“Whatever it is, I’m not interested,” he said.
“You’ve got Spud wrong,” I said. “Why are you doing this, sir?”
“Some crazy-ass guy known as Bible-thumping Bob called me up and said you told Darrel Vickers his father worked for the Prince of Darkness. Darrel told his father, and his father beat the shit out of him for not beating the shit out of you. Does that make you happy?”
“Why is the preacher reporting to you about the Vickers family?”
“I’m a half inch from hooking you up, son.”
“Try it. I’ve given up on my pacifist beliefs.”
“Are you after Jude Lowry’s money? Is that why you’re here?”
I stepped back from him. I felt a surge of bile in my stomach and saw a flash of light behind my left eye and heard a whirring sound in my ears, an old prelude to a state of mind whose aftermath could steal my sleep for years.
“You got nothing to say?” he asked.
“I’m going to walk away,” I said.
“You’re going to do what?”
“I think you’re a man who can’t deal with mirrors, Detective Benbow,
and a son of a bitch on top of it.”
I walked toward the bunkhouse. He caught up with me and grabbed me by the shirt. A warm breeze was blowing out of the south, yet the sunlight felt cold on my skin and the sun’s glare like a laser in my eyes. “Be advised,” he said. “You get a free pass this time. Sass me again and I’ll fix it so you’re a long-term visitor at our gray-bar hotel chain.”
Chapter Ten
THAT EVENING MR. Lowry sent word that he wanted to see me. As I walked up the slope to the Victorian home where he and Mrs. Lowry lived, there was a chill in the air, a dimming of light in the hills, as though the season were unfairly shutting itself down. The house was two and a half stories high, painted battleship gray, with verandas and small balconies and lightning rods and weather vanes and dormer windows, the glass coppery with the sun’s last rays, and, most oddly, towers with round peaked roofs you would expect to see only on a medieval castle.
Just above the front steps, an American flag hung from a staff that protruded in an upward angle from an eagle-shaped brass socket screwed into a wood pillar on the gallery. I twisted the bell on the door. Mr. Lowry opened it in under five seconds, as though he had been looking through the window. Past the hallway, I could see firelight flickering on the deep leather couches and stuffed chairs and wood furniture in the living room. I had never been inside his home. The floor creaked like a mausoleum’s.
“Thank you for coming up, Aaron,” he said. “I thought you might be visiting a certain young lady in Trinidad.”
“I was fixing to, unless you need me for something.”
“I’d just like you to have some cake and coffee with me.”
“That’s good of you, sir,” I said.
I followed him into the living room. A glass table was set with a coffee service and a chocolate cake that had already been cut, the white icing cracked by the knife blade, the slices bleeding with torn cherries. Through a side door, I could see a big desk and a heavy wood chair, a lamp with a green-tinted glass shade on the ink blotter, the shelves on the walls lined with books.
“How is Spud doing?” he asked.
“A little in the dumps.”
“I don’t blame him,” Mr. Lowry said. He pointed for me to sit down, in a kind rather than authoritarian way. “Wade Benbow has been unfairly hard on you boys. There’s a reason for it, but not a good one.” He watched my expression to see if I understood. His wife looked at me from the kitchen door, then stepped out of the light before I could lift my hand to say hello.
“You know about the death of Wade’s granddaughter?” Mr. Lowry said.
“Yes, sir, he told me.”
“Did he tell you it was a homicide?”
“Yes, sir, up by Pueblo.”
“They were at a picnic. The little girl wandered off when Wade was supposed to be watching her. Someone found her in an oil storage tank after sunset. The cap was probably left open by the maintenance man.”