Reinhardt got into his truck, backed onto the road, and shot west, toward Aurora. Cork delayed a few minutes, waiting so that he wouldn’t have to eat Reinhardt’s dust. He thought it must be hard having a father like Buck, a man unloving and unlovable in so many ways. Yet Cork had the feeling that love was the one thing Dave Reinhardt desperately wanted from his old man. Hell, didn’t every son?
TWENTY-SIX
Three thirty in the afternoon was too early for the drinking crowd at the Buzz Saw. The place was empty of customers when Cork walked in. Faith Hill was on the jukebox. Seneca Peterson was perched on a stool, reading a book that lay open on the bar. She glanced up and, with a disturbed look, watched him approach.
“Sorry, Seneca,” he said, taking the stool next to her. “This’ll only take a minute, then I’m out of your hair.”
He glanced down at the book: We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party.
“Sad and unsettling,” she said.
Cork realized her dour look had nothing to do with him. “Pleasure reading?”
“For a class I’m taking at ACC,” she said, referring to Aurora Community College. “The politics of resistance. The Black Panther movement was well articulated, had admirable goals and able leaders. They just couldn’t fight a whole political, social, and judicial system that was dead set against them.” She marked her place with a paper coaster, slid from the stool, and slipped behind the bar. “What can I get you?”
“A Leinie’s.”
“Original?”
“Dark.”
“Glass?”
“Just the bottle’s fine.”
She popped the cap and brought him the beer, along with a coaster. “Start a tab?”
He put a twenty on the bar and said, “One’ll be enough.” While she went to the register, he took a sip. The beer was ice cold and felt good going down. “Remember the other night when I was in here?”
She set the change in front of him. “Sure. You asked about Buck Reinhardt.”
“I asked where he might have gone after you kicked him out.”
“And I told you if he was going home he’d probably hit Tanner’s on the Lake.”
“I checked. He wasn’t there. He also wasn’t at the Silver Horse, the casino bar, or the Four Seasons.”
“That was the night the Kingbirds were murdered. Now that was truly tragic. I knew Rayette. Liked her.” She leaned on the bar. “And because you couldn’t find him, you think Buck did it.”
“I think in his own mind he had good reason to do it. Do you think he did it?”
She smiled with a secret understanding. “I knew the minute you walked in that you weren’t here for the beer.”
“Really?”
“I’ve never seen you here in the middle of the day. You drink in the evening or at night. What I call dismally responsible.”
“Predictable?”
“That, too.”
“You didn’t answer me. Do you think Buck did it?”
She reached under the bar and brought up an opened pack of American Spirits and a Bic lighter. She tapped out a cigarette and reached for an ashtray. “The day after the murders, a couple of cops came in to talk to me. Captain Larson and a state cop.”
“From the BCA, actually. Simon Rutledge.”
“Yeah. Cute in a family-guy sort of way.” She lit the cigarette and blew smoke out of the side of her mouth, careful to keep it away from Cork. “They asked me about Buck, how drunk was he, was he belligerent, what time did he leave, did he say where he was going. They didn’t ask me the question you just did, do I think Buck killed the Kingbirds.”
“What would you have said?”
“I’d have told them no.”
“Why?”
“Because Buck’s predictable, too. Saturday nights he comes in, drinks three or four rounds of CC and ditch water.”
“What the hell is that?”
She gave a rich laugh. “That’s how he orders Canadian Club and soda. At ten thirty sharp he finds something to complain about, makes a big pronouncement that he’s going elsewhere to finish getting shit-faced, and he leaves. Always ten thirty sharp. Last Saturday he was worse than usual, carrying on with his racial slurs about the Ojibwe, so I shoved him out the door a little early.”
“Any reason ten thirty is the witching hour?”
“That’s when Brit gets off work.”
“Brit? Would that be Brittany Young?”
“Yeah.”
Cork knew her, one of the women who served food and drink at the Buzz Saw. Tall, long blond hair, good figure. A way about her that suggested that if you tossed her a flirt, she’d catch it with a soft glove.
“Something going on between her and Buck?” he asked.
“I’m just telling you what I’ve observed.” She took a long draw on her cigarette and studied him. “I used to watch you in church, you know? When I was a kid.”
“No kidding? Why?”
“Jenny and I took First Communion together. I would try to imagine what it was like being the daughter of the sheriff. I thought it would be pretty exciting. But you’re not sheriff anymore, so I’m wondering what your interest in all this is.”
“I promised some people that I would look into it.”
She stared at him, and he remembered that when she was younger and still attended Mass, she seemed like one of those kids who had the mysteries of the faith all figured out and found them amusing.
“I heard someone shot at you the other night,” she said.
“Yeah.”
She shook her head. “Being your daughter would be too hard. Too much worry. Look, I’ll throw in one more observation. I don’t know if it’ll help you, but here it is. Brit’s put on weight lately, and it isn’t from overeating.”
“Is she on the schedule today?”
“Starts at five thirty.”
Cork checked his watch. Quarter to four.
Seneca straightened up and arched her back. “I’ve got a chapter to read before class tonight, and you’ve got a beer you’ve barely touched.”
“One more question. You happen to know where she lives?”
He caught Brittany Young polishing her nails. Her toenails. She came to the door walking on her bare heels, wads of Kleenex jammed between her toes. She wore a loose-fitting black T-shirt and gray sweats. She had a pink towel wrapped like a turban around her hair. She smelled clean, of some floral soap. She looked pissed when she opened the door, then she looked puzzled.
“Yeah?”
“Brittany, I’m Cork O’Connor.”
“I know who you are. What do you want?”
“Do you have a minute to talk?”
“I’m in the middle of something.”
“This won’t take long, and it might help a friend of yours.”
“Who?”
