American Nights, page 21
Pearly Sue had turned the camera on her own face to glare at Lake. “I figured that out, Lieutenant Lake.”
While Lake chastised Pearly Sue—who at first seemed reprimanded before she firmed her spine and defended her actions—I told Web to install his fake tower to the 603 area code towers. That way, whenever Page’s prepaid kick phone dialed out, it would swim with many numbers into Web’s fishnet in the suspect area code. With Atlanta’s many cell towers, assuming Reeve to be in that city, Web would then pinpoint the search by latitude and longitude embedded in the numbers.
Lake was saying, “P.S., don’t take this . . .”
A shot echoed through the valley.
I gasped and shouted, “Get down!”
“Above the barn!” Pearly Sue shouted while scrambling behind her car. “Didn’t hit nothing!”
“Where did it come from?” Lake shouted.
“Up the hills. There’s a road. That shot never came near,” she called, jumping up and running for the house door.
“Pearly Sue!” Lake called. “No!”
The cam recorded as she moved into the house, across pine-board floors.
“Pearly Sue,” Lake called. “Is there a door from the house into the barn?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m heading for it.”
In the garage part of the barn, she sped past an old Mercedes-Benz from the 1950s. My parents had one like it in a peculiar shade of red. She ducked behind the car. I anticipated more shots; but none came through the recorder. Pearly Sue scooted past a refrigerator, a relic from the 1950s, too. Next to it, she panned the cam to a gun rack. A rifle lay across the set of pegs.
“An old Winchester rimfire,” Lake said.
Pearly Sue dashed to the back wall. There was a bench and drawers beneath the rack. She pulled open the top drawer. “Twenty-two’s, hallelujah!”
I recalled the photo of Pearly Sue on her desk, a shotgun cracked over her shoulder.
“You go, girl,” I said.
Lake, the spoiler, said, “P.S., that gun probably hasn’t been cleaned or oiled in a long time. Be careful of backfire.”
“Guns don’t backfire, Lieutenant. They blow up.”
Yikes, a gun expert corrected by a girl.
“I know that. I was using a common misnomer so you would know what I meant.”
Apparently Lake hadn’t been in Pearly Sue’s office to see her collection of gun-toting, snake-handling photos.
Lake was saying, “Check for dirt or carbon buildup in the chamber. Check for a crack in the chamber and an obstruction in the barrel. It hasn’t been cased, so it could have rust. Make sure the bolt seats.”
“Rimfire’s core doesn’t get nasty.” Then Pearly Sue straightened, alert. “I hear a motor.”
Pearly Sue laid aside the cam and said that she was checking the barrel and loading the shell into the chamber. She picked up the cam and it flashed across a table saw and a chain pulley that dangled from the ceiling.
“I hear yelling,” Pearly Sue said.
“What kind of yelling?” Lake asked.
“A man yelling for me to come out.”
“Careful, Pearly Sue.”
She went to an outside door and cracked it. “Who’s there?” she called, her southern drawl accentuated.
“Show yourself,” the man called back.
“I have a gun,” she said.
“So do I.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you out of there, and explain yourself.”
I breathed out. He didn’t sound like a serial killer. I said quietly, but loud enough for Pearly Sue to hear, “Make him throw his gun down.”
“Will do,” she whispered back. She called to him, “I’ll come out when you put your gun down.”
“I’m doing it. I just wanted to get your attention, trespassing like you did.”
“I’m here to see Mr. Page. Who are you?”
“I’m looking after his house.”
“Why did you shoot.”
“I told you, to get your nose out of our business. First you went in the house, then you left and then you came back. You just nosy or you selling real estate?”
“I’m coming out, but I’m holding the gun. It’s loaded.”
“Likely to get hit by blow-by, before hitting me.”
