CHAPTER

39

GARCIA WAS WHERE she’d left him in the ER driveway. When Jamie closed the car door, he put it in drive and asked, “Which way?”

“Straight up Main. Keep north on the county road.”

He cracked the window and clenched a cigarette between his lips, offered her the pack. She waved it off.

“Put your safety belt on.”

She tugged the thing over her chest, hating the way it cut into the side of her neck.

They passed the three billboards for Mimawa, the neon lights still pulsing but pale against the sky.

They approached the interstate and he asked, “East or west?”

“Straight.” She pointed. “Take the underpass.”

“Huh,” he said, and slowed the car a bit. “People don’t come out this way much unless they’re hunting.”

At the end of the tunnel, the road dipped and turned to gravel. The sedan bounced and bottomed out briefly, and Garcia swerved around a pothole. Another hundred yards and the gate appeared off to the left. Everything was how she’d left it. He would still be there, under all those rocks. It made her queasy to think of decomposing flesh, worms, maggots. A flash of heat hit her stomach and she fought it off by rolling down her window and letting the cold air hit her face.

“Right there,” she said, and he stopped the car in front of the broken gate.

He threw his cigarette out the window. “I remember that gate. I came hunting here once, with some guys from vice. This is Keating’s land. Are you telling me TJ Bangor is here?”

“Follow me.” She grabbed her backpack.

“Christ. Is your uncle in on this?”

Jamie got out of the car. “You could call him the cleanup man.”

“This is enough to get a warrant for Keating’s house.” He cut her off in front of the car. “You know you’re about to cross the most powerful man in this county.”

“As far as he’ll ever know, Loyal gave him up for revenge.”

“Okay, but you need to be clear. A move like this will affect the rest of your life.”

“I know that. I already made my decision. I know exactly how this plays out if I keep quiet. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. From now on I take my chances.”

The ground was squishy and wet, weeds bending beneath her boots. The deer blind in the pine tree was to the left and beyond that the ground sloped away to the right. Garcia followed her awkwardly, his shoes already caking with mud. They stopped at the top of the rise just before the gully. The rock mound covering TJ’s body lay untouched at the bottom of the slope. Stones piled in the shape of a coffin.

Garcia caught up and stopped next to her. “Oh, man,” he said. Wind blew across the field and he turned up his lapels.

Jamie said nothing. The mound of rocks had caved in a little in the middle and it made her uneasy to think of the weight of them pressing against the man’s soft middle. Jamie shut her eyes, pushing down the queasiness, telling herself it was almost over.

“How long has he been here?”

The days were a blur. It seemed like a year. “Five days, maybe.” He could piece it together himself.

“Was he killed here? Do you know what happened?”

“No and no. You should ask Keating, though. He’s the man with all the answers.”

Garcia shook his head. “I figured, what with the game that night and the ring. How did you get dragged into it?”

She told him about that night, how Loyal had woken her up after a call from Keating, how her uncle had made her sit on the floorboard so she wouldn’t know where they were going, how just last night she’d put the pieces together on her own and found her way here. She didn’t mention seeing Phoebe in the second-story window that night at Keating’s, but added, “It’s not surprising. Loyal and Keating go back years.”

“Nothing surprises me anymore.” He shook loose another cigarette.

Jamie fingered the ring inside her pocket, thinking it through. The diamonds alone might be worth more than fifty thousand. But if the Elders curse was real, she had this one chance to break it.

“I’m going to have to talk to your mother, you know? There’s a lot of unanswered questions.”

“No, you don’t need to talk to her. But, if you go looking, you’ll find her where she’s been all along. Working in a little diner on Main Street, dishing out blue-plate specials to the good people of Blind River.” Jamie held her hand out, opened it palm up. “You should give this back to Lena Bangor and her mother.” What was left of the day’s sunlight caught in the facets of the diamonds and bounced off the gold.

He took it, turned it over in his palm. “Where’d you get this?”

“It’s everything you wanted, right?” She shrugged. “Here’s what I think. TJ Bangor went back to Keating’s house and got shot during an argument over that ring. It was between the two of them. Maybe it was self-defense, maybe he’ll say that he wished he’d handled it better. Nobody else pays for this. Not my mother, not my brother.”

“That’s what you think?” He wiped the ring with a handkerchief.

She’d just handed over a fortune, yet she felt like she’d dropped the weight of a hundred lies.

“It’s a fair deal, don’t you think?” She adjusted her backpack, caught herself when the horizon tilted.

“It’s homicide, Jamie. If your mother’s involved, it will come out.”

Sweat began to bead on her forehead. “Keating would never let it come out if he had an ex-felon in his house, much less if he’d slept with one. He’d be ruined. All his convictions from the last twenty years would get thrown out and throw this town into chaos. He’ll claim innocence or self-defense, but his career will be over. He’ll retire early and spend more time at his country club. That’s the way things work in this town, right? And you’ll be rid of a dirty judge.” A sweet decaying smell came at them on the wind. She rubbed her forehead, wincing at the bruise Loyal had left with the back of his hand.

