Blood Standard (An Isaiah Coleridge Novel) by Barron Laird

Author:Barron, Laird [Barron, Laird]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

The Walkers put on a breakfast spread in the main house. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, and coffee. One of Jade’s interns always smuggled home a few bags of beans when he performed relief work in South America. Jade’s and Virgil’s faces were drawn with grief. They smiled too broadly and with too much determination. Dawn Evans Walker greeted me with a scowl reminiscent of her daughter’s.

I wolfed down my eggs and related what I knew, omitting many of the finer points. Bottom line: Reba remained among the missing while I continued flailing after leads. Afterward, with the sky still black overhead and silver along the rim, I helped Gus feed the horses and shovel out the stables.

Lionel crept in, haggard and unshaven. No “Good morning” from him. He tugged his Stetson down low over his bloody eyes to avoid Coates’s withering glare, climbed aboard the tractor, and disappeared into the back forty as the sun finally broke upon the horizon. Jade brought out more coffee. Gus didn’t drink coffee. However, he happily gathered the sugar cubes and hid them in his pockets. The boy saved them as little treats for the horses. I sipped another cup of coffee and chatted with him about a dead mouse he’d scooped from the water trough and how it might be safer if he laced his boots properly. Fairly typical of an exciting morning at the farm.

Detective Rourke buzzed me. He’d run Hank Stephens through the database. Twenty-four years old and the proud owner of a rap sheet with way too many of the lines and boxes filled in. Felony assault, burglary, and possession with intent to sell were the biggies. Current whereabouts unknown, although his mama lived on a plot in the lower Catskills. Known criminal associates numbered in the scores; however, two matched nicely with the thugs I’d encountered at the Fire Festival—Philippe Martinez and Eddy Yellowknife. Both men had lists of priors a yard long, both were White Manitou foot soldiers. Neither possessed a current fixed place of residence since they had immigrated from Mexico and Canada, respectively, and neither had pinged the radar in over a week. I took down the address for Stephens and wished the detective a beautiful day.

I changed into a windbreaker, fresh jeans, and steel-toed hiking boots, jumped in the truck, and headed in a northerly direction.

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