Page 43 of JoyRide

Molly hollered from the squad room, and I left my coffee and ran to see what she had found out. “Your brother was in detention in Butte, but he was released when his time had been served.”

“When did they let him out, Molly? Was it recently?”

“Just after his sixteenth birthday,” she said.

“That was the same day as mine,” I said.

Molly smiled. “You share the same birthday. That’s sweet, Harlan.” She handed me a yellow Post-it note with an address on it. “Your brother’s address of record is in Conrad East.”

“Okay. Not too far away and doesn’t mean he’s still there. I’ll go down there tomorrow and see if I can find him. Thanks, Molly.”

She brushed a tear away. “I truly hope you have a happy reunion with your brother, dear. You’ve grown up away from each other and it will take time to get to know Virgil again.”

“Don’t know if he’ll even recognize me after all this time, Molly. I’ll be a stranger to him. He probably forgot he even had a brother.”

“You didn’t forget, Harlan.”

Wild Stallion Ranch.

Tammy and I were beat into the ground when we got home from the station. We took a break on the porch for one beer before we went to the barn and started the chores.

Passing by the bunkhouse, I remembered that Ted and Travis hadn’t finished with the fingerprints. They had left that job and rushed to the trailer park and Travis had been shot.

“I’ll put Ted back on that job in the morning. We have to get the positive ID on those kids linking them to our crime scene. No witnesses but Billy.”

“Yeah,” said Tam. “I forgot that wasn’t finished, Harlan. Ted should finish it up tomorrow and Molly can enter the prints into evidence.”

We took our frustrations out on the stalls in the barn and had them cleaned up and fresh straw laid in pretty quick.

“I’ll go start supper for us while you put the horses in for the night, Harlan.”

“Yeah, won’t take me long. We might need groceries, Tam. Think about a list for tomorrow.”

She sighed and nodded her head.

Chapter Eight

Sunday, July 28th.

Wild Stallion Ranch.

“If they let Billy out of the hospital today, he can help us figure shit out,” I said to Tammy while she fried up bacon and eggs for us. “It seems so quiet and weird in the house without Travis here.”

“We should ask the doctor today, how long he’ll be in there,” said Tammy.

“We’ll find out for sure. If we could get him home, you could take a couple days off and stay with him. Me and Ted can manage if Billy is back in the office.”

“I could do that,” said Tammy. “We can’t leave Dad home alone if he can’t get around on his own.”

She put our breakfast on plates, and we ate while we planned the day ahead. “I’ll check the pantry and the fridge and make a big grocery list. We can shop today before we come home.”

“I’ll make a work list of all the shit we have to do. I feel like there is so much we need to do we’re forgetting half of it.”

“Molly probably knows what hasn’t been completed,” said Tammy. “She keeps track of everything needed to close a case.”

“Yeah, she does. I’ll ask her for a copy of her list, and I won’t have to count on mine having everything on it.”

Sheriff’s Office. Coyote Creek.

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