by Blake Pierce
When Riley and her colleagues got out of their car, she was startled by a cloud of insects that buzzed around them.
Mosquitos, she realized.
As Riley started swatting at the swarm, the two local cops came trotting up.
Officer Kuehling was holding out a small plastic spray bottle. “You’ll need some repellent,” she said,
Wolfe added, “Mosquitos will eat you alive, late in the day like this and away from the water.”
As the young woman began spraying Riley and her colleagues where their skin was exposed, she said, “Don’t worry, this stuff is made of natural ingredients—mostly lemon eucalyptus oil. We’ve been using it for years and it does the trick. We’ll buy you some as soon as we get a chance.”
Kuehling sprayed the agents’ hands and told them to rub the oil on their faces, applying it only lightly on the ears and avoiding the mouth and eyes altogether.
Wolfe said, “This has been an especially nasty summer for mosquitos. We’ve had four or five cases of the West Nile virus so far this year, right here in Rushville.”
Riley and her colleagues exchanged uneasy glances. She knew they were all thinking the same thing.
They were used to risking their lives and dangerous circumstances. But the possibility of catching a potentially serious mosquito-borne disease was nothing to scoff at.
Riley had read awful things about the West Nile virus. Although most infected people never showed symptoms, those who did suffered from ailments ranging from headaches, nausea, and vomiting to paralysis, coma, and possibly even death.
Another reason to get this case finished up as fast as we can, Riley thought.
Jenn finished with the spray bottle, and the group walked toward the house. They saw someone standing just inside the screen door—a lean, dark-haired man with a tired, sad expression.
From behind the screen the man said, “FBI, I take it.”
Riley was relieved that he didn’t sound unwelcoming. All three agents took out their badges and introduced themselves.
The man nodded and opened the screen door.
He said, “Come on in, get away from the bugs. I’ve sprayed all the screens, so that keeps most of them out. I wish I could do something about the heat, but …”
Riley and her companions walked into the house, which was stiflingly hot even though a big fan was running in the living room.
No air conditioning, Riley realized.
There hadn’t been any air conditioning back at the Ogden house either, but the air had been fresher back there close to the water. Here, the heat was considerably more oppressive.
She glanced around the small living room. The furniture was worn and old, and it looked like it had been bought cheap to begin with. Although it looked like the inhabitants did their best to keep the place clean and neat, odors of mold and mildew hung in the air.
The man nodded to the two local cops and invited all five of them to sit down.
Then he sat down himself and said, “I heard you FBI folks got here today. Word gets around fast in a town like this. I figured you’d come around here soon. I’m Wyatt’s older brother, Brandon. It’s just him and me who live here anymore.”
Riley asked, “Is Wyatt here? If so, we’d like to talk with him.”
Brandon sighed and said, “The truth is, I wish you would. He’s been having a rough time ever since … well, you know. He has some OK days, but other days he shuts himself up in his room and barely talks to me.”
Riley could see a world of sadness and concern in Brandon’s eyes. His face was heavily lined, and his hair was sprinkled slightly with gray. When she’d first seen him, Riley had thought he was well into his thirties. But now she realized he was probably much younger—in his mid-twenties, maybe.
He’s lived a hard life, she thought.
Jenn asked him, “Have you tried getting your brother into counseling?”
Brandon said, “Yeah, I took him to the local pediatric clinic a couple of times. The therapist there is no good, though. And anyway, I can’t afford it, even on the clinic’s sliding scale.”
He appeared to be genuinely pained to admit to his poverty.
Riley asked, “Could you describe your living situation?”
Brandon squinted a little. Riley sensed that he was reluctant to dig into some bitter memories.
“Mom died in the big hurricane a few years back. Anyhow, she’d been pretty much a basket case for years—ever since Dad left us, back when I was about Wyatt’s age. It’s been up to me to pay the rent and keep food on the table all this time.”
Brandon shuffled his feet and continued, “I manage to keep us going, taking whatever jobs I can get—garbage collecting, handy work, bagging groceries. Once in a while I get lucky with some construction work, but that’s pretty rare in a dying town like this.”
He fell silent for a moment, then said, “My first job was a paper route. I figured it would be a safe job for Wyatt to start out with.”
He shrugged and added, “But what the hell do I know? I didn’t even know that Old Man Ogden was on Wyatt’s route. Not that my knowing would have made any difference, I don’t suppose …”
His voice faded again. Then he looked at visitors and said …
“But I’m being rude. You folks must be parched. I’ve got some iced tea in the fridge. Would you like some?”
Riley and her four companions said yes.
As Brandon got out of his chair to head to the kitchen, Riley asked him, “Is it OK if I have a word with your brother now?”
Brandon nodded and led Riley down a hallway. Riley noticed that a doorway on one side of the hall was boarded up. Brandon knocked on the door on the opposite side.
“Hey, Wyatt,” he called out gently. “Someone’s hear to talk to you. Can we come in?”
After a pause, a young voice said …
“Sure.”
Brandon opened the door, and he and Riley walked into the boy’s bedroom.
