“One of us ought to be up there. She shouldn’t be alone with him.”
“She was alone with him for a long time before we got here,” Arlen said. “She can be alone with him now.”
He didn’t like it either, though. He had a memory of her standing in his room with one side lit by moonlight, a memory of her beneath him with her mouth close to his chest and her breath warm on his skin…
He missed the nail head and bent it sideways instead of driving it straight. It had been years since he’d done that. Many years.
Paul had started working again, but his eyes kept going to the house even though he couldn’t see a damn thing from here but the top of the roof. Arlen let him glance up there a half dozen times before he finally said, “You want to keep your head down while you work?”
They hammered away for a while, and McGrath didn’t return and no sound came from the Cypress House. Too damn quiet. There should be voices.
It was just while he was thinking this that another engine came into hearing range, a car this time. Arlen finally sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll go see who it is,” when he saw Paul staring into the trees with that same dark frown.
“I’ll come with you.”
“Like hell you will. Stay down here and keep working.”
The kid didn’t like that at all, but Arlen ignored the grumblings and went on up the trail. When he got back within view of the inn, he saw it was the sheriff’s car. Tolliver stood on the porch with Solomon Wade, Rebecca, and Tate McGrath. Arlen came out of the trees and walked up to the porch with his head down, as if he had no interest in the gathering. When he reached the porch steps he said, “Pardon,” and stepped past McGrath, who didn’t move to clear out of his way, and entered the inn without so much as breaking stride. He walked back behind the bar and into the kitchen and retrieved a beer from the icebox and cracked it open. Drank about a third of it down, standing there in the shadows, and then he took the bottle and went back out onto the porch.
He was ready to do the same routine, walk past them without a blink and return to the dock, when Wade spoke.
“Mr. Wagner?”
He pronounced it Vagner, like the composer, as Tolliver had in the jail. Arlen kept walking, said, “That’s not my name,” without a look back.
“My mistake,” Wade drawled. “Hold up. Don’t hurry off.”
Arlen turned to face them.
“Where is it you’re from?” Wade said. He and Tolliver were standing close to Rebecca, and Tate was leaning on the porch rail.
“No place near here.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Arlen took a drink of his beer. “West Virginia.”
“Really? What town?”
“It’s not someplace you’ve heard of.”
“I’ve heard of some Wagners from West Virginia,” Wade said. His face was damp with sweat, accentuating the glare from his glasses. “Only they pronounced it properly. Vagner. The ones I’ve heard of were from Fayette County, I believe. What was your father’s name?”
Arlen felt the back of his neck go colder than the beer in his hand.
“You haven’t heard of any of my people. We aren’t a famous bunch, and it’s a mighty small town.”
“Maybe so,” Wade said, “but you’d be surprised at all that I hear.”
A tremor worked into Arlen’s hand, the sort of muscle shake that white-hot anger touched off just before you swung on a man, but he willed it down.
“I’d be surprised, indeed, if you’ve heard anything of my people,” he said. “Like I said, it’s a mighty small town.”
“Why’d you leave it behind?”
“The war. Never went back. Went a lot of places, but never home.”
“And what did you do in the war?”
“Killed Germans,” Arlen said, wondering what in the hell this was all about.
“Well, good for you.” Wade seemed to amplify his southern accent when he desired. Right now he was laying it on heavy.
“What about you, Judge?” Arlen said.
“Pardon?”
“Where are you from?”
Wade’s eyes flickered. “Florida, sir. Florida.”
“You like the area, then. Trust the locals.”
“I do. They are fine people.”
“How is it you ended up with a sheriff from Cleveland, then?” Arlen said. He was doing now exactly what he’d promised himself he would not do—poking at Wade and Tolliver with a stick, riling them. He couldn’t help it, though. Not after that bullshit about the Wagners of Fayette County.
Tolliver’s eyes narrowed and then went to Rebecca Cady.