"Snatched out of the yard. That points to someone she knew. You didn't recognize the man's voice, so it was probably a two-person team. Children are more likely to be lured away by women. They feel safer."
"I don't recall anyone telling me that before. In any case, everyone knew her. She was friendly like that. We all were. My wife and I, back when we were together. This was a nice town, or so we all thought. Sarah didn't agree, but she was growing more fond of Hangtree as time went on."
"Sarah?" Crease asked.
Burke's head cocked, like it was a name he hadn't heard in so long that he didn't recognize it despite just having said it. "Yes, Sarah, my older sister. Older by nearly four years. Mary's aunt. She was living with us at the time. Recuperating. She'd suffered through a broken relationship."
"Was she home that day?"
"No. No, she wasn't. She'd gone to spend the day in the park. To read and relax." Burke was clearly speaking by rote, repeating what his sister had told him, word for word.
"Can I speak with her?"
"No, I'm afraid not. It wouldn't be worth your time, you see. She's… unresponsive."
Crease waited for Burke to tell him more, but the man didn't continue. His energetic burst of speech had come to a standstill. The man's eyes were now glazed. He was going even deeper. Crease said, "I don't understand."
"My sister has had a great deal of upset in her life. She loved Mary so much, almost like she was her own daughter, really. When we lost her, she… well, she collapsed. She's never recovered, I'm told."
"Where can I find her?"
Burke's face tightened, his features folding in on themselves. "I don't want you visiting and bothering her."
"Who was the man from the broken relationship? What other upset did she have?"
"I don't want you to see her and I don't wish to discuss this any longer. I think it's time for you to leave."
Crease waited. He watched Burke wrestling with himself, thinking of his dead daughter, his absent wife, all of the pain throbbing under his face, pulsing, like it would shatter his flesh and come flying through the shards at any second. "What other upset?" Crease asked.
"As I said, a broken love affair. We've all had them. Are you going to tell me you haven't?"
"No."
"Then, it's settled," Burke said.
"What's settled?"
"This discussion. It's over. I hope you understand, surely you do, but quite simply I don't wish to speak with you any longer. There's nothing you can do for me. Nothing that can be done for Mary. Or your father. He's dead and good riddance to him. To think I stood in awe of him once, in my own home. How pitiful, how foolish." He reached over and drew the now dirty ashtray closer to him, pulled it into his lap like it was a child. "You've accomplished absolutely nothing. Now, leave. Please leave."
Crease stood and walked out the door.
He thought, Okay, that was easy.
Chapter Ten
He was in a downtown bar parking lot, at a payphone trying to call Joan, when he heard them walk up around him. They coughed and kinda muttered, sniffing loudly, scuffling their feet. A sure sign of hesitation.
Crease sighed and put the phone back in its cradle and turned to meet them.
There was Jimmy Devlin and three other guys who might as well have been Jimmy. All of them cut from the same colorless cloth, ex-jocks who'd gone to flab but still had a lot of brawn. Mooks who'd discovered too late that running touchdowns might get them laid by a cheerleader but it wasn't going to get them anywhere far in the world.
The disappointment scrawled in their faces was offset by a perpetual confusion, like they still didn't understand where their lives had taken the left turn. Forty years down the line, they'd still be wearing that expression in their coffins.
These guys, Crease imagined them taking out their old trophies, hissing hot breath against them, and wiping them down with a greater gentleness than they'd ever shown their wives or kids. He had nothing but disdain for these kinds of mooks because in an adjacent universe he was one of them.
He still had Jimmy's knife sheathed on his belt. He drew it and held it out to him, handle-first. "Hey, you want this back? It's okay, I've got another one now."
Jimmy-all four Jimmys-stared at Crease like they didn't know what to make of him. They had no idea how dangerous this was yet, how fast things could go nuclear. Funny how many guys walk around looking mean, flexing what muscle they have left, doing their best to appear brutal, but then act all baffled when somebody takes them seriously.
He saw the bulge of a. 32 under one of their jackets. It wasn't in a holster, just stuck in the guy's tight inside pocket like it wasn't any big deal. If he had to draw it in a hurry, he'd be dead before he got his hand on it.
The others weren't carrying. They had no leader. Each one of them was waiting for the other to make the first move.
Jimmy Devlin didn't move to take his knife, so Crease put it back on his belt. He thought about playing around with the butterfly blade for a minute, see what kind of impression it made on these idiots, the speed he could work it, but he didn't want to go to the trouble. It would be easier and more practical to nip this as quick as possible.
Jimmy Devlin's nose was taped up, but Crease knew he hadn't broken it. Jimmy actually took a step backward, trying to center himself, one fist covering his solar plexus to ward off another punch there.
The other Jimmys, now a step out in front, didn't know which way to move, forward or back. They shuffled around some more.
Maybe Crease hadn't come back to town because of his father. Maybe the girl's murder didn't mean as much to him as it should have. Maybe it was just for this kind of scene right here that he'd bolted north. Because no matter how old you got, how much you saw or did, how many children you had or medals you stowed, the adolescent pain clung to your back like a clawed animal.
Jimmy pointed a finger at Crease and said, "You! You screwing my girl?"
"You want me to?" Crease asked.
"No! What kind of sick question is that?"
Sometimes they were too dumb to even toy with. "You boys sure you want to do this?"
"Do what?" one of the others said, and he cracked his knuckles. The rest chuckled and bared their teeth in befuddled, bitter smiles, trying to ramp themselves up.
The taped nose caused Jimmy Devlin's voice to go high and nasal. He sounded like his testicles hadn't descended yet. "Where'd you come from, huh? Why are you here? I want to know why you're here."
"I wish I could answer that, I really do," Crease told him. "But the truth is, I'm not certain myself. Let's just say I needed to see Hangtree again. And there's some stuff about my old man. And kidnappers. And a serious drug dealer and a bent sheriff. And a dead six-year-old girl. And money."
"What money?" one of the other Jimmys asked, his eyes wide.
The setting sun dropped heavily from the sky, the silhouettes of distant stands of pine and maple raised against its face. Night swarmed in around them, the stars appearing in great moving washes like a black ocean stirring as a storm approached. Wind swept across the street and blew bronze leaves with slashes of fiery ember along the walks. Inside the bar things were starting to crank, the dull thrum of music and belligerent laughter rising and falling in swells. Front porch wind chimes tinkled and tolled up and down the roads, all across the neighborhood. He didn't hear any children laughing. He seemed to want to hear children laughing. He was getting maudlin again.
Jimmy Devlin said, "You aren't from here, are you?"
"I could read you the license plate of your orange '84 Camaro, if you want. But you probably don't remember it, do you, Jimmy?"
"Christ, you do know me."