Page 51

“That’s the part he wanted us to notice.”

“How’d he get it?”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s got it. That’s the whole message, everything after it is decoration.” Fox turned the cigar a quarter turn without picking it up. “He says he doesn’t want a war. Used the words ‘a conflict would be regrettable’.”

“Regrettable.”

“That’s what he wrote.”

“Man talks like a fucking insurance adjuster.”

“Man talks like somebody who’s never once said a sentence that could be read back to him in a courtroom. That’s worse.” Fox let that sit. “He doesn’t want us hurt, Patch. He wants a thread cut.” Fox turned the cigar a quarter turn without picking it up. “Not hers. Kessler’s. The State was already inside that clinic before your girl ever drew a vial, and whatever they were looking at, they were looking at it because of Kessler.”

“And she’s the one who walks the auditor through it.”

“She’s the one who’s been signing the log for six years and can tell a woman with a lanyard which shortfalls she wrote down and when.” Fox sat back. “Kessler will say whatever keeps him out of a cell, and every word of it falls apart the second she opens her mouth. She’s the only thing standing between him and a prosecutor.”

“Ketamine through agricultural accounts.”

“Feed store on the paper. Operating room in the damn box.” He nodded. “Maren’s clinic is one dot on a long line. Her log is the thing that could open it.”

“So he’s not asking us to hand her over.”

“No. He’s describing what becomes necessary.” Fox’s mouth went hard. “Politely. Passive voice. Like it’s weather and not a decision some son of a bitch is making.”

I sat there and ran it the way I run everything. “She’s in the compound,” I said.

“I know.” Two words. He held my eyes while he said them and didn’t blink and didn’t soften them.

“Say it out loud,” I said.

“You know what I’m going to say.”

“Say it anyway.”

“The compound ends at the gate.” Fox sat back. “Chain-link, twenty-four hour rotation, cameras on every pole, forty acres that have held against worse men than this one. And every bit of that stops at the cattle guard.”

“Maple Grove’s past it.”

“Maple Grove’s past it,” he agreed. “And you already know everything I’d say next, so I’m not going to say it.”

“I’m aware of the Sundays.”

“I know you are. I’m saying it because you’re going to make a decision in the next ten seconds, and I want you making it with the whole board in front of you.” He picked the cigar up, looked at it, and set it back down. “So how long does a gate hold her?”

“That’s a hell of a question to put to the man who runs one.”

“That’s exactly the man you ask.” Fox didn’t move. “You’ve spent twenty years telling us where everybody is. Tell me where she’s going to be on Sunday.”

I got up.

“Patch.”

I stopped at the door.

“Whatever you’re about to do,” Fox said, “do it with brothers.”

I didn’t answer that either. I was collecting a hell of a list.