The Good Killer Read online

  “You don’t have a replacement?” Sean says.

  “Thought I did. But no. Have to take a run down to O’Reilly’s. It’s not far.”

  “And they’ll have it?”

  “Should.”

  Sean would like something more definite, but he surrenders and watches Benson limp to his truck and drive away.

  He’s alone in the repair bay. And then Cole is beside him.

  “The guy’s wily,” Cole says.

  “Maybe,” says Sean.

  “He knows who you are.”

  “Seems to.”

  “Or he’s just making conversation. You have to wonder: Was he telling the truth about not having the part?”

  “Yeah, I wonder.”

  “You could check. If he left the door unlocked.”

  Sean walks to the steel door and tries the handle. It’s locked.

  “Huh,” Cole says.

  Sean leans against the fender of his car with his arms crossed. He can feel the shape of the Glock in its shoulder rig. He ditched his gray jacket back in Houston. Now he’s wearing a blue one.

  The clouds have drifted off and the sun is out, but it’s cool in the repair bay.

  Ten minutes later Sean is looking out at the parking lot and the street, waiting for Benson. He sees a sheriff’s cruiser glide by.

  “Well, shit,” Cole says.

  The cruiser doesn’t stop. It disappears down the street.

  “Another thing you have to wonder,” Cole says. “Would you shoot a cop, if it came to it?”

  Sean frowns. “I’m not shooting any cops.”

  A few minutes pass and the cruiser comes back. It rolls to a stop across the street. Benson’s truck appears a moment later. It pulls up beside the cruiser and there’s a conversation Sean can’t hear. Then the truck draws into the lot.

  Benson climbs out. He’s carrying a cardboard box with a new alternator in it. He looks sheepish.

  “I owe you an apology,” he says.

  Sean can feel the weight of the Glock underneath his jacket. “What for?”

  Benson nods in the direction of the cruiser. “My son-in-law,” he says. “I told him you were here in my shop. He didn’t believe me. Said he’d have to see for himself.”

  Sean uncrosses his arms. “Now he’s had a chance to see.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand,” Benson says, setting the box on a workbench. “You’re safe here. He only wants to shake your hand, for what you did down there in Houston.”

  Across the street, Benson’s son-in-law waits in the cruiser with the window rolled down.

  “Can I wave him over?” Benson asks.

  “Be careful,” Cole says. “Next they’ll have you down at the Legion hall, high-fiving with the veterans and the Elks and the Knights of Columbus.”

  Sean ignores him. “That’s fine,” he says to Benson. “But then I’ll need to be on my way.”

  *

  By four thirty he’s back on the road. Benson didn’t want to take any money for the work on the car, but they compromised. Sean paid a hundred fifty for the part and nothing for the labor.

  The only other cost was a few minutes of talk with Benson and his son-in-law. They wanted to know what it was like, shooting Henry Keen.

  Sean told them it happened fast and didn’t seem quite real. When that didn’t sound like enough, he told them he felt as if something had been guiding his hand—like it was meant to happen.

  They nodded at that. Both of them solemn and thoughtful.

  “You got away easy,” Cole says in the car. “I was sure they were gonna make you show them the gun.”

  Sean puts the radio on, but he can’t find any music he likes. He turns it off and cracks the window and feels the air on his face. Before long he crosses the state line into Montana.

  There’s still a long way to go. Two hundred thirty miles to Long Meadow Ranch and Molly.

  12

  Jimmy Harper

  Jimmy and Nick spend Saturday night at the Airport Marriott in Houston. Sunday morning they’re on the first flight to Bozeman. There’s a stopover in Salt Lake City, and they’re in Montana by one in the afternoon.

  They rent a car and their first stop is a sporting goods store. Jimmy sends Nick in with a pocket full of cash. He comes out with a shotgun and a box of shells and two carbon-steel hunting knives.

  Their second stop is at a hardware store for a bag of zip ties and a hacksaw. Then they get lunch at a McDonald’s drive-through and head for Clyde Park.

