Burned Bridges

Book 1: Irene Rivers Thriller

by John Gilstrap

Genres: Domestic Thrillers; Political Thrillers

Synopsis

An electrifying new series featuring Irene Rivers (code name: Wolverine), the unforgettable FBI Director from New York Times bestselling author John Gilstrap’s blockbuster, award-winning Jonathan Grave thrillers. Fans of action-packed page-turners by Catherine Coulter, Patricia Cornwell, and Tess Gerritsen are in for a treat, as Irene escapes the treacherous power games of Washington—only to face a new and equally deadly enemy in a rural West Virginia town . . .

She thought she and her loved ones would be safe here. The lovely farm nestled in the heart of West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle looks like the perfect refuge from the backstabbing maelstrom of DC politics. But this seemingly peaceful new home is anything but safe for former FBI director Rivers and her children. 
 
Troubles begin when Irene’s 12-year-old nephew finds a dead body in a cave on the property. Grim evidence points to a long-ago murder and cover-up.  Powerful forces will do anything—including kill again—to protect their interests. Soon Irene’s family is the target of the kinds of threats and intimidation she’s seen before from major crime syndicates . . . but this time, the enemy determined to tear them down is homegrown.
 
Then comes the attack she most fears. With everything she cares about at risk and an impossible deadline looming, Irene knows she won’t get any help from the local police force. And she’s burned too many bridges in Washington to get help from the FBI. This time, Irene Rivers is on her own.
 
Packed with nail-biting suspense, gripping drama, and searing intrigue, Burned Bridges takes readers into a compelling world of unseen dangers and unexpected heroes.
 

Release date: May 27, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Thirty-five years ago.

WhEN MARTIN AND FINN FIRST SLID MARK’S BODY OUT OF THE BED of the pickup truck, he felt like nothing, even factoring in the dead weight. Skinny in life, Mark was even skinnier in death, so he weighed, like, nothing. Finn chose to carry the legs because he could use the cuffs of the guy’s jeans as handles, leaving the heavier torso for Martin, but then Martin figured out a way to lace his arms around the corpse’s arms and carry the load like it was nothing at all. God, that pissed Finn off.

Now, twenty minutes into this guy’s trek through the woods in the dark while getting torn up by sticker bushes and hoping not to step on a coyote or break a leg in a sinkhole, his bag of bones was getting very damn heavy.

“Are you sure this is what your daddy told you to do?” Martin griped as he huffed from the effort. Finn was surprised he’d been able to keep his trap shut this long. “He told you to walk to the end of the world and get rid of this guy? We couldn’t have just taken him out on the river and rolled him overboard tied to a rock?”

Finn’s forearms had been cramping up for the last five minutes. He didn’t want to argue, because he didn’t want to encourage Martin to go on one of his whining sprees.

“What I’m sure of is my daddy told me two things. One was to get rid of the body where no one would ever find it. Never means forever, and in a river, you never know when a dredger or a propeller or a diver is going to turn up anything you’ve buried.”

“Like you’ve done this so many times before, Mr. Teenage Gangster-man.” Martin laughed.

Finn ignored him. Fact was, they’d both done more gangster shit in their seventeen years than most full-time gangsters did in their whole lives. “The second thing was to make sure that if he is found, no one will be able to tell who he is.”

“He’s not even from around here,” Martin said. “Who’s going to know who he is?”

“The FBI can do that shit, man. You ever heard of fingerprints?”

“Of course. I’m not an idiot.”

He was an idiot, Finn thought, but he was a useful one and Finn enjoyed his company. “It’s not much farther up here,” he said.

This section of woods belonged to an older couple who let him hunt here, and over the years, Finn had explored pretty much every inch of the place. He was looking for a patch of ground he’d seen, maybe a quarter of an acre in size, that was lined with caves that were covered with tangles of impenetrable vines and thorn bushes. A body dumped in one of those caves was as good as buried in the center of the earth.

“I can’t do this a lot longer, Finn.”

“And you won’t have to because we’re here.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.”

Martin released his grip and flung his arms wide. The corpse hit the ground with a heavy thud and the momentum pulled Finn off balance, causing him to fall back and land on the body. A shiver shook Finn’s core as a bubble of bile came halfway up his throat.

