by E. C. Diskin
Exiting the elevator, Brooklyn faced the backside of a tall, slim man in black and a shorter, plump one in a beige uniform. Both men simultaneously turned toward the open doors. At five nine, Brooklyn rarely felt petite, but the tall man towered several inches above her. He smiled politely as they made eye contact. When she gazed at the short, old man, his surprised expression matched her own.
“Sheriff!”
“Brooky!” Sheriff Wilson added Ys to everyone’s name. It was a ridiculous nickname, but every time he said it, she smiled. He pulled her in for a hug while the other man stretched his long arm toward the elevator door to hold it open.
“Nice beard,” Brooklyn said, pulling back from their embrace. “Looks like Christmas came early!” The sheriff always played Santa, and his new white beard, along with his already large belly, was perfect for the role.
“It’s my new look of leisure. Donny here is about to be the new sheriff in town. As of next weekend, you’ll need to stop calling me Sheriff.”
The man beside the sheriff nodded and offered his free hand. “Don Goodwin.” His red hair was buzzed short, like her dad’s, and it highlighted large ears that protruded like a curious dog’s. The idea that he was either blissfully unaware of or embraced his imperfections made her like him immediately.
“Brooklyn Anderson,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Daughter of one of my oldest and dearest friends, John Anderson,” the sheriff added. “Except when he’s robbing me blind on poker night. Brooky here is gonna be a famous actress. Her dad says she’s taking New York by storm.”
She smiled, amazed that her dad would boast about a move he had so strongly discouraged. “I’m trying, anyway.”
“What in the world are you doing here?” the sheriff asked.
“I’m here for my dad,” she said. “You didn’t know?”
“I’m here on a case. What happened to your dad?” he asked, his expression falling.
“Ginny called me early this morning. He fell, broke his hip, knocked himself unconscious. He’s upstairs. Already had surgery.”
“My Lord. At the store?”
“Home. But I don’t know any details.”
“Well, thank goodness he’s okay.”
As if on cue, the elevator bell began to ring, determined to close its doors.
“Donny and I have to get back to the office,” Sheriff Wilson said, getting in, “but I’ll be back tomorrow to see your dad.”
“Sounds good,” she said as the doors closed.
Sheriff Wilson, retiring. Her dad had once said no one ran against him in Boline County because there was no point. It was hard to imagine someone else in charge. But maybe his retirement meant more time for friends. And Brooklyn’s dad needed his friends now more than ever.
The sheriff had spent at least a dozen evenings each year at the Andersons’ Sunday dinner table. She’d once asked her mom why he came over so often, and her mom said it was the Christian thing to do, that he deserved more than frozen dinners.
Brooklyn liked it. Sunday dinners were like church—never to be missed, but always the same routine, and usually dull. Her parents seemed to enjoy silence—with Dad often reading and Mom working on her needlepoint—one of them always telling Brooklyn to turn off the music or shut off the TV, as if they found all noise exhausting. She figured that Ginny had long ago worn them out. But when the sheriff was over, they’d talk politics and share the latest Eden gossip. Her dad would pull out the whiskey, and they’d laugh and argue like brothers.
Brooklyn found the coffee vending machine in the family waiting room and collapsed into a chair, suddenly too tired to lift the foam cup to her lips.
An older black man was sitting in a chair across from her in the otherwise empty space, his arms crossed, one knee bouncing up and down, and eyes fixed on the carpet in front of him. She recognized the anxiousness of that knee. She remembered finding her dad in a chair outside her mom’s room five months earlier, his knee doing the same thing.
“Coffee?” she asked.
The man looked up with glassy eyes, deep lines embedded in his forehead.
Brooklyn walked across the blue industrial carpet and extended her cup toward him. “I just got it from the vending machine,” she said. “Haven’t touched it yet. I’m sure it’s not great, but it’s hot.”
“Aren’t you a sweet girl,” he said, accepting the cup. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” she said, taking the chair beside him. “If you’d like me to leave you alone, just say the word. I’m giving my dad a little privacy while the nurse does a few things. I’m Brooklyn.”
