But—he glanced around at the clot of agitated people who surrounded him—he didn’t think he had a choice.
Ledger held up both hands in front of him, palms out and fingers relaxed. “OK,” he said. “That’s fine. I’ve not done anything wrong. The police aren’t going to have anything to hold me on.”
“Good,” the first man, in his black-and-yellow delivery shirt, said. “Then they’ll let you go, won’t they. Until then, shut your mouth.”
He gave Ledger a shove.
Ledger took a step back and did as he was told. He turned to see what was going on in the road.
There was a covey of people around the driver now. A teen in a dark brown apron pressed a cup of coffee into her hands, two men stood at the front of the car to tut over the damage, and the wailing baby had been handed off to a tall sandy-haired man who held it in the crook of his arm like a small dog.
Nobody had gone near the dead man on the road. Dale lay sprawled where he had fallen, legs kinked out awkwardly, and part of his scalp flapped forward from his skull. It lay over his forehead, his hair flopped down over one eye.
After a second, Dale reached up to push it out of the way. He squashed it back down into place one-handed, and then he made eye contact with Ledger. The sideways swipe of stain across his eye made it look like a goat’s pupil from this distance. They stared at each other, and then Dale sat up, brushed himself off, and reached down to wrench his shin bones back into place.
“Son of a bitch,” Ledger muttered and started toward the road.
He got two steps before he was grabbed by the shoulders and dragged back. “We told you!” the big man said. “Stay where you are, Conroy. You aren’t going to get away with this.”
Ledger gritted his teeth. He watched as Dale picked himself up off the road and tottered over to the other side. But he was the only one.
“Get away with what?” Ledger asked as he glanced around and up at the man holding him.
It was on the tip of the guy’s tongue. Ledger could almostseethe answer to that question slip away as the guy opened his mouth to answer and then faltered over the words.
“What?” His grip on Ledger’s shoulder loosened as he looked around for a reminder. Confusion flickered over his face but got muscled out of the way by his stoked temper. He gave Ledger a rough shake. “Stop trying to muddy things up. You know what you did. Same thing your dad did.”
It didn’t look like he’d be able to talk sense into anyone. Ledger watched Dale limp away on the other side of the road, nobody giving him a second look. Not yet, anyway.
“Yeah,” Ledger said. “Maybe I did.”
He squirmed out from under the man’s grip and sat on the curb to wait for the cops to get there.
The baby kept crying.
* * *
The coffeeat the sheriff’s department hadn’t gotten any better.
Ledger drank it anyhow. It was easier than trying to find somewhere to put it while his dominant hand was handcuffed to the bench. He leaned against the slatted back and watched people try to work out what happened.
The driver of the car that hit Dale sat on a nice leather chair that had been wheeled out of Syder’s office for her. She breastfed the baby as she answered Deputy Martin’s questions, bouncing it nervously in time with the toe she tapped on the floor.
“So,” Deputy Martin said, his forehead creased intently as he turned the page to a clean sheet in his notebook. He touched the nib of his pen to the virgin sheet and gave the driver a reassuring smile. “Can you tell me what happened? In your own words.”
It was the same look Ledger had seen on the man’s face in the street. The absolute confidence of knowing something, but just as she opened her mouth, she realized it was… gone. She swallowed hard and jiggled the baby faster.
“I mean, yousawmy car,” she said.
The deputy’s pen dug into the paper as he pressed down on it.
“Yes,” he said. “But what happened?”
She huffed and shifted position, one leg crossed over the other. Her toe tapped nervously at the air now.
“It was him.” She jabbed a finger in Ledger’s direction. “He did it.”
Martin sighed as he wrote that down. Then he looked over at Ledger, who drank his coffee at him.
