Sting (12 page)

D
isappointingly the noon newscasts didn't yield any leads on the murder-kidnapping in Terrebonne Parish.

They did, however, motivate an Orleans Parish prosecutor to pay a visit to the FBI division office. His name was Xavier Dupaw, and the only thing loftier than his name was his ego.

He strutted into Joe's office, announcing, “I was at lunch and caught the noon news. Looks like Shaw Kinnard is at it again.”

Joe Wiley, feeling downright hostile toward the ADA for declining to indict Kinnard when he was in custody, offered nothing by way of a greeting.

Hick was only slightly more cordial. “Funny how that works, Dupaw. You let killers go, they kill somebody else.”

Dupaw took umbrage. “My hands were tied. The police had nothing on him.”

“They were still digging.”

“Meanwhile an innocent man was languishing in jail.”

“He wasn't—”

“Innocent until proven guilty,” the prosecutor said. “Ring a bell?”

Joe wanted to ring his bell, all right. The prosecutor shied away from a case if there was the remotest possibility of losing it.

“Do you have any solid leads on the Bolden murder and the Bennett woman's disappearance?”

Hick glanced at Joe, who remained silent and sullen. Speaking for both of them, Hick said, “We have a crime scene unit assisting, but the Terrebone Parish SO is investigating Bolden's murder.”

Dupaw frowned. “Do the personnel out there have the chops for it?”

“As murders go, it was straightforward,” Hick said. “Kinnard came up behind Bolden and shot him in the back of the head.”

“Yes, but the victim's association with Billy Panella make it bigger than a straightforward murder. Do a bunch of country bumpkins have the know-how to—”

“The country bumpkins have
balls
,” said Joe, who had kept his cool for as long as he could. “When they catch Kinnard they'll charge him for murder and won't give a fuck how long he languishes in jail.”

Xavier Dupaw puffed himself up with righteous indignation and stalked out.

Joe stood, pushing back so hard off his rolling chair that it hit the wall behind his desk. Each minute that ticked by without something happening was making him crazy, because every minute that ticked by reduced the odds of Jordie Bennett being found alive.

If she didn't make it, Joe would forever blame himself for not notifying her of her brother's escape from the safe house as soon as they'd discovered him gone. Joe had mistrusted her just enough to withhold the information, then watch her to see if Josh would seek her out for help and, if he did, to see what action she would take: Shelter him, or surrender him to the authorities.

He might never know, and that was gnawing at him.

He and Hick had reviewed witness statements taken in the bar until they could recite them from memory. Deputy Morrow's only lead—a woman who called the sheriff's office and swore she saw Jordie Bennett being fed into a tree shredder—turned out to be the fabrication of a schizophrenic who'd gone off her meds. Her family apologized profusely, but investigators couldn't recover the time it had taken to ascertain that it was a false alarm from a head case.

Now, feeling claustrophobic, Joe headed for the door. “I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Call Tennessee again. See if they've turned up something.”

Hick looked prepared to argue, but he reached for the desk phone. When Joe returned, Hick was hanging up in apparent disgust.

“Five minutes of conversation boiled down to two words: still nothing.”

Joe hadn't expected there to be a breakthrough, but he shared Hick's disappointment and chagrin. Josh Bennett had been missing for four days, and the only traces of him discovered so far were the ankle monitor and a set of sneaker prints leading from the safe house through a greenbelt about two miles deep that eventually fronted the access ramp of the east–west interstate, where it was assumed he had hitched a ride.

Frustrated, Joe returned to his desk chair and pinched the bridge of his nose till it hurt. “Where
is
that sniveling little shit?”

“He's littler than when we last saw him.”

Joe lowered his hand from his face and shook his head in bewilderment. “What gets me is that nobody became suspicious when Bennett began making these cosmetic changes.”

“The dry eye was diagnosed by an ophthalmologist,” Hick reminded him. “He was even prescribed drops for it.”

“All right, but the drastic weight loss? I shed twenty pounds, Marsha might or might not notice if I'm standing in front of her buck naked. On Bennett's frame you'd notice that kind of drop.”

“Not if he dropped it over a six-month time period.”

“I guess,” Joe sighed. “The bottom line, though? He played them like a freakin' fiddle.”

“Played all of us, Joe,” Hick said grimly.

Joe's scowl conceded that.

As the afternoon wore on, they decided to use the local evening newscasts to go public with Joshua Bennett's fugitive status.

Joe called in the office's media liaison. “Notify the local stations. Tell them in advance that I won't be answering any questions. I'll only read aloud a statement, so make it good.”

The agent said jokingly, “What am I supposed to say? Accountant at large? Armed with a deadly calculator?”

