Harvestman.
Official records said that the Harvestman was Robert Swan, Martin Maxwell’s estranged half-brother. The government said that Swan had murdered Maxwell, along with his wife and children, before going on his four-year killing spree. Cain found that most insulting. Swan, a hopeless musician, could barely pick a tune out of a guitar, never mind pick the bones from a body. Nevertheless, the story served the government well, considering they did not want a scandal erupting that one of their own was a psychopath. John Telfer knew otherwise, so the CIA, Secret Service and others would want to ensure that he kept that knowledge to himself. Likely he’d have twenty-four/seven chaperones so that he didn’t get too loose in the lips.
Cain and Telfer shared a common bond.
Both were living dead men.
According to the government records Telfer had been the Harvestman’s final victim and, like Cain, he hadn’t survived Jubal’s Hollow. It was time to put a final exclamation mark on that statement.
Chapter 12
‘I’m glad I caught you, Harve. Florida’s probably a dead end. There’s been a change of plan. I’m going to come to Little Rock and reacquaint myself with an old friend.’
Hartlaub and Brigham had dropped me back at the airstrip where the small plane that had brought us from Maine awaited my return. I was predictable in that sense, so it was no surprise to find that the plane had been prepped to take me on to another location. The pilot was your typical ‘ask no questions’ type employed by the CIA and our sole interaction was him telling me to strap in, then he took us west towards Arkansas. Hartlaub and Brigham watched us swoop into a sky the colour of ashes; neither man felt the need to wave goodbye.
As soon as we were in the air, I called Harvey on my phone, after first checking that Rink hadn’t left a reply at the voicemail box I’d used earlier.
‘You’re talking about Sigmund Petoskey?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, recalling the last time I’d seen the sanctimonious piece of shit. Sometimes I regretted not putting a bullet through his skull, but I didn’t have the proof that he had anything to do with the danger John was mixed up in until much later. Occasionally I’d thought about a return trip to Little Rock with the intention of righting that wrong, only I’d been busy with other more urgent tasks in the past year or so. I told Harvey about Walter’s suspicion that the Hendrickson organisation was behind Tubal Cain’s escape and, more than likely, Rink’s sudden disappearance. Sigmund Petoskey was Hendrickson’s man out in Arkansas. ‘I think that Siggy is a good starting point.’
‘I’ll get on it and see if I can locate him. His old haunts have been shut down, and now that he has an impending court case he’s playing at being lily-white for the media. Chances are he’s laying low somewhere the cameras can’t see the sweat on his brow.’
‘That suits me fine.’
When I first met Harvey, he’d been reluctant to help. Siggy Petoskey was the local gangster in his neighbourhood and he’d worried that he’d feel the man’s wrath after Rink and I left town. As it happened, something had thrust him directly into the middle of the war we’d waged against the Hendrickson gang. It culminated in Harvey shooting dead a hit man who was chasing my brother John. The fact that the hit man chose to beat up Louise Blake, my brother’s ex, had snapped something in Harvey and he’d forgotten all about his fear. Since then, Harvey had kind of joined my club. I knew that I could rely on him to back me up all the way.
‘How is Louise?’ I asked.
Having saved her life, Harvey had taken it upon himself to look after Louise. She’d welcomed his company, but in the interim I sensed that they’d drifted apart. Harvey hadn’t mentioned her in the last few months. Their relationship, in part, wasn’t so unlike mine and Imogen’s.
‘You think that she could be in danger?’ Harvey
Promised to Me
Joyee Flynn
Odette C. Bell
J.B. Garner
Marissa Honeycutt
Tracy Rozzlynn
Robert Bausch
Morgan Rice
Ann Purser
Alex Lukeman