The River Burns (45 page)

The snaps showed Jake Withers nearly nude and wearing grotesque war paint over his face and body. The images depicted a sordid or violent or at least a messed-up young man, the impact such that the SQ detectives appeared to relent. Impressions they'd formed about the suspect were thoroughly dashed.

Still, they hesitated.

Ryan acknowledged that he was missing something. For some reason, they were not inclined to believe him. If they were going to bend, they needed something to take away. Proof would be fine, nothing better, but in lieu of proof, they needed something.

He sat back, gave himself over to his talk.

“You know, off and on, you guys mention my brother. I know why. It's a conflict of interest for me, no question. But you do understand what's at stake here, don't you? A bridge was burned. People want to pin that on the loggers, but they're the ones whose livelihoods are impacted by that, in a negative way, at least in the short term. So maybe it wasn't them. Right now, they have no bridge. The next thing that happens was logging trucks get firebombed. Some people think that that was retaliation, or maybe it's just made to look that way. No matter what, do you really think that loggers are going to take this sitting on their asses? Really? We've got a war brewing here. Environmentalists on one side, and some of those people might be ecoterrorists and drug dealers, and loggers on the other side, and some of them may even want a piece of the drug action. Nobody's squeaky clean here. If I don't get this under control in one hell of a hurry, you're going to be back here, only next time it won't be for an arson. We'll have dead bodies in the woods. People beat up and lying in the gutters. More than a few. A war, guys. Yes, in this dinky town. We've got a chance to stop it in its tracks. So unless you want to move here and be solving killings for the balance of your careers, let's proceed wisely.”

Both men observed him awhile, and never did check with each other.

“Okay,” Maltais agreed quietly. “We're not here to inflict our will, Ryan. We just want a resolution. Of course, we want a good resolution. The right one.”

“That's why I asked you in.”

“Oh sure, that must be why.”

Maltais and Ryan fell into a locked gaze, as if they were slipping back into their mutual distrust and recrimination, until Vega intervened, standing. He put his hand on a small decorative wood box in which Ryan kept coins, keys, and paper clips that were seldom required, and slid it over eight inches. The other two cops took their eyes off each other to watch him do that. Vega said, “We're agreeable, Ryan. Once more around for good luck, before we take steps. But you know, you have to know, eventually it comes down to burden of proof.”

“Of course.”

Code. He knew he was lying about some things, but not about everything.

Without further formality, the SQ detectives departed the office. Ryan waited. When he saw them outside through his window, strolling towards their car, he got on the telephone. He had essentially no time to get Jake Withers to change his testimony and line it up properly regarding the timing, and no time at all to get Willis Howard to recant his lies. He couldn't do both on his own at the same instant, and needed help.

24

P
erfect timing. Tara would have kicked the shoppers out of the store herself, except that the final dregs of a steady drove of tourists were departing just as she got off the phone. She waited a few seconds longer for them to leave without inflicting any roughhouse encouragement. Then Tara locked the store's front door and flipped the window notice to read
CLOSED/FERM
É
.

She needed time. She had none, Ryan explained, because the SQ detectives would be suspicious if Willis Howard changed his mind after he talked to him. So she had to do it before they got there. They were secretly baiting him to do it the other way, but that way would fail and they'd get to pin his ears back then, maybe destroy him. So she had to do it for him.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Change Willis's mind.”

She was alone in the store now with Willis. As defiant, as surprised, or as dismayed as he may have wanted to sound, when he spoke he came across as subliminally petrified. “Why did you lock the door?”

“Why did I—? Why did I lock the door? Willis, I'm going to strangle you, or slice an artery, or at the very least kick your balls in repeatedly—why do you think I locked the door?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don't consider it fair that the whole neighbourhood be forced to listen to your endless screaming and caterwauling, do you? Because, you know, you are going to scream and caterwaul, Willis. Soon.”

The way he shot his glance around the room, anyone might think that he was looking to flee. “What are you talking about? Are you kidding me? I don't think you should talk to me in that tone of voice, Tara.”

“I'll talk to you any way I choose.”

“No, you will not. What's gotten into you?”

