I had the driver’s door open when a white van careened down over the rise, let through for a reason that soon became clear. Somebody near me called out, “Look! That’s Ned Verriker’s van.” It raced up, slewed to a stop, and a wiry, dark-faced man in work clothes jumped out and started a splay-footed run up the driveway. I knew then why his name sounded familiar: he was one of the trio who’d occupied the booth behind Kerry’s and mine in the Green Valley Cafe yesterday.
The deputies got in his way, held him back. “You don’t want to go up there,” one of them said. “Nothing you can do.”
“She… she didn’t get out? Alice?”
“Looks that way. I’m sorry, Ned.”
“Oh God, that’s her car in the yard, she must’ve just got home when… What happened? I don’t understand-”
“Easy now. Easy.”
“I had to work late or I’d’ve been in there, too. Alice… oh Jesus, Alice!”
I felt a little sick listening to Ned Verriker’s outpouring of pain, but at the same time, his words brought a sense of relief. Must’ve just got home, he’d said. Then Kerry couldn’t have been anywhere in the vicinity when it happened; there was no sensible reason for her to have hung around an empty house.
A sudden roaring, echoing crash drowned out the other sounds: the roof of the house collapsing into the black- and white-foamed shell. Flames and firebrands burst up and outward through fresh billows of smoke. The firefighters manning the retardant hoses continued to pour foam over the house while the water pumpers worked on saving the barn, putting out the grass fires. Keeping the blaze contained so it didn’t spread into the surrounding timber was the important thing now.
All the onlookers were in their cars, backing and filling and jockeying into a stream that flowed uphill on Skyview Drive. I maneuvered into the middle of the pack. It crawled along; crawled along because the drivers up front were still rubbernecking. I had to resist a sharp impulse to lean on the horn, stick my head out the window, and howl at them to hurry the hell up.
Up over the hill at last, and then the line moved a little faster to the intersection with Ridge Hill Road. That was where they’d set up the roadblock: flares and another deputy, this one a woman, directing traffic from in front of her cruiser. Ridge Hill had become a parade route, only the big-eyed watchers were inside the passing cars. It took a couple more minutes before I was past the cruiser and able to turn northbound, but the driver of the car in front of me wouldn’t go over twenty-five despite a couple of horn taps from close behind. By the time I got to the Murray property driveway, I was soaked in sweat and the blood beat in my ears was like an extended jazz drum riff.
I slid the car into the parking area, spewing gravel, and ran up onto the front deck. Empty. I yanked open the screen door, twisted the knob. Locked, as I’d left it.
Kerry was still missing.
6
PETE BALFOUR
Nothing ever seemed to go right for him, nothing important anyways. He had no damn luck at all. Sometimes it seemed like the gods or whoever had had it in for him even before he come squalling out of the old lady. Ugly face, head like moss growing on a fuckin’ rock, no decent woman, no money except for what he could scrounge up by using his brains along with his muscles. And to top it off, Verriker’s Mayor of Asshole Valley tag. Wasn’t fair, dammit. Neither was what’d happened today. You couldn’t get anymore unfair than that.
First the woman showing up where she had no business being, fooling around his pickup, and then calling him Mr. Balfour. Maybe he shouldn’t of cut loose and choked her the way he had, but he couldn’t just let her walk away knowing who he was. Yeah, and how the hell had she known? He’d never seen her before in his life.
And then, just as bad, finding out Verriker was still alive.
Oh, that bitch Alice had got hers, all right, but she didn’t matter half as much. Verriker had plenty of luck, that was for sure. Always quit work right at five-thirty, always got home before Alice did, but no, not tonight. Tonight of all nights, he’d had to get stuck working late at Builders Supply on account of a shipment of PVC pipe coming in delayed and needing to be unloaded. How could you plan against something like that happening? Something like the woman happening? You couldn’t, nobody could. Just plain lousy luck.
Such a sweet plan, too. He couldn’t of had it worked out any better.
He knew the Verriker place well enough because he’d done some repair work out there a couple of years ago. No other homes close by, the woods running up along the hill on one side, the old logging road that nobody hardly ever used in the daytime. And no worries about the house being empty in the afternoon. Verriker and Alice both worked in town, her in the beauty shop, which was a laugh with a horse face like hers. No kids, no live-in relatives.
Easy as pie getting down there with his toolkit, then getting inside through the side door under the carport. Door opened straight into the kitchen, a wall switch just inside that turned on the kitchen light. He’d rigged the switch first, so it’d be sure to arc, then exposed the wires in the ceiling light fixture for good measure. Then he’d loosened the gas line connection behind the stove just enough to let the gas bleed out slow. That was all there was to it. In and out in less than fifteen minutes. Figuring Verriker might hit the switch right away even though it’d still be daylight when he got home, but if he didn’t, well, him or Alice would do it once it got on toward dark. Figuring either way, Verriker would be dead before nightfall.
Figuring wrong.
He’d found out Verriker was still alive and why when he walked into the Buckhorn. He wasn’t supposed to be in there tonight, or anywhere near Six Pines when the house blew up. Supposed to be in Placerville. What he’d planned to do was drive down there after he rigged the Verrikers’ kitchen and buy a few things at Home Depot so he’d have a good excuse for the trip in case he needed one. Eat an early supper and afterward hunt up a bar he’d never been in before, where nobody’d know him and he wouldn’t have to listen to any of that mayor crap. Then drive back to Green Valley late, long after the house and Verriker and Alice blew sky high.
But the woman wandering around the woods had screwed that up. Screwed it up royal.
By the time Balfour got done with her, he was too shaky to do anything except go home and guzzle three boilermakers, fast, to calm himself down. The drinks put him about half in the bag, and that was why he hadn’t gone to Placerville-he didn’t want to risk getting stopped by a county cop or the highway patrol, couldn’t afford to do anything that might call attention to himself. So he’d stayed put. Hell, why not? Didn’t really make any difference if he was home alone when Verriker got his. Slow gas leak, an arcing light switch, nobody would think it was anything but a freak accident. Accidents happen all the time, right?
The Verriker place was a couple of miles from his, so he hadn’t heard the explosion. Just as well. If he’d known right when the house blew, he’d of had an urge to drive over there, try to get a squint at the wreckage with Verriker burning up inside, and that wouldn’t of been smart with all the liquor in him. But he’d heard the siren on the fire truck from the up-valley VFD garage as it shot past, and it’d told him enough to put a smile on his face and give him half a boner. He’d waited an hour or so, and then drove slow and careful into town. Thinking on the way that he’d pretend not to know who or what had blown up because he’d been busy working at home; act real surprised and solemn when he heard the news.
They were talking about it in the Buckhorn, all right, Ramsey and Stivic and Alf the bartender, and Balfour cocked an ear and that was how he found out Verriker was still alive. Nobody said anything to him, not one word. They didn’t want nothing to do with him unless they could rag on him. It was like he was some goddamn stranger walked in off the street.