Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

He mopped sweat from his face, squatted down, and thought about it. Harry had perfectly positioned him for the shot, down to the direction of the truck, even the angle of the mirror. And Broker had made the obvious assumption: the firing position had been in these trees, the best cover in sight.

Exactly the misdirected conclusion Harry had wanted him to reach. Like an opponent putting out counterfire would assume. Harry, meanwhile, would be somewhere else.

He got up, walked through the narrow line of trees, and climbed the gentle hill behind them. His truck was now obscured from view by the foliage.

Then he found the props Harry had left behind on a low hillside.

A small sandbag lay on a hummock of dirt. The kind used for prone support on rifle ranges. Broker walked over and found a dug-out area where Harry had made himself comfortable. Five Lucky Strike butts were ground into the dirt in a little circle. Squatting in the depression behind the hummock, Broker could clearly see his truck through a deceptive opening in the tree canopy.

Again plastic gleamed in the sun, bright transparent this time. Harry had left a liter bottle of spring water in the grass. Almost full. Like a diagram of insanity, the water bottle lay next to an empty pint of Johnny Walker.

Greedily, Broker twisted off the cap and drank the hot water in three long gulps. Only when he’d finished did he see the patch of bare dirt that had been scraped flat. Harry had used something pointed, a twig or pen, and had printed very legible uppercase block letters in the earth: YOU FLINCHED!

After he stopped swearing, Broker called J. T. Merryweather. Then he called Stillwater Towing. Then, as he walked back across the field to the gate, to meet the tow truck, he called J. T. again.

Angel glided at the edge of the group of parents who were putting down blankets and unfolding camp chairs on the grass next to a fenced-in baseball diamond. She wore a sleeveless blouse, clam diggers, and sandals as she sauntered across the steamy playing field.

Just another mom.

That’s what the prospect probably thought.

Look at him, just the nicest guy. Gathering the kids around him on the sidelines. Hands and eyes. Six-year-olds. Boys and girls in yellow T-shirts and baseball caps. Tigers, the script on the shirts said. Watch his hands and his eyes. The way they move among the young bodies.

George Talbot was a T-ball coach. Thirty-seven years old. Mid-management at 3M. He was husky, jowly, with a heavy four-o’clock shadow and ruddy cheeks.

Watch his hands and eyes.

He had fast little eyes behind a constant smile. And quick small hands. Dainty hands. At odds with his thick muscular legs.

Angel scanned the parents. Maybe one of them had made the call. Saw something. The complaint had been vague and anonymous. Don’t trust him around the kids. Something about the way he is with the children.

The boys and girls were paired off and struggled to catch the soft baseballs in their oversized mits. And Angel was thinking that some parents could be playing dirty politics. My kid isn’t in the first lineup. My kid is always in the outfield. My kid isn’t getting enough playing time . So get the coach. So make an anonymous phone call. Smear him.

Look at him, hopelessly normal. Handing out batting helmets to the first kids in the batting order. Remember, not all men are bad. Patience, Angel; you must be sure. Very serious stuff. Got to be sure. And keep moving.

Her eyes scanned the playing field, the cars parked along the street. She was looking for I-am-a-cop antennae sticking up on an unmarked car. She had to be careful.

Nothing specific in the news about the dead priest. Not a peep about A. J. Scott.

No mention of the medallions.

They were getting tricky on her.

Have to be careful.

After the game George drove down Greeley and joined the kids and their parents at Nelson’s Ice Cream Parlor. Hot, crowded around the flimsy plastic tables in the parking lot; the ice cream dripped. George wiped the spill from a boy’s thigh. Close quarters, all sweaty and jostling. Did the hand linger? Did the knuckles drift across the boy’s crotch?

Angel, watching from across the parking lot, could not be sure.

Reasonable doubt.

Though accelerated, her system of fact-finding and punishment wasn’t arbitrary. The more she watched George Talbot roughhouse and joke with his boys, the less certain she was.

Good touch or bad touch?

She was leaning toward not charging George.

Good touch.

She was thinking maybe George would get to live his ordinary comfortable life. She was thinking that if she knew George, she’d tell him to eat smaller portions and get more exercise.

The matter was clinched half an hour later as she trailed George home. He lived north of town, in an area so recently opened to development that the houses were on huge one-acre lots. The rules of rural vigilance applied here. Any car that came down this road would be noticed. Living out here, George could keep a loaded shotgun.

And the house itself was not friendly to approach; it sat three hundred yards off the road next to a small pond. Angel observed a golden retriever, tongue hanging out, race down the long driveway to meet George as he drove in. Going past, Angel saw a basketball hoop on the garage. Two girls, short, dark haired, playing badminton.

From the corner of her eye she saw the mom come out; George’s soul mate with dark hair, also in need of exercise. Her last impression of George Talbot was that he’d changed his name. With his dark complexion and the animated way he and his wife talked with their hands and touched each other as he got out of his car, he could be Italian or Greek.

Angel continued down the road. Too open around the house, and to get inside she’d have to get past the dog. Angel didn’t know how to neutralize a frisky seventy-pound golden retriever.

No way I would harm an animal.

Uh-uh.

And then it’s summer; the wife and kids are around. .

No, he presented too many problems for her minimal surveillance skills. And these problems make it easier to err on the side of reasonable doubt.

George Talbot, you are free to go.

* * *

Letting George off the hook left a void in her evening. So she went home, changed into her running duds, and hit the steamy streets. The heat buoyed her, carried her, had become the chrysalis for her mission. Like infection, it concentrated the poison and drew it to the surface. Now she felt it pooling all around her, in the humid dark, in her sweat, as her shoes thudded on the concrete.

And it was literally all around.

As she ran a circuit of streets at dusk, she watched the light drain out of the sky, to be replaced by an artificial light flickering from living rooms.

Murder kenneled in the television sets. Along with assault, rape, things blowing up; tits and ass on prime time.

Kids in there with their upturned faces getting fat eating munchies were learning that killing was just another point-and-click solution. When she was little, the boys played with toy guns and fought with their fists. Now the kids weren’t allowed to have toy guns, and they shot each other with 9 mms.

Face it, Angel thought, I am nothing more than all of you carried one step farther.

I am as normal as breathing the electronically tinted air coming off all those video tubes.

Whatever.

Focus.

She was getting close to the end of her spree. She had to start tying up the loose ends. She made a mental note to do a little research on a certain someone. To find out if they were right- or left-handed.