there?”
“I offered to go. Olivia said no. And she’s right. As much as I want to be there and see him one last time, I can’t go back on the promise I made him.”
“Which was a bitch of a promise to ask of you.”
She tended to agree. The more she learned about that horrible day, the more confounding the facts became. And this quest for the truth had placed her and the people around her in danger. She wanted to fulfill the promise she’d made her father, but she feared the cost of doing so.
She said, “We can’t just stand by and let Ray Strickland continue his personal vendetta.”
“The police have his license plate number. Hopefully he’ll be apprehended soon.”
“But until he is—”
“We gotta keep looking over our shoulders.”
“We’re not the only ones.”
He turned her around to face him. “You’re frowning. What are you thinking?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“We need to warn Moody.”
“You’re right, I don’t like it.”
“He sent Ray’s innocent brother—”
“
“Okay, but if Allen Strickland was innocent, Moody is a target for Ray’s retribution.”
“He’s had years to get retribution on Moody. He hasn’t.”
“My book set all this into motion.” When he was about to counter that, she placed her fingertips against his lips. “Don’t bother. You know it. I know it. First you, now Gall, were nearly killed because of it. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt, Dent. I feel guilty enough already.”
He released her and turned away.
“You think I’m wrong?” she asked.
“No, dammit, I think you’re
“I understand why you feel that way.”
“Thanks for that. What’s the ‘but’?”
“
“Some of them. He didn’t play his ace.”
“He might have, if—”
“What?”
“If you hadn’t badgered him. I think he withheld it out of stubbornness. He didn’t—”
“He didn’t want to lose a pissing contest with me.”
She just looked at him.
He conceded with a sigh. “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have hit him, but we’d given him plenty of chances to confess his sins before the cigarettes and booze launch him to the Pearly Gates.”
“The cigarettes, the booze, or the pistol.”
“He did seem to have a love affair going with that thing. Couldn’t keep his hands off it.” He thought about it for a moment longer, then said grudgingly, “You’d better call Haymaker. Tell him to call Moody and—Why not?” he asked when she shook her head.
“We can use Ray Strickland’s attack on Gall as a bargaining chip. Out of the goodness of our hearts—”
She ignored his snort.
“—we’ll tell him what happened last night and warn him to beware of Strickland. In exchange, he’ll tell us whatever it is he’s holding back.”
“And you think he’ll go for that.” Clearly, he was doubtful.
“It’s worth a try. We need to know what he knows, Dent.”
“Okay, okay. Call the son of a bitch. Lay out your terms.”
“I can’t call him. I don’t know his number. Haymaker used his phone to call him, and took it back as soon as I’d finished talking to Moody.”
“Get his number from Haymaker.”
“Talking to Moody on the phone won’t be as persuasive as being face-to-face with him. We have to go back to his place.”
“No. We don’t.”
“We do. You know we do.”
“Bellamy, if he blows his brains out today or tomorrow, or if he waits too long to do it and Strickland gets to him first, I really don’t care.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it.”
“Even if you don’t care about Moody’s fate, you can’t get vindication for yourself until you know everything, and you won’t know everything unless we convince Moody to give it up.”
He held her stare for several moments, and she knew she’d won when he muttered a litany of curses. “All right, we go back,” he said. “But one thing, and I mean it.”
“What?”
“I’m eating the peach cobbler before we go.”
The overcast day made Dale Moody’s property look even more forlorn. Cypress tree branches weighted down by the humidity drooped low enough to brush the roof of the sedan as it passed beneath them. The murky lake waters were still and sullen looking.
The cabin itself was empty.
As the car rolled to a stop, Dent had such a bad feeling about it that he made Bellamy wait while he went up the steps, onto the rickety porch, and through the screened door, halfway expecting to find only the remains of the former detective.
But there was no sign of Moody, dead or alive.
“He’s not here,” he called to Bellamy, who joined him inside the sad dwelling that stank of stale tobacco smoke, mildew, and mice.
“I’m a bit relieved that we didn’t find him slumped in that chair with his pistol in his hand,” she said.
“Me, too,” he admitted.
She glanced behind her through the screened door. “The lake?”
“If he drowned himself, he drove his car into the water. It’s not here.”
“I hadn’t noticed, but you’re right.”
On the metal TV tray, which seemed to be the focal point of the room and of Moody’s life, were the overflowing ashtray and an empty whiskey bottle. “Conspicuously missing is the .357,” Dent remarked.
Bellamy went into the kitchen and checked the oven. “Also conspicuously missing is the case file. What do you make of that?”
“That he took his evidence with him and isn’t coming back.”
The idea came to Rupe as he was trying to eat a bowl of Cream of Wheat, which was about as solid a food as he could manage.
The second morning after taking the beating from Dale Moody, his gums were still puffy and red and hurt like hell from the extensive dental work. His nose was so grotesquely swollen it spread practically from ear to ear and made slits of his eyes. His own kids would have run screaming at the sight of him.
He’d cooked the Cream of Wheat himself, having called the maid the night of the attack and told her to take a few days off. He didn’t want anybody to see him like this, not even the person who cleaned his commode.
Making up an excuse that stretched plausibility, he’d had his assistant cancel everything on his calendar, including a day’s worth of filming TV commercials and a luncheon for leading businessmen at the governor’s mansion. He’d encouraged his wife to stay another week or two at the beach.
Rupe Collier had gone underground.
But as he gingerly masticated the warm cereal, he rethought his position. He could be a victim who crawled into his lair and hid until he was once again presentable, which, according to the cheeky ER doctor, could be as long
