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Pearce took another moment, steeled herself. “He had to have been drinking. There’s no question in my mind. If he’d been sober he’d have had the presence of mind to have some oars in the boat, and make sure he had a full tank of gas. He got out there, buzzing around, and the tank ran empty. Motor died on him. Couldn’t get it started. And the current started taking him away, over into the Canadian channel, and then over Horseshoe Falls.”

“Dear God,” I said.

“They called it an accident, but really? It was so preventable, in so many ways,” she said. “A stupid, stupid man, Harry was.” She sniffed, and smiled. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t love the son of a bitch, but that was a man who didn’t always have his head screwed on right.”

Phyllis Pearce exhaled and seemed to shiver, as if to shake off the memories. “I like to cultivate this reputation as Griffon’s tough old broad. The one everyone should fear. Pretty hard to fear an old bat when she gets emotional that way.”

“I won’t tell a soul you have a heart,” I said.

She smiled. “I would appreciate that.”

I stood. “Thanks for your time.”

She got out of her chair, too. “If you hear anything about Claire, will you let me know? I’m not her father’s biggest fan, but I hope like the dickens that nothing’s happened to her.”

“Sure,” I said, and offered her a hand to shake. “You take care.”

I was almost back into town when the Griffon police pulled me over and took me into custody.

Thirty-five

I saw the cruiser in my rearview mirror a few seconds before the lights came on and the siren started to whoop. Like a good boy, I pulled over to the curb and waited for an officer to approach. Another glance in my mirror showed I was about to be visited by Officer Hank Brindle.

I powered down the window as he came up alongside me.

“Officer,” I said.

“Out of the car, Mr. Weaver,” Brindle said.

“What’s the charge, if you don’t mind my asking?” It sounded like such a cliché, but it seemed a logical question. “Busted taillight?”

“Out of the car,” he repeated, resting his hand on the gun hanging from his belt.

I turned off the engine, and as I stepped out I saw Ricky Haines getting out of the passenger side of the cruiser and moving quickly to help his partner.

“Turn around,” Brindle said. “Hands on top of the vehicle.”

I complied. Haines patted me down. I wasn’t carrying the Glock today. But he found my cell phone and confiscated it.

“He’s okay,” Haines said.

“Hands behind your back,” Brindle said. “And don’t do anything stupid.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll leave that to the experts.”

He secured my wrists with a set of plastic cuffs, then grabbed me by the elbow and started walking me to their car. He opened the back door and I ducked so as not to hit my head as he shoved me in. I brought my leg in just before he slammed the door.

“Isn’t anyone going to help me put my seat belt on?” I asked as the two of them got back into the front seat of the cruiser.

I have to admit, being a wiseass was just covering up the fact that I was nervous as hell. What the hell had they found in my car? Or an even better question might be, What the hell had they put there?

Ricky Haines barely had the passenger door closed before Brindle had the car in drive. He kicked up gravel before getting back on asphalt.

“Last night, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about you, but I am now,” Brindle said.

“That so?”

“They got you dead to rights on this one,” Brindle said.

“Really.”

“Oh yeah. A slam dunk.” He drummed his fingers on the top of the steering wheel. “I have to say, I’ve never had much use for private dicks like yourself.”

I said nothing. I was struggling to get comfortable with my hands locked together behind me.

“I figure, if you really cared about catching bad guys, you’d be a cop. Me and Ricky, we spend all our time trying to make Griffon a better place. But guys like you, you’re too busy looking for husbands cheating on their wives and vicey versey. You’re not doing anything that matters. You’re not doing anything for the public good, and you’re always getting in the way of people like me.”

“I was a cop once,” I said. I almost said “like you.” But I wanted to think I’d never been a cop like him.

“That a fact? And this was where?”

“Promise Falls. North of Albany.”

“Pretty country up there,” Brindle said. “So what happened? Promise Falls’ high crime rate prove to be too much for you? A lot of people fishing without a license? Moose running wild in the streets?”

“Something like that,” I said. First opportunity I had, I’d call my lawyer, Patrick Slaughter, who could get started on whatever it was the police had against me. “I’d like to make a phone call.”

“I’ll bet you would.”

“When we get to the station.”

“Oh,” Brindle said, whipping his head around for a second. “Is that where you thought we were going?”

He looked in the mirror, caught my look of apprehension, and chuckled. “You should see your face. I was just messing with ya.” He glanced over at Haines. “If you can’t have a little fun, what’s the point, am I right?”

Haines didn’t look happy. Maybe not every Griffon cop enjoyed taunting suspects. “Come on,” he said. “I’m betting this is all bullshit, anyway.”

Brindle shot him a look.

When we reached the Griffon police headquarters, Brindle wheeled the car around to the back and drove into an open garage. He opened my door and led me from the car to the building, a distance of not more than ten feet. From there I was taken to a basement holding cell, where I was left to spend some time on my own.

A person could be here a long time before anyone knew something had happened to him. When I wasn’t there to pick up Donna at the end of the day, she would assume work had interfered, and would find her own way home. Even if she tried calling me, my failure to answer wouldn’t set off any alarms.

Brindle removed my cuffs, stepped out of the holding cell and swung the door shut. It locked automatically. “Back in a bit. Don’t go away,” he said with a smile before leaving me with only my thoughts for company.

I had several of them, and they weren’t good ones. I couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d found something incriminating in the car. There was the wig, but that was easily explained, as was any blood that might be on the front seat, which would be Claire’s. And there was no way, in this short time, that they could have done any kind of DNA testing on it.

So if they weren’t nailing me with something that was already in the car, it had to be with something that had found its way into it since it had left me.

Was Augie capable of that? Planting evidence against his brother-in-law? Even if I believed he had it in him, I couldn’t think of any reason for him to do it, aside from him thinking I was a horse’s ass. A good reason to punch someone in the mouth, but hardly justification to send him to prison.

I heard a door opening at the end of the hall, then steps coming my way. I’d been sitting on a metal bench bolted to the floor, but sprang to my feet and went to the bars to see who it was.

A cop, in uniform, but not Brindle or Haines.

It was Officer Marv Quinn, partner of Donna’s friend Kate Ramsey. He seemed to be using this hallway to get from one place to another, and looked startled when he saw me with my fingers wrapped around the bars.

“What the hell?” he said. If he was pretending to be surprised, he was doing a good job of it. Given that he was the one who’d passed Augie’s order on to Brindle and Haines that my car be seized, he shouldn’t have been that shocked.