“I want to thank Walt for letting us spend so much time at the Kearney farm these last few years,” I said.

Nobody made a sound.

I looked straight down the length of the table at him.

“Luke grew up on those eighty acres,” I said.

Walt stared at his dinner plate, the way he always did when he felt cornered.

He didn’t move a single muscle in his face.

“He learned to walk in that white farmhouse,” I said.

A folding chair creaked loudly in the awful silence.