The Homecoming (50 page)

Nick laid the paper down and stared at it for a while as if he expected it to burst into flames.

“Rainey went to
Warren Smoles
?”

Kate didn’t answer.

Beth did.

“I spoke to Cliff Fowler about this. As far as we can tell, as soon as he got out of WellPoint, Rainey called Smoles—”

“What the hell would give him an idea like that?”

“I may have,” said Kate. “I was putting him to bed last night. He asked me about Warren Smoles because he’d seen a news tape of Smoles at the Galleria shooting. Some kind of wrap-up report the next day. Rainey was upset about the things Smoles said about you and Coker ‘executing’ Axel’s father. I said that Warren Smoles was the kind of lawyer who made his money by telling lies and making sure bad people never had to pay for what they did. I think that’s what put the idea in his head.”

Nick sat back, drank some wine.

“Son of a bitch. I don’t
believe
this.”

“Believe it,” said Kate, looking straight at him. “You were right all along, Nick, about that kid. There’s something wrong with him.”

“Anyway,” said Beth, “Cliff says that Smoles sent a car and took Rainey to what Cliff described as ‘an undisclosed third-party location’ that had a registered nurse to take care of him. Smoles interviewed Rainey over the course of a couple of hours. Cliff doesn’t know exactly what the kid told Smoles, but it was obviously serious enough for Smoles to file this writ. Cliff says that Smoles has a sworn statement from Rainey, signed and notarized, appointing Smoles as his attorney and alleging fear of his life. Not just from us, but from law enforcement officers as well—”

“I know,” said Nick. “That’s the Safe Haven law. In cases where the complainant alleges that local law enforcement is either corrupt or biased, his attorney can provide shelter and protection until the matter can be heard by a judge.”

Kate leaned back and closed her eyes.

“What do you want to do, babe?”

She opened them again.

“I’m not dumb enough to say it in front of a cop and two witnesses. Beth, how are the kids?”

“They’re watching
The Kid
again.”

“Then that’s what I’m going to do too.”

She got up, kissed Beth on the cheek, walked around Lemon and gave him a pat on the shoulder, leaned down and gave Nick a kiss. Then she filled her glass again and walked with a slight weave and wobble out of the dining room. Beth got up, swayed a bit, and did pretty much the same thing, except both Lemon and Nick got a kiss.

Lemon and Nick sat at the table in silence, both of them looking at the subpoena.

“Where in hell,” said Lemon, “would a little kid get an idea like going to Warren Smoles?”

“Maybe right where you said. In hell.”

Lemon got up, patting Nick on the shoulder.

“I gotta get some sleep.”

“Let me know how it goes with the bones?”

“You going to be okay?”

“Yeah. I’m waiting for a call from Mavis.”

“That thing at the Motel 6?”

“Yeah. She’s pulling surveillance video. She said if she found anything tonight she’d give me a call.”

She didn’t.

So, after a while, dead beat, he went to bed.

A long time later, Kate slipped in beside him.

“You asleep?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

The morning came up like thunder, or at least it sounded like that in Kate’s head. It wasn’t thunder. It was Nick’s cell phone.

She snatched it off the night table, looked at the screen, dropped it on Nick’s chest, and got up to go to the bathroom. Nick watched her cross the room, thinking
oh my lord buy me somma that
and then he answered the cell. It was Mavis.

Mavis Crossfire was waiting for Nick in the parking lot of the Wendy’s across from the Motel 6. She was in her private ride, a black Lincoln Navigator. She was in plain clothes—cowboy boots and jeans and a plaid rodeo shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons—but she was wearing her sidearm and she had her badge clipped to her belt.

She honked at Nick as he turned his Crown Vic into the lot. There was an open slot beside her and he slipped into that. Mavis rolled down her tinted window. Her usual happy smile was nowhere around.

“Hey, Nick. Come on around and get in.”

