The Scorpion's Tail (Nora Kelly #2)(8)

“Agent Swanson,” he said, sliding behind the wheel, “before we head out there, I’m going to swing by and pick up a fellow named Charles Fountain. He’s a lawyer who knows a lot about local history—a real encyclopedia. I thought he might be able to shed some light on things, maybe answer a few questions.”

Corrie hadn’t expected a civilian to ride along, but she was hardly in a position to object. “Thank you, Sheriff.”

He nodded and started the Jeep Cherokee, which was painted up and decaled as a cruiser with a big sheriff’s star on it. Corrie wondered if she should invite Watts to switch to a first-name basis but decided against it. Better to keep it formal.

“I hear you spoke to Pick,” the sheriff said as they drove slowly through town.

“I’m surprised you can call him by his first name, after he tried to kill you.”

“Well, he didn’t succeed, and I’m not one to hold a grudge,” Watts said with a laugh. “He’s a pretty poor shot. Guess he just got lucky.”

“I’ll say. Lucky he didn’t get killed.”

“Oh, that wasn’t luck. If I’d wanted to hit the center of mass, I would have.” This was said in an off hand way, with nothing of a boastful tone in it. Corrie considered this for a moment. Did it mean that Watts had actually let Rivers shoot first? She decided it would be impolitic to ask him directly. Instead, she said: “Speaking of gunfights, I couldn’t help but notice those ivory-handled revolvers of yours.”

Watts nodded again, this time with a touch of pride. “Colt .45 Peacemakers. Single-action, black powder frames. From 1890 or so. They belonged to my granddad. He refuses to tell me where he got them from.”

“Why do you wear two?”

Watts shrugged. “They came as a set.”

“And what’s with the backward holsters? The handles are pointing forward.”

“You never heard of a cross-arm draw? Guess they don’t teach you everything in FBI school.”

Corrie didn’t answer. She’d take her own semiautomatic Glock over those relics any day—but she wasn’t about to say so.

“I still can’t figure why Rivers drew on me, though,” Watts said. “He’s had a spotless record for a couple of years now. Can’t imagine what was so special about that corpse that would make him risk everything like that.”

They pulled up in front of a modest, neatly tended house, and before Watts could get out, a man burst through the door. Looking at him, Corrie got yet another surprise. Instead of the devil-and–Daniel Webster country lawyer she’d expected, with a corncob pipe and red suspenders stretching over a capacious gut, Fountain was tall, perhaps sixty years old, and only slightly heavyset. He wore a dark green Barbour jacket—probably the only one within a hundred miles—so rumpled he might have slept in it. His face was clean-shaven, and his luxuriously thick salt-and-pepper hair was parted in the middle and hung down almost to his shoulders. He glanced from one of them to the other with faded blue eyes that sparkled with intelligence from behind gold, round-rimmed glasses.

Watts got out and shook the man’s hand, and Corrie followed. The sheriff made the introductions.

“You’re a lawyer, I understand,” she said.

“Semiretired at present,” Fountain replied in a quiet, melodious voice. “Probably for the best.”

“Don’t let him kid you,” Watts said. “He’s got a reputation that stretches across the state, and beyond. You won’t find a sharper legal mind anywhere. Never lost a case.”

“Is that true?” Corrie couldn’t help asking.

“Only partly,” Fountain said. “I lost a couple when I worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

“But none since he became a defense lawyer,” Watts said. “It’s the voice. They never see him coming.”

“You might as well say it: voice and appearance,” Fountain said with a laugh. “I prefer to call it a ‘disarming presentation.’”

“He wears that disheveled look like a work uniform,” Watts said. Being in familiar company seemed to have relaxed him, because this time he held the car door open for Corrie without thinking.

“I’m just coming along to add some background as an amateur historian,” Fountain said as he got into the back seat. “I won’t get in your way.”

Watts put the A/C on full blast, and they headed out of town. “Where we’re going,” he said, “is a ghost town up in the Azul Mountains named High Lonesome. It’s an old gold-mining town abandoned when the color played out in the early 1900s. One of the prettiest ghost towns in the state—but hell to get to. We’ve got a two-hour ride ahead of us. It’s not that far as the buzzard flies, but the roads are torture.”

Two hours? Corrie thought. She’d be lucky to get back to Albuquerque before midnight.

“Music?” Watts asked, pulling out his phone and plugging it into the stereo.

“Ah, sure,” Corrie replied.

“Any preferences?”

“As long as it’s not Gregorian chants or rap, I don’t care,” said Fountain from the back seat.

Corrie didn’t think Sheriff Homer Watts would have the music she liked. “You choose.”

“You two can veto this.” He fiddled with the phone and the sound of the Gipsy Kings came floating out of the car’s speakers. It wasn’t the music Corrie would have selected, but it wasn’t bad, either, and it kind of fit in with the landscape.