So Cold the River (2010) (27 page)

It wasn’t as if Josiah had never thought of killing a man before, he’d just never actually expected to do it. Figured if he
ever did, it would come slow and calculated, the product of a great deal of provocation. Revenge for some grave offense. But
tonight… tonight it had happened so damn fast.

“Was the gun that did it,” he said. “Was his own fault for pulling that gun.”

Surely that had been it. A self-defense move and nothing else. You see a man swinging a gun your way, what in the hell were
you supposed to do?

Problem was, it hadn’t been the first blow that killed him. Josiah was almost certain of that. Oh, it had knocked him out
well enough, but the one that killed him had been that second strike, when the man in the ditch was already down and out and
Josiah jumped down there and laid the cinder block to his head with every last ounce of strength he had in him. That wasn’t
Josiah’s nature; he’d never been one for kicking a man he’d already put on the ground. But tonight he’d done that, and then
some. And in that moment, that blink-quick moment, he hadn’t even felt like himself. He’d felt like another man entirely,
a man who’d enjoyed that deathblow a great deal.

Shit, what a mess. You killed someone, better have both good cause for it and a good plan for dealing with it, and Josiah
had neither. Didn’t even know who the son of a bitch was, just that he’d been watching the house. Why had he been watching
the house?

He reached over to the passenger seat and got the case he’d stolen, a big leather bag with a shoulder strap, and felt around
for the wallet. When he got his fingers around it, he flicked on the interior lights and opened it up. First thing he saw
was a photo ID.
Licensed Private Investigator
.

A detective. That didn’t make a bit of sense, and the name—Gavin Murray—didn’t mean a thing to Josiah either. He studied the
picture, confirmed that this man was a stranger. The address given on both the investigator’s license and his driver’s license,
which was tucked in the same compartment, was Chicago.

Same city as the man who’d gone to see Edgar, pretending to be making a movie. Two of them in French Lick on the same day,
one asking questions about Campbell, the other watching Josiah’s house with a camera. What could these bastards be after?
Hell, Josiah didn’t have anything to take.

He removed the cash from the wallet and put it in his pocket, then felt around in the case and came across a fancy leather
folder, took that out and opened it, and found himself studying a sheet of paper with his own name, date of birth, and Social
Security number. Plus a list of addresses going back the better part of fifteen years, places
he’d
almost forgotten about. He thumbed past this sheet and saw that the next one detailed his arrest history, complete with case
numbers and dates of arrest and charges. He flipped through a few more papers, then found one that said
Client Contact
. There were two phone numbers and a fax number and e-mail address, but Josiah was far more interested in the name itself:

Lucas G. Bradford.

This morning the humidity had arrived even ahead of the heat. It was a liquid breeze that came in through the screen as dawn
rose, and Anne, expecting to see heavy clouds when she got out of bed and looked out the window, was surprised to find sun.

She showered, a process that now took too much time and too much energy, holding on to the metal railings with one hand at
all times, and then dressed in slacks and a light cotton blouse and
the sturdy white tennis shoes she wore every day. Had to wear them; balance was all that kept her from a hospital or a nursing
home. She loathed those shoes, though. Hated them with a depth of passion that she’d rarely felt for anything. When she was
young, she’d been a shoe fan. All right, that was an understatement and a half—she’d been
crazy
about shoes. And the shoes she loved had heels. They were tall and elegant and you had to know how to walk in them, you couldn’t
just clomp around, you had to walk like a
lady
. Anne McKinney had always known how to walk. Had earned her share of stares over the years because of that walk, had watched
men’s eyes drop to her hips all the time, long after she became a mother, even.

She took short, steady steps now in her flat, sturdy shoes. Hated the walk, hated the shoes. The past taunted with every step.

Once she was dressed, she went out onto the porch to take the day’s first readings. The barometer was down to 29.80. Quite
a drop overnight. The sun was out, but the lawn didn’t sparkle under it, no heavy dew built up overnight the way there had
been recently. She leaned out from under the porch roof and looked up and saw a cluster of swollen clouds in the west, pale
on top but gray beneath. Cumulonimbus. Storm clouds.

