One False Move (19 page)

The tapes had been reviewed over and over again. There wasn’t much to see on any of them, anyway. The robber always wore a black mask over the bottom half of his face, a stocking cap, gloves, a dark-colored long-sleeve T-shirt and jeans. The picture wasn’t as static riddled as the bank film, but not much better. The cameras in all three stores shot down at an angle from behind the counter and included the cash register and a slice of the store, a couple of aisles and usually the back freezer case.

She had already watched each of them once and was going through them again from the beginning. She hit Play.
Damn!
She’d gone back too far. She kept doing it with the first tape, as well, expecting there to be more. She recognized her mistake because there had been customers in the store each time right before the robberies. But the robber always waited. He had to be outside, watching, anticipating.

Grace reached to fast-forward past the array of customers coming in and out of the camera’s view. But she paused it instead.

That was odd. Had she picked up the first tape again by mistake? She stopped and ejected it. No, this was the second one. She pushed it back in, rewound it and hit Play.

She watched the back of the store where a young man—probably a teenager, it was difficult to judge from the grainy picture—walked in front of the freezer case. She hit Pause and left the image frozen with him suspended in midstride. She found the videotape marked #1 and slipped it into the small TV/VCR combo on the shelf below. She rewound it, making sure she went back far enough then she pushed Play and watched and waited.

There he was.

She hit Pause. She stood back and examined the two screens. It had to be the same kid, same spiked hair, same loose gait and baggy jeans and the same bright white high-top tennis shoes. It was the shoes that she’d noticed first. What teenager, especially a boy, was able to keep his shoes so white? Could it be a coincidence that he was in both stores just minutes before the robberies?

She opened her file folder and shuffled through to find the stores’ addresses. One was on the north side. The other in West Omaha. The third in the northwest section.

She pulled out the third video. Two could be a coincidence. She replaced one of the others with this one, rewound and hit Play.

Nothing.

She rewound farther back and tried again. The store was busy. This must have been the afternoon robbery. The others had been at night. But this last one the robber must have gotten cocky and struck in the afternoon, in broad daylight.

Grace watched closely. She didn’t see him. No walk-through in front of the freezer case. There were others but not him. She rewound the tape again and started from the beginning one more time.

“Grace?”

She hit Pause, turned and looked up at Joyce Ketterson in the doorway to the small conference room.

“It’s the call you’ve been waiting for. Zurich is on line two.”

“Thanks, Joyce.”

She grabbed the receiver, her eyes staying on the paused TV screen.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said. “Sorry I missed your call earlier.”

“I’ve got about five minutes before they begin serving dessert and coffee. How are things?”

Vince sounded tired. She knew without asking that he probably hadn’t slept yet, except for a catnap on the long flight over.

“Things are going okay.” She wouldn’t worry him about Barnett. There wasn’t a thing he could do about it. “How’d the meeting go?”

“It’s still going. So, seriously, I do need to get back in there, but I just wanted to see how you were.”

She smiled. He was doing a good job sidestepping the topic of Barnett, too.

“Hey, what’s with the ceramic gnome?” she asked. “Are you planning some tacky front-yard landscaping? Actually, it’s kind of cute.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grace.”

“The ceramic gnome?”

“Gnome? You mean like dwarf?”

“Yes, silly. The one you left on the steps down to the garage.”

“Grace, I swear I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Richard’s waving me back in. I gotta go. You sure you’re okay?”

“Oh, sure, fine.”

“Okay, give Emily a hug for me. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

She decided she’d ask Emily about the ceramic creature. Maybe one of the workers had left it. Although they hadn’t been back since last week. Then it occurred to her—what if Jared Barnett
had
been in the house? But why leave something like a stupid ceramic gnome?

She shook her head and stared at the TV screen. That was when she saw
him
again, or rather a sliver of him.

She was certain it was the same kid. He had his back to the camera. His right hand reached up over the door to the freezer case—a strange way to hold it open. But then she saw the reason. A little girl stood below him, getting something from the same case. He was holding it open for her, holding his arm way above her head, so as not to touch her. His hand was in a place where no one else probably touched, where there still might be some fingerprints. And, yes, there at the foot of the screen was one of the bright white high-tops.

