The Debt Collector (35 page)

She closed her eyes. She didn't want to look at his whole face, just the jaw. The line of it, the feel of the skin, the firm chin. He did not scare her. He pulled her closer, held her with a lovely gentleness, so that she could hold him back without fear, without tense muscles warding off real and imagined pain.

“Do you mind if we go up to the bedroom? I'm a little long for your couch.”

“I don't know. I don't want to …” Her tongue was getting thick and she had to concentrate. “I don't want to weird out the children.”

“It's okay. I'll be up before they are, and I'll introduce myself over bacon.”

She nodded, too tired to point out what the odds were of finding bacon in her refrigerator. “And you're definitely not gay?”

“I am definitely not gay.”

70

Sonora sat on top of three hay bales in Franklin Ward's barn, legs dangling, listening to Poppin and Abigail munch their hay. She could hear another horse calling from a farm nearby. It was something, for her, to sit on a stack of hay bales in the cool of the barn, a red and white plastic SuperAmerica cup full of coffee by her leg.

She liked barn noises, country noises, so different from what she was used to. Birds. The crunch of the horses' teeth as they worked their feed. Someone hammering in the distance. Cars passing now and then, sometimes pulling a horse trailer.

She had gotten up early with Gillane and polished her barn boots while he made breakfast. A man making coffee in the morning was a wonderful thing. Comfortable barn boots were a wonderful thing.

She had hugged the children good-bye and Gillane had left her with a kiss, and she managed to get out of the house with the air of a woman who has pulled herself together. But she had been raw to the world and had come to the barn like an open wound, a sponge to sensation. She felt every breath of air, every bend and bump in the road went through her like an electric jolt, she could not meet the eyes of her neighbors, could not bear to be looked at.

But now all she could hear was the shift and rustle of the horses. She grabbed a handful of the alfalfa and inhaled. Felt the weight go off her shoulders, a little anyway, the brain static fade to background irritation. She leaned back and rested her head against the raw and rotting wood of the barn wall, feeling like a rabbit home safe in the burrow.

She was there for quite a while before she heard the barn door creaking on the rusty hinge, and she looked up and saw Franklin Ward walking in, the sun at his back, erect as always, neatly dressed in his corduroy pants, green the color of the daily flannel shirt.

“I saw your car in the driveway awhile ago. Thought you might need a little time.”

“You heard?”

“Just what they had on the radio. They didn't say much. Just that a highly decorated ex-policeman named Jack Van Owen died from a fall from his ten-story office building. There was speculation about Joy's case. I almost called you up, then I thought you'd be out to tell me when you could, looked in the driveway, and there you were.”

He got out the old tack box and handed her a brush. “Let's get some work done while we're talking.”

He went into Abigail's stall, and she headed for Poppin, whom she knew would hold relatively still as long as he had hay to eat.

“I'm trying to put some weight on that horse of yours,” Franklin said.

“Best of luck.”

Sonora took a metal shedding blade and scraped dried mud off Poppin's backside. The horse had clearly been enjoying the rain. He turned his head and gave her a look that she took for affection. Dried mud landed on her sleeve, her boots, and the shavings on the floor of the stall.

They groomed the horses while she talked, handing each other brushes over the short partition. Ward didn't say much, other than to pass her the hoof-pick to get to Abigail's feet or to repeat a phrase now and then when his hearing let him down.

She did not dress it up or leave anything out, kept her voice matter-of-fact and low-key. She found herself apologizing.

“I can't tell you for sure how bad a guy Jack was. I don't even know if he was bad. I can't tell you for sure if I should have pursued him. I think he saved baby Chloe. I think he put an end to things, when they could have been worse. But I hold him accountable. He was in a nasty line of business, and if he didn't set things up, he put the elements together.”

“If it hadn't been for him, it never would have happened,” Ward said. “But I look at it differently. She was my niece and I loved her.”

“At least it's over. The investigation, anyway. These things are never over, are they?”

