The Goodbye Man
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри
- Серия: Colter Shaw #2
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
- ISBN: 978-0-525-53597-3
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Goodbye Man». Краткое содержание книги:
His phone hummed with a number that was only slightly familiar, like that of a cousin you’ve met only once, at a wedding a few months ago.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Shaw, Bob Tanner.”
Erick Young’s attorney in Tacoma, Washington.
“Just wanted to let you know that the charges’ve been dropped. The police tracked down a couple of kids in a neo-Nazi cell east of Tacoma. Forensics on the graffiti on the church matched cans of paint in their possession. They pled. And when the detectives interviewed the lay preacher? It was like you said: the janitor started shooting at Erick and Adam, and Adam only returned fire. After the boys fled, he gave the gun to the preacher and told him to hide it. He didn’t have a license.”
Shaw thanked the attorney and disconnected. Victoria knew something about the reward for Erick and Adam and he explained how the job had been resolved.
Shaw and Victoria sat in silence for a moment.
“Just for the record, I’m no longer murderous.”
“So my mother can get the sharp knives out?”
She clicked her tongue. “Sometimes normal gets bushwhacked.”
How well Colter Shaw knew this — the man who traveled the country, picking through the bones of mysteries that some people hadn’t been able to solve, and others simply didn’t care about and still more decidedly did not want to be solved.
Shaw received a text. He read it twice and rose. “Have an errand to attend to.”
Victoria said, “See you at dinner?”
“Probably not.”
77
Shaw preferred his Winnebago and motorcycle for transportation. However, he picked the vehicle to suit the need.
Presently he was fourteen thousand feet in the air, aboard the Learjet, an older model, a bit battered but dependable. The trip was expensive, as all private aviation flights are. Yet he had no option. Time was critical, and commercial wouldn’t get him to the town he sought quickly enough.
As they flew, he thought of the box hidden at Echo Ridge. What would it contain?
Whatever that might be, it was worth killing for. Torturing too. He pictured Ebbitt Droon’s face, determined to get the treasure, as he pointed a gun at Shaw’s knee.
A voice from the cockpit. “We’re landing, Mr. Shaw.”
The plane swooped down toward the runway, the craft skewing sideways at an acute angle — it was called crabbing and would be alarming if Shaw had not experienced small aircraft landings several dozen times. The Lear straightened at the last minute, flared and touched down smoothly. They taxied to the fixed base flight operation and cut the engines.
Shaw rose and stretched — to the extent he could in the low-ceilinged interior — and walked to the door.
“This won’t be long.”
“What should I do about the flight plan?”
“One option is I’ll be going back home. The other?” He shrugged. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”
“Sure, Mr. Shaw. Good luck.”
The spread was pretty much as Shaw expected: a rambling one story house with two garages and a workshop attached. A shed behind the home that could’ve inspired the set designer for Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As he drove the rental up the dirt drive, he passed a messy shooting range, in which were mounted dozens of black iron targets. They’d ring like gongs when hit. The ground was littered with fun targets: exploded milk jugs and glass soda bottles blown to dusty smithereens.
The Montana hills were in the background, and ridges of trim forests surrounded the place. The grounds here, though, were mostly scruffy and overgrown. Dead stumps and fallen branches protruded from thick, mustard-colored swamp. The smell was what you’d expect.
On the other hand, there were some pleasing aesthetic elements: an elaborate koi pond was filled with a dozen sleek elegant inhabitants, in sharp black and white and stark orange. There was, of all things, an easel set up beside a rusting V-block engine; the canvas was a well done oil of a mountain peak and circling bird. It was not an eagle.
He was thirty feet from the porch when the screen door opened. Before he saw anything other than a beefy hand and tree-trunk arm, a voice called, “Well, if it ain’t my good old buddy.”
Grinning, Dalton Crowe stepped out and trooped over the planks, which sagged under his weight. He seemed to be wearing the same outfit as when he’d shot out the tire of Shaw’s rental Kia last week: camo overalls and lumberjack shirt. A .45 autoloader was in a holster, riding high on his broad hip.
“So nice of you to come for a visit, Shaw.” Crowe looked him up and down. His smile was less welcoming than gloating. Shaw’s trip here had been both expensive and inconvenient, and Crowe knew it.
“Here.” Shaw pulled out his wallet, extracted a check and handed it to the big man.
Crowe pulled out his cell phone and took a picture of the draft. Odd to see a biker/mountain man taking advantage of a camera-phone deposit. But the truth was, Crowe’s embrace of high technology was why Shaw was here.
“’K.” He handed Shaw a piece of paper. “That’s the name of the app you download. And the user name and passcode.”
The name was: TroubleMan666.
Shaw pocketed the slip and walked away.
The man grumbled, “I’m doing this as a favor, Shaw. You still owe me for the reward, the whole fifty K. I woulda got them boys, you hadn’t fucking cheated. I’m going to remember that.”
Without pausing, or turning, Shaw nodded at the easel. “Like the painting, Crowe.”
An hour later, he was in yet another rental, many miles away. The Land Cruiser SUV was rocking over an unlit dirt road. He was taking his time.
He checked the GPS. Drove another mile and then noted a haze of illumination ahead of him. It was a small town in the hills. The name of the place was Moody. There was a lake nearby, and the burg was dedicated, it seemed, to the art and business of fishing. You could buy bait everywhere except for the ice cream parlor, a used bookshop and an off-brand cell phone store, according to window signs.
At the one traffic light in town he turned right and proceeded to Lake View Motor Inn. When he was nearly there, he pulled onto a service road. He killed the engine.
The motel was in a good location for what he had in mind. Behind the place was a dirt road that bypassed the town and led south, good for an escape. He’d checked it out on Google Earth and some better topographic maps and he knew that the SUV could handle the terrain and keep ahead of pursuit.
Shaw slipped from the car and closed the door, leaving the vehicle unlocked. He picked up the empty plastic grocery bag — a thick one — and slipped it into his jacket pocket. No sport coat now. He was dressed in black jeans and matching tactical assault jacket. Gloves too, made of thin leather.
Through the bushes he made his way to the dimly lit motel. He smelled lake and trash, scents that might or might not have been related. He came to a dilapidated fence and, when he pushed open the gate, it fell to the ground.
The motel was composed of individual cabins for guests and Shaw now oriented himself. Keeping to the shadows, he slipped close to Number 7. The clapboard structure was one of the larger units and it featured a private path down to a dock jutting into the dark lake. He detoured briefly and looked over the pier. A covered rowboat was the only vessel along this stretch of weedy, placid shore.
He returned to the cabin and eased into the space between the outer wall and a row of shrubbery, placing his feet carefully. At the window, which exuded soft, yellow light, he paused and looked inside. The unit was a suite, and Shaw could see into both lit bedrooms.