Outside the interview room, I thought someone would stop me or at least insist on escorting me out of the building, but I was on my own. Later I realized they had almost certainly monitored and recorded my every step.
‘What did they want?’ Molly asked.
I shook my head. Nothing. When she didn’t buy that, I told her, ‘They wanted to scare the hell out of me. They wanted me to think they were about to arrest me.’
She asked for details, but I didn’t care to go through it. Intimidation, I said.
‘I thought Dalton believed you.’
‘I think Dalton does. To an extent at least.’
We watched the evening news while we ate dinner.
The sheriff was still unwilling to make a formal identification, but he told a news conference the woman had been shot by a. 38 calibre handgun. Suspects? The sheriff was a big old country boy somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties. He was pure politician: his face announced yes just by the way his smile flickered and died. His words told reporters something else:
‘Not until we get a formal identification.’
‘You think they’ll come for you tonight?’ Molly asked.
I shook my head. ‘The difference between a viable suspect and an arrest is physical evidence. My guess is their next move is a search warrant.’
Molly’s smile curdled. ‘One step at a time?’
I stood up. ‘I need to go into town.’
Molly was surprised. ‘You want some company?’
I shook my head. ‘Not tonight.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘It’s about time I visit an old friend.’
Buddy was home when I drove by. I could see him in his living room watching television. I parked my truck on a side street a block away and headed toward the back of his house along an alley. It was the kind of neighbourhood where a couple of security lights shined all night and a few dogs barked, but no one bothered with motion activated lights, or seemed especially concerned about the occasional pedestrian in the alley. I moved quietly and quickly, but made no effort to conceal myself in the shadows.
I had considered developing some kind of plan. A phone call to distract him, a sack of tin cans heaved up on his roof, even firecrackers. In the end I decided it wasn’t necessary. Buddy had won too many confrontations with me to worry. He wouldn’t be looking for a direct assault.
At the back door I used my shoulder and burst through the door and into the kitchen without trouble.
I took a narrow hallway to his living room and got to him before he had completely come off his couch.
I hit him once in the nose, driving him back to a sitting position and turning his face bloody. Then I pummelled him with body blows. He got a couple of swings in before I broke him and he curled into a foetal position.
‘Are you having fun with my ass yet, Buddy?’ Buddy was no more talkative than I had been outside The Slipper the night he pissed on me. I jammed my fist into his ribs. ‘I asked you a question!’
‘You’re a dead man!‘
I hit him again in the same spot. ‘That’s funny. I don’t feel dead.’ I struck the same rib a third time.
‘The reason I came by,’ I said, ‘I wanted to borrow your. 38. I think the sheriff would like to see it, especially if your fingerprints are on it.‘
‘I don’t have it anymore, Dave.’
I pulled some baling twine from my hip pocket and tied off his wrists and feet so he couldn’t move. ‘You don’t care if I check around and make sure, do you?’
‘Take your time. Maybe the cops will show up.’
‘Like I give a damn!’
After I had gagged him I started working through the room systematically checking his bookshelves and drawers. When I had finished with the house I took his car keys and searched the car. Back inside the house again, I cut the twine with my pocket-knife.
‘Where is it?’
‘To tell you the truth-’
I slammed my fist into his stomach. Buddy went down on his knees. ‘Try again!’
Gasping, blood dripping from his nose again, Buddy still managed a smile. ‘Why don’t you try looking for it in your own house, Dave?’
‘Is that the game?’
‘It’s all the sheriff needs to put you away. He finds the gun you used to kill Johnna and you’re on death row.’
‘The thing you want to think about is Roger Beery,’
I said. ‘How long do you think Roger can hold out once the cops take him in for questioning?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you do. I think we both know Roger’s the weak link in your plan.’
I stood up and looked around for something else to hit. First, I took out the television set, then his DVD player. After that there wasn’t much left of value, but I broke what I could and left in the same manner I arrived, walking calmly down the alley.
I got home around midnight and began searching the house. Molly came downstairs and stared at me.
‘What happened?’ She pointed at my eye, and I realized Buddy’s punch had connected. I smiled at her.
‘You should see the other guy.’
‘Is he still alive?’
‘For now.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for the gun that killed Johnna Masterson.’
‘You think it’s here?’
‘Buddy didn’t have it.’
‘You looked?’
‘With his permission, sure.’
‘Need some help?’
‘If you take the house, I’ll take the barn, the shed, and the cellar. If we stay at it, I’d say we can probably be done by sun-up.’
Molly looked around my den in frustration. ‘It could be anywhere.’
‘If we check room-by-room and nook-by-cranny we’ll find it if it’s here. There wouldn’t be much point in hiding it too well. The point is for us not to notice it and for the cops to find it on their first pass.’
We spent the rest of the night and early morning looking for the. 38 Buddy had pulled on me outside The Slipper. From attic to basement, hayloft to grain barrels, we checked every conceivable recess, every dark hole, every shelf, every jar.
Exhausted we made ourselves a country breakfast of sausage and eggs and I finally told Molly what had transpired with Buddy.
Molly allowed herself half-a-smile. ‘You hog-tied Buddy?’
‘Only while I couldn’t watch him.’
‘So you think Roger has it?’
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t at Buddy’s house. That was all I knew. ‘I thought he might be careless with it, but he’s hidden it somewhere safe.’
‘You going to check the Beery residence?’
I shook my head. I had lost the element of surprise.
Chapter 27
We got more than our usual share of obscene threats with the phone calls that morning. The newspaper account had stirred a lot of bile.
At around two o’clock I walked down the hill to get the mail and found our mail carefully set between the flag and the box. The door was open and I could see someone had left a pile of reasonably fresh dog shit inside. I cleaned the thing out roughly with some advertisements, then climbed the hill and went to the barn and got some soap and water. Finished with that, I went up to Lucy’s apartment and told Molly it was time for a beer. ‘A little early, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘We might not have too many more afternoons together.’
She dropped her tools without comment and told me she needed a few minutes. I told her where I wanted to go and she laughed, brushing the sawdust from her shoulders. ‘In that case, I’m ready.’
I pulled my truck into Billy Wade’s driveway a couple of minutes later and walked up to the giant’s front door. ‘Hey, Dave!’
‘You take care of the horses for us this evening?’ I asked.