The Homecoming

by Carsten Stroud

  “Like most kids,” Boonie said.

  He had raised two girls all by himself, one now happily married and the other happily in the Navy, and getting them there had nearly killed him.

  Kate sighed again, smiled up at Lemon as he came back with a glass, filled it, and handed it to her.

  “Thank you, Lemon. I’ve been telling these guys about Rainey and Axel. They’ve been skipping classes. Faking notes and e-mails. Playing hooky.”

  “And going where?” Lemon asked.

  She looked up the river toward Patton’s Hard.

  “I think they’re spending a lot of time up there,” she said, nodding toward the place. “Under the willows.”

  “If they’ve been playing hooky,” said Nick, “then we’d have gotten a call from Alice.”

  Kate took a sip, held the glass in front of her, and frowned at her reflection.

  “That’s another thing that’s bothering me. Alice Bayer doesn’t seem to be anywhere around. I talked to her temp, a horrible person named Gert Bloomsberry, who was thrilled to tell me that Alice hasn’t been at the school in over two weeks. According to Gert, Alice probably went off to see a friend—”

  That got Nick’s attention.

  “Alice wouldn’t bail on her job for any reason. Not that woman. She put up with Delia Cotton for ten years. Never missed a day.”

  Kate agreed, and said so with real heat.

  “One of the teachers went up to her house. The car was gone and there was a note on her door. It said she’d gone to Sallytown and she’d be back soon. The priest knocked, but there was no one home. They’ve been calling, but all they get is her answering machine.”

  “I don’t like that,” said Boonie.

  “Neither do I,” said Nick.

  “Then you won’t like this either,” said Kate, reaching into her briefcase and bringing out the note she had taken from Gert Bloomsberry. She laid it on the table so everyone could see it.

  Nick picked it up, read it, set it down.

  “You see my problem,” said Kate, a comment for the table. “Since most of us believe that Sylvia is dead—where did this note come from?”

  Lemon leaned forward, picked up the note.

  “I think I know,” he said, which got the full attention of everyone else.

  “When we were still trying to figure out what was going on, Nick and Kate asked me to run through Sylvia’s computer to see if there was anything on it that would help. I went over—”

  “How’d you get in?” Boonie asked. “There’s a security lock on the door.”

  Nick and Kate looked at him.

  Boonie shrugged.

  “I had a drink with Mavis Crossfire. The Teague house on Cemetery Hill is on her beat. Now that nobody lives there, she makes it a point to see it’s okay.”

  “And the house is fine,” said Lemon, with an edge. “I have the code. I go there from time to time, just to take care of the yard. If she sees my truck in the driveway, Mavis will come in for a beer. The thing is, this note—Sylvia has a file box of them, on the shelf in her office. At least she did last time I was there.”

  Boonie didn’t get it.

  “But why would she keep old notes?”

  Kate knew why.

  “That paper is expensive. Sylvia had money, but she was frugal about things like this. And she was meticulous about her handwriting, as you can see. If she made a mistake, she’d start over, but she’d keep the old note in case she wanted to use the other side for something.”

  Lemon was holding the note.

  “There’s nothing wrong with this one.”

  “Yes, there is,” said Kate. “I was thinking about it on the way over. There’s no date. Sylvia always put the date under her signature. If you look close, you can see that the note has been shortened. You can see the scissor marks. Somebody cut the date line off. She must have made a mistake on the date line, so she put it aside and took out another piece of paper. You know what this means, don’t you? Nick? Lemon?”

  “Yes,” said Lemon. “Rainey’s been in that house. His old house. Probably with Axel. They’ve figured out the code—”

  “I have it written in my planner,” said Kate. “I guess they’re going into my purse as well.”

  Nick stood up, angry, his face set and pale.

  “Where are the boys now?”

