What the Dead Men Say Read Online Free

Griff. He won’t be able to handle this.”
        Griff stared at him hard. “He won’t have much choice, Carlyle. None of us do.” He nodded to the street. “Now go tell him and then stay in your room till you go to the bridge.”
        “You sure like givin’ orders, don’t you?”
        Griff smiled without much humor. “If you want me to play boss then you better get used to me givin’ orders. You understand me?”
        Carlyle looked sulky. “I don’t like none of this.”
        “Get going. And get going now.”
        Carlyle shook his head, wiped some sweat from his face, and then set off down the driveway to the street.
        
***
        
        Griff watched the man go. Then his girls came up and jumped up and down around him in their faded gingham dresses. If good times ever rolled around again, the first thing Griff planned to do was buy the girls some new clothes. Now they wore hand-me-downs from in-laws and Griff, a proud man, just hated to see it.
        Kneeling on his haunches, he drew the two girls close to him and hugged them tight with his eyes closed.
        “Boy, it sure is hot, Daddy,” Eloise said.
        “It sure is,” Tess agreed.
        But that was the funny thing to Griff. Hot as it was-the afternoon ablaze now at three o’clock-he felt so cold he was shivering.
        He hugged the girls even tighter, and tried not to think of how the little girl in the bank had looked that morning, bloody and dead on the linoleum floor.
        

CHAPTER TWO
        

1
        
        Just off the sidewalk there was a huge oak, one with roots like claws, and beneath it stood Ryan. On so hot a day he appreciated the shade, though curiously he left his vest and suitcoat on. Hanging loose from his left hand was his Winchester.
        For the past ten minutes, Ryan had kept his brown eyes fixed on the small, white cottagelike house and the large barn that loomed over it directly behind. Griff and Carlyle were back there now, talking.
        Ryan set the Winchester against the tree then took out a cigar and lighted it. Even on a day this hot, the fifty-cent Cuban tasted good, heady as wine the first few puffs.
        A small boy pulling a small red wooden wagon inside of which sat an even smaller girl came by, followed by a yipping puppy. Ryan said hello to the boy and smiled at the puppy. The girl, even though she said hello, received nothing from Ryan, not even a glance. He knew better than to look at pretty girls.
        As the kids and the wagon and the dog rolled past, Ryan looked down the street and saw Carlyle coming up the walk, moving fast. He looked agitated.
        Carlyle didn’t seem to see Ryan until he was a few feet from the tree.
        Ryan hefted the Winchester then stepped out into the middle of the walk.
        Carlyle, sensing rather than seeing somebody moving into his way, stopped abruptly and raised his head. “Shit,” he said when he saw who it was.
        “Kind of a hot day to be moving so fast, Mr. Carlyle,” Ryan said.
        Carlyle’s eyes had dropped to the new Winchester slung across Ryan’s chest.
        Ryan said, “You know who I am, don’t you?”
        “Yessir.”
        “And you know why I’m here.”
        “Yessir.”
        Ryan patted the Winchester. “And you know why I brought this.”
        Carlyle said, “It was an accident, sir, what happened to your daughter.”
        “You know, I’ve tried to console myself with that notion every once in a while. But then I start to thinking-if those three men hadn’t gone to the bank that day, then the accident would never have happened. My little Clarice would have gone in there and made her deposit and Mr. Dolan would have given her a mint and then she would have walked back to my store and it would have been a regular, normal day.” Now the tears came, but more in his voice than in his eyes. “She would have