Wyatt was sitting on the edge of his bed looking out the room’s only window into the back yard. Riley considered the room remarkably neat for that of a teenager—certainly neater than how her own daughters kept their rooms. But Riley quickly realized that there was a reason for the lack of clutter …
Hardly any toys. No kid-type junk.
It was obvious that Brandon Hitt hadn’t been able to afford to buy much for his little brother over the years. And there had been no one else to fill that gap. Riley thought Christmas mornings must have been pretty much a non-event in this household, at least as far as Wyatt was concerned.
Except for his light blond hair, the boy looked a lot like a shorter version of Brandon—thin and wiry and awkward-looking.
Brandon said in a gentle voice …
“Wyatt, this is Agent Paige, and she’s with the FBI. She’d like to talk with you a little.”
Still staring out the window, Wyatt nodded indifferently.
Brandon exchanged glances with Riley and left the room, closing the door behind him. Riley was relieved not to have to tell him she’d prefer talking to the boy alone.
She sat down on the bed beside Wyatt and said nothing.
Let him talk first, she thought.
After a few seconds, Wyatt said in a hoarse, breaking voice, “I guess you want to ask me a lot of questions. Like the cops did.”
Riley paused for a moment, then said, “Just tell me what happened that morning as well as you can.”
In a rather mechanical voice, Wyatt related how he’d been on his early morning paper route delivering a newspaper to Gareth Ogden’s house. Ogden had been a stickler for how he wanted his paper delivered, so Wyatt had walked up onto the porch to put the paper behind the screen door …
“And that’s when I saw him,” Wyatt said.
He shuddered deeply, then added, “I’m not sure what happened right after that. They say I called the cops. I was sitting on the steps when the cops got there. I don’t remember much else. They say I was in shock.�
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Riley quickly realized …
He just told me everything he possibly can.
There was no point in pushing for any half-forgotten details that would probably prove unhelpful to her anyway.
Riley said, “I’m going to tell you a secret. I’m not really here to ask you a lot of questions. I know you’ve answered a lot of those already. I just want to check and see how you’re doing. How are you holding up?”
Wyatt shuddered silently.
Then, as if in answer to Riley’s question, he pointed out into the back yard, which was small and barren.
He said, “See that place where the ground is kind of hollow? A big tree used to be there. It got blown down in the hurricane. It fell on the house.”
Riley thought hard, trying to process exactly what Wyatt was getting at.
Then she remembered the boarded up doorway in the hallway.
Another room must have once been there. A bedroom.
In a low voice, almost a whisper, Riley said …
“That’s how your mom died, isn’t it?”
The boy nodded and wiped away a single tear.
Then he said, “Mom was in bed when the tree fell. I was in here. I was sleeping. I was … safe. When I heard what happened, I ran across the hall and …”
Riley realized with a shiver …
He found his own mother’s dead body.
She had a brief flash of the memory that always haunted her …
She was just a little girl in a candy store …a man with a gun shot Mommy in the chest…
Riley had seen her own mother killed and had suffered years of pain and guilt even though she could not have prevented what happened.
She understood very well how finding Gareth Ogden’s body had reawakened that earlier trauma for Wyatt Hitt. Now the boy was struggling with a tangle of chaotic emotions, especially guilt and fear.
Trying to keep his voice under control he said …
“Mom always said I was the reason Dad left. She said he couldn’t put up with me, and it was a long time ago, but I remember Dad yelling at me a lot. Mom said I still wasn’t any use to her or anybody else. I wonder if maybe she was right. And if maybe she’d been here in my room and I’d been over there …”
Riley swallowed hard.
She said, “Wyatt, you mustn’t think like that.”
“I can’t help it,” Wyatt said, his voice squawking a little with emotion. “It’s been bothering me for a long time. And now there’s something else …”
Seeming to gather up his nerve, he continued …
“Old Mr. Ogden—he was mean and I didn’t like him.”
Riley wrinkled her brow, trying to understand what Wyatt meant.
“Why does that matter?” she asked him.
Spitting the words out anxiously, Wyatt said, “I didn’t like him because he was always yelling at me, saying I couldn’t do anything right, just like Dad used to do. I didn’t like him and now he’s dead. I still don’t like him. I feel like that’s wrong. I feel like maybe I should like him now. But I can’t.”
Riley’s heart ached for him.
She said, “Wyatt, nothing you’re talking about was your fault. It wasn’t your fault your dad left, or your mom died, or Mr. Ogden got killed.”
Wyatt wiped away another tear.
“Yeah, that was what that therapist guy told me,” he said. “But he was really stupid.”
Riley chuckled slightly and patted him on the shoulder.
She said, “I hope you think I’m smarter.”
Wyatt laughed just a little as well.
“Yeah, you’re lots smarter than him,” he said.
Riley said, “Well, here’s one way to think about Mr. Ogden. I’ve talked to several people since I’ve been in town. As far as I can tell, hardly anyone liked him. Is that true?”
Wyatt nodded.
Riley added, “Do you think everybody else is feeling guilty for not liking him?”