All signs, from the clouds to the dry grass to the pressure drop, indicated a storm. It was confirmation of what she’d suspected
yesterday, but she felt a vague sense of disappointment as she studied the clouds. They were storm makers, sure, but somehow
she’d expected more. Still, it was early. Spring supercells developed quickly and often unpredictably, and it was tough to
say what might find its way here by day’s end.

She recorded all of the measurements in her notebook. It was a ritual that usually gave her pleasure but today, for some reason,
did not. She felt out of sorts, grumpy. It happened when something of note occurred, like Eric Shaw’s visit, and she had
nobody to share it with. It was then that she felt the weight of the loneliness, then that the mocking of the empty house
and the silent phone rose in pitch. She’d kept her mind all these years, her memory and logic, was proud of it. Mornings like
this, though, she wondered if that was best. Maybe it was easier to be the doddering sort of old, maybe that dulled the sharp
edges of the empty rooms that surrounded you.

“Oh, stop it, Annabelle,” she said aloud. “Just stop it.”

She would not sit around here feeling sorry for herself. You had to be grateful for every day, grateful for each moment the
good Lord allowed you to have on this weird, wild earth. She knew that. She believed it.

Sometimes, though, believing it was easier than at other times.

She went back inside and fixed toast for breakfast and sat in her chair in the living room and tried to read the paper. It
was tough to concentrate. Memories were leaping out at her this morning, nipping the heels of her mind. She wanted someone
to talk to. The phone had been quiet all week but that was partially her own fault—she’d worked so hard to convince those
at church and in town of her strong independence that they didn’t worry about her much. And that was good, of course, she
didn’t want to give anyone cause to worry, but… but it wouldn’t hurt if someone checked in now and again. Just to say hello.
Just to make a little conversation.

Heavens, but Harold had loved to talk. There had been plenty of times when she’d said,
Harold, go outside and give my ears a break,
just because she couldn’t take the unrelenting chatter. And the children… oh, but those were
his
children, sure as anything, because both of them caught the gift of gab like it was a fever. This house had been filled with
talk from sunrise to sundown.

She set the paper down, stood up, and went to the phone,
ignoring, as she usually did, the cordless unit that sat beside her, because it was good to move around, good to stay active.
She called the hotel and asked to be put through to Eric Shaw. It had occurred to her last night that she’d never asked what
family he was researching. Maybe she could help. Maybe if he told her the family name, she’d remember some things about them,
maybe she could tell him some stories.

It went to voice mail, though, and so she left a message. Anne McKinney calling, nothing urgent. Just wanted to check in.

E
RIC WENT INTO THE
dining room and ordered breakfast, realizing with relief that he was truly hungry again, sipping his coffee with a touch
of impatience, eager to see the food brought out. That had to be a good sign.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the effects of Anne’s water. It had eased his physical suffering just as the Bradford bottle
had, but the vision it brought on was so different, so much gentler. Like watching a film, really. He’d had distance, separation
of space and time. If what he’d seen were real…

The possibilities there tempted him in a strange way. Maybe it was a hallucination the same as those experienced by drug users
every day. If it wasn’t, though, if he was really seeing the past, then the water provided him something far different from
pain. Provided him with power, really. A gift.

“French toast with bacon,” a female voice behind him said, and then the waitress set a plate before him that intensified his
hunger. “And you need more coffee. Hang on and I’ll get a refill. Sorry about that. I stopped to watch the TV people for a
few minutes.”

“Uh-huh,” Eric muttered, putting the first forkful of French toast into his mouth even before she was gone. It tasted fantastic.

“They were filming right in the lobby,” she said. “I was hoping they’d come in here and I could make the news. You know, fifteen
seconds of fame.”

Eric swallowed, wiped his mouth with the napkin, and said, “Oh, right, I saw the TV vans. What’s the deal?”

“Someone was
murdered,
” she said, dropping her voice to a grim whisper as she leaned over him to fill his coffee cup. “Blown up in his van, can
you believe it?”