  Kate sat back, her expression one of sorrow and worry. “I don’t know. Rainey’s not answering his cell. Axel has his iPad turned off. I called Beth at the audiologist’s office, and she hasn’t heard from them either. I tried Rainey’s cell phone GPS locator online and it’s not working. His phone’s a Motorola, so the only way to kill the GPS is to take the battery out. They’re not at home. I have no idea where they are. They left the truck while I was confronting Coleman. Maybe they’re at Sylvia’s house right now.”

  “Did you fill Beth in on the whole story?”

  “No. I just said they were playing hooky. She can’t leave the doctor’s office until the fitting is over. She says she’ll meet us as soon as she’s free.”

  “Well, let’s you and me go—”

  Several things happened at once.

  Nick’s beeper went off.

  And so did Boonie’s.

  Then Nick’s cell.

  Nick looked at his beeper first.

  911TIG

  The 911 code meant CALL IN NOW. TIG was Tig Sutter, Nick’s boss at the Belfair and Cullen County CID. Boonie was already talking into his own cell. Nick had Tig on the line a moment later. Some intense and terse exchanges followed. Kate and Lemon traded looks, and Lemon shook his head.

  “It’s not the boys, Kate. Relax.”

  Nick had a short, sharp exchange on the cell. He closed the call just as Boonie finished his.

  “It’s Deitz,” said Boonie, looking at Nick. “He’s rolling in a dark blue Lexus. Niceville PD is tracking him right now. Up in the north end. You coming?”

  Nick looked at Kate.

  “You just got out of the hospital, Nick,” she said. “Are you really in good enough shape to go?”

  Nick took her question seriously.

  “Yes. I am. I wouldn’t go if I weren’t. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the cops.”

  “Then go,” she said. “Lemon and Beth and I will find the boys.”

  Well, No Matter What Happens, There’s Always Death

  Chu and Deitz were heading northeast, toward the intersection of North Gwinnett and Bluebottle—Endicott following along about a mile back—Endicott was listening to complicated New Orleans jazz by Irvin Mayfield—when Deitz looked up through the moon roof and saw a small olive-drab dot floating just above the canopy of transplanted palm trees that shaded The Glades. For a while he paid it no attention, flying dots being a dime a dozen near an airport.

  The Glades neighborhood was a parklike development of fifties-style housing done in a Coral Gables style. It had once been Niceville’s most prestigious suburban development. But Niceville had overrun it and swept on by and now it was run-down and the palm trees were weary and tattered. Coker had a bungalow in The Glades.

  After they got through with Danziger, Deitz intended to go pay Coker a visit.

  They were well into Niceville’s northern suburbs now and the afternoon rush hour was building up. The Galleria Mall was coming up on their left, a collection of box stores and theme restaurants like the Rainforest Café and Landry’s and T.G.I. Friday’s, all of it surgically attached to one of those gigantic Bass Pro Shops. The parking lot was already jammed.

  Jesus, look at those saps, Deitz was thinking, looking at the cars and SUVs packed into ten acres of parking, the lights of the stores flashing and blinking, the people milling around. Spare me the fucking burbs.

  Chu had the radio on and he was listening to something sappy with a lot of strings and horns. Chu seemed to be doing okay. He was quiet, but that was only natural.

  The cars and trucks and buses flowed around them and Deitz had the comfortable feeling of
being just one anonymous vehicle in a glittering river of steel and glass. He was starting to feel like he was a street player again, like he was operating.

  The gun on his belt helped the feeling. It was a bit like being back in the FBI, before he’d totally fucked his career.

  He’d seen a couple of Niceville PD cruisers, but they weren’t paying any special attention to him. He was staring at the dark green dot—a chopper obviously—but not really focusing on it.

  He was having happy thoughts about what he was going to do to Charlie Danziger when he finally had him down on the ground.

  First thing, those blue boots were—okay, now wait a fucking minute.

  What the hell is that chopper doing?

  It was a quarter mile away, gliding along real slow, on a perfectly parallel path with their Lexus, and at about the same speed.

  It wasn’t a traffic chopper.

