Harlan Layfield pushed himself up so he was on all fours, the same posture as Cole Barrett just before he died. A patch of his hair was matted with blood. I stuffed his gun in my pocket and took aim at him.
He looked back and up at me, wincing. I circled around him, keeping the gun levelled on his torso.
He followed me as I went. ‘How’d you find me?’
I stopped by the window and snatched a glance outside. Nothing moved. I looked to him again. ‘Where’s my wife?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t make me ask again.’
‘I don’t know a damn thing about your woman so let’s get this over with.’ He lowered his head like a dog waiting to be put down.
It took all my restraint not to do as he said. ‘I asked you a question.’
He lifted his eyes, his face pale and waxy like parchment. He pushed himself onto his knees so he was upright, and wiped his mouth on his shoulder. ‘Bill didn’t tell me nothing—’
‘Don’t you lie to me.’
‘I swear . . .’ His eyes flared.
‘You’re cowards, every one of you. Every goddamn one of you.’ I mopped my hairline with my shirt cuff. ‘Why’s Tindall still helping you?’
Confusion showed on his face. ‘The hell does it matter now?’
I aimed the gun at his forehead. ‘The only thing keeping you alive is my inkling Tindall will deal to keep you that way. Convince me I’m right.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. You ever think he just didn’t want to snuff me himself?’
My nerves shorted when he said it – a prospect I hadn’t considered. ‘I don’t buy it. He’s a killer.’
‘We been acquainted a long time. Makes me sick but he’s the closest thing I ever had to a daddy.’ He shook his head, his chin sagging against his chest. ‘I hate the son of a bitch.’
I tried not to show my surprise at the emotion in his voice. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’
‘He took me under his wing when I was seventeen years old. Caught me trying to steal a car turned out belonged to one of his men. Could’ve left me a smear on the sidewalk for it, but he went the other way. Can’t help but have some fondness for the old bastard in them circumstances. Even considering what he made me do.’
Tremors now, getting what he was edging at. ‘What he made you do? Say their names, goddamn you. Bess Prescott. Jeannie Runnels—’
‘I don’t remember half their damn names.’
‘Alice Anderson.’
He screwed his eyes shut.
‘You remember her name. Did you kill her?’
‘Did I kill her . . .’ He swallowed. ‘Yeah, I did. I kill her every goddamn day, you wanna know the truth. Right here.’ He tapped his forehead with the side of his finger.
‘You son of a bitch.’
‘I’ll wear that. Worst goddamn thing he made me do up to then. Killing a man ain’t a chore – I popped Sheriff Cooper for him in ’forty-one and Bill bought me a steak dinner. But dames are different.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘There’s supposed to be rules about these things.’
I feathered the trigger. One squeeze to avenge Alice and Lizzie, revenge leading me again. A selfish act that wouldn’t help anything; I stopped myself. ‘Tindall gave you the job?’
He nodded, dragging his hands down over his face and leaving red pressure marks. ‘He did business with that high-stepper you rubbed out. Callaway. They used to move booze together under Volstead.’
My blood stopped flowing. It wasn’t me killed him, but no one apart from Lizzie and Jimmy Robinson knew I’d even been in Callaway’s house that night. That’s what I’d thought anyway. Now the spectre that Tindall and god knew who else was clued-in.
‘When it was done, I holed myself up in a room with a bottle and a gun and I put them in my mouth one after the other. Only had the stones to empty one of them, turns out.’
I wanted to kick him. ‘Are you trying me for sympathy? You went right out and slaughtered Geneve Kolkhorst. You found the
stones
for that.’
‘The Kraut nurse? You think I wanted to? I barely stopped shaking from the Anderson girl. I begged Bill to send someone else. I stalled him long as I could – and that was before he told me what he wanted done to her.’
‘Her mouth. You cut her up.’
‘Not me – Bill.’
‘Tindall did it?’
His head sunk. ‘No. His orders, I mean. I don’t even carry a knife.’
‘Why, goddamn you?’
‘So wouldn’t no one else in Texarkana think to speak on what they’d seen. He didn’t want no comebacks on me or him after they closed the Phantom case. He told me to dump her in Lake Hamilton so Coughlin could make it go away. He didn’t want no headlines, but he knew the word would get out in Texarkana. Folk knew what happened and what it meant.’ His head popped up again and he held his hand out. ‘I done what I could for her. Bill wanted me to cut her when she was still alive, but I spared her that.’
