Showdown (25 page)

CO-OWNER OF PENTACLE MATTRESS

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. SORRY.

WOULD NEED COURT ORDER.

He'd expected this. Lawyers weren't about to give out client information of this nature without a battle. That's what people paid lawyers for—protection.

He went over to the bank to see Eugene Sims. Sims had a nineteen-year-old son who'd been born with a hand the shape of a bottle—a whiskey bottle. You rarely saw that hand when it wasn't that shape. Todd Sims was always getting into trouble of the public intoxication kind. Prine always ran the kid home instead of charging him and putting him in jail. This wasn't because Prine felt all that sorry for the young man, which he did to a small degree. It was because a bank vice president was somebody good to know. You never knew when a bank VP would come in handy.

Eugene Sims was a fleshy man with a round pink face and dog-sad brown eyes. He looked afraid when he saw Prine walking toward his desk in the back of the bank. There was only one enclosed office here, and that, needless to say, belonged to the bank president.

"Todd in trouble?" Sims asked, touching his tight, white celluloid collar.

"Relax, Eugene. Todd's fine."

Sims's relief was visible. He had his left hand on his desk. It was trembling. "Sit down, Tom. Since this visit doesn't involve my son, I can relax now. So what can I help you with, my friend?"

"You do Aaron Duncan's banking, right?"

"Yes, we're very glad to have him as a customer."

Prine leaned forward, giving the conversation an air of secrecy. "There's a co-owner for his mattress company."

"There is? Gosh, Sam, I handle that account myself. You sure about that?"

Prine nodded. "I wondered if you could check in his file and find the name of the other owner for me."

Sims leaned back. Talked around his steepled fingers. "You start looking through a man's personal files—it's not good, Tom."

"This is official business," Prine said.

"He in trouble?"

"Not that I know of. We're just trying to wrap up this investigation, and we need to know who all the players are."

"Then why don't you just ask Aaron Duncan himself?"

Prine was careful about what he said. "I'm trying to help Aaron keep his name clear of what could be a financial scandal. And lose him one hell of a lot of money. And prestige."

"In other words, he won't cooperate."

"Well," Prine said, "I really haven't asked him yet. But I'm saving that as a last resort."

Sims sighed, sat forward. Nodded to the bank president, Homer Styles, who was standing outside the teller windows talking with some of the customers. He was a courtly man, a southern man, and those who weren't put off by his southern accent were enchanted by it. For many Yankees as well as southerners, the Civil War had yet to end.

"You see Styles out there? Can you imagine what he'd do to me if I gave you confidential information? I'd be out of a job, Tom. I just can't do it. The only way you could get it that I know of is to get a court order, and then you'd still have to deal with Styles, not me."

Prine shrugged. "I figured that's what you'd say. But I thought I'd give it a try."

"I'd help you if I could, Tom."

"Yeah, I know." He pushed himself up out of the chair. He'd always had a vague admiration for drummers. They could get turned down ten times a day and they could still find a reserve of enthusiasm to knock on one more door. Getting turned down drained him.

But as he walked out of the bank, his step quickened when he realized that there was one more person he could try. A person who didn't seem to like Aaron Duncan all that much. Aaron Duncan's wife.

R
ichard Neville wondered if he could survive the late-afternoon gathering at his mansion. Another excuse for the local gentry to get drunk and stuff their bellies at his expense. And all the cloying, embarrassing speeches he had to endure.
She was so lovely. She was such a fine person. You must be so lonely. Anytime you feel like talking, just stop over. She would've wanted you to go on with your life, Richard
.

She'd been a stupid, whiny little bitch who'd wanted to be praised constantly for all the inane little things she did. My God, she never stopped bragging about her charity work; never stopped regaling him with tales of the boy-men who fell in love with her; and never talked about how she was going to give half of her fortune to charity.

What she hadn't known—few people did—was the catastrophic losses the business he'd inherited had suffered in the past few years. Against the advice of his lawyers, his accountants, and his bankers, he'd started buying up towns and hamlets rumored to have been chosen by railroads as railheads. He'd already squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars on bad cattle deals; on timberland that logging companies wouldn't meet his prices for; on a steamboat scheme that would've returned the rivers to their former majesty—despite the obvious fact that people preferred railroad travel these days. River travel was in terrible decline. All this was made even worse by the fact that he listened only to those cronies who agreed with him. Hell, he bought them drinks, food, women—why wouldn't they agree with him?

He'd managed to survive last year only because he'd been able to blackmail Aaron Duncan into letting him buy into Duncan's various businesses—and then destroy them. Neville had witnessed a drunken Duncan cut up a whore pretty badly one night—the woman almost bled to death before Neville, terrified of the scandal, called in a doc to take care of her. Duncan had no choice but to go along with Neville's arson plans. Neville got the cash flow he needed. But then the insurance company sent that damned Al Woodward out here. Neville sent him a note luring him to the lake and killed him there.

But he knew he was beyond the help of arson. He needed a large amount of money, and he needed it quickly. That meant his sister's half of the family fortune.

He still remembered the day Rooney had come to Neville's buggy in town one day. The man even looked like a grifter, but it was easy to tell that Rooney thought otherwise. Rooney obviously saw himself as a very sleek-looking businessman. He would've ignored Rooney, but Rooney said, "I have some interesting news about your sister."

My God, you couldn't ask for a better opportunity. The stupid bitch had hired two lowlife grifters to kidnap her to teach big brother a lesson. Rooney offered to do whatever Neville said if the price was right. Neville made sure the price was right. He wanted Cassie murdered, and these scruffy boys were just the two to do it. He would make sure to kill them if he ever got the chance.