Finn launched on his friend, jumping to his feet and punching Martin hard in the face, sending him to the ground.

Then the darkness came. Finn wasn’t in charge anymore. His rage ran things now, the way it did sometimes—like last week, when it got him suspended from Shotsburg High School forever—and before he knew what he was doing, the hatchet he’d brought along to do that other thing was in his hand and held high in the air over Martin, who was trying to scrabble away.

In the light of the moon, Finn could see that Martin was trying to say something, but he only heard sounds. The rage was swallowing the words. The rage wanted him to kill.

Finn didn’t see how he did it, but somehow, Martin had gotten to his feet and was face-to-face with him. Blood streaked from his nose across his lips, and as he continued to try to speak, bits of bloody spittle hit Finn in the face.

Martin had both hands on Finn’s hatchet, trying to control it, and in the struggle, he must have done something wrong because the blade had left a vertical cut in Finn’s cheek, deep enough to expose the white fat layer below the skin.

“Finn, you’re okay,” Martin said.

There, he finally heard the words. The rage finally let them come through.

“You’re okay. You feel it? You feel it, right? You’re okay. That was a joke making you fall. A bad joke. I’m sorry.”

Finn nodded. Yeah. Yeah, he was okay. He was back.

“You sure?” Martin pressed. “You need to sit down or anything?”

“No, I’m good.” Martin was a good friend for putting up with the rage when it came. Not many people would. “Thanks.”

Martin watched him in the dark for a little longer. Finn hated being stared at like that, but he knew that Martin meant only the best.

“We need to get back to work,” Finn said. “You make a big enough path that we can get him stuffed into a hole and get out of here.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got to make it so the body can’t be identified.”

That was the whole purpose of bringing the hatchet. First, he needed a log—not a hard thing to find in a forest. Something light would do because its only purpose was to serve as a backstop to protect the blade of his hatchet. Hopefully, this wouldn’t take much time.

He placed the log on the ground next to the body, and then draped the body’s arm over the log at the wrist. He wanted a good clear view of the joint. With the proper care and aim, he was confident he could sever Mark’s hand from his arm with a single blow.

Present day.

IRENE RIVERS BELIEVED THAT GOD INVENTED CHAIN SAWS BECAUSE life was too short to swing an axe. Last night’s winds had taken down two, forty-foot hardwoods, one of which had fallen across their quarter-mile-long driveway through the forest and it had to be moved. After she’d cut the trunk of the roadblock into fireplace-friendly lengths and rolled them out of the gravel driveway bed, it was time for her daughter Kelly to split them. Irene rolled the wooden cylinders onto their sides and used the chain saw to cut halfway through the width longitudinally, then Kelly finished the trimming with a splitting wedge and a sledgehammer.

Rinse and repeat. They’d been at it about an hour, and the woodpile was beginning to look good again after the hard winter they’d just finished.

Despite an air temperature in the mid-fifties, mother and daughter had both tossed their jackets onto the ground and were still sweating through their T-shirts.

“Where’s Wyatt?” Kelly asked as she placed the sledge head on the ground to await her mom’s next assault on a log.

“He’s out exploring with Ruger,” Irene said.

“I thought splitting wood was boy’s work,” Kelly objected. “I know that’s what he would say.”

“He’s twelve,” Irene countered. “And I thought you didn’t believe in gender roles.”

“He’s almost thirteen, and he skates on every chore.”

“Do you want to get this done in ninety minutes or three days?”

Kelly rolled her eyes. In her years since puberty, she’d mastered the whole eye roll thing. “I just think if he’s going to be part of the family—”

Irene placed the chain saw on the gravel driveway and whirled on Kelly, forefinger extended at her nose. “Wyatt is a member of this family,” she snapped. “Unconditionally and one hundred percent.”

Kelly took a step back. “Jesus, Mom. It was a figure of speech. I know who he is and how he got here and what his status is. I also know he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

Irene wanted to engage but knew that her daughter had a point. Her eldest, Ashley, called it survivor’s guilt. Wyatt had never known his father thanks to an Islamist’s bullet before they’d had a chance to meet, and his mother—Irene’s sister Maggy—had been taken by a surprise aneurysm in her forties, leaving the boy an orphan.

It had been a stressful couple of years.

“I don’t want to push him too hard,” Irene said.