Wyatt shook his head.
Riley said, “Well, there you have it. You shouldn’t feel guilty either. About anything.”
Wyatt let out a sound that seemed like both a sob and a relieved chuckle.
He said, “Thanks for … you know … talking to me about all this.”
Riley said, “Do you ever talk to your brother about these feelings?”
“No,” Wyatt said. “I don’t want to bother him about it. I’m enough trouble for him already.”
Riley almost gasped with pity.
“He doesn’t think you’re any trouble,” Riley said. “He loves you. He’d do anything for you. I know that. And you need to talk to him about everything you just told me. He’ll understand, and he’ll help. Promise me you’ll do that.”
“I promise,” Wyatt said.
Riley got up and left the room. She went back to the living room where she found Brandon talking quietly with Bill, Jenn, and the two local cops.
Riley said to Brandon, “We’re going to leave now. You should talk to your brother right away. I think it will help now.”
Brandon looked surprised but pleased.
Riley and her companions left the house. On the way to their cars, Riley said to Officers Kuehling and Wolfe …
“My colleagues and I need to find a motel. Can you show us a good place to stay the night?”
Kuehling laughed a little and said, “Well, maybe not a good place. But yeah, we can find you something.”
Kuehling and Wolfe headed for their car, and Riley and her two colleagues got into theirs. As Bill pulled away to follow the two local cops, Jenn asked Riley …
“What happened back there? Was the kid able to tell you anything?”
Suddenly Riley realized she was on the verge of tears.
But the last thing she wanted to do right now was talk about what had just happened.
It was late in the day, and she was tired, and it was getting dark outside.
But she couldn’t help wondering …
Why does it always seem so dark in this town?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jenn shivered as she pushed open the glass door and walked into the diner.
Too much air conditioning, she realized.
The cold was shocking in contrast to the heat outside, which hadn’t let up much even now that it was evening.
“This is an improvement,” Bill commented, following close behind her.
Riley gazed around the tarnished chrome décor and said, “Well, it’s convenient.”
The two young local cops, Kuehling and Wolfe, had led them to the motel next door and had pointed out the diner. The cops had been apologetic before they went on their way. They’d said there weren’t any better places to spend the night in Rushville, especially not in August when a lot of things that weren’t already closed shut down for the hottest summer month.
The motel had plenty of rooms open and they each had a bedroom and bath that connected with a living room. “The suite,” the desk clerk had called it. But those rooms smelled as stale and moldy as the house where Brandon and Wyatt Hitt lived.
Jenn fought down a groan of irritation. She didn’t like this town at all.
A cheerful hostess in a checkered dress greeted them with menus. As the woman led them through the dining area, Jenn saw that the place was crowded—and unfriendly, or so it seemed to her. Almost everyone looked up from their meals to stare at the agents as the hostess escorted them to a booth.
Jenn felt a different kind of chill now.
All these white faces, she thought.
It felt odd that it should bother her. After all, she often found herself the only African-American in many situations, and she seldom gave it any thought. On most cases she was more likely to run into overt sexism than racism.
But she was in the Deep South now, and things felt very different.
She told herself not to get paranoid.
After all, few of the people here seemed to be staring at her in particular. They seemed to be mor
e interested in the whole group.
She remembered that Brandon Hitt had said …
“Word gets around fast in a town like this.”
Everybody apparently knew that they were FBI agents. And of course everybody would know about the murders they were investigating. Back at Quantico, Bill had said this town wasn’t used to violent crime, so their presence was bound to be a major topic of conversation.
She and her colleagues sat down in the booth and perused their menus. Fried chicken was the specialty of the place, of course, so that was what they all ordered when a server came to their booth.
Jenn was aware that her colleagues were avoiding talking about any specifics of the case. She knew that none of them had anything new to say about it, but she thought they should make some decisions about what they were going to do tomorrow. Instead, Riley mentioned that she needed to call home tonight and check in with her kids. Bill was trying to figure out just what he could report to Meredith.
As the food arrived and their conversation continued, Jenn was struck by how Amos Crites’s name was scarcely mentioned, except as someone they needed to keep track of.
Had Riley and Bill already decided that Crites wasn’t the killer?
Jenn remembered what Jeffreys had told her when she’d said they should arrest Crites …
“We don’t have anything to bring him in on.”
It was true, of course.
Jenn now realized that she’d overreacted to Amos Crites’s palpable bigotry, especially his condescension when he’d said …
“Clever girl, aren’t you?”
Her anger swelled again as she remembered how he’d “congratulated” her on her intelligence for considering him a suspect …
“I wouldn’t have guessed it from you.”
Now Jenn felt embarrassed that she’d let him push her buttons like that. Besides, she knew better than to think the man’s bigotry had anything to do with whether or not he was a murderer.
She felt especially bad about her sharp words to Riley in the car …
“I suppose this is where you accuse me of not being objective.”
A cheap shot, she admitted.
She’d only known Riley for a few months now, but she knew perfectly well that she was no bigot. She would apologize when she found the right moment to bring that up again.