Michael Koryta - Last Words

“All right, go ahead, but first make damn sure that you’re looped in with the local police. We need to have allies up there, not enemies.”

Mark had a feeling that Blankenship was not going to relish the role of ally, but he told Jeff that he’d do his best.

“I’ll get this cleaned up by tonight,” he said, and Cecil Buckner looked at Mark as if he’d just placed a high-dollar bet on a horse with three legs.

“You’d better,” Jeff said. “Or it’s back to the board I go, and the fresh questions aren’t going to be fun ones, for you or for me.”

He hung up then, and Mark pocketed the phone and looked at Cecil Buckner, who was watching with interest.

“That didn’t sound real positive, at least from this end of the call,” he said.

Mark ignored that and said, “Listen, I’m going to go talk to the police and get this shit handled. I may need to call you at some point.”

“Sure. And you do realize that I’m going to have to call the MacAlisters? Pershing, he’s in bad shape these days. Had himself a stroke on the golf course. Never been right since. But his daughter is looking after their affairs, and that’s kind of lucky, because she’s a lawyer.”

Lucky, indeed. The last thing Mark needed right now was a lawyer showing up.

“Can you give me a few hours before you make that call?”

“I’m sorry, but I have to do my job,” Cecil said. He didn’t look sorry at all.

Mark wasn’t surprised that Blankenship had been expecting to hear from him, but he was surprised at the man’s energy and anger. In their first meeting, the sheriff had been low-voiced and skeptical, more of a watcher than an aggressor. Today, that approach was gone.

“I’ve dealt with some stupid sons of bitches before, but you’re setting a new standard,” Blankenship said, boiling up to the front desk as soon as Mark’s presence was announced. “What in the hell about this entertains you, son? People hurt over this shit, you understand that? They hurt! ”

He glanced at the listeners around him, straightened up to his full, impressive height, and said, “We’ll walk and talk. I don’t need you wasting anyone else’s time.”

He banged the door open and Mark followed him out onto the sidewalk. Blankenship’s large hands were clenching and unclenching as if he were willing down a desire to take a swing.

“I understand you don’t like it,” Mark said. “But can you pause to consider how I feel about being set up by some idiot like that?”

“I don’t give a damn how you feel. I told you this thing could cause pain. Would cause pain. You ignored me. But this? This with Diane? I’ve never heard anything like it. Never.”

Blankenship was walking toward the town square, his long legs moving so fast that Mark had to struggle to keep pace. Snowflakes were falling, and a plow went by and splashed slush onto Blankenship’s shoes and pants but he didn’t seem to notice.

“You know how that poor woman died?” Blankenship said. “She went into Sarah’s bedroom, lay down on the bed where her baby had slept, and read a children’s Bible she’d given Sarah when she was a little girl. While she read it, she took sleeping pills. One after another. Just trying to find some peace. People said suicide, but they were wrong. She was just looking for some rest. For just a few moments of peace.”

His voice broke on the last sentence. He cleared his throat and shook his head.

“Now you’ve even got that damned family coming back into town. Icing on the cake, right there. I never needed to see them again. Any of them.”

“Who in the hell are you talking about?”

“Got a call from Danielle MacAlister not ten minutes ago. I thought that whole clan was done with Garrison. But you pass through town and they decide it’s worth a return trip. Next they’ll probably decide it’s time to open the cave again. Of course, I’m the only man in Garrison who actually thinks that it shouldn’t be open — to everyone else, it’s lost money in a town that doesn’t have money to lose. Only thing Pershing and I ever agreed on was closing that cave. Him shutting that damned place down and then getting the hell out of this county, those were the only moves he ever made that had my blessing.” He shook his head, and by now his hands were no longer clenching and unclenching; they were held in tight fists. “I’ll see you charged for this, Novak.”

“You got nothing to charge me with, Blankenship. And I’d think you’d want to find out who set me up like that, and why. No interest?”

The sheriff studied him with disgust but didn’t say anything.

“The reporter alone is worth your time,” Mark said. “He wouldn’t tell me who called him with the tip. He might tell you.”

“Doesn’t need to. I know who tipped him.” Blankenship raised his hand. “And I’m not the least bit sorry about that either. I wanted to know what you’d say to the media that you wouldn’t say to me. You sure came through, didn’t you?”

“That’s a bullshit small-town move, Blankenship.”

Blankenship shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “I don’t need the damn reporter. I’ve got witnesses. In the hotel, and in the restaurant just across the parking lot. Hotels have security cameras. I suspect the restaurant does as well. We can get video of this woman. So before you start spouting off about charges again, why don’t you do a little police work? Give me fifteen minutes of police work.”

Blankenship didn’t like that, but he didn’t answer right away either. Mark said, “You want her worse than I do, Sheriff. Let’s go find her.”

Blankenship followed him to the hotel. Mark had expected they’d ride together, but the sheriff said, “I don’t want you in my damn car until I can put you in the backseat in handcuffs,” and he’d slammed the driver’s door, leaving Mark standing alone in the snow on the sidewalk, marveling at the amount of rage Blankenship showed. It wasn’t his reputation that had taken the hit; it was Mark’s.

When they entered the hotel, the same young brunette who had checked Mark in the previous day was working, a sight he took in with relief. She’d been all ears for the discussion, enjoying the theater playing out in her lobby. She would remember enough to help.

“I thought I told you that we were—” Then she caught a glimpse of Blankenship’s uniform and stiffened.

“Don’t worry,” Mark said. “I don’t intend to ask for another room. Just tell the sheriff here what happened in the lobby not long after I checked in.”

“When the woman came by to get you?”

“Exactly,” he said, feeling better already.

“You were here for this?” Blankenship asked.

She nodded. “Yes. He’d checked in, and then she came in and asked me to call his room. She did the talking, though. I just handed over the phone. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Blankenship assured her. “I just need to understand what was said.”

“Well, she didn’t say a lot to me. But, you know, I overheard enough to get the gist. I could hear only her. Whatever he said on the phone, that was too quiet. But she said that she was a friend of Ridley Barnes and—”

“Wait,” Mark said. “No, no, no. She might have mentioned his name, but she didn’t say she was a friend, she said—”

“Let her talk,” Blankenship said, his voice weighted with warning. Mark lifted his hands in frustration and nodded.

“So she said she was a friend of Ridley Barnes, and, well, that kind of stood out to me,” the clerk continued. Her name tag identified her only as Lily, no last name.