She opened the door wide by pushing with her foot. I could see her leg when she brought the cam down. I also saw the long rifle barrel. Then the camcorder flashed to the man’s face. Because of the shadows, his age was indeterminate, but he was not old according to his physique, which was muscular and not fat. He had a scratchy beard that was reddish. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week. Wearing a camo jacket and hunter’s cap, he approached her car. Pearly Sue pointed the cam at the gun on the ground, a newer model hunting rifle than the Winchester. The man stepped closer, leaned, reached.
In that instant I saw something—not sure what. Lake took out his cell phone just as it began to mist in New Hampshire.
Back to the cam action, Pearly Sue had stepped back. “Don’t come closer.”
The man straightened and held out a hand. “You give me that camera or I’ll call the sheriff. You can’t come on people’s property and start filming it. It’s illegal. You’re trespassing.”
“This is my protection. The video is streaming to people in Atlanta.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. If I wanted to I wouldn’t have fired over the roof.”
“I’m here to see Mr. Page. Is he in the woods up there where you shot from?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Is he in Woodstock?”
“That’s none of your business. That’s all I’m saying, so get in your car and leave, and if you leave with that rifle I’ll have the sheriff after you.”
“I don’t steal guns. Where’s Mr. Page?”
“I told you before, that’s none of your business.”
“My name’s Pearly Sue Ellis. What’s yours?”
“That’s none of your business, either.”
“I’m from Atlanta, here to speak to Mr. Page.”
“If he wants to talk to you he’ll find you.”
“When will he be here?”
“Who says he will?”
She had the cam in one hand, and, whenever she moved it slightly, I saw the barrel of the rifle she carried in the other hand. The cam focused on the man, who stood near the trunk of her car. I couldn’t see the gun, but knew she didn’t toss it. I looked at Lake; his features creased with alarm. I said to him softly, “I’ve never shot a rifle with one hand but if anyone can, it’s her.”
Pearly Sue said to the man, “Step back from my car.” He took three steps back. “More.” He moved away. She said, “I’ll leave the gun at the top of the driveway, against the fence post. Tell Mr. Page I was here.”
I didn’t see him on the screen, but he said, “Get going.”
“You got a good memory, I’ll say my phone numbers.”
“That’s all right. We can find you.”
She walked cautiously toward the car. “You’re not even going to tell me your name?”
“That’s right, I’m not.”
“Well,” Pearly Sue said, stepping to the driver side of the car, apparently holding the rifle as the camera panned across the car. “I’ll wait for Mr. Page’s call. Tell him it’s important. He knows my boss. She’s watching us now.”
“Good for her,” he said, evidently amused. “Don’t speed. There’s a trap up the road.”
She leveled the camera at him and when he raised his arm, thus parting the sides of his jacket, I signaled Lake. He nodded.
I don’t know what she did with the cam, maybe put it under her arm, but I heard the car door click open.
The man said, “A cop is hidden in the trees, so do your forty miles an hour and you won’t get into trouble with the law.”
Pearly Sue was inside the car. The cam’s lens landed on the gun leaning against the passenger seat, the recorder still running. She cranked the motor, and squealed gravel going away.
“Did you get it all?”
Web answered, “Sure did.”
“Cut the camcorder,” I told Pearly Sue. “Call me on your cell.”
We set my cell for conference. Lake answered the call. “Don’t get out of your car. Unload the rifle, open your door, and toss it and the bullets in the bushes. Go straight to the cops and stay there. Wait for Dirk’s guy, Johnson, wherever he is.”
“What’s up?” she asked. Her breathing was ragged, but exhilarated. I’d had that feeling, too often.
Lake said to Pearly Sue, “The man had a forty-five inside his jacket. Holstered for a quick hand-over.”
Which basically meant for a fast draw.
“Don’t I know it,” she said. “I kept my eye on his hands. But it’s the eyes that give them away when they’re going to draw on you.”
Lake said, “You can shoot one-armed?”
“Sure can. My daddy taught me growing up. Ride it against your leg, hand in the trigger housing, bring the butt up and anchor it under your arm or by your cheek and fire away.”
