Poisonfeather (Gibson Vaughn #2)(50)

“From the mouths of babes,” Old Charlie said and threw the shot back.

Last call in West Virginia was three a.m., but the bar crowd began to taper off around one. Gibson nursed a beer and watched the bartender work. Up close, there was no doubt: she was Chelsea Merrick. Although here customers called her Lea. For the price of a shot and a beer, Old Charlie confided that her last name was Regan and that she’d lived above the bar the last two years.

Gibson nodded, thinking that Charles Merrick was a bastard to pull his daughter into his world this way. She was risking jail to help him hide and manage his stolen money, but family was hard to outrun sometimes. Gibson understood that. Or maybe that apple had fallen and rolled right up against the tree. He checked himself—he shouldn’t go and get sentimental about her just because she was tough and smart and took no shit from any of the men at the bar, all of whom stared openly at her ass whenever she walked by.

By one thirty, the empty seats at the bar outnumbered the occupied ones. The back room had cleared out except for one of the pool tables. SportsCenter played on all the televisions, and the muscular bartender—Margo—had disappeared into the office to do paperwork. Gibson guessed that Margo owned the place, the way everyone treated her. He didn’t think he’d given away that he knew Lea’s real name, but she definitely didn’t like him sitting there. She kept her distance and served him quickly. Of course, just being in a regulars-only bar like this was enough to raise suspicion. Each time he finished a beer, she asked the same unfriendly question.

“Anything else?”

“I’ll take another. Thanks.”

Now his friendly tone met with a blank stare. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

To his left, Old Charlie snored peacefully, face on the bar, beside an untouched shot and beer. Gibson gave him a long look before turning back to Lea.

“Yeah, be a shame if anyone got overserved.”

She slapped his bill down and left him to it. He chuckled to himself. There was no doubt about it—he liked her.

Swonger sat down beside him and ordered a beer. Lea served him, but grudgingly.

“I told you to text me,” Gibson whispered.

“Been trying. It’s like 1999 up here. Can’t get a signal nowhere.” Swonger gulped his beer before leaning into Gibson’s ear. “Anyway, I got him. Jerome Parker. Lives up at a shitty little development twenty minutes east.”

“Is he alone?”

“Only car his. But I didn’t knock and take his particulars.”

“Show me.”

“My beer . . .”

“Finish it and let’s go.”

Swonger looked pained. “Dog, I been up in my car for three hours watching some mook’s house while you been chillin’ here eyeballing the talent? And I got to pay for my own beer? That ain’t right.”

Man had a point. Gibson threw an extra five on top of his bill, and they headed for the door.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


Jerome Parker’s place did indeed belong to a shitty little development. An aspiring real-estate tycoon had cleared a few acres of land and thrown up rows of narrow vertical town houses that alternated in color starkly between a neon custard and mud. It was a new enough development that the trees along Parker’s street were only saplings, half of them brown and dying. Roughly one-third of the properties were unoccupied, and the wild, tangled lawns gave the neighborhood a desolate, uninhabited feel. Swonger pointed out a custard-colored townhome at the end of the block.

“Coupla vacant units back that way,” Swonger said. “If you maybe looking to upgrade.”

Gibson acknowledged the insult with his eyes and checked his phone. One bar. He tried making an outgoing call, but it wouldn’t go through. Satisfied, he created a new contact on his phone, leaving it blank.

“Is there an outgoing message on your voice mail?” he asked.

“Just the phone-company one.”

“Good. Put it on silent.” He added Swonger’s number to the new contact and saved it as “Lea Regan.”

Gibson wondered how Swonger would react if he knew Merrick’s daughter was tending bar in town. Could he be counted on to play things cool? Gibson didn’t think he would take that bet, but beneath all the flagrant stupidity, Swonger was plenty smart. Gibson would be able to keep the truth from Swonger for only so long. Once Swonger figured things out for himself, their fragile truce would be shot.

“Let’s go have a chat with our friend.”

“Cool. What you want me to do?”

“Follow my lead. Back me up. Don’t talk.”

“Why you gotta be such an asshole?”

The gray-blue flicker of a television seeped out under the blinds of Jerome Parker’s downstairs windows. Gibson rapped on the door hard, waited, knocked again, and when he heard the television go silent, took a step back. The door opened on a chain, and Jerome Parker regarded them through the crack.

“The hell you doing banging on my door?”

“Lea sent us.”

“I don’t know you.”

“No reason you would. I’m Quine. That’s Swonger.”

“And I’m Danny Glover. How come I never heard of you?”

“What makes you think she tells you more than you need to know?”