CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ella thought that the town center of Liberty Grove was one tumbleweed short of a spaghetti western. The place was a postcard from the apocalypse, and she guessed that was what happened when Mother Nature didn't make with the aqua. Folks packed up and chased the rain.

She parked on the cracked sidewalk of what passed for a main square. She and Luca got out and began their search for food that wasn't biscuits that had been festering on a kitchen counter. Ella doubted she could stomach much. She survived mostly on a diet of stress and worry these days. It was good for the waistline but not for the heart.

‘It's like the world ended out here,' Luca said. ‘Clint Eastwood could jump out at any second.'

‘Or Leatherface.'

‘Was it always like this? Or has the drought done a number on this place?'

‘It was never this bad, from what I remember. I guess the drought was the straw that broke the camel's back.'

‘Shame. This town has character. Or it could.'

The lonely caw of a crow broke the silence as they ambled down the dusty street. Ella eyeballed shops, most of which were either closed or boarded up for good. She heard the wheeze of a busted screen door somewhere in the distance.

But then her ears pricked up – the thin, reedy strains of an acoustic guitar, warbling from the town square. She glanced off to the side and saw a busker on the corner, sitting on a crate with an open case in front of him. He was old, leathery and sun-weathered, with a wild tangle of beard streaked with gray.

But it wasn"t the musician that caught Ella"s eye. It was the structure behind him, rising from the concrete like a relic from a forgotten age.

At first glance, it could"ve been a fountain, one of those sad municipal numbers that collected more trash than coins. Tiered basins, scummy with mineralized scale, an abstract figure perched on top like a malnourished pigeon.

But there was something off about it, something that niggled at the base of Ella"s brain stem. The shape of it, the placement of what should have been pools. She nudged Luca and made a beeline towards it.

Up close, the oddity of the structure was even more apparent. The basins were bone-dry, not so much as a trickle of water to be found. And the statue was no modernist bird or cavorting cherub.

It was a clock face, the hands frozen at a quarter past three.

Mid-way through some country number, the busker muted his guitar and nodded at the agents. ‘Afternoon, folks. You're not from around here.'

‘Correct,' Ella said. ‘You a local?'

‘The name's Clyde,' the busker said as he strummed what Ella's brain recognized as an E chord. ‘Been here since God was a pup.'

‘Do you take requests?' she asked.

‘Sure do.'

‘Can you tell me about this fountain?'

Clyde laughed like it was the first joke he'd heard in years. In a place like this, maybe it was. ‘This ain't no fountain, lady. It's a gen-u-ine water clock, just like the old timers used.'

Ella cocked her head, studying the odd structure with narrowed eyes. A water clock, huh? In the middle of Podunk, USA? What were the odds? She glanced at Luca, saw the same curiosity reflected on his chiseled mug.

Clyde strummed another lazy chord, and the twang reverberated in the dusty air. ‘So what brings a coupla suits like you to our little slice of paradise? Lemme guess – Toledo.'

Ella"s gaze snapped to him with hackles raised. ‘What makes you say that?'

A dry rasp of a chuckle left Clyde"s throat, like leaves skittering across the pavement. ‘Word travels fast around here, little lady. "Specially when it involves our dearly departed councilman takin" a dirt nap in Jessup"s cornfield.'

Ella tamped down a sigh. Of course. Same old song, different verse – just like back in Abingdon. A bunch of bored housewives and gossipers blathering over the back fence like it was their job. She should"ve known better than to expect anything else. She jerked her chin back at the ersatz timepiece.

‘So what"s the deal with this thing, anyway?' Not exactly your typical town square decor.'

‘Nope.' Clyde popped the "p". ‘S"posed to be some kinda art installation. City council commissioned it "bout five years back, wanted to "beautify" the place and make it a "destination". Load of crap if you ask me.'

Luca spoke up. ‘You know a lot about this thing.'

‘I"ve been buskin" this corner since Carter was in office, figured it was only fittin" I learn the history of my stage, so to speak.'

‘A water clock.' Ella shared a glance with Luca, who looked equally intrigued. ‘How"s that work, exactly?'

