Дэвид Балдаччи - The Guilty

For the first time Victoria looked scared. “Someone was outside the Willows early this morning?”

“A tall man. White guy probably. Any idea who it might’ve been?”

“How should I know?” she said defensively.

“I’m just asking questions, trying to assemble some useful information. And what might he have been looking for in your car?”

“What, are you playing at detective now?” She paused, studying him. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

“Right now, I wish I were. I feel a little out of my depth.”

“Even so, I don’t understand what you’re doing. Are you saying you’re going to investigate the case and try to get to the truth?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why? And don’t tell me it’s because of your father. You’ve been gone longer than you were here. And you’ve never contacted him. Dan would have told me.”

“I don’t like questions without answers.”

“Well, like them or not, I think that’s what you’re faced with here.”

Robie’s phone buzzed. He checked the screen.

It was Blue Man.

“I have to take this,” said Robie.

He headed for the back of the property as he answered the phone.

“How is Mississippi?” asked Blue Man.

“Not as friendly as the tour guides say, at least for me.”

“Have you seen your father?”

“I have.”

“And did it go well?”

“No.”

“You still want to follow through with this?”

Do I want to follow through? thought Robie.

“Like it or not, I think I have to.”

“I expected you to say that. And I think you’re right.”

“What have you found out?”

“Not as much as I would have liked. It was damn tricky, Robie. You head down and all of a sudden the federal government gets interested in a murder in Mississippi. We had to tread carefully.”

“I understand that, but you must’ve found out something.”

“Sherman Clancy was intoxicated when he was killed. His blood alcohol was twice the legal limit.”

“Meaning he was pretty much incapacitated, incapable of defending himself?”

“Yes. The murder weapon was a serrated-edge knife. The police believe they have enough evidence there to say it was a Ka-Bar knife, though I’m not sure that would hold up in court. But it was definitely a serrated blade.”

“And evidence tying my father to the crime?”

“Well, the motive was obvious.”

“His wife was with Clancy and he found out.”

“Right. Have you talked to his wife, well, I guess also your stepmother?”

“I have. In fact, I’m staying at their house. She says she was just drinking with Clancy, nothing more.”

“And you believe her?”

“I don’t believe anyone. What else is there tying him to the crime?”

“Dan Robie was seen driving his car near the spot where the murder took place.”

“Who saw him?”

“A local fisherman and his son.”

“Their names?”

“Tuck Carson and his son Ash. They told the police they saw your father in his Range Rover driving from the direction where the body was found about one in the morning. That would be about the time the death occurred.”

“What were they doing out at that time of night?”

“They said they were out to get bait for the next morning.”

“What else?”

“At the crime scene forensics found a boot print matching one of your father’s by the driver’s-side door. The ground was damp and muddy and the impression was clear. There were also several hairs that they said matched his found in the Bentley’s interior.”

“He could have ridden in the car before. Or they could have been planted. So could the boot prints.”

“Yes, they could have. But the witnesses apparently did see him in the area at the time.”

“Anything else?”

“Your father publicly threatened Clancy outside a restaurant in Cantrell two days before Clancy was killed. Several people heard it. Your father said he knew what Clancy had done and he was going to make him pay.” Blue Man paused. “So even if your father isn’t the murderer, you can understand why the police arrested him.”

“I can,” conceded Robie. “Anything on Janet Chisum?”

“Not much more than you probably know. Gunshot to the head killed her. Body thrown in the river. Fished out downriver the next day. Clancy was tried for the crime because of their, well, their relationship, but he was acquitted.”

“Principally because my stepmother provided him with an ironclad alibi.”

“The same alibi that may have provided the motive for your father to kill him. And the cause and effect didn’t take long. Five days after he was acquitted and released from jail, Sherman Clancy was dead.”

“So if Clancy didn’t kill Janet Chisum, who did?”

“Why are you concerned about that? It has nothing to do with your father.”

“We don’t know that. There might be a connection.”

“And there might actually be a Loch Ness monster, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Anything else?”

“Jessica?”

“Still out. Listen, Robie, I understand why you’re down there doing what you’re doing. And I know that I was the one who suggested that you resolve past issues. But you are a highly valuable asset of your government. We have spent a lot of time and money training you. The last thing any of us want is you getting killed down there over a matter best left to others.”

“I think you should know by now that I can take care of myself.”

“And life is highly unpredictable. And small rural towns hold dangers sometimes that the worst hot spots in the world couldn’t match. You remember that.”

Blue Man clicked off.

Robie put his phone away and concluded that Blue Man was a very wise person indeed.

He stood there lost in thought for a few moments. He was putting together a to-do list and there were now many items piling up on it.

He assembled them in some order, then climbed into his car and left in pursuit of the first one.

The eyewitnesses.

Tuck Carson’s house was on the Pearl River, befitting a man who made his living from pulling fish out of its depths and taking those who wanted to do the same on guided tours. It was more a shack than a house. There was a pressure-treated wood pier out back at which two boats were docked. One was a sleek bass boat, low to the water with a Yamaha engine on the stern and a bow trickle thruster when it came time to fish. The other boat was a twenty-two-foot, center-console hardtop with twin engines on the back and fishing poles resting in holders up and down the sides of the watercraft.

The smell of fish guts was strong as Robie got out of his car and walked up the gravel path to the house.

Before he got to the porch the door opened and out stepped a short, stocky man around forty with thick forearms and greasy hair that sprawled out from under an oil-stained Briggs & Stratton ball cap. He had on a dirty work shirt that revealed his top-most chest hair. He wore cutoff shorts that showed bandy legs that were deeply tanned and muscled.

In his right hand he held a gutting knife. In his other was an unopened can of Michelob.

“What can I do you for?” said the man. “We go out at five in the mornin’, back at ten. Full up for the next two days. Talk to the wife ’bout schedulin’ somethin’.”

“I’m not here to fish,” said Robie.

The man gripped his knife more tightly. “What then?”

“I’m Will Robie.”

The man’s eyes widened, as Robie knew they would.

“Are you Tuck Carson?”

Carson stuck the point of his knife into the porch railing, popped his can of beer, and took a long swig. “I done said all I had to say to the police.”