Mr. Sanders took a quick visual scan of the destroyed lobby. Partially cleared, free of glass, soot, bodies, and burned-out cars, but still destroyed. “Take your time.”
“When you have a minute, Mr. Sanders,” I said, “check your email.”
He raised an eyebrow.
That morning, I’d taken Mark Perry’s Microsoft Surface Pro apart, searching for how he’d manipulated the Bellissimo system. What I found was almost a million dollars of gambling debt accumulated in less than a year. After wearing out his casino credit welcome in Nevada, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, Perry made the mistake of gambling too close to home, in Tunica, Mississippi. Governor Wilson’s team suspected something was wrong when it was discovered Mark Perry was living in the locker room of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol office in Jackson, and at the same time a routine audit of the state attorney’s evidence locker, a city block from where Perry was camping out, uncovered large amounts of missing cash. All trails led to Mark Perry, and six weeks earlier, he’d been demoted to a desk at Immigration and Customs pending the Internal Affairs investigation. As a result of the state’s inquiry, he lost everything but biweekly supervised visits with his daughter. The Bellissimo was notified, No Hair, specifically, but as Head Storm, Mark Perry had access to our system and most likely intercepted the communication. As best I could tell, Perry had spent the past six weeks processing U.S. Citizenship applications, manipulating our system so we wouldn’t have access to any information related to him, and praying for a hurricane.
“It’s all there,” I told Mr. Sanders.
He raised both eyebrows.
“It’s not good.”
The small crowd quieted as Chip Chapman stood. The Weather One producer’s arm shot up. He counted down with three fingers.
“Where are his sunglasses?” I whispered to Bradley.
Bradley shrugged.
“My name isn’t Chip. It’s John. John Chapman.” Spoken with no flourish, no embellishment, and no alcohol. He was standing on the mezzanine steps we’d ridden out a good deal of the storm on. Just standing. No somersaults, no tango, no pirouettes.
“You haven’t seen me because I took a nap,” he said. “A long hurricane nap. I slept twenty-two hours and woke up sober for the first time since we met eleven years ago.”
America gasped.
“This will most likely be my last national broadcast, but before I sign off, I’d like to report the weather one more time.” He took a deep breath. “There are two components of a hurricane, heat and humidity. A hurricane feeds off warm waters. The warmer the water, the more moisture in the atmosphere, the more energy, the worse the storm. It’s October. The average water temperature in the Gulf in October is seventy-one degrees. Kevin needed a few more degrees to reach full potential. Another problem for Kevin was a strong line of northerly wind shears. They were strong enough to first, keep the hurricane over water, and second, break it up.”
I heard a sob from the front row. It was one of the Michiganders.
I heard a blender from the second row. It was Bacon.
“Biloxi got a pass,” John Chapman said. “What could have shredded this city didn’t.”
America sighed.
“And there you have it.”
America sniffed.
“I’ve seen the best and the worst from Mother Nature throughout my years of broadcasting,” he said, “but I’ve seen the best and worst from humanity here. You can’t imagine what we’ve been through, and I won’t go into detail, except to say five people are dead, what was a beautiful resort is practically in ruins, a woman from Alabama with a pet pig signed a record deal with Sony, and tomorrow two Vietnamese men will be reunited with their wives and children who they haven’t seen in more than four years. And they all have Hurricane Kevin to blame or to thank for it.”
Another sob from Michigan.
Another buzz from Bacon.
“As for me,” he said, “I’m going home. Not to Weather One Central to wait for the next opportunity to be your weather monkey and drunkenly distract you from the realities of catastrophic weather events, but home to Tennessee, to my roots, my family, and my community. I want to find there what I found here. And to end the broadcasting career that has tried its best to kill me, I leave you with this final thought.” He looked dead on into the camera. “You can survive a storm.”
America swiped a tear.
“This is John Chapman. May the sun always shine on you.”
* * *
An hour later, halfway to our daughters, I clicked the weather app on my phone. The forecast for Central Alabama for the foreseeable future was strong thunderstorms with heavy downpours. What was left of Hurricane Kevin had parked itself over Pine Apple.
It was rain.
Just water falling from the sky.
We’d be fine.
About the Author
Gretchen Archer is a Tennessee housewife who began writing when her daughters, seeking higher educations, ran off and left her. She lives on Lookout Mountain with her husband, son, and a Yorkie named Bently. Double Whammy, her first Davis Way Crime Caper, was a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist and hit the USA TODAY Bestsellers List. Double Agent is the eighth Davis Way crime caper. You can visit her at www.gretchenarcher.com.
The Davis Way Crime Caper Series
by Gretchen Archer
Novels
DOUBLE WHAMMY (#1)
DOUBLE DIP (#2)
DOUBLE STRIKE (#3)
DOUBLE MINT (#4)
DOUBLE KNOT (#5)
DOUBLE UP (#6)
DOUBLE DOG DARE (#7)
DOUBLE AGENT (#8)
Bellissimo Casino Crime Caper Short Stories
DOUBLE JINX
DOUBLE DECK THE HALLS
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Double Agent Page 24
