The Secret Garden of Martha Grim
By Richard Lopez. @ 1992

Page 13



It had been almost a month since the disappearance of Sheriff Quinn, the finding of his car on Highway 19, his gun in the fields. Plenty of people had been questioned, chief among them, Willie Cole. Everyone new of the Sheriffs dislike of and numerous run-in's with Cole, so it stood to reason, if there was someone who would have had an axe to grind, it would have been Willie. But even Cole came up clean. Not squeaky, but just enough that it got him a stay.

Still, not everyone was convinced of Cole's innocence. One of those people was Carmine Infano and his son Rudy. They ran the local hardware and garden center. Carmine had no love for Cole, he always knew he was no good, from the first day he met him. Just a feeling he got. Carmine was good at reading people, it was what kept him ahead of the game. He was always telling Rudy, "If a man can't look you in the eye, he ain't worth doing business with."
Carmine did business with just about everyone in Porters Crossing. He was fair, honest and always good to his customers. Hell, he employed a good amount of their children. And they were good kids, for the most part, but not like that Cole. He was just bad news, and Carmine just knew he had something to do with Sheriff Quinn's being missing, he'd stake his store on it.
He told this to Rudy, but Rudy said he couldn't go around accusing just anyone without proof. Yeah, maybe, but everyone in town knew of the times the Sheriff and Willie had gone up against one another..."You want proof, that should be proof enough!" he told Rudy.
"No Pop," Rudy said, "That's what they call circumstantial evidence..it's not enough."
Man, that kid was getting to be more and more like his mom everyday. He was starting to sound like her, too. She would be proud of him, studying the law, like her, yeah, Carmine wished his Marie was still alive today. She'd be really proud of their only son. He did his best to raise him on his own, and thought he was doing a good job. The kid wanted to be a lawyer, like his mom, made Carmine proud. Rudy studied hard, got a scholarship and was going to Stanford next year. Yeah, he knew somewhere Marie was looking down and beaming with pride.
It could have been worse, Rudy could have turned out like Cole. That would have broken Carmine's heart, but he raised a smart kid. He had no worries. Well, that was until Sheriff Quinn went missing. Then suddenly, one night last week, Carmine had a bad feeling. It was so bad, it woke him up from a dead sleep. If a guy as a tough as Sheriff Quinn can up and disappear, and Quinn was as tough as they come, then anyone can. Even Rudy.
He didn't like that feeling. Suddenly, Porters Crossing had become a scary place. An unpredictable place. People were locking their doors at night. Staying inside, as soon as the sun went down. The streets were empty. This was not right, this was not the Porters Crossing he grew up in. Not the town he got married and raised his boy in. Not the town he made his living in. This was becoming a town of fear, and Carmine didn't like it. Not one freaking bit.
And if this was happening because one man was missing, what was going to happen if more went missing?