W.E.B Griffin - The Murderers

He stood motionless for a second, then turned back to the diner and climbed up again.

Mr. Gerald North Atchison, smiling, was giving his order to a waitress whose hair was piled on top of her head.

What are you doing here, you sonofabitch?

He looked around the diner again.

Frankie Foley was sitting at the diner’s counter, the remnants of his meal pushed aside, drinking a cup of coffee, holding the cup in both hands.

“You want to climb down from there, sir, and tell us what you’re doing?”

Matt quickly looked over his shoulder. Too quickly. His right foot slipped and he fell backward onto one of the larger perennial thornbushes.

“Shit!” Matt said.

“Jesus!” one of the detectives said, his tone indicating that the strange behavior of civilians still amazed him.

“I’m a Three Six Nine,” Matt said.

Both detectives, if that’s what they were, entered the thornbush jungle far enough to put their hands on Matt’s arm and shoulders and push him up out of the thornbush.

“I’m Detective Payne, of Special Operations,” Matt said. “Let me get out of here, and I’ll show you my identification.”

The two eyed him warily as he reached into his jacket for his identification.

The larger of the two took the leather folder, examined it and Matt critically, and finally handed it back.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“Right now, I need some help,” Matt said.

“It sure looks like you do,” the second of them said.

“There’s a man in there named Gerald North Atchison,” Matt said. “You hear about the double homicide at the Inferno?”

“I heard about it,” the larger one said.

“It was his wife and partner who were killed,” Matt said. “And there is another man in there, Frankie Foley, who we think is involved.”

“I thought you said you was Special Operations,” the larger detective said. “Isn’t that Homicide’s business?”

“I’m working the job,” Matt said. “I followed Atchison here from his house. I think he’s here to meet Foley. That would put a lot of things together.”

“What kind of help?” the larger one asked.

“I can’t go in there. They both know my face.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said, aware of how stupid that made him sound. “See if they talk together. Anything. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they’re both here together.”

“If they’ve got enough brains to pour piss out of a boot,” the larger one said, “they’d transact their business out here in the parking lot, where nobody would see them.”

It was a valid comment, and Matt could think of no reply to make.

“Harry,” the smaller one said, “I could drink another cup of coffee.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Matt said.

“If you need some help, why don’t you get on the radio?” the larger one said.

“I’m driving my own car.”

“Where are these guys?”

“Atchison, five eight or nine, a hundred ninety pounds, forty-something, in a suit, is in the second banquette from the kitchen door. Foley, twenty-five, six one, maybe two hundred pounds, is in a two-tone sports coat, third or fourth seat from the far end of the counter.”

“We’ll have a look,” the larger one said. “I’m Harry Cronin, Payne, South Detectives. This is Bob Chesley.”

Chesley waved a hand in greeting; Cronin offered his hand.

“You tore the shit out of your jacket, I guess you know,” he said, then signaled for Chesley to go into the diner ahead of him.

A minute after that, Cronin followed Chesley into the diner. Matt walked away from the diner, stationing himself behind the second line of cars in the parking lot.

Five minutes later, he saw Foley come out of the diner. Matt ducked behind a car and watched Foley through the windows. Foley went to a battered, somewhat gaudily repainted Oldsmobile two-door and got in. The door closed, and a moment later the interior lights went on.

Matt couldn’t see what he was doing at first, but then Foley tapped a stack of money on the dashboard. The door opened wider, and he could see an envelope flutter to the ground. The door closed, the engine cranked, the lights came on, and Foley drove out of the parking lot.

“That one,” Detective Cronin reported as he approached Matt, “went into the crapper carrying a package. A heavy package. He came out a minute or two later without it. Then the fat guy went in the crapper, and when he came out, he had the package.”

Matt ran over and retrieved the envelope. It was blank, but Matt remembered a lecture at the Police Academy-and it had been a question on the detective’s exam-where the technique of lifting fingerprints from paper using nihydrous oxide had been discussed. An envelope with Foley’s and Atchison’s prints on it would be valuable.

“I’d love to know what’s in that package,” Matt said when he went back to where Cronin waited.

“It was heavy and tied with string,” Cronin said. “It could be a gun. Guns. More than one.”

“Shit,” Matt said.

“Guns don’t help?”

“In the last couple of days, I’ve had several lectures about not giving defense attorneys an edge,” Matt said. “I’m afraid we’d get into an unlawful search-and-seizure, and lose the guns as evidence.”

“If they are guns,” Cronin said. “That’s just a maybe.”

“Shit,” Matt said.

“I could bump into the fat guy, and maybe the package would fall to the ground and rip open…”

“And maybe it wouldn’t.”

“You call it, Payne.”

“I think I had better be very careful,” Matt said.

“Whatever. Anything else?”

“I’m going to follow him. I don’t suppose you could tag along?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to check in.”

“Fuck it,” Matt thought aloud. “I started this myself, I’ll do it myself. Anyway, he might catch on if two cars followed him.”

“You know that he hasn’t caught on to you already?”

“No, I don’t.”

They waited in silence for another ten minutes.

“If you saw a gun barrel or something sticking out of a ripped package, that would be sufficient cause for you to ask for a permit, right?” asked Matt.

“Absolutely. A wrapped-up gun is a concealed weapon.”

“He’s got a permit to carry concealed, but you could get the serial numbers.”

“I’ll go bump the sonofabitch,” Cronin said.

Five minutes after that, Gerald North Atchison came out the Yock’s Diner. Detective Cronin stepped from between two parked cars and bumped into him, hard enough to make Atchison stagger. But he didn’t drop the package, and he held on to it firmly while Cronin profusely apologized for not watching where he was going, and tried to straighten Atchison’s clothing.

Detective Cronin, still apologizing, went into the diner. Atchison watched him, then turned and walked quickly to his car. Matt trotted to his Porsche and followed him out of the parking lot.

Atchison drove back toward Media. Just making the light, he turned left on Providence Road. The line of traffic was such that Matt could not run the stoplight. He fumed impatiently until it finally gave him a green left-turn signal, and then took out after Atchison’s Cadillac.

It was nowhere in sight. There weren’t even any red taillights glowing in the distance.

Matt put his foot to the floor. When he passed the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II, he was going seventy-five miles an hour. There were lights on in the kitchen, and he had a mental picture of his mother and father at the kitchen table.

Just beyond the bridge over the railroad tracks near the Wallingford Station, he was able to pick out the peculiar taillight assembly of a Cadillac. He gradually closed the distance between them.