The sheriff said, "Could you come back over here and talk with us for a bit?"
"Sure what'd I do?" Friar handed his cue to a friend.
"Nothing, apparently. But we need to talk," the sheriff said.
They got in a corner, away from the bar, and Lucas quickly told Friar the problem. "Well, yeah, my folks told me," he said. "I mean, I couldn't have told you the guy's name tonight, but I could've told you Friday night and all day yesterday. Spooner, right? Banker."
"Did you tell anybody?" Lucas asked.
"Well, sure those guys over there."
They all turned and looked at the three men Friar had been shooting pool with. "When did you tell them?"
"Friday night, I guess. My folks got home about ten o'clock, and we just had that snow come through. I was over there blowing out their drive, and they told me. I came down here afterwards for a couple brewskies, you know I told a couple people."
"Do you think they might have told anybody?" Lucas asked.
"Look," Friar said. "I doubt there's anybody in Burnt River who hasn't heard this guy's name by now. The Bentons told my folks, and my folks probably told a couple more friends, and I imagine the Bentons told more. Everybody's interested in what happened to Alie'e, she's the most famous person ever come from hereor ever will. She's the only person in the whole county or maybe all the counties around whoever had her face on a magazine."
"Goddamnit," Lucas said.
The sheriff waved at the three guys around the pool table. "You guys, could you step over here for a minute?" When they did, clustering around, he said, "We want to know, did any of you hear about this banker fellow, the suspect in the Alie'e case, from anybody besides Louie? Nobody's gonna get in trouble, we just need to know how much the name's gotten around."
Two of them admitted passing the name along; two of the three had heard the name in conversation on Saturday or Sunday.
"So everybody knows," Lucas said.
"Everybody," said a guy in a green shirt. "What happened, anyway? Somebody shoot that asshole?"
Lucas looked at him. "Exactly. Somebody shot that asshole."
"Really?" They wanted details. Lucas shook his head and said, "Man, the question is, is there anybody in town who might pull something like this?"
A guy in a gold flannel shirt said, "What was he shot with?"
"A rifle, we think. The shooter was fifty yards out or so and hit him in the chest."
"That ain't much of a shot with a rifle," a blue flannel shirt said. "I woulda gone for a neck shot."
"You always go for a fuckin' neck shot, and the next time you come back with a deer, I expect to be a grandpa," Friar said.
"Wasn't a. 44 Mag, was it?" gold shirt asked.
Lucas and Del both focused on him. "What?"
"A. 44 Mag?"
"Yeah. It was," Lucas said. They all looked at gold shirt. "Who's got a. 44 Mag?"
Gold shirt swallowed, looked at his friends. "You know who it is? It's that jack-off Martin Scott."
Friar slapped his forehead. "Goddamn, Steve." He looked at Lucas. "It was Martin Scott."
"Who's that?"
"He's the jack-off Coca-Cola truck driver for Howell County," gold shirt said. "He shoots a. 44 Mag, a Ruger, and he's always had this thing about Alie'e. I mean, bad. He works free for her parents, mowing their yard and shoveling snow and shit, because he thinks that when she comes back, they'll let him hang out with her."
"He says he saw her tits once, when she was out in their pool," green shirt said. "I called him a lyin' SOB, I said nobody in Howell County ever saw her tits but the Reverend here, and he never saw them but once. But Martin said he's seen them."
"Only about sixty-six billion people seen them by now," gold shirt said, then he remembered Olson and swallowed and said, "Jeez, sorry, Tom."
"He's nuts. He thinks he's in the Coca-Cola army, walks around twenty-four hours a day in his Coke uniform," said blue shirt.
"Yeah, but you know what?" green shirt said. "Couldn't be him."
"You're full a shit. Gotta be him," Friar said.
"Nope. Because, guess what?" Green shirt crossed his arms.
Lucas bit. "What?"
"Because a whole bunch of those people got shot on Monday. Wasn't it a Monday?"
Lucas had to think; it seemed like a thousand years ago. But Marcy was shot on Monday afternoon, and all theothers. "Yeah," he said. "Monday."
Green shirt looked at his friends. "Martin works on Mondays."
"Oh, yeah," Friar said.
"And the chances of that carp-sucker Rand Waters letting him off are slim and none. He's a slave driver," green shirt said.
"I wouldn't work for him," said blue shirt. "He's a mean son of a bitch. I saw him pick up the back end of a Chevy Camaro one day, right down on River Street."
"Light car," gold shirt said.
"Let's see you pick one up," green shirt said. "Your balls would pop like birthday balloons."
Lucas jumped in. "So could somebody call this Waters guy, and find out if Scottwas here last Monday? That'd settle a lot."
"I can call him," the sheriff said.
"If he ain't home, he and his old lady'll probably be up at the Port," Friar said.
Gold shirt bought a round as they clustered around the bar. The sheriff got the bartenders phone book and made a series of calls from the kitchen. When he came out, he said to Lucas and Del, "We better run out to Martins house."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. He had last Monday off. He told Waters he had to go to the Cities to help the Olsons with Alie'e. He told him if he didn't get the day off, he'd quit. That's how serious he was."
Lucas looked at Friar. "So where's this guy live?" Lucas asked.
"Hard to explain, but we can show you," Friar said.
They left the bar in a convoy of two pickups and the two sheriff's department Explorers. They went into Burnt River, then out the other side, then off on a side road for a hundred yards. Martin Scott lived in a small log cabin, with a stick-built garage across a wide, snow-covered drive. The snow had been driven on, but there was no sign of truck at the house, and only a single lighted window. A pizza pan-sized satellite dish perched on the corner of the house, aimed at the satellite over Reno. A propane tank sat off on one side of the driveway, and next to the garage, a lean-to covered four or five cords of split wood. All of it was illuminated by a blue yard light.
"He ain't home," Friar said, looking at the dark house. They'd all gotten out of the truck and gathered next to one of the Explorers.
"How do you know?" Del asked. "Maybe he's asleep."
"He bums wood, and the wood-stove ain't going," Friar said. "That smoke there"he pointed at a thin stream of smoke burbling out of a four-inch-wide stack"that's from the propane burner. You only turn that on when you ain't home, to keep the wood stove going."
"Why don't you guys wait," Lucas said to the sheriff. "Del"
Lucas and Del took out their pistols and walked up toward the house. Lucas knocked, then pounded on the door; no sign of life. He opened the storm door and tried the door knob. Locked. The sheriff came up and said, "Let's look around back."
The house had a back porch, but the door apparently wasn't used much: It hadn't been shoveled since the last snow fall, and there were no tracks crossing it. Lucas stood up on the back porch and tried to peer through the window. "Want a flash?" the sheriff asked. He handed Lucas a flashlight. Lucas shined it in the window and saw a kitchen.
Gold shirt had wandered over to the garage and pulled the center-opening doors far enough apart to see inside. "Trucks gone," he said.
Lucas started down the far side of the house, Del and the sheriff trailing behind. One window showed a five-inch slit in the curtains. Lucas looked at Del and said, "If I boosted you up, could you look in there?"