The Fallen: A Novel by Bailey Dale

Author:Bailey, Dale [Bailey, Dale]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781497601932
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

By the time Henry angled the Volaré into a spot on the courthouse square the next day, the snow had tapered off to flurries. He killed the engine, silencing the radio in the midst of talk about a second front rolling in later in the week. Beyond the windshield, the bank sign cycled through a litany of time (1:07 P.M.) and temperature (28° Fahrenheit).

Henry tugged on his gloves before he got out of the car. At the door of the Observer, he paused momentarily, steeling himself for the confrontation to come.

“Mr. Sleep!”

He turned at the shout.

Harold Crawford hurried across the street from the courthouse, waving his arms. He dragged in a long breath as he stepped onto the sidewalk. “I’m glad I caught you. It’ll save me a phone call.”

“You have something?”

“The lab work on your burglary. Nothing we can use, unfortunately.” He paused. “You notice anything missing at the house?”

“No.”

“All’s well that ends well, then.” He blew into his hands. “How are you bearing up?”

“Fine. I’m doing fine.”

Crawford shook his head solemnly. “It’s just a hell of a thing.” He reached out and shook Henry’s hand. “We’ll keep working on it. I promise you that, Mr. Sleep. Meantime, you holler if we can do anything for you.” He pushed his hat back on his forehead as he turned away. The gesture reminded Henry of the man who had driven him home nearly two decades gone, the young deputy nervously chewing at his lip as he turned to answer the boy’s question:

It’s my mom, isn’t it?

I’m sorry, Crawford had said, and Henry could still recall the sympathy in that voice.

On impulse, he said, “Sheriff, there is something else.”

Harold Crawford wheeled around to face him.

“My father,” Henry said.

“What about him?”

“I was wondering. When you did your investigation, did the subject of Holland Coal ever come up?”

“Holland Coal?”

Crawford took a step closer, and Henry felt a twinge of doubt. Memory gripped him: the look on the sheriff’s face when he had asked to see the case file, something like anger rocking down behind those eyes.

“I don’t recollect anything like that,” Crawford said. “Maybe I should look into it. Who is it you’ve been talking to, exactly, Mr. Sleep?”

And Henry—thinking abruptly of Crawford lumbering back into the lives of Asa and Penny, people who had suffered enough in all this mess—seized the next name that came into his head. “Raymond Ostrowski,” he said.

“I see.” Crawford glanced at the newspaper office and nodded. “Well, I’ll check it out, Mr. Sleep, but it’s hard to see what it could mean. Those old mines have been closed long as I’ve been in these parts. Like I said before, this kind of thing, it’s awful hard to solve.”

He held Henry’s gaze for a long moment, and once again Henry had the disquieting sense of something else behind those pale blue eyes, the hateful regard of a serpent maybe, icy and remote. Then Harold Crawford turned away.

Henry watched him all the way across the street.

Grateful for the

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