“Martin,” the man said, offering his hand. “I’m here for my son.”
Brooklyn shook his hand. “I hope he’ll be okay.”
Martin’s lips curled slightly toward a smile, just enough so she knew he was glad for the company. “I hope so too. He’s in surgery. Again.”
Brooklyn nodded and said nothing more. Follow-up seemed invasive. Anyone dealing with a second surgery had serious issues. She wondered if it was cancer. If so, she’d have nothing helpful to say, anyway.
A doctor wearing scrubs walked into the room, and Martin stood.
“Good luck,” Brooklyn said. “I’ll pray for you both.” He turned back and smiled before joining the doctor. Brooklyn wasn’t one to pray, but good news or bad, nothing ever happened in Eden without the community offering those words to each other.
After Martin left, she got another coffee, sat, and checked her phone messages. Her manager had responded to the text she’d sent on the way to the airport. He’d arrange for someone to cover her shifts. Her roommates had texted their love and support. There were no texts or emails about last week’s auditions, which probably meant she hadn’t made the cut. She turned off the phone and thought of her oblivious stroll through Central Park that morning and the penny that had been more of an omen than she’d realized.
The TV hanging in the corner was muted. Brooklyn found the remote and turned up the volume. E! News was on. Growing up, she’d never been allowed to watch celebrity news shows. Dad would walk in to the family room, overhear some bit about a pregnancy or a Kardashian breakup, grab the remote, and shut it off. “Gossip is the devil’s radio, baby. Don’t be his DJ,” he’d say. She wanted to point out that listening wasn’t really being a DJ but never dared. Instead, she’d say, “Yes, sir.” She never talked back. Her parents deserved one easy kid.
But she and her roommates watched all the time—it was news of her industry, after all.
The glamorous host reported on the biggest-grossing movies of the weekend and then switched stories, her expression becoming more serious, while a picture of the actor Darius Woods appeared in the upper right corner of the screen. “Darius Woods remains in critical condition at a hospital in southern Illinois today,” she reported. Brooklyn’s spine straightened like a rod. The image on the screen switched to a picture of the hospital. It was this hospital. Here. Darius Woods was here. She looked around the empty room as if to say, “Do you hear this?” to whomever she could find.
“The actor was visiting his father at the time of the shooting,” the host continued. “No other details have been released at this point. The Boline County Sheriff’s Office is investigating.”
As the show moved to another topic, Brooklyn remained fixated on the screen, stunned. So that’s why there were all those media trucks in the parking lot. Everyone in Eden knew the name Darius Woods. In the summer before Brooklyn’s junior year, Unbound came out, a sleeper hit with Woods in a main role. Suddenly, his face was on magazine covers, and photos from his roles in Eden High School drama productions were on permanent display in the school. College graduates and success stories were rare enough, but a true celebrity from Eden was unheard-of. Then in January, he got an Oscar nomination for his latest role, and reviewers, in typically superficial style, started calling him the next Denzel. He made the dream seem possible. It didn’t matter that Eden was Small Town, USA, or that
Brooklyn had no contacts, agent, or experience beyond high school: Darius Woods had proved that miracles happened.
She couldn’t imagine who would shoot him. He hadn’t even lived there in twenty years. She wondered if this was what fame did, or if some old enemy begrudged his success. Vendettas were the stuff of local legend. Her history teacher used to tell them all sorts of crazy stories. And of course, she’d heard about violence in the county from her parents and the sheriff—the robberies and bar fights that turned deadly, drug-fueled crimes in neighboring towns. It never sounded all that surprising with more gun shops than grocery stores—but she’d always thought Eden was relatively safe.
Of course, Boline County did have its share of racists. She’d certainly seen plenty during high school football games, when her school would play against a more racially diverse team, or when she’d eavesdrop on whispered conversations in her all-white church that sounded a little too like the 1950s. There was no denying the undercurrent, the invisible lines, whether in the lunch room or on the bleachers. Eden was probably ninety-seven percent white, two percent black, and a few “others.” Everyone stayed with their own—except Brooklyn, who didn’t quite fit anywhere.
