“Oh.” Worth didn’t bother correcting him. “Right.”
“You need to be looking after him out there.”
“I am, Pop.” He patted the old man’s hand. “Don’t worry about us.”
“Goddamned black world. I could tell you things.”
Worth didn’t want to get him wound up, so he stopped talking.
They sat together and looked out the window, watching things turn white again for a while.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Two people played key roles in the writing of this novel. First: Dr. Mark Wurth, chiropractic wizard, who returned me to the walking-upright-and-sitting-in-chairs branch of the evolutionary tree. (Worth…Wurth…one of several eerie, unintended coincidences associated with this book.)
Second, but in no way second: Carol Doolittle—my mother—who kept our household running during the perfect storm of deadlines, sick kids, hospital stays, and assorted scheduling complications that was January 2006. Thanks, Mom. Sorry for all the bad words.
Thanks to Anthony Neil Smith, Victor Gischler, and John and Amy Rector, who offered keen comments on the manuscript. Special thanks to the Omaha Police Department for the ride-along. The bad cops in this book are strictly mine.
Extra-special thanks to super-agent David Hale Smith. And to my steely-eyed editors: Shannon Jamieson Vazquez, who shaped this book up, and Danielle Perez, who came in with the lens and the polishing cloth.
And to Jessica, 24/7, always.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Doolittle is the author of Rain Dogs, Burn, which was the winner of the gold medal in the mystery category; of ForeWord Magazine’s 2003 Book of the Year Award; and Dirt, which was an Amazon.com Top 100 Editor’s Pick for 2001. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with his wife and children.
ALSO BY SEAN DOOLITTLE
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BURN
DIRT
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The offices of Tyler & Tyler sat next to a taxidermy shop with a stuffed coyote in the window. The taxidermist had the bigger awning.
Standing curbside, Tom Coleman considered the attorneys he knew. None had a grip like George Tyler Jr.’s: blunt, callused, crusted with sun spots, knuckle hair like steel wool. He almost said uncle.
“You made it, Tom.”
“Sorry to drop in on you.” He was supposed to have arrived three days ago. Tom wasn’t completely sure what he was doing here now. Yesterday had been his daughter’s fifth birthday, and he’d spent it in a twenty-dollar motel room. Today he felt a dead coyote watching him through cloudy glass. “I should have called.”
“Never mind that, son. Glad you’re here. How was the drive?”
“Long,” Tom said. “But fine.”
“Any trouble finding the place?”
“No trouble.”
Tyler must have been pushing seventy, but he didn’t seem to notice. His weekday business attire appeared to run toward stiff dark blue jeans and Tony Lamas. Tom had caught him on the way out, zipping a windbreaker against the sunny March chill.
“Well, welcome to the Heart City.” Tyler nodded down the empty sidewalk, the quiet street. Downtown Valentine. “Don’t guess it’s quite the speed you’re used to in Chicago.”
As Tom started to respond, a big eighteen-wheeler rumbled past, heading for the highway junction at the end of Main. He started again and was defeated by a pickup pulling an empty horse trailer.
He gave up and nodded at the key ring on Tyler’s finger. “Is this a bad time? I can come back.”
“Do what? Nah. I was just headed down the street for a bite. You hungry?”
Tom wasn’t. Hungover. Getting thirsty. But not hungry.
“Hell, it’s early for lunch.” Tyler clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go on in. We’ll get the boring stuff out of the way.”
It sounded like a plan.
There were papers to read and sign. Tom pretended to read them and signed.
They sat in Tyler’s office, one of three small rooms off a small reception area that smelled like new paint. Tyler had a scarred wooden desk cluttered with file folders, a bookcase of legal volumes, a few trout flies in shadow boxes on the walls. They had the place to themselves.
“I’ll have Judy get you copies. She comes in Thursdays.”
“No rush.”
“That one at the bottom.” Tyler pointed to another sheet. “There you go.”
Tom scribbled his signature one last time and slid the entire folder back across the desk. His grandfather’s executor took the folder up, tapped the spine on the desk, and set it aside.
“I wish he’d gotten a few more years,” he said. “Your granddad.”
“He wasn’t too old.” Tom felt like he should say something else, but he didn’t know what.
“Besides the trick pump, I don’t know anything would have killed him. He was a character.”
“Is that the legal term for cranky old bastard?”
Tyler barked a laugh. “Tough as a whip and half as personable, George Senior always said. But I liked him. He was a good man.”
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Tyler, I didn’t really know him all that well.”
As a kid, Tom had spent one summer out here, in the Sandhills, hours west of the Nebraska he knew. He’d earned an allowance doing chores on a cow/calf operation his grandfather had owned at the time. This was several years before his grandmother gave in early to the same cancer that killed Zevon and McQueen. He’d been eleven or twelve years old.
Beyond that summer, twenty-odd years ago, he’d only seen the man on a handful of occasions. Most of what he knew about Parker Coleman he’d gotten through stories from his dad and uncles. He hadn’t even attended the funeral.