Michael Prescott - Deadly Pursuit

“File would be better. No use getting the family all upset for no reason. If you get hold of it, fax it to us at the sheriff’s substation in Islamorada.” She gave him the number and terminated the call.

“So you think you can tie Jack to an old homicide,” Lovejoy said. He executed a U-turn near a closed-down gas station; a huge fiberglass mermaid loomed over the service island, tail looped in multicolored serpentine coils. It was not the tackiest thing Moore had seen in the Keys.

She shrugged. “It’s a long shot, I know.”

“Not necessarily. The Behavioral Science profile indicated a high degree of probability that Mister Twister had experience in homicide prior to the first known killing.”

“So I recall. But this Turner girl… She used to baby-sit for Jack. If he did kill her when she was twenty-two, he must have been only a teenager.”

“There’s no shortage of teenage sociopaths-or even subteens, nowadays-capable of murder.”

Moore nodded, remembering Oakland’s mean streets. “True.”

Something made her shiver-perhaps memories of adolescent gangbangers, their eyes flat and dead as nail heads, or perhaps merely the chill of the air conditioning.

The sedan was cool, but the humid heat outside still pressed against the windshield, straining to seep through. For most of the afternoon Moore had felt curiously like a space traveler sealed in a capsule, gliding through an alien environment inimical to life. Occasional forays out of the car had meant plunging into a steaming sauna, to emerge bathed in sweat.

There had been little time to concern herself with comfort. The second half of the day had been as busy-and perhaps as fruitless-as the first.

She and Lovejoy had arrived in Islamorada at two-thirty and had promptly learned several discouraging facts.

First, an Islamorada postmark indicated only that Al Dance’s cards had been mailed somewhere along the fifteen-mile stretch of real estate running from the town of Plantation to the waterway called Channel Two at the southern tip of Lower Matecumbe Key. The Islamorada post office served the entire area.

Second, even if the search was limited to Islamorada, the town’s dramatically reduced summer population meant a large supply of vacant housing. Jack could easily break into any empty cottage and hole up inside.

Third, as an unincorporated part of Monroe County, Islamorada had no police department, and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department, headquartered in Key West, maintained only a substation here.

Fourth, the substation’s personnel and resources were too limited to permit the exhaustive search Lovejoy and Moore required.

The upshot: For the past four hours, Lovejoy had driven up and down U.S. 1, through Plantation, Windley, and Upper and Lower Matecumbe Keys, veering onto the parallel Old Overseas Highway at times, exploring short side streets that dead-ended at the water and mangroves, while Moore had studied every passing car, looking for either of the two vehicles lifted from airport parking last night.

She’d spotted two white Sunbird hardtops and one silver Dodge Dynasty LE. None had the right license number, but she and Lovejoy had checked out each in turn, anyway; plates could be switched. In every case the car had proved to be legally registered to its driver.

Along the way they had stopped at all the local marinas. None of the security guards had seen anyone matching Jack’s mug shot, and there had been no report of any boat stolen in the last sixteen hours. Of course, boat owners didn’t necessarily visit their vessels every day; many were snowbirds spending the summer in Maine or Montana, gone for months.

Hotels and motels had yielded no results, either; likewise for a sample of restaurants and tiki-bars. If Jack was here, he was keeping himself well hidden.

The sole positive development since their arrival had been the disappearance of Peter’s chronic sniffles and sneezes. The Keys were virtually allergen-free. Moore had not seen her partner use a Kleenex in hours. He was a new man.

Lovejoy pulled back onto Route 1, heading south. The westering sun blazed through the passenger-side window.

“Dark soon.” Moore averted her face from the glare. “What will we do then?”

“Keep looking.”

“You’re sure he’s here, aren’t you?”

“It’s our most promising hypothesis.”

Lovejoy squirted fluid onto the windshield. The wipers ticked briefly, erasing a paste of accumulated bugs.

“Just because he visited this area as a teenager…” Moore let her words trail off.

“It was more than a single visit. As far as we can ascertain, this was the only area in Florida to which they returned on a repeated basis. Four years in a row.”

“Small towns, though. All of them. Hardly more than rest stops on the way to Key West. Even given the number of unoccupied cottages available, it would be tough to lose yourself here for long.”

“Jack can manage it.”

“How?”

“I told you before. He’s the devil. He can do whatever the hell he wants.”

Moore glanced reflexively at a white hardtop passing them on the left. A Sunbird? No, it was a Chevy Cavalier, the driver a blond woman tanned nut brown like everyone in the Keys.

A billboard advertising an alligator farm in the Everglades blurred past. The gator’s toothy smirk struck Moore as arrogant, cocksure.

She thought of Jack Dance. Was he smiling like that? Was he safely ensconced in a bungalow on Plantation Key-or a hotel room in Dallas, or a cabin in British Columbia-following the news on TV and leering at the hopeless, bumbling efforts of his pursuers?

When we catch him, she told herself gamely, we’ll rub that grin off his face.

The phone chirped again. Moore identified herself and heard the graveyard voice of Deputy Associate Director Drury in reply.

“What are you two doing in Islamorada?”

Drury did not shout. He never shouted, never cursed. His chilly self-control was somehow more unnerving than any angry tirade.

To Lovejoy she mouthed: Drury. “Sir, we have reason to believe the suspect may be here-”

“You’re supposed to be in Miami, Agent Moore, supervising the field investigation, not chasing down hunches. Anyway, it looks like your hot lead just turned cold.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means the Dodge swiped from Miami International turned up an hour ago in Fort Myers.”

“Have you confirmed that Jack stole it?”

“We haven’t scrambled a search team yet, can’t say if there are prints or not. May not matter; your boy always wears gloves, anyway. Important thing is, Fort Myers P.D. informs us that two locals saw him in a convenience store near the spot where the car was dumped. They’re concentrating the search in that vicinity.”

Moore tersely relayed the news to Lovejoy.

“Give me the phone.” He drove with one hand, cradling the handset against his ear with the other. “Mr. Director, this is Agent Lovejoy. What was he buying at the convenience store?”

Moore could not hear Drury’s answer, only a faint, tinny buzz.

“I would have to say, sir, that I don’t think it was Jack,” Lovejoy replied. “The man is concerned about his health. His kitchen was stocked with low-fat foods. He had a gym membership and used it. Kept himself in shape. In a convenience store he might buy tuna fish or canned fruit or nonfat milk, but not potato chips and a quart of ice cream. Those purchases, in my judgment, are out of character. Sir.”

Moore listened, astonished. Was this really Peter, her partner, weak and defensive, mealy-mouthed and officious? And was he actually holding his own with the deputy associate director? Disputing his superior, standing up for himself?

Incredible. She remembered wondering if she’d underestimated him.