Tuesday - Chapter 1

In the wake of tragedy, Vick Hafferty arrives at the Pine Haven sheriff’s department to start his second day investigating Curtis Markham’s murder.

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Vick showed up to work on Tuesday morning with three paper coffee cups in a square takeout tray. He’d been down to the Road King Diner, where he waited for Laura Chapman to rouse from the corner booth and take his order. Despite small talk and harmless flirtation, he made it to work fifteen minutes early. His dad would ask to take his temperature.

Inside the sheriff’s department lobby, the hum of running computers and rattle from the break room refrigerator made the place resemble a library. As Vick headed to his office, Mack nodded from the dispatch desk, biding his time until Shelley took over. At the other end of the hall, all six and a half feet of Jake Jackson leaned in the break room door, tracking the second hand on his watch for the exact moment his shift ended.

In their shared office, Pete sat with his usual bright smile. Vick put the drink tray down on his own desk and pulled out one of the cups, setting it in front of Pete.

“What’s that for?”

Vick propped on the corner of his desk. “You helped me out last night. I appreciate it.”

“You’d have done the same for me.”

“Sure.”

“The other one for your dad?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think he’s here yet.”

It was two minutes past six, making Mitch Hafferty late for the first time in as long as Vick paid attention. As wound up as his dad acted yesterday, it made sense this would be the day the streak would break. There was no telling what time he went home, to bed, and to sleep or if he did any of those things, but Vick didn’t blame him. He was in charge of a murder investigation and would need a week at the beach to decompress when it was over.

Vick strutted past the dispatch desk with one of the coffees and found Shelley in Mack’s place. She tucked her short blonde hair behind her ear as her lips curled a soft smile, earning a wink from Vick as he continued to his dad’s office. He left the light off as he set the cup on the desk.

By the time Vick returned, Pete had already left to keep the town safe without him. Sitting behind his desk and already bored, he searched for the rubber ball that occupied him yesterday but settled for a paper clip he twisted into a wire man. Out on patrol, he’d be asleep or flipping through a magazine from the Kerr Drug as the town stirred awake.

As Vick twisted the third metal figure, the phone rang. Shelley told the caller she’d send Pete and hung up, but before she spoke into the radio, Sheriff Arkin left his office. Whatever he said was too low for Vick to make out, but his sharp tone made it clear he wasn’t happy.

“He told me Vick was working with Mitch on the Markham case.” From Shelley’s stammer, Vick imagined her shrinking under Arkin’s steady glare.

Arkin’s voice neared Vick’s office. “You’re telling me we only have one deputy on patrol?”

“Yes, sir.”

The sheriff passed through Vick’s doorway with a tight frown. “I was under the impression I’d have two deputies on patrol every day.”

“Dad told me I was going with him to follow up on the Markham case.”

Arkin hammered the tip of his index finger on Vick’s desk. “Tell him I want to talk to him as soon as he gets in.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arkin marched out, Vick slumping forward with his lips drawn grim. The way his dad acted yesterday, it was hard to shrug away the idea he’d done something wrong, but he didn’t have a clue what it could be. Before he made sense of any of it, Pete’s panicked voice came over the radio.

Vick bounced onto his feet and crossed the office to lean against the doorframe. Arkin stood beside the dispatch desk with his arms crossed.

Pete shouted through the receiver. “I need help. I’m out on Robbes Road with a body in a yard. I think it’s Coach Barbour.”

Vick jolted as if a cattle prod was rammed into the small of his back. The shock sent him down the hall, unable to focus on anything more than keeping each step ahead of the next. He broke Arkin’s icy stare at the radio, the sheriff’s eyebrow jumping with his pulse.

Though Vick cleared his throat to speak, a tremor ran through each word. “I think this has something to do with Curtis Markham’s murder. The deer stand could have belonged to Barbour. We were supposed to go talk to him about it this morning, but you know Dad.”

