Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

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.”

He walked up Main, head down, ignored greetings, stopping only when Alice Owen blocked his path, the dog in her arms.

“Could you watch her for a moment, Walk. I just have to run in—”

“I have to be somewhere.”

“Literally, one minute.” She thrust the dog at him, the fucking snappy bastard of a dog, then headed into Brandt’s Deli. He watched her inside, small talk with the girl behind the counter, no doubt ordering some kind of soy bean monstrosity from the new machine while she deliberated over the twenty-dollar cheeses.

He looked down at the dog and watched the teeth bare, and then back to Alice, who’d run into Bree Evans and was talking animatedly.

And then he looked at his badge, and he thought of his days, his fucking, soulless perfect days.

He set the dog down, unclipped the leash and dropped it into the trash can beside.

The mutt looked up at him, confusion in its bulbous eyes. And then, tentatively, it took in the wild around, channeled its inner animal and began to trot its way down Main.

Walk left, cut through a vacant lot, massaged his hands and straightened his back. This was his act now, his side to the world. Pill rolling, slowed down, hard to concentrate on anything at all.

He stood outside the small house and stared. He hadn’t seen the men work, didn’t even know the old place had been remodeled. It had come to him an hour after Martha headed home, when he was reading interviews for the hundredth time.

Dee Lane.

She’d met Darke in the bank, First Union, where she’d worked as a teller as long as Walk could remember. He called Leah when he realized they didn’t have an up-to-date address for her, felt his heart sink a little when Leah told him Dee still lived at the house on Fortuna Avenue, the same house Darke owned and served notice on.

But it was tired no longer; new windows, new porch. The wood stained fresh and the paint shone, the yard, new grass and flowers planted. There was a gate, a fence, pride in place of despair.

She met him at the door, before he could knock, small smile as she stood aside and he went into the house.

Inside was mostly the same, instead of the cardboard boxes he saw a life unpacked, the photos and the furniture all in their place again. She went to make coffee. He asked if he could use the bathroom then headed up the stairs. He saw the elder girl’s room, Yale pennant, long time off but Walk heard both kids were smart enough. And then the younger’s, painted pink, new throw on the bed. Not obscene money but there was a new television and computer. He used to know both kids’ names but found them just beyond his grasp.

Back down and Dee led him out to the yard, where they sat at a small table.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“I’m just glad Darke let you have your old place back. I thought it’d be pulled down by now, make way for the millions and all that.”

She sipped her coffee and watched the water like it was brand new, not just newly unveiled.

“It’s a view.”

“Sure is. I almost don’t believe it, when I wake up. Early now, maybe five. I like to watch the sunset, you seen it over the water, Walk?”

“Sure.”

She lit a cigarette and breathed it like it was all that kept her from screaming out. He knew what she’d done, she knew it, yet there were still lines to run, practice for the most tiresome of plays.

“So, you were with Darke that night. Star. That night when she was shot dead.”

Dee flinched at that, like it was not necessary. “We’ve been through this.”

“We have.”

“You look tired, Walk.”

He steadied his hand, buried it beneath the table, pulled on his sunglasses as clouds moved in.

“He was here, that night. What were you doing? Remind me.”

“Fucking.” She spoke without emotion.

A while back and he might’ve blushed. Instead he smiled a sad smile, but he got it. There was no hatred there.

“I worked my whole …” She held the smoke deep. “I paid my taxes, raised my children, didn’t murder my cheating husband. I never took anything from anyone.”

He sipped his coffee, too hot to taste.

“You know how much money I make in a year, Walk?”

“Not enough.”

“He doesn’t pay child support. Is that fair? He hides it all so he doesn’t have to pay for the girls he brought into the world.” She looked down. “The Radley kids. Are they—”