Chapter Twenty-Five
“Oil?” Miah’s mom echoed, looking shocked.
He nodded. They were in the kitchen, she in her robe, Miah and Nicki still dressed from their fateful outing. It was nearly three a.m. He’d had to go along to the station until the details of the arrest were logged. The detectives had let him go around two, and ordered Nicki to leave then as well. Another deputy had dropped them at Miah’s bike, and he’d driven them back here.
“That’s what the guy said.” Miah shrugged. “Sort of. What he implied. I guess it’s possible. I’m not sure how you find that sort of thing out, but maybe Vreeland could tell from the soil samples or the seismic readings . . . What the fuck, though? Oil in Fortuity?”
“I suppose it is possible . . . The land’s been in Church hands for over a century, and we never used it for anything but grazing. Who knows what else it’s good for.”
“It’d explain the motive,” Nicki offered. “Oil money, that’s huge. That’s enough to kill over, if you’re greedy enough.”
“Whoever’s behind it,” Miah thought, teasing it all out, “they wanted me dead. The droughts haven’t been enough to get us to sell, and neither have the offers we’ve gotten. But you and Dad saddled with a failing business and me, dead in an accidental fire . . . ?”
His mom looked ill at the thought. “At our age, with no one else poised to take the reins . . . It would’ve been hard to stay. But that’s so . . .”
“Sick?” Nicki supplied from the open fridge, twisting the cap off a fresh beer.
“Sadistic,” his mom said.
“Billions, this guy thought the land would be worth,” Miah said. “That’ll make a sadist out of plenty of people.”
Nicki sat and took a pull from the beer bottle, then passed it to Miah. “Who’s got the capital to buy the land in the first place? Even just as grazing acreage, that’s bound to be a big outlay.”
“Property developers. Though why would Vreeland take what he found out to them?” Miah wondered aloud. “He’d have to be insanely opportunistic not to take it to his client first, or us. To go out and find somebody to conspire with, somebody with the funds . . .”
“It doesn’t make sense,” his mom said, shaking her head. “Something’s missing.”
He took a deep drink, and a bolt of blind rage had him bringing the bottle down hard on the table, with a thump that startled both women. “Sorry. But Dad was killed for money? Simple as that?”
“Billions aren’t simple,” Nicki said carefully. “But yeah, you’ve got it about pegged, I think.”
He’d always imagined it would hurt less to confirm it was something that cold and calculating, to know for sure it hadn’t been personal . . . But in reality, it hurt as badly as ever.
“You think this guy will do a deal?” his mom asked.
He nodded. “To judge by what he said to us, he’s got nothing to gain from keeping quiet. If what he said about his involvement was true, the more people he rats out, the better for him.”
“He said he didn’t know what his boss had planned,” Nicki added. “About the fire and everything else.”
“Who knows if that’s true,” Miah said bitterly.
They fell quiet for a time, then the women edged toward softer, sadder conversation. But Miah wasn’t in the headspace for philosophy, for trying to find some solace in answers, some balm for his grief. He was so tired he felt wasted, brain catching like a skipping record. He kept picturing the ranch, like a cross section. Like a diagram, with the sky and stars above, then the buildings, the grass, the bedrock, and the great and shocking question of what might lay beneath. Oil, possibly, and who knew how many feet below where they sat right now.
But he did know one thing. Miah knew where his father lay in the family cemetery, three miles from here, six feet underground. And no matter how many answers arrived in the coming days, none of them could change that fact.
* * *
By eight that morning, Miah finally succumbed to weeks of sleep deprivation and passed out cold on the couch. One moment he was laying with his head on Nicki’s lap as she stroked his hair, and the next there was bright light streaming through the den’s windows and he was alone. She’d covered him with a blanket and managed to get a throw pillow under his head, and she’d left a note on the coffee table before him. He reached for it, squinting through the bleariness.
Sorry to leave you, but I had to get to work. Was tempted to call in today, but I don’t want to miss a thing. I’ll call if I hear anything. Hope you sleep for days.
He looked to the clock on the mantel. Not days, no, but it was two in the afternoon. Shit. What the hell was he supposed to be doing today?
Let it go. For once in your life, let somebody cover for you.
