“Just who the hell do you think you are?” Martin Pemberton didn’t speak loudly or with apparent rancor; the familiar soft drawl was educated and refined.
Dugan had been going over the duty schedule. He never did get any sleep Saturday night, all that stuff on the mountain and then his memories of Alabama, it becoming more apparent than ever he wasn’t getting any younger. When he and Dru got momentarily talked out, he had done the chores, fed the Angus, then taken a shower and changed while she fixed breakfast. By the time they went to church, he was ready to play it moment by moment, and he and Dru were easy again.
Now it was Monday. At the sound of Pemberton’s voice, Dugan checked his watch, then laid the pencil down and looked up at the man standing unannounced in his door. He hadn’t knocked, but then he usually didn’t; Pemberton was as proprietary about the office as he was about the man he felt he’d gotten elected.
“This fucking job going to your head, Charlie?” Pemberton leaned over the desk, his curled knuckles going white pressing the oak surface. It wasn’t simple anger or aggressiveness—it was ownership.
“I’ve been expecting you. Close the door?” Dugan said quietly.
“Close it yourself.”
Dugan got up and closed the door. “This is only protocol, Martin. Your car came up as a possible.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You bring a posse to my house in the middle of the night, wake my wife and scare her like I’d died, then suggest I was out philandering.”
Dugan reached over, grabbed that morning’s copy of the Gazette & Reformer and slid it across the desk. It was folded open to page 5. Above a huge ad for Reedy’s Mobile Home Sales was a picture of the Carvers’ Monte Carlo, obviously taken out at Clyde Dean Forrest’s auto yard. The back end of the tow truck was in view, as well as several cars parked against a high wooden fence. The Carvers had probably tipped the paper off, Dugan reflected. Or the city police. The family lived in the city, and cops got prickly about knowing what was going on in their bailiwick. But there was just the photo and a little blurb beneath it describing the incident in the barest terms, giving only the name of the Carver family, not the suspect car or the fact that there was one. Harlan knew better. The paper hadn’t even called Dugan. It just made extra photos and sent them to him, knowing he’d tell them what he had when he got ready.
“I never suggested you were out philandering.” I didn’t have to. He watched Pemberton go ashen over the picture.
“You think I had something to do with that? Listen close.” Pemberton’s patrician face had turned a fine pink. He leaned over and pointed a finger at Dugan. “That’s my name, my reputation, my family, my home you’re playing with. You have intruded where you don’t belong!”
“No one has accused anyone, Martin.” Still patient, but the world was suddenly too quiet. “Were you up there?”
Startled, Pemberton stood upright. “Hell no!” Face now red at the audacity.
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. Like I just said, it’s routine, Martin.” Suddenly he didn’t believe that a bit, hearing the lie beneath his own soft, unshaken voice, knowing the man across the desk was too quick not to hear it, too. Here we go, he thought. It’s been there since I pried that damn hundred dollars out of you, just waiting. He felt himself go out of focus, a fine pain shooting through his temples, a twinge of nausea. He flashed to the mountains and the cabin where he’d first lived when he came to Blackstone County, all that world below just grass and wind. Then he was back in his office, the man across the desk showing a look of amazed incredulity changing into rage, like someone had just grabbed his balls and windpipe at the same time and pulled in opposite directions.
“No you don’t, Dugan. You don’t play your fucking little games with me.” Pemberton’s features twisted now, not at all refined or aristocratic or rich or educated or just plain born right.
Dugan was comforted. Just another unhappy human face. How close to the surface it always was. This one likes to swear, only he’s keeping his voice in check—he’s not a yeller, all noise and lack of substance. And he’s been waiting, too. So let’s go ahead and get it over with.
Hell, he thought moments later, alone again, feeling a touch of regret and sadness when he heard the outside door slam, I haven’t even got a case.