by Mike Stewart
Joey said, “So, if Poultrez took Susan, looks like he was working withâor at least coordinating withâCarpintero. And if Carpintero took Susan … Well, shit, it all leads back to the fat prick with the hammer, doesn’t it?”
I said, “Yeah. It looks like it. Of course, as logical as it sounds plotted out like this, it could all still be wrong.”
“Yeah,” Joey said, “but it makes sense.”
I said, “And it gives us a place to focus.”
Joey flipped his head to one side and cracked the tension out of his neck. “Damn right. We focus on finding this Carpintero asshole and see how bad he is with his hammer stuck up his ass.”
Vertical lines formed between Loutie’s eyebrows as she processed the conversation. When the room grew quiet, she asked, “Is that it?”
I said, “That’s all the facts and most of the guesses,” and she left the room.
Randy hung around for another minute or two, staring into space and working it out in his head, before leaving by the front door.
Joey and I were the only ones left.
I didn’t know what I looked like, but he looked beat. His tanned complexion had gone pale except for dark smudges over his cheekbones. Everyone involved was tired, but it was Susan’s blood-trailed disappearance that was devouring Joey and me.
I asked, “Did your people get a good picture of Sanchez tonight?”
“They got him. We gotta wait to see how good they are, but we took a shitload of shots.”
“What about the shots of Carpintero?”
“A buddy of mine at the ABI has already got ‘em. He’s checking Carpintero’s shots against their files.” Joey stopped to rub the back of his neck. “Randy’ll send over the shots of Sanchez when they’re ready.”
I thought for a minute. “That’s just a criminal check though, right?”
Joey nodded.
I said, “Well then, get a set of prints to Kelly too, with a message to run them by somebody at the newspaper. That’s not a problem is it?”
Joey said, “That is not a problem,” and walked over to Loutie’s phone. After conveying instructions to Randy, Joey replaced the headset. He tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. “So this Carpintero or Hammer or whoever he is is the key.”
“Looks like it.”
“I guess you and me are going to Florida.”
“Yeah.” I said, “Tate’s Hell Swamp.”
I hadn’t been home for a week, and I needed clothes and waders, a flashlight and field glasses. Our choices for procuring these things at two in the morning were to either stop by my beach house on Point Clear or burglarize a sporting goods store. Joey had a pair of binoculars, camera equipment, and camouflage clothingâyour basic private investigator stuffâfor himself. But I needed my things, things not made for the big and tall.
My white gravel driveway shone like snow in the moonlight. I rolled to a stop a hundred feet from the front steps and shoved the rented transmission into park. Joey had disconnected the Ford’s interior lights, which was one of his private investigator stealth specialties, and we were able to leave the car with minimal fuss. With the empty car left idling on the driveway, Joey moved quietly toward the front of the house, while I trotted around to the bay side and stopped short of the open beach to look and to listen for something wrong or different.
Deep purple clouds with silver edges sped across the sky, and warm breezes flowed across the choppy, charcoal bay, rustling sea grass, and sharp black pine needles. On the house, squares of white trim floated, suspended in air, as cloud cover rendered weathered siding invisible. I closed my eyes because I once read that assassins wait outside dark rooms with their eyes shut so their vision will be adjusted to the dark when they go in to kill. And I listened. Closing one’s eyes in a dangerous place is unnatural; so I listened hard during the long seconds I was able to last. And when I reopened my eyes, I actually could see a little better in the night.
I watched the home where, for six months of endless nights, I had tossed and turned and wandered the beach, and I began to make sense of the shadows, separating shades of charcoal into familiar shapes and objects. I knew every sound and smell and look of that fragment of the worldâeven at 2:00 a.m. And there was something wrong.
I crouched closer to the sand and flipped open my cell phone and punched in Joey’s number. Somewhere on the front of the house, his pocket vibrated, and I put the phone away and waited. He did not respond, which meant either his side was clear or he was incapacitated. But, inasmuch as I hadn’t heard a cannon go off, the likelihood of his incapacity was, I thought, pretty close to nil.
