Damaged Goods (29 page)

He shook his head. “Five. And I’m not the sort of man who finds pleasure in pain.”

She bit into her lip, considering him. Despite his soft-spoken manner, he held the power. “Five, then. But you do what
I
say, the way
I
say it.”

“You’re a tease,” he said, smiling. “But I think I can wait until Friday. It’ll give me something to look forward to.” He put his broad hand on the small of her back, then ran it up to her shoulder blades. She tensed but remained still as he touched each vertebra. He made his way back down her spine, as if counting to make sure they were all in order. All the way to her tailbone, where he let his hand linger. She swallowed, her throat dry, expecting his next move, anticipating that he’d drop his hand under her, but he didn’t. He smiled at her with dark, sharp eyes. “We have an agreement, then. I’ll expect you on Friday.”

Hershel was preparing supper when he heard the truck pull up to the house. He’d been distracted enough to char the onions, spending his time scraping them off the frying pan and trying not to think about what might have happened to Silvie, or what decisions she might have made. He greeted her in the mudroom. “I was worried.”

“I don’t know the roads around here. I got lost.” She brushed past him into the kitchen, scowling. She wore new shoes with gleaming white soles, slightly muddied around the toes and heels.

“Do you have my cell number?”

She halted in the center of the kitchen. “Did Kyrellis give you one of the pictures from Jacob’s box?”

He struggled for what to say. “Yes. He did. I tore it up.”

Silvie scrutinized him. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s … it’s true.”

“Why would you do that? You know I have to return those to Jacob before he’ll leave me alone.”

“I was … stunned by it. It disturbed me. I tore it up to make a point to Kyrellis.” His mind slowly caught up with the implications of her accusation. “Where have you been? Talking to Kyrellis?”

She looked away. “How else am I going to get them back if I don’t deal with him directly?”

“I said I would talk to him.”

“Well, a lot of good that’s done.” Her eyes flared darkly.

Hershel’s head pounded.

“And you told him who Jacob was! I thought I could trust you.”

“I did not.”

Her jaw was set in a hard line, and her nostrils blazed in and out with her breath.

“I didn’t. And if you haven’t figured out that you can trust me by now, I guess there’s about nothing in the world I can do to prove it. Helping you on the highway, offering a place to stay …” He gestured at the house, at a loss for words. “How can you even say this?”

She threw her hands up. “I don’t know. I’m confused. I don’t know who to trust. You said you’d talk to Kyrellis. Carl said
he
would talk to Kyrellis. And when I talked to Kyrellis he tells me that you have one of the pictures. And that you gave him Jacob’s name. And … that you murdered someone.”

Hershel’s mind lagged behind, stuck on her mention of Carl. “What do you mean Carl said he would talk to Kyrellis?”

She went to the sink, quiet, refusing to answer.

“Tell me about Carl,” he demanded.

“He offered to help. He felt responsible.”

“He went to talk to Kyrellis?”

“I don’t know. We talked on Sunday, and—”

“Sunday?”

“Yeah, when I went out. I walked to the sale barn and Carl was there. We talked. He offered to help.”

“Early in the morning? Carl was at the sale barn Sunday morning?”

She nodded. “I was surprised to find him there.”

Hershel thought of Yolanda and her insistence that Carl was staying at his business. He
had
stayed there.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Yolanda hadn’t seen him, Hershel thought. Certainly if he’d returned home she would have known.

“Hershel, what’s wrong?”

Hershel spoke slowly, quietly. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d spoken to Carl about the pictures?”

“You don’t think Kyrellis has something to do with Carl not showing up for work, do you?”

“They found a body in the river this morning,” he whispered, his voice a coiled snake.

“What? No! It wasn’t him! It wasn’t him!”

“How do we know that?”

“Oh my God,” she cried, as if Carl had been a brother—someone she’d known her entire life.

Kyrellis reviewed his business ledgers. His orders had evaporated. His receivables account was current, no big checks coming in. While he was an excellent horticulturist, he was a lousy businessman. If only he had a windfall. If he got himself clear of this mess he’d hire a manager with sales experience. But that was a big
if
. He picked up the phone and dialed the sheriff.

“Castor.”

“Sheriff, this is your friend. Remember me?”

“Friend?” Castor’s voice was quietly sarcastic.

“Have you thought about the figure?” Kyrellis asked, thinking of the amount he himself owed.

“Who do you think I am, anyway?” Castor’s words were tight and controlled, but Kyrellis could feel the man’s anger.

“You’re a man who would rather avoid a scandal. Well, not just a scandal in your case. Prison time.” Kyrellis drew out the last statement for effect. They both knew what was at stake. And it was worth a lot of money.

“I won’t pay that much. I haven’t got it. You’ll have to come up with a better number or you’ll get nothing.”

“Hmm.” Kyrellis stalled for time. “What about the girl?”

“What about her?”

“Is
she
worth a million dollars to you, Sheriff?”

There was a long pause. “You aren’t holding her, are you?”

Kyrellis sensed a chink in the lawman’s armor. “You love her, don’t you?”

“Is she okay?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess.”

“Let me speak to her.”

“No—no, no. Not yet.”

Castor drew a hard breath that sounded as if he’d sucked air through the phone line from Oregon all the way to Wyoming. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll pay what you want. Just don’t hurt her.”

“Very well. She’ll be here waiting. When can we expect the money?”

