Point Blank

the truth would never have to let it out.
    He spent the memorial studying the faces around him, and knew Ruth was doing the same thing. There were half a dozen eulogies, including a very moving one by Gloria Stanford, and another by Gordon, who looked barely able to control his tears. The Presbyterian minister from Maestro focused on God’s providence and his belief in God’s own justice for Erin, an idea that seemed to resonate with the six-hundred-plus people in the auditorium.
    Dix saw Tony and Gloria Stanford sitting on either side of Gordon, Gloria holding his hand. He saw Milton Bean from the Maestro Daily Telegraph.
    No one acted unexpectedly. The fact was, Dix felt brain-dead. He was tired of seeing everyone as potential suspects, and though he mourned Erin Bushnell’s passing, he grew tired of hearing her praised beyond what most human beings would justly deserve at the age of twenty-two. He thought of Helen, her body released by the coroner to her brother, who finally agreed to a memorial at Stanislaus the following week, and of old Walt, seemingly not important enough for a formal memorial, buried now in the two-hundred-year-old town cemetery on Coyote Hill. Dix had been surprised to see a small crowd of townspeople, his real friends, at the graveside service. Walt would have been pleased by that.
    After the memorial Dix drove to Leigh Ann’s Blooms for All Occasions and bought a bouquet of carnations. He and Ruth drove to Coyote Hill, and together they walked to Walt McGuffey’s grave, a raw gash in the earth. Dix went down on one knee and placed the carnations at the head of the grave. “I ordered a stone to be carved for him. It should be here next week.”
    Ruth said, “I would have come to his funeral with you yesterday if you’d only asked me.”
    “You were on the phone to Washington. I didn’t want to disturb you. And you’re tired, Ruth, we both are. You’ve been through an awful lot. Now, it’s cold out here. I don’t want you to get sick. Let’s go home.”
    She nodded, and it struck her that he’d called it home—for both of them. That was odd, and a little scary, yet it made her feel very good. She’d lived with him and his boys for a week now, and it felt more natural every day. Dix was an honorable man, and he cared—about his boys foremost, about his town, about doing the right thing. As for how that long, fit body of his looked in low-slung jeans, she didn’t want to think about that.
    She wanted to talk to him more about Christie, but knew now wasn’t the time. Not yet. She might not have known him for all that long, but she knew in her soul that if Christie was at all like her, she would never have left him or the boys. Not willingly. Something very bad had happened to Christie Noble, and everybody knew it.
    As they walked back to the Range Rover, Dix felt her looking at him, but he couldn’t see her eyes through the opaque black lenses of her sunglasses. She huddled in her bulky black leather jacket next to him on the front seat, her purple wool scarf around her neck, and pulled her matching purple wool cap nearly to her ears. Dix noticed she was wearing her own socks, not the nice thick ones Rafe had loaned her. He turned up the heat.

CHAPTER 30
    THEY GOT HOME just before six o’clock. As Dix unlocked the front door, Ruth’s cell phone rang and she turned away to answer it. After a couple of minutes, she punched off. “That was Sherlock. Things are coming together. She and Dillon are going to stay in Washington, unless, she promised me, we needed them in any way. I told her we’re fine here.”
    He hurried since Brewster’s nails were scraping madly against the front door.
    “Brewster, hold on! Don’t forget, Ruth, if he jumps on you, hold him away.”
    “Nah, Brewster won’t pee on the person who fed him some hot dog under the kitchen table last night.”
    When Dix opened the front door, Ruth grabbed Brewster before he could climb her leg. She held him close, laughing and kissing his little face. He never stopped barking or wagging his tail.
    “Oh dear,” she said. “Brewster, how could you?”
    Brewster looked up and licked her jaw.
    “We’ll get the coat to the cleaner’s tomorrow. They’ll be able to get the smell out—I happen to know this for a fact. And the leather won’t stain.”
    Ruth laughed. “You little ingrate, what did you want that I didn’t give you? A bun with your hot dog?
    Some mustard, maybe?”
    “Well, hang it up,”