little x's on a map of the town bank. Telling him, Here's the manager's desk, and here's where the head teller does her transactions… only one security guard, an old guy named Edgar…
Reb looked at him and said, 'What?'
'Nothing.'
'You thinking about your son?'
'Yes,' he said.
'You make time for him?'
'Not enough,' Crease admitted.
Reb stood, sort of pirouetted around him. She took his hand and led him across the room to the couch. She pressed him down and lay stretched out, half in his lap, her hair strewn across his legs.
'You never loved your wife,' she said. 'It's pretty clear to me.'
'I loved her as well as I could. As I can.'
'It's not enough though.'
'It is for her, but it shouldn't be. I couldn't do it to her any longer.'
'You knew it was going to be like that even when you married her, didn't you?'
'No,' he told her. He'd had no idea that the distance between him and Joan would be so great. The distance between him and anyone else, everyone else, except maybe Tucco.
'You think you became a different person along the way?'
He'd thought about that a lot. 'No, but you don't know what your strengths and weaknesses are until you're forced to find out.'
He could see she wanted to ask him, And what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? But she was too smart to come right out with it. She wanted to take the time to maneuver things properly. It was fun watching her try to work him.
He knew that as soon as she figured out she wasn't going to get anything from him, she'd toss him out of the house. Maybe even call Edwards and try to incite the sheriff to bust him. Or go back to Jimmy or somebody just like Jimmy and hope to spur him on to take a shot at Crease. You never knew what the next dilemma was going to be or where it was going to come from.
'Now do you want to go to bed?' she asked.
Crease let out a grin. It was starting to feel like New York around here.
Chapter Six
Wildlife had overtaken the old mill. The log ramps and tramcar flatbeds where the rough-cut lumber used to be loaded were covered over by tall grass, weeds, and saplings. He walked around the mill. There were broken floorboards everywhere. The roof had collapsed from heavy winter snows over the last four decades, and the rotted timbers lay crossing each other in heaps. Daylight shined in, and there were animal nests and signs of teenage vandalism everywhere.
Crease tried to piece together the events of that night, the way his father had laid them out. Old rusted steam-powered saws and other machinery still lay about in the long, wide main room.
His father would have been behind one of the trimmers, where the carriages worked back and forth ripping through the grain. There was a man-sized open area between two of them where a man could stretch out. From there he would be able to see the front door, down the length of the factory floor, and also keep his back mostly protected.
Crease looked around and found where his father most likely hid the cash. Probably inside the rusted metal spoked wheels where the cut slabs were placed on flatbeds reeled down the slope by cables out the back of the mill. It was an incline system, typical of the way things were done in the '30s and '40s. The wheels were overhead but close enough.
Crease had seen fifteen grand in tens and twenties before. It didn't look like much. A couple of stacks a few inches high. He acted out taking the bundles of cash from the satchel and placing the money beneath the flatbed.
The mill was a good spot for the kidnappers to make the trade. No way for an ambush to work. Plenty of exits. Line of sight was fifty yards to the tree line in any direction. There were logging trails all up and down the hills. They could shake anybody chasing them.
If his father had seen Edwards in the tree line, then the kidnappers would've seen him too. Edwards had botched any chance of a straight switch.
Crease took up the position for a long wait, glancing about every so often across the width of the factory. Checking behind him, filling his head with his father's thoughts. He tried to imagine that fifteen thousand would be worth everything in the world, paying off the damn doctors. It would settle bad debts, allow for some breathing room with the mortgage company. What else? Not even a new car. A nicer secondhand model maybe. A couple rounds of drinks at the bar. Crease just couldn't understand it.
Still, he decided to ride it out. He imagined the door opening wide, the silhouette of a man with a gun in his hand. Crease held his arm out and fired twice. He would've put the guy down, but his father had missed.
His old man had been too keyed up. He said he'd waited in the mill from noon on. Four hours, five, six. Only tipping back some whiskey from a flask every now and again. It wouldn't have lasted long. After a couple of hours, he'd have had the shakes. He would've tried to get away from the pain. He might've slept.
Crease got back in position between the trimmers. He ran through it again. Saw how the guy at the door would be firing back. Turned and looked for bullet holes in the machinery near him. There weren't any. Up higher, near the log ramp. He found a ricochet mark that had scored and twisted one of the wheels on another flatbed. The bullet would've gone right out the platform opening where they hauled down the lumber. It proved Edwards hadn't hit the girl.
Now he had an idea of what the scene was like. He imagined Mary Burke wandering through. Which direction would she come from? The far end of the factory. The 'nappers spotted Edwards in the woods, didn't want to come in the front door, and sneaked in through the other side where the rough-cut lumber would be loaded on the log ramps. His father was so worried about Edwards stealing the money that he hadn't been paying enough attention to all the other ways the 'nappers might get inside. They could've been in there before him, waiting him out, watching him suck down his booze and fade into sleep. Then they tippy-toed to where the cash was hidden and plucked it out while his old man snored on the floor.
So they let the girl go. Six years old. Maybe they'd told her to just walk straight ahead, the nice sheriff would take her home to her mommy and daddy. She walks forward, stroking her teddy bear's head, probably talking to it the way Stevie used to talk to his. We're going home now, Teddy.
~* ~
The fever broke inside Crease.
It happened so suddenly that he didn't know why there was the sound of twisting metal until he looked down at his hands. He'd gripped the edge of the trimmer and was pulling on the heavy iron sidebar of it, wrenching it loose. He tasted blood and realized he'd bitten his tongue. Sweat ran down his face and snaked across his scalp. In less than a minute he was so wet it looked as if a hose had been turned on him.
His father aiming at Edwards. The deputy's revolver going off, and now, the little girl walking past. He could almost see his father turning the gun on her, firing while thinking, No witnesses.
All of it such a waste. The girl snuffed for nothing. His father's downfall completed. The 'nappers didn't even make enough money to change their lives any. Why had they only asked for fifteen k? What could you buy that would make this all worth it? Christ, it wasn't even a big enough bump in somebody's bank account for anyone else to notice. Not like somebody who walks off with a million bucks. Those assholes you could spot easily, some lowlife buying a Cadillac for cash.
Crease looked down and saw Mary Burke dead on the floor.
We're going home now, Teddy.
The house gave off the same vibe as a lot of the others in town. A second rate effort had been made to fix the place up within the last few years. A new coat of paint had been added, but the paint was cheap and the job
