Read Online Ghost Dance by Mark T. Sullivan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mark T. Sullivan
Tags: Suspense
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negotiations and he needs to stay on top of this.’
Nightingale snorted. ‘Mike, it doesn’t matter to me whether some developer from New Jersey who’s looking to build a hundred-million-dollar hotel on the mountain continues to think Lawton is a perfect Vermont community. It isn’t. Never has been. And you’d know better than most, wouldn’t you?’
The look Kerris shot Nightingale could have killed.
CHAPTER NINE
T WO HOURS LATER PATRICK Gallagher refolded the Rutland Herald and pushed back his plate at the Miss Lawton Diner, a restored club-car hash joint downtown between the Hard Cider Gifts building and a Ralph Lauren outlet. The booths and the red swivel counter seats were filled with locals: dairy delivery men sat beside lawyers who brushed shoulders with crunchy-granola environmental activists who nodded to country-music singers and bleary-eyed turkey hunters. All of them were either talking in hushed, concerned tones about the murder or reading the coverage in the paper.
The Herald ’s front page carried a twenty-inch follow-up to Sunday’s story and a piece about the ecological ramifications of the proposed massive hotel-and-condominium development to be built at the base of the small ski area up on Lawton Mountain. Gallagher read the latter article until Mayor Powell was quoted spouting a platitude about the development taking Lawton into the twenty-first century.
The follow-up to the Potter killing was much more interesting and he went over it a second time. The story described the state police evidence team descending on the dentist’s home and property. The article went on to identify a bridge over the Bluekill as the likely site of the killing, but made no mention of the note or the drawing Gallagher had seen two nights before.
Lieutenant Bowman, not Nightingale, had fielded questions about the case. Both she and Chief Kerris had made statements on Sunday about state and local agencies cooperating fully in the investigation. By the second day of the story Gallagher had become an afterthought, referred to as ‘a vacationing New York City angler who had discovered Potter’s body in the Bluekill.’
Gallagher had refused to talk with the young reporter who’d called Sunday afternoon. He knew if he leaked the secret of the note, the police would leave him out of the loop. Ever since he’d seen the drawing, he’d been obsessing about the case. The tenor of his questions had shifted from the philosophical to the practical. Had Hank Potter known his killer? From the tone of the note, revenge did seem part of the killer’s motivation. Revenge on the dentist? Or revenge on Lawton? Or both?
For Gallagher, thinking about the murder was like finally awakening after a long humid sleep in the hot summer sun. He had always been energized by the exploration of new customs and mores. A murder investigation struck Gallagher as a perfect culture in which to nose around. And, he had to admit, a perfect way to avoid nosing around inside himself.
There was also Andie Nightingale. She had been on his mind as often as the details of the murder probe, a fact that he was trying to cast in a positive light. Since Emily left, Gallagher had had little interest in female companionship of any kind. Several times on Sunday, however, he had tried to call Nightingale, as much to hear her voice as to inquire about the course of the investigation. But there was no answer at her house and the dispatcher at the Bethel Barracks of the Vermont State Police said she was in the field.
Gallagher had considered calling Jerry Matthews to try to convince him that a documentary about the effects of homicide on a small New England town was infinitely more interesting than one on an early-twentieth-century priest and the Catholic rites of sainthood.
But he decided not to push his luck. Gallagher had abandoned work on three projects already in the past year in favor of extended fly-fishing expeditions. Announcing that he was quitting
Nightingale snorted. ‘Mike, it doesn’t matter to me whether some developer from New Jersey who’s looking to build a hundred-million-dollar hotel on the mountain continues to think Lawton is a perfect Vermont community. It isn’t. Never has been. And you’d know better than most, wouldn’t you?’
The look Kerris shot Nightingale could have killed.
CHAPTER NINE
T WO HOURS LATER PATRICK Gallagher refolded the Rutland Herald and pushed back his plate at the Miss Lawton Diner, a restored club-car hash joint downtown between the Hard Cider Gifts building and a Ralph Lauren outlet. The booths and the red swivel counter seats were filled with locals: dairy delivery men sat beside lawyers who brushed shoulders with crunchy-granola environmental activists who nodded to country-music singers and bleary-eyed turkey hunters. All of them were either talking in hushed, concerned tones about the murder or reading the coverage in the paper.
The Herald ’s front page carried a twenty-inch follow-up to Sunday’s story and a piece about the ecological ramifications of the proposed massive hotel-and-condominium development to be built at the base of the small ski area up on Lawton Mountain. Gallagher read the latter article until Mayor Powell was quoted spouting a platitude about the development taking Lawton into the twenty-first century.
The follow-up to the Potter killing was much more interesting and he went over it a second time. The story described the state police evidence team descending on the dentist’s home and property. The article went on to identify a bridge over the Bluekill as the likely site of the killing, but made no mention of the note or the drawing Gallagher had seen two nights before.
Lieutenant Bowman, not Nightingale, had fielded questions about the case. Both she and Chief Kerris had made statements on Sunday about state and local agencies cooperating fully in the investigation. By the second day of the story Gallagher had become an afterthought, referred to as ‘a vacationing New York City angler who had discovered Potter’s body in the Bluekill.’
Gallagher had refused to talk with the young reporter who’d called Sunday afternoon. He knew if he leaked the secret of the note, the police would leave him out of the loop. Ever since he’d seen the drawing, he’d been obsessing about the case. The tenor of his questions had shifted from the philosophical to the practical. Had Hank Potter known his killer? From the tone of the note, revenge did seem part of the killer’s motivation. Revenge on the dentist? Or revenge on Lawton? Or both?
For Gallagher, thinking about the murder was like finally awakening after a long humid sleep in the hot summer sun. He had always been energized by the exploration of new customs and mores. A murder investigation struck Gallagher as a perfect culture in which to nose around. And, he had to admit, a perfect way to avoid nosing around inside himself.
There was also Andie Nightingale. She had been on his mind as often as the details of the murder probe, a fact that he was trying to cast in a positive light. Since Emily left, Gallagher had had little interest in female companionship of any kind. Several times on Sunday, however, he had tried to call Nightingale, as much to hear her voice as to inquire about the course of the investigation. But there was no answer at her house and the dispatcher at the Bethel Barracks of the Vermont State Police said she was in the field.
Gallagher had considered calling Jerry Matthews to try to convince him that a documentary about the effects of homicide on a small New England town was infinitely more interesting than one on an early-twentieth-century priest and the Catholic rites of sainthood.
But he decided not to push his luck. Gallagher had abandoned work on three projects already in the past year in favor of extended fly-fishing expeditions. Announcing that he was quitting
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