  Deitz squinted at it, trying to see the marking on the tail boom. It wasn’t a Eurocopter … From the color and the silhouette, it looked more like a Huey. Who the hell still flew Hueys these days?

  He got the answer a second later.

  The Air National Guard.

  “Chu, get into that mall. Turn now. Go slow, but get us into—”

  Chu was jerked out of his reverie by the steel in Deitz’s voice. It rattled him, but he braked to make the next left turn at a large neon sign with shooting stars all over it:

  The Galleria Mall

  The Best Deserve The Best

  “What is it?” Chu was asking, his voice going up a couple of octaves, but Deitz was watching a black SUV about eight cars back, in the right-hand lane, big and bulky, with tinted windows. He had seen it before, but trucks like that were everywhere.

  “Just make the turn. Go slow. Use your signals.”

  “Is it the police?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Get us into the covered parking area. That’s gonna take out the air unit. We can deal with the guys on the ground. Just don’t make any crazy moves. Drive as if this was where we were going.”

  “How long have they been following us?”

  Deitz thought about it while he watched as the black SUV braked, hesitated, and then moved on down the street. Which meant they were passing the Eye onto another surveillance unit.

  Deitz got the implication. They wanted to know where Deitz was going. Otherwise they’d have just scooped him up as soon as they had their team squared away.

  They thought he was going for the money.

  Greedy bastards.

  “Don’t know. They just handed us off.”

  “Handed us off?”

  “Never mind,” he said, as Chu rolled the Lexus into a huge covered parking area. Chu stopped at the bar, pressed the button for a ticket. The bar lifted. There were about ten cars lined up behind the Lexus, and none of them looked official. Which didn’t mean a thing.

  The trick was to get on foot and get lost in the crowd. Deitz wished he had brought the wig, if only to change his outline in a mass of people. He wasn’t nervous, or scared. He checked his mood and realized he was wired up and engaged. He’d run this sort of game hundreds of times himself. He knew how it was played. And he played it pretty well.

  “Go up three levels. There’s a walkway across to the upper level of the mall. Park near it.”

  “Am I coming with you?”

  Deitz gave him a carnivorous grin.

  “Oh yeah. You’re coming. You’re not gonna want to miss this.”

  Chu found a slot six spaces away from the Promenade Walk.

  “Back it in,” said Deitz, looking for anybody on foot. As soon as the Lexus had taken that turn into the parking lot, they’d have gotten people out on the ground. But unless they were a dedicated surveillance unit, and not a bunch of feckless locals, the people on the ground would be easy to spot. And they’d be jumpy, because now there were civilians all over the place, and dead civilians killed careers. Chu got the Lexus parked, shut it down, started to pull the key.

  “Leave it,” said Deitz.

  Chu didn’t ask why.

  Because one of us might not be coming back.

  They were out on the deck.

  “Take your jacket off, put it over your arm,” Dietz said, while he grabbed the black valise out of the rear of the Lexus. “When I tell you, put it on again. Keep the gun in your pants. You okay?”

  Chu’s mouth was too dry to get any words out, so he just nodded. Deitz smacked him on the shoulder, a ferocious grin creasing his beefy face. Chu realized that Deitz was having fun and he wanted Chu along to share it with.

  At that point he knew that if the opportunity presented itself, he was going to have to shoot Deitz in the back. Often. He hoped he could do it.

  Deitz waved him on ahead, and they were moving, slow and steady, across the walkway, the glitter and glare of the big covered mall opening up before them, various and beautiful and new, and full of the dull roar and canned music and the shuffle and scuffle and chatter of a couple thousand people that make malls a pretty good facsimile of hell.

  “Where are we going?” Chu asked, as they turned left and headed along the upper balcony, keeping close to the storefronts. Deitz inclined his head in the direction of a large gatelike structure, apparently made out of huge wooden logs.

  A family of stuffed bears stood outside the gates, all of them on their hind legs, in that charging-grizzly pose that they were probably NOT doing when they got themselves drilled in the skull. A sign in cartoon log letters above the gate read BASS PRO SHOP, and a large crowd was milling about the entrance.

