What the hell was he gonna do with her?
He didn’t know yet, couldn’t decide. Should’ve finished what he’d started on the logging road, but somehow, he just couldn’t do it. Smacking a woman around when she deserved it, that was one thing; choking the life out of her with your bare hands, that was a whole different bag of cats.
He might not of grabbed her at all if she’d hadn’t called him by his name. Might’ve kept his cool, let her go her way while he went his. So she’d seen his truck up there, seen him with his toolkit, so what? Real good chance she’d never have tied him to the Verriker place blowing up later on. But calling him Mr. Balfour, knowing who he was… this black rage had come over him and the next thing he knew, he was choking her.
Well, one thing for sure: he couldn’t just let her go. Maybe he ought to let Bruno have her. No, Jesus, he couldn’t do a thing like that, not to any woman. Crazy idea and he wasn’t crazy, except like a fox. Besides, then he’d have to clean up the bloody mess afterward.
Some other way. Had to be some other way…
The dog was yammering for food. Balfour stopped to move the chain on the cable strung along the yard so Bruno could roam closer to the shed. That’d make sure the woman stayed put until he figured things out.
In the house, he scooped up a bowlful of kibble and took it outside to the pit bull. Needed to put food into his empty gut, too, but he didn’t like to cook, never was no good at it, and he didn’t keep much in the house except snack stuff, potato chips and salted peanuts. Which reminded him-he was almost out of beer. Have to remember to stop on the way home tonight and pick up a couple more six-packs.
He didn’t feel like doing any work today, but there wasn’t no way around it. It was already the first of July, the big Independence Day celebration at the fairgrounds just three days off. Concession repairs were mostly done, but there was still a lot of work left to do on the men’s and women’s crappers. He’d have to push Eladio and the half-wit and himself to get the job finished on time.
Balfour drove into Six Pines, stopped at the cafe for a quick breakfast. Goddamn Jolene gave him a “Good morning, Mr. Mayor” look when he sat down-made him feel even meaner. Why couldn’t everybody just leave him the hell alone?
He cocked an ear to the conversations around him. Couple of guys talking about the explosion, but all they were saying was what a terrible accident it’d been, and what a shame Alice had to die like that. Yeah, shame. Nothing about where Verriker was. Nothing about the tourist woman, either. Husband must’ve reported her missing last night sometime. But the law wouldn’t be out looking yet. Took time to get a search organized, and anyhow, they wouldn’t have no reason to go looking around his place a long way from where he’d grabbed her.
When Jolene served him his eggs, Balfour got her talking about the explosion by pretending to be sorry himself about Alice. Then he asked, “What’s Ned gonna do now?” real solemn, like he gave a fat crap. “I mean, where’s he gonna be living? Anybody know?”
“Well, he spent last night with Frank Ramsey and his wife. But they don’t have enough room for him to stay on there.”
“Got relatives down in El Dorado Hills, don’t he?”
“A brother. But they don’t get along.”
“Somebody’ll find a place for him here, then.”
“Sure. He’s got a lot of friends in Six Pines. There’s talk Jim Jensen might let him stay at his house for a while.”
“That right?” Wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Jensen was the owner of Builders Supply, had the biggest house in town. Full of people as it was-Jensen had a wife and three kids. Verriker’d be hard to get at there.
Jolene flashed him the mayor look again. “If that don’t work out, why’n’t you offer to take him in? You got plenty of room at your place.”
“Comes to that, maybe I will.”
He finished his eggs, paid the bill without leaving a tip. On his way to the fairgrounds, he played around with the idea of doing what Jolene’d suggested, offering to let Verriker stay at his place. Get him there and then set up something to take care of him and the woman at the same time, some other kind of accident. Seemed like a pretty good notion at first, but then he knew it wouldn’t work. Verriker accept an invitation from him? No way. They’d never been friends, couldn’t stand each other; Verriker’d know something was fishy soon as the offer was made. The accident idea was no good, either. Two fatals coming one on top of the other, both involving Verriker… make people suspicious, maybe start the county law looking his way. Besides, what kind of accident could he rig with Verriker and a missing tourist woman? And keep himself out of it with an alibi at the same time? No kind he could think of.
Okay, another accident was out. What other way was there to finish Verriker? Never mind the woman, he’d worry about her later. Couldn’t just shoot the bastard… yeah, he could, blow his head off and then make the body disappear. No, that was too risky. He had to come up with something foolproof. And soon. He wouldn’t have no peace as long as Verriker was still alive.
Eladio’s rattletrap Dodge was parked between the fairgrounds’ restrooms and the portable storage unit where he kept his power tools and other job-site materials locked up. The unit’s door was open, Eladio and the half-wit already working. You couldn’t trust most Mexs, but Eladio had worked for him off and on for years-Balfour hadn’t had any qualms about letting him have a key.
He was still feeling mean, so he ragged on them some, told them to quit dogging it even though they weren’t. The kid showed his smarmy grin, but kept his mouth shut-good thing for him he did. Two of them were doing the last of the fixes on the two big booths that sold beer, inside out of the sun, so he got his hand tools and a couple of sheets of already-sized and cut plywood, and went to work on the partitions between the toilets in the women’s can. Already hot closed up in there; he was sweating like a pig before long.
Some days he could work off a hangover. Not today. His head ached like a bitch and his gut felt as if it was boiling, getting ready to toss up his breakfast any minute. Couldn’t keep this up all day, not without a break and a little hair of the dog-two or three beers and a double shot of Jack. Take an early lunch, go on over to the bar at Freedom Lanes. The bowling alley was closer than the Miners Club, and he’d had his fill of the Buckhorn.
He was thinking about that, outside using his table saw to cut another section of plywood, when Tarboe showed up.
The faggot went to check on the concession booths first, so he finished the cut and took the piece back into the women’s can. He was fitting it into place when Tarboe came prancing in. Not a drop of sweat on him, not a wrinkle in his clothes. Suit and tie in the middle of summer, for chrissake. Like he was somebody important… a lousy small-town fairgrounds manager.
“You and your men don’t seem to be making much progress, Balfour.”
“Then why don’t you pick up a hammer and some nails and give us a hand?”
Tarboe’s nose twitched like he was smelling something bad. “Why do you always have to be so disagreeable?”
“Why do you always have to come around biting my ass when I’m trying to work?”
“The mayor-”
“Don’t start with that mayor shit!”
“If you’d just listen before flying off the handle. I was about to say the mayor, Mayor Donaldson, called me this morning. He’s concerned that the work won’t be done by the Fourth.”
“How many times I got to tell you it will be?”
“Well, it doesn’t look that way to me,” Tarboe said. “If you’d started this project when you were supposed to, and worked a full, forty-hour week instead of whenever you felt like it, it would have been done long since.”
“So you said maybe fifty times already.”
“You know we’re expecting between fifteen hundred and two thousand people on Friday. The rows of portable toilets won’t be enough, we need all the facilities to be available.”