Moment of Doubt

by Sara Gauldin

  “Man? What man? That’s so sweet, but those days are long gone, honey.”

  Genevieve stepped over to the woman, looming over her. “Don’t play coy. You dropped him off somewhere. Or you took the car when someone asked you to.”

  The woman smiled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ve got something.” A gloved tech stood up from the silver sedan with an evidence bag. “There was a shell casing under the passenger’s seat.”

  “What caliber?” I asked.

  “Looks like something for a 9 mm.”

  “Do you care to explain why there is a shell casing in your vehicle?” I asked the woman.

  The woman looked around then at Genevieve and me. “You look familiar. Are you from around here?”

  I glared at the audacious little lady for a second too long. “I’m not here for questioning. Why was there a casing in your car?”

  “That is a good question. Now, you have a nice afternoon.” The old woman stared up at Genevieve with a look of defiance.

  “I want this one in an interview room,” Genevieve demanded of the closest uniformed officer.

  “Ma’am, she is out of your jurisdiction,” said the officer.

  Genevieve’s eyes snapped away from the smirking old lady. “Jurisdiction? It was my car that her missing passenger just tried to turn into Swiss cheese. As far as jurisdiction goes, you should be asking my permission to examine my vehicle and appreciate the help since your PD invited us here.”

  “I-I, uh, didn’t realize. You must be here about those body chunks they keep finding,” the officer said.

  Genevieve shot him a look. He shouldn’t be discussing the case in front of anyone. “As I said, you asked us to come. I can see now that this department has its hands full. It’s a good thing I brought my associate to help move these cases along. Avery, go check on the car. See what you can find.”

  “We already have a guy processing the car,” the uniformed officer complained.

  “I’m well aware of that. I still want Avery to have a look.”

  I had no desire to help process the car. I wanted to find out more about the old woman, and why she claimed to recognize me. “It looks like they have the car under control. I think we’d be better off rejoining patrol. That jerk can’t be far from here.”

  Genevieve hesitated for a long moment. She looked at the old woman like she would enjoy punching her right in the dentures, but somehow she held it together and walked back toward me. “You’re right. She’s in on it. I’m sure of it. But I want to catch up with the guy who shot up my patrol car. I think he owes us an apology, don’t you, Avery?”

  I smiled. “Absolutely.”

  ***

  The swarm of police had already arrived, canvassing the entire area of town where our shooter should have been.

  “I wish we could access the security cameras of all these buildings a little faster. By the time we go door to door, our perp will be long gone,” Genevieve grumbled. She still had the stern look on her face I remembered from the first time we worked together. Part of me was just glad that this time it wasn't directed at me.

  I tightened my seatbelt. “We can’t cover them all. But we may have an advantage. We know where we saw the shooter and what time. If we project where they would have passed by next, we may get a glimpse of what happened.”

  Genevieve nodded. “You’re right. We need to narrow the search.”

  It occurred to me that I was handling the whole situation with more control than Genevieve, who was usually stoic and reserved. But after being hunted down by the George family, somebody trying to take me out wasn't a huge surprise. A fresh surge of anger overtook me. “Do you think this was another George family attempt to get even with me? We had a deal!” My voice raised an octave.

  “There’s only one way to find out.” Genevieve turned where we saw the silver sedan turn off and then into a convenience store a block and a half from the intersection. “Let’s try this one for footage. We need to find this guy.”

  We rushed into the store, startling the older man who was napping behind the counter.

  “Good afternoon,” his greeting sounded more like a complaint.

  “Sorry to wake you.” I tried to smile. We didn’t have time for pleasantries. I was looking down the road of dealing with an adversary I couldn’t ID. Seconds mattered.

  Genevieve flipped out her badge. “We need to access your security camera. There’s a shooter on the run, and we need to know where they went, so we can keep you and everyone around here safe.” Her logic was more moderated than I expected.

  “A shooter? I heard nothing.” The clerk pointed to his hearing aids.

  I pulled myself up to my full height, trying not to look tiny behind the counter. “No, but it was only a little over a block from here. We need to see the footage, now.”

  “Fine, but I hope you ladies know how to run this thing. The manager’s on vacation, and the cameras are his business.”

  Genevieve shot me a look. “I think we can figure it out.”

  “Sure.” I smiled and tried to look confident even though I had no clue how the camera system worked.

  He led us to a back room that looked like an office set in a 1980s sitcom, complete with a flickering halogen light.

  As soon as he was out of the door, I turned to Genevieve. “Do you have any idea how to bring up the video?”

  “Well, to be honest, no. I was hoping you did.”

  “No, last time I had to deal with video evidence, Kirk Nelson in Smithville handled it. I never had to learn how.” I kneeled beside the machine. “Well, it’s on. I can see the parking lot now. But as for the stored video, I’d bet it's on a hard drive inside this larger black box, but as for how to get it out, I’m afraid I may delete it.”

