Read Online Into the Web by Thomas H. Cook - Free Book Online Page B

near the body. She said she came down to identify the body, and that’s all she’s going to do.”
    Lonnie crushed the cigar against the sole of his shoe. “I just can’t figure out why she won’t answer a few questions and be done with it, Roy.”
    I knew the answer, saw Lila at my side, holding my hand, the two of us moving slowly down the road as the pickup closed upon us, then rattled past, a load ofdrunken boys slouched inside it, waving whiskey bottles in the dark air.
    “I can’t figure it out,” Lonnie repeated.
    “She doesn’t have anything to hide,” I told him.
    He considered this a moment, then said, “Maybe you could help me out a little more on this, Roy.” He nodded toward the overhanging hills. “Go back up to Waylord. Ask around. About Clayton. You know, among the neighbors. They’d talk to you, those people up there. You got roots up there.”
    “In Waylord? What roots? I’ve always lived in the valley.”
    “But your father’s from up there. All they’d need to know is that you’re Jesse Slater’s son. They all remember him up there.”
    “Why would they remember my father?” I asked. “He left Waylord when he was sixteen. And as far as I know, he’s never been back.”
    “Believe me, that won’t matter,” Lonnie insisted.
    I shrugged. “I’m a schoolteacher, Lonnie, not a policeman. I don’t know how to go about this sort of thing.”
    “It’s just a little snooping around, that’s all,” Lonnie replied dismissively. “But I can make it official if you want me to.” He pulled out the top drawer of his desk and plucked something from among a scattering of pads, pencils, and paper clips.
    “Here you go,” he said as he handed a badge to me.
    I didn’t take it. “I haven’t agreed to this,” I said.
    “Look, Roy, you’d be doing a favor for Lila. Because if you go up there and ask a few questions, then I won’t need to keep her down here with me anymore.”
    Lila’s voice sounded in my ear, reminding me of theplunge I’d once been willing to take for her, along with her certainty that I would never do such a thing again.
    I glanced at the badge. “You’d let her go now?”
    “I sure would,” Lonnie said. He smiled. “Now raise your right hand.”
    When I’d finished, he shook my hand. “Congratulations, Deputy Slater,” he said with a laugh. “And welcome to the exciting world of law enforcement.”

Chapter Seven
    O ne thing was certain: I had no idea how to investigate anything. But I’d read a few detective stories over the years, and so I merely imitated what I thought a fictional sleuth would do, and went back to the place where Clayton Spivey’s body had been found, in the hope that I might stumble upon something Lonnie had failed to notice.
    The deeply shaded ground still bore the imprint of the body’s dead weight, but nothing else. Lonnie had already collected whatever evidence he could find-the rifle, the shells, the rectangular cardboard box that had contained them.
    Glancing here and there, I noticed nothing at all, until suddenly I glimpsed a second body.
    It lay near the bank of the creek, and as I movedcloser, I saw that it was a dove, its head shot off, the decaying body swarming with black ants.
    Not far above, in a fork among the limbs, its nest rested, fully exposed, in dappled light.
    The nest was empty now, but for a moment I imagined the dove curled inside its frail circle of twigs, peering down at Clayton Spivey, watching as he opened the ammunition box, drew out a single shell. I could see where one bullet had grazed the nest’s supporting limb. Another had left a neat round hole in a gently swaying leaf. A third had actually penetrated the left side of the nest, through barely, merely grazing it enough to blow away a few twigs.
    Through it all the dove had sat, strapped down by instinct, motionless, unable to take flight as is always the case with nesting doves, and waited for Spivey finally to steady his aim enough to put a