Joe didn't think it was funny. “Say he's wanted for questioning into his sister's suspected kidnapping and Mickey Bolden's murder.”

Hick looked at Joe askance. “He is? Since when?”

“Since I said so,” Joe retorted. “And it's one hundred percent true. If Bennett hadn't taken a hike, Panella wouldn't have sent his favorite hit man and an accomplice after his sister. Mickey wouldn't be dead, and she wouldn't be missing. Last night would have been just another night of pool for Skull Head and his cronies, Deputy Morrow could have stayed to finish his victory pizza party, I'd have copped a feel off Marsha during ‘Take My Breath Away,' and you'd have test-driven one of your promising relationships.”

By now he was boiling over. “That nerd has eluded law enforcement agencies for four days. Maybe the public can do our job better and find him for us. So I don't care if we label him a goddamn ax murderer or the sniper who actually shot Kennedy, I want Josh Bennett's altered-state image on TV by five o'clock.”

The other agent scuttled out to write the official statement.

A few hours later, Joe and Hick watched the first edition newscasts while eating another carryout meal off the desk. While Joe was reading the statement, the stations showed file footage from their coverage of the Panella-Bennett case and placed a photograph of Josh taken at the time side by side with an artist's sketch of how he'd looked when last seen in Tennessee.

“Well, let's see if that shakes something loose,” Hick said as he muted the audio. “Wish you'd consulted me on your wardrobe, though.”

Marsha called to tell him she'd seen him and asked when he was coming home. He told her not to expect him any time soon. He could wait for a development at home just as well as here, but while uniformed officers were out beating the bushes and dragging the bayous, he felt he should be on duty, too.

He paced while Hick essentially ran their trot lines.

“Call Morrow back.”

“Joe, I talked to him an hour ago. He promised to call if anything…” He stopped arguing when the phone rang. He answered and identified himself. “That's us.”

He listened for a moment, then sprang from his chair and motioned Joe out of his. “We'll call you from our car for directions.” Promptly Hick hung up. Joe was already out the door. Hick followed.

They were moving down the hall at a fast clip when Joe worked up enough spit to ask, “Ms. Bennett?”

“Her brother.”

“Dead?”

“Alive.”

By the time they reached the elevator, Hick had explained that a man who lived in a small town near the Mississippi state line had called his parish's SO after watching the evening news. He reported having seen Josh Bennett in a convenience store earlier in the day.

“This isn't another schizo, is it?” Joe asked, and he impatiently jabbed the Down button repeatedly.

“Deputies followed up with the store's cashier. She didn't see the news, but they showed her the drawing of Bennett. She confirmed.”

“Hot damn!”

“The chopper?” Hick was already tapping the number into his cell phone.

While Hick made the arrangements, Joe was thinking about Josh Bennett, and as soon as Hick ended his call, he expressed his puzzlement out loud. “He was smart enough to escape, but dumb enough to come back here?”

“This is where Ms. Bennett is, and she's Josh's security blanket. He also knows that this is the one place on the planet where Billy Panella ain't.”

“Yeah, but…”

“What?” Hick asked as they walked in long strides through the parking garage toward Hick's car.

Joe pulled open the passenger door. “If last night taught us nothing else, it taught us how long Panella's reach is. Kinnard is out there somewhere. Doesn't Josh realize the threat he poses? The little turd needs to surrender.”

“I doubt he will, Joe. He knows we'll lock him away forever.”

“Yeah. But we wouldn't gut him.”

“Mr. Panella? Is this a convenient time for us to speak?”

“A convenient time would have been two hours ago when I called you.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't available. How can I serve you?”

The banker was Asian, but he had cultivated his British accent so that it was as silky as Devonshire cream. It inspired confidence and trust. The amplified distortion of Panella's voice didn't shock him. This was the manner in which their business had been conducted for years, and he understood the necessity for Panella's extreme caution. Nor was he put off by his customer's rudeness, which he'd also come to expect. Men who used offshore banks to hide sizable amounts of money in numbered accounts rarely wasted valuable time on polite conversation.

“I want to confirm the current balance in my account.”

The banker excused himself and returned shortly to quote an amount. “To the penny,” Panella said.

The banker smiled to himself. Amounts rounded off to the nearest dollar had never been satisfactory to this customer. Mr. Billy Panella tested the bank's accuracy frequently.

“I also wanted to alert you that I'll soon be making a sizable withdrawal.”

“I hope the bank isn't losing your business.”

“Not so long as you do what I tell you, when I tell you.”

“You have my guarantee.”

“I'll be requesting a wire transfer, and it could be on short notice.”