  Genevieve examined the box. “Well, we can always ask for help.” She took out her phone and scrolled through a list of contacts. Putting the phone to her ear, she said, “Hello, Kirk. Genevieve Richards here, long-time, no-hear.” She paused for whatever pleasantries were being exchanged. “Look, we are really in a situation. I have Avery here with me… Yes, the same one we worked with on that weird identity theft case…. I want you to walk her through finding the files on a surveillance system. I have to run. Here’s Avery.” She handed me the phone. “I’ll patrol the area. Let me know what you find. We need to divide and conquer.”

  I took the phone without comment. Genevieve held out her hand for my phone. I handed it over. A moment later, the only sign of Genevieve was the sound of her heels as she rushed back through the store.

  I put the phone to my ear. “Hello, Keith?”

  “Avery. It’s good to hear a familiar voice. I hope things are going well for you.” It wasn’t surprising Keith was glad to hear from me. Cracking the video evidence in the Smithville case had given his career quite a bump. I realized Genevieve had called him into service from inside the ranks of the FBI.

  “Hi, Keith. It’s good to hear your voice. Look, we have a fugitive on the run. He shot up Genevieve’s car, and she wants him in custody. I need to know how to see the footage in this gas station’s camera system.”

  “Not a problem. What kind of system is it?”

  “How can I tell?”

  Keith Nelson gave me instructions on where to find the brand and the model number. I gave him the information he needed.

  “All right, now just push the source button and choose the drive. The button should be on the front control; it looks like a rectangle with a wavy line.”

  I pushed the button. “There are a lot of options. How do I know which one?”

  “Read them off to me.”

  I read the list of drives to Keith.

  “It sounds like they’re arranged by timestamp. From what you read, the third drive should get you the closest to today’s feed.”

  I clicked on the third option. “Score, they are in five-minute increments. Thank you so much!”

  “It’s no tr
ouble. It’s nice to be on the same team again, Avery Rich.”

  It was hard to miss the slight dig as he said my real last name instead of the alias I used when we worked together last.

  I ended the call and pushed play. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath in anticipation until I watched the silver sedan pulled across the screen with the tip of the gun’s barrel still sticking out of the sunroof. “Well, he was still there when he passed by here,” I grumbled to myself. I slowed down the feed and watched frame by frame, scanning for any clues that would tell me more about the people inside the car. The side windows were almost completely blacked out, but in the tenth frame, I saw something new though the sunroof: the top of a man’s balding head.

  “Well, you aren’t the grandma, and you aren’t the shooter.”

  I called my number to reach Genevieve. “So, we have two missing suspects, not just one. There was a male driver.”

  “Interesting. So where did they pick up the charming old lady?”

  I advanced the frames a little faster. “I’m still working on that.”

  Genevieve didn’t waste time with more questions. I heard the call disconnect and shoved her phone back in my pocket.

  ***

  I shuffled through a few more files. Knowing there were two men in the car and not a grandmother was one thing, but I needed to know where they went.

  When I shifted to the second camera, the one on the side of the building, I got some answers. The footage showed the two men pulling into an alleyway only two doors down from the gas station. From the camera angle, it looked like the place was a salon.

  Nice, they went to pick up Grandma to take the heat for them after they fired on a police car. And I bet she did it willingly. I fished Genevieve’s phone out and called my number for a second time. The phone rang twice before Genevieve picked up.

  “Tell me you have something.”

  “I do. The two men got out at a salon only two doors down from the store where you left me. I’m going in. Send me some backup.”

  “Avery, wait for the backup.”

  I was already on my way out of the back room. “If I wait, they may run. If I show up on foot, they won’t realize I'm on to them until I look them in the eye.”

  “Avery, don’t you do something stupid.”

  I paused in my tracks and turned toward the monitors. The two suspects were there frozen on the screen, but they wouldn’t stay put long. “I won’t. But I need to know why they fired on us. If the George family is after me again…”

  “If the George family’s after you, then we will deal with it. But somehow, I think this is different. They never wanted this kind of attention.”

  “Well, we’ll find out either way. I’m going now.” I took one last look at the monitor.

  I didn’t give Genevieve a chance to reply, much less object. She was trying to keep me out of trouble, but some things I needed to take care of, first hand.

  Chapter 9

  I headed out of the store’s back office.

  “Did you find what you needed?” the old man behind the counter asked.

  I nodded. “I think so, thank you.”

  “Well, that's good.” He turned back to reading the paper.

  “I’ll be back to collect the evidence.” I rushed to the front door. As I opened it, I paused. “Don’t touch a thing.” I hesitated a moment. Would the videos still be there when someone returned to collect them? There was no time to make sure.

  “No, I know better.” The man looked up from his paper with a sparkle of mischief in his eye.

  There was no time to waste on computer files. I found the back exit of the store, and after checking to be sure I wouldn’t set off an alarm, I headed for the hair salon.

  I didn’t have to go far before I found what I was looking for. Behind the salon, both of the perps were sitting in plastic lawn chairs and having a smoke. I didn’t stop to consider what they were smoking.

  I drew my gun in silence and turned the corner, so I was in full view. “FBI, put your hands on your head.” I wasn't an FBI agent, only a consultant. In retrospect, I should have waited for backup. When the men spotted me and reacted, I was sure I made a mistake.