“Maybe push him a little?” Kelly said. “I’d like to have a life, too. This whole Green Acres deal is your thing, not mine.”

“A point you make at least four times a day.”

“Ash is the lucky one,” Kelly said. “She gets to live on her own.”

“In no small measure because she’s twenty-one and has a job,” Irene said. “And she has to do all her own chores in her own apartment.” Having recently earned her degree in paralegal studies, Irene’s eldest had opted to stay behind in Northern Virginia to ply her trade with one of the big Beltway litigation firms. Irene harbored dreams of enticing Ashley to move out to the country with the rest of the family but doubted that they would ever come true. Kelly, too, was sure to bolt to a college far, far away the first chance she got after witnessing how well Ashley seemed to be adjusting to the juice of urban living.

Irene lifted the chain saw again and revved the motor. If nothing else, the noise eliminated the ability to talk.

Kelly had just lifted the next section of log onto the cutting block when she pointed toward the end of the driveway. “And he shall appear,” she said.

At the far end, Wyatt straddled his four-wheeler ATV, motoring up the gravel hill. Ruger trotted alongside, her ears flapping and her tail wagging. The fifty-pound black Lab had been Maggy’s last birthday gift to the boy, and she was his shadow. More ominous was the Jenkins County Sheriff’s Department Ford Expedition that followed fifty yards behind. Together, they raised a rooster tail of gray dust.

“Oh, this should be fun,” Kelly said.

Irene ignored her. She killed the motor on the chain saw, placed it on the cutting block and pulled off her gloves a finger at a time. She felt her nascent lawyerly instincts coming to life, even though she couldn’t imagine what Wyatt might have done to attract the attention of the law. He was a peacemaker, not a troublemaker.

She stood at the top of the driveway apron, arms folded, waiting for the mystery to reveal itself. Maybe it had something to do with Wyatt not wearing a helmet, though helmets were not required on private property.

Wyatt slowed at the top of the apron and swung behind Irene, placing her between the sheriff’s vehicle and himself. “Aunt Reeny, I need to tell you something.”

“I’ll bet you do,” she said. “Let’s hear what the deputy has to say.”

“It’s important.”

She held up a finger for silence. She had no idea what he wanted to tell her, but under the circumstances, saying anything in front of a cop couldn’t help his cause.

She strolled to the Expedition’s window as the vehicle coasted to a halt. The driver—a good-looking guy in his forties with a high-and-tight military haircut—seemed startled by her presence. After throwing the transmission into Park, he killed the engine and opened his door. Irene stepped back to keep the distance between them friendly.

As he slid out and stood to his full height, the cop adjusted a Smokey hat just so on his head. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said. He extended his hand. “Nate Monroe. Jenkins County sheriff.”

She shook. “Irene Rivers.”

The sheriff scowled and cocked his head. “The Irene Rivers? The FBI Irene Rivers?”

“The name is still current,” she said. “The job assignment is not. I’m retired now.”

Monroe chuckled. “You sure are,” he said. “And you took a lot of people with you. I’m guessing you’re not on President Darmond’s Christmas card list anymore.” His chuckle morphed into a laugh.

Eighteen months ago, Irene had been the longtime director of the FBI, and Anthony Darmond had been president of the United States. In proving him to be the corrupt sonofabitch that he was, Irene had blasted two barrels into her own career. Last time she looked at the polls, the nation was split down the middle on whether she was a hero or the spawn of Satan. The media, which never liked her all that much in the first place, treated her revelations as a political vendetta. The vote for Darmond’s impeachment had been close, but it cut against the president and now he was as unemployed as she.

Unlike Darmond, though, she wasn’t facing the prospect of dying in prison for drug smuggling, human trafficking and treason.

“Okay, I can’t lie,” Monroe said. “I knew you lived here. It’s a small town.”

“Exactly what I’ve been looking for,” Irene said. “I’ve had my fill of large towns.”

Monroe placed his fists atop his Sam Browne belt and craned his neck to look past Irene to see the two-story farmhouse that was now her home. “You buy this from the Waller estate?”

“Inherited it. My maiden name was Waller.”

“Big spread?”

“A hundred seventy-two acres. Big enough.”

“I liked the Wallers. My parents knew them better than I did, but they seemed like nice folks. They’ve been gone a long time.”

