He ignored my show of emotion. “First of all, I didn’t even want to hear your proposition. But you insisted, and against my better judgment, I agreed to meet with you. I held up my end of the bargain. You’re the one who walked away.”
“I chose to go find out if Marco had been hurt or killed.”
He held out his hands, palm up. “Like I said. You made a choice.”
“You’re telling me that if I came to you now with information that might implicate an enemy—say, Bart—you’d stick around and chat even if you knew Lula was in danger?”
He leaned forward. “Business always comes first.”
“So you’re holing up on your compound for business?” I asked. “And not to keep Lula and Beatrice safe?”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare insinuate I’m hidin’ like a coward.”
“You’re the last person I’d ever accuse of being a coward, not to mention sometimes the best offense is to sit and wait a person out.”
“You sound like you have plenty of experience with that,” he said in a derisive tone.
“Isn’t that what I’m doing with Bart Drummond?”
“Sittin’ around and waitin’ for someone else to make the first move is cowardice.”
Which meant he had some kind of plan in play to deal with Louise. Was I about to get caught up in it?
“I’m not sure whether you’ve talked to your wife,” I said in a snotty tone, “but I stopped by your house this afternoon to warn her that her mother was in town.”
“I know all about that,” he said, then shifted his weight. His body language was making it hard for me to figure out if he was telling the truth. “What did Louise want?”
Had Lula really not told him about our talk? Surely, she’d told him what Louise had asked of me. It was possible she’d purposefully kept it from him, but Bingham might also be testing me. In the end, I figured I had more to lose by not telling him. Like possibly my life.
“She wants me to find a black metal toolbox. Know anything about that?”
“Why would I know about a toolbox?” The twitch of his right eyelid suggested he was lying.
So Lula had told him. That or he really did know what Louise was up to.
“For the record,” I said, “I never told Louise I’d help her, and even if I found the toolbox, I’m not at all sure I’d give it to her.”
“Why would you consider helpin’ her at all?” he asked. “What did she offer you?”
“She says she has information about who ran Jerry off the road.”
“What’s it to you who ran him off the road?” he asked.
“Because I’m pretty damn sure it was the same person who showed up at Marco’s house that same morning, warning me to back off or else people I cared about would find themselves in accidents. That night Jerry was run off the road.”
He shrugged, looking annoyed. “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”
“Have you no compassion?” I asked in disgust.
“No, and the sooner you realize that, the safer you’ll be. What else did she offer?”
“Telling me who killed my friend isn’t enough?”
“Not by a damn long shot. And how the hell would she know unless she ran him off the road herself?” He grinned. “Did you stop to consider that?”
It had run through my mind, but I wasn’t going to admit it. “Has Lula told you what she remembers about who tried to drown her?”
He gave me a dark look. “We don’t keep any secrets.”
“Louise told me it was Bart Drummond and not Walter Baker.”
“He didn’t take kindly to the news that he was the father of a bouncing eight-year-old girl?”
Did this mean Lula hadn’t told him about her new memories? About Hank sopping wet in the background?
I hoped not. Because if he knew, he might go after Hank without bothering to find out what it all meant.
“So I heard,” I said, “but I can’t help thinking there’s more to the whole story. Louise indicated she had a plan to get even. I think she hid something before she was arrested. What if she came back to town because she plans on finally cashing it in?”
“What the hell was it?”
Part of me wanted to admit that she’d claimed to have stolen Hank’s money, but I didn’t like the idea of Bingham holding all the cards. He sure wasn’t showing me his hand. “Emily said that Louise went to see Bart the day Walter died. Do you think the purpose of the visit was to bring Bart a box of cigars and deliver the It’s a Girl! good news? If so, why wait eight years? It seems to me that it was something different, something bigger—Lula’s parentage was only part of their discussion. Maybe even an aside. What if Louise was there for something else? And suppose she wasn’t happy with the outcome. She seems like the kind of woman who keeps plenty of cards up her sleeve, and maybe telling Bart he had a daughter was part of her B-game.”
He frowned. “Seems plausible.”
“Walter used to work for Hank, and Louise worked for Mary, which means the information or task or whatever Bart had wanted from her was likely related to Hank.”
He shifted in his seat, leaning closer as he tapped the table. “Or maybe she found information about Hank and offered it to Bart in exchange for something she wanted.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment. “But what was it?”
“Whatever it was must have fit in a toolbox.”
“Could’ve been one helluva big toolbox. I’ve got some massive ones at my shop.”
“She claims it was small.” I held my hands out to show him the approximate size.
“About two feet,” he grumbled. “Can’t fit much in something that small.”
“She said it was padlocked.”
“Pfft. That doesn’t mean nothing,” he scoffed. “I could’ve cut that off in seconds.”
“So how do we go about finding what she might have hidden inside it?” I asked.
A slow grin spread across his face. “By findin’ the toolbox.”
“Louise claimed it was on the property somewhere.” I started to tell him that Lula had seen it, but I really didn’t want to get her in trouble, so I said, “I remember seeing it in the loft the first time I was there looking for Lula.”
His brow shot up. “Did you now?”
But if Louise is telling the truth, then the toolbox is gone. She claims it was stolen, and she wants me to look for it.”
* * *
“Louise has always loved to stir up shit,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “Did you stop to consider that she’s sweeping you up into a big pile of it now?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up. “There’s every chance she’s stringing me along.”
“But there’s also a good chance she really had something,” he said. “And it’s either connected with Drummond or Chalmers.”
“Louise said she took the fall for her husband’s murder for a Bart favor. But her debt is paid. I think she’s going after him.”
“We can’t discount the idea she had something on Hank,” he said.