Mom had never really understood why Brooklyn struggled to make friends and fit in. She was an Anderson, and they were good Christians, respected and liked by everyone in town. But by age ten or so, Brooklyn understood that to some kids, it didn’t matter who her parents were. She was a foreigner. Some of the kids even joked that she probably wasn’t legal.
As she got into the elevator to go back to her dad’s room, she thought about her conversation with the sheriff. He’d been on this floor, too—and the man she’d just met in the waiting room, Martin—he was here for his son. Had she just shaken the hand of Darius Woods’s father?
She said a real prayer this time, begging the universe to watch over her idol. The idea that Darius could die, that someone in Eden might have wanted to kill him, made her physically sick. Let it be an accident, she thought, or a crazed fan. Any reason would be tragic, but she couldn’t bear to imagine that what happened to Darius was another race-based crime.
CHAPTER FIVE
SHERIFF WILSON LED DON GOODWIN past the media trucks and reporters in the hospital parking lot as the sun set, refusing to answer any more questions, repeating his mantra several times as he got into the driver’s side of the squad car: “It’s an active investigation . . . we’re pursuing all leads . . . we’ll share more information as soon as we’re able.”
Donny spoke up as they drove off. “Doesn’t that freak you out?”
“What?”
“All that media. You handled those people like this happens every day. I recognized two of those reporters from TV!”
“Then you watch too much TV,” Wilson quipped. “This is like every other case.”
It was a lie, of course, but Wilson was not about to let this neophyte see him rattled. The shooting of a black man, and a celebrity no less, was the last thing Eden needed right now. Things were finally settling back down after that awful trial of his friend and former deputy, Tom Delaney.
“Every investigation involves questions,” Wilson continued, “whether they’re from the Town Gazette or the victim’s parents. You get used to avoiding people till you’re able to talk. Didn’t you have to deal with reporters up in Chicago?”
“Well, my bosses did.”
Exactly. It was still hard to swallow how this guy, an independent and an outsider, who hadn’t policed in ten years, who’d never been in charge, anywhere, was able to swoop in and win the election in a county where new faces were never trusted. Especially new faces from up north.
“Well, here’s the rule. Say nothing unless you need to,” Wilson said. “They’re looking for stories, not justice.”
Donny chuckled. “Got it.”
“And don’t watch coverage of a case you’re working on. I’m telling you, someday people will look back at our fossils and realize it was the internet that ended us . . . like the meteors to the dinosaurs.”
“I take it you’re not on Facebook?” Donny joked.
Wilson rolled his eyes.
“Actually,” Donny said, “we’re trying to limit all that too. Except for movies. But Rosa and I moved here for the land. Can’t spend all our time inside.”
“Exactly. You do any fishing this spring?”
“No, no. Not my thing. Hunting either.”
This guy might as well have said he worshipped the devil. “What do you do then?” Wilson asked with a chuckle.
“We’re building a big garden. We’re both vegans and—”
“Vegans?” Wilson said. “I don’t think I ever met one of those.”
Donny smiled. “We’re real. Anyway, I get out on the bike when I can too.”
“You’ve probably joined the Little Egypt Off-Road Club then.”
“I’ve passed the club grounds, but no.”
“You’ve got to do it. Nine hundred acres. ATVs, four-wheelers, motocross . . . Kids love it.”
Donny shook his head. “You misunderstand. I’ve got a road bike.”
“A what?”
“You know, a bicycle. Like a ten-speed. But like twenty-one gears. We used to ride along Lake Michigan, but these open roads and hills are fantastic.”
“You are an odd one,” Wilson said. He could not think of the last time he saw someone biking down a road, anywhere. “How in the world did you end up down here?”
“Rosa’s parents are in Kentucky, and we hiked the Shawnee Forest a few times. I couldn’t get over it. The real estate is so cheap. I guess I had fantasies of owning land. Probably in my blood. Parents came from Ireland.”
