Free One Through the Heart by Kirk Russell Page B

at first to Raveneau, but was one of the floodlight bulbs bursting in a light fixture on the wall. Glass fell on to the concrete and it was darker at the table.
    ‘I set this meeting up so you could connect with them and maybe they could help you figure out who killed Ann Coryell. It’s something everyone in that chat room has obsessed over. I didn’t know he was going to call you out as a witness or get coy about this threat and suggest he knows about it.’
    ‘You didn’t know?’
    ‘Not at all.’
    ‘You’re certain?’
    ‘I’m very certain.’
    ‘I’m going to repeat myself. Investigations gather momentum and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of one looking at a threat like this.’
    ‘So I shouldn’t have set up the meeting or said anything to you on the mountain? Is that what you’re saying? You’re telling me I should have just stood there and watched you walk past even though I recognized you?’
    ‘That’s not what I’m saying and I’m not the one who called you on it. Attis did. He wasn’t talking to me about you. He was talking to you and letting me hear. The message was you have to pick a side and now.’
    ‘Oh, come on, talk about reading between the lines.’
    ‘That’s what I heard.’
    ‘But he didn’t say that.’
    ‘It’s a word game only for so long, Brandon.’
    ‘I hear you but right now all I’ve got are regrets that I introduced myself to you.’
    ‘Another way you could do this is say to him you’re in. Call him tonight. Tell him you heard him loud and clear and you’re in. Then work with us. That way you can be two-faced and legit.’
    ‘Two-faced and legit, did you just say that?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Bizarre.’ Lindsley stared down at the table and then finished his drink before rising and saying, ‘I’m done for the night and I might be done completely because I don’t really like the way you keep turning it back at me like I’m the problem. I see Attis. I get the guy is weird as hell, and I don’t want you tying me to him.’
    Raveneau walked out with him and watched Lindsley go around the corner before crossing to his car. Ten minutes later when he picked up a car following him he led the car away from where he lived, and then set the driver up and was out of his car and got a good look at the profile of Brandon Lindsley as he drove past. He thought about that for awhile before driving home.

FIFTEEN
    T he next morning Raveneau crossed the city in the clear early light. Two Ford pickups, one dark blue, one white, both with black lumber racks were parked nose to end in front of Lash’s house though it was too early to start making noise on a Saturday. A plumber’s truck was in the driveway, and Ferranti, the general contractor, stood drinking coffee enjoying the early cool talking with the plumber before the start of what was forecast to be record-breaking heat.
    Ferranti nodded as Raveneau drove slowly past, his expression a question mark about Raveneau’s presence today, though Raveneau had little doubt Ferranti would use the chance to ask about the bomb shelter. He did, intercepting Raveneau as he walked back down the street toward the house.
    ‘One of the owners of the house called me about half an hour ago. They’re tripping out on the negative energy. They think their house is going to be marked forever.’
    ‘What do they want to do?’
    ‘Fill it in, and they’re going to sue Lash, the realtors, and the people who did the inspections. But I know why none of the inspectors went very far into the garden shed. It was full of poisons, old insecticides, and some of it must have been fifty years old. I had to have a hazardous waste company come haul it away.’
    The claim the current owners made that the bomb shelter wasn’t disclosed at sale by Lash was true and kind of amazing when Raveneau thought about it. What it said to Raveneau was that Lash didn’t know what to do about what was down there. He may not have known about the skulls, but