“Something’s going on up there.”
“You and Dru coming up?”
“Depends on how it goes,” Lake answered. “And what’s happened to Johnson.”
“On the video, did you see the road running alongside where I was, up the ridge?” Lake said yes. “I turned on it thinking it was the Horne driveway since country roads here don’t have names. I came to some kind of small barn or shed, then I saw the house down the hill and turned around.”
Lake said, “Do not, I repeat, do not go back up that road.”
Dear God, don’t let her do anything stupid. Or anything else stupid. I had a lot to say to that girl when she got back to Atlanta. I’m sure Lake did, too.
“You think something happened to Johnson up there?”
Lake’s voice left no room for argument when he said, “Go to the police station. Report what went on, leaving out the camcorder action if you can. It’s illegal or might be in that state, depending.”
“I didn’t make it for court,” Pearly Sue said, defiant in letting him know that she was familiar with exclusionary and nonexclusionary disciplines in the private detective’s life. She continued, “Certainly the man knew he was being videoed and recorded.”
Lake handed my cell to me and answered his own phone.
I told Pearly Sue, “Tell the cops that you are a private investigator from Atlanta, an associate working with the national PI firm of Dirk’s Detectives out of Boston, and that you waited for an operative from Boston. When he didn’t come, you went to the Horne place to talk to Mr. Page about a case in Atlanta, Georgia, where you are licensed.”
“Wait!” she shouted. “A car just turned up that dirt road, the same one I mistook for the Horne driveway.”
“Leave it, Pearly Sue.”
“It could be Johnson.”
“He’ll turn around just like you did. If the car doesn’t come down, head for the cop house. Lake’s on the phone with Dirk’s to see where Johnson is. Don’t hang up, but if we get disconnected, call me back. And, Pearly Sue, stay on guard.”
My nerves were crawling like worms in a bottle. I rubbed my arms.
Lake turned away from his call, and said, “Johnson called in to their dispatch in Boston. He got stalled by a tractor-trailer wreck on the road. He couldn’t get cell service and couldn’t find Pearly Sue when he got to town.”
“Where is Johnson now?” I asked Lake.
“On the way to the Page Horne place.” Lake spoke again to Dirk’s dispatcher. “Pearly Sue’s waiting at the road into the Horne place. After Johnson meets up with her, they need to go to the police station. She needs to report her experience.”
Pearly Sue said, “Miss Dru, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Whoever went up the road is coming back down—fast.”
Lake signaled to me, and I told Pearly Sue to hold on. This pas de deux with cells was getting bizarre.
Lake said that Johnson called Boston and told dispatch that he’d spotted a body in the shed. He didn’t touch anything, never got out of his car.
“Holy moly,” I breathed out. Harsher epithets came into my head but I wasn’t about to spout profanity into Pearly Sue’s ears. My eyes started to tear up. Was it Thomas Page who lay dead?
Oh, God. His killer, chatting with Pearly Sue.
Pearly Sue spoke. “Johnson’s here. He found a body. A man.”
“Call the cops and stay where you are,” Lake said.
“You don’t need to tell me twice, Lieutenant.”
I doubted that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Let’s go to your office,” Lake said, like my father would have said when he was healthy and vigorous and if he still cared. We sat. Lake looked and acted like this was serious business. “You’re going to have to rein Pearly Sue in.”
“God knows, I know,” I said and pushed hair off my forehead.
“I mean it, Dru.”
I sat up. “I said I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you could put into words what I’m thinking and what I’m going to say.”
“I’m holding my breath.”
“If anything happened to her, it would destroy you.”
His words hit like I’d stopped suddenly on a railroad track and stared at an oncoming train. Because I knew he was right. I could look at the train and visualize the wreck an instant before it rolled over me.
“She’s you ten years ago,” he said. “Her enthusiasm, her daring, her invincibleness—if that’s a word. You’re not that fresh-faced girl any longer. You’ve evolved because you’ve been trained by the best services in the country. First, you understood your nature and joined the police force. You excelled because you had instructors and expectations of you.”
