A Grant County Collection (96 page)

She pushed herself back from the desk, her shoe sliding on a piece of paper. Lena reached down to pick it up, her hand freezing midair as she stared at the light blue notepaper on the concrete floor. The handwriting was a perfect cursive, the kind they used to teach in school back when it mattered. The words were easy to read from this distance, but still, she picked up the paper and sat back in the chair so she could study it. She had to read through the page two more times before the words started to make sense.

Lena rummaged through the desk, looking for the rest of the letter. She moved the shoeboxes and found three more pages underneath, then a few more that had fallen behind the desk. When she put them together, Lena found that there was not just one but three letters, all dated within the last two months. She read through them, feeling like she was reading someone's diary. The notes were banal in parts, listing details of shopping for groceries and picking up the kids after school. Some of it was intensely personal, the kinds of things you shared only with a close friend.

Finished, Lena pressed her palm flat against the stack of letters, fingers splayed out, as if she could divine their true meaning.

How had she been so blind?

Al Pfeiffer lived as far from Elawah County as you could get and still be in the state of Georgia. Dug Rut was a border town on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, which meant that the trip would take Jeffrey and Sara into a primitive wetland known mostly for its alligators and mosquitoes, both of which could kill a man. In high school, Jeffrey and two of his friends had planned to take a few weeks during their summer vacation and explore the swamp, but that was the same year that
Deliverance
came out, and even though the movie was filmed in the north Georgia mountains, it was enough to turn any man off the idea of canoeing.

Still, Jeffrey remembered a little bit about the wetlands from his reading. He knew that the headwaters of the Suwannee and the Saint Marys rivers were located in the swamp, each eventually draining to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, respectively. Hundreds of endangered birds and mammals resided in the protected wildlife refuge and the plant life was of the sort you would expect to see in a science-fiction film. The place was as cut off as it was remote, and families tended to live and die there without seeing the rest of the world. Back in the early 1900s, there were folks living in the swamp who still had not yet heard that the Civil War was over. Not much changed in their lives when they got the news.

The ride down was a quiet one. Sara hadn't had much to say when Jeffrey got back to the motel. Oddly, she had cleaned the bathroom, something she seldom did at home unless she was pissed at Jeffrey or knew that her mother was coming over. She had actually seemed proud about bringing a shine to the crappy fixtures. For Jeffrey's part, he had stared at the tub while he was taking a leak, fighting the urge to redirect the stream and mess up Sara's handiwork. If he'd wanted a wife who took pleasure out of cleaning a toilet, he would've married his high school sweetheart back in Alabama.

Sara had listened politely as Jeffrey had relayed the details he'd gotten from Nick about the Brotherhood, the meth business running up the eastern seaboard, the possibility that Elawah might be a stop along the cartel's railroad. She'd nodded, but not offered her opinion on anything. She hadn't asked him what he'd hoped to accomplish by talking to Al Pfeiffer or how any of this tied in to Lena. Part of him had hoped she would. Jeffrey wasn't sure how to answer those questions himself. Talking it out with Sara might have helped him understand.

Two hours into the trip, Jeffrey wasn't even sure he was still in Georgia. Kudzu and knotty pines gave way to sand and palm trees. When he rolled down his window, he caught a whiff of the briny coast mixing with the pungent odor of shit that told him he was downwind from a paper company. An hour later, he followed a back route cutting into the state, toward the little bit of Georgia that fingered into Florida along the Saint Marys. By then, he could barely see the road. The car's windshield was caked with all manner of streaks from the bugs that had flown into the glass, some of them as big as his fist.

Jeffrey was about to pull over and look at the map Nick had given him when he noticed all the usual signs that indicated you were getting close to the border between two southern states: hot boiled peanuts, fresh produce, fireworks, totally topless/ XXX-rated girls. Sara said she needed to use the restroom, so he pulled over at the rest stop on the Florida side. Jeffrey got out of the car to check his bearings, then got back in the car because in the full heat of the sun, it was almost too painful to be outside. He tried to think back to when he was a kid and the first week of November meant wearing a jacket and hoping it would snow so you wouldn't have to go to school.

In the car, Jeffrey turned on the ignition and ratcheted up the air-conditioning, letting the cold, artificial breeze blow on his face. He spread the map on his lap again and traced his route, squinting to read Nick's handwriting where the GBI agent had noted streets and landmarks that the original cartographer had either failed to notice or considered inconsequential. Still, Nick had never been to visit Al Pfeiffer and the map only gave detailed directions to Dug Rut, not to Pfeiffer's house. There was just the street address to go by: 8 West Road Six. It was a good start, but Jeffrey would need better directions than that.

