Dust Devil (28 page)

“
Sure
thing, Boss. Will do.” Morse Novak had worked at the
Tri-State
Tribune
for
several years and now held the position of managing editor. A Vietnam
veteran, he had twenty-odd years ago been stationed in that
war-torn
country,
where an explosion had left him a paraplegic and wheelchair bound.
Physically deprived, Morse had ever since concentrated on developing
his mental abilities. In addition to his job at the newspaper, Morse
taught night classes in computer science at the local state
university.

Since
buying the newspaper, Renzo had, like his father before him, come to
rely heavily on Morse, deeply appreciating his brains and talent.

“
Thanks,
Morse.” Whistling, his hands jammed into the pockets of his
trousers, Renzo strode from the newspaper office. With his parents
safely dispatched to Florida and things at the
Tri-State
Tribune
pretty
much settled following his acquisition of it, he was now free to
pursue his investigation into the past. Like any good reporter, Renzo
trusted his gut instincts, and these told him the place to begin was
the courthouse.

After
a short walk across the square in the afternoon sun, he entered the
cool halls of the huge old granite building, making his way to the
Records Office. There, he informed the clerk who waited on him that
he wanted to see a list of marriage licenses issued for the year
Sonny Holbrooke had died at the quarry, the year that he, Renzo, had
fled from town, leaving Sarah behind.

“
Hmm.
Let me think. That was before we got so darned newfangled and
computerized,” the elderly but efficient clerk declared.
Putting on her reading glasses, she made her way down a series of
metal shelves holding seemingly endless rows of record books. Pulling
a volume from a shelf, she handed it to Renzo. “Look at it at
that table over there, young man. Record books are town property
and
not
to be removed for any reason whatsoever from the courthouse
premises.”

“
I
understand. Thank you very much, ma’am.” Out of long
habit, because in his profession he never knew when somebody might be
of use to him, Renzo flashed the woman the dangerously roguish,
seductive grin with which he had wormed confidential information out
of countless administrative assistants, secretaries, receptionists
and office clerks over the years. “I promise I’ll handle
this book very carefully—the pages are yellowed, I see—and
that I’ll return it just as soon as I’m done.”

He
carried the volume over to the long wooden table she had indicated
and sat down, opening the book and beginning to turn its pages
slowly. He wasn’t interested in the months of January through
May, only those following that fatal summer. Just to be on the safe
side, however, he decided to start with June and began to read the
entries written on the ruled pages. More than an hour later, he had
finished. He couldn’t believe there were so many people in the
town and surrounding countryside who had got married that year. But
to his vast relief, none of them had been Sarah Kincaid or Bubba
Holbrooke. Of course, Sarah had been underage, Renzo reminded
himself, so it was entirely possible she had slipped across the
county or even the state line to be wed. Still, he didn’t think
that was too likely. His
mother
had written that Sarah had got married and moved away from town to
parts unknown. In that order.

Renzo
closed the volume and returned it to the clerk. “Much obliged,
ma’am.”

“
I
hope you found what you were looking for, young man. If I can help
you further, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

As
he left the courthouse, Renzo glanced down at his wristwatch, a gold
Rolex, his one extravagance over the years, save for his roadster, a
1974 Jaguar XKE. It was just shortly after two. Earlier, he had
checked the telephone directory, but had discovered no listing for
any Kincaid, either Dell, Iris or Sarah. He had then called directory
assistance, only to be told there was no number, not even an unlisted
one, for a Kincaid with any of those first names. There was, however,
an unlisted number for an S. B. Kincaid, the operator had informed
him. But as the number was, in fact, unlisted, she could not, of
course, give out it or the address.

S.
B. Kincaid. Sarah Beth Kincaid. It simply
had
to
be her, Renzo told himself now. He had found no marriage license for
her—at least not for the year of Sonny’s death. It was
entirely possible, of course, that she had wed later— twelve
years was a long time, after all—and that she was now divorced,
or that she was using her maiden name for professional reasons. That
was a momentarily depressing thought. He would make a run out to
Sarah’s old house, he decided now. But first, he’d go
back to the loft, grab a quick sandwich—as was often the case,
he had worked through lunch instead of eating—and change his
clothes. An Italian in jeans and a workshirt would be a hell of a lot
less conspicuous in Miners’ Row than an Italian in an expensive
dark suit, a crisp white shirt and a foulard tie. He didn’t
want anybody to think he was a mobster, checking up on Papa Nick’s
employees at the Genovese Coal Mining Co.

At
the thought of his grandfather, Renzo frowned. He owed it to the old
man, he supposed, to call on him at least once. Papa Nick was, after
all, not only his grandfather, but also had helped him that day he
had fled from town. Had, in fact, provided him with Hal Younger’s
name at the
Herald
and
thereby given Renzo the first break of his career, which had
eventually led to his winning the Pulitzer Prize. Besides, common
decency dictated that he visit Mama Rosa, his grandmother. She had
written to him several times over the years, and it was not her fault
that her husband was a mafioso. He’d go see them both tomorrow,
Renzo told himself. Right now, it was Sarah who was uppermost in his
mind.

