Black House (Page 121)

George Potter has been printed and stuck in a cell upstairs to think things over. Brown and Black of the State Police are on their way. For now, that is enough. As for triumph . . . well, something about his friend’s smile and his faraway eyes have put triumph on hold.

"I didn’t think you were going to give Beezer his moment," Jack says. "It’s a good thing you did. There might have been trouble right here in River City if you’d tried to face him down."

"I suppose I have a better idea tonight of how he feels," Dale replies. "I lost track of my own kid tonight, and it scared the living shit out of me."

"David?" Henry cries, leaning forward. "Is David okay?"

"Yeah, Uncle Henry, Dave’s fine."

Dale returns his gaze to the man who now lives in his father’s house. He’s remembering the first time Jack ever laid eyes on Thornberg Kinderling. Dale had at that point known Jack only nine days — long enough to form some favorable opinions, but not long enough to realize how really extraordinary Jack Sawyer was. That was the day Janna Massengale at the Taproom told Jack about the trick Kinderling did when he was getting squiffy, that little trick of pinching his nostrils shut with his palm turned out to the world.

They had just arrived back at the police station from interviewing Janna, Dale in his personal unit that day, and he’d touched Jack on the shoulder just as Jack was about to get out of the car. "Speak a name, see the face it belongs to before suppertime, that’s what my mother used to say." He pointed down to Second Street, where a broad-shouldered bald fellow had just come out of News ‘n Notions, a newspaper under his arm and a fresh deck of smokes in his hand. "That’s Thornberg Kinderling, his very own self."

Jack had bent forward without speaking, looking with the sharpest (and perhaps the most merciless) eyes Dale had ever seen in his life.

"Do you want to approach him?" Dale had asked.

"No. Hush."

And Jack simply sat with one leg in Dale’s car and one out of it, not moving, eyes narrowed. So far as Dale could tell, he didn’t even breathe. Jack watched Kinderling open his cigarettes, tap one out, put it in his mouth, and light it. He watched Kinderling glance at the headline of the Herald and then saunter to his own car, an all-wheel-drive Subaru. Watched him get in. Watched him drive away. And by that time, Dale realized he was holding his own breath.

"Well?" he’d asked when the Kinderling-mobile was gone. "What do you think?"

And Jack had said, "I think he’s the guy."

Only Dale had known better. Even then he had known better. Jack was saying I think only because he and Chief Dale Gilbertson of French Landing, Wisconsin, were still on short terms, getting-to-know-you, getting-to-work-with-you terms. What he had meant was I know. And although that was impossible, Dale had quite believed him.

Now, sitting in his office with Jack directly across the desk from him — his reluctant but scarily gifted deputy — Dale asks, "What do you think? Did he do it?"

"Come on, Dale, how can I — "

"Don’t waste my time, Jack, because those ass**les from WSP are going to be here any minute and they’ll take Potter heigh-ho over the hills. You knew it was Kinderling the second you looked at him, and you were halfway down the block. You were close enough to Potter when I brought him in to count the hairs in his nose. So what do you think?"

Jack is quick, at least; spares him the suspense and just administers the chop. "No," he says. "Not Potter. Potter’s not the Fisherman."

Dale has known that Jack believes this — knew it from his face outside — but hearing it is still an unhappy thump. He sits back, disappointed.

"Deduction or intuition?" Henry asks.

"Both," Jack says. "And stop looking like I plugged your mother, Dale. You may still have the key to this thing."

"Railsback?"

Jack makes a seesawing gesture with one hand — maybe, maybe not, it says. "Railsback probably saw what the Fisherman wanted him to see . . . although the single slipper is intriguing, and I want to ask Rails-back about it. But if Mr. One-Slipper was the Fisherman, why would he lead Railsback — and us — to Potter?"

"To get us off his trail," Dale says.

"Oh, have we been on it?" Jack asks politely, and when neither of them answers: "But say he thinks we’re on his trail. I can almost buy that, especially if he just remembered some goof he might have made."

"Nothing back yet on the 7-Eleven phone one way or the other, if that’s what you’re thinking of," Dale tells him.

Jack appears to ignore this. His eyes gaze off into the middle distance. That little smile is back on his face. Dale looks at Henry and sees Henry looking at Jack. Unc’s smile is easier to read: relief and delight. Look at that, Dale thinks. He’s doing what he was built to do. By God, even a blind man can see it.

"Why Potter?" Jack finally repeats. "Why not one of the Thunder Five, or the Hindu at the 7-Eleven, or Ardis Walker down at the bait shop? Why not Reverend Hovdahl? What motive usually surfaces when you uncover a frame job?"

Dale thinks it over. "Payback," he says at last. "Revenge."

In the ready room, a phone rings. "Shut up, shut up!" Ernie bellows to the others. "Let’s try to act professional here for thirty seconds or so!"

Jack, meanwhile, is nodding at Dale. "I think I need to question Potter, and rather closely."

Dale looks alarmed. "Then you better get on it right away, before Brown and Black — " He comes to a halt, frowning, with his head cocked. A rumbling sound has impinged on his attention. It’s low, but rising. "Uncle Henry, what’s that?"