What Lies Beneath The Broken Asphalt On County Road Nine
CHAPTER 7: THE LAST MILE HOME
The courthouse doors swung wide as a tactical team of Federal Marshals and State BCI agents in olive-drab tactical gear poured into the council chamber, their carbines held at low ready. Special Agent in Charge Miller strode down the aisle, holding a federal indictment thick as a phone book.
Within sixty seconds, Donald Hatcher was face-down on the mahogany council table, steel handcuffs ratcheting brutally tight around his wrists. His signet ring clattered across the wood, spinning into the corner. Leonard Croft and two corrupt supervisors were already in zip-ties along the wall, their heads bowed in silent terror as federal agents seized cellphones, ledgers, and safe keys.
Deputy Cassidy Rowe was led into the chamber by two state investigators. She had given a full eighty-page confession at the state annex an hour earlier. As she passed James Soldoff, she paused, her eyes swollen with tears, her voice barely a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” she choked out.
James looked at her for a long, quiet moment. He reached out and gently removed the silver department star from her uniform shirt, placing it in his palm. “I’m sorry too, Cassidy. But your father’s debts were paid twenty years ago. You should have chosen to be your own woman.”
By midday, the sleet had cleared, leaving the Iowa sky washed in a brilliant, cold azure blue.
In the gravel parking lot beside County Road Nine, the 1974 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide stood gleaming in the crisp autumn sunlight. James Soldoff had spent two hours personally washing the road salt from the chrome fenders, polishing the exhaust pipes until they mirrored the blue sky.
Robert zipped his leather jacket, pulling his deer-hide gloves onto his weathered hands. He slung his canvas kit bag over the sissy bar and strapped it tight with bungee cords.
James walked up, holding two paper cups of hot black coffee from the local diner. He handed one to Robert with a quiet, crooked grin.
“State Attorney General called twenty minutes ago,” James said, taking a sip against the wind. “Federal grand jury is impaneling on Monday. Hatcher’s looking at life without parole. The cooperative’s grain reserves are being audited by the federal reserve board. Every farmer in Black Hawk County gets their full winter settlement.”
Robert took a sip of the bitter coffee, nodding toward the vast expanse of cornfields stretching toward the horizon. “And the department?”
“I suspended three road deputies this morning,” James said, his chest rising with a deep, cleansing breath. “We’re holding open testing for twenty new recruits next month. We’re naming the new county training facility after Lucas Hall.”
James looked at his old commander, his eyes shining with an emotion that words could barely capture. “You didn’t have to come back here, Robert. You could have mailed that ledger from Des Moines. You could have let the feds handle it from behind a desk.”
Robert set his paper cup on the fence post, stepped toward his motorcycle, and swung his leg smoothly over the saddle. He settled into the leather seat, turning the key on the chrome console.
The Shovelhead engine roared to life with that magnificent, bone-deep thunder, steady and true as a heartbeat.
Robert looked up at James, his steel-blue eyes warm behind his sunglasses. “When a man takes an oath, James, distance doesn’t excuse him. Time doesn’t excuse him. And retirement sure as hell doesn’t excuse him.”
Robert reached out his gloved hand. James gripped his forearm tightly, a brother’s handshake forged in fire thirty years ago and tempered in truth today.
“Where to now, Chief?” James asked over the rumble of the engine.
Robert kicked up the kickstand, shifted into first gear with a solid mechanical clunk, and looked west toward the endless ribbon of open asphalt cutting through the prairie.
“Just down the road, James,” Robert Vance smiled, twisting the throttle. “Just down the road.”
The vintage motorcycle pulled onto County Road Nine, its chrome pipes catching the golden afternoon light as it rolled west toward the setting sun, the air clear, the road open, and the ghosts finally laid to rest.
