27
THE MICROPHONES SWARMED around Patrick Kinney’s handsome face.
‘Five hundred thousand dollars,’ he said, ‘for the return of my children. I realize at this stage the chances of finding them alive are slim. Even so, the reward stands. Whether to hold them or to bury them, I want my children back.’
‘Shit,’ Mitchell said, closing the laptop on which the news clip played.
‘Yep,’ Showalter said, his elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand. ‘We did not need that.’
Whiteside had stood behind them both to watch. ‘Doesn’t make any difference, does it?’
Mitchell turned in her chair, looked at him like he was an idiot. ‘It won’t help us find them, no, but it does mean the phone lines will be tied up with bullshit leads from idiots with dollar signs for eyes.’
‘Then you best call down to Phoenix,’ Whiteside said, ‘get your field office to send up some more stuffed suits.’
Showalter smirked.
Mitchell got to her feet. ‘Thank you for the suggestion. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got two lost children to find.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Whiteside said. ‘You know those kids are dead. When are you going to get out of the way and let Showalter and the state cops arrest that woman? She killed her kids, you know she did, she killed them and she dumped them out in the desert.’
‘No, Sheriff Whiteside,’ Mitchell said. ‘I do not know that. And neither do you. We won’t know anything for sure until Sean and Louise are found. I’ll be over in the town hall, if you need me.’
She exited by the side door, let it swing closed behind her.
Whiteside looked down at Showalter. ‘You know what that woman needs?’
Showalter grinned. ‘Yeah, I do.’
They both guffawed.
Across the room, standing in the corner with his arms folded, Special Agent Abrahms cleared his throat.
‘Quiet, Junior, the men are talking.’ Whiteside lifted the laptop from the desk, held it out. ‘Here, we’re done with your computer.’
Abrahms approached, extended his hand, reached for the laptop. Whiteside jerked it away.
‘Cut it out,’ Abrahms said. ‘Just give it to me.’
Whiteside handed it over. ‘Don’t cry, kid.’
Showalter snorted.
Abrahms took a step closer. ‘You’re a real asshole, you know that?’
‘Better men than you have called me a lot worse,’ Whiteside said, his voice lowered. ‘Anytime you want to have a serious conversation about it, just say the word. I’ll take you out back, show you just how big an asshole I really am.’
‘Go fuck yourself,’ Abrahms said, walking away. He sat down at the desk he’d commandeered when he first arrived, opened the laptop, started typing something.
Whiteside patted Showalter on the shoulder and lifted his hat from the desk. ‘Keep an eye on the kid. Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself with that thing.’
He exited through the side door, to the sound of Showalter’s chuckling. The sun hit him hard, and he plucked the shades from where they hung from his collar. He walked around the building, out onto the street. A few of the press people approached, questions in their eyes, readying microphones and recorders.
‘I got nothing for you,’ he said, waving them away.
The diner had quieted down when he entered, but it still had more customers than he’d seen there in years. Reporters, for the most part. He ignored them and went to the end of the counter. Shelley came straight over.
‘Coffee to go, sweetheart,’ he said.
‘Another one?’ Shelley asked. ‘How many’s that today? Sure you don’t want a decaf?’
‘No, regular’s good.’
She returned a minute later with a large paper cup with a plastic lid. He dropped a few bills on the counter, plucked a napkin from the dispenser, and wrapped it around the cup to save his fingers from the heat.
‘Hey, Shelley, you got a second?’
The waitress had been on her way to the register, but she turned back to him. ‘Sure,’ she said.
Whiteside beckoned her in close, lowered his voice. ‘You remember the gentleman you were speaking with earlier? Over by the window.’
She wiggled her fingers at her face. ‘Oh, you mean the …’
‘Yeah, the Asian gentleman.’
‘Sure, I remember. He was a nice man. What about him?’
‘What did you two talk about?’
‘About this.’ She waved her hands at the world around her. ‘Everything going on. He hadn’t seen anything on the news, so I told him all about it.’
‘Did he ask about anyone in particular? Like the Kinney woman? Or me?’
Shelley shook her head. ‘No, not that I recall. He just seemed interested in the whole affair. Well, I mean, who wouldn’t be?’
‘No one, I guess. Did you happen to see which way he headed when he left?’
‘No, sorry, we were jammed here earlier. I was too busy taking orders to watch him. He got another sandwich to go and left me a nice tip. That was the last I saw of him.’
Whiteside leaned closer. ‘He ordered another sandwich?’
‘Yeah,’ Shelley said. ‘To go. Must have been hungry.’
‘Must have been.’
‘You don’t think he’s mixed up in all this, do you?’
‘No, nothing like that. I was just curious about him, that’s all.’ He dropped another two bills on the counter. ‘Don’t let Harvey work you too hard now.’
Whiteside carried his coffee out onto the sidewalk, slipped his shades back on, put his hat on his head. He looked up and down the street, knowing he wouldn’t see the man. A sandwich to go, he thought. Maybe he had been hungry, like Shelley said, but Whiteside had a different idea entirely. He looked across to the guesthouse, wondered if Audra Kinney was eating that sandwich right now.
It wasn’t really the color of the man’s skin that bothered him, though he was an unusual sight around here. Rather, it was the kind of man he was. Whiteside had met enough over the years. Gets to be you know one on sight. A man is either wired to kill or he’s not. Most aren’t. But this one had the look about him, the eyes that see further then they should, the hollowness you see in them, if you look too close.
Whiteside had seen that same hollowness in the mirror. The thought chilled him.
Anyway, why would a man like that show up today, of all days? Could have been a coincidence, but Whiteside believed in coincidences about as much as he believed in Santa Claus. This man was a threat, Whiteside was certain of it. And, right this minute, he believed the man was in the guesthouse, giving Audra Kinney food. All he could do was watch and wait.
Whiteside sat down on one of the benches outside the diner, took a sip of hot coffee. From here, he could see the front of the guesthouse, and a few yards of alley that cut to the north of it.
He hadn’t even finished his coffee when everything went to shit.