Clyde leaned back, settled in for a yarn. ‘Well, see, the water drips down from that there spout, trickles through all the gears and whatnot. Keeps the whole contraption turning, nice and steady. But that was before the drought sucked us dry."

Ella studied the mechanism with new eyes, tried to imagine it in its heyday. Water coursing through its veins, gears clacking and spinning, a marvel of ancient ingenuity. Hard to believe such a thing could exist out here, in the armpit of nowhere.

All roads seemed to lead back to water – or the lack of it. A town withering on the vine, sucked dry by bureaucrats and fat cats funneling the lifeblood upstream.

‘What do you know about Mr. Toledo?' she asked.

‘I'll tell you what I know if you tell me who you people are.'

Ella flashed her badge. ‘FBI. Special Agent Ella Dark. This is my partner, Agent Hawkins.'

‘Sheesh,' Clyde said as he lay his guitar on his lap. ‘Butter my butt and call me a biscuit. Figured that sleazeball would catch a case of the deads sooner or later, but didn"t think he rated the big guns.'

‘Lotta people had cause to want Toledo six feet under,' Luca said. ‘But somebody decided to speed up the process. You hear anything about that?'

The busker adjusted the machine head for his low E string. Maybe he was about to bust out a thrash number, Ella thought.

‘See, Toledo, he was always a snake. Had a real gift for the gab, could talk a dog off a meat wagon. Few years back, he comes rolling into town, all shiny shoes and big promises. Gonna put Liberty Grove back on the map, he says. Gonna bring jobs and money and hope back to this dried up ol" husk of a town.'

‘And he didn't deliver,' Luca said.

‘Not even close.' The busker spat. ‘Sold us down the river, quite literally. Went and cut a deal with some big-shot developer, got "em to build a dam upriver. Promised it"d regulate the water flow, keep us from flooding come spring melt. What it did was choke us off at the knees, left us high and dry while he pranced off to the next town he could fleece.'

It was an old story, as worn and weary as the cracked leather of the busker"s boots. The rich getting richer, the poor getting screwed. A tale as old as time, and just as bitter.

But there was something else niggling at her. She thought of the water clock, its intricate gears and empty veins. The perfect machine, bled dry by the machinations of evil men.

And she thought of Ricky Toledo, bloated and fish-belly white. Drowned in the very water he"d dammed up and sold off. It was a vicious irony that reeked, dare she suggest it, poetic justice.

‘You know anyone who might want to hurt him? Maybe some local gossip?'

‘Lotta angry folks "round these parts, missy. Lotta grudges nursed long and bitter. Lotta scores never quite settled. Man like Toledo, he made enemies like a dog makes fleas. And in a town like this...well. Take your pick.'

Ella fished out her wallet and dropped a few bills in Clyde"s open case. ‘Thanks, Clyde. You"ve been a real help.'

Clyde"s grabbed his guitar again and plucked out a surprisingly jaunty tune. ‘Anytime, folks. Sure you don"t wanna make a request before you skedaddle?'

Luca asked, ‘You know any Slayer?'

‘I do not, but I'll learn it for tomorrow if you come back here.'

‘Deal,' Luca said.

‘You take care now.'

Clyde"s gravelly croon followed them down the cracked sidewalk as they left him to his one-man concert. Ella scanned the ramshackle storefronts – a depressing collection of pawn shops and payday loans with a few struggling mom and pops hanging on by their fingernails. The bustling heart of Liberty Grove, population who-the-hell-cares.

But Ella"s mind was already spinning ahead, assembling pieces, clicking them into place like a jigsaw puzzle soaked in blood.

Ricky Toledo, dead and drowned. The ghost of his sins come back to haunt him, to drag him down into the deep dark places he"d consigned so many others.

The dam, the displaced farmers. A thousand acres of bitterness, sown by one man"s greed and reaped with a vengeance.

And at the center of it all, the water clock. The heart of Liberty Grove, choked off and bled dry. A symbol of everything lost, everything stolen.

Ella could feel it, thrumming under her skin like a second pulse. The certainty, the knowledge that she was close. That the key was within her grasp, if only she could find the right lock.