K. Weiland - Storming

“What do you mean?”

“This”—she flung an arm out at the field—“this is what we do with dead. Drop them to final sleep. But over water, not over Groundsworld. And not before death comes.”

Okay. He glanced overhead. Not exactly what he had been expecting. If enough people died up there that they had rituals for taking care of the bodies, then it was starting to seem like more and more of a long-term place to visit.

Back at Rick’s car, the voices grew louder.

Hitch looked over his shoulder. The talon cuts in his shoulder pulled and stung, and he winced.

Livingstone had arrived. He strode through the weak beams of the car headlights and held up both hands in a placating gesture. “Not to worry, ladies and gentleman, not to worry. Before leaving camp, I stopped at the farmer’s house and was lucky enough to discover he is the proud owner of a telephone. I contacted the proper authorities. They should be here at any moment.”

Hitch’s heart sank.

Proper authorities meant Campbell. Maybe he’d send a deputy. Maybe he’d even send Griff since the farm was close by. Assuming Griff also had a telephone.

Problem was—murder was a big deal in a sleepy town like this, especially with all the brouhaha of the airshow in town right now. If Campbell had any notion at all that Hitch might be part of that airshow? He’d be personally headed in this direction, sure as shooting.

If he did come, there was no way Hitch could get out of talking to him, since he just happened to be the chief and only witness.

Jael turned back to him. “Authorities? These are custody men—like your brother? You have talked to him?”

“Yeah, about that. It didn’t go so well.” He made himself stop poking at the cuts and drop his hand back to his side. “He didn’t want to see me.”

“He is your brother.”

“That’s mostly the problem.” Hitch had never had any difficulty winning over strangers—only the people he cared about.

She frowned.

“In the meantime,” Livingstone continued, “I suggest we do not sully the scene of the crime any further.”

Even as he said it, headlights swiped across the field and tires crunched against the shoulder of the road.

“Ah,” Livingstone said. “Admirably timed.”

Hitch nudged Jael behind him and eased around to see the road.

Even before the big green sedan’s engine stopped rumbling, Hitch started getting a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The sedan’s door opened, and Sheriff Bill Campbell slid his bulk out of the driver’s seat.

Frustration rolled over inside of Hitch and rose back up, carrying with it more than a fair share of anger. Nothing left to do but face it. Now that Campbell was here, Hitch sure wasn’t about to skulk around in corners, waiting to be hunted down.

He glanced back at Jael. “You stay back here. I’ll keep you out of it if I can.”

Her gaze flicked between Campbell and him, maybe not quite understanding what was happening. But she ducked her chin in a tight nod.

Hitch squared his shoulders and walked into the wind to meet Campbell.

They met at the roadside, a few paces off from the noisy crowd that had gathered around the body.

Campbell didn’t look surprised to see him. “Well, now,” he rumbled, his voice deeply graveled. “If it isn’t the famous Hitch Hitchcock. Heard folks saying you might be back.”

So it didn’t matter after all that the dead body had fallen right on his head. Hitch wasn’t sure if there was any comfort in that or not.

“Here you are,” Campbell said, “one day back, and already you’re my chief witness to a bizarre death. How’s that happen, I wonder?” He rooted in his shirt pocket and came out with a match. He flicked the flame free with his thumb and cupped it in his hand to protect it from the growing breeze. As he held it to the cigarette in his mouth, he looked past Hitch to the crowd in the cornfield.

The death would have to be a bizarre one. Campbell might not have bothered coming out himself if it hadn’t been.

“Same way it happens to anybody,” Hitch said.

Campbell was a hulking man, as tall as Hitch and maybe fifty pounds heavier. His face had gotten craggier in the last few years, but the same faint, knowing smile lurked around his lips, never quite pulling them tight.

“I was just walking by,” Hitch said, “coming back from seeing Griff.”

Campbell took a puff on the cigarette, then let the breeze blow out the match. “Sure you were, son. I know you wouldn’t get yourself mixed up in something like this. Tell me about it, why don’t you?”

Campbell, of all people, wasn’t likely to believe the truth. But it was the truth. If this murder was going to get solved, that truth would have to be told by somebody.

“I think he fell.”

“From where? A tree? In the middle of the cornfield?”

“I know you’ve heard about Scottie Shepherd saying he saw a body fall out of the sky.”

“Scottie Shepherd’s an old man. He don’t see good and he likes attention.”

“But do you believe him?” The answer could either make things easier for Hitch, or a whole lot harder.

“I believe something_’s going on.” Campbell studied him. “And I believe _you know more’n what you just told me. You think Scottie’s right? Something’s up there, in the clouds, killing folks?”

“That just sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

Campbell regarded him for a moment, then leaned in. “I heard about the stunt you pulled this morning, stealing that plane right out from under Livingstone’s nose. That’s crazy. Only you—that’s what I said when I heard about it. Only you.”

Hitch tried not to tense up. “That’s got nothing to do with anything. I’m not lying about this. If it’s a murder, then I take it as serious as anybody.”

“Of course you do. You’re not the type to take the law lightly. You’re just the type to go hightailing when a job don’t go right and you lose a man’s money.”

And there it was. Campbell liked to dance around the truth, but it never took him long to stick in the first jab.

Hitch looked him right back in the eye. “I’m not the type to take the heat for smuggling stolen goods when the man who hired me didn’t tell me what they were.”

“What they were was none of your business. Still isn’t. You should have trusted your sheriff a little more, son.”

“What I’ve learned over the years is that the folks telling you to trust them are usually the last people who deserve it.”

Campbell shrugged. “Glad to hear you learned something along the way. Learn your lessons and pay your dues, I always say. That shipment you lost cost me a cool five hundred dollars. When I heard you were home, naturally I figured you’d finally decided to do the right thing and pay me back.”

“I don’t owe you anything—even if I had that kind of money.”

“The way I see it, either you owe me five hundred dollars, or I should be investigating those stolen goods you got caught with nine years ago.”

If Campbell wanted to put Hitch away for a crime he was guilty of himself—a nine-year-old crime, at that—he’d do it.

Even still, paying Campbell off wasn’t going to be more than a short-term solution, at best. If that’s all it would have taken, Hitch wouldn’t have had to scram out of the state.

Back when he’d taken Campbell up on his job offer—hauling goods over the state line—he had still bought into the whole idea that Campbell was an upstanding public servant. It was only after the cops in Cheyenne figured out the goods were stolen, and Campbell tried to pin the whole thing on Hitch, that he figured it all out.