Desecration as an act of mercy. I wanted to kick him to a pulp. ‘What about Jeannie Runnels and Bess Prescott? Why them?’
He scrabbled backwards with his heels until he found the wall and he propped himself against it, putting a hand to the back of his head. ‘I can’t explain them ones.’
I kicked the chair next to him, sending it flying along the wall. ‘You’re not about to hold out on me now.’
‘I can’t explain it, truly. I went with them women to chase away what I done – the usual way a man does, I mean. But once we was alone, it started eating me up, and it was like the goddamn devil took me over. I saw their faces and I remembered the expression on the other ones’ faces, and then I had them by the throat and I just couldn’t stop . . .’ He heaved. ‘Jesus Christ, it’s like it was someone else did it. I swear to you, if I could take it back . . .’
‘You killed them. You’re responsible for everything you did.’
‘No. No. The Anderson girl turned my life upside down. I couldn’t stop fretting on it, it was driving me crazy. It still is. And then the nurse, and then . . . then I couldn’t stop for nothing.’
My stomach knotted up at the evil in front of me, a man so far beyond redemption. Then a revelation came to me, prompted by his words, buckling my knees as it formed. ‘Are there more?’
‘No.’
I stepped closer. ‘
ARE THERE MORE
?’
‘
NO
, I swear. That’s all of them.’
‘It’s been two months. You’re telling me you couldn’t stop yourself, but then you did. Pick your story, goddamn you – which is it?’
‘Bill found out, he came down on me. Threatened to kill me if I didn’t quit it.’
My wheels were turning now. ‘So you stopped and he covered it up for you.’
‘He had to. Masters started poking around in all sorts when he won that damn vote. Coughlin told Bill to kill me and be done with it, but Bill overruled him. Son of a bitch is a snake. He don’t know I know that. That’s why Bill made him involve Barrett – so Coughlin would have to keep his mouth shut about me.’
‘Barrett killed Glover?’
‘Barrett? He’s worse than a woman. I drove him out there and put the gun in his hand and he said he wouldn’t do it. I warned him what’d happen but he was adamant. Couldn’t even bring himself to put one in a dirt-fed nigger. Glover was wailing and begging for his mama by then; I had to do it. Barrett went for my arm the first time, made me miss my goddamn shot. I had to put him on his ass so I could get it done.’ He shook his head. ‘Always falls into my lap. Always been that way.’
He looked up at me now and we stared at each other, his eyes wide and desperate. Even after speaking the words, he believed himself worthy of sympathy. He kept looking at me, pleading; for a bullet or forgiveness, I couldn’t tell which.
‘I’m not your priest, take your goddamn eyes off me.’
‘You gotta know I’m sorry. If I had my time again—’
‘Save it.’
I looked out the window now, planning how to get him out to the car. He was still talking, empty words about coercion and forgiveness. I figured the sob story was all in the name of getting me to lower my guard. Then I looked at him again, the pathetic figure he cut, and reconsidered that judgement.
‘How did Tindall find out?’
He stopped mid-sentence. ‘What?’
‘About Prescott and Runnels. You said he found out.’
His mouth moved. He moistened his lips.
‘You told him, didn’t you? Same way you just blabbed it all out to me. You wanted him to mollify you.’
He shut his eyes. ‘I told you I was going out of my mind—’
‘And you told the women too. Prescott and Runnels – you confessed to them what you did in Texarkana.’ It all came together at once. ‘That’s why you killed them – because you couldn’t keep your damn mouth shut, and you couldn’t leave them alive after.’
He looked away from me, across the room. I couldn’t tell if he even recognised the lies he’d been selling to himself.
‘You’re not worth a bullet. They should leave you out for the vultures.’
‘You never done something you hated yourself for?’
The line derailed me. The memories played out in Technicolor, never far from my conscious even now – the jeep crash, the hospital, the war. All those moments when we reveal our true selves, and I’d been found wanting. Texarkana as my redemption; so much self-loathing, I’d almost destroyed myself.
Then I realised that last part was the difference. ‘I only ever took it out on myself.’
‘I done that, believe me. It ain’t always enough.’ He set his eyes on the liquor bottle on the table. ‘How about you hand me that whiskey?’
‘Go to hell. Who started the fire at Duke’s?’
‘We can sit here raking over this all night, ain’t no good can come of it.’
