Very Bad Men (51 page)

“She must have kept in touch with him though,” I said, “even if she had to do it without letting Nick know.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I wouldn't be surprised if Kenneally has visited her up here. She could have arranged to meet up with him while Nick was at school. And Kenneally has three children of his own—Madelyn's grandchildren. She'd want to be part of their lives.”

It must have made for a lot of sneaking around, I thought. A lot of worrying. All because she couldn't be sure how much Terry Dawtrey knew about her son.

And as it turned out, she had been right to worry. Before we left the farmhouse, I had asked Nick the question I should have asked him long ago. The obvious question. Did Terry know the identity of the fifth robber, the getaway driver?

The answer he gave me was frustrating. Terry knew. Floyd Lambeau had told him things. Lambeau had trusted him more than the others; after all, Lambeau was Ojibwa and Terry was Ojibwa too. From the hints Terry dropped, Nick believed that Terry knew the driver's name—his first name at least—as well as other details. Where he had gone to school, what he had studied. Enough to expose him. Terry could have turned the driver in any time he wanted.

But if that was true, I asked, why didn't he do it?

Nick gave me an answer to that too.

SAM TILLMAN'S HOUSE sat fifty yards back from the road on a level plot of land surrounded by woods on three sides. His nearest neighbors were a quarter mile away.

Elizabeth cut the engine and we stepped out into a breeze and the song of crickets. The full moon shone silver on the grass. The woods grew close to the house, especially on the north side. That's where Nick would have hidden, I thought, when he came here to spy on Tillman.

I crossed around the front of the car and Elizabeth slipped her hand into mine. As we walked toward the house, a man came out onto the porch to meet us. He leaned against a wooden post at the top of the steps. “Pretty night,” he said.

Elizabeth brought her badge out of her handbag and held it up. “Elizabeth Waishkey,” she said. “I'm with the Ann Arbor police.”

“I figured you'd come, sooner or later.”

He shuffled down the steps and offered a hand for her to shake, then offered it to me. He had a strong grip.

“David Loogan,” I said.

“Sam Tillman. Nice to know you.”

 

 

THE NIGHT AIR came into the house through screened windows in the long front room. On the north side a sofa and two wingback chairs were grouped around a coffee table. On the south a grandfather clock stood beside an archway that opened into the kitchen. Beside the clock was a writing desk with a carved wooden chair, and over the back of the chair hung a belt with a holstered nine-millimeter pistol.

Tillman led us in and cleared a few small items from the sofa so we could sit—toys and stuffed animals, a woman's scarf. Things his wife and children must have left behind. He moved them to one of the wingback chairs and then eased himself into the other.

He sat with his right elbow on the arm of the chair, his cheek resting on his fingertips. Waiting. For all I knew he might have been sitting like that for hours before we arrived. There was no clue to what he had been doing, no stereo or television playing, no book set aside. An unopened bottle of beer stood on the coffee table, but it might have been there a while. There was no condensation on it.

Tillman saw me looking at it and said, “I haven't been drinking.”

“No?”

“I used to drink,” he said. “Gave it up when I got married. Darlene didn't like it—that's my wife.” The words rolled out of him slow and even. “She had her reasons. Her dad was a mean drunk. The smallest thing could set him off. He yanked her arm out of the socket once when she was ten. She was making him breakfast and she burned his toast.”

He sat straight and dropped his hands into his lap. His wedding ring glinted in the light of the floor lamp beside his chair.

“That's why she liked me,” he said. “I was always even-tempered. Reliable. ‘If you didn't drink, you'd be perfect,' she used to say. So I quit.” He gestured toward the bottle. “I found that in the refrigerator the day she left. It must've been there since the last time we had company. I thought it might do me some good.”

“What changed your mind?” Elizabeth asked him.

“I figured it's only one bottle. It's not enough to drown out what happened at Whiteleaf Cemetery.” He turned the ring around his finger. “That's what you're here about, isn't it?”

“Tell me what happened at Whiteleaf Cemetery,” she said.

“Isn't it obvious?” Tillman said, rubbing the gold band. “I murdered Terry Dawtrey.”

 

 

THE PENDULUM of the grandfather clock marked off the seconds. A breeze stirred the sheer curtains that hung before the windows behind Tillman's chair.

“Paul Rhiner shot Dawtrey,” Elizabeth said.

Tillman shook his head. The lamplight made his curly hair the color of bronze. “Paul's the one who happened to pull the trigger.”

“Are you saying the two of you conspired to kill him?”

“There was a conspiracy,” Tillman said. “But Paul wasn't part of it. He was a straight arrow. I don't think he would have gone along. I know Walt didn't think so.”

“Walter Delacorte? Was it his idea to kill Dawtrey?”

Tillman looked down at his hands. “He asked me if I would do it. I've thought about it since—wondered why he picked me. I've been with the sheriff's office for twelve years. Some guys are attracted to the violence of the job, but I'm not one of them. If I have to slam someone into the hood of a cruiser to get the cuffs on him, I'll do it. But I don't take pleasure in it. There are guys I work with who do. Walt didn't pick one of them.”

He looked up again. “I'll tell you what I think it was. He wanted someone steady, predictable. Not that he knew I would say yes. But he knew he could ask me and I wouldn't get worked up about it. You have to have strong convictions to get worked up about things. He knew that even if I said no, he could trust me not to make trouble for him.”

Elizabeth leaned forward on the sofa. “Tell me what he said to you.”

“He called me into his office. He'd been talking to the warden at Kinross Prison. They were letting Dawtrey out for his father's funeral. Walt offered me a spot on the escort detail, and I agreed. He reminded me that Dawtrey had shot Harlan Spencer. Paralyzed him.