Sara got back into the car. She handed him a bottle of water.

'Thanks.'

'You're welcome.'

He stared at her, trying to think of something to say.

She indicated the map. 'Do you know where you're going?'

'I'll need to stop at a gas station closer in to town and see if they can give me better directions.'

'Okay.' She slipped on her seat belt, clicked it into the buckle.

Jeffrey waited, but she didn't say anything else. He gave her the map. She folded it up as he reversed the car out of the space.

Jeffrey merged back onto the highway and followed the signs to Dug Rut. Less than a mile off the main road, he understood where the town had gotten its name. The land was obviously part of the canal system they'd built in the early 1900s in an attempt to drain the swamp. New York's Central Park had suffered this same fate, but the Okefeno-kee had proved to be too difficult to destroy. The handful of swamps left in America were probably some of the few remaining places on the continent where a man could live wholly sustained by the land, whether it was for food, shelter, medicine, or some of the cleanest drinking water on earth. Jeffrey wondered how long it would be before they were all completely destroyed.

Downtown Dug Rut wasn't much to write home about. There was a bar and a post office, but not much more than that. The tiny strip of storefronts lining Main Street were all closed. The owners hadn't even bothered to put rental signs in the windows. There was something sad about the place, and as Jeffrey coasted through a stop sign, he was starting to give up hope of finding a gas station.

He did a U-turn in the middle of the street and turned back toward the post office. Sara didn't move to get out when he parked in front of the building, so he nudged her, saying, 'You don't think I'm going to ask for directions, do you? They'll take away my man card.'

She gave him a tight smile and got out of the car.

Jeffrey watched her make her way toward the building. Her jeans were baggy in the back, and he realized that she had lost more weight. He didn't like it. Sara had always been lean, but she was too thin now. When he made love to her, he could feel her ribs scraping against his chest. Her hips were disappearing, the curve of her waist cinching too tight. From the back, she could almost pass for a teenage boy.

Jeffrey took a deep breath and let it go slowly. Eight years ago, Sara had come home from work early to find Jeffrey in their bed with another woman. Not just in bed, but in action. The look on Sara's face – the betrayal, the hurt, the anger – had been the biggest wake-up call of his life, and Jeffrey had used every tactic he could think of to try and win her back. Just getting her to talk to him had been the biggest hurdle. Once she could speak to him without clenching her jaw, he had worked on getting her into bed. It hadn't been nearly as easy as the first time, but Jeffrey found that waking up with Sara next to him was even more rewarding. Six months ago, he had practically begged her to marry him. Hell, the truth was that he
had
begged her, even getting down on both knees at one point. Sara had taken her own sweet time, but finally she had said yes.

And now, it was almost like she was disappearing before his eyes.

Sara came out of the post office, and Jeffrey found himself looking at the map again instead of watching her walk toward him.

'They were very nice,' Sara told him as she got into the car. She was holding a postal form where she'd written down some directions. 'They said he's about three miles west of here.'

'Why don't we just go to Florida?'

Jeffrey heard his words fill the empty space in the car, knew they had come out of his own mouth, but had no idea where the question had come from.

Sara smiled, shaking her head. Still, she suggested, 'Drink margaritas on the beach?'

He felt himself smiling back. 'Rub suntan oil all over your body.'

'Then aloe when the sun burns off the top layer of my skin.' Sara turned to him, still smiling. 'You need to go left on Main Street.'

'I'm serious about Florida.'

'I'm serious about taking a left.'

He reached out to her, tracing his fingers along her lips. 'You're beautiful. Do you know that?'

She kissed his fingers, then put his hand back on the steering wheel. 'Left,' she repeated. 'Then take a right onto a road called Kate's Way.'

Jeffrey backed out of the space and turned onto Main Street. He slowed as they came to a gravel road, trying to read the handmade street sign. He did this at three roads before finding Kate's Way, a bumpy, one-lane path that looked as if it was seldom used. The scenery changed abruptly the farther they traveled. This part of Georgia was flat marshland, huge, big-bottomed cypress trees growing straight out of the tea-colored water. Spanish moss draped over the branches like lace and there was a constant sound of crickets, birds, frogs, and the occasional gator bellow that they could hear even with the car windows rolled up tight.