I studied shadows because those were what bothered me. Everything looked fine. Only it didn’t look the same, and I wasn’t really sure why that was. I jogged across the beach, sending little half-circles of powder puffing out in front of each foot as it struck dry sand. Ten yards in, I stopped by a clump of tall, black grass that I hoped would break up my silhouette. And again something was out of place, something near the first-floor deck in back. Then he moved. Too small and too thin at the waist to be Poultrez, the man had thick shoulders, and he was holding a long weapon. He was waiting inside a deep shadow beside the deck. He was just waiting. Maybe he understood now that no one was inside the idling Taurus, and he was scared. Maybe he was just patient.
I decided to test my virtue against his and settled in for a long wait that wasn’t. No more than three minutes passed, and he couldn’t stand it. The strong man with the narrow waist had to have a look around, and he moved left toward the near corner of the house. As he moved, I saw new movement at the other, far corner and recognized Joey’s hulking shadow. I circled left, matching my pace with the armed man’s, then stopped and waited some more when he halted two paces from the corner and, it seemed, turned to look out at the beach. Shadows from the eaves blanked out his head and body, but now the moonlight found his arms and the tip of his nose, and I knew he had seen me. The long gun came up to his shoulder, and I dove into the sand as the hollow boom of a shotgun blast pounded the beach. And then nothing. Nothing but wind and the redundant sigh of water lapping sand. I rolled onto my back and pointed the Browning with both hands the way Tim the painter had done just before he died, and I waited for the shotgunner to come inspect his kill.
Phantom boots jogged through wet sand inside my head; the hard tang of copper flooded my mouth; and Joey called out my name. I waited. If the shotgunner was near, answering would give him a target. Then Joey’s voice came again. “Tom! Answer me. I got the guy. Answer me!”
I called out, “I’m here,” and got to my feet, dusting sand out of my shirt and pants.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” I could see Joey now, standing near the spot where the shotgun had gone off. I shouted, “Who is it?”
“Don’t know. Never seen him before.”
As I approached, I saw Joey standing over a vaguely familiar form lying prostrate on the sand. I asked, “Is he alive?”
Before Joey could answer, a voice said, “Mr. McInnes, it’s me.” And young Willie Teeter sat up and looked at me with the moonlight now full on his face.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Willie sounded scared. “Granddaddy sent me. Julie said you and her had a run-in, and Granddaddy couldn’t get you on the phone, and he sent me up here to find you. Make sure you’re all right.”
I said, “Stand up,” and Joey reached down and lifted the nineteen-year-old shrimper by one arm. The boy’s feet actually dangled in the air for a second before Joey put him down. Willie seemed impressed. When Joey released his arm, the boy turned and studied the big man’s face. I asked, “Did your Granddaddy tell you to come up here and blow my head off too?”
“No, sir. No, sir, he didn’t. I was supposed to wait around for you and let him know, you know, whether you’re okay. But I heard the car and got scared and hid around back here.”
Joey said, “You bring that shotgun along
to shoot possums while you were waiting?”
Willie turned to Joey and looked up into his face. “No, sir. We knew Sonny was pissed off at Mr. McInnes. And you don’t know Sonny, but he’s crazy. Been in prison half his life. Kill anybody. No shit. He’d just as soon kill you as look at you. I thought that’s who I was shooting at. I seen a shadow, and I could see what looked like a gun, you know, kind of outlined against the beach. And I shot.” He turned back to me. “I’m sorry as hell, Mr. McInnes. I was scared.”
I looked into the boy’s face but couldn’t read anything there. Maybe it was the dark. Maybe not. I asked, “Have you checked out the house?”
Willie said, “Just through the windows, but I been here a long time. I’m pretty sure there ain’t nobody in there.”