“ ‘There's no room for mistakes,' Walt said to me.

“ ‘There won't be any,' I told him.

“ ‘If Dawtrey tries to run, you shoot him. Do you have a problem with that?'

“ ‘Nope. That sounds about right.'

“ ‘You ask me, he should've been shot a long time ago,' Walt said. ‘He doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as civilized people.'

“ ‘He tries anything while I'm watching him, he'll regret it.'

“Walt looked me over, like he was making up his mind. When he spoke, his voice was softer. ‘Good. I hoped you'd say that. Because what I'm hearing is, he plans to try something.'

“He waited for me to catch on, a strange little smile on his face.

“ ‘What are you saying, Walt?'

“The smile went away. ‘I'm saying that Terry Dawtrey is going to attempt to escape from custody. When he does, you should shoot him—and you should shoot to kill.'

“I looked for some sign that he was kidding. Didn't find it. ‘How do you know this?'

“ ‘It doesn't matter,' he said. ‘It's going to happen. And there's someone who wants it to happen, someone who's willing to pay to be sure Dawtrey dies.'”

Elizabeth interrupted. “That's all he said—‘someone'? He didn't tell you who?”

“He said it would be best if I didn't know.” Tillman let out a long breath. “Part of me wanted to tell him to go to hell, and another part wanted to know how big a payment he was talking about. He answered the question before I could make up my mind to ask it.

“ ‘Fifty thousand,' he said. ‘Half in advance, half when it's done.'

“It sounded unreal, but I could tell he was serious. I stood there staring at him for a long time. ‘Jesus, Walt,' I said finally. ‘What do you expect me to do here?'

“ ‘Go home and think it over,' he said, mild as mild. ‘Let me know in the morning.'

“That night I felt strange. Off-kilter. I thought about the money. Darlene and I have always done all right, but this house has gotten crowded over the years—we've got three daughters. We've talked about a bigger place, but could never afford it. Fifty thousand dollars would change that. On the other hand, I'd have to make up a story about where it came from. I didn't think she could live with me if she knew the truth.

“I lay awake all night and by the morning I decided fifty thousand wasn't enough, not for what I'd have to do to earn it. At nine o'clock I went into Walt's office and told him I would need a hundred thousand. I figured whoever was paying would refuse and that would be the end of it. But late that afternoon Walt told me we were on.

“For the next few days I had that same off-kilter feeling. I kept stumbling back and forth between two ideas. First, it would never happen, I wasn't really going to shoot Terry Dawtrey. And second, why not? He was far from innocent. If he tried to run, he deserved whatever he got.

“On the morning of the funeral I met up with Paul Rhiner and we drove down to the prison. They had Dawtrey ready. We put the shackles on him and headed out. He was quiet in the car and when we got to the church he walked with his head bowed. He shuffled like a broken man, the way they do after they've been in Kinross long enough.

“We sat through the mass and escorted him back to the car. On the drive to the cemetery I decided Walt had been misinformed. Dawtrey didn't plan to run. That was fine by me.

“Except I didn't really believe it. Walt had warned me that it would happen at the cemetery. ‘Give Dawtrey a little slack, let him wander away from you, and that's when he'll try to make a break.' Paul and I brought him to his father's grave and listened while the priest went through his routine. Afterward Dawtrey asked us if he could visit his grandmother's gravestone. Paul looked to me and I said it was all right. I started to take Dawtrey's arm but changed my mind, because if I went with him I knew I'd have to shoot him—and I didn't want to, not for any money. And then I did something unforgivable.”

Tillman paused, and his pause stretched out until Elizabeth prompted him.

“You told Paul to take him.”

S
am Tillman seemed to sink into his wingback chair. “Yes,” he said. “But worse than that. I knew Paul would do his job conscientiously. He'd be right on top of Dawtrey the whole time. So I told him to relax, to give Dawtrey some space. ‘He's not going anywhere,' I said.

“I stopped to have a word with the priest, because whatever happened, I didn't want to see it. I guess you know how it went from there. Suddenly there was a sound like machine-gun fire. Just a couple kids lighting off firecrackers, but I didn't know that. I thought the whole thing had gone to hell. Thought I'd got Paul killed. When I finally saw what was happening, Dawtrey had the shackles off. Paul was chasing him. Dawtrey made it over the cemetery fence, and for a second it looked like he might really get away. I was thinking about what Walt would do when he found out. Then Dawtrey collapsed. Paul had shot him.

“I felt my heart pounding when I reached the fence, and not just because I'd been running. Paul had climbed over to check on Dawtrey. ‘Where's he hit?' I shouted, because from a distance I couldn't see. I didn't have to worry. The bullet went through Dawtrey's throat. The paramedics got there and told us he was dead, and my heart settled down.”

“What did Delacorte say about what happened?” Elizabeth asked.

Tillman smiled ruefully. “I thought he'd be angry, but he slapped me on the back and told me I'd done a fine job. It was almost as if he thought I'd planned to trick Paul into doing it from the beginning. I think he was impressed. Dawtrey was dead and I'd managed to keep my hands clean.”

“What about the money?”

“It's in a cardboard box in the attic. I haven't touched it. I had the crazy idea of giving it to Paul, but Walt convinced me I couldn't—because Paul took it hard, shooting Dawtrey, and if he learned the truth it would only make things worse.”

Tillman's voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Paul never suspected me, never blamed me,” he said, looking at Elizabeth with sad eyes. “Instead, he got obsessed with your mysterious man on the cemetery hill. Lark, the one who killed old Charlie Dawtrey and started everything. You know where that led.”