“The other beds too?”

“Who knows? You follow the NFL?”

“Baseball.”

“Well, let me tell you something, you work for Mr. Boatwright, you learn that he’s the coach and quarterback all in one. He says you go deep, you go deep, or you’re on the bench. In my case that means the unemployment line. So I go deep.”

“I hear you.” Walt considered his approach. “You ever get to meet any players?”

“You kidding? Place is like a hotel.”

“Anyone I’d know of?”

The gardener seemed proud of his insider’s position. “Head coach and a couple of assistants up here last weekend. I hear the commissioner’s coming in for the wine auction this year. You know these guys, Sheriff. Dinner parties every night. Jump in the jet. Fly back. He’s a human yo-yo, and he’s not getting any younger.”

The guy liked to talk. Walt wasn’t complaining. “Any players?”

“He interviewed a couple wide receivers back around the time of the draft. An offensive lineman, the kid that book was written about-The Blind Side-about the same time. No one too recently, at least that I know about.” Leaning on his shovel, the heavily suntanned man seemed grateful for the respite. “But you’d have to check with Mary-his executive secretary. She should be around here someplace. Her office is on the lower level of the north wing.”

“I’d probably need a map.”

“Got that right.”

“Is he a good guy to work for?”

“I actually report to Debbie, one of Mary’s three assistants. I don’t actually deal with Mr. Boatwright. Debbie’s all right. They basically give me an open budget. It’s the dream job. I’m overpaid, I get great benefits, and I’m pretty much left on my own.”

“Wanna trade?” Walt said. He won a chuckle. “Anything a sheriff should know about Mr. Boatwright that I don’t already know?”

“I told you, it’s a dream job.”

“I’m interested in a linebacker. A retired linebacker. He would have come by sometime in the past couple days. Big guy, obviously. Might have been alone. Might have been wearing jeans and a leather jacket. Name of Martel Gale.”

“The Gale Force? Shit, I’d have recognized him, I think. Loved watching that guy hit. Listen, I don’t see that many of the guests, and to tell you the truth, I don’t pay that much attention unless I happen to get a look and recognize someone. I like the sport, so I’m kind of a major fan, but I don’t know half the faces of the guys who come here. The girls, that’s different. Hard not to look at the girls, you know what I mean?”

“Girls, or women?”

“I’ve said enough. I should get back to work.”

Walt didn’t look over his shoulder immediately, but he’d seen a flicker in the man’s eyes and suspected he’d caught someone eyeing them both. Mary, perhaps, or one of the three assistants.

Walt felt tempted to ask about Caroline Vetta, but he lacked a photo and it was Boldt’s business, not his.

“You think you could check with Debbie, informal like, if Gale has been around in the past week?”

“I suppose.” He sounded surprised.

“I could do it,” Walt said, not sure that he could, “but all I’m interested in is trying to get an autograph for my nephew, trying to catch Gale while he’s still in town, and when a sheriff asks something it becomes a big production and it’s not like that, so it makes it kind of difficult.”

“I can see that.”

“I’ve already asked Vince Wynn but he’s not on such good terms with Gale.”

The gardener turned away and went back to the struggle with the root.

“I shouldn’t be loafing,” he said.

Was it the mention of Wynn? Walt wondered. Or had the man received a second signal from within the house?

“Nice talking to you,” Walt said.

“I’ll ask if I can,” the gardener told the dug-up flower bed.

“I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know,” Walt said, “but I was told water stops tap roots. You put the offending tree on an island and that’s the end of it.”

The gardener lifted his head and eyed the only stand of aspen, in rough grass between the lawn and the driveway.

“I might be able to work with that,” he said.

“Just a thought,” Walt said. But his mind had made a leap to Boatwright and Wynn and the dead man, Gale. Like the trees, if he and Boldt could keep the men from extending their reach to their handlers and attorneys, maybe they’d have half a chance to get some piece of the truth out of them. The secret might be to isolate them, but Walt had no idea how to go about that, given e-mails and cell phones, and the intricacies of both men’s businesses. Unless he could find a way to turn one against the other. One of the two must at least have heard from Gale, whether or not they had a connection to the man’s death. Given Boatwright’s reliance on a team of personal secretaries, there might even be a paper trail to follow.

He walked the grounds wondering if Gale had done the same some night after being refused an audience with Boatwright, wondering if that was what had happened to Wynn the night the agent had fired his gun into the dark.

Boldt climbed into the Jeep forty minutes later and Walt started up the motor and drove off the property.

“Everyone has secrets,” Boldt finally muttered. “But this guy. What a piece of work. My guess is he’s got a couple vaults full of them.”

“It went that well, did it?”

“Treated me like I was the water boy.”

“Is there a connection to Caroline Vetta?”

“He knows a heck of a lot more than he’s telling,” Boldt said, “that’s for sure. But he’s done so many deals for so many years, has told so many lies, that he’s an expert. Or maybe he’s so old he believes them.”

“Are you done with him?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Any chance you’ll subpoena his personal calendar?”

“Gale?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Walt admitted. “I’m told the secretaries run his life, manage every minute of his time. Surround him.”

“It may very well come to that,” Boldt said.

Boldt lowered the window and put his hand outside, his fingers outstretched in the wind.

Beatrice sat up and nosed the back window, and Walt put his window down as well.

Boldt raised his voice over the wind. “I subpoena someone like that and it’ll be a lot of court time before it’s finally ruled upon and I’ll only be refused. Everyone’s a football fan, including judges.”

“But we both want, both need, the same thing: his personal calendar. So if I could find a way to get a look at his book, you’d benefit too. I’d make sure of that.”

“Have you got an angle?”

“No. Not yet. But maybe Wynn will give me one-give you one. If he can connect Gale to Boatwright… Well, one of the judges here, he’s the home plate umpire for our softball league.”

“What’s that got to do with the price of oil?” Boldt asked.

“Hates football,” Walt said.

Beatrice barked into the wind.

For a moment, Walt thought it might have been Boldt.