Willie waited in the yard while Joey and I went in fast. The alarm was set. Everything was just as I had left it. I punched in the alarm code, called Willie, and told him to go in the kitchen with Joey. I ran upstairs, pulled together a loose stack of clean clothes, and located my fishing gear. Joey would be amused. I laid out a pair of Orvis Gor-Tex waders with inflatable suspenders and a pair of Russell Moccasin custom wading boots with felt soles. None of which was exactly what one might call swamp gear, but they were what I had and they fit. I emptied out an old nylon dive bag, put my clothes and gear inside, and threw a pair of quick-focus Nikon binoculars and a black-rubber Mag-Lite flashlight on top.
When everything was packed down and zipped up in the dive bag, I closed the door to my bedroom and made two phone calls. The first, which took less than a minute, was to the information operator for the area code covering Florida’s Panhandle. The second was to a number in the quaint fishing village of Eastpoint, and that one lasted much longer.
Joey and Willie were drinking from glasses filled with something clear and carbonated when I came into the kitchen. I looked at Joeyâhe was holding Willie’s shotgun nowâand said, “Let’s go.”
Willie’s eyes perked up. “Where are you goin’?”
Joey caught my eye and, almost imperceptibly, shook his head.
I said, “We’ve got business to take care of. Sorry, but if you want that drink, you’re going to have to take it with you.”
Willie put his glass on the kitchen counter. “Alright then.” He turned to Joey. “I need my shotgun back.”
Joey just said, “Nope.”
The young shrimper flushed red. “That’s an expensive gun. It’s mine and I want it back now.”
Joey glanced at me. He’d had about all he wanted of Willie Teeter. I said, “Willie, I’ll get the shotgun back to your grandfather. You already tried to shoot one person tonight. I don’t think we’d be doing you or Captain Billy a favor to let you leave here with that thing.”
Willie glared at the floor; then he said, “Well, fuck both of you,” and walked out.
Joey said, “Somebody ought to explain to that kid that the innocent good-old-boy routine don’t exactly fly if it’s sandwiched between shooting at you and telling you to fuck off.”
“Who’s going to go get him?”
Joey sighed and walked outside.
The muffled sound of Joey calling Willie’s name floated in on the night air. I set my duffel on the floor and fished keys out of my pocket as I walked through the living room to my study. Inside the study, I unlocked the dead bolt on the heavy closet door and stepped inside to retrieve my Beretta Silver Pidgeon over-and-under and an old humpback Browning twelve-gauge. I heard Joey and Willie come in the front door and called out for them. They entered the study just as I was emerging from the closet with an armful of fly rods.
Joey said, “I told Willie we changed our minds about sending him off by himself.”
Willie smiled and tried to look appreciative.
As I dropped the tackle on a leather sofa, Joey said, “Tom, you got everything you need out of there?”
I said, “Everything that’s worth anything.”
A dim bulb seemed to light in Willie’s eyes, and he just managed to get out, “What the…,” before Joey clamped one hand on the back of Willie’s neck and another on the boy’s belt and sent him hustling into my gun closet. Joey slammed the door and wedged a foot against the bottom to keep it shut. I walked over and turned the key in the lock.
I looked at Joey. “Not very smart, is he?”
Joey said, “Doesn’t look like it.”
And Willie started screaming a furious line of insults, curses, and threats, the gist of which was that he wanted out of the closet. Joey and I left the room. I retrieved my duffel while Joey went outside to get the car. But when I stepped onto the porch and closed the door, the car was there and Joey wasn’t.
Before I had time to worry, I heard what sounded like the roar of a race-car engine coming from the beach, and Joey came tearing around the side of my house in a mud-splattered four-by-four pickup mounted on elephantine circus tires. He skidded a little when he stopped; then he rolled down the window.
I said, “What are you doing?”
“We’re headin’ into the swamp. That little Ford over there might make it where we’re going, and, then again, it might not. This thing was built for it. Get in.”
I tossed my dive bag into the truck bed and stepped up and slid onto the passenger seat. I noticed a couple of spliced wires hanging down next to Joey’s right knee. I said, “I guess you didn’t ask Willie for the keys to his truck.”
As Joey backed around to head down the gravel driveway, he said, “Didn’t see where I needed ‘em.”