  Nick takes the wheel. Jimmy, in the passenger seat, saws off the barrel of the shotgun. The drive takes less than an hour, the first half running east on I-90, the rest running north on a two-lane highway labeled Route 89. It’s farm country, rolling hills, mountains in the distance.

  Route 89 turns into First Avenue when it passes through Clyde Park. There are a handful of streets branching off from it. Jimmy and Nick take Brackett Creek Road, which curves west and crosses the Shields River by way of an old wooden bridge. Five miles on, there’s a turnoff for Long Meadow Ranch. Jimmy has Nick drive by and turn around and come back again. He knows from the Long Meadow website that there’s a farmhouse and a stable for the horses and a barn that’s been converted to a yoga studio. There are cabins where the guests stay and a dining hall where they eat. But the only thing visible from the road is the barn. Jimmy doesn’t know the layout, and the map on his phone is no help. The satellite image isn’t detailed enough.

  “Are we driving in?” Nick asks.

  That would be the worst option, Jimmy thinks. He doesn’t know if Molly’s still here; Sean might have already come and gone.

  They’ll need to do some reconnaissance.

  “No,” he says.

  They drive back into town. Jimmy is hoping for a visitors’ center but he’s disappointed. There are only a few shops and the Clyde Park Tavern. But there’s a post office, and in the lobby they find a rack of brochures meant for tourists. There’s one for a canoe livery and another offering guided hikes in the Gallatin National Forest. There’s a place that rents mountain bikes by the day or by the hour.

  The most promising item is a foldout map of nearby horse trails. Long Meadow Ranch shows up on the map, with a couple of rectangles that seem to represent buildings. It’s not much use in itself, but it gives Jimmy an idea. He turns to Nick and says, “When’s the last time you rode a bike?”

  Molly Winter

  Kate rides up beside her and says, “You holdin’ those reins right?”

  Molly laughs.

  There are twelve women on horseback spread out along the trail, and Kate and Molly are in the middle of the group. At the front of the line is Barbara Holland, the woman who’s running the retreat. She’s lean and leathery and wears her silver hair cut short under a wide-brimmed hat. Barbara has very particular ideas about how the reins should be held: one in each hand, looped around the first three fingers (pointer, middle, and ring); thumbs pointed up and slightly toward each other; hands five inches apart and a little above the saddle; elbows bent about ninety degrees.

  Molly and Kate got it wrong at first. Barbara wasn’t shy about correcting them. Now it’s a joke between them. Kate is especially good at imitating Barbara’s voice; she gives it a bit of rasp, as if she’s been breathing too much trail dust: You holdin’ those reins right?

  Kate is a real estate agent from San Diego. She’s ten years older than Molly and had a child when she was young. Now that her son is off at college she’s trying things she always wanted to try: surfing and hang gliding and riding horses.

  Molly likes her. Which is a good thing, because they’re sharing a cabin. The other women arrived here already paired up: they’re friends or sisters or mothers and daughters. Molly and Kate, the only two singletons, wound up together by necessity.

  The trail runs alongside a pasture for a while and then climbs up into a forest of pines and birches. At odd intervals, a space opens up between the trees, providing a view of distant mo
untains. Kate keeps pace with Molly for a quarter mile, then moves up along the line to chat with a schoolteacher from South Carolina.

  Molly stretches tall in the saddle and breathes. She takes things in: the scent of pine needles and the earthy smell of her horse; the feel of the reins laced through her fingers; the chill in the air that hints of the coming winter, even though it’s only October. She thinks of Sean and the last time they talked. She told him she was going on this retreat to breathe, and it’s true. He’s a cautious man, with good reason, and his caution has rubbed off on her. She used to love riding horses when she was a girl, and for that reason, paradoxically, she almost didn’t come here. Because riding horses was something from her past, and she and Sean have made a break with their pasts.

  But that way of thinking will do you in, if you let it. It’s confining, and Molly doesn’t want to be confined. She wants to breathe.

