We Begin at the End(73)

The knocking, he didn’t know how long it had gone on for but there was something frantic in it.

He staggered to his feet, tried a stretch and almost puked with the pain. He sucked down a breath, pushed his chest out and stepped from his office, and then slumped a little when he saw it was just Ernie Coughlin from the hardware store.

“Morning.” Walk opened the door to him but Ernie didn’t cross the threshold.

“The butcher. Where is he?” Ernie barked it, hands tucked into a brown apron.

Walk shook the confusion away.

“The butcher,” Ernie repeated. “It’s after seven now. He gets back from vacation, same day every year, why hasn’t the shop opened up?”

“Hunting. Archery, right? Maybe he’s taken another day.”

“Dumb bastard, chasing turkeys all over. Twenty-two years, Walk. Since he took over from his father. Twenty-two years I’ve been buying breakfast sausage from him. I take it over the road and Rosie cooks it up. Three pancakes, syrup, two cups of strong coffee.”

“Can’t you just eat the sausage Rosie buys in?”

Ernie looked at him with something like disgust.

“You see the newspaper? New homes on the edge of town.They’ll ruin this place. I take it you’ll vote against.”

Walk nodded, yawned, tucked his shirt into his pants. “I’ll go see him.”

Ernie shook his head once and then turned and left.

Back at his desk he dialed Milton but got the machine. Then he went right back to watching security tapes from Cedar Heights. Moses, on the gatehouse, had given them up without much of a fight, didn’t even ask for the kind of paperwork Walk did not possess.

There was almost no movement, but the quality was so bad he had to focus hard in case anyone left on foot. He didn’t know the timescales involved so he faced up to days of recording. He watched the day pass, the mailman, the neighbor with the Ford.

Another hour before he saw something. He slowed it right down and ran it three times. He knew the old truck well, the Comanche. He squinted and could just about make out the shape of the bumper sticker, the silhouette of a blacktail. Milton.

He watched with interest as the barrier lifted, then he searched real slow. Three hours later, the angle worse as he left. There was no doubting it was the same truck.

Three more hours before he found the sedan, a close enough match for the two men seeking Darke.

Ten minutes and he watched them leave.

It took nineteen minutes to get Boyd on the phone, but only a couple for him to shoot down Walk’s request for a warrant to search Darke’s place. Walk mentioned the guys looking for Darke, felt like a rookie asshole when Boyd asked for the plates but Walk couldn’t get a clear read.

When he hung up Walk loosened his tie, then leaned forward and banged his head on the desk, hard enough to hurt.

“I feel like I should intervene here.”

He looked up, saw Martha and managed a smile. She carried her case, laden with files.

“You got any booze in this place?” She parked herself in the seat opposite.

He reached for the bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of Kentucky Old Reserve, a gift from one of the vacationers for checking her place during the winter months. He found a couple of coffee cups and poured them a measure each.

He watched as she drank, already waiting for the subtle flush that crept into her cheeks, the same flush she got when she was angry or excited. Martha May, he still knew everything about her.

“I got nothing,” she announced with exaggerated fanfare.

“You came all the way over here to tell me that?”

“Maybe I wanted to see you.”

He smiled. “Really?”

“Course not. I brought you a dish.” She opened her bag and pulled out a Tupperware container.

“Dare I ask?”

“Just some leftover pasta.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

He blinked, waiting.

“Cubanelle,” she said finally. “Weak-ass frying pepper. You need to eat, Walk. You’re getting all skinny. I’m worried about you.”

“I appreciate it.”

She stood, paced, told him things he already knew, then sat again. And then he told her about Darke, and the tapes.

“Your theory is?”

He rubbed his neck. “I don’t have one. Not yet. I want to look in Darke’s place. And I want to know who he’s paying all that money to. If I can’t get him for Hal, or Star, I want him for something. I want him off the street.”

“If he was the one, in Montana, there’s a chance he’s dead.”

“We put him there and we can establish a link to Star. Maybe the boy heard something, Darke wants him dead. We can use it. I just need my angle.”

“The bank payment?”

“I called the manager, he won’t say anything without a court order. No surprise.”

“First Union. You need to aim a little lower. A teller, maybe.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“What, you think I don’t know how to hustle? I’ve got all these deadbeat fathers hiding their income, so I go straight to the source.”

“And that works?”

“Not always, but I call in favors, and I lend them too. Life of a lawyer. So, you know the whole town, Walk. There must be someone you can lean on.”