Free Watch Me by James Carol Page A

sprinting up that career ladder. Keep on at this rate and they’ll be fitting you for that brand-new sheriff’s uniform in no time.’
    ‘So what happens now?’
    ‘Now we work the case. We start by having a good look at Sam Galloway. If in doubt, always go back to the victim. It’s amazing what the dead can tell you if you take the time to listen.’
    I took out a quarter and flipped it. Dull metal spun through the air, throwing off sparks of muted light. I slapped the coin down onto the back of my hand.
    ‘Heads we go talk to the widow. Tails we check out Sam’s office.’

13
    McArthur Heights was to the north-west of Eagle Creek, out where the houses were cathedrals and the golf club was just a short drive away. Taylor stuck to the speed limit, eyes glued to the road even though traffic was light, signalling even when it wasn’t necessary.
    ‘My turn for some questions,’ I told Taylor. ‘I’ve dealt with a lot of sheriff’s departments, and do you know how many own a Gulfstream 550? Zero, zilch, nada. Go out and buy one tomorrow and you’re not going to have much change out of fifty million bucks. And we’re talking second hand. Budgets are being cut all the time. There’s barely enough money for paperclips, never mind a personal jet.’
    ‘We don’t own our own Gulfstream.’
    I laughed. ‘Yeah, I’d already worked that one out. What I want to know is who you borrowed it from, and, more importantly, why they let you borrow it. If I owned a Gulfstream, I wouldn’t let you borrow it, and I like you.’
    ‘The plane is owned by Morgan Holdings. The Morgan family have been in Eagle Creek since forever. They own a large chunk of Dayton. Did you see the statue in the town square?’
    I nodded. ‘It’s hard to miss.’
    ‘That was Randall Morgan. He discovered oil on his farm back in the early 1900s, the first oil strike in Dayton. Local history has him painted as some sort of saint. It’s like he was one of the Founding Fathers. Let me tell you, he was no saint. As soon as the money started rolling in, he started buying up land, anywhere he thought might have oil. When it came to getting people to sell up, he could be very persuasive, if you know what I mean.’
    ‘Broken limb persuasive.’
    Taylor was nodding and staring straight ahead at the road. There was tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there a minute ago, tension in his face. Tension all over. His fingers tightened and relaxed on the wheel, knuckles turning brown to white then back again.
    ‘Grandfather or great-grandfather?’ I asked softly.
    ‘My great-grandfather. He had a smallholding twenty miles north of Eagle Creek. He grew some corn, raised some livestock, scratched out something that might have been called a living. Which was really no life at all. Go back to the start of the last century and there weren’t many black men who owned land in the South, and any that did, you can guarantee that the land wasn’t up to much.’
    ‘So Randall offers to buy the land for a pittance. Your great-grandfather tells him to shove it, and Randall sends in the heavies to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.’
    ‘Not quite.’
    Taylor’s fingers were still kneading the steering wheel. Over a century had passed yet the anger was still there. Memories run particularly long in this part of the world, and I was getting first-hand experience of just how deep those ancient resentments went.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘Randall sent in a lynch mob. Half a dozen men on horses dressed in white sheets and wearing white hoods. They dragged my great-grandfather from his house in the middle of the night, strung him up from the first tree they found and erected a burning cross in the yard. Next day Randall turns up with a lawyer and a contract and gets my great-grandmother to put her mark on it.’ Taylor shook his head. ‘Do you want to know the real tragedy, Winter? There was no oil on that land. It was just a worthless couple of acres. My