“That’s a beautiful name for a boat,” Laura said.
“I sure do second that.”
Laura felt uncomfortable around him. The only time they had spent together since the tragedy was on the drive to FDLE in Tallahassee. She had not seen him since.
“How’s it going over there?” he asked now.
She shrugged. “We haven’t found much.”
He sighed. “Glad I’m out of it.”
He didn’t sound devastated. He sounded like his old self. Laura wondered if that was a front.
“How’s Mrs. Descartes doing?”
He leaned his back against the railing. His eyes looked like dark pebbles in his face, which seemed unusually slack. “About as well as you’d expect, which is not good at all.”
“I should have gone with you. I feel responsible.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He said it, but she could tell he didn’t believe it.
“Will she be all right? Financially?”
“She and Andy belong to the Church of Christ. Don’t have to worry about making ends meet, not in this town. We take care of our own.”
Laura opened her mouth to tell him she wished she could help, but said nothing. She could tell from the tone of his voice that she in fact wouldn’t be asked to help. She was the stranger here.
And so she watched
Chief Redbone stared straight ahead. “Thought you’d want to know Jerry Oliver’s been upgraded to guarded. They think he’ll be all right, although he lost the eye.”
She nodded. “There are a few things we need to discuss. Will you be in the office tomorrow?” she asked him.
“Nope. I’m pretty much done here.”
“What do you mean?”
He leveled his gaze on her. “I’m through with this. It wasn’t what I signed up for.”
“You mean you’re quitting?”
“Been there, done that, as they say.”
“What will happen now?”
“They’re plenty of folks wanting this job. They’re welcome to it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Me?” He thought about it. “First thing I’m gonna do is go fishing.”
She thought he was done, but he stared back out at the bay and continued, “Hasn’t been one bad thing that a few days of fishing didn’t cure, at least for me. Even my divorce. Thing is, though,” he massaged his forehead over one eye, “I don’t think I can ever get that picture of Andy out of my mind.”
40
Chief Redbone left not long after that. Laura remained until it was dark, staring out at the bay and the ocean beyond. It was a short walk to the Gibson Inn, but as Laura started back she became aware of someone in the corner of her eye angling toward her at a rapid pace.
She was reaching for the Sig Sauer on her hip when she smelled the aftershave.
Old Spice. A familiar shape.
She left the gun where it was as Frank Entwistle materialized beside her. She heard the tiny wheezes through his nostrils he always made whenever he tried to keep up with her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Thought you could use some backup. Emotionally speaking.”
“Emotionally speaking.”
“Yeah, you know. Be your sounding board.” He waved his cigarette and the cherry danced around them like a flying saucer.
Laura was weary of this.
“If you’re so tuned in to me and my problems, why didn’t you give me a heads-up on the booby trap?”
In the dark, his face was the color of ash and about as amorphous. “Could you slow down a little? You know I have a bum knee.”
He stopped, so she stopped too. “To answer your question, I’m not a mind-reader. I don’t have a crystal ball either.”
