LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON Pam Tibbs parked the department’s Jeep Cherokee at Hackberry’s front gate and walked up the flagstone steps to his gallery and knocked on the door. He answered in his sock feet, his reading glasses on his nose. “I called twice and you didn’t answer, so I thought I’d drive out,” she said.
“I was in the pasture,” he said.
“Maydeen got a report on an illegal dumping and another one on a break-in at a hunting camp. Both instances involved two guys. The dumping turned out not to be a dumping.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Last night a motorist saw two guys prowling in a creek bed and thought they were dumping trash. It turned out they were rifling the back of a camper. They stole some clothes and shoes and sleeping bags and a propane stove and a first-aid kit. This morning a guy with a long, pointy beard, wearing a tattered suit coat, was seen busting the lock on the back door of a hunting camp. He sounds like the same homeless guy who’s been getting into people’s garbage by Chapala Crossing. Except this time he had someone with him. They cleaned about forty pounds of venison out of the game locker. The witness said the guy in the tattered coat looked like he belted his trousers with a piece of clothesline. Sound familiar?”
“Jack Collins is dead,” Hackberry said.
“You’re convinced of that?”
“He either died of his wounds underground or was eaten by coyotes or cougars. He wasn’t a supernatural entity. He was a psychopath and misogynist who probably couldn’t tie his shoes without a diagram.”
“Then who’s the guy who keeps showing up around here?”
“Another lunatic. We’re not in short supply of them.”
“The guy with the tramp was limping. Like maybe a guy who ran a long distance with no shoes on.”
“The man who escaped from Krill?”
“You know that burned-out shack where the tramp with the beard was probably living?”
“What about it?”
“I checked it out. It was soaked with an accelerant. Who would go to that much trouble to burn a shack?”
“You really think Collins is alive?”
“I’m not sure. But I’m bothered that you won’t accept the possibility. I think you want to believe that evil dies.”
She couldn’t tell if he was thinking about what she had said or if he had lost interest. The sun had gone behind a hill, darkening the inside of his house, and she couldn’t see past him into the shadows. “Did I disturb you?” she said.
“Pardon?”
“You didn’t invite me in. Are you with someone?”
“Do I look like it?”
“You tell me. Did you enjoy your Mexican dinner with China’s answer to Mary Magdalene?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “It’s a small town. Why don’t you at least spend the gas money to go into another county?”
“You need to concentrate on other matters, Pam.”
“You’re eating out with a woman who’s part of a homicide investigation. Maybe someone who’s aiding and abetting.”
“Come in.”
“No.”
“Don’t be resentful toward her.”
“I’m resentful toward you. You’re letting her jerk you around. You’re acting like a damn fool.”
“You mean an old fool.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. Don’t you dare act like I’ve ever been disloyal to you.”