Vince shook his head, and Abilene didn’t even turn from her task. Miah announced, “I’d better go and check on the animals. I’ve got my phone if anybody needs me.”
Casey and Vince nodded and let him go. Abilene turned once he’d left the room, locking her watery, worried eyes on Casey’s.
“Come outside a minute,” Vince said to him, getting to his feet.
Casey followed his brother out the front door and down the steps. Vince paused when they neared a pair of stressed-looking ranch hands who were smoking at the edge of the parking lot.
“I’ll give you a buck for two of those,” Vince said to one of them, pointing at their smokes.
“It’s nothing.” The kid handed Vince the pack he’d had in his shirt pocket. Vince accepted it with a nod and led Casey away, to the quiet far corner of the lot, where he knocked a cigarette from the pack and slipped it between his lips. “Gimme your lighter.”
Casey hesitated, wondering if his brother would recognize the thing. “You’ve been free of those things for almost a year. You sure?”
“It’s a fucking exceptional day,” he said, cigarette jumping at the edge of his lips. “Now, gimme a goddamn light.”
Casey pulled the Zippo out, flicked it open, and lit it, letting his fingers hide the insignia. No point triggering memories of their father, not when Miah’s was so conspicuously absent. Vince sucked the cigarette halfway to the filter inside a minute, looking like a man who’d just surfaced from a long dive and tasted fresh air.
“Fuck me, I missed that.”
“I won’t tell Nita.”
“Or Kim,” Vince added, and slowed down some. “This is only a one-off.” He glanced inside the pack. “A three-off,” he corrected, and knocked out the other two smokes, tucking one behind each ear.
“Miah said something to me,” Vince said, ashing to the side.
“Oh?”
“That tractor Don was fucking around with this morning—Miah had put the ad out himself, a few weeks ago, looking to sell it.”
“Okay.”
“So some guy calls late last night, wanting to see it this afternoon. Short notice, and maybe they knew it was old and in rough shape and would need some looking over, first. Maybe the guy even knew it was in the barn.”
Casey nodded, catching on. “Because he’d snooped around in there himself already.”
“It’s possible. Maybe he even fucked with it, to be sure Don would have a hell of a time getting it running. Maybe he never even set foot in there today, if he was smart enough to rig it to catch fire, somehow.”
“Maybe.” Though Casey knew for a fact that that was some hairy, precision shit right there. And it didn’t explain why Don hadn’t been able to escape once the fire had caught.
“You say all this to Miah?”
“You crazy? His fucking father’s probably dead. Last thing he needs is conspiracy theories before the body’s even found.”
“True.” But he was with Vince, brain skipping ahead past the ugly truth yet to come, chasing answers.
“What else is on your mind?”
“It’s even possible this cocksucker picked today on purpose,” Vince said, “figuring most of the workers would be away from the bunks and the stables, watching the eclipse.”
Casey nodded, not liking how premeditated this was now feeling. And not liking at all how uncomfortably it echoed his own recent past. His so-called career. That regret that Abilene had wished he’d felt . . . Well, it was creeping in now, too real for his comfort, nagging and pawing at him with ragged, catching nails.
“You think somebody wanted Don dead?” Casey asked his brother.
“Do you?”
“I can’t think why. He had industry rivals, no doubt, but who the fuck would want to kill him?”
“Maybe they wanted something else,” Vince said. “Wanted to corner him, demand something, and maybe he couldn’t deliver it? I dunno. Though I do know Miah’s been bitching about how cutthroat some of the property scouts have gotten lately.” He finished the first cigarette, lit the next off the butt before crushing it beneath his boot.
“This is so fucking messed up,” Casey muttered, feeling frustrated and hot.
“We need to get you in there,” Vince said. “How soon can that happen?”
“Depends. They’ll be digging through it all soon enough. If they find . . .” He trailed off. He’d nearly said “a body,” but it felt far too cold. “If they find him,” he said carefully, “everything will grind to a halt for a few hours. They’ll investigate before they move the body,” he said, flinching inside, “but then they’ll take it away to be autopsied. They’ll mill around documenting everything for a long time, but eventually they’ll clear out.”
“Will anybody be left to guard the scene?”
Casey shook his head. “Unlikely. They’ll probably just put up tape, once the forensic people have made their sweep.”
“Then you go in.”
“Sure.”
“But don’t be a dumb-ass about it,” Vince warned through a cloud of Camel. “Don’t go leaving your shoe prints or a load of red hairs all over the place.”
“You say that like this hasn’t been my job for three years.”
Vince nodded, gaze on the horizon.
“I got no clue what I’ll find,” Casey said. “This guy could be a pro or a total hack. But I’ll do my best.” He didn’t hold out much hope, however. Fires spoke volumes about the way they started but didn’t tell you jack about who struck the match. Not unless the person in question happened to drop a business card on their way out. “I can tell you if it was started on purpose, but if anybody stands a chance at saying who by, it’s Miah.”
“I can’t ask him now . . . But it’ll have to be soon. I’ll see if he can’t find out who answered that ad about the John Deere.”
“Good a lead as any.” Better than some dark-colored truck, some tallish, vaguish description of a white guy in a ski mask and jeans.
“Not much, though,” Vince said grimly. “It’d take an idiot to reply to the ad with their actual e-mail address or leave a real phone number.”
Casey stole the final smoke from behind Vince’s ear and lit it for himself. It tasted like a thousand ancient memories. It tasted like ass, in all honesty, but the nicotine wasn’t unwelcome. He blew out a long jet of smoke and told his brother, “We better hope we’re dealing with a world-class fuckwit, then.”
• • •
The news everyone had been dreading came around dinnertime.
Casey heard it from Vince, who’d been in the kitchen with Miah and Christine when the mayor, of all people, had come by to break it to them, with Fortuity’s acting sheriff in tow, who also served as the county coroner.
Casey had gone into town to fill in Kim and Nita, then Raina and Duncan, and had pulled in just behind the sheriff’s cruiser. Freeman, he thought the new sheriff was called—Wes or Les Freeman. He was tanned and tall and lanky, far younger than Tremblay had been—may that motherfucker rot in hell. He wore the uniform’s matching khaki hat that Tremblay never had, and it made him look like a cartoon. Especially when Mayor Dooley joined the tableau, the squat little Napoleon in seersucker climbing out of the sheriff’s car, ivory bolo swinging. The mismatched men headed for the house, and Casey hung back, knowing it couldn’t be good. The mayor didn’t show up at the home of the most prominent family in town to hand out happy news.
Casey sat on his own hood for nearly half an hour before the men emerged. He nodded at Freeman, who’d come by the bar a couple times as a patron. Dooley he didn’t know aside from seeing his pompous face in the papers, and he didn’t offer him jack. That dick had brought the casino to town, after all. And the casino had gotten Alex killed. He couldn’t say he was much of a fan of the mayor, no.
Sheriff Freeman tipped his hat but didn’t smile, and then both men disappeared inside the cruiser. Casey waited until they’d hit the road, then headed to the farmhouse on legs made of lead.
The scene he found in the kitchen about tore him to shreds.