Blood Of Angels (17 page)

After another fifteen minutes he heard the sound of the man coming back. He emerged hands first, holding a couple of small, clear plastic bags. Each had something in it, though Oz couldn't see what. The man got to his feet, brushed off the worst of the mud, and picked up his coat. The bags went into the pockets.

'What you got there? What did you see? Is it like the drawing?'

'The drawing was pretty good.'

'So what did you…'

Then there was a cracking noise, very loud. Plus the sound of someone shouting. Oz turned to see Frank Pritchard striding fast up the rise towards them, a shotgun in his hands.

'Oh, shit. This is bad,' Oz said. 'This is precisely who we most don't want to see at this point.'

The other man watched the farmer's progress, wiping dirt off his hands. Soon the content of Pritchard's hollering was discernible. He was a little drunk, as usual, and he was determined that no goddamned bastard was going to just come on his land whenever he felt like it. He had his goddamned gun and he was going to use it this time, and he was confident that no goddamned jury in the land would convict.

He came to a halt and levelled the gun at them.

'Oh crap,' Oz said, now very scared. 'Look, Frank…'

Pritchard was waving the gun pretty wildly. If he pulled the trigger it was going to take off someone's head.

'We're busy,' the man called Zandt said, mildly.

The old guy shut up, like a clam closing in a snap. After a moment Oz realized the guy in the long coat was holding a weapon too. A gun had appeared from nowhere in his right hand, and was pointing directly at Pritchard's head. It was not wavering at all.

'I accept that this constitutes trespass,' the man said, in a calm, low tone. 'And as such, grieves you. But you're going to go now, and leave us alone. And if you see Mr Turner here again, you're going to look the other way and walk on by. Can we agree to that?'

'This is my land,' Pritchard said, with surprising clarity.

'We know that. We'll do it no harm.'

The old man seemed to subside, and then abruptly turned and walked. After a couple of yards he looked back.

'That thing's bad news,' he said. 'I'm telling you.'

'Yes,' the other man said. 'It is.'

Pritchard swore at no one in particular, and then stalked away.

As Oz watched him go, the other man bent to the pile of rocks and started moving them back into the mouth of the tunnel.

Within ten minutes no one was getting back in there in a hurry. This time the bigger, flatter rock was the last to go in. When you saw it blocking the entrance, you realized it had been designed that way.

The man stood. 'You never get more specific on where this thing is located, understood? Neither in print or on your website or in that appalling radio show.'

'Why? Now you've been in there…' Oz tailed off quickly when he saw the man looking at him. 'Okay,' he said.

The man took the camera out of his pocket and handed it to him. 'There's fifteen shots of the inside. The rest of the disk is full of similar material. Including the interior of the Dedham chamber.'

'What? No way. That was lost…'

'I found it again. Put it all up on your site, so I can get them if I need to.'

'But… why are you doing this?'

'People need to know. But you came here alone, went inside alone. Right?'

'Man, I'm forgetting your existence in real time. It will be a pleasure. Trust me.'

The man smiled, and this time it looked almost real. Then he turned and walked away.

===OO=OOO=OO===

By the time Oz got back to the gate the black car had gone, and fresh rain had begun to fill its tracks. Happily, a car came along only five minutes after Oz made it to Old Pond Lane.

Unhappily, it contained his ex-wife.

In the morning things had happened fast. We were woken just after eight by a call from Reidel: a local cop had gotten a hit on Larry Widmar. He had been seen talking to a woman in a bar on the Owensville Road on the night he disappeared. Nina took details and arranged to meet him at the bar in forty minutes.

While she showered I called the number Unger had supplied in his email, after using a dark corner of the internet to confirm it belonged to a phone that was registered to a Mr C Unger, street address withheld. This looked good, down to Unger using his alleged intelligence status to keep information out of a database that wasn't supposed to exist in the first place. I still didn't want to use my own phone to call him, but other options were limited. Calling from the room or lobby or a public call box would place me even more securely than a cell trace. The only other approach was social engineering: borrowing a phone from a member of the public with or without their consent. All I'd be doing was transferring the danger to an innocent bystander — which even my training-wheeled moral system would find it hard to classify as 'good'.