His phone was on the table as well and he checked it—nothing from Nicki. He stood and pocketed it, and made his way down the hall and upstairs for the shower. Everything in his head was such a crazy jumble . . . but he hadn’t dreamt it. None of it. And Christ, every moment that went by without any answers was going to be an eternity.
Nothing that day, and nothing all night. He busied his body with physical tasks and let the admin slide, his mind in no state for business. He ate, he kept his mom calm, eventually he slept in fits and starts, brain never shutting off through any of it. Nicki called twice, her name on his screen always sending his heart into his throat, but nope, nothing yet. Nothing until—
“Hey,” he said, answering his phone at nine fifteen the next morning.
“Miah, something’s up.”
He sat up straight at the kitchen table. “What?”
“The mayor’s missing.”
“Jesus. Like, like somebody’s got him—”
“No, missing like there’s an all-points bulletin out on him. Like he skipped town.”
“Wait, whoa . . .” Mayor Dooley, Fortuity’s fat little cowboy-wannabe? “That can’t be right.”
“That’s what came over my radio while I was on patrol. I called Gregory—that guy we arrested on Saturday night, his name’s Judd Shaw. Just some professional bodyguard from down near Vegas, but I heard his plea deal’s official. He must have named James Dooley.”
“That’s fucking insane—”
“Miah, I have to go, my radio’s blowing up. I’ll talk as soon as I can.”
“Nicki—”
She hung up.
“Fuck.” Nine in the morning on a Monday . . . Well, screw it. He dialed Vince as he got his boots on.
“Church. Any news?”
“Can you ditch work? Meet me at the bar?”
A pause. “Yeah. See you in twenty.”
“See you.”
Miah’s mom was out and he wasn’t sure where. The news would keep, he supposed. If there was even anything to it. He climbed into his truck and headed downtown.
The Benji’s lot was all but deserted, just a couple of the old timers’ cars parked out front. He marched in, finding Duncan behind the bar and the place smelling of toast and bacon.
Duncan’s brows rose in surprise. “Miah. Here for breakfast?”
“Maybe. But first I need a double whiskey.”
Duncan paused just long enough to compose his face, then said, “Very well.” He grabbed a bottle off the top shelf and a glass from the rack.
Miah took out his wallet but Duncan waved it aside.
“Thanks.”
As the first taste burned down Miah’s throat, Duncan said, “This doesn’t strike me as a celebratory drink.”
Miah exhaled fire and shook his head. “No, not especially. It’s a coping drink.”
Duncan frowned. “Is everyone okay?”
Miah glanced around, finding the old men hunched around their eggs at a far table by the jukebox.
“Nicki just called me. There’s an APB out on Jim Dooley.”
Duncan’s eyes grew wide. “Our creepy little mayor?”
“Yeah. To do with . . . with all of it,” he said. He assumed Duncan had heard through Raina or Casey everything that Miah had shared with Vince. “Nothing’s for sure, but . . . Shit, what the fuck does he have to do with the ranchland?”
Duncan looked serious. “I’m not sure . . . but he was a royal pain in the ass back when I worked for Sunnyside.” That was the development company behind the Eclipse, the resort casino. “He campaigned on bringing the casino to Fortuity, and he used to barge into the offices with no warning just to pester everyone about how it was all going. He’s one of the more obnoxious people I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a fair few.”
“He’s a blowhard,” Miah agreed. “He didn’t get my vote, that’s for sure. Though neither did the casino, in the referendum . . . But how the fuck would he have found out from Vreeland about the oil, if that’s what’s behind all this?”
Duncan frowned. “I wouldn’t dare speculate. But he was up to his eyes in the casino’s daily developments. The higher-ups at Sunnyside treated him like a peer.”
Miah sank back on his stool, lost. “It’s hard to imagine it. I mean, could he have been the one who got Tremblay killed? Were the two of them in bed together?”
“Tremblay was in bed with the corrupt managers at the casino’s first contracting outfit, getting kickbacks . . . I suppose it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Dooley could’ve been involved. He’s certainly control freak enough.”
Miah stared into his drink. “He hugged me, the day of the fire. He came by and he hugged me. And my mom.”
“That’s very unnerving.”
“To imagine he could’ve hatched the entire fucking plan, with Bean . . .” Miah shook his head. Strangely, there was no hate burning him alive. He felt too lost. Cold, like he’d turned to stone.
“When did the first soil surveys happen?” Duncan asked.
