Page 17 of Dodge

“He’s into the narco trade, so I was talking to some of your tweakers, dropping twenties. Thinking he might be where they hang. They said they never saw him, and I believed them. But the name Wexler came up.”

A troubled look momentarily flickered in the sheriff’s eyes.

“I went into his place. Hogan’s. Had a slugfest with one of his boys.” She shrugged. “I needed to make them believe I wasn’t law.”

“What happened with Wexler?”

“Paid him twenty-five hundred down to give me Offenbach.”

“My, you got yourself some budget.”

“From my savings. Personal.”

“Oh.”

“Either Wexler’d do what I asked and give me Offenbach or he’d dime me out to him and pocket two fees. Turned out to be the second. I spotted one of his men following me from the bar to the Western Valley Lodge. He got word to Offenbach where I was staying.”

“Western Valley? Had a complaint about damaged rooms and a missing guest not an hour ago. Seems you’ve had a busy day in Harbinger County, Agent Marlowe.”

She gave no reaction, “So Offenbach—playing the marshal—shows up. Somehow he got the key—”

“That’d be Wexler. Nearly every business in town, he speaks, they jump.”

Constant Marlowe cast anger the way other people threw off shadows on a bright day. She controlled herself once more. “I was ready for him. He was about to walk in. But changed his mind. Got spooked, I guess. Took off before I could do anything.”

“‘Do anything’?” With this the sheriff looked at her the way he would probably regard a DUI who claimed he’d had only two beers before driving into a street sign.

She clarified, “Arrest him.”

And Sheriff Braddock became the second person in the space of a few hours she lied to about her intention to murder Paul Offenbach.

A loud roar of a diesel engine. The tow truck was lifting the cruiser’s rear. Tiny bits of glass fell like glittery hail.

“Your deputy ...”

“Tony Lombardi.”

“How’d he end up in this?”

“Offenbach’s story was he was hunting for you because you murdered his assistant and went on to kill a couple in the Witness Protection Program. And Tony said, that is,wrote, before he went into surgery, that you sent him a text and a tape of somebody screaming to scare you off.”

Jesus ... Marlowe steadied her center. This wasn’t easy. “No, Offenbach sentmethe text.”

“And the recording was your friend?” Braddock added in a whisper, “Being murdered.”

She nodded. If she’d answered aloud, the words might have become a scream.

“Almighty.”

With a clattering grind, the tow truck dragged the cruiser free.

“This’s not the sort of thing we see round here, crime-wise. Don’t think you see itanywhere.”

“Offenbach’s unique. Pure sociopath. But add to that he’s brilliant. He’s a chess player, paid half his college tuition that way. He plays four or five games at a time. Sometimes blindfolded.”

“You can do that?”

“I guess.”

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