Something in her voice caught his attention. He leaned on Abigail's back and looked at her over the partition. “Don't try and run away, Detective.”

“What do you mean, run away?”

“It's in our culture, isn't it? We're a young country, the United States of America, and that's a good thing, or it can be. We got that good old American can-do philosophy, that don't-take-no-for-an-answer. It just doesn't prepare us for when the answer
is
no.

“I spent some time in Europe after the war. My war. For a while there I just didn't feel I could face going home. Felt different and didn't want to pretend. I was homesick as hell, but I couldn't go back.

“We used to make fun of the Europeans, the way they'd shrug and say, that's life. We used to think it was an excuse to be lazy and not try. I stayed in Europe till I got the point. And the point is, sometimes the answer
is
no. Somebody dies, that's a no. Your child goes away from you, you lose your job, someone kills somebody you love. That's no, Detective.

“People run from no. They drink too much, do drugs, get so busy at work they can't see straight. They get depressed and sleep, or eat everything in sight. They cry and they scream and kick and say yes yes yes. But no matter how hard you run, no is right there, right behind you.

“Take it on the chin, Detective. Running from no puts you in a bad place. Go on and feel bad. It's part of life.”

“And
that
is supposed to make it all better?”

“In time, Detective. In time.”

Like any other intelligent person, Ward knew a good line to end on. He didn't say anything else, except to ask her to hand him a saddle, and he put the tack on Abigail and handed her the reins.

“I should go to work,” Sonora said.

“If you wanted to go to work you should have said before I got the horse tacked up. Too late now. Okay by you if I let Poppin out in the paddock?”

Sonora took the reins. “He should be okay. How come your horse acts so nice, and my horse acts so bad?”

“I told you already. George Smock. You'll have to send Poppin to Kentucky if you want him to behave.”

“I'll just settle for lead and feed right now.”

She led Abigail to the side of the fence, and the horse stood patiently while Sonora climbed to the second wood slat and threw a leg over the mare's back. Abigail, a truly miraculous animal, stood quietly till Sonora urged her forward, then moved ahead steadily.

Sonora felt her shoulders go loose and did not notice that Ward waited till he saw the smile spread across her face before he left the paddock and closed the gate.

“Sonora?”

“Yeah?”

“Mrs. Cavanaugh said if you want to bring your children over Sunday afternoon, she'll make us a mighty fine roast.”

“Actually … that sounds good. Want me to bring anything?”

“Just yourselves. And Mrs. Cavanaugh said if you have a young man to bring, please do.”

“I guess I will.”

“We'll set an extra place,” he said, and headed back to the house.

Sonora, feeling brave, clucked Abigail into a trot, with Poppin following like an excited puppy.

71

Sonora stood behind her desk, four hours late, smelling like horse and planning to leave early. She knew better than to sit down. She tapped her finger on the corner of the desk, feeling the high-pitched tension of the bullpen behind her. She had said hello to no one, after sitting alone in the car for thirty-five minutes, psyching herself up to be tough. It was there in the back of her mind, the doubt, making her wonder if she should have let things be.

Behind her the phones were ringing. Sam's desk was still piled with papers just as he had left it, beneath a rising level of dust. She missed him like a physical pain. A few more weeks and he'd be back. She could hang on till then, if she had to. If they let her.

There was something new on his desk, a small brown package. She picked it up curiously. Addressed to her and tossed on the wrong desk.

Probably a bomb.

Except the return address was from Pill Hill. Who would be mailing her something from a hospital?

She ripped the brown wrapping off, found a plastic-wrapped bundle of thick white cotton socks—a packet of six—and a note from Sam.

SOMETHING TO LIFT YOUR SPIRITS, GIRL. I BEEN HEARING THINGS. JUST YOU REMEMBER, I'M BEHIND YOU, SO HANG ON. WILL BE UP AND AROUND AND AT YOUR BACK IN NO TIME. LOVE, SAM

Only Sam would know the socks had to be pure white, with some elastic in the top so they could stay up—thick, heavy slouch socks. Only Sam would know that to a woman perpetually behind in laundry, a woman whose children daily declared open season on her sock drawer, new socks were one of the small but significant pleasures of her life.

