The Shop

by J. Carson Black

  “She took drugs?”

  “Hell yes. Oxycontin and hydrocodone, stuff like that. If those two dickheads hadn’t broken in here and killed her, I would have bet she’d be dead in a year.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Oh, believe it.”

  He told Cyril these kids weren’t prepared for fame. They were thrown into the deep end and they had to perform. It changed them. They became tough, greedy, and hard-nosed. They had only one job: to stay in the public eye any way they could. Drive over a paparazzo’s foot? Good. Have a baby? Great, especially if it broke up someone else’s marriage. Split up with your boyfriend? Make sure it’s messy. Get into a public fight with another woman? If you grabbed her hair in your fist and knocked her off her Manolo Blahniks—fabulous.

  If all else failed, go commando.

  “Why can’t people just let their children grow up and be normal?” Cyril said.

  Cyril expertly brushed the fish with beaten egg whites, coated it with salt, pepper, and cornmeal, and placed it in tinfoil before carrying the platter out to the deck. He started the grill, then regarded the trout with a frown. He opened the foil, added some beer from his own bottle, and closed it back up. The shadows were longer now. Nick excused himself and went into the house. He really did have to take a leak, but first he took a dozen photos with his phone. Quietly, he made his way upstairs, worried about creaking floorboards. There were none.

  He knew Ray and Donny Lee, those knuckle-dragging white supremacists, had done their worst work up in the back bedroom. It was vicious—the pictures posted on the Internet. Disgusting photos, so bad you didn’t even know what you were looking at. Whatever it was, it looked like raw, bloody beef sliced from a gnawed T-bone. Apparently, the idea that a white kid and a black kid were sleeping together unhinged Donny and Ray. The interracial romance, which had been developed (cynically, by the producers) over a period of weeks, might have been the reason Donny and Ray targeted the house in the first place.

  The door to the room was closed.

  He turned the knob. Unlocked. Good.

  He was surprised to see that ground sheets covered the floor. And that wasn’t all.

  On the wall behind where the bed had been, Nick saw the ghosts of bloodstains. Someone had slapped on a coat of paint, but it didn’t completely cover them. Like a Rorschach test.

  Weird, the guy buying the house in this condition.

  It sort of shocked him, but not so much he forgot to take pictures.

  23

  Landry unpacked his groceries on the small table by the honor bar. Although his purchases were representative of the items the hotel sold at a premium, they were much cheaper at the grocery store. With his savings, he was able to buy Carr’s water crackers instead of Cheez-Its, Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies instead of Oreos. He lined his remaining purchases up on the table: brie, smoky sharp cheese, pickled artichoke hearts, and a half bottle of Penfolds red—a nice meal.

  He sat down on the king-sized bed and took off his shoes. He liked the room, which was done in a generic Spanish style. The coverlet was floral, the colors burnt umber and burnt sienna. The walls were clean white. A carved cabinet concealed the TV—the usual.

  He turned on the TV and channel-surfed.

  CNN had a special on Afghanistan. He clicked right past it.

  Afghanistan, in his opinion, was the nut that could not be cracked. Far worse than Iraq on its worst day. The terrain was impossible. The little villages in the mountains were the same now as they were a thousand years ago. Like some of the cliff-dwelling ruins you’d see in New Mexico.

  His platoon, in joint operations with the CIA, had gone after terrorist cells and the Taliban along the border with Pakistan. They’d been given an intelligence package regarding a man named Matteen Wahidi. Landry thought it was pretty thin. They went in at the optimum time, three a.m., rousting the target and his family in the rabbit warren where they lived. The family consisted of Wahidi, his wife, his children, his father, his mother, and his grandfather. Landry had his doubts Matteen Wahidi was working with Al Qaeda. The problem involved his accusers, the two men who spoke up against him. Landry knew they had been paid for their help. They say you can’t buy an Afghan, but you can rent one. The accusers gave it away in their shifty eyes, the holes in their stories, the cues they took from each other, and in the rank stink of their sweat. The smell of fear rolled off them. Landry realized they were afraid of Wahidi in a deep, atavistic way that inferior men always feel in the presence of the genuine article. Wahidi spoke in his own defense, then stood silent, his family behind him. “Matteen” in Pashto meant “well-mannered” or “disciplined one.” His wife was in tears, a two-year-old boy clinging to her leg and screaming. But Wahidi’s other children were stoic, like their father. Matteen Wahidi looked each of his captors in the eye, one by one. When his gaze reached Landry, they took each other’s measure. Wahidi knew what was in store for him. He knew—and his family knew—he would not be coming back.

