Chapter 12: Danny's Locker

The clubhouse was dark when we got there at one in the morning.

Hank parked at the far end of the lot and cut the engine.

"I'll wait here," he said.

"You can come in."

"This one's yours," he said.

He put his hand on the wheel and not on me.

"If you want me, say so, and I'm through that door in a heartbeat."

I nodded.

I walked across the gravel with the key cold in my fist.

The side door was never locked.

My father had helped build the place, and no one had ever thought to change it.

I let myself in and shut it softly.

The long room smelled of old smoke and beer and polished wood.

Chairs sat upside down on the tables, and the pool table was draped under a gray cover.

The lockers were along the back hall, a row of battered green steel doors with brass nameplates.

I had walked past them a thousand times.

I found the one I wanted at the very end, with the nameplate scratched and tarnished.

DANNY.

My brother had kept his riding gear there on Saturday nights, because my mother hated seeing it in the house.

The padlock on the hasp was brand new.

The key slid in and turned on the first try.

I opened the door.

It smelled like dust and old leather, and there was a faint, sour trace of something I could not name.

A black jacket hung on a hook.

I knew it at once, because I had bought it for his twenty-first birthday.

The left sleeve was torn from the shoulder to the elbow, and the lining was stiff and brown.