Страница 71 из 76
“I think you should try some of his friends.”
“You are his friend, no? Guillermo say what a good man you are.”
That stuck like a bone in his throat. “Listen, Mrs. Menquez, if I’m going to be honest with you, I would suggest you call his favorite taverns. My hunch is, that’s where you’ll find him.”
“But he said he was working for you.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, I’m afraid. I haven’t seen or spoken to Gilly-Guillermo-in over a week.”
“Said you were looking for someone, that he could find him. My Guillermo, he can find anyone in the woods. Says you are almost as good as him.”
A bubble of laughter rose in Walt’s throat but he choked it back. “That’s what he said?” Walt asked. “That I was looking for someone?”
“He made a mistake, Sheriff. He know that. He told me. And I told him: ‘You make a mistake, you fix it.’ That is what he was doing in the woods today. He was fixing it.”
Then the collision happened, as it so often did for him. Like one idea can’t get out of the way of the other, so there’s nowhere to go but into each other. And suddenly two thoughts spawn a third. It was this-the Google image overlaid with the lovely, lilting speech of this woman-that drove Walt to sign off the call as politely as possible.
“Hit the record button,” he called out, advising his daughters. “You’re coming with me.”
He called Myra from the car, the girls strapped into the backseat, Beatrice’s tail smacking them both as it swished back and forth. “I’m heading up your way,” he told Myra, before his sister-in-law could get a word out. “I need to leave the girls with you for a few minutes. Can you handle that?”
“Walt? I-”
“Can you do that for me?”
“Of course.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Lock the door, and stay near the phone.”
“Walt?” Fiona said.
“Better yet, just get out of there.”
“I will not.” She paused, the telephone co
“Later. Right now, you need to get in your car and get out of there. No, no. Stay. That’s good. But lock up tight. Do you have a weapon in there?”
“If you’re working on scaring me, you’re doing a fine job.”
“You do or don’t have a weapon?”
“I own a handgun.”
“But-” He caught himself. How had he never asked her this question earlier? Who went after a guy with a baseball bat if there was a handgun in the drawer? He couldn’t help himself: “Have you had training?”
“Walt, what’s going on?”
“I’m coming onto the property. On foot. I’ve called for backup, but there was a drowning in Carey. Anyway, for the time being, it’s just me. Do you know how to use that handgun?”
“Yes.”
“Then keep it close. And don’t do anything stupid: it may be me coming through your door.”
“Who else would it be?”
“That’s the point,” he said. “Anything out of place there recently? Anything missing? Clothes, maybe? Underwear?”
“What’s got into you?”
“Should I take that as a no?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“Well, think about it.” He guessed he was still five to seven minutes away. He liked keeping her on the phone, liked hearing her voice so close.
“I haven’t lost anything. Kira and I leave each other little gifts. You know: cookies. Wildflowers. It’s a girl thing.”
“Any lately?”
Her pause was far too long.
“Fiona?”
“You’re coming straight here? Come straight here, will you?”
“Fiona. Talk to me.”
“I’ll get the gun now, like you said. I’ve already locked up.”
“You were going to tell me something.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“I think you were.”
The mobile co
“He is dead, right? With his face so badly-What if it wasn’t him?” Walt’s question about the gifts had in fact jogged loose yet another memory: Gale entering her cottage carrying flowers. She’d found them, withered and dry, on the coffee table after returning from the hospital, believing them to be from Kira. But she now knew Kira had taken off by then. They couldn’t have been from her. Only him. The idea of that monster bearing a gift of flowers was almost too much to take.
“We ID’d the body,” he said. “No worries. Sit tight. I’m on my way.”
He pulled off the highway but took the right fork toward the Berkholders’ instead of going left toward the Engletons’. He drove twenty yards, killed his lights, and coasted to a stop, shutting off the engine. Beatrice was made to heel and understood from the urgency of the whispered command that this was not a training session. She responded appropriately: silent, attentive, holding close to his left leg, her nose and eyes working overtime. Together, the two moved quickly through the dark.
Up the hill, the Engleton flagpole showed in silhouette against the illumination of the night sky and the richness of the Milky Way. Also in silhouette, to the right of the flagpole and farther still up the hill, a strongly geometric shape revealed itself-the northeastern corner of the Engleton tree house.
Minutes later, Walt hopped over the rail fence alongside the gate and Beatrice slipped through, catching up to his leg and heeling obediently without further command. Walt stayed in the shelter of the planted aspens that formed grove after grove as the driveway climbed up the knoll. He reached the end of the drive, where it widened into a turnaround and parking area co
He rubbed the dog’s head, rewarding her, and as he stood, gently placed his hand on the outside of his left leg, reinforcing the heel. She followed him to the right, around the back side of the house, rather than across the inviting, open space of the turnaround. He passed more beds containing the yellow lilies reminding him of the fire, then his conversation with Fiona near the tree house. He held to shadow, Beatrice at his side, moving silently.
Walt stayed low as he finally reached the southeastern corner of the main house, facing the scar of burned earth directly in front of him, then moved up the hill, the tree house now immediately to his right. A pine rail ladder was attached to one of the three fir trees supporting the tree house, a sizable structure fifteen feet off the ground. He signaled Beatrice to stay and then moved in a stealthy crouch to the base of the ladder and began to climb. Beatrice followed his every action, her nose rising with each ladder rung.
It was a trapdoor entrance leading up through the tree house floor. Walt paused just beneath it. He fished out his Maglite and Beretta and, marrying the two while holding to the ladder, used his back to push and throw open the trapdoor. The Maglite’s bluish halogen beam flooded the lavishly decorated space, past posters, curtains, a hand-hooked rug, crumpled tissues on the floor, a child-sized table littered with half-eaten food and open soup cans, and landed on Gilly Menquez, stuffed awkwardly into the corner, his tongue purple and grotesque, his eyes open and unmoving.
Walt threw himself up into the space, spi
Gilly Menquez was warm to the touch. No more than thirty minutes dead. Probably closer to ten or fifteen. Walt called it in as calmly as possible over the radio, but there was no return, the radio’s signal lost to the contours of the geography. He tried his phone and got through.