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it had no industry except a small amount of timber to recommend it. Some years before, a congressman had managed to get a textile company to relocate here from the North, but once the tax relief and bonuses it extracted from the county petered out, the jobs started to slowly disappear. Finally, the entire operation had shut down. Most of the folks in the neighborhood were on some kind of disability. For some families, disability—carpal tunnel, Epstein-Barr syndrome, back trouble, whiplash—was the family business.
    Bill and his deputies spent a fair amount of time out here, serving notices and enacting foreclosures. He was often asked to tag along with the BATF or the Feds when they went after the pot growers or the rare whiskey still in the area. There was nowhere else to hold the suspects except the county jail, which was his province. No one out here was ever glad to see him, and he wasn’t particularly glad to see them.
    When Brad Catlett’s mother answered the door, Bill knew immediately that someone who knew what happened had reached her. She was a trim woman, athletic, different from the area’s usual overweight welfare mavens. Her face was mottled with hives from her weeping. She had the same fine features as her son, the same small bump on the bridge of her nose and prominent cheekbones.
    “Our pastor’s wife works at the school,” she said as he entered with Frank. “I was out in the garden shed earlier. Won’t be too long before we can put in some broccoli,” she added, as though they needed the explanation.
    She offered them coffee, but before they could say no, she said that she forgot she was out. The three of them stood in awkward silence for a moment. Tears slid down her face and her body began to shake with sobs. Frank guided her to sit in a chair.
    Photos of Brad Catlett sat on several surfaces of the room: the television cabinet, a shelf above the couch, a side table. The photos spanned his entire short life, from Brad as a drooling infant in a jump seat, to a grinning six-year-old showing off a missing front tooth, and Brad and his father standing proudly beside a restored 1970 GTO. Brad had been the Catletts’ only child.
    Frank spoke in quiet, comforting tones to the woman. Bill was glad that he’d come along.
    “I need to see Brad,” the woman said. “Why can’t they bring him home? He should be here with his mama. He didn’t finish up his breakfast this morning. He’s always in such a hurry, that boy. Always wanting to go somewhere.”
    “They need him at the hospital right now, Mrs. Catlett,” Bill said. “Is Brad’s father close by? In town?”
    “He works at the Toyota plant,” she said. “I don’t want to tell him over the phone. He’ll go crazy.”
    The plant was an hour’s commute from this end of Jessup County; Bill considered that dedication to making a living. It looked like the Catletts were probably good people.
    “Somebody will contact him, Mrs. Catlett,” he said, making a mental note to put Daphne on it. “Can you tell me if Brad had any heart problems?”
    “It’s stupid,” she said with disgust. “Those stupid doctors. I don’t know what happened to Brad or what the people at that school did to him, but he’s got nothing whatever wrong with him. He’s had a cold for a while, maybe a little allergy with spring and all. But there was nothing wrong with his heart. He was a runner, for God’s sake. He would run with me, five, ten miles a day, sometimes.”
    “Frank, maybe Mrs. Catlett could ride back into town with you,” Bill said. “She needs to get to her boy at the hospital.”
    “Sure thing, Sheriff,” Frank said. “Maybe there’s somebody you want to call to meet us there?”
    As though on cue, the telephone in the kitchen began to ring.
    “Do you mind if I take a look around Brad’s room, Mrs. Catlett?” Bill said. He hoped that in the confusion of the phone ringing and her desire to get to the hospital, she wouldn’t think too hard