She could have laughed, she could have cried, she settled for neither. She settled for going to Crick's door and getting it over with.

He was sitting sideways behind his desk, staring out the window that was half covered by steel filing cabinets, a tiny bit of sunlight, and a whole lot of dirt. The fax machine beeped, and paper rolled over the top of the basket into a pile of other papers that no one had bothered to pick up off the floor. Crick held an empty coffee cup and he did not look up, but he knew damn well she was there.

“Do I still have a job?” Sonora asked finally. Somebody had to take the plunge.

Crick turned his chair slowly. If she had expected him to age overnight, or go gray-headed, she was disappointed. He looked like he always did. Confident to a fault and slightly dangerous.

“Close the door.”

She obeyed. “Do I still have a job?”

“Sit down.”

“Not till you answer my question.”

She saw the tiniest half smile, and she knew that he was irritated and that he admired her nerve. She missed the friendship that they had had. Chalk another casualty up to Jack Van Owen.

“Whether or not you still have a job depends on two things. One, that Forensics does not find anything to show that you helped Jack Van Owen off the roof of that building. Prelims from the ME show no evidence of a gunshot wound and your weapon had not been fired. So long as the pending investigation doesn't hit a snag, you're okay there. You'll have to talk to the IAD guys tomorrow. And you have to talk to me today. And that's part two. That's what I decide after we've had our conversation. Want to sit down now, Detective?”

“Yes, sir, I think that I do.”

He leaned way back in his chair and took full advantage of the dramatic pause, and if he wanted to intimidate her it was working. She might be in the wrong here. She could not get that out of her head.

“You should have left it alone, Sonora. You let me down.”

The rage sparked, closer to the surface than might have been safe. “You let
me
down, sir.”

“I took you off the case.”

“For no good reason that I understand. Or maybe I understand it all too well.”

“I do not now and never will believe that Jack Van Owen had anything to do with that butcher job.”

“That man wasn't the Jack Van Owen you knew. That man was what was left after a severe head injury.”

“Received in the line of duty.”

“It was a tragedy, sir. Just like that bloodbath at the Stinnets'. What does Mickey say about the gloves?”

“Too early for results.”

“What does he
think
, sir?”

“He allows the possibility that you could be right.”

“So there was a third man.”

“Who tried to stop it.”

“Who caused it.”

“What was it you wanted, Sonora? Just to bring the legend down? Do you feel good about this? Everybody's dead now. We'll never know what really happened. You didn't manage to bring him in alive, did you, so we'll never know to what degree he is or isn't guilty.”

“Who the hell do you think killed Aruba and Kinkle? More to the point, who do you think shot Sam?”

“We're looking into that. If Eddie Stinnet didn't actually do it, maybe he knew the guy who did.”

“I'll just bet.”

“Out of line, Detective.”

“It's my case.”

“Not even in your wildest dreams. Why were you two up there on that rooftop? What were you doing in the building, and alone?”

“Who am I going to call for backup?”

“I don't like that answer and I don't believe it.”

“I wanted to give him a chance to turn himself in. To cooperate with the investigation.”

He rubbed his chin. “If I had any doubt about Jack being in the clear, morally, that Jack was involved in murdering that family, I would have brought him in myself.”

“No, sir, because when the time came, you didn't. He talked to you. You knew him. And you knew he was involved from day one.”

“On that we must agree to disagree. You have a hard shell, Sonora.”

“It was you who trained me that way.”

Sonora sat in the middle-school gymnasium, back aching, on the polished pine bleachers. Tim sat beside her, waving at girls who were two years younger than he was, impressing them with his upper-class air and Brad Pitt haircut. She had expected him to be bored, but there were enough older brothers and pretty sisters to keep him happy.