A/N: Chuck's bumpy Saturday continues.

Big Swamp

Chapter Eighteen: Dust

I sit in the dark office for a while watching dust motes dance in the sunlight that stripes the floor.

Breath in, breath out. Bryce in, Bryce out. Breath in, breath out.

When I've calmed down enough to trust myself, I leave the office, lock up, and make the short drive to the Opelika Police Department.

It's a big brick building with a steeple-like turret on the top. I go through the glass doors and into the main room. A large high, desk runs from side to side with a passway in the middle. Behind each half of the desk sits an officer. One, a woman, seems preoccupied at the moment, typing away on the computer in front of her. The other glares at me in unwelcome and yells: "Captain Ziff! It's the town dick."

The man who yelled is Tom Buford — not a fan of mine if you hadn't guessed. But he's a huge fan of dick jokes, and has not, to my knowledge, ever tired of them. The man he yelled to is Barry Ziff, the Captain of Police.

Barry was in my class in high school. He's done well as a policeman and is young to have been made Captain. He's good at his job — but he's also the tortoise, not the hare. He plods. His officers plod. The Department plods. I used to tell Ellie that Barry always gets his man, but not until the statute of limitations has almost run out.

I'm willing to bet he buys all his meat from the Reduced Shelf at the Piggly Wiggly.

He and I are not and have never been enemies: he's not Shaw and was not one of Shaw's friends. But he finished behind me a lot, and not just in every alphabetical roll call. I was a National Merit Scholar, he was a Finalist. I was valedictorian, he was salutatorian. I was captain of the Brain Bowl Team, he was the first alternate. And so on.

When I became a detective, he seemed to believe I'd done it again, outpaced him, and stole his limelight. For some reason, he reckons being a detective is more romantic, more glamorous than being Police Chief.

Barry comes out of his open office and frowns at me. "Hey, Bartowski, it's been a while since you were in here, but I figured we'd see you today. How's Grimes? I heard he went home?"

"Yes. I'm going to go by and see him. I stopped by hoping you folks might know something about what happened?"

He walks to the desk and leans against it, resting on his elbows.

He's got auburn hair and brown eyes, very light skin. He's handsome but projects no particular charm. Tortoise, not hare.

He sighs and frowns at me again. "I hear you're dating that flashy blond from the Hall, Stroud's niece. Sarah Something. Is that right?"

An important thing: he's crazy about Hannah Sutton and he has been for years. He could've lived with finishing behind me in any other sweepstakes but that one, I suppose.

"Flashy?" The word brings Bryce and bile back and I repeat it in a sharp tone

Barry nods, stands, waves his hands. "Don't mean any offense. Never met her. She looks like a movie star."

He's marooned between excitement for himself and disappointment for Hannah, between being pleased that I'm out of the picture and annoyed I could prefer anyone else — each emotion takes a turn dictating his expression.

"Walker. Sarah Walker. She's great. — So, what do you know about what happened to Morgan last night?"

He doesn't seem happy that I'm not willing to say any more about Sarah but he answers me. "Not much yet. The car was dark blue, large." He shifts position.

"We got a picture of it on the traffic cam downtown but there was no plate and we could not see the driver. There weren't any witnesses other than Carina Miller."

There's only one traffic cam in town, of course. "Make and model?"

"2018 Chrysler 300."

"No plate?" I ask. "You mean it didn't show in the cam photo?" I'm not sure how the cam could fail to show the driver but not show a plate.

"No, no plates. They'd been taken off."

You have to understand a Friday night in downtown Opelika. It's busy down by the railroad tracks, the very center of downtown, but move just a couple of blocks away, especially if it's late, as it was when Morgan and Carina were walking back from Wok and Roll, and it's like a ghost town. You expect Morricone music, tumbleweeds, desert dust. The driver, whoever it was, picked a good spot or lucked into one.

Barry shakes his head. "Ten or so of those cars in the county. I have officers out now, taking a look at any they can see. It had to leave some damage on the car — Grimes was hit hard. — Anything I need to know from you, Chuck?"

I shake my head. He tilts his, gauging me. "Morgan's annoying, God knows, he was annoying in high school and ever since, but I can't imagine anyone hating him, feeling threatened by him. You sure there's nothing I need to know from you?"

"Nothing, but if I find anything, I'll let you know."

He nods, one skeptical nod, frowns again. "Okay, I'll do the same." He pauses, starts to turn away, then returns. "So, you're really dating the tall blond?"

"Yes."