  It was the way of the world. Landry had learned early on that things like this happened. When he was eight years old, Landry had watched his favorite racehorse, a gelding who had dropped down the claiming ranks, be led onto a van that would take him away. He ran to the fifth wheel and put his head under the pillow so he would not hear the van pull away. His mom came in to comfort him. She told him the horse was going to a farm, but Landry had seen the van on the backstretch before. He’d heard people talking. The horse wasn’t going to a farm.

  Like the horse, Matteen Wahidi was taken away. The horse’s death had been horrifying but short. Wahidi would dwell in the terrible twilight between life and death, sanity and insanity, desperation and hope. They would break him. No ifs, ands, or buts. He would eventually talk—be eager to talk—and tell them what they wanted to hear, whether it was true or not. The disciplined one, the well-mannered one, would babble about anything and everything to get some respite.

  Landry couldn’t have done anything, and anyway, he had long ago hardened himself to injustice. People lived and people died, and nothing in life was fair. Wahidi would have to find his reward in paradise.

  Landry shifted through the channels and landed on E! There was more on Brienne Cross, six weeks after her death. They interviewed her sister, who looked exactly like her. Sabrina. He spread a towel on the bed and ate there, watching television. This was something he’d never do at home, eating on his bed. But he was in a hotel, so anything went.

  After eating, he powered up the Hewlett Packard laptop to see what he could find. The answers could be on Holloway’s computer. Nick himself had been disappointing. He really didn’t know who had spared him.

  As expected, the security was minimal. You just needed a password to get in—the family pet, your sister’s name, your favorite baseball team. From the suitcase crammed full of records and written correspondence he’d brought with him, he’d mined a list of words. He tried one after the other, and got in on the third try.

  He loaded Outlook Express. Landry knew what to look for. He’d downloaded a list of names and numbers from the cell phone, but he didn’t see any that would tell him what he wanted to know. But looking through the e-mails, he recognized one name immediately. The man had been all over the TV in the last couple of years. He fit the criteria—the only real link Landry could see. There were two e-mails. He read them both. Reread them. Read the responses. He selected “Reply” to the original message, wrote his own response, and hit “Send.”

  Then he went to Orbitz.com to make his reservations. He spread the plastic out on the bed. Visa Card, Discover Card, Amex, driver’s license—an old picture, unflattering in the way driver’s license photos usually are. It looked nothing like him. Amazing how people changed in looks from age thirty to age forty. He could write a thesis about it.

  He selected the Visa card and typed in the numbers. Expiration date, 3/13. Hooked up the portable printer, printed up his ticket, folded it in eighths, and put it in his wallet. He
heard thumping sounds outside his window, kids running on the walkway.

  He would miss this place, but there was always another room, another adventure.

  24

  By the time Jolie got home, it was going on dark. She fed the cat, made a sandwich, and took Madeleine Akers’s case file out onto the porch.

  The pond was out there in the darkness, but she couldn’t see it—the moon wasn’t up yet. There was a nice breeze tonight, cutting the sticky heat.

  Jolie had a decision to make. Either she took over surveillance on Maddy Akers herself, or gave up on the idea entirely. She was sure Amy would come for her money—if she hadn’t already.

  Jolie’s first instinct was to ask Skeet if she could continue watching Maddy Akers on her own, off the clock. But she knew he would turn her down.

  Skeet didn’t have a suggestion box on his door.

