The Inn(26)

“Listen to this guy.” Cline smiled. Perfect teeth. He still hadn’t addressed me directly yet, like he was a rock star and I was a hopeless fan yelling up at him from the crowd at a concert. He would choose who he wanted to shine his light on.

“There are plenty of prosecutors in Boston who will run a murder charge on a dealer who supplies a fatal dose of an illegal narcotic,” Nick said. “Especially if someone connects the dots for them.”

“Gentlemen,” Cline said. “You’ve made a very interesting choice of how to spend your afternoon, coming all the way out here to give me a legal lecture. It’s very kind of you. I haven’t actually had anyone volunteer to give me a talk on the local laws in the four months I’ve been here. Not one police officer has darkened my doorstep with such outrageous accusations.”

I looked at Nick, knowing he was thinking of Sheriff Spears. If he hadn’t been here already, that meant that his employees could be on Cline’s payroll. Clay was advised of the region’s serious crime leads by his sergeants, and their failure to even come sniffing around Cline was worrying.

“We’re telling you to pack this shit up,” I said. “Crawl back under whatever rock you came out from. We’re not threatening legal action here, Cline. We’re promising it.”

“You own the Inn on the north side, don’t you?” he asked me as though he hadn’t heard a word I’d just said. I felt prickles of pain spread out from the center of my chest.

“I do.”

“Lovely property. I haven’t been out, but I looked at it online just now.”

Dr. Raymond Locke. He’d heard me talking to Bess at Addison Gilbert and called ahead. And then there was Craft. He’d probably called to let Cline know someone was roughing up his clients and wanted an appointment with the top brass. Before them, there was Squid, who I spied now sitting on the arm of the wicker couch with the two young girls on it. He watched me closely from behind his leader.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on properties near the woods there,” Cline said. “I like to hunt when I get the chance, and it’s so quiet. I’m sure the gunshots wouldn’t bother anyone. Maybe I’ll come out. Take a look around. Make you an offer.”

“You come anywhere near my property or the people who live there and I’ll feed you into a meat grinder,” I snarled. The loss of control had been sudden, shocking; I’d been blindsided by thoughts of Siobhan, her house, her people, her dream. My reaction was exactly what Cline wanted. I stepped off the curb, turned away for a moment, rubbed my brow. Nick was by me, his shoulder like a brick wall, reassuring.

That reassurance was short-lived. One of the girls pointed up the street and started laughing. “Someone called the real boys in blue on your asses.”

I turned and saw a familiar vehicle heading our way. Sheriff Spears’s friendly beep of the patrol-car siren was made more cheerful by his wave through the windshield as he approached.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX





CLINE SMILED THE thin-lipped, dead-eyed smile of a snake as he watched Sheriff Spears ease his bulk from the squad car. I noticed Marni in the back of the vehicle, leaning over to look up at the turret at the front of Cline’s house.

“Someone else call in Cline’s crew?” I asked Clay. “You got backup on the way?”

“Ah, no.” He looked puzzled, then glanced at Cline and his cronies. “I’m actually here about you. Some quack at Addison Gilbert called in a disturbance in the parking lot, gave us your license plate.”

“Tell me this fool ain’t the local sheriff.” The big goon with the knuckle tats eyed Clay. “I knew cops liked chillin’ in doughnut shops, but this guy looks like he owns the chain.”

The punks around us snickered. Clay smoothed the front of his shirt and swallowed hard as he took in the sight of the crushed Escalade windshield. “Is there some kind of trouble here? Can I offer assistance?”

“You cool, you cool,” one of the girls said. “We ain’t got no leftovers to get rid of.”

The whole crew laughed, but not Cline, who wasn’t paying much attention to Clay at all. His eyes followed me as I walked Clay back to his car. The sheriff was blushing at the collar of his shirt, sweat spotting his sides.

“Ignore those idiots,” I told him. “What’s Marn doing in the back of your car? Is she in trouble?”

“No, no.” Clay wiped his brow. “I got a call about a kid walking the train tracks. She told me she was just taking a shortcut home.”

I asked Nick to take my car back to the Inn, said I’d ride in the squad car with Marni. Cline watched us roll out, one corner of his mouth turned down regretfully, like he’d been enjoying the banter and wanted to toy with us a little more. I hoped he got what I tried to communicate as I climbed into the back of Clay’s car: I was not done with him yet.

Marni watched the people at the house through the back window as we turned for home.

“Squid again,” she said. “Does he live there? Wow. He’s done pretty good for a kid who couldn’t turn up to school on time even once in his whole life.”

“He’s not done well at all, if you ask me,” I said. “And I’d like it if you didn’t go anywhere near the people at that house, Marn.”