Dead Man's Song

“I don’t think so,” Val said, and ate a forkful of spinach. “Terry’s been coming apart at the seams for weeks now. No, whatever’s going on with Saul is something new. It’s just been the last couple of days, Rachel said. Since those police officers were killed.”

“That can’t be it. Saul wasn’t close with either of them.”

“Then what’s your suggestion?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call him tomorrow. Maybe take him out to lunch, see what’s up.” At that point Val’s cousin Andrea and her fiance came over to give her hugs and kisses and the tide of conversation turned back to the immediate. By the time the long day ended and Rachel and Sarah had helped Val and Crow clean up, Crow had completely forgotten about his conversation with Weinstock.

(3)

Mike cycled back toward town, climbing the long hills, gliding down the other side, eyes always flicking left and right down side roads, expecting to see the grille of the big wrecker. Nothing. As the days passed he was becoming more and more convinced that the incident on the road had been different than he remembered it. Sure it was a near thing, and sure it was scary as hell, and sure it hurt a lot—but whether it was intentional or not was something he was less sure about. He was also certain that if it had been Vic driving the wrecker then that prick would have found some way to taunt him with the information. Vic would have used the threat of it to hurt him.

But who else in town had access to a wrecker? From what little he could see that night on the road, it looked like a big tow truck and that told him nothing. Shanahan’s garage had a couple of them, and there had to be other garages with tow trucks in the area. He thought about the guys who worked at Shanahan’s with Vic. None of them ever came over to the house; none of them were friends with Vic. There was Buddy Tobin, Josh Adams, and that big guy everyone called Tow-Truck Eddie. Mike thought about that as he swooped down another hill. Crow had said that Eddie was a part-time cop, and Mike had seen him that first day Crow was in the hospital. They’d passed each other by the front doors.

Then something occurred to Mike, and it seemed like a really good idea. If Eddie worked with Vic, and drove a tow truck, and was a cop, then he’d be the perfect person to ask about who might have been driving that wrecker out here that night. He was nodding emphatically to himself as he pedaled along. It was a great idea. He chewed on it, working it out. He could say that he heard from some kid in school that a wrecker had almost run some other kid down. Make it sound like something he just heard around school; he could ask the cop to see if he’d heard anything. Would the guy tell him if he had? Mike wasn’t sure, but this was one area where his being Vic’s stepson might be an advantage. All Mike had to do was drop Vic’s name to remind him of that connection, and then idly ask the question. Yeah, that would work. He’d ask Tow-Truck Eddie.

He headed into town with the wind behind him while deep within his soul, far beneath his consciousness, the chrysalis within him screamed.

Chapter 20

(1)

Two days earlier, on October 7, Willard Fowler Newton had gone out to the Guthrie farm to interview Malcolm Crow and Val Guthrie. The interview had been going really well until Crow had said something that had caused Newton to break one of his promises. After that, things had gone very badly indeed.

Crow had said, “I think Ubel Griswold was a monster.”

It sounded so silly. It was a nonsensical thing to say, and Newton had actually laughed out loud when Crow had said it, taking it as one of Crow’s many jokes. Crow was not joking. Instead his face had gone dark and he had said, “Remember our agreement, Newt.”

One of the terms of that agreement had been that Newton had to promise not to laugh in Crow’s face—and he had done just that. He had laughed out loud and jabbed Crow in the shoulder in a that’s a good one gesture, but Crow had slapped his hand away and then that small, affable guy, Crow the jokester, Crow the town chucklehead, had vanished and Newt was staring into the eyes of Crow the man who had faced down the Cape May Killer—twice!—and had beaten him. Had, in fact, killed him. The change was that abrupt. One minute Crow looked like a sawed-off Greg Kinnear with vulnerable eyes and an easy grin, and the next second—the next split fragment of a second—he was a cold-eyed stranger with no trace of humor at all in his face, and Newton could actually feel all of the warmth leak out of the moment like water from a cracked jug. Newton’s laughter had died in his throat and he looked away from those eyes over to Val, and saw the coldest blue eyes in town staring back at him.

Newton said, “Oh, come on!”

“Perhaps you’d better leave,” Val said, setting her cold coffee cup down. “I think we’re done here.”

“Jesus, Crow…Val…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean….”

Crow just waved it off. “Thought I could trust you, Newt. Sorry I was wrong.”

Crow got up from where he’d been sitting on the step and went inside the house. After a full minute—an unending minute while Newton stood there and endured Val’s coldly disappointed stare—it became clear that Crow was not coming back out.

He tried to explain to Val, to apologize, but she just stood up and regarded him coolly for a moment. “Go on,” she said, “get out.” Then she followed Crow into the house and closed the screen and storm doors both. The sound of the lock clicking was huge in his ears.

Newton had gone home, too. Halfway home he had used his cell to call Crow, but there was no answer. Caller ID was a bitch. The following day was the funeral for Val’s father and Newton almost went out there, hoping to apologize, but he just couldn’t make himself intrude into Val’s grief, not even to get himself off the hook.

Newton had been dismissed before. He was a reporter and that meant he was used to slammed doors and closed mouths—and certainly he’d made no friends with Terry Wolfe after breaking the cover-up story—but somehow this felt worse, and it was more than losing a major source for the feature he was researching. He had liked Crow, and there had been a look of hurt in the man’s eyes that was damn near unbearable.

When the phone rang at quarter to five in the morning of October 10, it startled him and he cried out before snatching at the bedside phone. “Hello?”

He expected it to be Dick Hangood, but it wasn’t. “Okay, Kermit, here’s the deal.”

Newton paused. “Crow?”

“No, it’s Tickle Me Elmo—now, you listening?”

He sat up, kicking the blankets to the floor. “Yes!”

“Val thinks I should kick your nuts up into your chest cavity, but I’m willing to give this a second chance.”

“Um…okay…Thanks?”

“So, if you still want that story—and if you can keep your reactions on a short leash—”

“Yes! Crow, I’m sorry. You just caught me off guard.”