She picked up the phone again and dialed.

“Darcy, it’s Grace. There’s something I’d like you to take a look at. Believe it or not, I may have found some fingerprints for us in one of the convenience stores.”

11:17 a.m.

Tommy Pakula sat in his Explorer, the door open, his cell phone in his lap. He could see the Sarpy County sheriff’s deputies, their wide-brim hats bobbing between the trees as they searched the woods around the cabin. Bloodhounds were on the way, but Pakula didn’t think they’d find anything. If it hadn’t been for that farmer panicking and calling in his stolen pickup, they would have had the fucking dogs out last night, though he had to admit he wasn’t sure they could work in the lightning and rain. Hell, they even had to ground the helicopter. The sons of bitches had lucked out.

Pakula ran the palm of his hand over his head. It was a good sign that they hadn’t found a freshly dug grave, and yet the flip side wasn’t much better. He had come close to letting the media reveal who the owner of the red Saab was. They’d find out soon enough if they started digging into the registered vanity plate. He had considered plastering the television stations with Andrew’s name and photo. Someone may have already seen him. Could have called it in. But if the killers saw it, they might see Andrew as a liability. One thing Pakula was sure about, if that happened, these two psychos wouldn’t be letting Andrew catch a ride home.

Pakula left the deputies and drove the short distance to where Hertz and the crime lab techs were still going over the crashed car. He could see they were taking the long way around to avoid sloshing through the tire ruts. Their alternate route didn’t look much better. There was more rainwater between the rows of corn, and there was mud everywhere else.

He stepped over the busted barbed-wire fence and noticed a No Trespassing sign still attached, now mud splattered and barely hanging on. That summed it up pretty good. These two guys had no respect for authority, no respect for private property, no respect for anybody but themselves.

“We’re getting what we can,” Ben yelled to him as Pakula stepped from one mud pile to another, making his way to the car. “Then we’ll haul it in and comb the inside.” Ben tapped out a cigarette, and when one of the techs scowled at him, he headed back the way Pakula had just come.

Pakula recognized the tall, skinny kid, Wes Howard, and mumbled a hello. He didn’t envy these two, crawling around in the mud, trying to do their grid of the scene with latex gloves on and plastic bags in hand. He stayed back about twenty feet, trying to get a sense of what those two assholes went through during their scenic crash in the country. What did they do next? How did they happen to stumble onto the cabin Andrew had rented?

“Air bag deploy?” he asked.

“Nope and thank goodness,” Wes said. “Sometimes they make a mess of the evidence.”

“Yeah, but sometimes you end up getting some blood or snot for DNA.”

“No blood or snot but plenty of vomit in the back seat.”

“Really? Isn’t that interesting. Anything else?” Pakula asked.

“We’ll dust the interior for prints after we haul it in. Footprints around the car are pretty much washed away. Although I think I have a partial on the inside back doorstep.”

“Nothing got left behind in the car?” Pakula came close enough to glance inside. It was looking more and more like the assholes didn’t get away with any money.

“Couple of pairs of bloody coveralls, one kerchief. No weapon. We’ll do a good vacuum job back at the ranch. I did find this in the mud.” Wes held up a plastic bag with what looked like a piece of jewelry, some kind of pendant or locket. “It’s not tarnished, so I don’t think it was here before the car crash. Just dirty. And I don’t know too many farmers who’d be wearing something this fancy while plowing the field. Has an engraving on the back.” He took a closer look then handed it to Pakula. “TLC and JMK. Mean anything to you?”

“Probably not tender-loving-care, huh? Mind if I hang on to this for a couple days?”

“No problem. You might check with Darcy. I think I remember her saying she found a broken necklace on one of the victims.”

“Remember which one?”

“No, sorry.”

“Where did you say you found this?”

