probably right, but that doesn't change anything.'
'What if I said I loved you and wanted you to be with me? That I had enough money to get away, start over?'
'I'd probably say I loved you and wanted to be with you too,' he told her. He wasn't sure if either one of them really loved or could ever love the other one the way they should, but you did the best you could. 'It'd give me more reason to fight, but it wouldn't affect the outcome much. That's what I'd probably say.'
She released his face and poured herself another drink. 'Go then, finish what you've got to finish. His patience is going to wear out soon, you don't have more than two more days.'
'That's all I need,' he said.
He'd have done all he could do by then, and would either have an answer or would give up. He expected to give up.
'Good,' she said, 'because I don't have much patience either. Oh, and don't be surprised if he kills somebody in this town first, just to ramp himself up. It might be somebody you know.'
She opened the door and made him climb out over her.
Cruez was waiting in the street. Tucco was staring up the road. He glanced at Crease and said, 'These llamas, they on farms?'
'Yeah.'
'What if I told you all is forgiven? Really. You being a cop, it doesn't matter to me. I've got plenty on the payroll, and none of them helped me like you have. Never had better times with anybody else. There's no outlaw as good as a dirty cop. You're my right hand.'
'What about me?' Cruez asked.
'You. How many times do I have to tell you? You, you're my left hand.'
'Oh.'
Crease knew there would be a lot of talk, but he hadn't expected it to be like this. Tucco was serious. It could all go back to the way it was. He could still work for the cops and still do what he did in the underground. Maybe quit the cops and just let himself go.
But Morena. And the baby.
Strange he should give up his wife and son to the life, but now, Tucco's mistress pregnant with his child-a kid he might never even hold-should somehow drive him from it.
What the hell did it mean?
'So?' Tucco said. 'Open your mouth, tell me what you're thinking. Come on, you know what I say is true. I don't lie. You ready to pick up where we left off? Maybe start bringing in some chinks from Canada? Got that nice shipment of H coming up next week. Need you with me on that.'
Tucco lied all the time, to everyone about everything. It was sort of funny to realize he thought he was honest, maybe even noble in his own way with the people who mattered to him. He had the straight face and dead gaze for everybody, and the lies poured out of him so easily that he often mistook them for sincerity.
'No,' Crease told him.
'No? You sure about that, man?' He showed his teeth for an instant and then the smile, or the grimace, was gone. 'You know what you're doing?'
'Yeah.'
'I don't think you do. You're not yourself, and anybody who knows you, really knows you like I do, can see it. I think this place has got you all confused, it's screwing with your head. Coming back here, it was bad idea. All these trees, they'd drive anybody crazy. You're concrete and steel and asphalt. This clean air is killing you.'
Maybe it was true. 'Could be. How about you? How are you feeling?'
'It's making me sick too. So let's get the hell out of here and go home.'
'In two days we'll see what we see,' Crease said. 'Until then, you go visit with the llamas, all right? Don't snuff any old ladies.'
Chapter Nine
He tried Burke's hardware store first, but Sam Burke had already gone home for the day. A teenager putting away six-foot lengths of copper tubing told him the store would be closing up in ten minutes, it was already after six. Crease had let the time get away from him. Morena's scent was still on him and it was making him a little heady.
Crease asked the teen if Burke still lived out on Deerwood Road, and the kid told him he wasn't allowed to give out that kind of information. Crease got back in the 'Stang and got turned around twice before he remembered which direction Deerwood Road was in. Not everything from the past was that close to the surface.
He drove slowly into the hills and found the place pretty easily, as if it had always been intended that he wind up here. It didn't take much to get you believing in fate, thinking your life was wrapped around someone else's who you hardly even knew. For years the thread connecting you would go unnoticed, and then one day it started to tug from the other end and you got reeled in.
He parked the 'Stang out front and made his way up the wide walkway to the front door. He hadn't rung the bell yet when Burke appeared. Like he'd been perched in the window for hours, waiting for Crease to come along.
Sam Burke recognized Crease immediately. His bland expression upgraded fast. It twisted and crept across his face inch by inch, emotions fluctuating as they went along. Sadness, puzzlement, even disdain showed vividly before returning to the carefully engraved contours of apathy. It was a little spooky that the guy would be so on top of him like that.
They both stood there, waiting for something to promote the moment. The dead girl was there with them. Crease felt Teddy's presence growing stronger. Crease's father's ghost wafted between them all, the man wanting redemption or maybe just another bottle of booze in hell.
Burke finally moved aside and Crease stepped in.
The house smelled of furniture polish, floor wax, potpourri, fresh paint, and stale air. It was the aroma of somebody desperately trying to clean away events that could never be undone. Crease knew the windows would be spotless but painted shut. These were people who had closed themselves in with their pain in order to keep it alive. Mary's room would look no different now than it had seventeen years ago. Her belongings would've been touched and caressed many thousands of times, and every fingerprint washed away again. Burke probably napped in his daughter's bed, but the intense dreaming would be too much for him. The thread between them tightened up with every step Crease took.
Burke was perfectly groomed, almost prim. He wore a very short, well-kept beard. Every button on his shirt was buttoned-right to the collar, the cuffs. The fold in his trousers was sharp enough to slice paper.
Burke evoked constraint. Inhibition, pressure, duress. Someone who killed two hours every morning in the bathroom, spent the day at work assembling and arranging and coordinating, and then faded the rest of his night sitting on the center cushion of the couch. Not touching anything, not moving.
The living room had been decorated by a woman but you could tell it no longer contained her living touch. Everything had been arranged where it was a long time ago and never been moved. Mrs. Burke was dead or gone. The place was immaculate as a museum. Crease didn't want to make any quick moves for fear of breaking the solemn air around him.
There were no photos anywhere. He could understand why. You couldn't put out any of your parents or your in-laws or your dog without having a few of Mary too. And to put her photos in your line of sight would just be a reminder that you couldn't protect your own kid, that your faith in the police and your friends and your neighbors was totally misplaced.
'You look very much like your father,' Burke said.
The thought of it shook Crease for an instant. It got his back up, the heat rushing along his spine. Then he realized Burke meant the way his father had looked before the downfall, back when he was still doing his duty.
At least it's what Crease hoped the man meant. 'I'd like to talk to you, if I could.'
'I can guess why you're here. All of us reach a particular crossroads, an apex, and eventually return to where
