She looked at Arlen, and he turned his palms up. “I don’t like it either,” he said. “But I don’t see another way.”
Barrett nodded. “Your man’s right. There ain’t no other way. Not at this point.”
There’d been another way, and it was the way Arlen had been planning on until Paul’s disclosure. He wasn’t convinced yet that it hadn’t been a better plan either. A man like Wade was easier to kill than he was to convict.
“So we just go home now?” Rebecca said. “That’s the plan?”
“Not just yet,” Barrett said. “First we wait on Tampa. There are a few men coming up who’d like to meet you. I think they’ll have some paperwork.”
“And what will that say?”
“That you’re protected,” Barrett said, “provided tonight’s little game plays out like it was supposed to.”
46
THEY SAT AROUND THE GARAGE as the heat seared in and choked the air and Barrett continued to ask questions. The longer he went at it, the more Arlen thought that he would probably make a damned fine lawman. He played all the right notes. The harder his edge, the more he was bluffing you; the more casual he got, the more focused his interest. Rebecca answered everything he had for her. Told him details of her time at the Cypress House down to the last ounce of morphine. She hid nothing.
“Let me ask you something, Barrett,” Arlen said after nearly an hour had passed. “You didn’t so much as blink when Rebecca told you that she had Walt Sorenson’s hands in a cigar box.”
“Didn’t surprise me at all. Wade’s men have done worse than that.”
“Surely they have. But it doesn’t seem like you believed Sorenson died in that Auburn of his.”
Barrett didn’t answer.
“There was a body inside that car,” Arlen said. “Whose was it?”
Barrett studied him for a long moment, then said, “George McGrath. Tate’s oldest son.”
Arlen looked at Rebecca and saw dim recognition on her face.
“You knew him?” he said to her.
“I’ve seen him. He used to come around with Tate. Most of the time, in fact. Lately, it was just Tate. Except for the night…”
“When he brought the whole family,” Arlen said, thinking of the girl from Cassadaga who’d waited in Tolliver’s car with handcuffs around her wrists. “That’s why they all came, even the young ones. It was a family matter.”
He turned to Barrett. “Who killed George McGrath? Sorenson or David Franklin?”
“I couldn’t say, Wagner.”
“Bullshit.”
Barrett sighed. “Look, I don’t know. George McGrath was, like his daddy, muscle for Solomon Wade. A thug, a killer. When someone steals from Wade, the McGraths make them accountable. Walt Sorenson had been stealing from Wade. Skimming. We know that. The rest… we’re fairly certain of the rest.”
“Wade sent the McGrath boy,” Arlen said, “and Sorenson got the best of him. That’s how you see it.”
“That’s how I’m guessing it, yes. George McGrath disappeared a full day ahead of Sorenson. A body burned in Sorenson’s car, but it wasn’t Sorenson’s.”
“So Franklin hauled the body down there,” Arlen said. “And Rebecca, Paul, and I were all supposed to tell them it was Sorenson inside. That was his escape plan. Make them think he was dead, and make them uncertain of what had happened to the McGrath boy.”
“That’s how we figure it, yes. Problem was, they knew who they’d sent George to kill. That kept them from believing it was Sorenson inside the car. And Sorenson…” Barrett’s face went grim. “He needed them to believe that was him inside the car.”
Arlen sat in silence for a minute, trying to piece it together.
“He was out driving the countryside after he’d killed the boy?” he said. “Why in the hell would he have done that? Why’d he keep making his rounds?”
“Cash,” Barrett said simply. “When they went for him, he knew he’d have to run mighty far. He needed the money to do it. That last round of collections was to go right into his pockets. His, and Franklin’s.”
“You know all of this,” Arlen said, “and yet nobody’s been arrested. Nobody’s been—”
“There’s a powerful difference between what we know happened and what we can prove happened!” Barrett snapped. “Corridor County’s full of whispers and bare of witnesses.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to fix,” Rebecca said. “Isn’t it? They need a local man’s help.”