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"You do?" Dustin sent--that’s what I do for a living"

"I heard about a boy they called Dustin about twenty years ago I was a reporter inout with the cops--I handled the police beat I’m pretty sure that boy was you You would’ve been a kid, a few years older than the two at that table over there, when this all happened, but I remember your name Hell, even the media has some decency They didn’t let out your na friends Anyway, you picked up soe on the street--or in soht?"

Dustin’s coffee cup was halfway to his lips He paused It was so long ago No one ever connected him with the Opry-Buff, as the killer had been labeled, or the police shootout that had taken hiely "So what are you doing here?"

"I’ the Horse Fareneral?"

"Hasn’t everyone?"

"Oh, everyone claims he sits on that warhorse of his up in the hills, ever watching out But not many really see him"

"But you have?"

"Yep I’ve seen hi low over the pastures and fields, some folks see him ’cause they want to They see him in the cloud patterns, too, on a su Olivia"

Olivia, he thought, had to be in her

"And, I reckon," Coot went on, "you"

"Who knoe see and don’t see?" Dustin said evasively

"I’ve been thinking about Olivia, you know She’s one special person The girl could’ve done just about anything, gone just about anywhere But she’s done soot kids with autism so bad the parents are at wits’ end, and she can cal the horses, laughing in the field She’s great with the youth-in-rebellion types, too I don’t want anything happening to her"

Dustin felt a coldness in his gut This old man--this old observer--orried

"She thinks someone killed Marcus Danby," Coot said

"Well, she’s upset She doesn’t want to believe he went back to his old ways"

Coot snorted "You really figure that’s what he did? I didn’t take you for a fool, Special Agent Blake!"

Dustin was careful when he spoke "So you think soed Marcus Danby and threw hiave hio twenty-odd years, then take a walk in the woods one day and decide he’s gotta have a fix Think about it, boy It doesn’t work like that"

"I’ve seen addicts go in and out of recovery"

"There was nothing--absolutely nothing--toto myself, ‘Hey, nice day, think I’ll put a Ser’"

"Everyone else seems to have accepted it"

"They only see what’s there They aren’t looking for et the real picture Hell, you know that"

"But ould have killed Marcus--and why?"

"Now, there’s a dilee boss, even when you’re nonprofit That etie He liked to bedown froo off on another nature walk But soe and do the day-to-day work, and that someone was Aaron Bentley Then, of course, there’s Mama Cheever, as they call her Sandra Cheever Why she’s Ma eant type Schedules are everything to her She yells at the kids and gets obsessed about upkeep"

"Why would she want to kill Marcus?"

"He was sloppy? Well, he was Came in and left his coffee cup wherever, tracked mud into the offices Ruined her schedules a lot He’d ht run late"

"You think that would cause her to kill him?" Dustin asked skeptically

"No Just sayin’"

"What about the students? The clients"

"The ‘guests,’ you o None of ’eainst the place"

"Has any kid--or adult, for that matter--ever been kicked out?"

"Nope Not a one If there’s problems with a therapist, they just shift people around"