"Hannah knows?"

I nod. As he turns, I see that he's no longer frowning.

I'm surprised and puzzled when I realize that Edna, the woman who worked for Jane Peterson, lives in the same apartment complex as Bill Peppers.

Her apartment is in a different building in the complex, but I drive by Peppers' place just to see if he's home. Slowing down, I roll down my passenger window. No truck.

I do see his neighbor in her green robe, sitting in a fold-out lawn chair by her door. She has a small transistor on a plastic table beside her, turned up so loud that the tinny speaker distorts the music, but I recognize the song. The Four Seasons.

Big girls don't cry
(They don't cry)
Big girls don't cry
(Who said they don't cry?)

A dirty house shoe dangles precariously from her air-tapping foot. She doesn't pay any attention as I go by. Her eyes are closed and she's mouthing the words.

I go around the building to Edna's apartment, Seventy-Two. Her little porch area is neat. Two chairs stand around a small matching table. A fern hangs in a pot. Edna's in one of the two chairs. A book's open on the table.

I pull right up in front and get out. Edna looks at me over her readers, a trace both of recognition and amusement in her face. "Well, if it ain't Doc Bartowski's younger, slower brother…"

I walk up onto the little porch. "You remember?"

She nods. "Jesus, son, I got sciatica, not dementia." She shakes her head as if I have yet again proven myself slower than Ellie.

I point at the other chair. "May I sit down?"

She gestures for me to take a seat. I realize the book in front of her is Shakespeare. I had expected the Bible.

I point to the book with the movement of one shoulder. "You're a fan?"

She raises an eyebrow, that long-resigned look returns to her face. "You think just 'cause I live in all this splendor, I cain't read Shakespeare?"

"No, no, I didn't mean that. I just wondered…" And then I realize I did think that and I let my sentence expire.

She huffs in offended amusement and lifts one corner of her book. "This here, Mr. Bartowski, is a sweetener of existence. My life hasn't offered me a lot of sweets, just a lot of bitterness, but a few pages of this here, and I remember I'm a human being, and that a human being is a piece of work — and not just in a bad way."

She lifts her head, her voice changes, lilts. "'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals.' — When I read that, Mr. Bartowski, I forget all this for a minute…" She makes a sweeping gesture to the apartment complex. "For a minute, I know mine is a better part…"

I consider what she said. "But wasn't Hamlet scoffing?"

She reconsiders me for a moment. "Huh, maybe you ain't so slow. — Yeah, but a man cain't scoff at what he don't believe to be truth."

Ouch. I've been schooled. I nod in acknowledgment of her point. We sit for a moment and each of us looks around the complex, then at each other.

"So, what can I do for you, Mr. Bartowski?"

"Chuck, please. I was told you worked for Jane Peterson before her death."

She seems surprised but nods. "I did. I worked for her every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a couple of decades, I s'pose. Till she got too crazy and ran me off near the end."

"I'm a detective and a case I'm working on has made me puzzled about Jane Peterson. Could I ask you a question or two about her?"

She shrugs. "If you want. We weren't never friends, you know, so if you want her heart's secrets, you need to find somebuddy else."

"I just wondered about her...odd behavior."

"All Miss Peterson's behavior was odd. What'd you have in mind?"

I pause for a moment. "I've heard she walked the grounds with a lantern. Is that true?"

"Yes," Edna says, nodding, "I used to have to try to fix up singed spots on her nightgowns."

"What was she doing? What was she looking for?"

Edna stares at me and shakes her head. "Not what, Chuck, who. That man who got her pregnant, what's his name?"

"Diamond?"

"Yeah, him. She was a-looking for him. He told her he was coming back and she believed it. Some nights, when it was really hot or when she'd gotten addled by something during the day, she'd get...mixed up...start thinking he was due to return. She'd light the lantern and go out to meet him."

"Did she say that's what she was doing?"

"Say? No not in so many words, I s'pose. She just muttered about him, about seeing him."

"And I heard she used to sing...naked...on the upper balcony?"

Edna's wrinkled face smooths a bit as she laughs kindly. "Naked as Eve before the apple. She'd stand up there and sing old bluegrass songs, mostly."

"What was that about?"

"Diamond too. Story is he was working at the Hall and she'd taken a liking to him. Miss Peterson was a handsome beauty when young, but her daddy never let anyone near her. But one night no one else was around, and Miss Peterson took off her clothes and sang to Diamond from upstairs, beckoning him. Kinda a soft-core, Southern Romeo and Juliet scene, I s'pose.

