the Gordius ID and your Tragedy password, and she’s putting together a case.”
“The ungrateful bitch,” Dorian said.
“Maybe you should have let her have that block of shares.”
“By my calculations the option wasn’t vested yet. I’m not fucking Santa Claus. What’s holding you up from finishing the job?”
“The future dogcatcher is providing her with protection in case your bad boy comes back. Six men. They need to stand down, go away and eat some doughnuts.”
“I’ll get right on it. And what about Mr. Ninety-three?”
“He beheaded some hapless sonofabitch, jacked his pickup, a fancy hot-rod truck, easy to spot. So now they figure he’s long gone from that area, although they don’t want to take a chance with the widow. Something totally X-Files is going on with this guy. You have any idea what?”
Staring at the congealing eggs and avocados and crabmeat on his breakfast plate, Dorian said, “No. I don’t. Not a clue.”
104
Sheriff Hayden Eckman retreated to his residence on Sierra Way, the nicest street in Pinehaven.
The house provided ample space for a single man, was pleasantly furnished, included all the latest appliances, but the sheriff was not proud of it. Because he’d known that one day he would live in a much larger, much grander home, this place embarrassed him, not for any inadequacy in it, but because when eventually he achieved the status he deserved, he would not be able to say that he’d always lived at such a pinnacle, had always been among the elite. To a degree roots could be faked, the past papered over with lies, but some people would remember it was here that the great man had once lived, when he’d worn a uniform and been far too close to common.
Now he had to cope with the recognition that perhaps this was the grandest residence he would ever know. Which was so unfair. He had done everything right. He used his law degree to promote himself into the role of sheriff and salted the department with loyalists who were supposed to make sure everything occurring in Pinehaven County law enforcement would redound to his credit, even to his glory. He networked assiduously with leaders in adjacent counties and in Sacramento. He used far less campaign funds for personal expenses than he would have liked. He had $300,000 in cash, taken from Shacket’s Dodge Demon, when he could have been greedy and taken the other $100,000 that he had left in the car. And in spite of doing everything right, he now stood on the brink of disaster, ruin.
His deal with Tio Barbizon required him to keep the attorney general informed about any developments in the case. But he had agreed to that condition and passed the Spader-Klineman murder investigation to Sacramento only because he thought that the killer was long gone from Pinehaven County, that there would be no further developments in Hayden’s jurisdiction.
Then chaos. Event by violent event, until the disaster at the hospital, the sheriff believed he could control the situation to his benefit. He intended to craft a brilliant statement to the press, taking sole credit for the capture of the crazed fugitive—who was not just a homicidal psychopath but also the former CEO of Refine, responsible for the catastrophe in Springville! At that public briefing, Hayden planned to turn the fiend over to the attorney general, whom he would inform only moments before making his statement to the press, to ensure that Tio didn’t hog the credit.
But now. Oh, now. Now, two more were dead and Shacket was loose and the sheriff failed to keep the attorney general informed. The shit hadn’t hit the fan; it was far worse than that. A cannonade of shit was about to erupt, a long barrage of it, and Hayden Eckman would be the sole target.
He had come home ostensibly to write a statement for the press. He couldn’t do it because it would be tantamount to a suicide note.
In truth, he had come home because, with Lee Shacket loose, he didn’t feel safe anywhere else in Pinehaven. He had a first-class security system. He had a handgun secreted in every room, and he was still in uniform with a pistol on his hip. He closed all the blinds and draperies.
As an attorney representing charlatans who were willing to fake their injuries or fantastically exaggerate the effects of genuine injuries, the most dangerous clients he had faced were those quick to seek redress in court or through arbitration when they discovered he had