‘We’ll sit here as long as I goddamn say so.’
He rolled his head side to side, trying to ease it. ‘I torched the place. Bill said it was my mess, so it was only right that I clear it up. Same with you.’
My hand started shaking at the last part. I switched the gun over. ‘What does that mean?’
‘That first day you walked into the precinct, I was sure you recognised me. I was ready to draw.’
He said it with a different inflection, and it came to me in that instant. The memory-echo he’d stirred when he put his gun to my head at Lake Hamilton – the same terror I’d felt in the abandoned farmhouse in Texarkana. Fighting for my life against a man posing as the killer. ‘That was you. Under the hood that night. You ran me off the road and tried to kill me.’
He opened his hands. An admission – not proud, just matter-of-fact. ‘Could’ve saved us both a heap of trouble. As soon as Browning came into the squad room and said someone was asking about the fire at Duke’s, I knew it was you I was gonna find waiting. Somehow had a feeling we wasn’t through.’
He’d been onto me almost from the second I’d arrived. ‘Were you tailing me?’
‘Some. That other one, your roughneck friend, he was running in circles for weeks until Barrett spilled his guts. I wasn’t sure how much he’d told you. Didn’t take long to figure out not much.’
Things fell into place. ‘You stole his papers from my room.’
‘It was gobbledegook. That’s when I knew you had nothing. Until Tucker wet his pants and opened his mouth.’
‘You killed him. To make it look like it was me.’
He was shaking his head. ‘That was a bonus. I killed him because I shoulda done it the night of the fire. He was supposed to be out of the pocket but he saw me leaving the back way.’
‘Did you murder Robinson before the fire?’
His face went slack. ‘Hell, I just helped him along. He was drinking his way out of this life anyway. I put a pillow over his face and he never even twitched.’
My jaw locked up. I looked at him down the gun barrel.
He stared right into it. ‘How about we get this over with now?’
I felt hatred enough to do it. I gripped the handle so hard I worried I’d fire by accident. The thought of losing Lizzie for ever stayed my hand. ‘On your feet.’
‘What for?’
I kicked the sole of his shoe. ‘Because I’m the man with the gun this time. Let’s go.’
‘Go where? Serving me up to Bill won’t get you what you want.’
‘You’re nothing to me. If Tindall wants you, he can have you.’
‘You can’t be that goddamn stupid.’ He pushed himself off the floor. ‘Tell me how you found me here.’
‘Teddy Coughlin gave you up.’
‘Coughlin? He don’t know about this place. Only way he could’ve found out is if Bill told him. I knew it as soon as I seen you – you here because Bill wants you to be.’
‘Bullshit. He hid you here. If Tindall wanted you dead—’
‘Wipe the mud out of your eyes, he sent you to do it for him.’ He turned and took a sidelong glance out the window, a bundle of nervous energy all of a sudden. ‘I had a feeling Bill was hanging me out to dry here. I knew he wouldn’t do it himself, but I never reckoned on him sending you.’
The decoy with the rooms – not a defence against me; a defence against Tindall.
‘He’s calling the tune and you dancing right along to it.’
I tried to say something, but the sinking feeling in my chest suffocated the words. Nothing more than Tindall’s pawn. Everything spinning out of control. Then one shaft of clarity cut through the storm: if Tindall didn’t want Layfield, I had no bargaining chip. No way to get Lizzie back.
Layfield was glancing from one side of the room to the other, as if I was no longer a concern. He darted to the back window and peered through it from one side, taking care that he couldn’t be seen. He turned to me. ‘I can’t spy no one, but they’re here all right. They’ll be waiting on you to put me under, then they’ll pick you off on your way out. That’s why he sent you – kill two birds with one stone.’
I kept the gun on his chest, my eyes shifting out of focus as black panic closed around my vision. ‘I’m not letting you talk your way out of this.’
‘You never could hide your fear, Yates. I’m right, and you only just coming to see it.’ He ripped the mattress from the bed and stood it in front of the door.
My eyes flicked to the window next to it. My breathing was stunted and rapid.
‘You want proof, fire a shot into the floor,’ he said. ‘See what happens after that when you don’t come out.’
I glanced over my shoulder, wisps everywhere now.
‘We ain’t walking away from this one.’ He reached his hand out. ‘Hand me back my piece, and I give you my word I won’t turn it on you. You and me can put a little hitch in their giddy-up at least.’