Anne had the feeling they were stepping on thin ice, new and fragile territory in their relationship. The two regarded each other in silence.
Finally, Anne said, “Do you think David suspects you?”
“No,” Holt said immediately. “He would have tried to take me out. An honor thing.”
“Your family does not know where the money came from. They couldn’t reveal anything accidentally?”
“I told them I’d invested money in an online shopping program, and it had taken off. They were too relieved to ask for any details.”
“You think Oversight will come back with questions about your dad’s bills being paid off?”
“If the bills had been paid in one lump sum, it would be suspicious. But I paid in irregular amounts spread out over two and a half years, some of it channeled through my family’s accounts. Less conspicuous.” His mouth twitched in a smile. “And I haven’t worked at Camp West in more than two years. I live on my coach’s salary.”
“And the money’s stopped disappearing. No one’s stealing from the enemy fund now.”
“They’ll still be looking. No one makes a fool out of Oversight.”
“But they might be glad to find a scapegoat.”
“What are you thinking, Anne?”
“I’m thinking we can find Cassie’s rental. We can drive it to Pennsylvania and get there ahead of David. Two drivers instead of one.”
Hoyt looked interested. “Then what?”
“Then we plant money in Cassie’s house, gold or bearer bonds. Untraceable stuff.”
“Anne, I don’t have anything like that. I don’t even have much cash stashed away. Not enough to make them believe she stole everything.”
“I have some backup funds,” Anne said. She looked away.
Holt leaned forward and took her hand. She couldn’t avoid his eyes. “You’d do that?”
“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I would.”
“No regret?”
“No regret.”
Holt struggled to find words of gratitude, but Anne held up her hand to keep him silent. “If they find unexplained money in Cassie’s house, David’s in the clear, Cassie will vanish, and they’ll consider the theft explained. It’s all good. I know where her house is, and we’ve got the keys.”
“Let’s get on the road,” Holt said.
Anne retrieved half of her escape fund from its secret hiding place — the same place the thiopental had been stored — and she was back down the stairs in less than two minutes.
“If we find the rental quickly,” she said, “it’ll be a sign that we’re doing the right thing.”
Anne and Holt knew where to start looking. Using the key fob to make the lights blink, they found it in four minutes, parked behind a house for sale on the other side of the street.
During the long drive north, they made some plans for spring break.
Those plans involved Gary Pomeroy.
© 2017 by Charlaine Harris
Manglevine
by Dominic Russ-Combs
Dominic Russ-Combs is a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University and a recipient of an emerging artist award from the Kentucky Arts Council. About to complete a Ph.D. in English at Texas Tech, he has already had fiction published in many periodicals, including the Chicago Tribune, The Kenyon Review, and The Carolina Quarterly.
A severe thunderstorm had knocked out the power earlier that afternoon, and the August humidity overran the house, fogging the windows in the kitchen where Luke and his mother were canning the vegetables the storm had jostled loose from their garden. Luke had pulled the last tray of poblanos from the gas oven when he saw a bedraggled figure in a white T-shirt emerge from the ravine. Luke wiped the window and watched as the spindly form lumbered to the fence line.
“It’s a man,” Luke said. The charred peppers crackled and hissed on the counter.
The ravine dropped sharply about a hundred yards from the house, and the dip was just deep enough for the green bulbs of the treetops to align flush with the yard grass, giving the illusion of a long stretch of flat land. This vista added something deliberate and unavoidable to the man’s pace. When the stranger looked up from his feet to the house, Luke startled. The pan beneath the peppers popped, contracting in the cooler air.
Luke followed his mother into the yard, anxious to be meeting this strange man on their own. The radio said the outage in Menifee County would last at least a week, and his father had left shortly after the storm to buy a generator. Back when his father was still with the county police, people used to come knocking, and his father would go with them, no matter their appearance or the hour. A few of these unannounced visits were among Luke’s earliest memories.
“Momma?” Luke said.
“I know,” she said without breaking her stride. “But that storm likely wrecked a lot more than people’s gardens. He may be in trouble.”
Emaciated and lanky, the long-haired stranger gripped the highest rail of the fence. Judging by the portion of his torso over the posts, Luke could tell he was tall — six and a half feet at least. Luke’s mutt hound, Fang, barreled out from behind the shed, barking madly. The second the dog came within striking distance, the man said a single word, and Fang heeled.
“Sheriff Johnston about?” the man asked. Fang slunk forward in the grass, a paw’s length, maybe two.
“Lemuel hasn’t been with the department for years,” Luke’s mother said. “He runs the sawmill now.” Luke’s mother stepped closer to the man. “Who are you?”
The man turned and studied the valley’s treetops that stretched like stepping stones from plateau to plateau. He smelled of rotted wood and moss.
“You don’t remember me, Ellen?”
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar,” she said.
“Bart. Manglevine.” He spoke the parts of his name as if he’d retrieved them from an attic closet. “I live at the old Carson place.”
“Bart Manglevine. You look near fell off to skin and bones.” Luke’s mother twisted her head. “What brings you here? It’s so far. Are your people hurt?”
“I’d rather speak it to your husband.”
“All right,” she said, “but if it’s police business, phone them. Ours still works.”
Manglevine rested his sleepy brown eyes on Luke. “He yourn?”
“Luke,” she said.
“He’s shaped like his daddy.”
“What’s the matter, Mr. Manglevine?” Luke said, but Manglevine ignored him.
“Would you mind me on your porch, Ellen, until Lemy returns?”
“Of course you can wait.” She opened the latch to the gate. “Luke,” she said, “fetch Mr. Manglevine a towel.”
Luke headed back to the house. Emptied of rain, the remnants of the storm blackened eastward where flashes of lightning still wired the eaves of the world.
Luke’s mother shifted the phone from one ear to the other and glanced out the window. “I don’t know, Lemy,” she said, “he looks shook up. I can’t tell if being out in the storm spooked him or what.”
Luke could hear the pace and tone of his father’s response through the receiver but not his actual words. His mother pointed him with a cup of tea to the front.
“He won’t tell me what for.” She shook her head. “He’s just sitting there.”
Luke took the tea to Manglevine, who was mummied in a red beach towel. He sat looking out onto the green cap of the ravine, his boots drying beside him on the step. Luke stooped to offer Manglevine the tea and saucer, but he didn’t lift his eyes. Watching them both, Fang whimpered and let out a truncated whine. Manglevine reached in his pants and wielded out a pack of cigarets and lighter, both dry despite the rain. When Manglevine lit the cigaret, Luke saw little scratches on his fingers — red breaks in the pruned white flesh. Luke began to head inside, but Manglevine’s voice caught him at the threshold.