“That it?”
“That’s the only thing I didn’t tell the cops the first time.” He twisted his hands all up and around the hem of his shirt. “I swear.”
“Okay.” I filed that away in my brain. It gave me a bit of new direction to look to see if I could make sense of what might have happened to Lane and Chris. “So, who’d you buy from?”
He stopped moving and stared at me. “What does that matter?”
“‘Cause I want to know.” I stood up, stepped over and braced both my hands on the little writing desk attached to Trey’s chair. Then I loomed up on over him, that same
I’m gonna chew you up and spit you out grin
slapped on my face. “And if you don’t tell me that, then you can take it up with your Mission President.”
Trey slid down in the chair ‘til his butt skimmed the edge of the seat. “You said you didn’t care about God like that.” He hissed it at me, like I’d lied to him or something.
“I care about God plenty.” More than that boy would ever know. “What I don’t care much about is your soul right now.” I was so close I could smell his toothpaste. “However, I really, really care about who’s selling in my backyard.”
Trey swallowed a few times before stuttering out, “This guy named Mac over in Boulder.”
I stepped back, giving him space. “Now see, that didn’t hurt too much.”
The day’d come out pretty bright and cheery for it being all of a hair above freezing. Blue sky almost sparkled above me as I got out of my Explorer. Remnants of rime, in muddy ruts, cracked under my feet as I walked towards the sawmill office. Probably seeing me coming, a guy, a might younger than my dad, sporting a pot belly, fringe of a goatee and a padded flannel jacket, walked out onto the rickety porch.
He pushed a scarred red safety helmet back over his head of thinning, iron-gray hair. “Well if it ain’t little Joey Peterson.” Dennis grinned as he ambled over to meet me.
I remembered Dennis Chase from back when I didn’t stand no taller than his knee. He always gave me Tootsie Rolls when I’d come on over to the mill. My daddy worked the mill his whole life. Started sorting and stacking logs when he was sixteen. By the time I’d come around, he’d made it to planer supervisor and worked that for near on thirty years. Dennis had held the job of millwright as long as I could remember.
When I came up on him, he reached out, grabbed my forearm and pulled me into a bear hug. “How you getting on these days.” Dennis and his family…well, I grew up around his kids. Fact, there’d been talk once of setting me up with one of his girls when I came back from my mission. We’d both rolled our eyes and did a couple of dates to make our folks happy before heading our separate ways. She’d gone on and married a guy who worked for the city over in Kanab. Sent me pictures of her kids every Christmas.
I didn’t want to think on how Dennis thought about me now, given then. “Better than some, worse than others.” Smiling, as much as I could manage given the situation, I stepped back.
“I hear you’ve done right fine for yourself.” All playful like, he cuffed me on the chin. Guess, given his attitude, Dennis didn’t have much issue with me. I could figure that since, you know, he’d have heard the gossip. He laughed and asked, “Folks doing alright?”
“Yeah, last letter I got, they’re doing fine, getting excited to be coming back home and seeing everyone this spring.” I’d always liked him and his, and now I kinda did just a little more. “Said they want to get together with everyone after they get home and have a big ol’ reunion.” Wasn’t quite looking forward to that. Not that I didn’t want to see my folks, but they likely wouldn’t have heard about me and Kabe yet. It was gonna get messy.
“Like to hear their stories.” Dennis shoved his hands in his pockets. “Russia.” He shook his head. “You know when I retire I was thinking Hawaii, not someplace that gets colder than it does here.”
I knew he teased, but I played my answer kinda serious. “They followed the call ‘cause that’s where Heavenly Father thought they ought to be.”
“Well, if you hear from them any time soon, tell your mom that Sherrie, my eldest, just had twin girls.”
“Will do.” I promised. “Them and Lacy, she’ll be pleased.” Lacy, my older sister, and his eldest daughter did the cheerleader thing together in high school.
Dennis resettled his helmet back to its proper place. “So, I’m guessing you didn’t come on over to shoot the breeze with an old fogy like me.”
Nodding, I confirmed his suspicion. “I’m looking for Cooper Thomas.”
Dennis glared at the big building housing the millworks. “What’d he get himself into this time?”
I shrugged. “I just need to ask him a few questions.” Not that I’d lie to anyone, but this weren’t really Dennis’ business.
