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“What are you doing here?”
“Accepting the role of deputy.”
25
“You said you weren’t coming back.”
“I say a lot of things.”
“You kept your keys?”
“I guess I forgot to hand them in.”
Barbara regarded Tucker thoughtfully. The removal of the beard and dreadlocks had taken the edge off his “wild man of the woods” appearance, and he’d obviously made an effort in a clean shirt and jeans. But the sheer mass of the man made him seem like a bear in captivity.
“Look,” Tucker said. “If you’ve changed your mind, I understand. Hell, I’m not even sure if I should be here. So just say the word and I’ll disappear again.”
“Let me tell you where I’m at, sir.” Barbara pulled out her chair and sat down. “Right now, I’m up shit creek without a paddle. So, frankly, I’ll take any help I can get.”
A low laugh. “So, you want to get me up to speed?”
She filled him in on the events of the last forty-eight hours as concisely as she could. Tucker pulled out a battered notebook and jotted things down in a loopy scrawl. When she had finally finished, he deadpanned: “That all?”
Barbara smiled. “Anything leap out at you? Anything that might tie this case to Todd Danes’s murder?”
“Aside from the ring?”
“Yeah.”
He sat back and considered. “Not really. The blood-dealing—that’s an odd one.”
“You know Dr. Dalton?”
“No. He must have moved here after I left town.” He scratched at his chin. “Seems odd to me that this Doc would want a Colony cull when he’s making money selling blood to them.”
“Cutting off his nose to spite his face,” Barbara said. “Yeah. I thought that too. And it might have nothing to do with Marcus Anderson’s death.”
“No. But when something stinks there’s usually shit nearby.”
Barbara’s turn to laugh. “Yessir.” She studied him. “Tell me about the Colony. Some background.”
“Well, it’s always been an uneasy coexistence. Colony was here first. Had a settlement up in the mountains. When the mine moved in, they were displaced, hunted, captured.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen some of the trophies in the Roadhouse Grill.”
Tucker sighed. “A lot of folk here have views I don’t agree with. But it takes time for attitudes to change. Generations. And it takes both sides wanting to change. The Colony aren’t the Waltons.”
“I understand that, sir.”
“But I was working on it. Visited the Colony with clothes, medicines—even vampyrs get sick sometimes. Eventually got Athelinda to talk to me.”
“I met her. Out in the woods.”
“She’s centuries old, dangerous and maybe a little crazy. And she has no love for humans.”
“Yet she talked to you?”
“Don’t mistake self-preservation for friendship or cooperation. If she thought slaughtering every soul in Deadhart would help the Colony, she’d do that too.” He paused. “I thought I was getting somewhere. But then Todd was killed, and everything went to hell.”