Sequestered behind the rectangle of countertop that protected his cash area, with the big sign suspended above his head that read
WILLIS EPHRAIM HOWARD, ESQ.
,
he perhaps spoke more bravely than if bereft of the fortification. She couldn't get to him easily, and if she did fly over the counter to try to seize him by the nape of the neck he'd have an opportunity to flee through a gap out the other side, perhaps run into the streets and holler for help, and where, if she managed to grab him, he could at least publicly plead for mercy.

“Willis Ephraim Howard,” she said, as if reading his name off the sign. She added, “Fucking esquire.”

“What's gotten into you?”

“You've done it now, haven't you? Screwed everything up. Including our business. We're supposed to be business
partners
. Why didn't you tell me you planned to sabotage everything we've been working for? Everything
you've
worked for throughout your entire screwed-up life.”

She deployed this knack of catching him then keeping him off guard. He was trying to teach himself to counteract her ingenuity and properly defend himself, to stop her from always getting the superior hand. She was never this extreme in staking a claim over him before, but now, having some experience with her tactics under his belt, he believed that if he had any hope in this discussion—or furore, or battle, or whatever was about to transpire between them,
murder
—he needed to fight back. He pretended to know precisely what she was talking about, although that was difficult when he stood so avidly in the dark while she was so clearly entrenched upon her warpath.

“You should talk,” Willis Howard challenged her. “Who's got the more screwed-up life? Me or you? Do you want to take a vote? Open the door. Come on. Let's have a public debate on the subject.”

“You sycophantic, conniving, deceitful—you know what? I don't have to go through the dictionary. There's a word for you.”

“I'm not sycophantic. I kowtow to nobody.”

“You fucking liar.”

“And I don't lie. Stop swearing. I didn't know you were on meds—are you off them now?”

He could come to enjoy this.

“Or maybe I'm wrong. I was thinking
imbecile
,
but perhaps the word for you hasn't been invented yet. Maybe you're just . . .
Willis. Willis. Willis.
”

He rejected her refrain and exaggerated enunciation. He warned her, “Stop that. Shut up.”

“Willis.”

“Shut up! Open the door, Tara. I don't know what game you're playing but we are not closed to business.”

She laughed. “Seriously? Do you really want the whole world to hear this? Anyway, the cops will be here soon. I suppose we'll have to open up for them.”

“What cops?” he asked, and the question felt weak on his tongue, he wished he could have it right back. “How do you know that?”

“Ah, Willis,
your
cops. The ones you've been lying to. The ones you're being
sycophantic
with. The SQ, asshole.”

He swallowed, which she noticed.

“Willis,” she began, and let the volume of her voice drop several notches, so that it felt conspiratorial, “you've screwed everything up. You are single-handedly going to turn the town against you, and by extension against us and this store. You have just driven us straight into the ditch with your lies and distortions. You never saw
anybody
burn the old covered bridge.”

Somehow, she knew what he was saying to certain people. Her cop boyfriend. He tipped her off. Bastard.

“You've got it wrong,” he fought back. “The town won't be against me. They've got this old regime going, don't talk to outsiders, but it's time to grow up. To join the world. They'll thank me, once the story comes out. Everybody knows the loggers did it. What the police are begging for and what this town needs is for someone to say who. I'll say who. I have the courage to say who.”

“Courage? You think you're going to be some kind of hero? That's the idea? You want to call the snivelling, slimy, wormy old grievances you haul around in your rectum your courage? You're mistaken. You don't know what's going on, Willis. To be fair, not many do. But there are plans in place to get the town out of this jam. You prefer war between loggers and tree huggers? Or between loggers and . . . yourself? That's what this town and this business needs? Think about it. It's simple. We need the bridge back. It'll be back if you shut up. But there'll be no new covered bridge if you lie to the police. You will have prevented that from happening, and everybody will know. They will know who to blame for tearing this town apart. War will ensue. People will get beat up. They will hate you for that, Willis, and hate your store, if you speak your lies in a court of law.”

“I saw what I saw. That's not lying. Mine was a perfect view of the bridge.”

