Michael Connelly - The Scarecrow

“Got it. We’re going.”

I looked up Western Data’s address in my notebook and plugged it into the car’s GPS. Soon we were on a freeway heading east from the airport. Traffic moved smoothly and we were to Mesa after two freeway changes and twenty minutes of driving.

Western Data Consultants loomed small on the horizon on McKellips Road on the east side of Mesa. It was in a sparsely developed area of warehouses and small businesses surrounded by scrub brush and Sonora cacti. It was a one-story, sand-colored building of block construction with only two windows located on either side of the front door. The address number was painted on the top right corner of the building but there was no other sign on the facade or anywhere else on the fenced property.

“Are you sure that’s it?” Rachel asked as I drove by the first time.

“Yeah, the woman I made the appointment with said they had no signs on the property. It’s part of the security-not advertising exactly what they do here.”

“It’s smaller than I thought it would be.”

“You have to remember, most of it is underground.”

“Right, right.”

A few blocks past the target, there was a coffee shop called Hightower Grounds. I pulled in to turn around and then we took another pass at Western Data. This time the property was on Rachel’s side and she turned all the way in her seat to view it.

“They’ve got cameras all over the place,” she said. “I count one, two, three… six cameras on the outside.”

“Cameras inside and out, according to the website,” I responded. “That’s what they sell. Security.”

“Either the real thing or the appearance of it.”

I looked over at her.

“What do you mean by that?”

She shrugged.

“Nothing, really. It’s just that all those cameras look impressive. But if nobody is on the other end looking through them, then what do you have?”

I nodded.

“Do you want me to turn around and go by again?”

“No, I’ve seen enough. I’m hungry now, Jack.”

“Okay. Where do you want to go? We passed a barbecue place when we got off the freeway. Otherwise, that coffee shop back there is the only-”

“I want to go to the hotel. Let’s get room service and raid the minibar.”

I looked over at her and thought I detected a smile on her face.

“That sounds like a plan to me.”

I had already set the address for the Mesa Verde Inn into the car’s GPS device and it took us only ten minutes to get there. I parked in the garage behind the hotel and we went in.

Once we got to the room, we both kicked off our shoes and drank Pyrat rum out of water glasses while sitting side by side and propped against the bed’s multiple pillows.

Finally, Rachel let out a long, loud sigh, which seemed to expel many of the frustrations of the day. She held her almost empty glass up.

“This stuff is good,” she said.

I nodded in agreement.

“I’ve had it before. It comes from the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies. I went there on my honeymoon-a place called Cap Juluca. They had a bottle of this stuff in the room. A whole bottle, not these little minibar servings. We motored through that whole thing in one night. Drinking it straight, just like this.”

“I don’t want to hear about your honeymoon, you know?”

“Sorry. It was more like a vacation, anyway. It was more than a year after we actually got married.”

That killed the conversation for a while and I watched Rachel in the mirror on the wall across from the bed. After a few minutes she shook her head as a bad thought crept in.

“You know what, Rachel? Fuck ’em. It’s the nature of any bureaucracy to eliminate the freethinkers and doers, the people they actually need the most.”

“I don’t really care about the nature of any bureaucracy. I was a god-damn FBI agent! What am I going to do now? What are we going to do now?”

I liked that she had thrown the we in there at the end.

“We’ll think of something. Who knows, maybe we pool our skills and become private eyes. I can see it now. Walling and McEvoy, Discreet Investigations.”

She shook her head again but this time she finally smiled.

“Well, thanks for putting my name first on the door.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’re the CEO. We’ll use your picture on the billboards, too. That’ll really bring in the business.”

Now she actually laughed. I didn’t know if it was the rum or my words but something was cheering her. I put my glass down on the bed table and turned to her. Our eyes were only inches apart.

“I’ll always put you first, Rachel. Always.”

This time she placed her hand on the back of my neck and pulled me into the kiss.

After we made love, Rachel seemed invigorated while I felt completely spent. She jumped up from the bed naked and went to her roller bag. She opened it up and started looking through her belongings.

“Don’t get dressed,” I said. “Can’t we just stay in bed for a little while?”

“No, I’m not getting dressed. I got you a present and I know it’s in here some-Here it is.”

She came back to the bed and handed me a little black felt pouch I knew came from a jewelry store. I opened it up and out came a silver neck chain with a pendant. The pendant was a silver-plated bullet.

“A silver bullet? What, are we going after a werewolf or something?”

“No, a single bullet. Remember what I told you about the single-bullet theory?”

“Oh… yeah.”

I felt embarrassed by my inappropriate attempt at humor. This was something important to her and I had trampled on the moment with the stupid werewolf line.

“Where’d you get this?”

“I had a lot of time to kill yesterday, so I was walking around the District and went into this jewelry store near FBI headquarters. I guess they know their neighborhood clientele because they were selling bullets as jewelry.”

I nodded as I turned the bullet in my fingers.

“There’s no name on it. You said the theory was that everybody’s got a bullet out there with someone’s name on it.”

Rachel shrugged.

“It was a Sunday and I guess the engraver was off. They said I’d have to come back today if I wanted to put anything on it. I obviously didn’t get the chance.”

I opened the clasp and reached up to put it around her neck. She lifted a hand to stop me.

“No, it’s yours. I got it for you.”

“I know. But why don’t you give it to me when it’s got your name on it?”

She thought about that for a moment and then dropped her hand away. I put the chain around her neck and clasped it. She looked at me with a smile.

“You know what?” she asked.

“What?”

“I’m really starving now.”

I almost laughed at the abrupt change in direction.

“Okay, then let’s order room service.”

“I want a steak. And more rum.”

We ordered and both of us were able to get showers in before the food arrived. We ate in our hotel bathrobes while sitting across from each other at the table the room service waiter had rolled into the room. I could see the silver chain on Rachel’s neck but the bullet had been tucked inside her thick, white robe. Her hair was wet and completely uncombed and she looked good enough to eat for dessert.

“This guy who told you about the single-bullet theory, he was a cop or an agent, right?”

“A cop.”

“Do I know him?”

“Know him? I’m not sure anybody really knows him, including me. But I’ve seen his name in a few of your stories in the last couple years. Why do you care?”

I ignored her question and asked my own.

“So did you show him the door or was it the other way around?”