Minutes later, as we swerved onto Highway 98, I asked, “Have you got a good friend in the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office?”
Joey said, “How good?”
“I don’t want Willie breaking out of that closet and trashing my house. If you know somebody who could go by and pick him up, the key’s on the kitchen counter.”
Joey nodded and fished a phone out of his pocket. As he punched in the number and then cajoled some deputy into picking up Willie, I rolled down the window and reached out to adjust the oversized outside mirror so I could watch the road behind us.
When Joey ended his call, I said, “Do you believe his grandfather got him out of bed or maybe even out of the hospital to come up here and check on me?”
I noticed Joey was also keeping an eye on the rearview mirror. He said, “Nope.”
“You think someone else we didn’t know about could have been back at the house?”
Joey looked again at the rearview mirror. “Nope.”
I said, “But you’re not sure there’s not someone following us, are you?”
Joey concentrated on the road ahead. “No,” he said, “I’m not.”
chapter thirty-one
A gray ribbon of pavement unwound beneath the yellow wash from our headlights as Joey sped toward Tate’s Hell Swamp and a confrontation with a refugee sadist. He pushed Willie’s ridiculous, steroidal truck hard, anxious to confront Carpintero and squeeze the truth out of him. I, on the other hand, wasn’t much looking forward to meeting the man who had tortured and eviscerated Leroy Purcell. I was doing what I had to do to find Susan and Carli Poultrez.
Joey interrupted my thoughts. “The shotgun was kind of a giveaway.”
“What?”
Joey motioned over his shoulder with his thumb, pointing at the window rack where he’d hung Willie’s shotgun. “The kidâWillie Teeterâhe screwed up bringing the gun to your house. It’s kinda hard to believe his granddaddy sent him up to check on you armed with a shotgun.”
“He didn’t plan on having to explain it. He could have killed both of us.” I said, “We were lucky.”
“That’s the trick in this business. Don’t let anybody kill you, and stay lucky. Something usually turns up.” Joey scratched his jaw. “I guess that’s two tricks.”
Relieved to think about somethingâanythingâother than Carpintero, I said, “You know, Willie does have the same last name as Rudolph Enis Teeter.”
�
�Huh?”
“Sonny.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And one of the guys who came after Susan and Carli on St. Georgeâthe one who blasted out the picture window downstairsâused a shotgun.”
Joey flicked on the high beams. “Be hard to find a house on the Panhandle that doesn’t have two or three shotguns. Something to think about though. Most men who wanna kill you from close up tend to bring a pistol. Not many professionals use a shotgun, but the ones who like ‘em won’t use anything else. Course, as far as we know for sure, the only profession Willie’s got is shrimping.”
I turned to study the shotgun Joey had lifted from Willie. “What kind of gun is that? It looks like it’s made out of plastic.”
“The stock’s some kinda polymer. It’s a Benelli. Loutie’s got one at her place.”
“Isn’t that a riot gun?”
Joey said, “Can be. Some people use ‘em for hunting. With interchangeable chokes, it’s a pretty good all-around shotgun. They use ‘em in Mexico and down in South America where doves are so thick they don’t have any limits on how many you can kill. You can run forty boxes of shells through one of these things without it jamming. Regular hunting guns like a Remington or a Browning aren’t made for that.” He looked at me. “But, a Benelli like this one is really designed to be an assault weapon.”
I said, “Oh,” and reached down to feel the outline of a switchblade in my hip pocket. It was the yellow-handled knife Joey had taken from Haycock at Mother’s Milk, and it’s sharp outline imparted a strange sense of comfort as we sped over that lonely, dark strip of highway. I leaned against the door and closed my eyes.
Some time later, a bump or turn or maybe nothing at all jerked me out of a deep sleep. My legs jumped, my chin bounced off my chest, and I said something along the lines of “Ooobah.”
“Huh?”
I looked around. “Where are we?”
“Just passed the turnoff to St. George.”
A few miles past Eastpoint, Joey hung a left on 65. Minutes later, he pulled off onto a strip of sand next to a sign that read North Road.
