When Ghosts Come Home(47)

“It happens,” Groom said. “But up here I think they’re more likely to use boats.”

“You’re right about that,” Winston said. “You’re right about that.”

“You think this is drugs?” Groom asked.

“I don’t know what I think just yet,” Winston said. “I really don’t.”

“If it was drugs, they would’ve had a local, somebody waiting on them,” Groom said. “Agent Rollins told me you had a body out there.”

“That’s right,” Winston said. “But something tells me he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“It would be hard for an innocent man to explain being out on a runway in the middle of the night to greet a drug plane. He might be your local.”

Winston looked over at Groom. “You got a lead you’re keeping from me?” he asked. He smiled and looked back at the road.

Groom took another drag from his cigarette. “Not yet,” he said. He picked a fleck of tobacco from his tongue, flicked it out the window. “But I just got here.”



Rollins and Rountree must have assumed that Winston would bring Groom to the airport, because he spotted them on the runway as soon as he parked the cruiser outside the office. He wondered why they couldn’t have just picked up Groom themselves, why they had to send him on an errand as if he were their gofer, but he’d already done the errand, so maybe he was.

The door to Sweetney’s office opened and Leonard Dorsey stepped out as if he’d spent all morning waiting for Agent Tom Groom to arrive. Dorsey clapped his hands together and smiled. “Is this our pilot?” he called out.

“Jesus Christ,” Winston said.

“Who’s that?” Groom asked.

“County commissioner. He sells insurance for a living.”

“He looks like he sells insurance,” Groom said. He opened the back door and lifted his duffel bag from the floorboard.

Dorsey walked down the sidewalk from the office toward the parking lot. “I hope you know more about planes than your fellow FBI buddies do,” he said.

“We’ll see,” Groom said. “I know a good bit.”

The office door slammed and Winston looked up to see Hugh walking toward them.

“Hugh,” Dorsey said. “This here’s our pilot.”

“That’s what I figured,” Hugh said. He shook Groom’s hand. “Hugh Sweetney.”

“Agent Tom Groom.”

“You want to get a look at this aircraft?” Hugh asked. “Check out that back wheel?”

“You bet,” Groom said.

“Like I told you on the phone, you’re more than welcome to use anything we’ve got in the shop here.”

“I appreciate that,” Groom said.

Hugh smiled, and then he turned and started out toward the runway. Groom adjusted his duffel on his shoulder and turned toward Winston. “Thanks for the ride out here,” he said.

“You bet,” Winston said. “I’m going to head over to the office, get some stuff done. Just call over there when you need me to carry you home.” He felt like he was dropping off a teenager at a sleepover. “Rollins knows how to get ahold of me.”

Groom nodded, gave a little wave, and set out toward the runway to follow Hugh.

“You think he’ll do it?” Dorsey said. He was still standing beside Winston, his hands in his pockets and his tie loose around his neck.

“I think he’ll try,” Winston said. “But it’s hard to predict just what will happen.”



The sheriff’s office was part of the Brunswick County courthouse complex, a collection of squat, redbrick buildings sequestered off in clumps of tall pine trees alongside Route 88 in the town of Boiling Springs. Winston had always thought the buildings looked like what they were: a place where civic responsibility was decided upon, written down, enforced, and when infringed upon, punished. Perhaps that was why the sheriff’s office had always felt institutional to Winston, and entering it always gave him the same feeling he had when entering a school or a church or another building where a set of expectations had been clearly defined before he ever arrived.

He opened one of the glass double doors and stepped into the reception area, the faded orange-and-white checkered linoleum running the length of the hallway, the soles of his shoes squeaking against the polish that lifted the sharp, antiseptic scent of cleaning solution from the floor. Three chairs rested against the wall on his left, and this was where people sat when they were waiting for the business of the office to work for them or against them—mothers and fathers picking up teenage vandals; attorneys waiting to question clients arrested on DWI; victims of violence or duplicity or chance, nervous or uncertain or thrilled by the prospect of filing a complaint. A sliding glass window was built into the wall on his right, and on the other side of it the office secretary, Vicki, sat behind a desk littered with paperwork, schedules, and calendars. She slid the reception window open when she saw Winston. “I heard our pilot made it up from Miami,” she said.

“You heard right,” Winston said. He stepped through the doorway next to the glass window and stood beside Vicki’s desk where his mailbox, the one on top, was affixed to the wall right inside the door. He looked through its contents, removing the papers and sealed envelopes that looked important, tossing the rest into the wastebasket at his feet.