“See if you can guess the caliber, Walker.”
Walk stayed even, despite the way his stomach flipped.
“The D.A. wanted more. Now we’ve got the motive and access to the murder weapon. We’ll go for the death penalty.”
Walk shook his head. “There’s still people we need to talk to. I want to go over Dickie Darke’s alibi again, and then there’s Milton and I’m not sure—”
“Leave it alone, Walker. It’s open and shut. I want to hand it over to the D.A. by the end of the week. We’ve got enough on. Then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“But I really think—”
“Listen. It’s alright, what you’ve got going on here. I’ve got a cousin that works in Alson Cove and he loves it, the pace is slow, the work is easy. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when was the last time you worked a real case, I mean something more than a misdemeanor?”
Walk had not worked more than an infraction.
Boyd reached over and gripped his shoulder tight. “Don’t fuck this up for us.”
Walk swallowed, the wheels turning frantic. “If he pleads. If I can get him to plead?”
Boyd met his eye, didn’t say it but didn’t have to.
Vincent King would die for this.
13
CLOUDS CASCADED DOWN THE MOUNTAIN behind, framing the farmhouse like it belonged in a print.
She worked, legs heavy, the skin on her hands torn beneath her gloves.
Whatever job he gave, mucking, cutting back the long vines by the house, shifting branches from the winding driveway, she did with quiet hatred. Hal playing grandfather now her mother was deep in the ground.
The funeral had been shamefully quiet. Walk had fished out an old necktie for Robin, the same he’d worn when his own mother passed. Robin had held her hand through it, the priest trying to lead them from their broken lives, talk of God’s need for another angel like he knew nothing of the tortured soul that had been taken.
“We’ll break for lunch now.” The old man snapped her from the memory.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You have to eat.”
She turned her back on him, reached for her brush and swept dirt from the cracked driveway with hard strokes.
Ten minutes then Duchess dropped her brush and walked back, slow. At the house she stepped up onto the porch and looked through the window. Hal with his back to her, her brother eating a sandwich, coming up a head over the table. He had a cup of milk.
She walked through the back door and into the kitchen, cheeks burning hot. At the table she picked up Robin’s cup and emptied the milk into the sink, rinsed it and pulled a carton of juice from the refrigerator.
“I can drink milk at lunch, I don’t even mind,” Robin said.
“No, you can’t. You drink juice, like you did at—”
“Duchess,” Hal said.
“You shut up.” She turned to him. “You don’t say my name, you don’t fucking say it. You don’t know anything about me or my brother.”
Robin began to cry.
“Enough now,” Hal said, gentle.
“You don’t tell me ‘enough.’” She was breathless, shaking, the anger coming up so hot she could barely control it.
“I said—”
“Fuck you.”
He stood then, raised a hand and brought it down hard on the table, sending his plate to the floor. It smashed on the stone and Duchess flinched, and then she turned and ran. Past the water and the driveway, arms pumping, across the long grass and into the rough and toward the trees.
She didn’t stop till she had to, till she took a knee and swallowed mouthfuls of warm, heavy air. She cursed him out, kicked a thick oak and felt pain shoot back through her. She screamed at the trees, so loud birds lifted and speckled the clouds.
She thought of her home. The day after the funeral, what little they owned outright was boxed by Walk. Nothing in the checking account, thirty bucks in her mother’s purse, nothing passed down.
She walked a mile before the Douglas fir thinned. She was mucky and sweaty, her hair damp and knotted. She slowed a little and walked the center line of a road, counting off broken lines.
Beside was grass and wood, edging out, a river in the distance and moving on, the sky all blue forgiveness. Sometimes she expected more, a clue, something wilting or graying or not carrying on, something that told her the world was a different place now her mother was dead.
A sign announced the town. Copper Falls, Montana. A line of stores, orange brick too new for the scene, flat roofs and fading awning, flags that fell limp. Bleached signs long forgot, Bush and Kerry, stars and stripes. A diner, HUNTERS WELCOME, convenience, pharmacy, Laundromat. A bakery that made her mouth water. She stood and looked in, saw old couples at each table, eating pastry and drinking coffee. Outside a man sat and read a newspaper. She passed a barber, the old kind with the glass pole and the offer of a shave. Beside it a beauty salon, women in chairs, heat reaching out the open door.
At the end of the street was a mountain that held the horizon, so towering like a challenge or reminder, there was plenty bigger out there.
She passed a small, skinny black boy. He stood on the sidewalk, coat over his arm despite the eighty degrees, watching her intently. He wore slacks and a bowtie, suspenders pulled the pants high enough to highlight white socks.
He would not turn, no matter how hard she glared. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
“Some kind of angel.”
She took in the bowtie with a shake of her head.
“I’m Thomas Noble.”
He continued to look, mouth a little open.
“Stop staring, you freak.” She pushed him and he fell back onto his ass.
He looked up at her through thick lenses. “That was worth it, just to feel your touch.”
“Ugh. Is everyone in this town retarded?” She felt his eyes on her all
