A part of him very much wanted to clean up the jigsaw pieces. He thought maybe he was losing some of his edge in Hangtree.
Edwards was enjoying his nap. He cooed like a baby. It took a while for him to wake up.
Crease said, "I'm on the job. You're not about to bully me. You want to file charges, you do it. You want to come at me some other way, that's fine too. But that's for later. Right now I want to know about Mary Burke. You were there the day of the switch."
For a second it looked like Edwards might try to muscle his way through, like he was going to dive across the room again. But then he shifted, grunted in pain, visibly deflated and sank back in the chair.
He said, "I was there. The switch never happened."
"You were going to pull a job and grab the cash. You were staked out in the woods, keeping an eye on my old man. You were both dirty and had the same idea to bounce the fifteen grand."
Edwards said nothing.
"My father hid the cash in the mill. Somebody cut the girl loose and plucked the money, probably while he was dozing or too drunk to notice. You got impatient after all those hours and showed at the door. You both tried to ice each other and the girl got it instead."
"I didn't want to kill him. I-"
The way he said it got Crease curious. "What?"
Edwards had some trouble getting it out. He tried to sit up in the chair but he hurt too much. He let out another groan through his clenched teeth. Whatever he was about to say was coming up from down deep.
"What?" Crease repeated.
"He taught me everything! He was my friend! Don't you know that? Don't you see that, you shit? My mentor." Edwards' feet bounced against the foot rest like an angry child's. "I wasn't there to steal the money, I was looking out for him! I knew what he was planning. I could see it in his eyes, the way he was walking around the office. I didn't want him to make the worst mistake of his life. Fifteen g's, it was nothing. All he had to do was lay off the sauce and get himself organized. But he was too drunk most of the time. He wouldn't listen to me, couldn't see the only way to get out was to step up and clean up. It was easier for him to hatch a stupid plan on the spur of the moment. He snatched the money and was too wasted to even cover his zone. I walked in to check on him and he got off one shot and killed Mary Burke. I thought he was ready to shoot me too, to cover it up, and I fired a warning shot over his head just to settle him down, get that fucking notion right out of his head."
Crease looked away. He spied the dog in pieces again. All those years of torment because Edwards felt angry and ashamed at being let down by the old man. In a way they were brothers. Jesus.
"I don't know what happened to that money," the sheriff said. "Nobody does."
"Somebody does," Crease said.
"So that's what you want?" Edwards let his smile out, showing off all those teeth again. It was still the movie star's leer, he hadn't lost that. His voice was starting to go out, weak from Crease having jabbed him in the throat. He swallowed more beer. "That fifteen grand? Just like your father."
You think of a little six-year-old girl and you can't imagine that a bullet could get inside that tiny body and actually fragment into even smaller pieces. Fact is, a little kid, with soft bones, the bullet races around ricocheting for a while until the kid's cut apart and there's hardly anything left of the slug.
We're not going home, Teddy. We're never going home again.
Crease felt his blood rushing even as his face broke out in sweat. In seconds his hair was dripping and he had to mop his brow and upper lip. He started to pant and the moisture ran down his neck.
Edwards said, "What the hell is wrong with you? You sick? Have a bite of whiskey."
"Shh. Let's not get distracted. Who were your suspects?"
"We only had one. Your father."
Crease sat back and lit another cigarette. "He didn't do it."
"I'm still not so sure about that."
"I am. He wanted the cash but he didn't score the girl. It just fell into his lap." Crease let out a trail of smoke, looking up at Reb in the photo, smiling and looking happy, holding Edwards' hand. They made a good couple. "Family enemies?"
"None."
"Business partner who wanted to cash out but couldn't?"
"Burke ran the hardware store. Still does. No partners. No unhappy ex-employees. We did our job. I did my job."
"Background checks on the family?"
"You're not listening to me. We did our jobs. There were no outstanding debts. Wife didn't have a boyfriend who might want easy rent off the husband." The sheriff's expression became a bit more sure and arrogant. "And it wasn't me."
His chin was up, dignified, daring Crease to judge him. Not knowing that Crease was a bent cop himself, and had seen a lot of his brothers in blue pocket a hell of a lot more than fifteen g's. It almost made him laugh.
He began to cool down. He lit another butt.
"What time did the 'nappers say they'd do the trade?"
"They said to get there by one p.m. and wait. Your father said he'd handle it alone, didn't want to endanger the girl." Edwards couldn't help scowling. "Didn't want any backup. If you're really on the job you know that breaks every rule there is."
Crease knew it all right. "What made you bust into the mill when you did? My father said six hours went by. Why'd you get up right then?"
"It was closer to four. He got there late. He told everybody he arrived at the mill at noon, but it was after one, he'd already missed the chance to get any kind of a drop. He stopped at a liquor store first to load up, left the satchel full of money that Burke had given him right in the passenger seat. I had a bad feeling right from the beginning and I was watching him."
Edwards began to tremble and Crease handed him the Dewars to help calm his nerves. All of this rage, and Edwards was a near carbon copy of Crease's old man. He watched the sheriff take a good bite, saw his eyes roll up in pleasure and relief. Edwards let out a deeply satisfied, nearly carnal sigh, the same way Crease's father used to do it.
"It was getting dark. I had parked back on one of the trails and left my flashlight in the car. I wanted to make an on-site evaluation of the situation. Make sure your old man hadn't passed out, check and see if the kidnappers had already slipped away."
"You didn't want him to blow the collar."
"That's right. I wanted the girl back. I didn't want him to botch the set-up and ruin his life. But he did."
Crease couldn't get back into that now. He needed clarity. "Why'd you walk in the front door? That seems stupid to me."
"The sun was to my back. I wanted anybody in the mill to be blind. I wanted the perp but I didn't want to get shot for it. By the 'nappers or your old man."
"Why didn't either of you see the girl until the last second?"
Edwards had nothing to say to that. His expression twisted again. Crease understood why he would've blamed his father entirely for everything that happened. The missed opportunity, the screwy rendezvous, the dead girl. His mentor had let him down. He was green, and he'd done the right thing the wrong way.
"You're not going to solve this," Edwards told him. "Would you want me to?" Crease asked.
"Hell yes, clear the books for me. But this one's long gone, and your father was a part of it."
"You too."
"Only because I couldn't save her."
He knew Edwards was right.
He'd never get to the end of it. He'd run around town chasing his tail, like he did when he was a kid. It was a holding pattern. He wasn't a gold shield detective, had never worked homicide. He could trip over the 'nappers five times in an afternoon and wouldn't know it.