“I had you,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“And I had you. I learned from you. I’m a guy and a cop. I don’t have your instincts. I assess a situation and go for it. You assess and wait to confirm, then you go for it, for all your worth. Pearly Sue is a long way from that. If she’s going to be an asset to you and not something you have to worry about—yes, I saw the worry on your face, the doubt you had about her going into that house alone. I chastised her. But did she really understand what I was saying?”
“Her defenses were up, like mine would have been at her age.”
“Besides having the best training in the art of self-defense, you have experience. You’ll lay your life on the line for a cause when there is no other alternative. Pearly Sue would do it for the dare, the thrill.”
“I couldn’t stand it if something happened—if she pulled some of the crazy crap I did, and she didn’t survive it.”
“After APD training, you were picked for the Yellow Brick Road. How many women were there with you?”
“Three.”
“It’s a tough go, as you know, but you excelled. I’m not saying this to praise you, although I am and do often, but to say Pearly Sue hasn’t had the training, the hand-to-hand, the weapons, distance judged to use them. She an amateur and the reason she’s dangerous to herself is she wants to be exactly like you.”
He had me in tears.
“Don’t get me wrong. She’s a fine, tough, consummate southern woman—those heroines who held the South together when their men didn’t come back from the war a hundred and fifty years ago. Gone with the Wind is an important story, a heroic feminine story, and the reason is because of Scarlett’s evolution from spoiled brat to an iron-willed, iron-fisted woman determined to survive and keep her family and way of life together.”
I breathed in, trying like hell to stifle the tears.
Lake came around and massaged my shoulders while I sniffled myself quiet. He leaned over and pushed my hair from an ear and kissed it. “While we wait, no sense starving.”
“No,” I said. “No sense at all.”
We sat at our usual table at the steak house. I’d had one martini that scalded all the way to my stomach and ordered another. Lake looked at me like I was going to drink the night away and expect to get up and go to church tomorrow.
“You’re squirming,” he said, cutting his steak more slowly than usual, although he’s always been an elegant diner.
“Waiting.”
“Gets to you, but we’ll know soon enough who the dead guy is.”
“I hate to believe I already know.”
“They’ll want a positive before they call us. I hope you’ve forgiven me for Page’s defection.”
“Of course,” I said, not even thinking about the last time we were here. That was when I waltzed in with a good-looking man and expected Lake to smile and be his charming self. No, I was remembering Thomas Page as he was when he wanted to throw me off his property. It’s in my DNA. I respect and fall in love with men who are robust, harsh almost, when the times call for it. I don’t want men to treat me like a pretty twit who makes them want to prance and show their dimples and wink.
I said, “I was hoping for a call from Pearly Sue. She’s not answering.”
“Pearly Sue is at the cop house answering for herself.”
“She should be okay.”
“You never know with small jurisdictions and private detectives. They’ll pick her apart.”
“My money’s on Pearly Sue. She’ll pick them apart.”
“Amen, sister,” he said and started on his salad. “You’re not going to eat that salmon?”
“No,” I said, pushing it toward him and picking up my martini. I wasn’t driving. We would be going to his place.
Buzzed sex is sex on steroids. Before we undressed to the intimacy of touch and talk, to the relishing of the fever in our senses, Lake kissed me with no restraint, having first grasped his arms across my back and butt and landed me on the bedspread. “Now, let’s get you out of those clothes.”
Since he was so eager, I let him get me out of my clothes himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY
At eight o’clock the next morning, I awoke with a headache and sore muscles. Lake was talking to headquarters while I stood looking out the loft’s industrial windows, sighing to the misty day. Pain coupled with rain makes me want to snuggle under the covers, but that wasn’t to be. Nor would Lake have this day off. His tensed jawbones told me that. He hadn’t had a break in a couple of weeks.
