Then he saw who it was. Wade Caldwell, skull cap, flannel shirt, eyes like lake water. Wade tapped on the glass. Carl rolled the window down. Preacher?
Deputy. They looked at each other a moment. "You know why I'm here?" Wade said. I can guess.
"Step out of the car, Deputy." Carl stepped out. Wade leaned against the cruiser, crossed his arms. "Carl, I know about the boy. I know about the girl in the chair.
I know about the 300 grand. I know about every dollar of Donnie Ray's money in your pocket going back 32 months. And I know about the pictures of your boys that Donnie Ray showed you 6 months ago to remind you who holds your leash." Carl's face went white. How could you possibly "Son, I have a friend with the FBI who I served with in '91.
I made a phone call Tuesday morning. By Tuesday night I had the whole file." Preacher, please, my boys. "Carl, listen to me. I am not here to hurt you.
I am here to give you a choice." Carl's hands were shaking. What choice? "Donnie Ray Brennan killed Sean Brennan 5 years ago. Donnie Ray killed a woman named Lisa Matthews 6 years ago.
Donnie Ray has plans by sundown this Monday to kill Delia Brennan and her brother. And the only reason Donnie Ray has been able to do any of this is because you have looked the other way." Carl was crying. He was not ashamed of it. I didn't know about Sean.
I swear to God, Preacher. I didn't know. "I believe you. That's why we're talking." Wade straightened up.
"Carl, here's your choice. You can keep looking the other way. And when this is done, and it will be done by Monday night one way or another, I will make sure every piece of paper your friend in the FBI has on you gets delivered to the US Attorney's Office in Des Moines. Your boys will know what their father was. Your wife will know.
Your neighbors will know. Or you help me. You wear a wire. You write a statement. You get Donnie Ray on tape admitting what he did to Sean and what he's planning for Delia.
And when the time comes, you stand on the right side of the line. And when it's all over, my friend at the Bureau will go to the US Attorney with a different kind of paperwork. A cooperator's file. Reduced charges. No prison for you if we play it right.
A chance to look your boys in the eye again." Preacher, you don't know what he'll do to my family if he finds out. "Carl, he is going to do it anyway. He is getting sloppy. He is killing people.
And when men like him go down, they take everyone they can with them. Your boys are already in his pocket whether you see it or not. This is the way out. This is the only way out." Carl leaned against the cruiser.
He wiped his face. What do you need me to do? "Meet me tomorrow night, 8:00. Roz's after close. Bring everything you know.
Bring your badge. Bring your conscience. I'll be there." "I know you will, son." Wade clapped him on the shoulder once, walked to his bike, rode off.
Carl Weathers stood in the parking lot of the Quick Stop and cried the kind of tears he had not cried since he was a boy. Thursday afternoon, Wade came to Delia's house. Ezra was at the kitchen table. He had his prosthetic on. He had shaved.
He looked for the first time in a long time like a man and not a ghost. Delia opened the door. She had Mary Caldwell's Bible on the counter. She had been reading from Psalms. Wade?
"Ma'am, may I come in?" She nodded. He stepped inside. He took off his cap. He stood in the middle of her small living room with his hands folded over his cap like a man at a funeral.
"I have things to tell you, both of you. Ezra, I'd like you here for this." Ezra rolled in. He set the brake. Wade sat down on the edge of the floral couch.
The same couch Donny Ray had sat on Monday night. Wade's back was very straight. "Ma'am, Corporal, the first thing I am going to tell you is the hardest thing. Miss Brennan, your father did not die of a heart attack. He was murdered by Donny Ray 5 years ago for what your father had learned about a crime Donny Ray had committed the year before."
Delia sat down hard on the arm of the couch. "What crime?" "Donny Ray killed a young woman 6 years ago, a working girl from Cedar Rapids named Lisa Matthews. Your father figured it out. Your father wrote it down in a journal in his Bible upstairs in his old dresser top drawer."
Delia was white. "I've never opened that Bible." "I know you haven't. Roz told me." "Why is he coming after us now?"
"Because he thinks you have the journal or he thinks you know what's in it. He's been watching you for 5 years, Miss Brennan, and last month your father's old bank sent you a letter about a safe deposit box. That letter spooked him. He thinks your father left something behind. He thinks it's coming for him."
Delia put her face in her hands. "What does he want? Really, what does he want from me?" "He wants you both dead and the house burned so nothing is ever found. He does not want $40,000.
He never did. He wanted you scared so you would run, so you would make a mistake, so he could get you somewhere quiet. That is what his 7 days are." Ezra spoke for the first time. "D, go get it."
She looked up. "Go get the Bible, D." She stood up. She went up the stairs. She opened the top drawer of her father's old dresser for the first time in 5 years.
Her father's Bible was there. Just as Wade had said, she brought it down. She set it on the coffee table. She opened it. Folded inside the front cover wrapped in a rubber band were 22 sheets of yellow legal pad paper handwritten, dated, signed by Shawn Brennan.
Names, times, places. A full account of what he had seen, what he had heard, what he had followed up on. Every bit of it. Delia read three lines and started to cry. Wade did not stop her.