He watched her. “Hop in,” he said. “I’ll give you a lift.”
“That’s OK.”
“Get on in here.”
She opened the door and got in. The window rose. She drew the seatbelt and, latching it, felt the shape of the gun in her pocket. Halsey signaled and pulled into traffic and got the cruiser up to speed.
“I was on my way to see you when I saw you,” he said.
She sat with her hands in her lap, her fingers laced. Watching the road.
“I imagine you’re curious to know why,” he said.
“Social visit?”
“Not hardly. I know what you’ve been up to.”
She did not look over at him. The world she saw through the windshield was nothing she recognized. Buildings and cars and snow.
“I haven’t been up to anything, Sheriff.”
“Yes, you have. You’ve been up to Rochester.”
Now she looked at him. “Rochester—?”
He gave her a look. “She told me herself you were there.”
Her mind doubled back—found an entire new branch of thinking and went stumbling down it.
“Katie Goss—?” she said.
“Didn’t I ask you to stay out of matters that don’t concern you? Matters that are matters of law enforcement?”
She unlaced her fingers to scratch at the skin under the cast—damp and cold under there. “Did she call you?” she said.
“No, she didn’t call me. I went up there myself.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why did you go up there if she didn’t call you?”
Halsey looked at her. “What part of mind your own business did you not understand?” He looked away again and she watched him, his face in profile. He drove one-handed, checking his mirrors, studying the other cars. Watchful. His sheriff’s hat lay in the space between them.
“Let me ask you something,” he said.
“All right.”
“When you came to see me, why didn’t you tell me about Danny Young going out to talk to Gordon Burke? Why didn’t you tell me about that piece of cloth?”
Audrey was silent, filling in the blanks: Katie Goss had told him about Danny Young and Gordon Burke. About the piece of cloth.
What else had she told him?
“Did you hear me?” said the sheriff.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I guess I figured you needed to hear it from Danny himself.”
Halsey watched her. He seemed to be thinking on that—seemed about to say something. But then he turned back to the road and drove on in silence.
Audrey watching the drab winter buildings, the black trees drifting by.
“Are you going to arrest him?” she said.
“Arrest who?”
“Moran.”
“Sheriff Moran?” He glanced over. “I think you know it doesn’t work like that.”
It took her a moment. “Because he’s out of state.”
“Not that we’re having this conversation. Again, I would ask you, as a personal favor, let’s say, since actual authority doesn’t seem to—”
“But Sheriff,” she said. “What if he wasn’t out of state?”
The sheriff glaring at her now. Squeezing the wheel in his big hand. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” she began, and hesitated, her mind dividing once again along two separate paths . . . because once you say it you can’t go back, but if you don’t say it now and he’s dead then they’ll say why did you wait to say it . . . but if he’s not dead he’ll deny everything and—
“Audrey,” said the sheriff, startling her.
“I think he might be here in town, Sheriff. Right now.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Because I saw him.”
“You saw him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You saw him this morning?”
“No, sir, last night.”
“You saw Sheriff Moran last night, here in town.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And where was this?”
“In the park. Henry Sibley Park.”
He didn’t ask her what she was doing in the park at night. He was putting it together for himself. He looked at her again—looking this time for some sign of trouble, of harm.
“What makes you think Sheriff Moran is still in town this morning when you saw him last night in the park?” he said, and she stared at him. The bright morning sky beyond him. Her heart drumming in her chest and in the bones of her forearm under the cast.
“Sheriff,” she said. “I think it might be better if I showed you.”
61
The deputy returned at 8:45 and he walked into the office and he looked through the glass door into the garage and then he walked right in—walking past Jeff under the Dodge and coming up to the second bay and bending to look at Marky where he stood hunched under the chassis of the Ford Escape.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Marky looked at him. “I’m working on your vehicle Deputy.”
“I bring this in for a busted headlight and you put it up on