“Along the side of the car, down in the mud. Kind of deep in the mud, actually. I might not have found it except that I was scraping for a soil sample. If it was dropped accidentally, it was also stepped on hard enough to press it into the dirt.”

“You think they might have buried it so it wouldn’t be found on them?”

“Who knows. I guess it’s possible.”

“So we have this and a partial shoe print on the back doorway.” Pakula stared at the car as if seeing it for the first time. Something didn’t add up. The Saturn’s hood was smashed in, the front bumper hanging off. There were scrapes where the barbed wire had tried to hold it back. The radiator was probably busted. No windshield cracks, so no heads were busted. But there was something wrong with this picture.

“Is this exactly the way the car was when you guys got out here?”

“Yup. They probably jumped out and ran. Didn’t even take time to close the doors.”

That was it, Pakula thought. That was what didn’t fit.

“Why are there three doors left open?” he asked. “And you said the partial footprint was where?”

Wes met Pakula’s eyes, and he could see the kid was already thinking the same thing.

“Back doorstep,” he said.

“Can you tell if it was stepping back into the car as if someone was getting something?”

Without hesitation Wes said, “No, it was definitely on its way out of the car.”

11:33 a.m.

“We’re headed in the wrong direction.” Melanie said. She had spent most of her life within a hundred-mile radius of Omaha, Nebraska, but even so, she still knew that Colorado was west. They were headed south.

She was getting hungry and tired and the sun was blinding her. She pulled down the sun visor only to be face-to-face with a gold-framed Jesus pin-tacked to the inside fabric of the visor.

“Jesus!”
she grumbled and flipped it back in place. She’d rather have the sun in her eyes.

“I’m hungry,” she said, hoping it sounded pathetic enough for Jared to allow them to drive through at the next fast-food joint. Though out here the miles between towns kept getting longer. She glanced over her shoulder at Charlie, who was sleeping with his head propped against the window. His red hair stuck up in spikes and his right fist was tucked under his chin. No use trying to enlist him in her food dilemma.

“I said I’m—” She was interrupted by a package of granola bars flying over the seat into her lap. “I need some—” The bottle of water missed her head by inches.

“For Christ’s sake, be careful. Geez.” Melanie glanced at Andrew, embarrassed. She shook her head.

Charlie snickered, stretched and then added, “Yeah, can’t we stop? I need to take a piss.”

Melanie hid her smile. Finally, she wasn’t the only one.

“How we doing on gas?” Jared leaned over the seat to see for himself as if he didn’t trust Andrew. “The next town’s Auburn. It should have some kind of convenience store. We’ll get gas and supplies. Charlie can take a piss and then we’ll turn around.”

“Whadya mean turn around?” Charlie piped up before Melanie had the chance.

Jared handed him the map, opening it to the right panel. “We’ll cut back and head for Colorado.”

“I knew it. I knew we were headed in the wrong direction,” Melanie said to Andrew, but the writer hadn’t said a word since they left the farmer’s place. In fact, he’d just been staring straight ahead at the road as he drove, his left hand at the top of the steering wheel, barely moving. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses he’d found on top of the visor on his side.

Melanie held off opening the package of granola bars. She could see the town just beyond the next curve. Maybe the place would have slices of pizza or one of those turning roasters with hot dogs. Some of the nicer convenience stores had both. She wanted real food, and only now realized she couldn’t remember when she ate last.

Jared hung over the front seat again, getting a better look at the approaching town.

“Can we buy some toothpaste and a toothbrush?” Melanie asked. “How much can we spend?”

“Isn’t that just like a woman?” Jared said to Andrew, slapping him on his shoulder as if they were best buddies now.

Melanie cringed, thinking an injured shoulder harnessed up like that must still hurt like hell, but Andrew didn’t flinch. He didn’t even move. He just stared ahead, like a robot. She hoped he wasn’t falling asleep. Her bruised ribs couldn’t take another car crash.

“Can we get some Tylenol, too?” she asked Jared.

She figured he owed her big-time for helping him tie up that farmer. She just kept reminding herself that the guy’s wife would be home soon, and he’d be put out of his misery.