"This is not your fault. It's his fault. I can handle this. But can you handle this?"
She nodded. "For you, yes."
"All right. Now, remember you were at Aunt Louise's all night. Stick to that story no matter what."
She nodded.
He asked, "What are you driving?"
"A Lincoln Continental. White."
"Ten minutes."
"Be careful, Keith."
He went out the door, got into his Blazer, waved to her, and went down the long drive to the road. He turned toward town and continued on a few miles until he got to an intersection and stopped.
There were no headlights behind him, and he continued on. He spotted a half-collapsed barn, shut off his headlights, and turned off the road onto the dirt track that led to the barn and nudged the Blazer into the collapsed timbers.
He got out and watched the road. After about five minutes, he saw headlights approaching at a high speed from the direction of his farm. He knelt behind some brush and waited.
The car tore past him, but he could make out the shape of a light-colored Lincoln Continental.
He waited ten more minutes, then went back to his Blazer and drove toward home.
He couldn't be sure she was safe, but if Baxter questioned her and she stuck to her story, she'd be okay.
He had the unsettling feeling that he was enjoying this, that this was an adrenaline rush. But so what? Fun was whatever you did best.
And he had no doubt that Annie enjoyed the intrigue to a point. She'd always been like that when they were trying to find times and places to make love. She got a kick out of the danger, the romance, the stolen fruit which always tasted better.
Yet, tonight, he had seen real fright in her eyes. She was brave, spunky, and willing to take a risk. But when getting caught was not just a matter of getting expelled from school or getting grounded forever, but of getting beaten or killed, then this took the fun right out of it. He realized he had to resolve this quickly.
He thought about her, about their lovemaking and pillow talk, and knew that they were together again. They'd traveled the miles and the years and, against all odds and all obstacles, they'd wound up in his old bedroom, naked in each other's arms. Body and soul were satisfied, the flesh trembled, the spirit soared, the heart sang. For the first time in weeks, months, Keith Landry found himself happy and smiling.
Chapter Eighteen
Cliff Baxter got to work early and called Kevin Ward into his office. He asked Ward, "Okay, what happened at St. James last night?"
Officer Ward cleared his throat and replied, "Well... they had a full house."
"Yeah? You get plate numbers?"
"Well... got some."
"Some? What the fuck do you mean some?"
"Chief... uh... that guy Landry."
"Yeah?"
"Well... he was there..."
"Yeah? I ain't surprised."
"Yeah... he kind of gave us a hard time."
"What the hell does that mean?"
Ward cleared his throat again and related what happened, trying to put the best spin on it, but clearly Chief Baxter was not happy.
Baxter listened as Ward spoke, saying nothing. Finally, when Officer Ward finished reporting, Baxter said, "You mean to tell me, Ward, that one guy and one old preacher ran you off?"
"Well... they... I mean, it was the preacher's property and all, and if it was just Landry, hell, we would've run his ass in, and..."
"Shut the hell up. Okay, get me a make on the plates you did manage to get before you got evicted from the premises."
"Right, Chief."
"And get your balls put back where they belong. We're goin' out to Landry's place later."
"Yes, sir." Ward stood and went to the door.
Baxter said, "Next time I give you a job to do and it don't get done, maybe you want to think about goin' back into the fertilizer business with your daddy."
Ward hesitated, then said, "Chief, it might've helped if you were there with us. I mean, it wasn't legal what we were doing..."
"Get the hell out of here."
Ward left.
Cliff Baxter sat at his desk and stared at the wall awhile. He understood that things were starting to come apart. He looked at the framed photo of Annie on his desk and said, "Bitch."
He kept looking at her photograph and recalled last evening. She'd gotten home after him, and he'd waited for her in the kitchen. They hadn't said much to each other, and she went right to bed, saying she had a headache. He'd gone out to her car and tried the mobile phone. She hadn't answered any of his calls, but the phone worked fine. Still, you never knew with these car phones. On the other hand, she'd seemed weird last night, and he would have pushed her a little, but he had some checking to do first, and he knew not to ask questions until he already had answers.
Somewhere in the back of Cliff Baxter's mind was the important fact that his wife was smarter than he was. But smart people, he'd discovered, sometimes were too smart, too cocky, too sure of themselves, and they thought their bullshit didn't stink. He nodded to himself and said, "Aunt Louise. I ain't seen Aunt Louise in a while."
Cliff Baxter glanced at his watch and saw it was seven A.M. He picked up the phone and dialed.
Tim Hodge, the postmaster of Spencerville, answered in a sleepy voice, "Hello..."
"Hey, Tim, I wake you?"
"Yeah... who's this?"
"Let go of your cock and grab your socks, the mail must go through."
"Oh... hey, Chief, how you doing?"
"You tell me."
"Oh..." Tim Hodge cleared his throat. "Well... yeah, I went out to St. James last night..."
"You better have. What happened?"
"Well... let's see... they... uh... they had a crowd..."
"I know that. My name come up?"
"Yeah... yeah, it did. Matter of fact, it came up a bunch of times."
Baxter nodded. "Come on, Tim, I'm a busy man. Give me the who, what, where, when, and how."
"Yeah, okay. Well, the city council lady, Gail Porter, kind of led the meeting. Her husband was there, too, and they had... like a lot of witnesses."
"Witnesses? Was this a fucking meeting or a trial?"
Tim Hodge didn't reply immediately, then said, "Well... they had some people there who had a few... kind of complaints against you."
"Like who?"
"Like Bob Aries's wife, Mary, and some woman named Sherry... some weird last name."
"Kolarik?"
"Yeah."
Shit. "What did she say?"
"Which one?"
"Both of them. What did those lyin' bitches say?"
"Well... Mary went on about you taking things from the store, you know, and signing off on more gas than was pumped..."
"Fuck her. What did the other bitch say?"
"Well... something about... she sort of said that you... like you and her... like you had something going."
Jesus Christ. "You mean this bitch got up there in front of all those people in church... and lied about... what'd she say?"
"She says you fucked her. Been fucking her for some time. That you paid her parking fines or something, and that, to pay you back, she had to fuck for you." Hodge added, "She got real detailed."
"Lying bitch."
"Yeah."
"People believin' that?"
"Well... I don't."
"Hey, why don't you stop by this afternoon for some coffee and tell me what you seen and heard last night. About three. Meantime, don't spread no gossip yourself, and keep your ears open."
"Right, Chief."
Baxter hung up and stared out the window onto Main Street. "Goddamnit!" He slammed his fist on the desk. "Goddamned bitches, can't trust any of them to keep their damned mouths shut."
He thought about how this development was going to affect him and decided he could keep it under control. Sherry Kolarik was a whore, the worst kind of witness. Mary Aries was another problem, but he'd get her husband to put a zipper on her big mouth real quick. Baxter wondered what else had come up at that meeting. He pulled a piece of paper toward him and began a list, writing the name Keith Landry, followed by Sherry Kolarik, then Mary Aries, then Gail Porter, then the other Porter whose first name he didn't remember, then hesitantly, he wrote "Pastor Wilkes," then thought a moment and added Bob Aries's name for good measure. He'd have written Annie's name, too, except that she always had the honorary first position on his weekly list of people who pissed him off.