Chapter 2 - The Inspection on the LawnSergeant Miller advanced down the centerline of the asphalt, his service weapon held in the low-ready position, his boots crunching against the dry maple leaves. His eyes were fixed on the cab of the truck, narrowed against the autumn glare.
"Driver, step out slowly!" Miller barked. "Keep your hands—Greer? What the hell are you doing behind the wheel?"
Mr. Greer opened the driver’s side door with his left elbow, keeping his palms raised as he swung his denim-clad legs out onto the pavement.
"Delivering the mail, Thomas," Mr. Greer said mildly. "Like I’ve done since you were in diapers wetting your corduroys."
"Get back against the bed!" Miller snapped, waving his backup officer forward. "We have an active 911 dispatch. A fugitive is inside that vehicle. Step away from the passenger compartment!"
"Ain't no fugitive in this truck, Thomas," Mr. Greer said, leaning back against his rear fender and crossing his ankles. "Just an active-duty Non-Commissioned Officer of the United States Army who’s lived on this block longer than you've had a badge. Open the door, Emily."
I reached for the handle.
The heavy steel door swung wide, the hinges groaning with their familiar dry squeak.
I stepped down onto the asphalt of Sycamore Lane.
The morning sun caught the polished brass buttons of my uniform coat, sending blinding points of light dancing across the police cruisers’ hoods. I straightened my spine, pulling forty-four months of military posture into my frame, tucking my service cap under my left arm, my right hand resting straight along the seam of my trousers.
Sergeant Miller stopped three feet from the front bumper.
His sidearm slowly dipped toward the road. His mouth parted, his eyes scanning down the length of my uniform—from the crisp, golden sergeant stripes on my sleeves to the combat infantry blue of the service ribbons, down to the spit-shined leather of my dress shoes.
Behind him, Officer Higgins, a younger patrolman who had graduated high school three years behind me, let out a low, involuntary whistle. "Sarge... that’s not an orange jumpsuit."
"Emily?" Miller whispered. The megaphone hung limp at his thigh. The tactical hardness drained from his face so fast it left him looking confused, sunburned, and ridiculous. "What... where are you coming from?"
"Camp Atterbury, Indiana, Sergeant Miller," I said, my voice carrying the sharp, clear projection of the parade ground, reaching every neighbor standing on the sidewalks. "Discharged from active duty forty-eight hours ago following my second combat rotation with the 101st Airborne Division. What is the nature of this stop?"
Miller’s eyes darted from my face to the second-story window of 414 Sycamore.
The lace curtain was still drawn back, but Diane Hayes was no longer looking down. She had dropped the phone. Through the glass, we could see her silhouette hurrying toward the stairwell.
"Your mother..." Miller stammered, his face turning an alarming shade of dark beetroot. "Your mother called the precinct dispatch three minutes ago. She said... she swore on her life that Emily Hayes had jumped transport out of the federal women’s camp in Alderson, West Virginia. She said you were armed and dangerous."
From behind the cruisers, Sarah Jenkins, the Channel 7 reporter, pushed past the yellow sawhorse barricades that had just been dragged from the squad cars. Her cameraman had the red light illuminated on his lens, the wide glass reflecting the row of medals on my chest.
"Sergeant Hayes!" Jenkins called out, thrusting her foam-covered microphone toward the police line. "Is it true that you’ve been serving in the Middle East while the Mercer Town Council was informed you were incarcerated on felony narcotics charges?"
A collective, jagged gasp cut through the gathering crowd.
Mrs. Gable dropped her trowel onto the flagstones with a metallic clack. Mrs. Arbuthnot’s hand flew to her collarbone, her eyes wide behind her glasses as she stared at the camera, then at my uniform, then toward the white colonial.
"Narcotics?" I asked, turning my gaze back to Sergeant Miller. "Is that what she told you, Thomas?"
Miller wouldn't meet my eyes. He holstered his sidearm with a clumsy, embarrassed jerk of his wrist, signaling his backup to lower their weapons. "Emily... we didn't know. Your folks... they filed a formal missing-person cancellation with the county clerk four years ago. Your father brought in a copy of a sealed court order from Ohio. We didn't dig into it. They’re the Hayeses. Your dad sits on the zoning board."
"My father," I said, my voice steady, though my fingernails were biting into the leather of my cap, "hasn't spoken to me since I refused to sign over my grandfather’s five-acre trust deed to fund his commercial strip-mall development on Route 11."
The front door of 414 Sycamore Lane swung open.
Diane Hayes stepped onto the porch.
She had abandoned the cordless telephone, but her hands were clasped together at her waist in that pious, suffering posture she used when leading the prayer circle for wayward souls. Her face was pale, drawn into a thin, tight mask of maternal agony, her chin trembling with rehearsed distress.
"Officers!" Diane called out, her voice pitched high, trembling with theatrical despair as she walked down the brick stairs. "Thank you for coming so quickly! Please... please don't hurt her! She’s sick! She’s been delusional for years—she bought that uniform from an army-navy surplus store in Columbus to mock us! Look at her! She’s having another manic episode!"
She took three hurried steps down the front walkway, her eyes darting past me to the television camera, her hands outstretched as if she were approaching a feral animal she intended to pity.
"Emily, darling," Diane sobbed, squeezing out two perfect tears that rolled down her powdered cheeks. "Come inside. Let the doctors help you. We forgive you for the money you stole. We forgive you for the shame. Just take off that costume before you embarrass your father's memory."
She reached out her manicured hand, her long, coral-painted nails reaching toward my lapel as if to rip the ribbons from my chest.
I didn't step back.
May you like
I reached into the breast pocket of my wool service jacket, pulled out my green military identification card—Form DD-2—and snapped it flat against her palm.
"Read it, Diane," I said.
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