Warsh.There it was, rising to the surface like fat in a stew. Norris Lavender might sprinkle his speech with all the “indeeds” and “my dear fellows” in the world and it still wouldn’t cover up the smell of white trash.

“You’re just like your grandfather, Norris,” Hazen replied. “You get other people to do the dirty work for you.”

Lavender’s eyebrows shot up. “That sounded remarkably like an accusation.”

Hazen smiled. “You know, Norris, I kind of missed your pal Lewis McFelty when I came in just now. How’s he doing?”

“My assistant, poor boy, has a sick mother in Kansas City. I gave him the week off.”

Hazen’s smile broadened. “I certainly hope it’s nothing serious.”

Another silence.

Hazen coughed and continued. “You had a lot to lose with this experimental field going to Medicine Creek.”

Lavender opened a wooden box full of cigars and pushed it across the table to Hazen. “I know you’re a committed smoker, Sheriff. Help yourself.”

Hazen stared at the box. Cubans, wouldn’t you know it. He shook his head.

“Mr. Raskovich? Cigar?”

Raskovich also shook his head.

Hazen leaned back. “You hadeverything to lose, didn’t you?”

“Does anyone mind if I indulge?” Lavender reached into the box and removed a cigar, holding it up like a question between two thick fingers.

“Go ahead,” said Hank, casting Hazen a malevolent glance. “A man has a right to smoke in his own office.”

Hazen waited while Lavender slid a little silver clipper off his desk, trimmed and clipped the end of the cigar, admired his handiwork, picked up a gold lighter and heated the end of the cigar, then licked the other end, placed it in his wide mouth, and lit it. The process took several minutes. Then Lavender rose and strolled to the window, folded his tiny hands behind him, and stared out across the parking lot, puffing languidly, from time to time removing the cigar to stare at its tip. Beyond his slender figure, Hazen could see a horizon as black as night. The storm was coming, and it was going to be a big one.

The silence stretched on until Lavender finally turned. “Oh,” he said to Hazen, feigning surprise. “Are you still here?”

“I’m waiting for an answer to my question.”

Lavender smiled. “Didn’t I mention five minutes ago that this interview was over? How careless of me.” He turned back toward the window, puffing on the cigar.

“Take care not to get caught in the storm, gentlemen,” he said over his shoulder.

Hazen peeled out of the parking lot, leaving precisely the right amount of rubber behind. Once they were on the main drag, Raskovich looked over at him. “What was that story about your grandfather and his?”

“Just a smokescreen.”

There was a silence and he realized, with irritation, that Raskovich was still waiting for an answer. He pushed the irritation aside with an effort. He needed to keep KSU on his side, and Raskovich was the key to that.

“The Lavenders started as ranchers, then made a lot of money in the twenties from bootlegging,” he explained. “They controlled all the moonshine production in the county, buying the stuff from the moonshiners and distributing it. My grandfather was the sheriff of Medicine Creek back then, and one night he and a couple of revenuers caught King Lavender down near the Kraus place, loading a jack mule with clearwater moonshine—old man Kraus had a still in the back of his tourist cave in those days. There was a scuffle and my grandfather took a bullet. They put King Lavender on trial, but he fixed the jury and went scot free.”

“Do you really think Lavender’s behind the killings?”

“Mr. Raskovich, in policework you look for motive, means, and opportunity. Lavender’s got the motive, and he’s a goddamned son of a bitch who’d do anything for a buck. What we need to find out now is the means and opportunity.”

“Frankly, I can’t see him committing murder.”

This Raskovich was a real moron. Hazen chose his words carefully. “I meant what I said in his office. I don’t think hedid the killings himself: that’s not the Lavender style. He would’ve hired some hitman to do his scut work.” He thought for a moment. “I’d like to have a chat with Lewis McFelty. A sick mother in Kansas City, my ass.”

“Where’re we going now?”

“We’re going to find out just howhurting Norris Lavender is. First, we’re going to take a look at his tax records down at the town hall. Then we’re going to talk to some of his creditors and enemies. We’re going to learn just how deep in the shit he was with this experimental field business. This was his last chance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he bet the farm on this field coming through.”

He paused. A little public relations never hurt. “What do you think, Chester? I value your opinion.”

“It’s a viable theory.”

Hazen smiled and aimed the car in the direction of the Deeper town hall. It sure as hell was a viable theory.

Forty-Three

At two-thirty that afternoon, Corrie lounged restlessly on her bed, listening to Tool on her CD player. It had to be at least a hundred degrees in her room, but after the events of the other night she didn’t have the guts to open her window. It still seemed impossible to believe that guy from Kansas State had been killed just down the street. But then, the entire last week was beyond belief.

Her eyes strayed to the window. Outside, huge thunderheads were spreading their anvil-shaped tops across the sky and a premature darkness was falling. But the approaching storm only seemed to make everything muggier.

She heard her mother’s voice through the bedroom wall and cranked up the volume in response. There were a few muffled thumps as her mother tried to get her attention by knocking on the wall. Jesus. Of all days for her mother to call in sick, when Pendergast no longer needed her and she was stuck at home with nothing to do and too freaked out for her usual retreat on the powerline road. She almost longed for Labor Day and the start of school.

The door to her room opened and there was her mother, standing in her nightgown, too-skinny arms draped over a too-fat stomach. Smoking a cigarette.

Corrie slipped off her earphones.

“Corrie, I’ve been yelling myself hoarse. One of these days I’m going to take away those earphones.”

“Youtold me to wear them.”

“Not when I’m trying to talk to you.”

Corrie stared at her mother, at her smudged mascara and the remains of last night’s lipstick still staining the cracks of her lip. She’d been drinking, but not, it seemed, enough to keep her in bed. How could this alien be her mother?

“Why aren’t you outworking? Did that man get tired of you?”

Corrie didn’t answer. It really didn’t matter. Her mother was going to have her say regardless.

“As I figure it, you got paid for two weeks. That’s fifteen hundred dollars. Is that right?”

Corrie stared.

“As long as you’re living here, you’re going to contribute. I’ve told you this before. I’ve had expenses up the wazoo lately. Taxes, food, car payments, you name it. And now I’m losing a day’s tips because of this nasty cold.”

Nasty hangover, you mean.Corrie waited.

“A fifty-fifty split is theleast I can expect.”

“It’s my money.”

“And whose money do you think’s been supporting you these past ten years? Certainly not that shitbag father of yours. Me. I’ve been the one working my fingers to the bone supporting you, and by God, young lady, you’re going to give something back.”

Corrie had taped the money to the bottom of her dresser drawer and she wasn’t about to let her mother see where it was. Why, oh why, had she ever told her mother how much she was making? She was going to need that money to pay for a fucking lawyer when her trial came up. Otherwise she was going to end up with some crappy public defender and find herself going to jail. That would make a terrific impression, mailing her college applications from jail.