questions later. Take my chances the judge is a sports fan.” He wasn’t threatening, just stating fact. “A guy like that comes after you, you don’t get a second chance. Ask Caroline. Ask the other women he sent to the emergency room. His nickname in the league was Gale Force. Guy handed out concussions like business cards. Ask Trent Green, Kurt Warner. We call those guys a snake bite: all it takes is one hit to kill you.”
Gail Force. Walt wiped the smirk off his face, wondering why he’d never thought of that one himself.
“No more guns.”
“How about a machete or a baseball bat?”
“Try the phone next time. That’s why we’re here.”
“To protect and serve. Right, Sheriff?”
“Right.”
“So protect me.”
“Try the yellow pages.”
“Find Gale, you’ll do us all a favor.”
“Let me know about setting up the thing with Boldt. The sooner the better.”
“Two-eighty?” Wynn said as Walt turned to leave.
The comment spun him around.
“Your batting average. You’re a switch hitter,” he said. “Calluses.” He indicated Walt’s hands.
Walt looked down at his palms. “Maybe I’m a gardener,” he said.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Wynn said sarcastically. “Two-eighty,” he repeated confidently.
“Two eighty-five,” Walt answered. Impressed, but trying not to show it.
10
The temptation proved too great and Walt made the turn at the split rail fence at the side of State Highway 75. He drove through the overbuilt log gate and turned left up the hill toward a stand of fir.
He approached the Engleton guesthouse thinking up an excuse for the visit. He stopped and returned to the Cherokee to retrieve his camera.
Movement caught his eye and he looked toward the main house in time to see a woman’s silhouette standing in a downstairs window. It was Kira. She held something in her hand across her chest—a baseball bat, he realized.
Fiona opened the cottage’s door wearing a T-shirt, navy blue sweat-pants, and rubber flip-flops. Her hair was held off her face by a pair of plastic clips.
“Problems?” she asked.
“You weren’t answering calls,” he said.
“No,” she replied.
“We had a situation: a guy throwing shots in his backyard, believing a client of his was coming after him. I needed some pictures. Took them myself, no big deal.”
“A broker? I wouldn’t want to be a money manager in this town right now. I can’t imagine the amounts people must have lost.”
“No, not a money guy, a sports agent. Thought some ex-football jock was creeping around his backyard, and decided it was safer to shoot him than to say hello.” He offered her his camera, making it clear it was a professional, not personal, visit. Wasn’t sure why he felt that so important.
She staggered back a step, off balance. He caught her by the elbow and held on.
“You’re saying he saw this . . . football guy?” she said.
“No. The whiskey might have done the seeing, I think. It was more likely a neighbor.”
“Come in,” she said, accepting the camera. “Want me to print these for you?”
“Please.” He stepped inside.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
“Sit,” she said.
“It’s a nice place,” he said.
“Have you never been here?”
“No.”
“How pathetic of me. I can’t believe it’s your first time.”
It was done up as an English cottage. Leslie Engleton had great taste and deep pockets.
“I was worried about you,” he said, blurting it out.
“Me? That’s nice of you. But I’m fine. Just quiet. You know me.” She filled the kettle. “I do that now and then.”
She got the stove lit under the kettle and sat down in front of a laptop at the breakfast table. She fished around in a box of wires at her feet and connected his camera to the computer.
“Yours?” he asked, admiring a photo of a black woman on a porch holding a small terrified child.
“Yes. Just after Katrina.”
“Powerful.”
“Thanks. So who was this guy with the gun? This sports guy?”
“Believe me, you don’t care. Just another guy with a gun who shouldn’t have been drinking. I gave him a warning.”
She seemed about to say something, but didn’t.
“No prowlers, I take it?” he asked.
“For the record, I tried to get Kira to take a trip with me. And that was before the campsite and the hikers. I’d just as soon not be here. For her sake, not mine,” she added emphatically—a little too emphatically, he thought. “She doesn’t need any more scares.”
He recalled seeing Kira with the bat and made sense of it.
“Gilly’s a good tracker,” Walt said. “I think we’ll catch this guy.”
“You’d get no complaint from me. But seriously, did he know it was this football guy? How weird