  The bald man, the taller of the two, took a step toward me. “Well hello, beautiful. What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

  “Save it, hands up.”

  “I’ll be glad to put my hands anywhere you like,” the second guy, the one who was the shooter, said.

  A sour taste came up in my throat as the two men approached. This was bad. Why did I put myself in this position?

  “Come here, sweetheart. Let us make you feel welcome,” said the shooter.

  I looked the bald perp in the eye and tightened my grip on my gun. I tried not to blink. This guy was looking for a weakness, and I would not give him one. “Stay where you are.”

  The bald man leered at me. “I can’t get to know you better from here, Avery.”

  “Who are you? What do you want?” I adjusted my aim for a non-lethal hit. I needed to know why this guy knew me. And why he and his partner wanted me dead.

  The shooter answered my question. “Don’t you remember me, Avery? I can’t believe you’d forget. We met at Dave’s place.”

  My mind spun, but no connections came to mind. I didn’t have time to dwell on it. The balding man charged at me. I didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. The bullet struck him in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. At the moment I reacted to the first man, the second one, the shooter, drew a handgun from the back part of his belt. There was no time to shoot. I dove for the ground as the bullets whizzed over my head. It must not be a good memory for this guy. The thought ran through my head as leisurely as it would if we were sitting down to dinner. I repositioned, trying to aim at my attacker. He was already standing over me, waiting for me to fire with a smirk on his face.

  “It’s too bad. We had a good time.” He looked me in the eye, preparing to do what he had planned to all along. The sound of gunfire made me flinch, as I expected the moment to be my last. Instead, the smirk on the man’s face faded into one of shock and confusion. He let the gun drop to the ground as he reached to his head with his other hand. He pulled away from a handful of blood and tissue that he looked at with a strange mixture of horror and amusement. A second later, he dropped to the ground, dead. Whatever his story was, it was locked away forever in the smirk in my memory.

  The uniformed officers swarmed in along with Genevieve. They disarmed the bald man in a moment. Genevieve reached down and offered me a hand up. “I knew I’d find you here.”

  I nodded. “Well, I couldn’t let the opportunity go.”

  “Yeah, but you just caused me a mountain of paperwork. You had to shoot the guy?”

  “Well, he charged at me. I told him to stop.”

  “I’m sure you did. Any clue who these jerks are?”

  “No, but that one seemed to know me.” I pointed at the corpse.

  “Well, this is your hometown.”

  “It’s not a small town,” I complained

  “No, but based on the bullet holes in my car, this one wasn't exactly on your welcome home committee.”

  I bent to examine the dead man. Nothing about him looked familiar. I noticed he had a small tattoo of what looked like a Celtic cross on his neck. A burst of emotion caught me off guard. Kain would find meaning in the tattoo. But there was no way I could ask him. I didn’t want to think Kain was dead, but my mind was processing the possibility.

  “I should have waited,” I grumbled, more to myself than to Genevieve.

  “Yes, I told you that, to begin with.”

  I nodded. “Let’s find out who they are.” I approached the two officers who had the bald man pinned while they tried to assess his injury. “Did you find any ID?”

  “Well, according to his wallet, he is Anthony Guilford.”

  “Tony. The name’s Tony, since you want to tell my business.”

  “Tony, who’s yo
ur friend there?”

  “Friend, what friend? You can’t depend on friends. Remember that.”

  “Who is that man?” I pointed to the dead man who was now being loaded on a stretcher with an oxygen bag, despite his lack of brain stem.

  The bald man looked at the younger one with an expression I couldn't read. “He deserved better. But never mind.”

  I leaned in toward the man. “What are you talking about? Who is he?”

  “You don’t need me to tell you that.” He stared at me and said nothing else.

  I waited a long, uncomfortable minute in silence, glaring at the man who intended to do who knows what to me. I hadn't forgotten. “We will finish this conversation after you’re in lock up.”

  He narrowed his eyes with unveiled contempt. “I’m sure that would make you more comfortable, sweetheart.”

  I didn’t dignify his threat with an answer.

  ***

  Major Don Watkins walked through the front door of the salon with an expression of authority that was enough to make the most seasoned officer cringe. He came straight for me.“Avery, we need to talk.”

  I glanced at Genevieve.

  “Go, I’ve got this covered.” She waved me away.

  Great, I thought to myself. Now, you don’t need me. I followed Major Watkins out to his car. He opened the door for me like a gentleman, but nothing in his manner made me feel like his request was out of courtesy.

  As soon as Watkins was in the car, he said, “Avery, what are you thinking? How can I build a case against Tony Guilford when you have made him into the victim?”

  “A victim? He charged at me. He was armed.”

  “You showed up out of an alleyway and shot him.”

  The silence was uncomfortable, but there was nothing I could say to change things. He was right.

  “You’ll have to give a statement. I want every detail in writing. But first I need you to do something about Richard Allen. He’s been waiting for an interview with the FBI for over an hour. Nobody showed up, so you’re it.”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.” Experience told me that the way to win over Major Watkins was to do what he asked without giving him any trouble. As for Tony Guilford, I wanted to know how he seemed to know who I was. The fallout from shooting him would have to wait.