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Georgie shakes her head and pats my hand. ‘There’s something much more valuablebeneaththe soil, dear. Gold. They want to take the land off me, chop down the trees, and start digging up the earth for treasure.'
‘Oh my.’
‘There’s an old gold mine to the back of my property, as it happens. My grandpappy closed it down eventually. Always thought it was harming the land, what with the deforestation and damage to the aquatic systems.’
As far as I know, there’s only one gold mine left in Colorado, so this makes sense. Doesn’t seem right to start dredging up more land. Let sleeping dogs lie.
‘Aside from the red baseball caps,’ says the Sheriff, picking up a notepad from his desk and flicking back through it, checking he hasn’t missed any vital detail, ‘is thereanythingelse you remember about them? Anything at all?’
‘Well, one of them had red hair,’ Georgie says, scratching her chin. ‘And the other, like I’ve already told you, had a long scar running down one side of his head.’
Hearing this detail stirs something in me. Didn’t Sadie mention a guy with a long scar running down the side of his face turning up at her apartment in New York the other night? That’sgotto just be a coincidence, right?
‘They were big guys, a little overweight, like me, I guess… To be honest, I was so taken aback by the whole thing — it was so early in the day, and I was just on my way out to feed the horses — I barely got a chance to look at them. There was one other thing about them I found a bit strange. They had tattoos, but heck, half the world has tattoos nowadays, including my lovely young protector here —’ She beams at Finn. ‘But what I figured was strange about the tattoostheseguys had was they both had the same one. Right on the back of their hand, in plain black lettering. IV.’
Finn looks like he’s just seen a ghost. ‘IV? You sure about that, Georgie?’
‘Yes. Four, in Roman numerals. I remember it perfectly, because I found it so very odd.’
Finn looks at Sheriff Potts, raises his eyebrows, then goes silent.
12
FINN
When Violet first told me which jail Chris was in, I knew immediately what kind of stuff he could get mixed up in.
I might never have been to jail myself, but I’ve known guys, good guys, who’ve ended up in bad situations. Some of them ex-military, but some of them just regular guys too. It doesn’t take a lot to go too far one day, to become desperate, to do something you later regret.
And one of the guys I knew, Bryce — he was ex-military, as it happened — he got mixed up in all sorts when he returned from Iraq. Most guys were affected in one way or another. A lot of them just grew quiet and closed up, others took up hobbies to try and deal with things — painting, making ships in bottles, whatever they could put their hand to. But not Bryce. Bryce couldn’t handle civilian life. Bryce returned believing he was still on active duty. Became something of a vigilante, and a misguided one at that. A few weeks after he returned home, he tried to stop a guy ‘breaking in’ to his neighbor’s house late at night. Shot the guy’s finger off. Turned out the guy in question actuallywasthe neighbor, just trying to get into his own home after an evening out at the movies.
Bryce was sent to a correctional facility down in Santa Fe. The Penitentiary of New Mexico. A maximum-security men’s prison, containing a Supermax facility housing New Mexico’s Death Row.
Bryce didn’t end up on Death Row, of course. He was in Cell Block 4. I know this because he wrote me a couple letters, before he grew too depressed to bother anymore, poor guy.
I remember it was Cell Block 4, because that’s where the prison riots happened back in 1980. Damn bloody mess. Thirty-three inmates killed. Twelve officers held hostage. According to Bryce, in his very first letter, there was a gang in that block, all had the number four tattooed on the back of their hands, paying tribute to those who started the riots. Bryce said they were a ruthless, violent group, running all sorts of fucked-up shit from inside the prison walls.
They tried to bully Bryce into doing stuff for them, getting his wife to smuggle drugs into the jail inside burritos or cigarette packets or whatever, and tapping whoever he could for as much cash as he could get, but Bryce was an ex-serviceman, and he had a sense of honor, even if he was struggling with his mental health.
When I discovered Chris was headed to the same place, I was certain he wouldn’t have the integrity to say no to the gang.
So, the two guys who paid Georgie a breakfast-time visit this morning were either jail-breakers, or they’d just been granted their freedom. Call them mafia or the mob or criminal gangsters, whatever you want. I just call them Bad Dudes.
After filling in Sheriff Potts on everything I know — about the gang, the tattoos, and so on — Addison and I get back in the Chevy.
I haven’t told her yet that I believe Chris is mixed up in this shit, that he went to the same jail as these guys, but I’m about to. Want to help her relax first, though.
‘Thought we could grab something at the diner on the way home,’ I tell her. ‘It’s just a mile or so up the road. Eric will be alright at the cabin on his own for another couple hours.’
Addison turns to look at me, dark circles under her eyes. The poor girl is exhausted, after all this stressful activity she’s been subjected to.
Sorry, wifey, I'm about to make your day ten hundred times worse.
I was actually mighty impressed with the way she handled herself back at the sheriff’s office. She didn’t make this about her, like some people might have done. She listened, she asked Georgie questions, and she tried to reassure her. Not that Georgie needs reassuring, exactly. She’s a tough old thing and I love her for that.
My opinion of Addy just keeps getting better and better.
‘It’d be great to get some food,’ says Addison. ‘Maybe then we can talk.’
