J. Black - The Shop

Landry stayed by the door, and they talked. Mostly about weaponry, but a little about the mission. Landry walked casually to the window, lifted one of the blinds, and looked out. Mentioned the number of foreclosures. They talked about that. Got into a rhythm. It was an interesting conversation. He kept the conversation going even as he stepped away from the window and came up behind Jackson. He clapped his hand hard to Jackson’s forehead to steady him, then drove the ice pick deep into the soft hollow where the skull met the neck.

Immediately, Jackson crumpled. When the ice pick punctured his brain stem, his fuse box was blown. Death was instantaneous. Landry eased him down to the floor. He pulled gently on the handle and it disengaged, leaving only the eight-inch steel spike in the base of Jackson’s skull. He dragged Jackson into the walk-in closet and closed the door.

Landry listened for noise in the house. But he heard only the sounds he expected: men breaking down their weapons.

Landry tapped on Davis’s door next. His door was ajar. Davis said, “Come in.”

Inside, Davis knelt over his cache of weapons. He looked up for one second but then looked back down at the weapon he was disassembling. Landry talked about their plan for Indigo as he walked in. Fewer than two seconds to reach Davis—keep walking and keep talking. But then Davis half turned, sensing what was about to happen. Landry’s hand made a claw as he walked and talked, and he shoved the claw hard into Davis’s throat, temporarily paralyzing him. Landry whipped him around, steadied the forehead with one hand and planted the ice pick in the brain stem with the other.

As Davis began to topple, Landry caught him under the arms and gently let him down.

Davis’s boot thumped against the closet door on the way down.

Landry froze. He listened—nothing. Green was in the next room. Landry wriggled the handle on the second ice pick, but he had trouble getting it to come off. He could just as well leave the handle in—by the time the evidence was sorted out, he’d be long gone. This wasn’t the time to get anal-retentive about it. He left the handle on.

Landry heard Green’s voice behind him. “You guys—”

Then an intake of breath. Then nothing. Landry looked at Green.

Green stood in the open doorway, black cargo pants and vest, nylon and Velcro—bulky. Peeling sunburn, yellow buzz cut. He looked like a dandelion.

Hands empty .

Realization came to Green’s eyes as Landry launched into him, another claw to the throat, but at the last moment Green twisted. Landry was put off balance, and his hand thwacked hard against the wall.

His wrist might be broken.

He got Green in a half nelson with his right arm, and with his left he dug into his vest and found the last ice pick. Kid’s hands prying at his elbow, Landry clamping the kid hard against his body, the kid kicking out in a panic, no martial arts stuff but pure adrenaline, Landry letting go and shoving Green to his knees, shoving downward, downward, so the kid’s nose was in the carpet, the ice pick slipping in Landry’s hands as he pushed it in hard.

But he missed the hollow, the soft place. The pick dug in and then stuttered sideways, nicking the carotid, blood spouting, the pick pinging to the floor, the kid fighting like a tiger for his life.

Landry flashed on one of his dad’s colts. The colt’s leg had snapped, and they were waiting for the vet. The colt thrashed in agony, the shine of confusion in his eyes when he realized he could no longer run. That was the look in Green’s eyes, even as he fought on. His arms and legs not working the way they should be.

Green was dying, but it would take time. Landry couldn’t let him suffer. He still remembered the relief he’d felt when the colt was finally euthanized. Ten years old, and he desperately wanted that horse to die. He stepped in close, ignoring the manic blows, many of which connected. Maneuvering behind Green, he clasped his hands on either side of the kid’s head. He dug his nails in, his fingers slipping in the cascading blood before gaining purchase. He wrenched Green’s head sideways, jerking back at the same time. Heard the audible chuck as the neck snapped and the kid dropped.

Landry looked down at Green, then at his own wrist. The pain radiating from his wrist could no longer be ignored. A hairline fracture, probably. He might have done the wrist even more damage in the few seconds it took to put Green out of his misery.

But it was worth it.

49

The house felt stale, as if Jolie had been away for a month. It felt empty, too. She turned on CNN, went to the kitchen, and poured herself a Coke. Hot outside, hot inside.

The cat came in and looked at her. He wanted something. She dug around in the refrigerator and gave him the last of the deli chicken. “You’re not supposed to have scraps,” she said, but he ignored her.

She hadn’t told Ed specifically why she was stranded at the Burger King in Port St. Joe, just that it was job-related. Which was pretty much the truth. Jolie liked it that Ed was happy to drop everything and come and get her. She had to listen to some war stories on the way back—the same ones she’d heard probably seven or eight times now—but that was fine with her. Ed telling her his war stories and Jolie listening was a big part of their relationship.

Jolie tried Kay but got her voice mail. It was the third time she’d tried to reach her, and it was clear Kay had decided to ignore her calls.

Jolie had always been sure about the story of her life. Her mother died when she was a baby, leaving her dad to raise her on his own. A father and mother who loved each other, both of them doting on their baby girl. Their happy future cut short by the ticking time bomb in her mother’s head—the aneurysm that took Dorie Burke’s life.

That was gospel.

But maybe Kay was right. Maybe her parents didn’t love each other. Maybe they were on the verge of a divorce. Maybe one of them committed adultery. Maybe even domestic violence.

Jolie couldn’t believe that. Not her father. He was a gentle, loving man. A hopeless romantic. A tilter at windmills—a liberal Democrat in a right-wing county.

She couldn’t picture her father hurting her mother. Not beating her, not sleeping around. It wasn’t in him.

Her phone rang. It was Louis. “Just wanted you to know we looked at Amy Perdue’s phone and didn’t find anything substantial.”

“You looked at her photos?’”

“We looked at everything. There was nothing I would call incriminating—not in her e-mails, anything like that.”

“What kind of photos did she have?’”

“Usual stuff—lots of photos of her and her boyfriend, parties, the beach. Stuff like that.”

“Her brother Luke worked for a tree service on Indigo—the attorney general’s place on Cape San Blas. Were there any pictures there?”

For a moment there was quiet. Then Louis asked, “Why would you want to know that?”

How much should she tell him? “This is something I was working on before Amy was shot. Luke might have seen something illegal going on there. He might have taken photos and shared them with Amy.”

“Illegal? What are you talking about?”

“Sex stuff.”

“You mean wild parties?”

“Yes, wild parties.”

“The kids or the adults?”

“The people in the house, Louis.”

There was a pause. “What are we talking about here?”

“Have Ted do forensics, will you do that? Maybe he could recover data that’s been erased.”

“What would he look for?”

“Evidence that Luke sent her photos. Evidence that photos were erased. I don’t know what those guys can do. It’s possible she downloaded them to a disk, something like that.”