Parker lagged behind the other two a pace, watched their backs, and decided what to do about them. The continued roadblocks in this part of the world, his lack of usable ID, even his lack of usable cash, meant he had to stick with Lindahl if possible, at least for now.
But how reliable was Thiemann? If he did talk with his wife, and if she was sensible, if she understood what was best to keep him out of trouble, it should be all right. But if Thiemann started to talk to anybody else, anybody at all, it would unravel in a minute. And Parker wouldn’t know there was a problem until Lindahl’s house was surrounded.
The other choice was to shoot them both, take Lindahl’s Ford, get away from here. Until he left this county, Lindahl’s membership card in Hickory Rod and Gun Club, displayed on the dashboard, would get him through the police blocks, particularly if he left the rifle prominently on the backseat. Not the Marlin, Lindahl’s Ruger, the only weapon here that would not have been fired.
But the trouble wasn’t just this county. The trouble extended for a hundred miles in every direction. To have a place to hole up was the most valuable asset he could hope for right now. If either Lindahl or Thiemann looked enough like him to make it possible to use their identification, it would be a different thing.
Lindahl suddenly turned his head, frowning at Parker with a question in his eyes, but Parker was simply pushing through the brush like the other two, the Marlin held loose in the crook of his right arm, hand nowhere near the lever or the trigger. Parker nodded at him, expressionless, and Lindahl faced the station, just ahead of them now, and pushed on.
7
They sat in the Ford the same as before, Lindahl driving, Parker beside him, Thiemann in the back with the three guns. The first few minutes, driving down the washboard road, no one spoke, but then Thiemann, as though he’d been brooding on this a long time, said, “I’m really in your hands now, aren’t I? You guys.”
Lindahl shot a quick glance at the rearview mirror but then had to watch the road. “In our hands? What do you mean, in our hands?”
“Well, you know this . . . thing about me. You know I killed a man.”
Parker half turned so he could look at Thiemann, and rested his forearm atop the seat back. “We all have to trust each other, Fred. Tom and me, we’re not reporting it, so that puts us in the same boat as you.”
“Not exactly,” Thiemann said, sounding bitter. “Not quite, Ed Smith. Not exactly.”
With another quick look at the mirror, Lindahl said, “What’s the matter, Fred? You know me. We’ve known each other a long time.”
“Not for a long time, Tom,” Thiemann told him. “Not for years. You don’t come to meetings, you don’t go anywhere. I haven’t seen your face in three years. You’re like a hermit.”
“I’m not that bad,” Lindahl said, but as though admitting that yes, maybe he was that bad.
“Everybody knows,” Thiemann told him, “you turned sour when you lost your job.”
Lindahl didn’t like that. “Oh, do they? Everybody knows? Everybody talks about it a lot, do they, Fred?”
“Nobody has to talk about it,” Thiemann said. “Everybody already knows. You lost that job, you turned sour, your wife walked out, you don’t act like you’re anybody’s friend. I don’t know you any more. I don’t know you much more than I know this fella here, except I know he talks smooth and he talks fast.”
“Fred,” Parker said, “you just tell your wife, Jane, what happened today and see if she wants you to turn yourself in. If she does, it doesn’t matter what I say.”
“Oh, I know what she’ll say,” Thiemann said, as though the knowledge made him angry. “Keep out of trouble, don’t make things worse, you can’t bring that man back, it’s over and done with.”
“Absolutely right,” Lindahl said.
Leaning forward, his face closer to Parker so he could talk to Lindahl’s profile, Thiemann said, “The one thing she won’t tell me is forget it. I’m never gonna forget it.”
Lindahl said, “None of us are, Fred. That was a bad moment for all of us.”
Parker could see that Thiemann thought he was supposed to be punished now, but he was smart enough to understand he couldn’t punish himself without punishing other people, too. First his wife, and the daughter still in college. But Tom Lindahl after that.
So what Thiemann was doing back there now was trying to separate himself from the other people who’d get hurt. Tom Lindahl was a stranger to him, a hermit who had turned sour. His wife wouldn’t give him understanding, she’d just give him boilerplate stock responses. He couldn’t think about these unworthy people, he could only think about himself.
The daughter would be harder to dismiss. That might hold him in place. In any case, the dangerous time was between now and when Thiemann reached his home. If his wife was there.
Parker said, “Fred, is your wife home now?”
“Yeah,” Thiemann said without much interest. “She works at a hospital, but not on Saturdays.”
“That’s good,” Parker said.
They drove in silence again until they were back down on the county road and along it to the intersection with the roadblock, where the smiling trooper recognized them and waved them through. Lindahl and Parker waved back, but Thiemann sat crouched into himself, staring at the back of the seat in front of him. Then, just after that, Thiemann roused himself and said, not to either of them in particular, “I don’t know if I can drive.”
Parker looked at him, and Thiemann’s face was very pale now. He’d been in shock since it had happened, but the shock was just beginning to bite in, taking blood from the parts of him where it was needed, like his brain.
Lindahl said, “You want me to drive you home, Fred?”
“But then there’s the car,” Thiemann said, “way the hell in St. Stanislas.”
Parker said, “I could drive you in your car, Fred, and Tom could follow and pick me up at your place.”
Lindahl tossed a sharp look at Parker. “You mean, I follow right behind you.”
Parker said, “That’s the only way I’m gonna get back to your house, Tom. Fred, you want me to do that?”
Thiemann frowned at Parker, then at the back of Lindahl’s head, then at Parker again. “I think so,” he said. “I think I got to do that. Thanks.”
8
Several cars were in the Grange Hall parking lot, left by people doubling into another team member’s car, as Thiemann had done. It looked as though no one else had come back yet. Among the vehicles parked here was a state police car. Seeing it, Parker said to Lindahl, “You talk to the trooper. I’ll go with Fred to his car. Fred took sick after we checked out the railroad station. Nobody there.”
“Okay.”
The trooper was getting out of his car. It was the older one with the braid, who’d addressed the group before. Lindahl steered around to park next to Thiemann’s Taurus, then they all got out onto the blacktop.
As Lindahl went off to talk with the trooper, Thiemann fumbled in his pocket for his keys, finally got them out, then couldn’t get his fingers to work well enough to push the button that would unlock the doors. “Damn. I can’t—”
“Give it to me.”
Thiemann looked at Parker and didn’t want to hand over his keys, but then he did. Parker buzzed the doors open and looked past the SUV hood to where Lindahl and the trooper were talking. Lindahl seemed to be doing the job right, with no problem from the trooper.