“I need a few days. I’m working on it.”

“I’ll be in touch, then.”

So, it was the girl after all. Her sheriff was not the killer she claimed him to be. Just an overly rough sugar daddy. One who would pay top dollar for his love.

Hershel stood in the doorway of the upstairs apartment of the sale barn. The bed was unfolded, not the way Silvie had left it. Carl’s pocket knife was sitting on the table with some loose change, closed and abandoned. He envisioned the man’s hard-crusted hands as he drew the blade of this knife across the tops of what might have been a thousand boxes in the time he’d worked for Hershel. Such a familiar object. Such a common movement.

He took it up and ran his fingers over the smooth, worn surface, then flipped open the blade. Sharp. Well maintained.

“The only tool necessary to man’s existence,” Hershel said quietly to himself, repeating a mantra Carl had used to describe his simple two-blade knife.

He suffered Carl’s absence in a way that was familiar. The way he longed for the voices of his mother and his sister. The way one misses something that is invisible yet essential. He questioned again why Carl had worked for him for so long. A memory came to him, another horrible memory from a few years back, when the two of them were opening a small box of handguns late on a Sunday night, checking them for condition, making sure they were unloaded. Hershel picked up an automatic pistol, pulled the clip, and emptied it of its ammunition.

“Don’t forget the chamber,” Carl said.

Hershel had glared at him for a long moment, until Carl blinked and went back to his task. “You think I’m some kind of an idiot?”

“Sorry, it’s habit.”

“I know when a gun is loaded,” Hershel said. He could still hear the vehemence in his tone. How dare this lowlife who couldn’t even scrape together enough money for new shoes instruct him on the proper handling of a firearm? To prove his point, he aimed the gun at the calendar just above Carl’s head.

Carl’s eyes bulged. “Don’t—”

He pulled the trigger, expecting the dull pop of an empty chamber. Instead, their ears rang, and a bullet pierced a hole in the month of September, lodging itself in the heavy beam behind. Hershel stared at the gun, startled. He’d checked the chamber; he’d thought it was empty. His hand trembled as he set the gun down.

“I’m different now,” he said. It was one thing to be an arrogant asshole—and certainly he was that and worse. But the fact that he’d let Carl believe that he’d done it deliberately, as a reminder of his place—a warning to keep his mouth shut—
that
was unforgivable. Why couldn’t he bring himself to simply apologize for his
stupidity? Had he really thought so little of the man? It was a wonder Carl stayed on after that. “Thank God I’m different now,” he whispered.

But if Castor didn’t kill Kyrellis, Hershel would. It took less than ten minutes for him to find Jacob Castor’s phone number. As he dialed it, he rehearsed his words. He couldn’t lose his train of thought or forget a name in this conversation. He had to be completely credible and in control.

“Castor,” a man answered in a tired voice.

“Sheriff Castor, I know who has your photos.”

“Who is this?”

“Let’s make a deal, you and me.” The line was silent. Hershel forged ahead, not knowing what sort of man this was other than by Silvie’s description. But the image of that little girl in the photograph hardened his will and gave him strength. “Those pictures will send you to prison, I’m sure you know that.”

Castor breathed into the phone.

“How much are they worth to you?”

“Who is this?” Castor repeated.

“Do you think he’ll stop after the first payment? That he’ll just hand them over to you, and that’s that?”

The man let out a strange, guttural noise that reminded Hershel of a wounded animal.

“He’ll piece them out. Charging you for each one.” He paused to let the sheriff think about it, if he hadn’t already. “How much has he asked for?”

“What kind of deal?”

“The only way you’ll rid yourself of him is to kill him.”

“That can be arranged.”

“That’s the deal.”

“What about Silvie? Is she with him?”

Hershel’s scar prickled and his hands went hot. He suffered a sudden memory of Floyd, his red Charger, sitting in the gravel turnoff below the French Prairie Farm. The animals were frenzied,
snorting and squealing and fighting over the body he’d dumped there. The sound of their jaws breaking the skull and bones, devouring the man, clothes and all, followed him to his waiting car. That’s where he was coming from on the night of the accident.

“I want the girl back,” Castor said. “Is she with him?”

“She’s with me.”

“You want this man dead, she’s got to be part of the deal.”

Hershel closed his eyes against the onslaught of memories: lighting a cigarette, traveling the dark highway, listening to Tom Petty. The cow in the road. He pressed his hand to his head. He could smell the stench of hogs as if they were here in the room.
Why now?

“Bring me proof that Victor Kyrellis is dead and I’ll give you the girl,” Hershel said. “You’ll find him at Oregon Premier Roses, in the city of Tigard.”

“How will I get in touch?”

“Meet me in the filbert orchard on the west side of the French Prairie Farm. It’s near St. Paul, on Butteville Road. Midnight Friday.” Once a killer, always a killer.

“You don’t give me much time.”

“How much fucking time do you need?” Hershel’s head seared with pain.

“Fine.”

“I don’t have to tell you to come alone.”

“Midnight Friday,” Castor repeated, and hung up.

Hershel dropped the phone and gripped his temples with both hands. The song echoed through the pain:
Don’t come around here no more
. His arrogance felt familiar, the idea that he was brilliant.
I’m a fucking genius
, he’d said. It all came back now. The ache in his shoulders from dragging a man’s deadweight. The spot on his jeans he couldn’t distinguish from blood.