He climbed up and got comfortable. It’s not really possible to be uncomfortable in a Lincoln Navigator, but Nick was in a pretty bad mood, which Mavis picked up on right away. Mavis had the motor running and the air conditioner on. She rolled up the window and turned the radio to something cool and jazzy. Nick interpreted this to mean that she had something to say that she didn’t want anybody else to hear.

“Thanks for coming. Any word about Rainey yet?”

Nick shook his head.

“Oh yeah.”

“He come home?”

“Not if he wants to stay alive.”

“Pardon?”

Nick filled her in on the subpoena.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Would that I were.”

“Poor kid. I mean, he’s gotta be scared shi—”

Nick shot her a cold look.

“With respect, Mavis, fuck the poor kid. How about Alice Bayer?”

“I know. I know. I just mean, he’s gotta have a malfunction, right?”

“Excuse me while I jot that down in my Big Blue Book of Who Gives a Shit?”

Mavis looked at him sideways.

“This isn’t you. You were there when we pulled that kid out of that grave. I know how you took it when he went into a coma.”

“Something’s not right with him, Mavis.”

“You cutting him loose?”

“I think so. Yeah. Yes. I am.”

“Kate won’t.”

“Don’t bet on it. This thing with Smoles broke her heart.”

“You really think Rainey did Alice?”

“More to the point, I think
Rainey
thinks Rainey did Alice. The little shit has lawyered up.”

“Does Kate?”

“In her heart, yes.”

“He’s just a kid, Nick.”

“Coker once took down a kid named Joey La Monica. Ten years old. Up in Gracie—”

“I know that story. Rainey’s not that kid.”

“Mavis, how about we just agree to disagree, okay? You wanted to see me, about a video?”

Mavis could see that this part of their conversation had come to an end.

“Okay. I have it on my laptop. Hold on a minute.”

She reached into the backseat, lifted out a bright red Mac laptop.

“Jeez,” said Nick, looking at it. “What’s that red called?”

“Ashes of Men,” said Mavis, putting the machine down on her lap and opening it up. She tapped a few keys and brought up an mpeg file.

“Okay. What I’m going to show you, I only found after going through a lot of pointless crap. It’s just a short mpeg. It was taken from a camera inside the Wendy’s, covers the front door and the customer spaces. Here, take a look.”

She hit a button and a color video began to play. The quality was surprisingly good. It showed the customer area of the Wendy’s, people sitting at tables, moving around the room, in and out the doors. The view included part of the parking lot outside the big front window, where cars and trucks were parked. The sun was bright on them and the inside of the Wendy’s was shadowy as a result.

Mavis tapped a button and the video halted.

“That’s Edgar’s Windstar. You can see from the marker that we’re right in the middle of the time where this all happened. Let me do this frame by frame, okay?”

“Sure.”

She tapped another button and the video turned into a series of freeze-frames, herky-jerky people walking like Charlie Chaplin. People getting into and out of cars. Cars pulling in and backing out. Halfway through the video a big white Ford F-150 came around into the frame, moving from right to left. It slowed down behind Edgar’s Windstar, came to a stop. Sat there for five or six frames. Then it accelerated out of the picture.

“Okay,” said Nick. “What’d I miss?”

“I missed it too, at first. I had to look at it a whole lot of times before I noticed it. Let me back it up.”

She did, and everybody did the same thing they had done before, only backwards. The white Ford backed into the frame, stopped. The camera angle was direct and a couple of degrees high. It showed a hand hanging out the driver’s window, and a section of his shirt, his other hand resting on the steering wheel. The driver was wearing a white shirt and a belt with a big cowboy buckle. He was big, but lean. He gave the impression of being a rough man. There was someone in the passenger seat but he was in shadow. Just an outline.

“Can you magnify this?”

She ran a fingertip across the touch pad. The still frame filled the screen.

“I took this single frame and sharpened it. It’s the best we’re going to get. Look at his right hand, on the steering wheel. What do you see?”

“A big gold ring with an insignia on it.”

Nick peered at it, narrowed his eyes.

“It’s a crest. The Marine Corps.”

