The Montrose murder was put to one side as Saint gave her entire focus to Joseph Macauley.
She spent the afternoon fielding calls from Himes, the Alwyn County Sheriff’s Department, and every other police department in a couple of hundred miles around. She did not say it, but Patch had spent the better part of his life seeking, so she had little doubt he’d learned a thing or two about hiding. She saw his face on local news reports, then the national news at six. Evening news followed a dozen sightings. They gave it a lick of flavor when they ran the piece in The New York Times, talked of his paintings, his history, the fact that he’d been a pirate since birth.
“He’s too famous,” Michaels said, sitting on the corner of his desk, biceps thick beneath his shirt, anxious like he was waiting for a starter pistol to fire. “No way folk aren’t noticing the eye patch.”
Warden Riley stood before the prison and fielded questions like an ailing politician. Saint did not like the look in his eyes. Humiliation brought the meanest streak. He told the people of Alwyn County to lock their doors but also not to worry; they’d find him and they’d put him back where he belonged. They cut to cops moving door-to-door, to dogs straining leashes through the woodland surround.
Early evening she crossed the street and found him upstairs on the balcony, toasting the sky as the church bells rang seven.
She noted the bottle of Laphroaig, the number forty emblazoned. “You celebrating something, Sammy?”
He poured her a measure and she finally sat.
They watched the slowing of Main Street as a bruised sky reigned over mountaintops.
“I heard about Nix. I only saw him yesterday. He took some mail from me, knew the address when I asked. Always looking out for everyone, you know,” Sammy said.
She ignored the buzz of her radio, the sight of Michaels fielding calls instead of locking up. She traced back her years and found Nix in each.
“I know what the press doesn’t,” she said.
Sammy, his skin tanned, tie loose, and gold cufflinks on the table. “What do you know, Saint?”
“I know that at seven last night a construction worker cut through a main cable that fed the prison.”
Sammy drank.
“I mean, this cable is armored and thick, and the guy went at it with a track saw.”
“Mistakes are made.”
“Maybe. Then you’ve got Cooper, the guy that works in the library. He’s tall like Patch, lean, strong enough. But he’s locked in there and can’t bust his way out or nothing. And you got the guard who did the last count, swears blind Patch was in his cell. I mean, he would say that; otherwise he’s in for it, too. You got Blackjack on the gate that night, saw Cooper leave, but left his post in the morning because a veteran starts a brawl at morning count.”
Sammy leaned back a little and lit a cigar.
“You got all these people. Some of them are clean, right. We do the backgrounds, hell, you have to be clean enough to land the job in the first place. But we’ve also got the feds on it. And they’ve got whole departments that’ll roll over these guys till every secret they ever kept comes spilling. You understand me?”
Sammy ran a hand through his curls. “Not even a little bit.”
“If there’s money, if it leads anywhere close to you…”
“You want him to die in there?”
“Goddamn you, Sammy.”
He held both hands up. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“I want to believe you.”
He watched the town. “But?”
“I know you love him as much as I do.”