“Yeah, right.” The snort said Cooper might be more trouble than Dennis thought worth it. “He’s pulling green chain at the end of the line. Let me get you a set of ears and a lid.” Dennis disappeared into the office for a bit before returning with a set of industrial, sound-damping earmuffs and a hard hat for me. I switched out my Stetson for the hard hat. Then I settled the clamshell casings on my ears and the noise from the sawmill dropped down to a muffled roar. “Come on,” he yelled as he pushed his own ear protection in place, “I’ll take you over to him.”
Took a quick detour to put my uniform hat in my vehicle before jogging after Dennis. Across the woodlot, a massive metal building contained the workings of the mill. In the summer, they’d roll up the big gantry doors along the sides to let in air, but in the middle of winter they kept it pretty buttoned up. Once inside, well even with the hearing protection the noise was enough to rattle my teeth. We walked down the line where the big old logs went in one end and came out the other as planks of wood.
The guy pulling chain has to yank those planks into piles. A lot of it gets done by machines and sorting grids, but still it’s a job where you come home covered in grit and sneezing sawdust. And it’s the job where every green hire starts. I’d pulled chain for exactly one month after I got back from my mission before announcing I was gonna go on and try and get in at Dixie State College…’cause I sure couldn’t imagine doing that job for any length of time.
Back when my daddy started at the mill, the place was overrun by an army of men doing dirty, dangerous jobs. Now days, they operated pretty much like any other factory. A warren of machines and robots controlled by computer. Didn’t mean the place still wasn’t dirty and dangerous. Sawdust seeped into the seams of your clothes. Huge loaders shuffled logs and lumber loads that outweighed my truck by three or four times around the yard. Saws ripped through wood, shooting along the line at breakneck speed. Wasn’t a place you wanted your attention to wander.
We came around to the end of the line. Dennis reached over and tapped my shoulder before pointing out a boy so lanky his joints seemed laced together with leather straps. “That’s Cooper.” He shouted right up near my ear so’s I could hear him.
I shouted back, “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Dennis grinned and saluted me as he started to back off. “Make sure you say hi to your folks for me.”
“Will do.” Wasn’t right sure he heard me since he’d moved about three feet away by then. I turned my attention back to Cooper. Like all the men in the mill, Cooper wore safety gear and steel toed boots. An orange and yellow safety vest covered his heavy flannel shirt. Both the shirt and his jeans were caked in a layer of dust and wood shavings. I waited for a lull in the product coming off the line before I stepped up and tapped him on the shoulder. “Cooper Thomas?”
“Yeah?” He stepped back just a bit, enough so he could keep me in one side of his vision and the wood coming down the pike in the other.
“I’m Deputy Peterson.” Hated having a conversation by yelling at the top of my lungs. “Need to talk to you.”
“You here about Lane?” Cooper hollered back. “Heard the news. Sucks man.”
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder sorta in the direction of the door. “Let’s step outside where we don’t have to yell.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause I don’t want to yell.” I repeated myself and added a glare to let him know I weren’t playing around.
Cooper’s face went kinda sour, like something didn’t taste right to him. Then he barked out, “Whatever,” and held up his hand with his fingers spread wide. The supervisor on the other side of the line glared at Cooper, scowled at me and then gave a thumbs up. My guess he didn’t want Cooper off the chain, but the man weren’t about to mess with me and my business.
We walked out of the mill proper and towards where trucks dumped the loads of raw logs. I could still hear the high pitch scream of the saws and planers back in the building. At least the chugging diesel of a two ton Cat with big ol’ claw arms didn’t jar as much. Weren’t exactly quiet, but it was as good as I was going to get ‘round there so I pulled off the earmuffs and settled them around my neck. Heck, my daddy claimed he could still hear that mill inside his ears when he tried to sleep.
Cooper pulled off his own ear protection. “So what do you want to talk to me about?”
“I need to talk to you about the day Lane disappeared.” I hooked my thumb back behind my piece. “Just informal like. Thanks for taking time outta your workday to help me out.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He shrugged. “Look, I already told the other officer all about it.”
“What do you remember about that day?” I prodded.
His tone verging on annoyed, Cooper repeated, “I already told you guys everything.”
Trying not to rise to his mood, I kept my voice even, “Tell me again.”
He didn’t answer for a bit. “Why?”
