and all, but—”

  “Old? I’m going to let that slide and not throw you over the edge.”

  He grinned. “You’re a cool old.”

  I laughed. “Thanks. I think. And yes, I still miss him. Every day.”

  He threw the last bite of his sandwich to Jasper. “That girl that called—”

  “Her name’s Claire. She’s Mark Peterson’s sister-in-law.”

  “Do you think she knew?”

  “About the girls, possibly. About your dad … no.” I prayed to God she didn’t know.

  He slowly sipped his water. “I like Sophia better.”

  I almost spit my water out. “Sophia … Sophia’s … nice.”

  “We call it fine.”

  I burst out laughing. “She is that.”

  Movement coming from the left caught my attention. A car was in the far distance but approaching at a fast speed, leaving plumes of dust in its wake. It was a burgundy Crown Vic. Mark Peterson. Why was he out at … the … sinkholes? Damn Claire! She sent Peterson out l
ike an attack dog. I was so fucking numb, for a moment I couldn’t move.

  My chest tightened. I struggled to breathe. I finally shook off the shock. I’d deal with the reality of the true Claire later; protecting Tatum was my first priority. I stood quickly and jerked Tatum up by his arm.

  “What’s the matt—”

  “Get in the van.” I handed him the keys. “Get Jasper. Lock the doors and don’t unlock them for anything. Understand?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just do what I say. My cell phone’s in the cup holder. Rodney’s number is in my contact list. Call Rodney and tell him where we are and we need help.”

  “But—”

  “Get in the fucking van!”

  He fumbled with the back door then ordered Jasper to get in. The panic in his eyes was real and desperate and searching mine for an answer I couldn’t give. I heard the door lock just as Peterson wheeled up sideways. The Crown Vic stopped about a foot from the van’s front bumper. Peterson was out of the car before I could blink, pressing the barrel end of a shotgun straight into my chest.

  “Just couldn’t mind your own business, could you?” He pumped the gun; the sound echoed in the sagebrush and lonely tumbleweeds. “You are one cool motherfucker, aren’t you?”

  If I could have spoken, I would have told him sure, I was a cool motherfucker. But I was too fucking terrified at the moment to speak. If I was going to die right here, chances were Peterson would take Tatum out, too. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  In one motion, I dropped and rolled and landed a square kick to his right kneecap. He yelled out in pain as he dropped to his knees. I bounced up and in a roundhouse kicked the shotgun from his grip. It skittered across the ground and landed at the edge of the sinkhole. Peterson grabbed my snake-bitten ankle and brought me down in one swoop. My back slammed against the hard earth with a loud thud that reverberated in my ears. Peterson was on top of me, pummeling my face with his monster fists. Blood pooled in my mouth as bright yellow stars flashed before my eyes. Dammit, I hadn’t survived a rattler bite to be beat to death by this gorilla. With everything in me, I brought my right leg up and drove my knee so far into his balls, I thought they popped out of his eye sockets. Payback’s hell.