"You got rid of that other thing?"
"Made a chicken coop out of it."
Aries laughed, then asked him, "Hey, did Chief Baxter ever look you up?"
Keith glanced at Aries and said, "He stopped by last week."
"Yeah, he said he might. I told him you was in here one day."
"Thanks." Keith finished pumping and put the nozzle back. He and Aries went into the office, and Keith paid for the gas. Keith inquired, "Does he come in here much?"
Bob Aries's expression changed. "Well... he did. We get a lot of the city and county business here. But... uh... we had some problems."
"I think I might have heard about that."
"Yeah... a lot of people heard about that."
Keith went through the door into the convenience store, and Bob Aries followed him. There was no one behind the counter, and Keith asked, "Where is Mrs. Aries?"
"She's away for a while." He added, "I guess you know why, if you know about that church meeting out by Overton."
"But why did Mrs. Aries leave?"
"Uh... well... I guess she felt kinda... maybe a little nervous after she went and shot her mouth off."
"Was she telling the truth?"
"Hell, no. I mean, you got to give a little to get a little in this here world. Women don't understand how business is done." Aries shook his head and added, "The chief and his cousin, Don Finney, who's the sheriff, came in here and told me they was gonna get the city and the county to switch accounts to someplace else. You know how much of my business that is? I'll tell ya. Damned near fifty percent. You know what's gonna happen now? I'm out. Because she shot off her damned mouth."
"So you don't see Chief Baxter anymore?"
"Oh, he comes in, just like he used to, 'cause this is where the city has to charge it until the city council changes it. But he don't say much to me, and what he says ain't nice." Aries added, "He says he got a bone to pick with Mary. I told him he won't be seeing her around here for a while."
"Does he still help himself to whatever he wants?"
"Hey, he never did that. He always paid. And if I wanted to give him a few things to munch on, so what?"
Keith threw a few items on the counter, things to tide him over for the weekend. Aries went behind the counter and rang up the items.
Keith said, "I'm leaving Spencer County. Monday."
"Yeah? For good?"
"Yes. No work here."
"Told ya. Too bad, though. Need more people. That'll be twenty-one dollars and seventy-two cents."
Keith paid him, and Aries bagged. Aries said, "Next time you come through, you'll see this place closed."
Keith said to Bob Aries, "Your wife did the right thing. You know that."
"Yeah, maybe. But I don't need Chief Baxter for an enemy, and I don't need to start over again at my age."
"I wouldn't count on Baxter being chief much longer."
"Yeah? Ya think?"
"You read the transcript of the St. James meeting?"
He nodded.
"What do you think?"
"Well... the man ought to have better control over his dick." Aries smiled. "Hey, you know why men give their penises names? 'Cause they don't want a total stranger makin' ninety percent of their decisions." Aries laughed and slapped the counter. "Get it?"
"Sure do."
Aries got serious again and said, "But this other stuff they's sayin' he did... like fillin' up his private car here for free... hell, even if it was true, which it ain't, nobody got hurt. Now, the thing about him and those women, well, my wife says that makes him unfit to be police chief. I don't know, because I don't know if them women is lyin', or what. But I do know that those kinds of charges ain't doin' much for his home life. Hey, you know Mrs. Baxter?"
"We were schoolmates."
"Yeah? Well, that's a fine, fine woman. She don't have to hear that kind of crap from those sluts what got up in church, brazen as can be, and told all."
"Try to make the next meeting. My regards to Mrs. Aries. You should be with her." Keith picked up the bag and left.
From a pay phone around the side of the convenience store, he called Charlie Adair's house and got the answering machine. He said, "Charlie, my plans are postponed. I'll get back to you in a day or two. Sorry I can't make it tonight. Regards to Katherine. Meantime, if you call my home phone, assume it's tapped by Police Chief Baxter, who has this crazy idea that I'm interested in his wife. Stewart did a great job. He should be back before midnight. I'm still thinking about the job offer. Can I have a grow-light in my basement office? Tell the president I said hi. Speak to you."
At about nine o'clock that evening, Keith figured he'd been up for about thirty-six hours straight, and he got ready for bed. He opened the drawer of his nightstand and saw that the Glock was missing.
He thought a moment. The Porters knew where the key was, but they wouldn't help themselves to the pistol. He looked through his wardrobe cabinets and noticed now that things were slightly disturbed.
Obviously, Baxter had gotten into the house, which, for a policeman with at least one or two locksmiths on call, was not difficult.
Nothing seemed to be missing except the pistol, and there was nothing compromising in the house for him to be concerned about. He'd burned Annie's last letters to him, and her past letters of two decades had gone through one government paper shredder or another. He wasn't much of a saver, and he was glad now that he wasn't.
Letters aside, the Glock was gone, and Baxter had been through his things. That was reason enough to kill the man, and he would have except for his promise, and except for the fact that Baxter was about to lose his wife, his job, his friends, and his town. Death, as the expression went, was too good for him.
Keith found his old K-bar knife and put it on his nightstand. He turned off the lights and went to sleep.
He awoke at dawn, showered and dressed, and went downstairs. It was a cool, crisp Sunday morning, and when he went outside, he could see his breath. He walked to the cornfield and peeled back the husk on an ear. The color was about right, and so was the dry, paper-thin husk. Almost but not quite ready. Another week or two, weather permitting.
He walked around the farmyard, surveyed the buildings, the fences, the grounds. All in all, he'd done a good job, and all it took was some money, a lot of time, and backbreaking labor. He didn't know, really, why he'd done it, what the objective was, but he felt good about it. He knew he'd touched things, fixed things, that his father and uncle had touched and tinkered with, as had his grandfather.
There weren't many physical remains from his great-grandfather's day, or his great-great-grandfather, the original settler, but he was walking the same ground they walked, and in the early morning and in the evening, when the countryside was quiet in half-light, he could feel their presence.
He went to church. Not St. James, but St. John's in Spencerville. This was a different congregation, to be sure better dressed, better cars. The big brick and stone church was the best building in Spencerville, aside from the courthouse. If the county had an establishment church, it was St. John's Lutheran, firmly connected to the early settlers and the present power structure. Even the Episcopalians dropped in now and then, especially if they were running for office or had a business in town.
Keith looked for the Baxters but didn't see them as he walked in. Even if he'd literally bumped into Mr. Baxter's ample body, there wouldn't be a problem; it was Sunday, this was a church, and Spencerville's God-fearing gentry wouldn't tolerate discord or disharmony in or around the Lord's house on the Lord's day.
Keith went inside. The church was large and held about eight hundred people. Keith scanned the backs of the congregation in the pews, but still he didn't see Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. If they were there, however, he'd see them coming out if he stood at the bottom of the steps after the service.