Thirty
minutes later, Renzo stood in the big garage at the rear of
the
Tri-State
Tribune,
where
the newspapers were bundled and loaded into the trucks that stocked
the blue metal stands on various street corners in the business
district and deposited the rest of the newspapers at the pickup
locations for their routes. He had confiscated a small portion of the
garage for his own use, parking both the Jaguar and the Harley there.
Now, his dark brown eyes lighting with anticipatory pleasure, he
slowly drew from the motorcycle the canvas tarp that covered it. Papa
Nick had had someone restore the bike to mint condition, and Renzo’s
parents had kept it safe for him all these years. He hadn’t
ridden it or any other motorcycle since that fatal day at the quarry.
But it was like so many other skills acquired in one’s
youth—once you learned how, you never forgot.

After
wheeling the bike out into the alley behind the garage, Renzo climbed
aboard, inserted the key into the ignition and started the engine.
Moments later, he was speeding from the present into the past, the
wind streaming through his long, shaggy black hair, countless
memories assailing him.

And
Sarah Kincaid was a part of every single one.

The
acreage in which Lamar Rollins stood belonged to old “Farmer”
Farnsworth, but that wasn’t important to Lamar. All that
mattered to him was that the field had long ago been left fallow and
then had been forgotten. So the trees and tall prairie grass and
wildflowers that had once been burned away to clear the land had
gradually encroached again upon it, turning it as wild as it had been
before Farmer Farnsworth’s intrusion. All this had made it
ideal for Lamar’s purpose, however—which was the
undetected growing of marijuana. Every year since he had turned
thirteen, Lamar had searched the surrounding countryside for
isolated, virtually abandoned acreage, where he had furtively planted
the seedlings sprouted from seeds he had germinated in planter boxes
a month earlier. In the fields, he nurtured, cultivated and harvested
his illegal crop.

He
had started out small-time and been such a rube that he had let the
male plants proliferate, taking over his crop. As a result, he had
wound up smoking much of his mediocre grass himself and made very
little profit. Now, four years later, he knew to cut down the male
plants before their pods burst, so his principal crop consisted only
of the prized female plants. When they reached a height
of
approximately
three feet, he clipped off their lower leaves to produce even
stronger plants.

These
days, he made pretty good money, peddling his pot all over town as
well as selling it to the occasional buyer who hauled it to the big
city, for resale. This end of the business was, however, something
Lamar planned to take control of himself eventually, in order to
expand his growing marijuana enterprise. This goal had been greatly
aided last year when, after dropping out of Lincoln High School, he
had reluctantly gone to work as a janitor at Field-Yield, Inc., under
the supervision of his uncle Thaddeus.

At
first, Lamar had hated the job and considered it beneath him. He
wouldn’t have taken it at all, except that his grandmother had
badgered him constantly after he had quit school, asking him what he
intended to do with his life now and calling him a no-account fool.
Sick and tired of listening to her, relieved to escape from their
tumbledown house at night, he had at last grudgingly agreed to join
the labor pool at the fertilizer plant. Within days, he was glad he
had—because at Field-Yield, Inc., he had discovered two things:
fertilizer and computers.

Field-Yield
Guaranteed Growth worked so well on his
illegal
crop that more than once, Lamar had been tempted to leave a letter to
that effect on the desk of former governor J. D. Holbrooke, president
of the company, or to drop a note in the suggestion box, offering to
appear on one of Field-Yield, Inc.’s folksy, testimonial
farming commercials. Yes, indeed. The fertilizer had been highly
beneficial, increasing his grass yield several times over.

The
computers had proved a revelation.

Now,
whenever he could escape from Uncle Thaddeus-—which was often,
because his uncle was old and slow and not very bright—Lamar
slipped into one of the offices at the fertilizer plant and sat down
at its computer. At the monitor and keyboard, he had found his
milieu. The way he had, within just a few nights, begun to grasp
hardware, software, programming and cyberspace had been truly
astounding. He was a natural, the proverbial whiz kid, speeding down
the information superhighway, surfing the Internet. Via modem, a
whole wide world previously unknown to him had opened up to Lamar. In
many respects, it had given him a better and certainly a far broader
education than any he would ever have received at Lincoln High
School. And he had not been slow to perceive the possibilities. This
was better, even, than having a computer of his own, because he could
use the telephone lines and electricity at Field-Yield, Inc. for
free, not to mention not having to explain to his grandmother how he
had come to have the money to buy something so expensive as a
personal computer.

Unbeknown
to anyone at Field-Yield, Inc., Lamar had soon created a hidden
directory in the company’s computer system, in which he had
begun to record every single one of his marijuana transactions:
dates, times, places, clients, amounts bought and sold, and so forth.
What he would ever do with all this information, he didn’t
know, except that he thought of it as insurance, in case he should
ever be arrested or one of his customers should decide to get mean
and ugly. Some of them were Italians, and he would indeed, be the
fool his grandmother called him if he didn’t know they were
connected to the Mob, and perhaps
even
to Columbian drag lords and Jamaican gangs, who were even nastier
than the mafiosi. He had locked up his directory with a password
known only to himself and, as an additional security measure, had
made backup copies of his files on double-sided, high-density
diskettes he had stolen from one of the office-supply storerooms at
the fertilizer plant. He kept these concealed beneath a floorboard in
his bedroom at home.

“
Whooee!
Y’all sho’ are lookin’ good, babies,” Lamar
exclaimed now as he examined the pot plants he was growing in Farmer
Farnsworth’s field. “Umm-hmm. Y’all sho’ are
gonna be some good smoke.”