“I'm happy to facilitate. This institution specializes in time-sensitive matters.”

“Which I've always appreciated.”

“The transfer made earlier this week was to your satisfaction?”

“You did what you were supposed to. Unfortunately others didn't.”

“I regret to hear that.”

“That's why this additional transfer is necessary, and there can't be any hang-ups. Understand? I want the money to be ready when I need it.”

“Of course. American dollars, Mr. Panella?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. And the amount?” The banker waited, poised, and when nothing was forthcoming, he prompted gently, “Mr. Panella?”

“Two fuckin' million.”

A
t first Jordie was too drugged by sleep to bother to identify the racket that had awakened her. She lay with her eyes closed, her brain muzzy from dreamless sleep and sultry heat. Subconsciously she was reluctant to wake up, so she fought it. However, the sound was persistent, and it eventually shook her awake and into full awareness.

A helicopter!

She struggled to sit up, cursing the awkwardness caused by her hands being restrained. She wormed her way out the open backseat door and stood. When she put her weight on her right foot, it tingled painfully and was virtually useless. Shifting most of her weight to her left foot, she ran in a lurching gait toward the door.

Shaw was silhouetted in the opening, looking up at the sky but from inside the building where he couldn't be seen. He heard her coming and turned in time to halt her before she cleared the door.

She screamed as loud as she could.

“Save your breath, Jordie. You won't be heard.”

She knew it was futile, but she continued to scream anyway, mostly out of frustration as she kicked at his shins, at anything she could reach. When she aimed her knee at his crotch, he pulled back just in time, his body going concave. But she'd come perilously close, and he realized it.

Grabbing a handful of her top's fabric, he thrust her away from him and held her at arm's length, while using his other hand to pull the door shut. The clatter of the approaching helicopter became louder. The tin roof vibrated and rattled as it passed directly above them. Then the noise began to fade, as did Jordie's short-lived hope of rescue.

Eventually Shaw released his grip on her blouse, pushed open the door, and looked out. “They had better get where they're going soon. Storm's moving in.”

She was surprised to discover that she'd slept away most of the afternoon. The sun was low in the west and blocked by a thick layer of clouds that had ushered in higher humidity. Now the shelter didn't feel so much like a convection oven as a steam bath.

They watched the retreating helicopter until it disappeared. He dusted his hands. “So much for that. Nothing to get you all excited.”

His smugness outraged her and, giving no thought to the consequences, she launched herself at him. She resumed kicking, but rather than backing away from her, this time he drew her up against him and placed his feet between hers, making her efforts ineffectual.

The lethargy that had claimed her earlier was replaced by manic determination. She channeled every bit of strength she possessed into inflicting pain, or, at the very least discomfort, anything to upset his damned complacency. She twisted and squirmed, blind with fury, demented by rage, heedless of everything.

Until she realized that she was fighting only herself. He had stopped resisting.

He still held her, his hands splayed and firm on her hips, but the way they were securing her against him wasn't combative.

She fell still and tilted her face up to look into his.

“Now
I'm
excited.”

There was an underlying, primitive thrum in his voice, and an insistent and unmistakable pressure against her open thighs where her body involuntarily responded with a purl of sensation.

Mortified, she stumbled back, and, to her surprise, his hands fell away and he let her go. But that only underscored that it was always his choice, that despite her tantrum, he maintained control.

She had no control, not even over her own body. Her breathing was hectic. She knew her face was flushed. His flint-colored eyes moved from her blushing cheeks to her breasts and in an attempt to explain their noticeable physical reaction, she said, “I'm angry. That's all.”

“Yeah? Remind me to keep you angry.”

Smarting, she said, “Look, I'm sick of your manhandling and your lewd innuendos. This isn't some kind of…”

When she failed to come up with an appropriate word, he arched an eyebrow. “Some kind of…what?”

“Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Kinnard. And make no mistake. If I get a chance to kill you, I will.”

He watched her for a moment. “Noted.”

He made to go around her, but then stopped suddenly and cupped her chin in his palm, forcing her head back. He ran his thumb across her lower lip. “Make no mistake. If I decide to turn this into something of that kind, Jordie, I won't use innuendos. I'll tell you straight out that I'm gonna fuck you.”

Josh stared into the flickering television, which was the only light he allowed himself this evening.

Two images of him flashed onto the screen. Even he was shocked by the difference in his appearance from what it had been six months ago.

Jordie had gotten all the advantageous genes, even the good looks. His had never been anything to brag about, but he really looked pathetic in the drawing they were showing on TV. It was only a sketch done by a police artist, but…still.

No wonder the security on him had become lax. Who would've predicted that a scrawny dork who looked like him could pull a big one like this over on some of Uncle Sam's best?

