HE DID NOT SLEEP. NOT A SECOND. NEVER EVEN CLOSED HIS eyes. The light was grainy with the coming dawn. The doves in the maple trees were waking and beginning to call. Buckshot was standing in the pasture with his head turned eastward to watch the morning come up. Fielding was sitting in a chair looking west over the flat green country. He glanced at the television screen. It was gray and lifeless. The videotape sat on top of it. He checked the wall clock. Seemed late enough to call Batey.
Later that morning Fielding stood at the window of Wilson’s hotel room with his arms crossed chewing on his thumb while Batey and Wilson watched the video. Fielding looked down at the traffic. Down at the people walking back and forth on the sidewalk. Mothers with small children. Men taking their coffee at the café. All of them ignorant to what was happening on the screen.
Neither Batey nor Wilson uttered a word. Wilson sat there jotting notes. He was watching it like some instructional workplace video. When the screen went black Wilson hit pause and turned back to Fielding at the window.
How many times have you watched this? Wilson asked.
Just the once.
And how did you happen to come across it?
Bad luck.
I am going to need you to be very specific on this, Wilson said.
I told yeh that already. Side of the road.
That sounds awfully suspicious.
I know how it sounds.
Wilson stood and went to the bureau. He straightened his tie. He brushed his hair over with his fingers. He poured a little bourbon into a crystal tumbler and brought it to Fielding.
It ain’t even noon yet, Fielding said.
It is somewhere, Wilson said. Somewhere it is.
Fielding took the glass but he did not drink it. Wilson went back to the television. He pressed rewind on the VCR.
He backed up to the point when the men started drinking the woman’s blood. Then he hit play. Each man would remove his mask momentarily before lowering his head. The image was a little fuzzy. It was hard to make out any discerning qualities.
Do any of these men look familiar? Wilson asked.
Most of them have their backs turned, Batey said.
Wilson said, Say you saw Mr Fielding walking down the street. You were behind him. Would you know it’s him?
Sure, Batey said. But that’s because I know him. I don’t know any of these men.
But maybe you do, Wilson said. And you just don’t know it.
What are yeh gettin at, Wilson? Fielding said.
Same thing you are.
And what’s that? Fielding asked.
Truth, Wilson said. These men on the tape, they’re not make-believe. Neither was that girl. And what they did to her really happened. All of this is real. That’s what I’m getting at.
Alright, Batey said.
Alright what? Wilson asked.
Roll it again.
Wilson nodded and rewound the tape. Then he pressed play.
Fielding and Batey were seated at a bar with a neon Rainier sign glowing above them. Leaning on their elbows. Not talking. The barman came and took their empties and brought fresh ones in their place and then he went away without saying a word. Better part of an hour must have gone by before Fielding said,
How’s yer club soda?
Sucks, Batey said. How’s the Rainier?
Sucks.
You know what I’ve been thinking about this whole time?
What have yeh been thinking about?
You think those guys we found in the cellar had anything to do with that tape?
I don’t know, Fielding said.
I had Marty run their names.
What did yeh tell Marty?
Told him I went out there on a poaching claim. Told him what I found.
Well, Fielding said.
Does it make sense to you that two guys with no criminal record would find themselves shot and hanged with a dead stripper?
No, Fielding said. No it does not.
I don’t think so either, Batey said. You know what else makes me think these guys were in the wrong place at the wrong time?
What’s that?
I think I know where that video was taped. And anyone without a criminal record would have no business being there.
What do yeh mean?
I think I know where that factory is. Where that video was made. I think I’ve seen it. Hell, I think I’ve been there.
Yeh gettin spooky on me? Fielding asked.
Might be spooking myself.
How do yeh know it?
Past life, Batey said. My DEA days. That factory shut down in 1956 and has been empty since. Old paper mill. Fifteen years ago we had some entry-level dope runners setting up in there. Some kind of hideout or something. Stashing the stuff coming in from Canada.
It’s by the water? Fielding asked.
Everything is by the water around here.
Why didn’t yeh mention this to Wilson?
Same reason you told him you found the tape on the side of the road.
Fielding nodded at the back mirror. Not at anyone in it. Just at it.
Okay, Fielding said. Well.
Well what?
This factory have a location or do yeh want me to guess?
Down in Tacoma, Batey said.
Are yeh proposin somethin here?
I don’t know what I’m proposing.
I think they’d call this an obstruction of justice.
I’d say that’d get us five to ten.
We’re building up quite a rap sheet between us, Fielding said. Aren’t we?