“‘Cause I’m going back over everything.” I shifted a bit, trying to remind him, just a little, how much bigger I was and that maybe he ought to think about cooperating. “You know, since Lane’s dead.”
“So, I told you guys everything I know.”
The boy rode my nerves enough already that I wanted to pick up a piece of wood off the lot and smack him upside the head with it. I didn’t. Instead, I stepped up into his personal space. “You got a problem with me asking?”
Almost instinctively, Cooper gave ground. “I got a problem with you.” He rolled his shoulders and tried to play it all off like he might be just sizing me up or something.
“The badge,” I stepped in again, “or the guy wearing it.”
“I don’t like you, Deputy.” This time Cooper managed not to back away.
I grinned. It weren’t one of my nice ones. “Well at least you know my title.” Figured it might be time to remind him just what my badge and title meant. “Now, we can do this nice and easy where you talk to me for a bit here. Or, if you want, I can blow your whole day’s pay by making you come down to the station and give me a statement. Sure your supervisor would love that…but probably expects it since you seem to have a bit of reputation already.” I shrugged like it didn’t matter none to me. “Completely your choice. I’m good either way.”
Cooper crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me, hard. I’d played the standoff game more times with a heck of a lot more at stake than whether this little pissant would answer my questions. See, now I knew that Cooper could walk away at any time. He weren’t under arrest and so the law said he didn’t have to talk to me. Heck, even if I placed him in custody, the law said he didn’t have to talk to me. But most folks, even if they know that, also know that if they walk away, refuse to talk, it makes them look bad. But I’d bet my left nut, that boy didn’t have a clue he could tell me to pound sand. With all Cooper’s bravado, he still stood there, staring, and not walking away. So I just stood there, stared back, grinning ‘cause I knew I had him.
Finally, Cooper looked away and mumbled. “Get it over with, I don’t want to be out here with you no more than I have to.”
“Good thing we cleared that up.” Given everything, including my run in with Trey the other day, I figured I’d shoot from the hip on where some of Cooper’s attitude came from. “I guess the feeling’s mutual, since I don’t much like you neither right about now. And that’s something since we’ve known each other all of about three minutes. So, let me ask it again, real simple, tell me what happened the day you last saw Lane.”
Jaw set hard and body all tense, Cooper studied the steel gray sky instead of looking at me. “We went up to the mountains to collect some wood. Then we grabbed the dirt bikes, figured we wouldn’t get much chance to use ‘em again before spring. Muddy as all hell, but you know. Came home and Lane and Chris took off together.”
Well, that equaled the same bare bones story as I’d read in the file and that I’d heard from Trey. I decided to throw what Trey’d told me, but Lane’s sister didn’t seem to think much of…you know, to see where Cooper’d come down on that theory. “Heard Lane was pretty torn up over his folks break up.”
“Yeah, sort of.” He shrugged like it weren’t much of nothing. “Wanted to get the hell out and was pissed that his dad was moving to Salt Lake without him. But I was, like, ‘dude, in less than a week you’ll be in Provo and then, France.’” Cooper shoved his hands in his back pockets and kicked at the ground. “Who needs Salt Lake, you know.”
For all his nasty attitude about me, that statement rang true…mostly because it meshed with some of the things I’d heard outta Trey and Trish. I poked a little more, “So he was excited about that?”
“Big time.” Cooper didn’t hesitate with his answer. “‘Cause it’s not like he didn’t have time to get used to his parents’ marriage hitting the skids. That train wreck started first semester of our junior year.” He shrugged again. “His mission gave Lane a way out, you know?”
“Did he seem down otherwise?”
A quick shake of his head reinforced the, “No,” Cooper offered me.
“Notice anything out of character for him?” I knew I was going ‘round with the same questions for most everybody, but not everybody sees the same things. So, it was always worth it to ask.
Cooper seemed to think a moment before asking, “Like what?”
“Was he, I don’t know,” I searched a bit for the words, “giving things away or anything?”
Again Cooper mulled my question over. “He gave me his knock off MP4 player. Said he wouldn’t need it for the next two years.” That answer was why I asked the same things over and over. “Floored me some, ‘cause he saved up all the money he got bagging groceries after school and last summer to buy ‘em…one for him and one for his sis, Trish, on their birthday. But, you know, like he said, they’d probably be up to MP6s by the time he got back.”