He had. He should be taking a bow, toasting himself for the outstanding achievement.

Instead, as with the night before in the drab room of the motor court, after seeing the two faces of Joshua Bennett side by side on the evening news, his self-congratulatory state and self-confidence took a nosedive.

He directed his thoughts away from the artist's rendering and focused on what was being said about him. The anchorman rehashed the story Josh had seen in the convenience store during the noon hour about what had taken place last night in a bar outside his hometown of Tobias.

That story was followed by a recap of the Panella-Bennett fraud case and the events of six months ago. But that was only to remind people of who he was and why his being at large was newsworthy.

Presently, he was described as the “development” in “this ongoing and bizarre case,” which had ultimately resulted in the murder of suspected killer-for-hire Mickey Bolden, and the “likely but as yet unconfirmed kidnapping” of local businesswoman Jordan Bennett.

When the news went to a commercial, Josh muted the audio and stared vacantly at the screen while assessing how Jordie's kidnapping might impact his carefully laid plans, because he certainly hadn't counted on that happening.

What was particularly galling? The FBI, in their determination to recapture him, had exploited it. Joe Wiley, with Hickam standing square-jawed in the background, had read a statement from behind a miked podium in the lobby of the FBI field office. The agent hadn't come right out and pointed a finger at him, but his implication had been that Josh must shoulder blame for his sister's misfortune. That was playing dirty pool.

“It's obvious that Mr. Bennett didn't think through the potential consequences of his flight.” With all the gaiety of a foghorn, Wiley went on to say how snitches who reneged oftentimes didn't live very long. “I don't believe Mr. Bennett realizes the peril he's placed his sister in. Nor does he recognize the jeopardy to himself. I urge him to surrender. He's safe only while in our custody.”

He was warning of reprisal from Panella, of course. “Subtle as a sledgehammer,” Josh said to the silent TV, scoffing the FBI agent's transparent scare tactics. Josh had already outfoxed that fox, hadn't he? “So up yours, Agent Wiley.”

But his bravado was halfhearted at best. He couldn't wholly dismiss Wiley's warning. The bald truth? He
had
created a hazardous situation for himself. In fact, thinking about it made him a little queasy.

His gaze was drawn to the cell phone lying on the table. He was tempted to pick it up and call Jordie's number just to see what he'd get, if anything. But, as before, he nixed the idea. In the unlikely event that this guy Kinnard—who the hell was he, anyway?—had left her phone behind when he took her, the risk of calling it was great. He envisioned Wiley and Hickam and God knew who else huddled around it just waiting for it to ring so they could trace the call straight to his current location.

Geographically he was a little too close for comfort to chance that.

Otherwise, he felt reasonably secure about his hiding place, which had been waiting for him against the day when he would make good his escape plan. He'd prepared well. Before being hauled away to Tennessee, he paid the utility bills for a year in advance. He'd made certain the pantry and freezer were stocked. The food was six months old, but he'd never paid much attention to expiration dates and had probably eaten older.

Sooner or later, one of the people with whom he'd crossed paths since Tuesday would connect the hitchhiking burnout to Josh Bennett, accused felon, turned informant, turned fugitive.

If the cashier or the blowhard in the convenience store IDed him, the authorities would know he was back in the state. But from that Hicksville store, he'd covered his tracks well.

Beneath the huge oak tree in the woods, he'd made slight alterations in his appearance. From there, it was a three-mile walk to a public storage facility where he'd left a car six months ago. He'd waited until no one was around, then had opened his storage unit and reconnected the car's battery cables, and with minor encouragement, the engine had kicked on.

Sure, there were security cameras all over the place, but he'd taken measures to prevent them from being a problem. If by some miracle, he was identified entering the place on foot and leaving in a vehicle, he had switched license plates twice on the way here, so he was confident they would never find him.

There wasn't a person alive who would think to look for him here, not even Jordie. The nearest occupied property was over two miles away. As long as he kept to the ground floor, and used only a minimum of light each night, he should be okay here indefinitely.

Jordie's kidnapping was an unexpected snag, but he couldn't let it unravel him. He
wouldn't
let it unravel him. He only had to hang in there until he could implement the last step of his plan. Then he would be clear and worry free forever.

However, the context of Joe Wiley's sound bite was spoiling his optimism. What did the FBI know that he didn't?

Something about Panella that would trigger another avenue of investigation?

Something about Jordie's abduction that they weren't sharing with the media?

The TV had a DVR. He had recorded the newscast. He watched it again now.

And then again, and once more, becoming a little more paranoid and panicked each time Joe Wiley said, “the potential consequences of his flight…”