Chapter 15: The Price

The study had its silver cups back under their spotlights, and Renata sat behind my father's desk.

She had a glass of sherry at her elbow and a folder under her hand.

Jude stood at my shoulder.

She had not asked me to bring him, and she had not asked me to leave him out.

"Mr. Keller," she said.

"You may stay.

"I find witnesses useful when a thing is about to be reasonable."

"You called me here," I said.

"Say it."

She slid the folder across the leather.

"Inside is a release.

"Sign your mother's half of this farm to the company that is buying the ridge.

"They close on Wednesday morning."

"And?"

"And tonight, I put both tapes in your hands.

"The one I played, and the one I didn't."

"The one you played is already on four hundred phones," Jude said.

Renata gave him a pitying look.

"A tape is a story, Mr. Keller.

"The sheriff is my cousin.

"He decides whether a crowd shouting at a funeral means anything, and he decided at four o'clock this afternoon that it does not."

The room went very quiet.

"Your father is in my guest wing with a deputy at the door," she went on.

"He will say whatever I tell him to say, as he has for nine years.

"The second tape is the only thing that puts him in a cell, and the only thing that puts me in a different chair."

"You sawed the rung," I said.

"Sign, and I will give you the answer on paper."

I looked at the folder.

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