So in the end I just called him, and after all that he didn't pick up. I was redirected to voicemail and told I'd reached Carl Unger's phone and I should leave a message. The voice didn't sound familiar, but they seldom do. I said who I was and that he was welcome to call me back.

Then we went out and got in my rental and headed for the bar.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Reidel was already there, standing with a woman in the middle of a parking lot that was cold and empty and bordered with mist. The bar sat by the side of the road about a half mile out of town, and was a long, flat oblong tricked up to look slightly like a boat. Why, when the nearest ocean was a long day's drive away, was hard to imagine. It was called 'The Mayflower'.

Reidel introduced the woman as Hazel and explained they were in the lot because the manager was late arriving to open up.

'So,' Nina said, showing her badge. 'Hazel — you want to tell me what you've told the detective here?'

Hazel was in her thirties and smoker-thin, decent looks heading calcified. Her voice sounded like you could use her throat to take the edges off things, and also as if she was more of an evening person. She stood with the body language of a woman who had about two minutes' good temper left in her at any one time.

'The guy in the picture I was showed. He's in once in a while, not often. Wednesday night he was here, though, mid to late, and I know it was Wednesday because I was pissed because it was supposed to be my night off but Gretchen went no-warning AWOL
again
but hell, that's okay — because bubble-butt is screwing Lloyd right now and so she's fucking golden.'

'Lloyd being the manager,' Reidel said. 'He hasn't been talked to yet. He wasn't here last night or on Wednesday.'

'Yeah, right,' Hazel said. 'Too busy getting it wet. He's married, you know. Three kids. Cute fucking kids, too.'

'Last Wednesday,' Nina prompted.

Hazel shrugged. 'I didn't talk to the guy and I don't really know him and all I told the cop was he was there, and I saw him talking to some chick with short hair who's in here sometimes, drinks vodka straight up. Personally I always thought she was, like, a woman's woman, but what the hell do I know?'

'Can you give us more of a description of the woman?'

'Your height, forty pounds heavier, pasty face. Wouldn't want to kiss her.'

'You think any of the other staff might know who she is?'

'Maybe Donna. But she's away till Thursday.'

We turned at the sound of a vehicle pulling into the lot. It was a red truck, and it parked right up against the front of the building.

'Or him,' Hazel added, folding her arms even more tightly. 'Assuming he brought his brain today.'

The guy who got out of the truck was in his late forties, slim and losing colour on top. He was trying hard for silver fox but came across more like a greying weasel with a tan.

'What's going on?'

'Police,' Reidel said. 'We're here about a customer of yours. Man called Lawrence Widmar.'

Lloyd looked immediately wary. 'Right. Guy who got killed.'

Hazel stared. 'He's dead?'

'Yes,' Nina said. 'He's the man who was found in Raynor's Wood. Didn't the policeman tell you?'

'No. He just asked if I recognized… I didn't know.' She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, fumbled for a light. I held one out for her. 'Thanks. Jesus.'

'I wouldn't call him a regular,' the manager said, moving smoothly into distancing mode. 'Came in here maybe once, twice a month. Didn't drink a whole lot. Sat in a booth, read a book mostly. Sometimes he'd talk to someone.'

'Women?'

'Yeah.'

'Hazel says he was in conversation last Wednesday.'

Lloyd looked at Hazel. 'You know the one,' she said. 'Big-faced. Short hair. I figured maybe she was a dyke.'

'She
is
a dyke, Hazel. I told you that. That's Diane Lawton. He was talking to her?'

'Sure was.'

'Wasting his time then,' the manager said, evidently baffled. 'I guess some guys are just plain dumb.'

Hazel gave him a look that would have scorched paint.

'You got a phone book in the bar, sir?' Nina asked.

The manager led her and Reidel over to the door. While they were inside I waited in the lot with the waitress.

She accepted my offer of another cigarette, in no evident hurry to get inside. 'You figure it's someone from Thornton?'

'Or nearby. This Lawton woman seem good for it to you?'

She frowned, surprised to be asked. 'Well, no, not at all. But I mean, I don't know about people who kill people. There's got to be something about them, right? You'd be able to see it?'

