“Nah. Just him and a couple of helpers. Works out of his house.”
“Any idea where I can find him tonight?”
“Miners Club, over on Third. That’s where he usually hangs out.”
“I was just there and he wasn’t.”
“Probably out at his place then.”
“Where would that be?”
“Up-valley, five, six miles.”
“Wife, kids?”
“Not Pete. He don’t have any friends, neither.”
“Sounds like you don’t much like the man.”
“Ain’t much to like. He didn’t get that mayor name for nothing.”
“I understand Ned Verriker hung it on him.”
“That’s right. Poor Ned. You heard about what happened to his wife?”
“I heard. Verriker and Balfour don’t get along, I take it?”
“You take it right.” Stivic sucked on his beer again. A dark frown had replaced the crooked grin. “Balfour come in here Monday night, pretended to be tore up over Alice dying horrible like that, but he don’t really care. Not about her or any woman.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Beat up on his wife until she walked out on him a few years ago. No other woman around here’s had anything to do with him since.”
“Did Balfour ever threaten the Verrikers?”
“Threaten? Why’d you ask that?”
“No particular reason. Just wondering.”
“Well, not that I know of. Ned would’ve kicked the crap out of him if he had.” Stivic seemed to have realized he was being a little too frank with a stranger. He said, “Listen, you talk to Balfour, don’t tell him what I said about him, all right? He don’t scare me none, but I don’t want him hassling me.”
“I won’t mention you at all, Mr. Stivic. Thanks for your help.”
“Okay. Good luck finding your friend’s wife.”
Stivic moved across to the booth he’d vacated. Runyon carried his unfinished beer to the bar, left it there, and went down a corridor near the front entrance where the restrooms were. The Buckhorn was old-fashioned enough to still have a public wall telephone with a battered local directory hanging underneath. There was a small ad for Balfour Construction in the Yellow Pages, with an address on Crooked Creek Road, Six Pines. He memorized the name and number. On his way out of the tavern, he glanced up at an illuminated beer company clock on the wall between two racks of antlers. Almost nine-thirty.
In the car, he sat mulling for a couple of minutes. Judging from what he’d learned so far, Pete Balfour was a definite maybe: didn’t get along with the Verrikers, history of violence at least against one woman, loner with a nasty temper. The best lead they’d had so far, but still tenuous without more information. No reason yet to get Bill’s hopes up with a phone call. How to handle it then? Talk to Balfour tonight or wait until morning? Almost full dark now, late to be bracing somebody. But not too late, not with the time factor working against them.
Runyon programmed the Crooked Creek Road address into the Ford’s GPS. Five point eight miles north of Six Pines, zero point four off the main valley road. Shouldn’t take him more than ten minutes to get there.
Crooked Creek Road lived up to its name: a narrow, twisty lane that followed the watercourse up into the hills. In the purple dusk, the Ford’s headlights picked out two unpaved driveways before a third loomed ahead on his left and the GPS unit told him he’d reached his destination. He put the side window down, slowing, as he neared the drive. It angled in across a short wooden bridge, on the other side of which was a closed gate in a chain-link fence that stretched out into the trees along both sides of the creek. A half moon was coming up, and in its pale light he could make out a house and two or three outbuildings on a flattish section of ground inside. From out here, all of the structures appeared dark-no lights anywhere.
He drove uphill until he came to another property, turned around in the driveway there, rolled back down to Balfour’s, and turned in so that the headlights illuminated the gate and some of the property beyond. Leaving the engine running, he stepped out into a night breeze that now held a mountain chill.
The two gate halves were padlocked together. No intercom device that would allow you to announce yourself from out here. Runyon peered through the opening between the two upright bars. The house was small, plain, well maintained. The largest and closest outbuilding, set at an angle to the left, was almost as large and probably housed Balfour’s workshop. The other, smaller buildings were shadow shapes outlined against the pine woods that walled off the rear of the property. There was a stake-bed truck slanted in near the workshop, but the open-ended carport along one side of the house was empty.
Somewhere out back, a dog had begun yammering, deep-throated barks that had an echoing effect in the light-splashed darkness. Tied up, because between yaps, even at this distance, he could hear the dog lunging at the end of the chain or rope or whatever was holding it back there. If Balfour was in the house, the animal racket and the bright headlight beams should have alerted him by now. But the front door stayed shut, the windows and porch light stayed dark.
Runyon turned to look at his watch in the headlight glare. Nine-twenty. No choice now but to hold off until morning. He couldn’t just sit out on the road and wait; no telling how long it would be before Balfour came home, if he wasn’t already forted up in there. Hanging around a stranger’s property after dark was a fool’s gambit anyway, unless you had damn good cause or a desire to spook the subject. And he had neither.
20
PETE BALFOUR
The road around the east end of Eagle Rock Lake was in lousy shape-ruts, potholes, crumbled edges. Leave it to the goddamn county. Not that he gave a crap what the county did or didn’t do, not anymore. Off on his right as he jounced along, the lake looked like the big oil slick they’d had down in the Gulf-smooth and shiny black, skimmed here and there with reflections of moonlight. It was a mile and a half wide, maybe a mile long, supposed to be a lot of fish in it on account of it was fed by a bunch of mountain streams. Couldn’t prove it by him. His sport wasn’t fishing, it was hunting.
Going hunting tonight. Big-game hunting-Verriker hunting.
Balfour could feel the weight of the revolver in his jacket pocket. Charter 2000 Off Duty. 38 special, two-inch barrel. Serial number filed off like on all the guns in his collection. Had it for years, couldn’t be traced back to him- not that that mattered anymore. Perfect piece for this kind of hunt.
He was pretty juiced now that he was close to settling the score with Neddy boy, but he’d of been more juiced if he wasn’t so pissed at that tourist woman. He’d swabbed the cut under his right eye with iodine, but it still burned like hell. Missed sticking them twisted-together tacks through his eye by about two inches. Bitch. Lunging at him like a freaking ninja soon as he opened the shed door, surprised the hell out of him, he’d just managed to get his head snapped back in time. She’d worked herself out of the duct tape in there, okay, he’d figured she might, she’d had plenty of time, but what he hadn’t figured on was her getting her hands on something she could use as a weapon to attack him. Where the hell had those tacks come from? For sure not the old TV set she’d pulled down on the floor.
Two inches higher, and he wouldn’t be out here with Verriker in his sights. He’d be back at the house or on his way to the hospital-Pete One-Eye. Or maybe Pete Dead.
Well, he’d make her pay for it. Just like he’d make the rest of them pay for what they’d done to him.
The truck bounced around a bend past a long limestone shelf. And in the distance, then, he could see lights through the trees at the edge of the lake. That’d be the Ramsey cabin. He’d been over this road before on other hunting trips, seen the cabin squatting down there with its little T-dock poking out into the water.
So Verriker hadn’t gone to bed yet. He’d hoped the bugger would be sound asleep, all the lights off, so he could slip on up to the cabin and maybe a door or window’d be unlocked and he could surprise Verriker in the sack. But now what he’d do, he’d just knock on the door and when Verriker opened it, stick the. 38 in his face, look him