“The winter. January or early February, maybe?”
“That would’ve given him several weeks to organize it, to find an intermediary—if that’s what the man you caught was—and to find a patsy in Chris Bean.”
“And before that, even, to find some property scouts to approach. He’s not broke, that’s for sure.” Dooley had run for office on his wealth as much as anything else, promising to make everyone in Fortuity rich as well. “He could’ve made a play for the ranchland, if we’d been looking to sell—”
Duncan glanced away and a breeze blew in. Miah turned to find Vince striding through the door. He was dressed for work, minus a hard hat, and covered in gray dust.
“What’s going on?” Vince asked as he neared, then his gaze jumped to Miah’s glass. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
Duncan poured the drink and Miah filled Vince in.
His eyes narrowed. “I never liked Dooley. You ask me, that entire referendum was rigged. Hardly anybody I ever talked to voted for the casino.”
For once, Miah paused to consider Vince’s assessment, instead of simply writing it off as paranoia or sour grapes.
“If Dooley faked the referendum results,” Miah murmured, “because he stood to gain something from the casino’s construction . . .”
“Something other than reelection, if it saved the town,” Duncan added.
“If he was taking kickbacks, same as Tremblay . . . Maybe the two were coconspirators,” Miah said.
“Maybe Dooley had Tremblay offed, before he could implicate him.”
Miah nodded. “Maybe. That’d have him mixed up with the cover-up over that dead migrant worker. He’d have wanted the casino to go through at any cost if it was his own private cash cow. But then he stumbles across the situation with the oil . . .”
“That’d blow any bribes and kickbacks he was enjoying out of the water,” Vince agreed, “getting his hands on that land.”
Miah looked to Duncan, needing a levelheaded opinion just now.
Duncan furrowed his brow and refilled Miah’s glass. “It’s outlandish, but the pieces do seem to fit together, cursorily. You’re just missing the step that finds Dooley alone with Vreeland, getting privy to the news of the oil before Vreeland could report it properly, up the chain.”
Miah nodded. That piece was key. He lifted his glass. “Here’s hoping something comes out in Vreeland’s or Shaw’s accounts of the situation.”
“If Vreeland was worried for his wife’s safety,” Duncan mused, “she could presumably have been in danger from Shaw, acting on Dooley’s behest. If both of those men are implicated, and hopefully soon to be in custody, Vreeland should be free to seek a plea deal.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Vince studied Miah long and hard. “You really think it could be possible? Three C, sitting on a fucking oil field?”
He’d done a bit of research into it. “It’s not insane—there’s been oil found in the badlands before, in North Dakota and Montana.”
“What’ll you do about it?”
Miah’s head swam. “I don’t even know how to begin wrapping my brain around that, Vince.”
“Hell of a mind-fuck?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
With the conversation dried up to pure speculation, Miah and Vince eventually switched to coffee and ordered breakfast. Duncan kept the TV on mute, tuned to a local network. And just after noon, all the waiting and the caffeine jitters were finally rewarded.
“Whoa!” Vince sat up rod straight, staring at the TV.
Miah looked up, finding a breaking-news graphic splashed across the screen. FORTUITY MAYOR APPREHENDED AFTER HIGH-SPEED CHASE. “The fuck. Welch, turn it up!”
Duncan fumbled for the remote and cranked the volume.
The video was aerial footage of a highway pursuit, a male news anchor talking over it. ”. . . following this situation as it develops. Not a lot is currently known about the circumstances of Dooley’s flight, though an all points bulletin was issued this morning and his vehicle was apparently headed east on Route 80. Highway patrolmen tailed him for eighteen miles, his top speed clocking in around ninety-five miles per hour before he finally lost control of his car, skidding into a ditch. He was taken into custody following a brief medical examination.”
On screen, the birds-eye showed the pursued car spinning around in a wild arc before trundling to a stop in the brush.
“Unconfirmed reports suggest two other arrests were recently made, with possible connections to February’s unsolved murder of local rancher Donald Church. This is Wes Wheeler, reporting for KCBN. Stay tuned for breaking developments.”
The newsflash had interrupted the regular noontime news, and Duncan lowered the volume. The three men exchanged loaded looks, then Miah glanced around the bar, finding a dozen scattered lunch customers gaping wide-eyed in his direction.
He knew the feeling.