J. Black - The Shop

He loaded Outlook Express. Landry knew what to look for. He’d downloaded a list of names and numbers from the cell phone, but he didn’t see any that would tell him what he wanted to know. But looking through the e-mails, he recognized one name immediately. The man had been all over the TV in the last couple of years. He fit the criteria—the only real link Landry could see. There were two e-mails. He read them both. Reread them. Read the responses. He selected “Reply” to the original message, wrote his own response, and hit “Send.”

Then he went to Orbitz.com to make his reservations. He spread the plastic out on the bed. Visa Card, Discover Card, Amex, driver’s license—an old picture, unflattering in the way driver’s license photos usually are. It looked nothing like him. Amazing how people changed in looks from age thirty to age forty. He could write a thesis about it.

He selected the Visa card and typed in the numbers. Expiration date, 3/13. Hooked up the portable printer, printed up his ticket, folded it in eighths, and put it in his wallet. He heard thumping sounds outside his window, kids running on the walkway.

He would miss this place, but there was always another room, another adventure.

24

By the time Jolie got home, it was going on dark. She fed the cat, made a sandwich, and took Madeleine Akers’s case file out onto the porch.

The pond was out there in the darkness, but she couldn’t see it—the moon wasn’t up yet. There was a nice breeze tonight, cutting the sticky heat.

Jolie had a decision to make. Either she took over surveillance on Maddy Akers herself, or gave up on the idea entirely. She was sure Amy would come for her money—if she hadn’t already.

Jolie’s first instinct was to ask Skeet if she could continue watching Maddy Akers on her own, off the clock. But she knew he would turn her down.

Skeet didn’t have a suggestion box on his door.

Another option: ask for time off for personal reasons and do it on her own. But if Skeet found out what she was doing, she’d be fired. Sheriff Johnson would stand for a lot of things, but that kind of insubordination wasn’t one of them.

Chief Akers might have been a bad guy. He might have mistreated his wife, although the jury was out on that. But Jolie had taken his case, and she was dedicated to finding his killer.

So there was no other option.

She’d keep tabs on Maddy herself.

She reread the two surveillance log sheets. Maddy’s actions were about what you’d expect in the aftermath of a loved one’s death. She went to the grocery store twice and the Gardenia Police Department once, stopping to gas up the car on the way home. She went once to Babbitt’s Funeral Home and once to the Royal Court Apartments, working in the office for about twenty-five minutes. Jolie supposed Maddy could have met up with Amy there, but Deputy Wade didn’t see her. A few neighbors dropped by Maddy’s house with covered dishes. One daughter spent the night. Two delivery vans dropped off flowers.

Jolie was beginning to doubt the hit man theory. She’d checked out James Dooley. He had a record, but it was small stuff. There was an outstanding warrant, which she made note of—she might want to use it sometime. It did cross her mind that someone delivering flowers could have gotten up close enough to deliver the coup de grâce.

She didn’t think a guy like James Dooley could pull it off, though.

As Jolie went into the bedroom to change clothes, she found herself looking at Danny’s official portrait.

It occurred to her that she hadn’t actually seen that photo in a long time, even though it was prominently displayed. She picked up the framed portrait and looked into Danny’s eyes. Well, she tried to. But there was nothing there. No secrets revealed, no answers at all. It was just a photo.

Jolie set the portrait back on the dresser. Carrying her clothes, she turned away, then back. Dumped the clothes on the bed. She took the photo off the dresser, folded the cardboard stand against the frame, opened the bottom drawer, and put the photograph inside.

Jolie drove into Gardenia just past ten p.m. Ed, her next door neighbor, had lent her his Dodge Ram. Ed was a veteran of the Korean War—a tough old bird. He’d lived next door to her father for twenty years, spent most of that time arguing politics on her dad’s porch over a couple of beers. When Danny died, Jolie took her dad’s house off the market and sold the house she had with Danny. It had been a good move.

Ed’s Ram was hardly unobtrusive, but there were a lot of Dodge Rams in Gardenia. Plenty of working men, hunters, and fishermen lived out here.

An added bonus: Ed’s truck had dark tinted windows.

One the way out of town, she stopped at the grocery store and bought energy bars, nuts, and juice. She took along plenty of water and a pot to piss in, just in case.

Then she settled in for the duration.

Nothing happened.

Back in the office by eight a.m., she picked up a message from Judge Sharpe’s clerk, asking her to call him. After a short wait, the clerk put her through to the judge.

“I’m sorry,” Judge Sharpe said. “I’m denying a search warrant at this time. You just don’t have probable cause. I’ll need more than the word of an alcoholic paranoid like Royce Brady.”

The second night showed a steep decrease in her enthusiasm. At least she’d squeezed in a nap before driving out to Maddy’s just before dark.

The Akers house was halfway down Jackson Street, which dead-ended at a park. A narrow alley fronted the park and ran perpendicular to Jackson, forming a T. An all-night convenience store sat on the west corner of Kelso and Jackson, separated from the neighborhood by a low fence and some weedy elms. It was an ideal place for Jolie to watch Maddy’s house. She could see every car that turned onto Jackson from Kelso. And she had a clear shot of Maddy’s front door.

So she glassed Maddy Akers’s front porch. Like watching a pot boil. There was nothing—just the street, the streetlamps, the house with a light on in back.

She switched from binoculars to her camera with the telephoto lens. Started to drift off, catching herself. The camera, suspended by a strap around her neck, rested on her chest.

She woke to the sound of a whining transmission as it accelerated out of the corner—

Amy’s car.

Twenty past three in the morning.

Jolie had waited so long to see that car, that when it finally showed up the whole thing felt like a dream. Jolie was slumped down below the dash of the Ram, her eyes following the play of headlights as they passed over her truck and moved on. She scooched up a little bit and looked through the telephoto in time to see the taillights blink out in front of Maddy Akers’s house.

Amy got out of the car and strode up to the front porch, standing under the light. She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked harder. Still no answer. Then she started pounding. “Maddy? Maddy! I know you’re in there! Wake up!”

Jolie felt as if she were frozen in amber, still sleepy. An image bloomed in her mind’s eye—a ridiculous image—of Maddy answering the door and Amy pulling out a gun and popping her.

She stamped her feet—one foot had gone to sleep—and eased the Ram’s door open. The interior light stayed off; she’d turned the switch off last night.

Amy was pounding on the door and screaming. Lights came on in a house across the street.