“What are the chances you’ll stay put if I say I’m going alone?” Arkin asked.

“None.”

“Then let’s go.”

Arkin drove, neither him nor Vick saying a word on the short ride to Ty Barbour’s house. As they pulled into the driveway behind two deputy cruisers, Vick’s gut sank. He fought for focus, but too much competed for his attention.

Beside the house, a clear plastic tarp sucked over a curved outline. Vick left the car before Arkin came to a full stop, the sheriff’s shout background noise to his short, deafening breaths. He approached the tarp, hoping to make out the corpse’s features without pulling it away. Lying on his back, the man’s hands covered his left side. A long furrow ran through the mud to a nearby metal building. Either he’d crawled or someone dragged him. Legs weak, Vick squatted to keep from falling.

Rainwater beaded and dripped from Vick’s eyelids, but he was too distracted to blink them away. He peeled back the tarp near the man’s head and hissed a sharp breath. It wasn’t his dad, though Vick once wished the two men would trade places. Now, Coach Barbour was pale and water-logged with a large, dark splotch staining the shirt beneath his hands.

Vick replaced the tarp and sat back on his haunches, shivering in the cold fabric of his rain-soaked clothes. The mud sucked at Arkin’s shoes as he passed. Pete stumbled from the open garage door, pale and lost. He teetered as if to vomit but sat instead with his knees to his chest, dropping his face into his hands to sob.

A spreading numbness made it hard to rise, but Vick managed to follow the sheriff, passing him as they approached the building.

“Stay back, son.” Arkin’s voice was hollow, with no real effort to stop him.

Vick wished he did.

Inside the house, a girl screamed. Arkin told Pete to check on her, the deputy groaning his response. Vick’s final faltering step passed through the garage door into a musky room where his dad stared at the ceiling from a drying puddle of blood.

Mitch Hafferty’s left eye had been replaced by a dark wound. Somewhere in it was the day he met his wife. Vick’s birth and first day of school. Football games and graduation. His memories had been ripped out by something hard and sharp, his temple bulged and deformed. There’d be no open casket or mourners saying he looked peaceful. The coffin’s cold metal lid would tell them they were lucky to avoid what was inside.

Pressure welled in Vick’s chest and spread to tighten his throat. Nothing remained in that cold skin. No worries or disappointment, but no pain either. His dad was gone.

Vick needed to get far away from anyone who recognized him—somewhere to scream or cry, whichever emotion found him first. Sheriff Arkin stood inside the door with the same blank expression he wore when asking for an elaboration on a minor incident report.

Mouth numb, Vick mumbled. “I have to get out of here.”

Arkin took the cruiser’s keys from his pocket and handed them to Vick. His hand lingered long enough for Vick to meet his eyes, raw and red with fledgling tears.

Avoiding Coach Barbour’s body, Vick trudged to the car and maneuvered the cruiser to head back down Robbes Road. Headlights came from the opposite direction, the coroner’s black Sentra crawling ahead of three ambulances. One would be for the paralyzed girl whose nightmare wasn’t finished. She’d be pulled from her home and taken in by a relative or a foster family, all the time trying to make sense of her own father’s death.

Vick drove downtown and past the courthouse and cemetery. A mile later, he pulled into a neighborhood and parked behind his mom’s Acura. He went in through the back door and into the kitchen, listening for a sign of her.

The TV in the living room led Vick to where his mom folded laundry on the couch. In the doorway, he rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers and tried to decide how to tell her. When the news broke for a commercial, he cleared his throat. She jolted, one hand clutching her chest as she laughed in the way she always did. This time, the hand lingered as her smile faded.

Tara Hafferty shook her head in defiance, even as her shoulders slumped forward. She crossed the room to bury her face in Vick’s chest, his arms around her as she screamed. As much as he wanted to be alone for it, no one had more experience with his tears than his mom. He pressed his cheek to her hair and shut his eyes as he let go.

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