“Mm-hmm,” Wilson replied. This guy had no idea what he was in for. He probably thought a sheriff’s gig in a county of twelve thousand, with police chiefs under him handling all but the unincorporated Eden, would be an easy job.
“This area has so much potential,” Donny said, gazing out at farmland.
“Screw you” came to mind as a reply, but Wilson shook it off. He was a good Christian, even in the face of a condescending know-it-all with only seven years as a Chicago cop and ten as a correctional officer up in Pontiac. It was ridiculous. Swooping in here outta nowhere two weeks before the election with his “Goodwin for Good” nonsense, winning by just seven hundred votes simply because some folks had confused him with the Goodwin clan that had spent more than seventy years quietly farming soybeans a few towns over.
Wilson suddenly wondered if he might wanna start taking bets on how long this guy would last. Tom Delaney should have had this job. But after Tom’s acquittal, someone burned down his barn. The country was going crazy. He couldn’t blame Tom for grabbing his family and getting out of town.
Wilson tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. No matter his personal feelings, he was a professional, and if this guy was taking over at the end of the week, it was better to help him learn. If Wilson couldn’t get this case buttoned up before retiring, he’d at least be able to guide Donny in the right direction. A sheriff couldn’t investigate people he didn’t know or understand.
They grabbed some dinner and headed back to the station. Sitting on the old blue couch under the window, Wilson ate his burger and watched Donny ignore his pathetic carrot sticks while rapidly thumb typing into his phone. To the wife, no doubt, probably moaning about the long hours before he’d even taken the oath.
Wilson was in no hurry to call it a night and go home to Eddie. He never knew who he’d find. Saturday night, Eddie’d been high as a kite on God knows what and then disappeared all day Sunday. It wasn’t until Wilson was leaving to deal with the Woods shooting when Eddie finally walked in, soaked to the bone, blabbering on about catchin’ a big fish, even though it was dark, and raining, and lightning. And he was empty-handed. Wilson had wondered if the whole adventure was some hallucination. But Eddie looked okay, and he was home safe, and that was all Wilson ever hoped for these days.
He
polished off his burger and returned to his desk. One of his officers had left a note: Nothing in the woods.
“What’s that?” Donny asked, finally looking up from his phone.
“Whole lotta nothin’. Shootin’ someone in the dark, during a downpour—I’d say that’s a pretty good way to wash away evidence.”
“Any chance this could be an accident or misfire? You said hunting’s big around here. Some pretty good woods behind that house, don’t you think?”
Donny had a lot to learn. “Hunting season is over.”
“Well, there were only two holes in the glass at that house and two bullets pulled from the vic. Since the neighbor confirmed that she didn’t see anyone in the yard, the shooter had to be way back in the woods, right? So whoever did it was a pretty good shot. Maybe that narrows the field.”
“Ha,” Wilson said. “We’re only talking thirty or so feet to the tree line. Everyone round here knows how to fire a weapon.”
Donny lowered his chin. “Everyone?”
“You think I’m jokin’? I had my kids hunting with me at eight, on the range by twelve.”
The only other officer still in the building, Roger, came to the door. “Hey, y’all get anything from the hospital?”
“Got the bullets,” Wilson said. “We’ll send them up to Belleville tomorrow morning. At least then we’ll know what kind of gun we’re looking for. But my guess—a .38 Special or .357 Magnum. We’ll see.”
“You didn’t get to talk to Woods, though?” Roger asked.
“No,” Wilson answered. “He’s in bad shape. Bullets entered from the back. Just missed his heart, according to the doctor. Lung collapsed.”
Donny turned to Roger. “What did you learn about him?”
“Not much. Famous actor. No juvenile record while he was a kid here. Average student at the high school. According to his dad, he returns once a year for Christmas and flies his dad out to visit him in California. Sounds like a decent guy.”
“What about his mom? Yesterday was Mother’s Day, after all,” Donny said.