We Begin at the End(52)

She laughed. “Just eat the cornbread. You look like you could use it. I hope you’re taking care of yourself, Walk.”

He smiled. “You ever miss the Cape?”

“Every day.”

“I told Leah I’d been seeing you again.”

“Seeing me?”

“I didn’t—”

She laughed. He blushed.

“Leah Tallow. She still married to Ed?”

“She is.”

“Wow, she must’ve put up with a lot over the years. I remember him at school, used to chase after Star.”

“Everyone did.”

“Tallow Construction. I see their boards up sometimes. I had a client a while back, husband was laid off by Tallow, he turned to the bottle.”

“The market is tough. It’ll turn.”

“Especially if they start building all those new homes.”

He stood and topped up her wine. “I went to see Milton again.”

“The butcher. I remember him at school. Does he still smell of blood?”

“He does. He’s certain, he heard arguing, and he’ll testify he saw Vincent and Darke get into it outside Star’s place. And he’ll speculate it was over Star.”

The agreement was there, uneasy at first, but Martha was settling into it. Walk would work the King case, and anything he found he would bring to her, and she would unravel it and repackage it and tell Walk if it was worth more than a damn in a court of law. She was clear enough, though, under no circumstances would she go to trial. They’d build the case as best they could and then pass it over to a trial lawyer. And if Vincent wouldn’t retain one then at least she’d tried.

“Did you have a chance to look at the papers?”

“Sure, what else would I be doing? It’s not like I need sleep or anything.”

He smiled as she left him, went out the side gate to her car then returned with her briefcase. Walk cleared the dishes away while Martha spread papers out over the table. Citronella burned, five candles battled the night sky and gave them just enough light.

Tax returns, statements, company filings, going back twenty years. All Walk could pull on Dickie Darke.

“The records are straight and ordered, Walk. Darke earns decent money. Maybe two fifty a year. Nothing really raises any red flags. I went back far, when he bought a small home on Lavenham Avenue, Portland.”

“Oregon.”

“I guess that’s where he’s from. He remodeled and sold it on for a thirty-thousand-dollar profit, which he declared in full. Modest expenses. Then another a block away, made forty-five. And then nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Must have found another income. Four years of nothing. And then he stepped it up massively, seemed to move from town to town, working his way along the coast, wherever he could make a buck. Just like that.”

“Always real estate?”

“Mostly. A place in Eugene, another in Gold Beach. In the summer of ’95 he arrived in the Cape, bought the old bar on Cabrillo and spent a year trying to get a license.”

Walk remembered the night it opened; again, no fuss or launch party, just light in the darkness.

“The first year it grossed half a million dollars.” Martha sipped her wine. “The second year it doubled. It was a goldmine, Walk. And that’s just what he declared, place like that, it’s all cash, right? It might be all he had, but it was all he needed.”

“So he leverages that to buy the King house. At least he would have.”

“There were payments, though, eye-watering payments.”

“To who?”

“My guess would be whoever invested with him. Not a bank.”

“Loan shark?”

“Could be. His credit history is sketchy, lot of moving around, would’ve made it hard to borrow from a regular bank. And then he bought the house on Fortuna Avenue.”

“Dee Lane’s place.”

“And the house on Ivy Ranch Road.”

“The Radley house.”

“Small houses, just rentals. And an investment in a development called Cedar Heights.”

Walk had seen the advertisements in the local newspaper.

“Sorry, Walk. Nothing strange at all in this.”

Walk sighed.

“That club he owned. It’s called The Eight, right?” Martha said.

“Yeah.”

“I had a girl from there come in. She had problems with a boyfriend. I think she mentioned Darke once.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Maybe. I’ll ask.”

“We need to know about those payments.”

“All I’ve got is an account number.”

“Could be something.”

“Or nothing. I know the case file now. What you’ve got is a whole load of nothing. And what you need is a smoking gun. Nothing short of that.”

He stood when his cell rang, saw it was Milton. The man sounded breathless, out for his evening walk, burning off some of the meat. He spoke for a minute.

Martha gathered the papers. “Everything alright?”

“Milton runs Neighborhood Watch.”

Martha raised an eyebrow.

“He’s the only member since Etta passed. He said there’s a 10-91 on Sunset. I’d better head over.”