'Not really,' I said.

'For real? You known some killers?'

'A few.'

'What are they like?'

'Same as you or me. But they kill people.'

'But then… how come?'

'Got me,' I said. 'That's just the way it is.'

'I had a boyfriend once,' she said, after a moment. 'Seemed like he might hurt somebody some day. Just something about him, like, sometimes he looked at his hands funny. But he never did, far as I know. We broke up and one night he came around and sat in my yard. Didn't shout or nothing. Just sat out there. I thought that would be the night, but then he went away.'

'What happened after that?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'I'd see him around. Couple years later he got killed in a car wreck.' She shrugged. 'Don't know why I told you that.'

Nina and Reidel came back out. Nina stopped with Hazel a moment and thanked her for her time. 'I'd appreciate it if you didn't speak to anybody about this,' she said. 'At this stage all we want to do is eliminate Ms Lawton from the investigation.'

'You got it,' Hazel said, standing on her cigarette butt. 'Thanks for the smoke,' she added to me, and headed off towards the bar.

'Been making friends?' Nina asked.

'You know me,' I said. 'I'm hard to resist.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Diane Lawton lived in a small house about a mile from the Mayflower, back into Thornton proper. It was twenty after nine by the time we got there but a compact car in the driveway suggested she was still at home. That, and some music wafting out of an open kitchen window. Light, baroque, with an oboe wandering happily around over the top. Bach, most likely, and probably enough to make her neighbours look at her sideways all by itself. Kids' toys littered the front yards of the houses either side.

Nina knocked on the side door and it was opened almost immediately by a woman who matched the description we had been given.

'Ms Lawton?'

The woman looked at us and nodded. She was about thirty with a round face and one of those mouths that seem forever on the verge of movement. You had to look hard to realize there were shadows under her eyes and that the movement the corners of her mouth were most prone to make wouldn't necessarily be upward.

'Yes,' she said. 'And you are?'

Nina held up her ID. 'Do you mind if we come in?'

'I'm on my way to work.'

'It should only take five minutes.'

'Should?'

Nina looked at her steadily. 'Ma'am, like it says on the badge, I'm with the FBI. We tolerate backchat on television for dramatic purposes. Not so much in real life.'

Lawton stood back and let us in. Her kitchen was homely and full of macramé plant hangers and pottery storage jars that had been made either by enthusiastic amateurs or those undergoing occupational therapy in facilities with high walls.

She picked up a remote and muted the music. 'What's this about?'

Nina held up a picture. 'Do you recognize this man?'

Lawton smiled tightly. 'His name's Larry. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he's married.'

'He was. But he's dead now.'

Ms Lawton stared. 'Really? Wow.'

'You haven't heard about the body found in Raynor's Wood?'

'No. I was out of town all weekend. What happened?'

'That's what we're about finding out,' Reidel said. 'Some folks at the Mayflower say you were talking to him Wednesday night.'

'People round here do take a lively interest in other people's business, don't they? Yes, sure, we spoke for a while. He came and sat next to me.'

'Did you leave with him?'

'No, I did not.'

'Is that because of, uh, an incompatibility?'

Ms Lawton sighed. 'I work for a women's refuge in Dryford, Detective, because there are times when women need refuge. I'm not from around here and I wear my hair short because I hate it when it gets in my eyes — and also because I happen to think it looks nice that way. Probably I'm wrong about that, but I'm not actually a lesbian. Okay?'

'It's none of our business,' Nina said, glaring at Reidel, 'and personally I wouldn't blame you. Given the alternative.'

'I didn't leave the bar with him because I'm not in the habit of one-night stands. If I was then I'd've rolled out of there on the arm of enough good ol' boys that people would know where my interests lie. It also didn't happen because he was an asshole.'

'In what way?'

'He
came over, bought
me
a drink, and then spent the entire time staring over my shoulder at someone else. Finally he said it'd been nice, still not even
looking
at me, and then just left to go talk to her. Okay? That a sad enough story for you? Woman gets hit on and then the guy realizes what a dull lot she is and takes the hit back so he can trade it up?'