"He climbed them steps inside right quick. And that was the beginning of things between them — and the beginning of the end of Miss Peterson…"

"What did she sing to him?"

"Don't rightly know. And I only pieced that story together from some things Miss Peterson said on her bad nights."

"Bluegrass songs?"

"Yeah," Edna said, her eyes now focused on the past, "high and lonesome — she loved them awful ones, like Girl and the Dreadful Snake. Bill Monroe: You know that one?"

"No, I've never been a fan."

"Me, neither, but there ain't no darker music. She liked that one, and Down in the Willow Garden, and Long Black Veil and Banks of the Ohio — all them murder or death ballads." Edna wipes at her eyes; I hadn't seen her tear up. "Sorry, we weren't friends, but I pitied that poor soul. Money can't buy happiness, but it can surely cause misery."

For the first time in a while, it occurs to me that I have money. I need to talk to Ellie.

"Did a man named Bill Peppers work at the Hall?"

"Peppers?" Edna shudders. "Yeah, he did. 'Ventually Miss Peterson fired him. He was always creepin' around. He lives over there," she points in the direction of the building I passed earlier, "but Thank God, he don't drive 'round this way much."

"Why'd Jane fire him?"

"I don't know. Stealing, maybe, but she didn't tell me. But they went way back, you know?"

I lean forward. "No, I didn't know."

"Well," she says, correcting herself, "she knew him for a long time. He was her son's best friend. He and Wade got in a lot of trouble together in high school. Nothing serious, I s'pose, but lots-a petty stuff, drinking and suchlike. Story is that Peppers daddy was one true sum-bitch and beat the boy like a cur. Bill sorta hid out at the Hall."

"Are he and Wade still friends?"

She shrugs. "Don't know. Wade rarely came round the Hall and I don't remember him talking to Peppers when Peppers worked there."

"Okay," I say, mulling all this over. "I appreciate your time."

She looks up at me as I stand, smirks. "Say hi to your brighter sister, the Doc, for me."

I laugh. "I will. Take care of yourself."

Her expression slowly becomes serious. "I'll try but there's only so much a buddy can do, Chuck. We're all nothing but 'quintessence of dust', you know, like Mr. Hamlet says, — we're the glory of dust, yeah, but still dust."

I pass by Peppers' place again as I leave. He's not there and his neighbor's taken her radio and gone inside too.

As I drive to Morgan's, I listen to some Bill Monroe. I stop at Sheila C's Burger Barn and grab three burgers at the window. The girl at the window makes a funny face when she hears my music, Monroe's curdling, dark yodel.

Bolonia greets me at the door. She looks tired, concerned, but not unhappy. "Chuck, come in! Morgan's been expecting you. He's in the living room."

I walk in and my anger returns. Morgan's been installed in the recliner. He's got a bandage on his head. More bandages on his arms and legs. I can see bruises and scrapes all over him. His face is puffy.

But when he sees the hamburger bag, he grins puffily. "Chuck, my man, and with medicine! Vitamin C's!"

He reaches eagerly for the bag then winces. I see red.

Morgan notices. "Chuck, man, it's okay. Really! It's just part of the job. If I'm going to be a detective, I have to roll with the punches."

"You look like a mummy. You need to learn to roll better, not roll up in bandages." I step closer and hand him the bag.

He grins. "I will, Chuck."

Bolonia, of course, saw the hand in my bag. She comes in with a couple of paper plates and napkins. Sheila C's makes great burgers, but they're dripping messes. Morgan takes a burger out for himself and one for me. He starts to get the third for his mom but she gestures for him to stop.

"No, thank you. Thanks, Chuck, but I already ate. I will save this one for Morgan. He'll need to keep up his strength, and need protein to heal." She leaves with the third burger in the bag.

Morgan carefully unwraps his. I do too. He puts his nose down to the burger, almost touching it, and inhales slowly and deeply. "The Hamburgler's wet, mayo dream!"

"God, Morgan," I say, annoyed and relieved to be annoyed, since, if he can annoy me, he must not be too miserable, "now I'm not sure I can eat mine."

"Pansy," Morgan mumbles through his first bite. I try to forget his words and take a bite of mine. Delicious, as always.

"So, Morgan," I put my burger on the paper plate and put the plate on the coffee table between us, "what the hell happened?"

