The waitress zoomed over with some menus, and both Bud and Duke immediately ordered coffee. Cat chose a diet cola.
Bud spoke after the waitress charged off with their orders. Breakfast for Duke, burgers for Bud and Cat, who felt she needed some recovery from all that Danish earlier.
“I’m so sorry,” Bud said to Duke. “I liked Larry. He was a good man to play cards with and shoot the breeze over a few beers. He beat me at darts nearly every time I walked into Mahoney’s. My ego was bruised.” He said the last lightly, as if making fun of himself.
“I never wanted to face him in darts,” Duke agreed. “Now, running—that was a whole different thing.”
Cat spoke. “With you being a Ranger, I’m not surprised. Bet you could do more push-ups, too.”
Duke laughed quietly. “I’m pretty sure.”
“Larry mentioned you a couple of times,” Bud offered. “He called you Duke.”
“Everyone does.”
Cat attempted a little humor. “Unless they call him Major.”
That made a smile cross Bud’s face. “Then I’ll call you Duke. About Larry, I don’t think I know anything useful. I was at the poker table and bar with him, but I sure as hell didn’t see anything that would make me think he had enemies. Easy to get along with, always friendly. It must have been kids.”
Although Bud didn’t sound happy with that idea. He sounded like a man who would rather believe that than any alternative.
“So nothing about what he was here to work on?”
Bud shook his head. “I don’t think I ever asked, either. He said once that he was here for the quiet to work on a book, but that was it. Oh yeah, he also said that he was a reporter.”
Conversation lagged while they waited for lunch and started to eat. Cat’s burger was perfectly cooked, juicy, the way she liked it.
She supposed that if she tried, she’d be able to ask a useful question, but she held back. It was important for Duke to ask the things he needed to know, certainly before she jumped in with any standard cop questions. Questions that Bud had probably answered right after the murder.
But suddenly she thought of something and asked anyway, mainly because Duke had fallen silent. “Did we interview you after the murder?”
Bud shook his head again. “Nobody came to me. Hardly matters, since after I heard about Larry, I tried to figure out if I knew anything, like him mentioning kids hanging around. If I’d thought of something, I’d have trotted over to your office. As it is...” He let it hang.
Then Bud straightened a bit, half a hamburger still in his hand. “I just remembered. Larry mentioned two days before he was killed that he felt watched sometimes. But he laughed it off, saying that anybody new around here would get watched. He was probably right.”
Cat wasn’t sure she agreed, and a glance at Duke suggested he wasn’t buying it, either.
“Larry was good at laughing things off, including the threats he received as a reporter,” Duke said.
“Threats? Seriously?” Bud looked appalled. “What was he reporting about? Major crime organizations? RICO violations?”
“In the past.”
“Wow, I’m impressed. Every time I hear about something like that, I think the reporters must have a lot of guts.” Then he shrugged. “Maybe it’s in the family. You probably have a lot of guts, too, being a Ranger.”
“I usually know where the threat is coming from. Larry would get these anonymous letters or emails. A few bothered him enough to turn over to the authorities, but most he just dismissed.”
“Man. I liked the guy before, but now I’m feeling huge respect. I’d be looking over my damn shoulder every single minute.”
“He wasn’t, from what I saw of him. But his address? Under wraps.”
“Understandable.” Bud looked at the burger in his hand and put it down on the plate. “You think a threat might have followed him out here?”
“We don’t know,” Cat said swiftly, wanting to quash that rumor before it even got started. “But that’s why we’re asking if you heard anything about his work from Larry. To be sure.”
“I get it.” Bud’s eyes darkened. “Makes more sense to me than some high school kids wanting his electronics.”
Cat answered him. “Keep that under your hat, please. It’s only a remote possibility.”
At that, Bud’s face relaxed. “I thought it was strange that Larry would come to the back of beyond just to write a book, but the idea that someone followed him out here? Even wilder.”
Cat couldn’t disagree. It did seem wild, and very unlikely. Chances were, Larry hadn’t even told anyone where he was going. But no matter where he’d gone, he’d have received cell phone messages. Only law enforcement agencies could have tracked him, and there was no evidence for that.
Duke insisted on picking up the entire tab. Bud left, promising he’d think more about it, but Cat didn’t expect anything.
“He played close to the vest, all right,” she said to Duke as they walked back to the car.
“That’s Larry. Damn it.”
“The ultimate proof is that Ben didn’t have any idea, either. Imagine not telling your significant other even the least little thing about what you were working on.”
“Imagine not telling your brother you were about to wreck his career.”
She looked at him over the roof of the car. “Do you think he could have known that?”
Once again, she watched him stare into the distance as he thought. It was as if he’d learned long ago that answers might not be right under his nose. A trained response?
He shook his head a bit, then folded himself into her car. She followed suit and turned over the ignition.
“He may not have known,” Duke said as she steered them out of the lot. “But he might have ticked someone off farther up the chain of command.”
“No way to know anything about this case,” she remarked sourly. “God, I hate this. Usually there’s a link to someone or to an