“You mean you saw a perfect opportunity to pin blame on someone you don't happen to like. Why? Because I'm going out with his brother? Is that what upsets you?”

“I don't have to listen to this.” He wanted to break from the ramparts behind the cash, but couldn't decide on an exit. One opening led straight into Tara, the other would make it appear as though he was on the run out the back way. Trapped, he looked confused, turning this way, then that, undecided.

“Oh, but you do, Willis. Do you know what I did for a living? Before I joined this illustrious enterprise?”

“No, I don't. I just presumed you were a hit woman for the mob.”

“Ha-ha. Funny. But close enough.”

“Nonsense.”

“I was a lawyer. A litigator. I still am. So talk to me, Willis, or I'll excoriate you on the witness stand and I promise, once I'm done, not a soul in this town will ever speak to you, let alone cough any morsel of business your way.”

He stood still. Clearly astounded. “A lawyer.”

She scoffed. “I bet you thought I was a whore. Something like that. A high-priced call girl, maybe? Or am I flattering myself? That's why you never asked. Well, maybe I was a whore, not far off it, but not quite as you imagine. On the witness stand,
Willis
, I'll slice into you to a depth you can't begin to measure. Oh, it'll be nasty. Not a pretty sight. What was he wearing, Mr. Howard? Oh, don't be silly, every guy wears a ball cap in this town. How could you tell what he looked like in the dark? You watched him from
inside
the house? Are there no reflections on your glass windows? You can identify a man's features, under a baseball cap, in the dark, through reflective glass, not to mention through trees, at seventy yards? Really? Would you care to repeat that performance, Mr. Howard, you with the eagle eyes, under similar conditions? A controlled experiment, Mr. Howard. We'll parade people you know on the lip of the old bridge, at night, with scant moonlight—hell, we'll spot you a full moon—and let's count how many you can pick out that way. Here's a tip. I won't play fair. I'll dress women up as men, and when you name a Linda as being a Mike, I'll make you the laughingstock of this town, this county, this region, this province, this country. My advice, move to Costa Rica, far enough away from your shame. Hey, know what? You can be an intermediary down there for local artisans. Send me up a few trinkets for the store, which, by the way, I will own outright after you're forced to sell. And sell cheaply. To me.”

Willis Howard chose not to speak, which may have been wise at that moment. Out the front window he saw the SQ officers drive up and park across the street. Tara followed his gaze, and noticed that her time was short. She needed to wrap this up.

“Or, Willis, you can forgo your conspiracy and keep your store, compound your business even, because that's part of an overall plan to which you are not privy, as yet, although I will want you to take on a leading administrative role.” She knew to not only threaten him, but to tempt him with an exchange, an arrangement, and never mind that she might regret it later.

“A leading role, in my own store.”

“Not the store. The bridge. The town. We are going to develop this town, Willis. The next fifteen seconds is insufficient for me to give you the details, but the project is large and you will be asked to administer the books. Be a fund-raiser. You'll be a more significant public figure than you've ever been, and you'll be seen as standing on the side of the angels. So either you are on side, on my side, or you commit perjury on the witness stand and probably do jail time for that, plus receive the enjoyment of being publicly eviscerated. I will rip you apart and steal your store. So decide.”

A policeman found the door to be oddly locked, and so knocked.

“I guess he can't read,” Tara said, waiting, continuing to stare at him.

“I don't know,” Willis said. “I've already told them—”

“Look feeble. I know you can manage that. Make yourself seem undecided. Baffled. Here's a tip, Willis. The person who actually did burn the bridge? He confessed. He's not the one you wanted to see charged. Stick to your story and you'll look awfully bad and probably bury yourself even before I get the chance. That's why the cops are here, to find out why you lied to them. So tell the truth. You hate the loggers. The O'Farrell clan. You got carried away. They've given you a hard time over the years and you're probably sitting on a stack of legitimate grievances dating back to kindergarten. But Willis, this is not the time that you get to beat them down. If you try, I pity you.”

“Answer the door, please, Tara.” Willis tried to sound stern.

The cops were knocking.

“They always win,” he complained.

“Decide,” quietly, she commanded him.