‘She didn’t have to say that, you grumpy old bastard. Haven’t you ever seen the way she looks at you?’
The unthinkable. Tears in his eyes.
‘Nothin’s been the same since my wife died.’
‘I’m sorry, Grimes. You’re through until you get some sleep.’
Again his head teetered to the right. ‘Yeah, I guess maybe I am.’
I got up, walked over to him and held out my hand.
‘I’m going to help you get to bed.’
But even with tears in his eyes he was belligerent. ‘I don’t need no help.’
‘Right. So stand up then.’
‘What?’
‘Stand up.’
‘Just get the hell out of here, you son of a bitch. This is my place and nobody gives me orders in my place. Now go.’
His irascibility made him suddenly sound much stronger than he was.
‘You won’t stand up because you’re too weak to.’
‘Weak? The hell I’m weak.’
And with that he did his angry best to show me that he was too strong and too proud to accept any help from somebody like me. He put a hand on the arm of the couch and began the process of pushing himself to his feet. He almost fell over.
I grabbed his right arm, holding him up.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘where the hell’s your bedroom, Grimes?’
Twenty-Five
The ride out to Dave Fletcher’s Airstream was pleasant. I was heading there again because of what Frank Grimes had said about Dave Fletcher’s habit of hiding things. This time I’d search the place.
It was another elegant autumn day.
As I left the car and approached the trailer I had a feeling of isolation; maybe it was the crows and the sudden and utter silence in this small valley. Not even the fall colors of the trees were quite as bright here. I had a schoolboy memory: the land around the House of Usher. Poe’s sense of desolation.
I was within a few feet of the Airstream’s door when I noticed the car oil on the grass. Its shine revealed its freshness. There wasn’t much of it. I bent down and touched a fingertip to it. It was fresh as hell.
When I struck the trailer door with my hand it eased open.
There was a stench which was familiar to me. It was a terrible stench; the worst stench of all.
So when I went in and saw what was on the floor there was no surprise.
My guess was that the man I assumed to be Dave Fletcher had been dead for some time. He had been a short, thin man with a finely boned face. It was already discoloring. The stench made me tear up. I examined him at a glance. He’d been wearing a yellow shirt, so the two bullet wounds in his chest were easy to see.
I got out of there as quickly as I could. I walked ten feet from the Airstream and started taking in deep, clean breaths.
Then it was time to call Showalter on my cell phone.
For the local press, the recent days’ events were definitely better than sex, except maybe for the kind that involves animals. To their satisfaction, a congresswoman had been brought down and now the body of a man had been found in mysterious circumstances.
Showalter dispatched six officers to commit due diligence on the crime scene. He then spent fifteen minutes in the trailer after telling me not to head back to town until he was finished talking to me.
I walked over to the wooded area and used my cell phone to call Cindy Fletcher. When she answered she said hello and then said, ‘Your voice. Oh, God, I’m afraid I know what you’re going to say. Dave’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘I’m afraid he is, Cindy.’
‘Where? How?’
I told her everything I knew.
She surprised me — and probably herself — by staying emotionless. ‘He said they were going to kill him.’
‘He said who was going to kill him?’
‘He didn’t say. He could get pretty dramatic sometimes so I didn’t take him seriously, I guess. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Now I’m sorry I didn’t.’
Then, ‘He could be very trusting sometimes. Like a little kid. He told one of the cops that he’d made that recording. But afterward he realized that maybe this cop could have told someone in Showalter’s little group about it. He could be such a little boy.’
I didn’t try to stop her. She needed to weep and she wept. I just waited her out. She didn’t recover so much as simply wear out.
‘So they found him. That’s what happened. They wanted that recorder. They found him and they killed him. That damned trailer. Neither of us went out there very often. There are snakes and rats from the river on the west side of it and you never knew who might come along at night. Dave always brought a rifle and a couple of handguns but I still didn’t feel safe. I’m not sure he did either.’
I saw Showalter walking in my direction so I said a quick goodbye.
No amenities.
‘So how did you know Dave Fletcher?’ Showalter said.
‘I didn’t know Dave Fletcher.’
Wind soughed in the pines and brought the scent to me as a gift. I needed something to comfort me. The events of the day had sapped my strength and my sense.
‘Just out for a drive and you ended up back here?’
‘I got a phone tip.’ Lies come so easily to me.
‘And, of course, you’re going to tell me who called you.’
‘I wish I could. Anonymous, of course.’
‘They’d call you instead of the police.’
‘I wish they’d called you instead of me. But what could I do?’
‘You could have called me before you came out here.’
‘How did I know it wasn’t a crank call? I’m in the news because of Congresswoman Bradshaw. It could have been one of Dorsey’s people just trying to run me around in circles.’
‘Like you’re trying to run me around in circles right now, huh?’
He had a good scowl. If he’d been an emperor he would have used it when he was thumbs-downing a fighter in the Coliseum. ‘I hope you realize that I don’t believe one fucking word you just said.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘Sure you are.’
That old self-control I usually rely on couldn’t be relied on this time. ‘If you can’t see that fucking rifle in Cory’s trunk was a plant, then I wonder whose side you’re on.’
He took two steps toward me. His face was as red as a drunk’s on his birthday. ‘What the hell are you saying?’
‘I’m saying you owed the congresswoman a phone call before your press conference. I’m saying you shouldn’t have been so quick to rule out a setup. And I’m saying the Dorsey folks are the ones who benefit.’
But then his self-control kicked in.
‘It’s going to be a pleasure nailing your ass to the wall, Conrad.’
I was getting the impression he didn’t care for me all that much. I was also getting the impression — because he refused to even consider that Cory had been framed — that maybe he was involved in the police group himself.
As soon as I got in my car I called Cindy again. We needed to get our lies straight.
Grief had now become dazed withdrawal. She was playing hide-and-seek with herself. I repeated the lies three times then hung up with no reassurance that she would remember a single damned one of them.
Twenty-Six
When I got back to my office I learned two things quickly: Cory Tucker had been released on bond and Dorsey was demanding an ‘immediate and thorough investigation’ into whether Jess’s ‘attempted assassination’ was a hoax or not. ‘Hoax’ was a loaded word.
I watched the replay of Dorsey’s rant on my Mac. No TV huckster could have done any better. His last line was, ‘Should she be headed back to Washington or headed to federal prison?’