“Really? So much for this being a peaceful place. If people find out the locals are blowing one another up, it might hurt
business.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a local. Was some man from Chicago. And he was a detective, too. So it’s even more interesting, you know? Because
who knows what he was doing down here. I don’t remember his name, but they said that—”

“Gavin,” Eric said, feeling his body temperature drop and his breathing slow, the food in front of him no longer so appealing.
“His name was Gavin Murray.”

It was a hell of a long hike, particularly going through the woods to avoid the road, but Josiah didn’t trust his cell phone,
figured they could track it. He turned it off and took the battery out to be sure it wasn’t transmitting any signal, and then
he set off through the woods and toward town. He hated to involve Danny Hastings in this mess, but there was work to be done
now that he couldn’t do alone, and Danny was the only person he trusted
to keep his mouth shut no matter what happened. Oh, Danny would stand a good chance of getting caught at it, but he’d never
tell the cops a thing. They’d gotten into plenty of scrapes with the police over the years, and if there was one thing Danny
knew how to do in those situations, it was keep his mouth shut.

The hike into town took more than an hour, and then he had to chance being seen, come out into the open for at least a little
while. There was a pay phone at the gas station, one of the last pay phones in town, and he called and told Danny where to
meet him. The whole time he felt a prickle in the middle of his back, expecting a police car to come swerving around the corner
at any minute, cops boiling out of it, guns drawn. Nothing happened, though. Nobody so much as blinked at him.

As soon as he hung up, he went back into the woods and climbed out of sight. Sat on an overturned log and waited. Fifteen
minutes later, Danny’s Oldsmobile appeared, driving slow, Danny craning his head and looking for him. Shit, way to avoid attention.

Josiah hustled down the hill and came out of the woods and lifted a hand. He jerked open the passenger door when the car pulled
up, and said, “Drive, damn it.”

Danny took them up the hill, the transmission double-clutching and shivering.

“What in the hell is going on, Josiah?”

“I got powerful problems is what’s going on. You willing to help a friend out?”

“Well, of course, but I’d like to know what I’m getting into.”

“It ain’t good,” Josiah said, and then, softer, “and I’ll try to keep you out of it much as possible. I will.”

It was that remark, the show of concern for someone other than himself, that seemed to tell Danny the gravity of the situation.
He turned, frowning, and waited.

“I got into a scrape last night,” Josiah said. “Man pulled a gun on me. I had a rock in my hand, and I used it on him. Hit
him once more than I needed to.”

“Oh, shit,” Danny said. “I ain’t helping you bury no body, Josiah. I ain’t doing it.”

“Don’t need to bury a body.”

“So you didn’t kill him?”

Josiah was quiet.

“You
did
kill him?” Danny almost missed a curve. “You
murdered
somebody?”

“It was self-defense,” Josiah said. “But he’s dead, yeah. And you know what the police around here will do to somebody like
me in a case like that. Self-defense ain’t going to mean shit. The prosecutor will pull out all my old charges and tell the
jury I’m nothing but trash,
dangerous
trash, and I’ll be up in Terre Haute or Pendleton.”

Danny’s fat tongue slid out, moistened his lips. “It wasn’t that guy in the van?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Whole town knows about it, Josiah! Grandpa dragged my ass up to church today, was all anybody was talking about. Oh, hell,
it was you?”

“He pulled a gun on me, damn it! I told you that.”

They’d reached the logging road, and Josiah instructed him to turn in. He explained everything except the odd dreams of the
black train and the man in the bowler hat.

“I don’t understand what everybody’s interested in Campbell for,” Danny said.

“I don’t either. But somebody named Lucas Bradford sent this guy down from Chicago to watch me, and old Lucas has himself
some dollars. I found a bill in that dead guy’s papers, Danny—he’d been paid fifteen thousand as a
retainer
. And
there’s a note in there says he was authorized to spend up to a hundred to resolve the situation. That’s what it said—
resolve the situation
. A hundred thousand dollars.”