“Yes, I know who he is.”
“He’s telling me he’s with Tybal Crew, and they need to talk to me in private.”
“Here?”
“If it wasn’t important, and didn’t need to be private, Lindy wouldn’t be calling me at two in the morning.”
“I’ll get dressed.”
“I’ll keep them downstairs, out of your way.”
“I think if someone needs to come here at this hour to talk to you, I should hear what they have to say.”
“All right, then.” He put the phone back to his ear. “Is Ty sober?”
“He is now, or near enough.”
“Come on ahead.”
Shoving one hand through his hair, Brooks set the phone aside. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Even days ago, I wouldn’t have let anyone come here like this. But I don’t feel nervous, not really. I feel more curious. Should I make coffee?”
“It wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”
It pleased her to do it, to think that in her future with Brooks, late-night calls, making coffee for people in trouble, would be part of the routine.
She hoped she’d make a good cop’s wife.
Still, she was just as pleased to know that Bert, with orders to relax, lay in the corner of the kitchen. And she also took the precaution of turning her computer monitors to screen savers.
She wasn’t quite sure how to address two men who visited in the middle of the night, but when she took coffee out to the living room, Brooks let them in the front door.
And Lindy, long gray braid dangling down the back of a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt, led the way.
“Ma’am.” He bobbed his head. “I sure do apologize for disturbing you this time of night.” Then slapped a backfist into Tybal’s gut.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tybal responded. “Sorry to put you out.”
“I’m sure you have good reasons.”
“Damn well better,” Brooks muttered. “Jesus, Ty, you’re sweating Rebel Yell.”
“I’m sorry about that.” The tips of his ears went pink as he dipped his head. “There’s extenuating circumstances. I got my sixty-day chip, and now I gotta start over.”
“Everybody takes a slide, Ty,” Lindy told him. “Your first day starts now.”
“I’ve been going to meetings.” Ty shuffled his feet and looked to Abigail like a scruffy, shamefaced bear. “Lindy’s my sponsor. I called him. I know how I shoulda called him before I took the drink, but I called him.”
“Okay. Okay, sit down, the pair of you,” Brooks ordered. “And tell me what the hell you’re doing here at two in the damn morning.”
“The thing about it is, Brooks, I’m supposed to kill you.” Ty wrung his ham-sized hands. “I ain’t gonna.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Sit the hell down.”
“I didn’t know what to do.” Ty sat on the couch, hung his head. “Once I started thinking past the whiskey, I still didn’t know. So I called Lindy, and he got me sobered up some, talked it all through with me. And he said how we needed to come tell you. Maybe Lindy could tell you some. I don’t know how to start.”
“Drink some coffee, Ty, and I’ll get it rolling for you. Seems like Lincoln Blake’s wife left him.”
“When?” Brooks frowned as he picked up his own coffee. “I just saw her this morning.”
“At the church, yeah. I heard about that, expect most everybody has by now. That’s what did it, to my way of thinking. What I hear is after they got home, she just packed up a couple suitcases and walked out. Ms. Harris’s granddaughter Carly was out and about, saw her putting the suitcases in the car and asked if she was going on a trip. Ms. Blake says, just as calm as you please, how she’s leaving her husband and never coming back. Just got into the car and drove off. Seems like he holed up in his study the rest of the day.”
“That can’t have set well,” Brooks commented. “Blake’s pride already took a hard hit this morning.”
“Earned it, didn’t he? Anyways, Birdie Spitzer does some for them, and isn’t one for gossip, be why she’s hung on to the job, you ask me. She told me herself. I guess this was too juicy a grape not to squeeze some. Said there was some hollering, but there’s some hollering per usual in that house, from him, anyhow. Then the missus left, and he shut himself up. Birdie knocked on the door sometime later, to see if he wanted his supper, and he yelled out for her to get the hell out of his house and not come back.”
“Blake fired Birdie?” Surprised, Brooks raised his eyebrows. “She’s worked in that house for twenty years.”
“Twenty-four, she says, come August. Guess that’s another reason she carried the tale to the diner. She doesn’t know if she’s got a job or not, doesn’t know as she wants it, should he expect her back, even so.”
“Now he’s alone,” Abigail said quietly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t interrupt.”
“That’s all right, and you got the truth of it. He’s alone in that big house with his son in a cell and his wife gone. Speculating, I’d say he sat and brooded some on that, and came to the conclusion the reason for his situation rested right here on Brooks.”
“That’s an inaccurate conclusion based on faulty criteria,” she began. “Mr. Blake’s conclusion, I mean, not yours.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lindy grinned. “That’s a pretty way of saying he’s full of shit, if you don’t mind plain speaking.”
“No, I don’t. Yes, he’s full of shit.”
Brooks took a sip of coffee, shifted his attention to Ty. “How much did he pay you to kill me, Ty?”
“Oh, well, God,” Abigail managed, and surged to her feet.
“Relax, honey, Ty isn’t going to hurt anybody. Are you, Ty?”
“No, sir. No, ma’am. I come to tell you. Lindy said that was best, so here I am.”
“Tell me what happened with Blake.”
“Okay. See, he called me out there, to the house. I ain’t never been in there, and it’s sure something. Like out of a movie. I thought maybe he had some work for me, and I could sure use it. He had me come right into that study of his, and sit right down in this big leather chair. Offered me a drink. I said no, thanks. But he just poured it, set it there beside me. My brand, too. I got a weakness, Brooks.”
“I know it.”
“But I haven’t had one drop since you arrested me, God’s truth, not till tonight. I was kinda nervous, sitting there in that fancy house. He kept saying how one drink wouldn’t hurt me. I was a man, wasn’t I? I didn’t take it.”
“All right, Ty.”
“But he kept saying it, and saying how he had some work, but he didn’t hire pussies, and what was that word I told you, Lindy?”
“Eunuchs. Fucker—sorry, more plain speaking.”
“I agree with your opinion,” Abigail told him, then looked at Ty. “He tied your weakness to your manhood, and tied both to your desire for work. It was cruel and manipulative.”
“It made me mad, but it felt true when he said it. How you tried to make me feel less of a man, Brooks, and how you humiliated me, and castrated—he said you’d castrated me, and it made me feel bad. Mad, too. And that glass of Rebel Yell was right there. I only meant to have the one, just to prove I could. But I had another, and I guess another after that.”
Ty’s eyes filled, and when he lowered his head, his shoulders shook.
Abigail rose, left the room.
“I just kept drinking, ’cause the glass was right there, and it never seemed empty. I’m an alcoholic, and I know I can’t have one drink and not take another.”
Carrying a tray of cookies, Abigail came back in. She set the plate on the table.
As he watched her take one, pass it to a teary Tybal, Brooks thought he loved her more than breath.
“He was cruel to you,” she said. “He should be ashamed of what he did to you.”
“I kept drinking, and getting mad. He kept talking about what Brooks’d done, making me look weak and gutless in front of my own wife, how he was trying to run this town into the ground. Look how Brooks’d framed his son. Something had to be done about it.
“He kept talking, and I kept drinking. He said what was needed was somebody with guts and balls. He asked if I had guts, if I had balls. Goddamn right I do, that’s what I said. Maybe I’d just go kick your ass, Brooks.”