“Yeah. Now look at what’s in the guy’s belt.”

The image was starting to pixelate, but it was clear enough to show the butt of a large revolver and part of the frame.

“Gun. Looks like a Colt Anaconda.”

Mavis sat back and looked at Nick.

“Yeah. So what do you think?”

Nick was quiet for a while.

On the radio a sinuous trumpet solo was playing the theme to
Chinatown
.

“Damn,” he said finally.

“Me too,” said Mavis.

“Lot of people in Niceville drive a big white Ford One-fifty with the premium package. And a lot of Niceville folks go around heeled. And a lot of Niceville folks go to Wendy’s. And a lot of people have Marine Corps rings.”

“Yeah. But put this together with the fact that a kid we think had something to do with the Gracie job is getting killed right across the road, and where does that take us?”

“Where I don’t want to go.”

“Let’s say it, Nick. Get it over with. Charlie Danziger.”

“Yeah. That’s where we are, I guess.”

“Danziger always carries a Colt Anaconda. He wears a Marine Corps ring and drives a big white Ford pickup. His armored car delivered the payroll cash. He’s the Wells Fargo route manager. He pulls up behind Edgar’s Windstar and stops. There’s another guy in the passenger seat, from the shadow another lean, rangy cowpoke type. I’m thinking maybe it’s Coker. Coker’s a sniper. The passenger leans forward and looks across Gwinnett in the direction of the Motel 6. Then the Ford accelerates out of the lot. What do you think happened there?”

Nick was trying to cope with this, but he had no doubt about what was going on.

“Edgar Luckinbaugh was working for them. Edgar called to tell them that the guy he was following had just made contact with Lyle Crowder, which, if they knew he had guilty knowledge about the Gracie robbery, which we have to assume he did, totally freaked them out. They sent Edgar in to stabilize the situation until they got there. Things went to shit before they pulled up. Maybe they tried to raise Edgar on his cell, and when he didn’t respond, they got the hell out of Dodge.”

Mavis nodded and they both fell silent.

The
Chinatown
theme ended and Harry James came on with “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” They both felt sick and empty and angry, but there wasn’t a thing they could do about that.

“Sometimes this job sucks deeply,” said Mavis.

“Yes. It truly does.”

“Four dead cops. For what? For money they won’t get to spend? Money they didn’t even
need
? Danziger’s well off, and so’s Coker. I just don’t get it.”

“I guess we never will.”

Another silence, while they stared across at the Motel 6. A yellow crime scene tape had been strung across the door to room 229. A Niceville PD cruiser was parked in the lot.

“We need to know who Mr. Third Party is before we make any other moves, Mavis. Do we have anything on him at all?”

“We got zip out of Edgar’s Windstar other than a jug of pee and a pile of empty Krispy Kreme boxes. And a receiver for a Radio Shack motion detector, but no motion detector.”

“Edgar was doing single-man surveillance. Night and day. If his subject was down for the night, Edgar would want to get some sleep himself, but not lose the guy. He had a cot in the back for that. He buys a cheap motion detector and plants the transponder in the subject’s car. Car moves, Edgar hears the buzzer and wakes up.”

“Still no help to us unless you want to drive all over Niceville with Edgar’s receiver, hoping for a signal.”

“Gotta be something,” said Nick. “Gotta be.”

They sat there together for a time.

“Mr. Third Party,” said Mavis. “His moves were pretty professional, right? I mean, most of the murders we get around here, the body is on the floor in the bathroom and the guy who did it is sitting in the front room with a beer in his hand and blood all over his shirt and he’s crying that the bitch had it coming. This guy is a pro.”

“Which means he’s from out of town. Flew in for the job, whatever it is.”

“The job was probably to find the Gracie bank robbers and take the money away from them.”

“Yes. Maybe he’s working for himself, or maybe he’s on a commission. Maybe somebody from out of town feels they’ve got a claim on the money. But one way or another, our pro’s from out of town. And where did Edgar work?”