The Big Dark Sky (24)
The handsome low-slung single-story house, set back from and above the lake, was of native stone, with a dark slate roof, large windows to capture the views, and a deep veranda. On the uplands beyond the residence, evergreen forests rose dark and primeval, though the five acres or so immediately surrounding the house were reserved for broad lawns and numerous willows in groups.
A Ford F-150 pickup stood in front of an array of four garage doors. He slotted the Range Rover beside it.
As Wyatt climbed the three stone steps to the teak-floored veranda, a lanky man in boots, jeans, and a denim shirt rose from one of the bentwood rocking chairs. His face had been weathered by sun and wind into the image of stalwart moral character suitable to be the lead of any Western novel by Louis L’Amour.
“Mr. Rider, is it?” he asked.
As they shook hands, Wyatt said, “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Potter. Liam O’Hara says whatever I might need, you’ll provide it.”
“If you ask for a genie in a lamp, sir, I suspect I can maybe get at least the lamp.”
Vance Potter, the manager of Rustling Willows and the adjacent properties that Liam had acquired, did not reside here, but lived with his wife in the town of Buckleton, which lay about nine miles to the south. He used contracted services and local labor to ensure that everything was maintained in perfect order.
“Fact is,” Wyatt said, fishing a business card from his wallet and giving it to Potter, “all I want is privacy and quiet for a few days. Even if you had a genie in a lamp, I’d pass on the three wishes. I know how that always turns out.”
“Nothin’ gotten just by wishin’ for it is worth havin,’” Potter agreed. “So the idea is you come here to the Great Empty to relax?”
The way he phrased the question and a sly glint in his gray eyes suggested that he might be in the habit of regarding official stories as just that—stories.
Wyatt could foresee nothing he might need from Potter other than the keys and an orientation tour of the house, but it was wise to be on the best of terms with the man, which meant being honest with him from the start. “Actually, I’m a private detective.”
Pleased by that admission, Potter smiled. “Googled you to see what’s what. Internet’s full of lies, but it says you’re thirty-nine, been a dick—in the best sense of the word—since you were twenty-one. Way I understand, first thing you did once you got yourself a PI license was investigate the livin’ hell out of your parents and expose the operation they were runnin’ where they were bilkin’ old people out of their life savins.”
Wyatt said, “‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.’”
Potter shook his head. “Speakin’ for my own self, give me a righteous child, and if maybe I deserve thanks, I’m sure I’ll get some. I won’t ask what you’re here to investigate, but if it’s me, then you go straight at it like a dog with a bone.”
“It’s not you. But if it was, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Potter laughed. “I half wish it was me. Seems like you’d be interestin’ to hang around with.”
The ranch house was large, about seven thousand square feet, but it pretty much explained itself. The pantry, the refrigerator, and the bathrooms had been stocked for the O’Hara family’s visit the previous week. Nothing more was needed. The tour took ten minutes.
Potter said, “Our Mr. O’Hara intends to upgrade things, all the mechanical systems, remodel with nicer finishes, though only after visitin’ a few times and gettin’ a sense of what’s needed. You ask me, she’s a pretty sweet house as she is.”
As Wyatt accompanied the property manager to his truck, he said, “Since you’ve been tending to this place, have you had any unusual experiences?”
Pausing with his hand on the driver’s door, Potter said, “A word like ‘unusual’ covers a lot of territory.”
After a hesitation, Wyatt changed it up: “What if, instead of ‘unusual,’ I said strange?”
The property manager was not a man who broadcast his thoughts with unguarded expressions. He met Wyatt’s eyes for a long moment before he said, “Never did see any Bigfoot runnin’ across a meadow nor no flyin’ saucer comin’ down out of the moon. But once in a while . . .” He turned his head to survey the lake, the land, the stables. When he went on, his voice had a solemn edge. “Maybe ’cause there’s bad history to the place—tragedies, you know—maybe when I remember them, it juices my imagination. But once in a while . . .”
When Potter fell quiet, Wyatt pressed him. “‘Once in a while’?”
With a shrug, the caretaker seemed to dismiss whatever he had intended to say, and he spoke now in a lighter tone of voice. “Oh, once in a while, when I’m workin’ here alone, I get the feelin’ I’m bein’ watched. It’s so convincin’ that it puts the fine hairs up on my neck. But what place this big and this deserted wouldn’t give a man that feelin’ from time to time?”
Intuition told Wyatt that Potter had held something back—and that pressing him further would not result in his divulging it.
They shook hands, and the property manager drove away.
When the Ford pickup was out of sight, Wyatt Rider let his gaze travel wherever it might: across the quiet stables, to the dwindling blacktop lane, from one cluster of willows to another . . . The shadows stretched eastward, as if yearning for communion with the oncoming night, and the dying day spilled redness across the land, and the water rippled with firelight in the lake where a woman had once died.