  Another option: ask for time off for personal reasons and do it on her own. But if Skeet found out what she was doing, she’d be fired. Sheriff Johnson would stand for a lot of things, but that kind of insubordination wasn’t one of them.

  Chief Akers might have been a bad guy. He might have mistreated his wife, although the jury was out on that. But Jolie had taken his case, and she was dedicated to finding his killer.

  So there was no other option.

  She’d keep tabs on Maddy herself.

  She reread the two surveillance log sheets. Maddy’s actions were about what you’d expect in the aftermath of a loved one’s death. She went to the grocery store twice and the Gardenia Police Department once, stopping to gas up the car on the way home. She went once to Babbitt’s Funeral Home and once to the Royal Court Apartments, working in the office for about twenty-five minutes. Jolie supposed Maddy could have met up with Amy there, but Deputy Wade didn’t see her. A few neighbors dropped by Maddy’s house with covered dishes. One daughter spent the night. Two delivery vans dropped off flowers.

  Jolie was beginning to doubt the hit man theory. She’d checked out James Dooley. He had a record, but it was small stuff. There was an outstanding warrant, which she made note of—she might want to use it sometime. It did cross her mind that someone delivering flowers could have gotten up close enough to deliver the coup de grâce.

  She didn’t think a guy like James Dooley could pull it off, though.

  As Jolie went into the bedroom to change clothes, she found herself looking at Danny’s official portrait.

  It occurred to her that she hadn’t actually seen that photo in a long time, even though it was prominently displayed. She picked up the framed portrait and looked into Danny’s eyes. Well, she tried to. But there was nothing there. No secrets revealed, no answers at all. It was just a photo.

  Jolie set the portrait back on the dresser. Carrying her clothes, she turned away, then back. Dumped the clothes on the bed. She took the photo off the dresser, folded the cardboard stand against the frame, opened the bottom drawer, and put the photograph inside.

  Jolie drove into Gardenia just past ten p.m. Ed, her next door neighbor, had lent her his Dodge Ram. Ed was a veteran of the Korean War—a tough old bird. He’d lived next door to her father for twenty years, spent most of that time arguing politics on her dad’s porch over a couple of beers. When Danny died, Jolie took her dad’s house off the market and sold the house she had with Danny. It had been a good move.

  Ed’s Ram was hardly unobtrusive, but there were a lot of Dodge Rams in Gardenia. Plenty of working men, hunters, and fishermen lived out here.

  An added bonus: Ed’s truck had dark tinted windows.

  One the way out of town, she stopped at the grocery store and bought energy bars, nuts, and juice. She took along plenty of water and a pot to piss in, just in case.

  Then she settled in for the duration.

  Nothing happened.

  Back in the office by eight a.m., she picked up a message from Judge Sharpe’s clerk, asking her to call him. After a short wait, the clerk put her through to the judge.

  “I’m sorry,” Judge Sharpe said. “I’m denying a search warrant at this time. You just don’t have probable cause. I’ll need more than the word of an alcoholic paranoid like Royce Brady.”

  The second night showed a steep decrease in her enthusiasm. At least she’d squeezed in a nap before driving out to Maddy’s just before dark.

  The Akers house was halfway down Jackson Street, which dead-ended at a park. A narrow alley fronted the park and ran perpendicular to Jackson, forming a T. An all-night convenience store sat on the west corner of Kelso and Jackson, separated from the neighborhood by a low fence and some weedy elms. It was an ideal place for Jolie to watch Maddy’s house. She could see every car that turned onto Jackson from Kelso. And she had a clear shot of Maddy’s front door.

  So she glassed Maddy Akers’s front porch. Like watching a pot boil. There was nothing—just the street, the streetlamps, the house with a light on in back.

  She switched from binoculars to her camera with the telephoto lens. Started to drift off, catching herself. The camera, suspended by a strap around her neck, rested on her chest.

  She woke to the sound of a whining transmission as it accelerated out of the corner—

  Amy’s car.

  Twenty past three in the morning.