  She’s fallen into the rhythm of this place: meditation before breakfast; long yoga sessions that start mid-morning and last till noon; trail rides after lunch; stretches of free time throughout the day and in the evenings, with lectures here and there that you can attend or not as you please. She slips away when she wants to. Sometimes she walks down to the pond on the north end of the ranch; sometimes she watches the horses run free in the field near the stable.

  The horse they’ve given her to ride is a brown mare named Maggie. Which is only logical, Molly thinks. Maggie is short for Margaret, which is her name too. The horse is gentle and sure-footed, and Molly believes they’ve developed an understanding. She’s not worried about being thrown off.

  She would like to get Maggie up to a canter or even a gallop to see what she can do. She remembers what it felt like when she was a kid: the freedom of riding fast. But all the trail rides here are conducted at a stately walk. The teacher from South Carolina tried to trot her horse around the paddock once, and Barbara gave her a scolding.

  She was afraid the woman might be injured, no doubt. She was worried about liability.

  Molly wonders what Barbara would say if she knew she was pregnant. It’s a hypothetical question, because Molly’s not going to tell her. She hasn’t even been to a doctor yet; she’s only taken a drugstore test. She’s a few weeks along and very far from showing. She’s not going to let it prevent her from riding.

  A twenty-year-old from Boston moves up alongside her on the trail. The girl’s name is Robin and she’s here with her mother; the two of them are wearing matching cowboy hats and denim jackets. A lot of the women brought digital cameras, because they knew they’d have to give up their phones. Robin has a camera in her right hand and the reins of her horse gathered in her left. Barbara would probably frown on the arrangement, but Barbara isn’t looking.

  Robin raises the camera to shoot a selfie. She takes some time to get the angle right, because her mother is riding behind her and she wants her in the frame too. The shutter clicks. Afterward she glances at Molly and looks concerned. Molly smiles to let her know it’s okay.

  It’s a problem that Molly has thought about: showing up in pictures. Because pictures get posted online, and you never know who might see them. She found a solution on her first night here. She had a talk with Kate and made up a story about an ex-boyfriend who was sort of a stalker and prone to harassing her online. Even seeing her picture was enough to set him off. Kate spread the word, and now everyone knows that Molly is camera shy.

  Robin holds up the camera again, but Molly doesn’t mind. She can tell she’s not going to be in the frame. Up ahead on the trail, there’s some commotion, and Barbara’s voice calls out for everyone to stop.

  “You’re caught,” Molly says to Robin. “I don’t know why you thought you could get away with that, holding two reins with one hand.”

  The girl smiles.

  That’s not the reason they’re stopping, of course. Molly pats Maggie’s neck gently and looks ahead. There’s someone else on the trail. They’ve encountered other riders before, but this is different.

  It’s a young guy with a bike.

  Nick Ensen

  He was never any good at riding a goddamn bike.

  He didn’t tell Jimmy that. What he told Jimmy was: Sure, I can ride. It’s been a while, but you don’t forget, right?

  Nick thought he could manage. He always did okay on a flat, level surface. A street or a parking lot. No sweat. But if he had to weave around potholes or go down steep hills, he got skittish.

  And he never once rode in the fucking woods.

  It started out okay. He found his balance and got the bike into the right gear. He felt good, picking up speed, flying along the trail. Then he bumped over a tree root or some damn thing and slid on a patch of mud and bam he’s sprawled on the ground with his arm torn up. A strip of skin scraped off, four inches long.

  One good thing: it’s not bleeding much, just sort of seeping. Nick picks himself up, and one knee hurts like hell from the fall, but he’ll live. He stands the bike up and doesn’t see any damage, so after a minute he climbs on and starts to pedal. Right away he knows something’s wrong. The front tire’s gone soft.

  He hops down and walks the bike along the trail. On top of everything else, he thinks he’s lost. He should call Jimmy, but it’s not a call he wants to make.