“Almost twelve years,” Irene said. She’d been in law enforcement long enough to not enjoy undirected small talk with other law enforcement officers. “Can I ask why you’re here?”

“Place has been empty for over a decade,” Monroe said, ignoring her question. “How is it inside?”

“Musty as crap,” Kelly said.

“Perfectly livable,” Irene corrected.

“You got any proof that you’re who you say you are?” Monroe asked.

“Seriously?” Irene scoffed. “You’re the one who recognized me. Now, are you going to get to the point of your visit?”

Monroe cocked his head. “The boy told me his last name is Gordon.”

“That’s because his last name is Gordon. I’m raising him for his mom.”

“And where is she?”

“Raising him was my last promise to her before she passed.” Irene felt her patience fraying. “You were about to tell me why you’re here.”

“Why don’t you ask the boy?”

“Because I’m asking you, Sheriff. We’re big believers in the Fifth Amendment here. The fourth, sixth and seventh, too.”

Monroe eyed the Glock on Irene’s hip. “And the second.”

“That one especially,” Irene said. She turned and headed back for her chain saw. “It’s been a pleasure, Sheriff.”

“Call me Nate. Everyone does.”

“Good to know.”

When Irene made eye contact with Wyatt, the boy looked like he was about to burst if he didn’t talk. She shook her head no.

“Four-wheelers aren’t allowed on the public roads,” Monroe said. “That’s why I stopped him. That’s why we’re here. As a courtesy, so I didn’t have to impound his ATV.”

Irene avoided giving Wyatt a glare. “Where was he?”

“Out on Devlin Road.”

“Devlin Road cuts through our property,” Irene said. “How is he supposed to cross it?”

“The law doesn’t have exceptions,” Monroe said.

Irene felt herself puffing up. “It’s a three-second traverse on a road that sees ten cars a day.”

“Unfortunately for him—and for you—mine was one of them.” He pulled a citation book from his belt and started to write out the summons. “For what it’s worth, he was not crossing the road. He was driving down it. And too fast for his age if I’m being honest.”

This time, the glare had to happen.

Wyatt mouthed, That’s what I need to tell you.

Irene signaled with her hand to stay silent.

After two minutes, Monroe handed the citation book to Irene. “Sign at the line. This is not an admission of guilt. It’s merely a commitment—”

“To appear in court on the date cited,” Irene said, finishing the sentence for him. She pointed to the fine print at the bottom of the page. “Is this the number to call if I want to protest the citation?”

Monroe smiled at a joke she couldn’t hear. “It is,” he said. “I understand that you don’t like me all that much right now, but I do have some advice if you’re in the mood to listen.”

Irene nodded for him to proceed.

“Judge Tuttle don’t like friction too much. Bein’ new and everything, it might be best for you just to pay the forty bucks and walk away.”

“Duly noted,” Irene said. “Are we done now?”

“Actually, no.” Monroe pointed at Wyatt’s belt. “The boy’s too young to be carrying a firearm. Even in West Virginia.”

“Not on private proper—” Irene stopped herself.

Monroe touched the brim of his hat. “Yes, ma’am. Pleasure meeting you.”

Irene forced a smile and watched as Monroe’s Expedition U-turned and headed back down the driveway. He was nearly to the road when Irene turned on Wyatt. “Now, you,” she said. “You know better than to take the ATV on the road.”

“But I had to,” the boy said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I had to get back here in a hurry, and the road was the quickest. I didn’t know a cop—”

“Why?” Irene interrupted. “Why was there no choice? What made you so much in a hurry?”

Wyatt pointed past the big field to the woods beyond. “Out there,” he said. “I found a dead body.”

“ACTUALLY, RUGER FOUND HIM,” WYATT SAID. “SHE TOOK OFF into the woods and into a sinkhole and came up with a piece of cloth. She didn’t want to leave because she wanted me to take a look.”

“And you saw a body?” They’d loaded into the ancient Ford Ranger pickup farm truck and they were powering their way across the pasture toward the section of woods her nephew had indicated.

“Just the top of his head and shoulders,” Wyatt replied.

“Did he stink?” Rarely subtle in anything she did, Kelly sat sideways along the back seat.

“No, I think he’s past that stage,” Wyatt said. “He still had hair on his head, though.”

