Some places bury the truth. Others just build fences around it.
Chapter One:
The Man in the Tree
“Sheriff, Greta Saunders called, and she’s raising cain about Ezra Jennings being in her again!”
Sheriff Danner didn’t look up from his coffee. The mug sat cooling in his hands, steam thinning into the stale air of the office.
“What’s he done this time?”
Deputy Mills shifted in the doorway, hat in hand, boots leaving dry mud on the worn linoleum. “Nothing, far as I can tell. I walked into the diner, ordered coffee, and sat by the window. But Greta’s actin’ like he set the place on fire.”
Danner sighed, the sound scraping low in his throat. “She’s been wound tight ever since the fairground’s thing. Ezra so much as breathes near her roses and she thinks it’s sabotage.
“You want me to talk to him?”
“Yeah. But don’t run him off. Just remind him this town’s short on patience—and shorter on second chances.”
Mills nodded and left. The screen door slapped shut behind him, the sound sharp in the quiet office.
Sheriff Danner pulled off the road, tires crunching over gravel bleached pale by the sun. The cruiser rolled to a slow stop outside Greta Saunders’ house—a squat, white clapboard box that looked more like a clenched jaw than a home. Paint curled at the corners of the trim. A cracked birdbath leaned sideways in the yard, half-swallowed by crabgrass.
Greta stood on the porch, stiff as fence wire, dirt on her apron and under her nails. Her mouth was tight, but her eyes were louder than anything she said.
“He’s out back,” she snapped, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder. “In my tree. Reading. Like he belongs here.”
Danner didn’t said a word. He tipped his hat, stepped up onto the creaking porch, and walked past her like they’d done this before.
The backyard pressed close with heat and stillness. The kind of day where the sun feels personal. Cicadas buzzed in the brush, their drone high and relentless. Roses along the fence wilted at the edges—over watered, overprotected. A windless afternoon with the weight of something waiting.
And there, in the crooked limbs of the old elm, was Ezra Jennings.
Ten feet off the ground, back pressed against the trunk like he’d claimed it. A tattered paperback in his lap, thumb tucked in the spine. One leg swung lazily beneath him, the other bent and braced. He looked comfortable in the way only the unwanted can be—like he knew this was temporary, and he’d learned to make peace with that.
“You birdwatching,” Danner called up, “or hiding from someone?”
Ezra didn’t flinch. Just turned the page, eyes steady. “Just reading.”
“What is it?”
He held the book up so Danner could see the cracked spine. Crime and Punishment. “Seemed right.”
Danner gave a short, dry chuckle. “You always this poetic, or just when you’re trespassing?”
Ezra closed the book carefully, almost tender. “Didn’t mean trouble. Tree’s quiet. That’s all.”
“Greta talks. Loud. And to everyone who’ll listen.”
Ezra nodded like he already knew. His gaze drifted past the Sheriff, to the sagging fence line, the half-buried memory of strawberry vines. “Noise down here. Up there, I can think.”
Danner let the silence stretch. Sweat itched under his collar, and a fly circled once before landing on the rim of his hat.
“Climb down,” he said finally. “You want quiet? We’ve got a library. Comes with chairs.”
Ezra dropped from the branch with a practiced ease, boots thudding in the dust. He wiped his palms on his jeans, the book now tucked under one arm like a relic.
“That’s a hell of a book to read for fun,” Danner said.
“Not reading it for fun.”
“No? Then what for?”
Ezra glanced toward the back fence, where the garden faded into scrub and disuse. “My old man had this rule—said a man ought to read above his station. Even if nobody else gave a damn. Keeps your head straight. It reminds you that you are still part of the world.
Danner didn’t answer, and Ezra kept going, voice low but steady now, like he was reading aloud to someone who needed it.
“You know Dostoevsky said, ‘A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.’”
Danner’s jaw shifted, but he didn’t speak.
Ezra looked down at the dust between his boots. “And he said, ‘The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.’”
The wind moved then, just a little, pushing the heat aside for a breath.
“You think you’re being mistreated?” Danner asked—not soft, not hard. Just there.
Ezra finally looked him in the eye. “No, Sheriff. I think folks here decided I was guilty the second I came back. Just skipped the trial part.”
Danner rubbed the back of his neck. The sweat there was cold now. “You’re not wrong about this town. But quoting Russians from trees ain’t gonna change much.”
“I’m not trying to change hearts,” Ezra said. “Just trying to keep mine from turning to stone.”
Danner let out a breath. “You finish that book. Just not in someone else’s damn tree.”
Ezra gave a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Fair enough.”
They both turned at the sound of the screen door creaking open. Greta was there, arms crossed like she’d never moved. Muttering something under her breath. Danner didn’t bother catching it.
“He’s off the tree, Greta,” he called. “You can breathe again.”
Ezra lingered for a second longer. Looked up at the elm, the place he’d carved out for a little peace in a town that rarely offered it.
Then he turned and walked down the drive, the book pressed tight to his chest, like a shield against the noise waiting to follow.
Danner watched him go, the dust curling behind his boots. He was just about to turn back toward the cruiser when something caught the light near the base of the tree—a scrap of paper, half-tucked in the roots.
He bent, plucked it free.
Just a single line, scrawled in blocky black ink:
WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
Danner stared at it, the wind gone still around him.
Greta’s porch creaked behind him, but she didn’t say a word.
Pingback: Ashwood County 2 – The Narrative Forge