“Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“You’re supposed to listen,” Walt said. “Your former employers would love nothing more than to take over this case. For the time being, my phone is off. And, if you noticed, the radio’s off too.”
“Of course I noticed. I notice everything. Don’t test me, son.”
“This whole thing is going to test you, Dad, because it’s my way or the highway this time. You can follow or you can stay behind, but you can’t lead. There’s a system in place, a system I put in place. The arrangements have been made. You can badger me all you want, guilt-trip me… Have at it. But I won’t budge. We’re going into the backcountry. All your criticism about me being a hick sheriff, well, welcome to Hicksville, Dad. You get to see it up close and personal now. I’m going in and I’m getting Kevin back. We’re getting him before the Bureau even hits the ground, because, once they do-”
“I know. I know,” Jerry said. “I was the one warned you about the SAC, remember?” He looked tempted to say more, to challenge Walt, but he didn’t.
Then the silence set in, a wall rising between them. And where once Walt would have done anything to tear that wall down, including acquiesce, this time he did not. Instead, hands gripping the wheel, he bit his tongue.
They stopped by a buddy of Walt’s and loaded a raft onto the roof. They bypassed a mile and a half’s worth of traffic backed up from the bridge by going off-road, arriving at the bike-path bridge that still remained under Brandon’s control.
“How long?” Walt asked his deputy out his window.
“Another fifteen or twenty. Almost there.”
“Good. You’re coming with me,” Walt said. “Turn it over to someone.”
They stopped for five minutes at Brandon’s trailer.
“She inside?” Jerry asked.
“Probably,” Walt answered. “But please don’t…”
Jerry climbed out of the Cherokee and went inside the trailer to speak with Gail. Walt felt like driving off and leaving his father in the company of the woman he thought of as his ex-wife and the deputy she now was sleeping with.
Instead, he waited it out.
Brandon threw some stuff in the back of the Cherokee, and, when Jerry returned, offered his hand over the backseat. But Jerry wouldn’t accept it. Brandon caught Walt’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Walt aimed the mirror at the ceiling.
“Did you call Willie?” Walt asked Brandon.
“He’ll have three of his best saddled and waiting for us, a fourth with a pack saddle. We can borrow his Dodge, a dually that can haul an eight-horse, no problem.”
Walt passed a topographical map back to Brandon. “I’ve circled Mitchum’s Creek Ranch. You will figure a route while I speak to Remy. I left Sumner at the office. He’s not going to like my bedside manner of leaving him in the lurch. But it is what it is.”
“And Remy?”
“Is worth a half hour. Maybe we’ll learn something.”
Jerry glanced in his son’s direction. If he had something to say, he kept it to himself. Walt hoped some of his father’s toxic anger might transfer over to Brandon for breaking up his marriage, although that was asking a lot.
“So, Brandon…” Jerry finally said.
“Yes, sir?”
“What if she’d been your wife?”
Walt wished he hadn’t moved the mirror. Sometimes he loved his father.
66
Walt took a seat opposite Remy on the brown velour, horseshoe-shaped bench at the far back of the Mobile Command RV. A collapsible table separated the two, but to Walt it felt as if they were sitting too close. On the table were a digital voice recorder, a legal pad, a stack of Post-its, and two paper cups of Tully’s coffee. There was a black-and-white sticker on the cups advertising KB’S BURRITOS.
Walt spoke into the recorder, providing time, location, and both their names. The formality won Remy’s full attention. He seemed ready to say something but didn’t.
“Do you understand why we’re here, Mr. Remy?” Walt asked.
Remy adjusted his left leg, bound in a straight position by the cast, sticking it out to the point where it rubbed against Walt.
“I’ve been detained. Believe me, it will all be straightened out shortly.”
“My nephew’s gone missing, along with a hotel guest. A plane has been stolen… a private jet.”
Remy cocked his head. If he was acting, he was doing a good job of it: he seemed genuinely surprised to hear any of this.
“Let me just lay it out for you,” Walt said.
“I’m not talking without a lawyer present.”
“So noted. And, yet, here we are…”
“Yes, here we are…”
Walt stared at Remy’s leg, then looked him in the eye.
“Slipped in the shower,” Remy said.
“Yes, I’d heard that. Your possessions were passed along to me by the hospital. I returned them to you, as you’ll recall.”
“And I never thanked you properly.”
“You’re welcome.”
Walt looked down at the man’s cast again.
“Must hurt.”
“Comes and goes.” He winced a grin. “The painkillers help.”
“We’re a sports-oriented community,” Walt said. “Skiing in the winter, all sorts of stuff in the summer: biking, hiking, tennis…”
“So, you’re the Chamber of Commerce, all of a sudden…”
“We see an inordinate number of broken bones here, have some of the best orthopedists in the country… A little town of five thousand… Amazing, really.”
“Guess I was lucky I slipped here,” Remy said, “but sure doesn’t feel that way.”
“We know it wasn’t an accident. Your doctor and your radiologist confirmed that it’s blunt trauma. We know someone did this to you.”
“Not true.”
“And I know you’re lying.”
Remy stared straight at Walt.
“We know the Adams bottles are forgeries… fakes… counterfeit… whatever term applies to wine. You can feign shock, continue to issue denials, but the fact is, we have conclusive scientific proof.”
“Impossible!”
“We conducted tests on the bottles earlier this afternoon.”
Remy grimaced. Perhaps he had known all along. “Ms. Finch…” he began.
Walt didn’t comment.
“She’s a reckless, overly ambitious amateur, Sheriff. I wouldn’t go taking her word-”
“Some kind of sound-wave test can determine the alignment of the fractures in the glass. It wasn’t performed by Ms. Finch.”
Remy didn’t appear to be breathing.
“Fakes,” Walt said. “I’m operating under the assumption you knew as much. That, in fact, you’re responsible. Ms. Finch is evidently quite the researcher. She believes she can help the FBI connect the dots.”
“A graduate student.” Spoken with a convulsive disdain.
“Makes my theory of insurance fraud all the more credible. Which brings us to the death of Mr. Malone and the attempted theft of the bottles, which brings into question one Christopher Cantell and his associates, one Roger McGuiness and one Matthew Salvo. You with me?”
Remy pursed his lips.
“Here’s where it gets a little dodgy for you, Mr. Remy…”
Walt drank half the coffee in two swigs. He was starving, couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.
“Cantell was not only behind stealing the wine, he stole the jet… the missing Learjet with two teenagers aboard, a young girl and my nephew. That means you, Mr. Remy, are in all likelihood not only connected to the death of Mr. Malone but also to the theft of that jet and the kidnapping of those kids. You, Mr. Cantell, and the others are all in serious trouble.”
For a third time, Walt looked down at Remy’s leg.
“Let’s say,” he continued, “ just for speculation’s sake, that you had nothing to do with the jet…”