And behind the wall was the rest of it, which he had never set out in front of anybody. That Dakota had flown home from Midland for the funeral, twenty-three years old and thin as a rake and jumpy, with a new tattoo on his forearm and a new way of not meeting your eyes, and had stayed through Christmas in his old bedroom with the door shut. That Jody Sizemore had come by the house the day after Christmas in his little Ranger to see him, the two of them friends since they were five years old and ate Ivah's cornbread at the same lunch table, and they had sat out in the Ranger in the driveway with the engine running for most of an hour. That Dakota had flown back to Texas on the twenty-seventh, two days early, on a ticket he changed himself. That on the twenty-ninth, Jody had been found at the Muscatatuck boat ramp in the Ranger with the engine off and the windows fogged, and the deputy who found him had bagged a torn foil pouch off the floor mat that said FENTANYL TRANSDERMAL SYSTEM 50 mcg/h, with a lot number and an expiration date printed on the crimped edge. That Nolan had taken the case himself. That he had walked into this store on the fourth of January, 2021, and stood at this counter, and Mattie Holcomb had pulled her dispensing records for that lot and written three names on the back of a business card and handed it to him across the counter, and the third name on the card was VERLIE CAUDILL. That he had driven home that night and opened the drawer by the sink and moved the dish towels and found the white carton exactly where he had put it, with its flaps tucked in neatly, and empty.
That he had never called Midland. That he had never asked. That he had interviewed the first two families on Mattie's card, and found their patches accounted for, and written in the report SOURCE UNDETERMINED, and closed it. That he had written JODY A. SIZEMORE, 23, 12/29/2020 on a white index card in block capitals with a felt-tip pen and pinned it to the board in the fourth row with a red pushpin, and every morning since he had put his palm on the cold blue box in the lobby with his name on it, as if it were a thing that could forgive him.
That the carton was still in the drawer. That he had never thrown it away.
He stood in the aisle of Holcomb Drug with his mouth open, and none of it came out, not the wall and not what was behind it. Nothing came out at all. He could hear the soda case humming at the front of the store. He could hear Elmo Pickens breathing through his nose. He could hear a truck downshift out on the square, going around the courthouse, and the flag rope ticking against the flagpole on the courthouse lawn in the wind. He stood there, and the silence went on, and he understood that every person in the store was hearing it, and that a silence that long was an answer, and that it was the only true answer he had given anybody about Jody Sizemore in nearly six years.
Behind the window, Mattie Holcomb had gone white. She was not looking at Ancil. She was looking at Nolan, and Nolan saw in her face that she remembered the business card, and the three names, and that she had wondered, for six years, about the third, and had told herself what he had told himself, that he was the sheriff, that he would have looked. He saw her hand close on the edge of the counter.
Ancil did not say anything else. He had not expected an answer. He saw that he had not, now. He had asked it the way you test a line with a meter before you put your hands on it; he had already known, really, and now he knew.
He held his hand out, palm up, the same way he had held out the freezer bag.
Nolan looked down at the hand. Then he put the notebook in it, and then, after a moment, the freezer bag with the amber vial inside. His fingers were clumsy with the bag. Ancil closed his hand over both and put the notebook back in his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap.
"Mattie," Ancil said. "I'll take that now, if you've got it ready."