Read Online Boy Who Shoots Crows (9781101552797) by Randall Silvis - Free Book Online Page B

Denny say?”
    â€œHe said all he was doing was he was going to run over to Glenn Paulsen’s and pick up an old barbecue grill Glenn was letting us have. Glenn’s working the afternoon shift this week and wouldn’t get home till a little after midnight.”
    â€œAnd you’ve spoken to Glenn about this?”
    â€œDid you see a barbecue grill outside anywhere?” Gatesman forced a smile. “That still doesn’t rule out the probability that Jesse is off with his dad somewhere.”
    She shook her head. “Denny waited until I went to work, and then he took off for who knows where, and he hasn’t been back here since. Jesse woke up in the morning, ate a bowl of cereal, packed his backpack, and then for some reason decided he was going to ditch school again. He put on his hunting coat and his boots and he at least started out for those woods up the road there. Whether he made it that far or not is another question.”
    â€œMaybe his dad came along at just the right time. Let’s say Jesse’s still walking up along Metcalf, hasn’t cut into the woods yet. Along comes his dad, says, ‘Hey, buddy, hop in.’ And off they go together. That’s what I think happened.”
    Livvie sat huddled into herself, slowly rocking back and forth now. After a while she nodded her head. “I don’t know. Maybe that is what happened.”
    Gatesman offered a smile. And thought to himself, I need to talk to Dylan Hayes the minute he gets home.

8

    T HERE were eight bars within a ten-mile radius of Belinda, exactly twice as many as there were churches. Gatesman’s suspicion that the boy was with his father had been weakened by Livvie’s logic, and he wasn’t able to dismiss the unquantifiable veracity of a mother’s intuition. Unfortunately it would be nightfall before Dylan Hayes could be questioned, so the sheriff thought it might be worthwhile to spend an hour or two piecing together a clearer picture of Denny Rankin’s movements at the time of his son’s disappearance. He knew little of Rankin’s history prior to his and Livvie’s arrival in Belinda some fourteen years ago, but during that time, twice as a deputy and once as sheriff, Gatesman’s office had received paperwork from the magistrate’s office—arrest orders bearing the name of Dennis Rankin. All three incidents in which Rankin had been charged with assault had involved alcohol, in Gatesman’s opinion the world’s most common lubricant to violence, especially when mixed with an equal measure of testosterone. In the first incident, Rankin had allegedly been “staring and grinning” at a college girl for a half hour or more at the Wayside Grill one Saturday night. When Rankin allegedly cupped “his groin area,” the girl’s boyfriend, who was half a foot taller than Rankin, suggested that Rankin “turn around and mind his own fucking business.” Rankin turned on his bar stool and faced the mirror, but several minutes later, when the boyfriend left his table to visit the men’s room, Rankin followed. What happened inside the men’s room became a matter of dispute, since there were no other occupants at the time. Rankin denied the use of a hunting knife, and none was found on his person at the time of his arrest, nor could the one in his trailer be identified conclusively as the one allegedly pressed against the boy’s anus as he stood at the urinal. So the magistrate had had no choice but to warn both participants of the future consequences of rutting behavior in public and to send them on their way.
    The second incident had cost Rankin four hundred and eighty dollars, this time for slamming a Weber charcoal grill loaded with burgers and brats against a tree trunk in response to losing a game of horseshoes at the town’s annual Labor Day picnic held in the oak grove. Rankin had been found guilty of public drunkenness