  “Why there?” Chu asked, trotting to keep up with Deitz, who was picking up speed.

  “They sell guns,” he answered, just as someone shouted at them from off to their left—Deitz and Chu turned as a large guard in a Securicom uniform popped out of nowhere and took a brace with his handgun pointed straight at them, barking at them:

  “Freeze—freeze or I’ll—”

  Deitz shot the guard in the knee.

  The guard shrieked, a whistling howl, and went down, his weapon clattering across the tiles.

  “We’re not killing anybody,” said Deitz, over his shoulder, as he trotted toward the guard through a crowd of terrified shoppers, most of whom were now running in every direction but the one that had a Deitz in it.

  Chu noticed that the order of fleeing did the shoppers no credit—it was the dads leading by fifty feet, trailed closely by the older sons, with the women and toddlers bringing up the rear.

  Deitz was bending down over the sweaty face of the guard, whose cheeks were pulled back in a rictus of pain.

  “Jermichael Foley, you dumb fuck,” said Deitz, taking a knee beside the guard. “Don’t we always say Leave the takedown shit to the cops? Don’t we always say that?”

  Jermichael Foley was nodding vigorously, trying to stop the bleeding in his knee. Deitz prodded the entrance wound with his index finger, which drew another steam-whistle shriek from Jermichael.

  “Jeez, Mr. Deitz, you shot me!”

  “Yeah, but only in the knee, so I hope we can still be friends. I’m afraid that knee’s fucked for good, though. Your own damn fault.”

  He patted the guard on the shoulder, plucking his radio out of his belt. He walked over and picked up the guard’s weapon, the inevitable Glock 17. All around him the citizens had utterly fled and he and Chu were alone in a kind of courtyard in front of the Bass Pro Shop entrance. Two employees wearing plaid shirts and bib overalls were busy trying to close the rolling glass doors that sealed the store off.

  Deitz lifted the Sig and fired two rounds at the employees. The two employees promptly gave up their efforts and disappeared at a dead run into the dimly lit recesses of the store.

  Which was mammoth, two gigantic floors stuffed with every kind of sporting gear the American Male would ever want: boats, fishing rods, more boats, canoes, tents, binoculars, all things camo in every woodl
and color. Here and there an array of stuffed animals lurking on top of display cases.

  And all along the upper balcony, row upon row of guns—rifles and shotguns and handguns—all of them visible to Chu as he stood there. He was trying to figure out how Deitz’s admonition not to kill anybody squared with the forcible acquisition of an arsenal big enough to start an insurrection.

  He thought, in this odd moment of calm before the shit storm that was sure to come, that now might be a good time to put one into Deitz’s skull, but his hands failed him and the moment passed.

  Deitz was heading for the doors when one of the standing bears went sailing backwards, and a moment later there was a booming crack that echoed around the upper level of the mall. Deitz kept moving, but Chu looked back and saw two large men in black fatigues running full tilt at them, both carrying stubby black guns that would still have looked lethal if they’d been lavender.

  As Chu watched, the guy on the left lifted his weapon—aimed it at Chu’s head. Chu saw a blue sparkly crackle flare up at the muzzle—whizzy things plucked at his shirt collar. Then the chattering sound. A machine gun.

  To his immense and lasting surprise, motivated by a vestigial gene that may have come down from Tamerlaine, Chu pulled out his gun, pointed it in the general direction of the cops, and pulled the trigger.

  The gun kicked back ferociously—God only knew where the round went—the muzzle flew up and the top of the barrel smacked him in the forehead, splitting his skin open—the gun flew out of his tingling fingers and landed six yards away, bounced twice, and went off again, this time spinning itself around on the tiles like a steel top.

  Chu stood there half stunned, with blood running into his eyes, and blinked at the pistol while more rounds from the cops skittered off the tiles around him and one slug tugged at his right sleeve.