Hearing the businesslike tenor of her children’s discussion of human decomposition made Irene wonder if she hadn’t perhaps brought too much of her work home over the years. While she ended her career as FBI director, she’d earned her stripes the old-fashioned way, first as a field agent, then as the SAIC of the Richmond, Virginia, field office. She had a penchant for and fascination with forensics and wasn’t always good about closing files when she took a break or went to bed.

As a divorced single mom with a high-profile political job in Washington, she’d always been aware and wary of the pressures her children had been forced to manage. They had to defend insults that they had not earned and to develop lives of their own—all within the public school system. She couldn’t have been prouder of how they’d found their way.

But success came with the price of living a harsher reality than that of their peers. Irene believed that controlled cynicism was healthy in children. Once they were old enough to know the truth about Santa, they were old enough to know that the old guy on the corner in the red suit might be a predator.

“It’s okay to show a little respect for the dead,” Irene admonished. “Whoever the person was, he or she was somebody’s son or daughter.”

“It’s a boy,” Wyatt said. He pointed ahead and to the left. “You’re not going to be able to get to it with the truck.”

“Are we going to call the sheriff to come back?” Kelly asked.

“Let’s see what we’ve got first,” Irene said. Regarding her own cynicism, she had long ago stopped believing in the wisdom and authority of elected officials—sheriffs included. Maybe sheriffs in particular. In West Virginia, sheriffs were invested with awesome power, and as a practical matter reported to only the electorate, which all too often voted their own parochial interests over the rule of law.

Assuming that Wyatt’s report of a corpse on her property was correct—and why would he lie about such a thing?—a lot of negative attention would be coming their way at the very time when she was seeking invisibility for her family. She wanted to assess the scene for herself before she invited outsiders onto the property.

“Remember not to touch anything when we get to the scene,” Irene instructed.

“I don’t want to go near it,” Kelly said. Her tone carried a patina of horror.

“Why are you even coming if you’re so grossed out?” Wyatt asked.

“Because this shit is the only shit that anyone’s going to be talking about,” Kelly replied. “How much of a dork would I be if I didn’t know the details about a dead guy in my own back—”

A bump followed by a three-foot gully that almost tipped them over cut Kelly short.

Irene shot a look over her shoulder to make sure that she hadn’t hurt anyone. “Sorry about that. You know you can’t talk about this to anyone, right?”

“What?” Leave it to Kelly—the one who said she didn’t even want to be here—to be instantly offended.

Irene let it lie. She’d said what she needed to say, and her words could not have been clearer.

“Stop up there at the deadfall,” Wyatt said, pointing. “He’s back there through the bushes.”

Like so many of the fallen trees that littered these woods, Wyatt’s target tree was a grand old ash that had been killed by the emerald ash borer. In only a handful of years, the Chinese invader had inflicted hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to American hardwoods.

Irene brought the Ranger to a halt and killed the engine. Ten seconds later, Ruger caught up with them, clearly eager to reprise her starring role. If her tail wagged any harder, it would dislocate.

In dealing with dogs, Irene often had to remind herself not to be judgmental. They don’t know that bombs are bombs or that cadavers are cadavers. They live their lives for praise and tummy rubs.

Wyatt had nearly been swallowed by the woods by the time Irene cleared the driver’s door. “Hold up!” she called.

But he was already gone. Then, he reappeared. “Come on!” he called. “It’s this way!”

Irene slowed down, deliberately took her time. For the kids, this was a macabre adventure but for her, this was the beginning of a serious investigation. A body in a sinkhole undoubtedly meant that a murder had been committed on her property—on property that had belonged to her grandparents before her. No matter how this played out, scandal lay ahead, and in a community as small as Jenkins County, mismanaged scandal could become a horrific scar that disfigured a family name forever.

Ruger wanted nothing to do with Irene’s call for caution. The dog dashed past Wyatt and disappeared into the underbrush.

“How come Ruger can go?” Wyatt objected.

Irene didn’t rise to the bait. When she and the kids had gathered at the deadfall, she reminded them of the rules. “This is first and foremost a crime scene. It’s already been disturbed by time and animals, I’m sure—and by Ruger and Wyatt—but that’s just the way of things. Now that we’re aware, we need to take special care. Any questions?”