Morgan finishes his second bite before he answers. "It was going great. Carina and I had this terrific meal. Sizzling Shrimp and steamed dumplings and…"

"Morgan…"

He shakes his head. "Right. And so we were walking home. And I was really nervous, Chuck, because dinner went well, and I hadn't said anything stupid or annoying, and we'd just talked and laughed. She's so much fun and so funny. Anyway, we were walking and I was really nervous. I wanted to hold her hand but I thought she might not want to and it might seem, I don't know, childish or something. But I reached out and took her hand and she smiled at me and the next thing I know, I'm airborne…"

"Did you see the car?"

"No, nothing. I remember Carina stooped over me and the paramedics, but I don't remember the car."

"Did you do anything else on the Briggs and Stratton case, anything I don't know about?"

Morgan glances away. "Morgan…"

"I called Big Jim and told him I thought I was making progress."

"You have? You are?"

"No, but I told him so." He grins a puffy grin. "Gotta keep up the client's faith, right?"

I would hit him if he hadn't been hit-and-run over. "Morgan, did you talk to him?"

"No, I left a message with some guy in the office."

"Some guy? Who?"

Morgan shrugs, then winces. "I didn't ask."

I sigh and take a bite of my burger. I hear Bolonia singing in the kitchen. Morgan starts humming along as he chews.

I'm ready to head home but decide that I can't put off my expedition any longer. I need to equip myself so I'll be ready to go when it gets dark.

I stop at the office. Inside, in the narrow closet behind Morgan's desk, where he keeps the broom, I keep various tools of the trade. I grab a good flashlight and a small, foldable military shovel I got at a surplus store. I take them out to the car and put them in the trunk.

When I shut the trunk, I hear Sarah's voice behind me. "Chuck?"

I turn. She looks upset, hurriedly dressed. Her hair's damp.

"Hey, Sarah," I try to keep Bryce's visit from my mind, "what's up?"

"I was at the Hall, Chuck, swimming in the pond, and when I went back into the house, my room, I found this."

She holds out a piece of paper, shows it to me, then hands it to me. I look at it. On it is a hurried-looking scribble.

Sarah,

I'm gone. Back to Cali.

I did you a favor before I left. I'll be waiting for you when your hayride ends.

See You Soon,

Bryce

I look up at Sarah. She's studying me, my reaction. I try to keep myself calm and I hand it back to her.

She waits for me to say something, more agitated each moment I'm silent.

"So, is he gone?" I ask finally.

"Yes, Chuck, he's gone."

"And you're...upset about that?" I know the question's stupid the moment I finish it.

Her blue eyes flash, a welder's flame. "No, Chuck," she says slowly, distinctly, "I wanted him to go...as I told you. I want to know what he told you."

"Me?" I don't want to have this conversation now, right here on the gravel of the parking lot.

"If he did me a favor," her tone, not her hands, air-quotes that word, "then it involved you. What did he tell you, Chuck?"

God, she's beautiful when she's angry. She's just always beautiful. She is the glory of dust: how like an angel.

And then I hear Father Casey in my head: "One white-dressed rehearsal with a choir does not an angel make."

"Chuck?" She's still waiting for me to say something non-interrogative. I feel like her eyes are melting me.

"Am I the hayride?"

She blows out a long breath. "Yes, Chuck, from Bryce's point of view, you're the hayride. Now, what did he tell you?"

I inhale. "He came to see me...earlier. He wanted to do me a favor."

"What favor?"

"He thinks you and I slept together last night, you know, where 'slept' is an active verb, not so passive."

She grins but not in much amusement. "I told you once, Chuck, that I was not going to chase you all over the English language. So, he thought we slept together...and…?"

"And he wanted me to know that that was no particular honor, that I was just the latest...in a long lonely line…" The nausea I felt when I chased Bryce from the office returns. I hate saying this to her. Hate it.

Sarah stares at me. Her eyes cool, ice, and then that expression I can't name overtakes them. "And you believed him." She asserts, doesn't ask.

"No, Sarah, I...I know so little about you and I want to know more, everything, and you said you'd been a bad person, and…No, but..." I spiral at the worst time, always. It's a sure bet.

Sarah sighs. That expression leaves her eyes and leaves them sad. She shakes her head. "You really are soft-boiled."

I'm still trying to understand that when she hurries back to the Range Rover — it's parked across the street. A moment later, she's gone.

No look back.

I stand bereft, unsure of what's happened, what I did or didn't do. I look down and realize I'm standing in one of the gravel-less ruts Morgan made when he slid and hit my car.

I kick at the dust. Shit.