Sunsetter by Curtis LeBlanc

Author:Curtis LeBlanc [LeBlanc, Curtis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Dallan Dermott

He is crouched down, his tall frame folded in. He can feel the dampness in the air collected in the shade beneath the pine boughs. His breathing is shallow, quick. Hannah kneels down beside him and he tries to peer through the gaps in the foliage to get a better view of the approaching golf cart.

It peels around the bend in the fairway past the distant stand of trees, before slowing down and putting along towards the seventeenth green. The two golfers do not stop to play. Instead, they head straight for the green where he and Hannah have just been stepping around in their bare feet. On the highway behind them, only ten or so feet, a long-haul engine roars past and makes Dallan’s breath jump and catch in the back of his throat. As the cart approaches, the two men come into focus.

Think they’re employees? Hannah asks.

They don’t look like they work here.

They don’t look like they’re golfing, either. It’s supposed to be closed right now anyway.

Both the men in the golf cart are in blue jeans. One of them wears a starchy black windbreaker and the other, a borg-lined leather jacket much too heavy for the heat, not the preppy shorts and collared shirts normally indicative of someone playing a round or working at the course. They pull around the green and park along the treeline beside the sand trap.

Dallan tenses. He recognizes one of the men. It’s the officer from the station, the one who questioned him earlier that morning, who warned him to keep quiet about what had really happened with Nick at the Sunsetter. He can feel his arms tremble and quake as they struggle to hold his body weight up. He wants to run.

What? Hannah whispers.

Him, he says, gestures at the one in the leather jacket. I know him.

Hannah squints harder, repositions her head to get a better view of the two men. Who is he?

They are close now, within earshot. Dallan does not answer. It isn’t golf bags they have on the back of their cart but a single spade shovel. The other man takes it up and steps down into the pit of sand while the officer watches from the edge.

Neither Dallan nor Hannah speak as they watch the man in the pit stab his spade into the sand in various places, testing the firmness of the ground. He stops, his shovel half-buried, and shimmies it around, twisting the metal in the sand. He starts to dig.

The officer looks around the green for any signs of activity. He seems alert, maybe even a little paranoid, his head on a swivel. Still, he has an official, serious air. He is tight-lipped and expressionless.

After a few shovelfuls, the man in the sand trap bends down and pulls up what appears to be a black bag. It looks like the one Dallan brings camping to keep his clothing and supplies dry. He dusts the sand off its smooth surface and hands it up to the officer.

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