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“There are a lot of people ranged against him,” Rain said. “Keep your eyes open.”
I looked at the gun in her hand. “Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “Good idea.”
CHAPTER 48
As the sheriff’s men were shoving the Iron Wolves into the backs of their cruisers, the sheriff came over to me.
“Their head guy wants to talk to you.”
I didn’t feel like chatting with Pete OneTree. Besides the drugs and the guns and stacks of dirty money in the van, I figured he’d killed Jim Pitts in cold blood. I wouldn’t be able to prove it and he’d be going away for the rest of his life on what was here, but it bothered me. There was no point to so much of this evil and death other than greed.
But I walked over. As fate would have it, Pete was in the back of the same SUV I’d been in yesterday. I could tell because there was a bullet hole in the front passenger seat as I got in the driver’s seat with the heavy wire mesh separating me from the back. He did not look happy. In fact, there was a sheen in his eyes that I’d seen before, but only in combat. When someone is at the end of what they can stand.
“What?” I demanded as I twisted around to face him.
Pete has his hands cuffed behind his back. I knew he wasn’t comfortable with his hands like that. Baldie and Blondie were standing a safe distance away, whether from me or OneTree, I wasn’t sure.
“I want to make a deal,” OneTree said.
“Tell it to the prosecutor,” I said.
“Not that kind of deal.”
“You’ve got nothing I want.”
“Jim Pitts’s killer,” Pete said.
“You’re going to rat out one of your own?” I was surprised. “You’re going to end up like Mickey at this rate. You haven’t even made it to jail and you’re turning.”
Pete shook his head. “Not one of my own. One of yours.”
“Bullshit.” I pointed across the development to the white pickup trucks. “I found the one that knocked Jim off the road. It was one of your—“
“Cash Porter.”
It did not shock me. “Why would Cash kill Jim Pitts?”
“I don’t think he meant to kill him,” Pete said. “At least not at first.”
“Go on.”
“When you saw Jim here the other day, he was offering me two hundred thousand to keep his father safe in prison.”
“To keep you from having him killed.”
“Same thing.”
“And you took it,” I said. “And still had Mickey killed.”
“Fuck Mickey.”
“You still haven’t given me a reason for Cash to get involved,” I said.
“Cash got himself involved,” Pete said. “Cash came in later, after Jimmy made the deal. Looking for money as always to keep the construction on track. I tossed him the two hundred K. New bills. Still in their wrappers. Which wasn’t the usual condition of the money I was giving Cash. He wanted to know where it came from. I told him.”
“So?”
“It was probably a mistake, but I told him that Jim Pitts had the other two hundred K in the other saddle bag. He’d taken what he paid me out of one. But both looked full. Cash must have gotten it in his head to go after him and try and get the other two hundred. He got his opportunity when Jimmy came by the next day to check in with me. He wanted reassurances. As if there was anything I could do about that. Cash was over at the construction trailers and saw him leave. Cash took off in one of the Vermillion trucks after him.”