The curves in the road suggested they were following a creek that hadn't made it onto Nick's map. Jeffrey slowed the car to a meandering pace, careful not to speed lest he meet a car coming from the opposite direction. He imagined it would be a truck, and that the truck would contain a local who didn't cotton to someone being on his road, public right-of-way or not.

He didn't meet any such truck, and when Sara told him to take the next right turn onto yet another deserted-looking gravel road, Jeffrey made a joke about leaving breadcrumbs.

Two miles down, there was a large, rusted mailbox beside a dilapidated lane, and Jeffrey pulled over to check the number. The sign was so faded that neither one of them could read anything, but a quick scan of Sara's notes told them they were in the right place.

Jeffrey turned down the driveway, slowing to a stop to let a rabbit jump across the path. He went a few more feet, then slowed again for a couple of chickens. After the birds had taken their own sweet time moseying to the other side, Jeffrey accelerated, kicking up dust in his wake. He hadn't meant to draw so much attention to himself, but maybe it was wise to announce your presence to a man who had been firebombed out of his own home.

'Well,' Sara said, surprised when she saw the house.

Jeffrey shared the feeling. Pfeiffer's spread was a little more grand than what Jeffrey would have imagined if he'd let himself sit down and think about it. The house was on a rise, thick green grass carpeting the lawn, a stone path leading down to the creek. Built in a mini-plantation style, two large white columns held up a second-floor balcony. Large floor-to-ceiling windows let in the afternoon sun and opened for a crosswind on more temperate days. On the bottom floor, a wraparound porch completed the picture.

Jeffrey parked his car on the pad in front of the mansion.

'Nice digs,' Sara commented.

'Why don't you stay in the car?' Jeffrey suggested. 'I'll go make sure this is the right place.'

She opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind and gave him a nod instead.

As Jeffrey got out of the car, he could hear the buzz of an air-conditioning unit coming from the side of the house, its insistent whirring blocking out the crickets and birds, though the rushing white waters of the creek managed to compete with the fan. He glanced around, looking for power lines, guessing they were buried in the ground. That would've set Pfeiffer back a wad of cash. It was three times more expensive to bury lines than it was to string them across the sky. Jeffrey assumed the man had laid a phone line in the process and wondered how he'd managed to have a phone number that Nick Shelton couldn't trace. Maybe he had put it in his wife's name, or a family member's. Obviously, Al Pfeiffer had gone to some trouble to make sure he couldn't be contacted.

Jeffrey put his hand in his pocket, trying to use the casual gesture to hide his trepidation. He felt the keyfob and realized he'd left Sara without any air-conditioning and no way to roll down the windows. He glanced back at the BMW. Sara waved and he nodded back.

He continued up the path. The closer he got to the house, the more he could see that there was something too new about the place, a crisp whiteness to the vinyl siding, a too-clean look to the porch stairs, that gave lie to its plantation roots. Climbing the cement stairs, Jeffrey figured that the house had probably been constructed by a local builder who specialized in slinging up little Taras. This far out in the middle of nowhere, it couldn't have come cheap.

Between the sheriff's pension, disability for his injuries, and whatever he had socked away, Al Pfeiffer was obviously living comfortably. This was certainly not the kind of place Jeffrey would choose for his retirement, but the isolation had its benefits, especially when you were the type of person to open your front door with a shotgun in your hand.

'What do you want?'

Jeffrey's hand had been raised to knock when the front door was flung open. The shotgun was pointed squarely in his face, about two inches from his nose. Now that Jeffrey thought about it, he'd heard the quick
cha-chunk
of the pump being jerked, a shell being loaded into the chamber, as he'd lifted his hand in the air. He had been just a few seconds off from registering the sound, though, and those few seconds could have meant life and death if the man behind the gun hadn't been more careful. Or maybe the man was just terrified. His eyes kept darting over Jeffrey's shoulder, checking to see if he was alone.

Jeffrey still had his hand in his pocket. He found the keyfob and pressed the lock button, hoping to God the BMW was within reach of the signal.

'You got to the count of three before I blow off your head and ask questions later.'

'Are you Al Pfeiffer?'

'Who the fuck else would I be?'

'I've got my—' Jeffrey slid his hand out of his pocket so he could reach for his badge. He stopped when the man moved closer, firmly pressing the barrel of the Remington under Jeffrey's right eye.