J. Black - The Shop

Going down that road was madness, she knew. But she wanted to do something. Wanted to at least be at the hospital where Amy was.

Jolie had been questioned, somewhat harshly, about her use of deadly force in a city neighborhood. Her lawyer told her not to admit to going there on her own—even though it was clear to everyone that was precisely what she’d done. Jolie did admit to firing her weapon.

As she left, Skeet called out to her, “Hope you have another job lined up. If I have anything to say about it, you’re toast.”

“The way you run things, we’re all toast,” she muttered under her breath. The lawyer, a tight-faced woman from Panama City, poked her in the ribs.

Jolie was pleasantly surprised that her proximity to this pond didn’t bother her at all. It was possible that her fear of the pond behind her house—and her fear of the bathtub—were momentary glitches. Whatever they were, she seemed all right now. This left her free to think about how much trouble she was in.

She’d seen Sheriff Tim Johnson’s face at the station earlier. He wouldn’t even look in her direction. His disappointment was heavy in his features, his eyes. He seemed tired and sad. Sad was an expression people adopted when they looked back. When there was something to regret.

He’d looked like a man who was preparing to give a good friend some very bad news.

“What do you think?” Louis asked her as the truck was winched onto the flatbed tow truck that would take it to “The Barn.”

Jolie squinted against the sunlight, trying to concentrate. “It could be.”

Louis sighed. He looked weary, too. He’d been brought off the bench, and now he would be working the Maddy Akers homicide around the clock. “Could be? Can’t you do any better than that?”

“It was dark.”

Louis shrugged. “Guess that’s the way this is gonna go.”

“I’m just not sure, all right?”

“I wasn’t saying anything against you,” Louis said. “I was talking generally.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s a bitch.”

Over lunch at the Jack in the Box, Louis caught Jolie up. Amy Perdue was on life support and was unlikely to regain consciousness. There had also been a development regarding James Dooley.

The Strange Case of the Boastful Hit Man, was the way Louis described it.

According to Louis, Dooley hadn’t been home for two or three days. This morning, unable to get a warrant, Skeet made the call—exigent circumstances—and sent a team in to breach Dooley’s house. Inside, the trash stank to high heaven. The man’s two dogs, kept in the backyard, had gone through all their water and food and were now with animal control. James Dooley appeared to have absconded. It bothered Louis that he’d left the dogs. There was a BOLO on both James Dooley and his 1985 brown Chevy truck.

Turned out they didn’t have to go far to find him. He was in their own jail. Dooley had been incarcerated for three days at the Palm County Sheriff’s Office jail in Palmetto after committing a minor traffic violation. An enterprising deputy ran him for wants and warrants, arresting him on the spot for a broken taillight.

Skeet found out about Dooley’s incarceration when he put the BOLO out and got the call from the Palmetto deputy who arrested him.

His Chevy Fleetside had been sitting in the impound lot in Palmetto for three days.

Louis told Jolie that Skeet went to Palmetto and interrogated Dooley himself. Of course he knew it was a wild-goose chase. Dooley couldn’t be in two places at once. According to Louis, it left Skeet in a foul temper.

There was no evidence that Chief Akers had ever hired someone to kill his wife.

In the aftershock of the drive-by, Jolie’s mind had fallen into certain lines. She was sure Maddy was the target, that Amy was collateral damage. But what if it was the other way around?

Jolie was beginning to believe there never was a hit man.

Maybe this was about Amy.

Jolie said, “Louis, you recovered Amy’s phone after the shooting, right?”

“Sure did, and put it into evidence, just like it says in ‘The Big-Boy-Pants Detectives’ Handbook.’”

“Have you done forensics yet?”

“We’ve been busy with other things.”

“There might be evidence on that phone.”

“Evidence?”

Jolie had to frame this carefully. “I think she and her brother Luke were into something bad. There might be information on her phone about that.”

“And you know this because?”

“She said something about it when we talked,” Jolie lied. “She said there were photos.”

“Photos.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Photos of what?”

“She didn’t say. But she said I’d know ’em when I saw them.”

Elbows on the table, Nick Holloway leaned forward and smiled at Frank Haddox. “Ever hear of Giant’s Causeway?”

A gull hovered like a baby’s mobile just beyond the rafters of Bayou Joe’s, its bright eyes on the last of Frank’s onion rings. Frank thought the bird looked alternately clownish and homicidal.

“Giant’s Causeway?”

“The racehorse. Nearly won the Breeder’s Cup in 2000. I own one of his offspring.”

“You own one of his offspring?”

“Actually, in partnership. We drew straws to name him and I won. I named him after my favorite fishing fly.”

“Oh. Well that’s interesting.”

“You know what one of my partners wanted to call him? Spotcheck Billy. Guy’s a Little Feat fan, Spotcheck Billy’s in one of their songs. I don’t think that’s an appropriate name for a Kentucky Derby hopeful, do you? It lacks…”

“Gravitas?”

“That’s the word exactly. Gravitas.”

With that, their conversation petered out. Frank began to wonder if this was such a good idea. He didn’t know the guy. In fact, Holloway seemed a little…off. Maybe bestselling authors were like that. All that time alone inside their own heads—maybe they weren’t adept, socially.

He could feel the guy scrutinizing him from behind his dark glasses. The way the light bounced off them—Frank couldn’t see the man’s eyes. For the first time, Frank questioned his decision to leave his security detail behind.

Frank decided right then this would be a short day. They’d go out a ways, do a little fishing, and be done by early afternoon. He wouldn’t call off the fishing trip altogether though. Something told him not to piss this guy off. Go out for an hour—they wouldn’t even have to talk—then leave him back at the dock. That decided, he stood up. “What do you say we go get us some kings?”

Just as he said it, a shadow crossed over them—a pelican landing on a nearby piling. A storm was coming later this week, but today was beautiful. A beautiful sunny day, but Frank felt goose bumps crawl across his shoulders as the man smiled.

Dark glasses and excellent teeth.

“Sounds like a plan,” Nick Holloway said.

27

As Jolie and Louis walked back to their cars, Louis’s phone rang.

After disconnecting, he said, “We got an owner for the truck—matched the VIN number. It was stolen from an auto body shop in Panama City. Guy dropped it off three days ago—was gonna restore it to its original condition. Bad deal, huh? Now his vintage truck’s got a big dent in the rear quarter panel, and I’m sure two days in the pond didn’t do it any good.”

“It could be where he hit the post in the alley.”