  Jolie had waited so long to see that car, that when it finally showed up the whole thing felt like a dream. Jolie was slumped down below the dash of the Ram, her eyes following the play of headlights as they passed over her truck and moved on. She scooched up a little bit and looked through the telephoto in time to see the taillights blink out in front of Maddy Akers’s house.

  Amy got out of the car and strode up to the front porch, standing under the light. She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked harder. Still no answer. Then she started pounding. “Maddy? Maddy! I know you’re in there! Wake up!”

  Jolie felt as if she were frozen in amber, still sleepy. An image bloomed in her mind’s eye—a ridiculous image—of Maddy answering the door and Amy pulling out a gun and popping her.

  She stamped her feet—one foot had gone to sleep—and eased the Ram’s door open. The interior light stayed off; she’d turned the switch off last night.

  Amy was pounding on the door and screaming. Lights came on in a house across the street.

  Jolie slid out and touched her feet to the asphalt. Gently closed the door to the Ram.

  “Maddy! You’d better come to the door! I mean it!”

  Crouched low, Jolie crab-walked to the corner, using bushes and trees for concealment. The camera hanging from the strap looped around her neck, Jolie was glad for the telephoto lens. The plan was to take photos of the two of them out front, then tail Amy. Amy would be the one with the money.

  The door opened and Maddy stepped outside. Jolie was concentrating so hard on getting a good shot, she didn’t hear the truck turn onto the street until it accelerated past her in a pall of blue smoke.

  She would think afterward that it was like watching a movie. It happened that fast.

  The truck slowed to a stop in front of Maddy’s house, idling rough. Both women turned to look. Jolie let the camera fall to her chest and reached for her weapon. There were two loud cracks. Maddy bent down as if to pick something up from the porch floor.

  Jolie brought up her weapon. Shouted, “Police!”

  Three more cracks, rapid succession. The shriek of tires. Both women down, pushed over like dominos.

  Something whizzed past Jolie’s ear. She heard the crack, like firewood exploding. Was she hit?

  No time.

  Get into a shooting stance. Double-grip, slow it down, breathe! Aim for the tire, squeeze off the shot.

  She missed. Heart racing in overdrive. Ear stinging like a son of a bitch. Blood trickling down into her collar.

  A light snapped on in the house across the street, a man in pajamas running outside. She couldn’t risk the shot. “Police!” she yelled. “Go inside! Go inside now! Call 911!”

  The truck acceler
ated. The passenger banged the side of the truck, yelling, “Go-go-go-go!”

  Man in his pajamas, just staring at her, in the line of fire.

  “Police! Inside, now!”

  The man backed toward the door. Still didn’t have a clear shot. Switch gears. Pointing the camera one-handed, she clicked a photo just as the truck hit the corner to the alley. The truck skewed sideways, back panel whacking a reflective pole hard.

  Accelerated in a funnel of dust.

  Gone.

  Jolie sprinted toward the Akers house. Both victims on the ground. They looked like discarded clothing under the porch light. She punched 911 into her cell. Identified herself as police, gave the code for officer needs assistance, and told them to send an ambulance.

  Description? Truck. Concealed license plate. Color? Muddy under the streetlights—maybe red. Or brown. Seventies GMC or Chevy. Two men with a rifle.

  A rifle?

  Yes, a rifle. Driving north, alley off Jackson.

  The phone dangled from her hand. The next thing she knew, she was standing over Maddy Akers as if she’d been teleported there. Maddy appeared to be dead. Her neck and jaw had been taken out, one large clot, shiny black in the lamplight. Amy was dead too—shot to pieces.

  Sirens.

  CPR. Not Maddy, her neck was blown out. Amy. As she stepped in Amy’s direction, her foot almost skated out from under her.

  The porch was slick with blood.

  25 FRANKLIN

  PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA

  The former attorney general of the United States, Franklin Haddox, throttled back the twin Yanmar 480 HP diesels and piloted his boat, Judicial Restraint, through the pass into St. Andrews Bay.

  Today was the one bright spot in an otherwise miserable week. He would finally meet his distant cousin, the author Nick Holloway, for the first time—just the lift he needed.