Die Around Sundown by Mark Pryor

Author:Mark Pryor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“You’re late, and is that wine on your breath?” Mimi Bonaparte said as I collapsed into my leather armchair across from her. She stood with her arms crossed looking down at me with disapproval. For a moment the only sound was the heavy tick-tock of the clock on the mantel.

“Not as much as there should be.” To my left, on a side table, another glass of Pétrus sat waiting for me. I checked to make sure there were no flies taking a bath in it, and helped myself to a slow, sweet sip.

“Well, in any case we should get started.” She was annoyed with me for being so late, but I’d told her I had a job to do that week, so figured that was her problem. She sat down opposite me. “Or should I say, continue. I believe you were about to solve a murder and identify a traitor.”

“Ah, yes.” I settled back in my chair and stared into the ruby-red wine, letting my mind wander back two decades, to that small wood that had held our campsite. I half closed my eyes. “I don’t recall exactly what I told you, but here are the important points. First, we buried Mario Guerra where we found him. Wrapped him in that treacherous parachute and buried him in some foreign field. I can still see the clean gash in the silk that had made him fall thousands of feet.”

“Just so awful,” Mimi said, quietly.

“Tex said a prayer over him.” I tried to recall the incantation. “Ah, yes. ‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever. Amen.’ And then Tex crossed himself like the good little Catholic he said he was, and we walked away. Well, limped away, he’d hurt his ankle landing, but you get the idea.”

“Yes, and you went to the woods.”

“We gathered in a burnt-out barn, first. Ate a little something, talked. Worried about Tex as he seemed to have cracked a little. Right up until the minute we moved out of that barn he just sat there, digging in the dirt floor with a stick like a child.” I shook my head at the memory. “And then someone shot Claude Boudin in the head.”

Mimi sat bolt upright. “What?”

“I didn’t mention that before?”

“You most certainly did not.”

“Ah, my mistake. It happened soon after we left the barn, we’d made it about a quarter mile, Hangerland in the lead and Tex limping along in the rear. Out of nowhere, a shot rang out and Boudin dropped dead in the dirt.”

“My goodness, the poor man. Who shot him?”

“We never saw him. We just took off running, didn’t stop until we hit the trees. Even Tex with his injured ankle kept up with us, ran like the wind.”

“You just left Boudin there?”

“We certainly did.” I smiled grimly. “War can be like that. Unceremonious.”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry. I wasn’t judging your decision. Of course, you had to protect yourselves.”

“Yes. We did.”

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