Carved in Bone

conspicuously casual. “Anything weird showing up in our case?”
    I paused, searching for the right way to do this. “You know, Deputy, Sheriff Kitchings said this is likely to be a pretty sensitive case, and he seemed worried that the phone line might be tapped. If somebody’s tapping your phone, they might have your vehicle bugged, too.” Williams looked simultaneously startled and suspicious, though I couldn’t tell whether the suspicion was directed in my direction or elsewhere. “I think we better wait till we’re someplace the sheriff knows it’s safe to talk.”
    “Good idea.” He nodded and smiled. Underneath the smile, though, I noticed his jaw muscles working.
    When we left the interstate to snake along the river road, he kept his speed down and his turns gentle. I thanked him for taking good care of me. This time, he smiled in earnest.
    “So how’d you end up in law enforcement, Deputy?” It was a question I always like asking officers, because the range of answers—of motivations, of pathways—seemed nearly infinite, and usually fascinating: a family tradition for three generations; a brother who was murdered; an overdose of Dragnet reruns; a genuine desire to make the world a better, safer place.
    Williams was quick with his answer. “You remember I told you about my granddaddy?” I nodded: the man unjustly jailed, then shot and burned to death. “I wanted to make sure that kind of thing never happened to any of us again. Only way to do that is to be the guy with the badge and the keys.” It wasn’t the most noble reason I’d ever heard, but I could see the logic of it up here in Cooke County.
    We had reached the most tortuous section of the road when Williams slowed and began edging onto the right-hand shoulder of the road, such as it was. “Doc, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to stop and take a leak.”
    “We’re pretty close to town—you can’t wait?”
    “No, sir, I don’t think so. I drank a lot of sweet tea in the cafeteria while you were in class; too much, I reckon. I do apologize. You just sit tight and I’ll be back in one minute.”
    And with that, he was gone.
    He didn’t come back in one minute, or two, or even three. To pass the time, I pulled a notepad out of my pocket and began drafting a job recommendation a former student had asked me to write. At last the door swung open. “I was about to send out a search party,” I said, my eyes still on my notes. “You must have had a couple quarts of tea with your lunch, Deputy.” But it was not the deputy who leaned down and peered at me through the open door. It was a bear of a man, dressed in a camouflage jumpsuit, the tree-bark pattern worn by deer hunters, complete with a camouflage cap.
    “Dr. Brockton, I’m real sorry about this, but we got a little change of plans. My name’s Waylon. Now, I ain’t gonna hurt you. How about sliding over behind the wheel and pulling back onto the road? You’re gonna head toward town a piece, then make a turn where I tell you.”
    “Where’s Deputy Williams?”
    “Leon? He’s all right, don’t you worry none about him. He’s just kindly… tied up at the moment, you might say.” The big man flashed either a grin or a grimace at me.
    I sat. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”
    “Somebody needs to talk to you. In private. Prob’ly won’t take a half a hour, then we’ll get you back to town so you can go on about your business with the sheriff.”
    I studied Waylon. He outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds, and I was guessing there was a pistol tucked somewhere in that camo suit. Maybe a skinning knife, too. “What if I say no?”
    He sighed. “Look, Doc, ain’t no reason we got to have trouble between us. I told you, I ain’t gonna hurt you, but I will hogtie you if I have to. Besides, you’ll want to talk to this fellow I’m taking you to. I bet he can help you figure out who you pulled out of that cave the other day.”
    News travels fast in a small town. I cranked the engine and shifted into gear. “You tell me where to go.”
    He grinned, flashing a smile of scattered teeth, pitted with cavities and flecked with chewing tobacco. “Now you’re talking. Once you cross that next bridge, take your first right. It’s gravel.” We wound along for maybe a mile; during that time, I considered half a dozen escape plans and rejected them all—not because I was hopelessly outmatched, though plainly I was. I rejected them because this