Page 37 of 44.1644° North
“Fuck off,” Blue T-Shirt replied cordially. He said to me, “I’m thinking of starting my own podcast. Do you mind if I pick your brain?”
I couldn’t help thinking he probably meant literally.
“Another time? I want to hear Weber.”
His face screwed up with scorn. “Don’t waste your time. What a poser.”
“Do youmind?” A woman hissed from down the length of the wall.
“Do you mind fucking off?” Blue T-Shirt returned.
Up at the front of the room, Weber had started reading from his book.
Rusty Bailey recognized trouble when he saw it, and the shivering young woman with the trembling smile was in trouble.
Not from him. Sure, at 350 pounds, with his long hair and stained handlebar mustache, Rusty looked like a roughneck, but those days were long behind him. He was a solid citizen now. In fact, he spent his days carting kiddies in his bus up and down the mountain to school and back.
“You okay?” He looked again at the black Saturn stuck in the snowbank. The flashers on the ground blinked blood red, briefly illuminating the cracked windshield, the blown airbags, the Massachusetts plates.
“I’m okay. Just shook up.”
“Happens on this curve a lot this time of year. I’ll call it into the sheriffs’.”
“Oh no,” she said quickly. “That’s okay. I already called Triple A. They’re on the way.”
A funny thing to lie about. There was no cell service this far up the mountain, which she had to know if she’d tried calling anyone at all.
Rusty said, “Okey dokey. You want to wait at our house? We’re right over there.” He pointed a little way down the road, but she shook her head.
“It’s all under control.”
Sure it is, honey. But he left her there, walking up and down beside her car, and drove the remaining hundred feet or so to his driveway. He parked beside the garage so he could keep an eye on her, went inside to tell his wife to call the sheriff, and returned to the bus to fill out the day’s paperwork.
When Deputy Col Dempsey arrived seven minutes later, the girl was gone. Vanished like a ghost in the night. The only sign she had ever been there, the—
“Youknowall this,” Blue T-Shirt said impatiently. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
“I don’t—”
“Sorry about that,” Rory said briskly, wedging himself between me and Blue T-Shirt. “What did I miss?”
I opened my mouth to say—well, I couldn’t say what I was thinking, which wasThank God. Blue T-Shirt beat me to it.
“Jeez, buddy!”
“Problem?” Rory opened his jacket ever so slightly, and Blue T-Shirt blanched. He backed up, turned, and started pushing through the crowd.
Rory stared after him, smiling sardonically. He glanced at me, his eyes crinkled at the corners. He put his arm around my shoulders—and that warm weight felt all too natural, all too right—gave me a friendly squeeze, and proceeded to give Weber his full attention.
Chapter Nine
“I’ve got a pretty good idea who’s been sending you death threats,” Rory said.
“The guy at the library?”
We were having Irish coffees at a cozy little bar within walking distance of the library. Most of the true-crime crowd had headed over to the Swiftwater, but I was starting to feel tired and out of sorts. It had been a long weekend, and it was only Saturday afternoon. Or maybe it was the aftereffects of having been drugged kicking in.
“His name’s Frank Davenport. He’s a graphic designer from Michigan. Divorced. No kids. No wants or warrants. However, his in-laws have a PPO on him, as does his ex-girlfriend.”