  Turns out he doesn’t have to. He hears voices up ahead on the trail, and before long the first rider comes into view: a tough-looking old woman who fixes him with a dark stare.

  She gets down from her horse and Nick thinks she’s going to give him a hard time. Maybe he’s not supposed to ride a bike here. But what it is—she’s concerned. Because he looks like hell. His clothes are dirty from the fall and there’s a trickle of blood running down his arm.

  He finds himself telling her what happened, and she washes his arm with water from a canteen. Out of a saddle bag comes a big pad of gauze and she lays it on the wound and tapes it down. All the while, there’s a line of other women behind her on the trail, looking on.

  This is where his luck turns. The old woman is from the ranch, which is right where Nick wants to go. She tells him they’re heading back there now and he’s welcome to come with them as long as he follows at the end of the line and doesn’t spook the horses. She’ll find someone to help him with the bike or give him a ride into town.

  Nick accepts her offer and stands at the side of the trail, waiting for the women on horseback to file by. They’re friendly and open and curious about him. They look him over and he looks back.

  And there she is, in the middle of the group. She’s dark haired and slim and not exactly what he expected, because he’s only seen her in an old photo that Jimmy showed him on his phone.

  But it’s definitely her. Molly. The woman Jimmy’s looking for.

  Molly Winter

  The guy with the bike bothers her, though she can’t say why.

  She tries not to think about him on the ride back to the ranch. There’s a place where the trail comes down out of the forest, and she has to focus on keeping her balance in the saddle while the horse negotiates the descent. It’s a good excuse for putting all other thoughts out of her mind.

  After the ride, there’s a whole ritual to go through: tending to the horses. First there’s a cool-down walk around the paddock, and each rider gives her horse water. Then the bridles and the saddles come off, and it’s time for grooming: with a currycomb and a stiff brush and a soft one, all under the direction of Barbara Holland and a woman named Arlene who works for her. Arlene never goes on the trail rides, but she seems to know everything there is to know about the horses.

  When the grooming’s done, Molly leads Maggie to her stall and slips off her halter and hangs it on a hook. She kept some slices of apple from lunch, and she feeds them to the horse and whispers that she’s a good girl.

  She wants a shower, so she walks to the cabin where she’s staying. She finds that Kate got there ahead of her and had the same idea; she’s in the bathroom with the shower running. Nothing to do but wait
. Molly steps outside again and sits in a rocking chair; there are two in front of every cabin. The afternoon is fading and growing cooler. She looks across the yard at the main house.

  The guy from the trail is there by the front steps, drinking from a bottle of water. He looks at her and looks away, and she spends a good five minutes thinking about whether he looked away too fast.

  Silly.

  He pays her no attention after that. He’s tinkering with his bike, and Arlene comes along with an air pump to help him. Kate finishes her shower and Molly goes inside. Afterward, when she’s clean and dressed and thinking about dinner, she looks out the window and the bike guy is gone.

  13

  Jimmy Harper

  When Jimmy hears the results of Nick’s recon mission, he’s quiet for a long while. He’s thinking about how to approach things.

  One option is to wait, on the theory that Sean will come here sooner or later. That means staking out the entrance of the ranch, and there’s only the two of them, Jimmy and Nick, and no telling how long the stakeout would last. Even if it were practical, it might not pay off. Suppose Sean doesn’t come. Suppose he gets word to Molly and she slips away in the night. According to Nick, there are several cars parked on the ranch. One of them could be Molly’s. Are they going to stop every car that drives out?

  There is, of course, a second option. It seems desperate, but the more Jimmy considers it, the more he thinks it might be the best way.

  He knows that Molly’s here. He could take her.

  Then Sean would have to come to him.

  There are risks, but Jimmy thinks it could be done. He knows the layout of the place, because Nick has drawn him a map. He knows which cabin Molly’s staying in and that she’s got a roommate. Which makes it more complicated but not impossible. He might even be able to use the roommate as leverage. Come with me or your friend dies.