While Wyatt was bouncing on his heels, anxious to get on with it, Kelly was looking less sure.

“You don’t have to go,” Irene said. “There’s no shame in staying behind.”

Kelly scoffed. “Oh, right. And be the only one who hasn’t seen it? I don’t think so.”

The attitude made Irene jealous. She’d seen a lot of bodies over the years, and she’d be thrilled to walk away from the opportunity to see another.

“Let me lead,” Irene said.

Wyatt objected. “But I know where we’re going.”

“So does Ruger,” Irene said. “You and Kelly hang back and try not to touch anything.”

“But—”

“Or you can walk back to the house.”

That settled it. Irene didn’t employ her Death Glare very often, but when she did, the ongoing argument ceased in an instant, no matter what it was.

Wyatt made room to let her pass.

The Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia featured countless ancient limestone outcroppings and shallow caves. Locals called them sinkholes, but Irene’s college geology class was too far in the rearview mirror to know if the term was accurate. For sure, she was unaware of any people or homes being consumed by sinkholes in the way such things happened in other parts of the world.

The outcroppings mostly featured sharp, jagged edges that inflicted severe penalties for those whose footing was unsure.

In the near distance, out of view in the thick foliage, Ruger was going nuts. Barking, whining, yelping, yet not sounding in distress.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Irene said. “Good Lord, Wyatt, you and Ruger must be the first visitors here in a long time.”

“Maybe the last one was the murderer,” Wyatt said. “You think his ghost hangs around here at night?”

“Stop it!” Kelly commanded.

Wyatt giggled.

“Show some respect,” Irene snapped. “What happened here—however it happened—is serious business.”

The kids continued to chatter between themselves as Irene shifted into investigation mode. She hadn’t worked a crime scene in a long time, but she felt the investigative muscle memory returning. But for the minimal tracks on the forest floor and the displaced foliage caused by Wyatt and Ruger’s recent visit, the scene looked pristine.

Up ahead, she could finally see Ruger through the underbrush. Her tail wagging to the extreme, she was dancing as she barked, bouncing and pawing at the ground.

“Ruger!” she yelled. “Stop! We’re here.”

The Lab wanted nothing to do with the command, and she couldn’t care less about the Death Glare. Ruger’s attention was laser focused on an overgrown yet trampled section of undergrowth, where creepers and sticker bushes nearly obscured the line of erupted limestone.

Surrendering to the inevitable, Irene stopped yelling and joined the dog. She focused on where she planted her feet as she advanced, watching for anything that might be evidence in the investigation that lay ahead.

The thickness of the undergrowth meant nothing. Here in the Eastern Panhandle, weeds could not be tamed. Ground that was stripped to the dirt in June would be entirely repopulated and unnavigable by August. The weeds surrounding her could be anywhere from nine months to thirty years old.

Glancing over her shoulder to confirm that the kids were still back at the edge of the thicket, she waded into the sticker bushes to join the dog. “What’ve you got, sweetie?” she said.

The beast was shoulders deep into the sinkhole.

Irene kneeled carefully on the rocks and stickers, reached into the hole for the dog’s collar, and pulled, praying to all things holy that nothing slithered or jumped out of the chasm.

“Do you see it yet?” Wyatt yelled from behind.

She jumped as if tased. “Jesus! No, not yet. Come on, Ruger, pull back, sweets.”

The beast complied, but she wasn’t happy about it. She had another fragment of shirt in her teeth, a bit of orange cloth.

“Drop that,” Irene commanded. “Right now. Drop.”

Ruger did a play bow. Make me.

This was going to be a long afternoon.

Finally, she had a view into the hole, and visual confirmation of everything Wyatt had claimed. Dressed in a faded, weather-worn orange shirt and denim pants, the mostly skeletal remains were oriented feet-first into the cave. Irene fished her phone out of her pocket and lit up the flashlight. The darkness of the chasm ate up most of the beam, but it appeared that insect activity had ceased on the corpse, and while there was a certain earthy, organic stench to the hole, there was none of the stomach-churning awfulness of ongoing rot. There was no way to tell details at this angle. Irene’s instincts told her that the decedent was an adolescent male, but the style of dress had been ubiquitous to country folk for a hundred years or more.

It was definitel. . .