“It’s freezing out here and you’re sweating. You okay?”

“There’s a dead man under that pile of rocks. No, I’m not okay.”

He pulled a roll of peppermints out of his pocket and handed them to her. “Sometimes, sugar helps.”

She moved away from the smell and sucked on the candy. Her stomach settled a little.

“Here.” He handed her a slip of paper with a phone number on it. “Give me a password.”

She took the paper. “What’s this?”

“Text that number, type in the password, and the funds will be transferred to the bank account number you give it.”

“The reward? I don’t want it. That family? No, I can’t take that.” Another little part of her died right there, having to pass on that money.

“It isn’t just the family’s money. Half of it came from Keating.” He turned the ring over in his palm.

“What? Why would he do that?”

“Probably wants to look innocent. Look, I had to take that prize money, but isn’t it better this way? The reward money is free and clear. Yours because you earned it.”

She thought it through. This money wasn’t tied to Loyal, and she had found the body on her own. Still, wasn’t it blood money? “I don’t know.”

“Listen, kid. You’ve been through a lot. Maybe it’s time you let go of everybody else’s business and started building a life. This money is a result of doing the right thing. It’s twenty thousand, not enough for you to feel guilty about but enough to give you a start in life. Maybe somewhere new. Take it.”

The unexpected kindness caused her eyes to burn and a hard knot to form at the back of her throat. For once she’d have enough money not to worry about food or clothes. She could have a place of her own, somewhere far away with a door and a lock. A feeling of warmth settled about her shoulders. It would be enough.

“It can’t be traced if you use a burner cell phone. Give me a password.”

It might even be enough for her to play the professional circuit for half a year, if she kept the buy-ins low and lived cheap. She said the first thing that came to mind. “The Odds.”

“I’ll set it up as soon as I get a positive ID on the body.”

“What about the ring?”

He hesitated. “Forget you ever saw it. But don’t be surprised if you read in the paper that it turned up when we searched Keating’s game room. As far as anyone can recall, it was the last place it was seen. Eventually it will get back to the family.”

Family. She thought of Phoebe sitting by Toby’s bed, holding his hand, wanting this last chance to get things right. All Jamie had to do was step out of the way.

Garcia brushed his fingers on his trousers and climbed back up the ridge. “Stay in touch. I might need to get a statement from you. Down the road.”

“I thought all I had to do was locate the body. I thought it would all be anonymous.”

“I’ll do everything I can. You’ve been instrumental in two big cases and you got no priors. That should go a long way. I’d say, as things stand, you’ll be okay. Who knows? You might even be the first Elders to avoid seeing the inside of a jail cell. But you should lay low. You got someplace to go?”

She thought about Florida, where the legal age for gambling in the Indian casinos was eighteen. “I was thinking about heading south.”

“Where?”

“Florida.”

“Florida? What the hell’s in Florida?”

“Casinos. Big tournaments.” Warm weather and orange trees.

“Huh. All right. Just make sure I know how to find you.” He flipped open his cell phone. “You got to go now. Once I call this in, this area will be swarming with a forensic team.”

She pulled an envelope out of her backpack and handed it to him. “Can you get this to my uncle?”

Garcia opened the envelope, looked through the stack of postcards. “What’s this?”

“They’re from a guy who used to be his friend. He likes to look through them at night.” She imagined Loyal sitting in a small cell thumbing through the cards, maybe trading them one by one for a pack of smokes or a bar of soap.

Garcia stuffed them into his coat pocket. “I’ll get them to him, Little Miss Sunshine.”

She walked toward the woods.

“You’re not like them, you know. Your mother or your uncle,” he yelled as she walked away. “Be your own girl, Jamie Elders.”

A plume of smoke snaked above the tree line where the tracks ran through the woods and she headed toward it. She’d follow the tracks back to Blind River to catch the late train. By midnight she’d be on her way. Over to the coast then south, all the way to Florida, to Jacksonville, and further. Tampa, then Fort Lauderdale.

She looked back once. Across the open space, Garcia was talking into his phone. Imagining the distance she could travel in a few days caused an unexpected lightness in her chest. What if she was different than them? What if she could shed the past? What if she had her own fate, separate and unknowable?

Low on the blue horizon, wild geese flew across the sun. What if there really was something better waiting for her; what if she was moving toward it right now? Pines swayed in the breeze overhead and sunlight slipped through the branches. In the distance, the southbound train approached with a gathering rumble. Soon it would come booming around the bend, shattering the afternoon with its inevitable thunder, oblivious and unyielding, harsh and exciting. Charging the air with hope.