At the time the statement had impressed Messenger as deep-felt; he was even more convinced of it this morning. Lonnie’s secret might be significant in some way, but it wasn’t murderer’s guilt that he had locked away inside. Lonnie Burgess was not capable of killing a family member in cold blood. Messenger was as sure of that as he’d been of anything, including Anna Roebuck’s innocence, in the past week.
The rest of Sunday stretched out ahead of him: free time to pursue his quest. But he couldn’t think of anything productive to do with it. He considered a trip to the Hardrock Tavern, a talk with the bartender and any customers he could locate who had witnessed the fight between Joe Hanratty and Dave Roebuck. It seemed futile, maybe even dangerous: asking prying questions in a bar was a good way of provoking trouble. Even if anybody knew what lay behind the fight, which was unlikely, the chances were slim to none that they would tell him. He’d have as much luck canvassing the town, ringing doorbells and trying to interrogate whoever answered.
He wasted the better part of an hour lying on the Airstream’s roll-away bed, brooding over what he knew, the bits and pieces of information Dacy had confided. All that came of it was frustration. It was like blundering around in darkness and finally locating a wall, on the other side of which was light: You were close to the light, you knew it was there, but you couldn’t get to it because you couldn’t find a way to scale the wall.
What nagged at him, too, was the fact that nothing more had come of his move to the Burgess ranch than John T.’s angry outburst on Thursday evening. He’d expected other visitors, protests, or actions of some kind. Lull before the storm? The real murderer had to be wondering what he and Dacy were up to, and worried that whatever it was might lead to the truth. He wouldn’t just sit back and wait and do nothing, would he? After the scheme with the snakes at Mackey’s, it didn’t seem likely. Cat-and-mouse game? That didn’t seem likely either. Something was going to happen. And the sooner the better, whatever it was.
Past noon he took himself to the house, detouring around where Buster squatted at the end of the short chain. The rottweiler had come to a grudging acceptance of him, to the point where there were no more barks or snarls when he was near, but the dog’s fur still bristled and the bright watchful eyes held no hint of friendliness. Dacy and Lonnie were both in the kitchen, companionably preparing what she called “Sunday dinner” even though it would be served at one o’clock. He hadn’t had much appetite at breakfast, but the aroma of pot roast was seductive.
“Decide yet if you’re joining us for dinner, Jim?”
“I’d like to, thanks.”
“We’ll set another place.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Nope. Beer in the icebox, if you want one.”
He helped himself to a bottle of Bud. “Dacy,” he asked then, “would you have any family photos?”
Her glance was wry, Lonnie’s unreadable. “Of Anna, you mean,” she said. “Anna’s family.”
“Yes.”
“A few. Why you want to look at them? They won’t tell you anything.”
“It’s not that.”
Lonnie said, “People who died the way they did — it’s not right to look at pictures of them.”
Anna’s real to me, but her husband and daughter... not enough. I don’t know their faces — just names, statistics. I want to see them as individuals. But he didn’t put the thoughts into words; they would have sounded harsh, even cruel. Instead he said, “If you’d rather I didn’t...”
“Oh, hell,” Dacy said, “take your beer out to the porch. I’ll bring the album.”
He sat in a canvas sling chair, looking out over the broken, empty land. Heat pulsed on the flats; the effect was miragelike, interestingly so. He felt comfortable with the heat, the silence, the stark desolation. Comfortable with the ranch too, and the kind of work he’d done here the past few days. Quantum leaps from city apartment to sagebrush cattle ranch, from white-collar CPA to blue-collar ranch hand; yet he seemed to have made the transition with almost no effort. Funny. It was as if this place and this lifestyle, not San Francisco and the life he’d built there, were his natural ones. As if this was where he belonged.
Dacy appeared shortly, carrying a small photo album. She let him have it without speaking, then went to sit in another of the canvas chairs. She didn’t watch him as he opened and began to page through the album; her gaze held on the heat shimmers in the distance.
Less than fifty photographs, most in color, most poorly framed and focused — snapshots taken at a birthday party, different Christmas gatherings, a barbecue at Anna’s ranch. The ones of Tess covered a span of years from toddler to seven or eight. She’d been slender, dark blond, gray-eyed — unmistakably Anna’s child. Active and animated too, with a smile that created cleftlike dimples. Dave Roebuck had been predictably handsome in a sharp-featured, unkempt, don’t-give-a-damn way; his smile contained a smirk and his eyes a smoky sexuality that was evident even in these pictures.
Messenger didn’t linger over any of them; it was less than five minutes from opening to closing the album. He knew their faces now: they were as real to him as Ms. Lonesome had been. Too real, in Tess’s case.
Dacy said, “Satisfied?”
“Satisfied isn’t the right word.”
“What is the right word?”
“I don’t know. Sad, maybe.”
“Sad over a man and a kid you didn’t know existed until a few days ago?”
“Is it so hard to believe?”
“For people like you and me, I guess not.”
“Lonely people? Or just sad ourselves?”
“Both. Combination gives you empathy, right?”
“Right,” he said. What he didn’t say was that too often, at least in his case, the empathy got turned inward and became self-pity.
None of them had much to say at dinner. But there was no strain in the silence, no lack of appetite: a quiet meal, period. Lonnie left as soon as they were finished, to spend the rest of the day with a friend in town. Messenger, without being asked, helped with the cleanup. Dacy’s approval was evident; for all her independence and hard-shelled exterior, there was a part of her — just as there was a part of him — that responded to a measure of old-fashioned domesticity.
Today she seemed to want to prolong it, too. When they were done in the kitchen she asked, “You play chess, Jim?”
“I used to.” With Doris, constantly during the time they’d been together; she was a big Bobby Fisher fan back then. “It’s been years, though.”
“How good were you?”
“Fair.”
“I’m a little better than fair. My daddy taught me and I taught Lonnie. But he doesn’t have enough patience to play well.”
“I’m not sure I do either, these days. But if you’d like to play a game or two, I can probably provide some competition.”
“I’ll get the set.”
“Question for you, first. How do you feel about music?”
“Some I like, some I don’t.”
“Jazz?”
“Not bad, what little I’ve heard.”
“Well, I’m a jazz buff,” he said, “have been for years. One of my passions.” One of the few. “I own a fairly large collection of tapes and old records, and I brought a few cassettes with me. If you have a cassette player and wouldn’t mind some background while we play, I could bring them in...”