And he got his chance.

Now he watched all the hypocrites. They'd be laughing with their mouths and lusting with their eyes until it was their turn to come over and pay their respects to Richard. And then they would put on their grief masks. And natter on about what a loss she was. And how much he'd obviously loved her. And how, someday, he'd be able to carry on with his life.

He had a meeting on Monday with her lawyers. He needed to tap into her fortune, and quickly.

T
he Duncan home had been built on a shelf above a leg of the river. Isolation and privacy were further provided by the fact that it had been built inside a sprawl of pine and pin oak trees so that it could not be seen from the road.

Prine's instinctive first response to this glimpse of the privileged life was one of unworthiness. He'd seen his old man roll over and grovel for rich people. He had the same shameful tendencies. You could try and convince yourself that all people were equal in the eyes of God and the law, but money bought power and power instilled fear. And fear . . .

By the time he dismounted, ground-tying his horse by the river, he felt less intimidated by the Victorian house looming up out of what had once been a prairie. The badge made him equal to anybody who lived here. He just needed to remember that.

Elenore Duncan came out the front door just as Prine reached the front steps. She wore an ice-blue frock that displayed her full but fetching body to advantage. Her hair was perfectly set, too, as if she might have been entertaining this afternoon. When she wobbled coming down the steps—he took her elbow just before she fell down—he realized that she'd been entertaining all right—herself. She was politely and properly drunk. She wasn't the first gentrified, middle-aged woman to suffer at the brutal hands of John Barleycorn.

"I saw you come up," she said. She flung a hand somewhere in the vicinity of the yard to the west. The grounds were elegantly landscaped and tended.
Arson must pay better than I realized
, Prine thought. "I love to sit in the gazebo. Come."

She slid her hand into his, as if they were teenage lovers. "Oh, God, I hate being sad all the time." She spoke to herself more than she did to him. "I used to sit by the window and wait and wait and wait for him to come home. Sometimes I'd sit up till nearly dawn. I didn't care about his gambling or his whores and all the stupid business deals he was always getting into. I just wanted him to come home to me."

Her hand still in his, she turned her face to him and for the first time he saw, beneath the excess flesh, the fine lyrical bones of the young woman she'd been. One of those wry, melancholy faces you could look at for hours. "And now you know what? Now I don't care if he ever comes home. In fact, I'd prefer if he'd stay away. Because when he's here, all we do is argue."

As they walked, her wide mouth became a full and appealing smile. "Have you guessed my secret yet, Deputy Prine?"

"I'm not sure, Mrs. Duncan."

"Oh, Lord. Don't make me feel older than I am. Please call me Ellie."

"My secret—" She stumbled. He seized her elbow again. She was still smiling when she stood straight again. "I think I just gave away my secret."

"You've been drinking."

"How observant. Are all deputies as observant as you are?"

"Yes. We take an oath to be observant."

"I'm drunk, Deputy Prine."

"Gosh, are you sure?"

She laughed.

"I like you. Do you like me?"

"Very much."

"You know something? My husband's afraid of you."

"Did he tell you that?"

"You paid him a visit the other day. I saw you in his office. That Mr. Woodward scared him, too."

Prine was glad they weren't holding hands any longer. Because when she mentioned Woodward, his entire body tensed.

They reached the gazebo—classically shaped with a blue roof and white sides—and he helped her up the stairs and inside. They sat on a padded bench that allowed them to look at the river.

Prine rolled himself a cigarette. He was trying to figure out the best way to keep her talking. "Did you ever meet Woodward?" he asked.

"Would you roll me one of those?"

"You smoke, huh?"

"Only when I'm drunk."

"Sure, I'll roll you one."

He rolled her one. Got it lit for her. Handed it to her. She knew how to smoke just fine. She looked good, too, inhaling, exhaling, cocking her head at a certain angle so that her long, fine neck was emphasized. The lips she'd just wetted sparkled with erotic promise.

She said, "Don't ask me to betray him."

"I assume we're talking about your husband."

"Yes, unfortunately—yes. All the times and all the ways he's betrayed me. I don't know why I should give a damn about betraying him. I guess I still love him. That's the terrible thing about all this. I still love him."

He wondered if she was going to cry.

A
s soon as Aaron Duncan got the telegram, he said goodnight to his secretary and left Pentacle Mattress. It was barely 3:30.

He headed straight and fast to the Neville estate. He was trying to work up such an anger that not even Richard Neville could turn him aside. That was the hell of it with Neville. He was such a powerful man—both physically and because of his business reputation—that it was impossible for somebody like Duncan to take his verbal abuse. Like most people, Duncan always gave in to Neville, even when he knew he shouldn't. This time, at least, he was going to taunt him, say that Neville's idea for three arsons was stupid to begin with.

You don't think they'll catch on, Richard? You think insurance companies are dumb? Three businesses I own burn down in a four-month period and they don't have any suspicions? You're so desperate for money, you're not thinking straight, Richard. This third one—They'll catch us before. And this time, they're going to find out who my silent partner is, too. You wait and see. This time, they won't quit until they've found out everything
.

Duncan had been drunk when he'd said all this one night in his office with Neville. Maybe that's what he needed now. The fortification, the wisdom of alcohol. But it was still the sunny afternoon. No way Neville would take him seriously if he showed up drunk.

The telegraph rode in his pocket like a coiled snake, ready to strike. His lawyer warning him that Prine had tried to get the name of Duncan's secret partner from him. Now it was both Prine and the insurance company moving in on them. And Neville kept on killing people. One dead in the mattress factory fire. Al Woodward the insurance investigator murdered. And in both of these, by law, Duncan had been complicit.