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"Macmillan. Maggie Macmillan," the younger man said from the corner of the porch behind them.
"As I was saying,” Mac continued, ignoring Charlie, and looking at Will. “Most things that will bring in money take time. That takes patience. It takes a steady hand. I like to think that we give the animals and the workers that here.”
“Mr. Gleeson,” Charlie said sternly.
The old man sighed, then turned, and gave Charlie a look.
Will couldn’t be certain why the old man seemed to take a dislike to Charlie. But he thought prejudice was a possibility.
“Which one of you am I talking to?” Mac grumbled. “Which one do I need to keep my eye on? Speak plainly, speak straight. I'd rather deal with one rather than two. That's true of business, and it's true of this if that Maggie girl has been killed.”
“Agent Carlson here is one of the best agents in the country at tracking down killers,” Will said, holding back his desire to chastise the old man. That would have been a sure way to make him close up. Sometimes grinning and bearing bad behavior was the only way to get access to someone's thoughts.
The old man raised an eyebrow. “So, you just along for the ride, are ya?”
“I bring my own set of skills to the team,” Will explained, “but they tend to be theoretical. Agent Carlson’s expertise in the field helps us decide whether those theories are worth anything in practice.”
Charlie gave Will a nod as if to say, "it’s okay, let’s try and keep this calm".
“Mr. Gleeson,” Charlie began again. “You mentioned a farmhand who works with you, Maggie? Do you believe the tattoo that I mentioned on the victim’s wrist is hers?”
“I’d say so,” Mac said. "Ya don't see many tats like that. Sad to hear it about her, but some people play with fire. When you do, you get burned.”
“Did she work here for long?” Charlie continued.
“Oh, a couple of years, maybe more.”
“It would seem that you're not all that upset that someone you knew for years has been brutally murdered,” Will said, eyeing the man suspiciously.
“She’d been warned,” he said. "But you know what the young are like. They never listen. The ones who do are the ones who get old. The ones who don’t, they normally come to a bad end. Maggie didn't listen. And now it looks like she won't be hearin' nothin' no more.”
“What is it about Maggie that you find objectionable?” Charlie asked.
“Mr. Gleeson doesn’t mean anything by it,” a voice said from behind. There was the young man who had been standing there with a shotgun when they first arrived.
“Harry, is it?” Charlie said, looking over his shoulder at him.
The man nodded.
“Harry,” the old man interrupted, “don’t you be botherin' the FBI here with your problems.”
Will looked at Mac and saw the open-eyed gaze that he gave Harry. It was one that was cold and commanding. But Charlie clearly wasn’t going to let the young man slip back into quiet repose if he had something important to say.
“We may have to question some who work here as well as yourself Mr. Gleeson,” Charlie said. "The more information we can get, the quicker we can catch the murderer.
"And stop him from killing anyone else," Will added. He was trying to appeal to the old man's sense of duty to his common man, if he had such a thing.
The old man slammed his fist onto his knee. “Can't a man have his business without being interrupted? What is it with all of these problems?”
Will sensed an opening. “Mr. Gleeson,” Will said. “What sort of problems have you been having?”
“Damn animals gettin' spooked, Lance Nielsen running off somewhere, and now this. Feels like with every week that passes, strange things are happening in these hills. Nothin' like I've ever known, and I've been here for decades.”
“Sometimes a bad run of luck is connected, other times it's random,” Charlie said. "Does Maggie have any family out here?"
"Not that I know of," Mac answered. "She didn't have much of a past. And I didn't ask. That's the way I like it. I just gave her a job, and that was it."
“Do you have any idea who may have hurt Maggie?”
