A Killing Sky (18 page)

“Sorry about your gate,” I said.

“Me too,” Turnip said.

“Occupational hazard.”

“We all got to have an occupation,” he said.

Ash-colored clouds clung to the Blue Ridge like ghostly tumors. Rain pelted the windshield as Toronto and I made our way back into the city. It was going on three days since Cartwright Drummond's disappearance. If she were being held by someone in the Charlottesville area, as the postmark on the envelope containing the note and photo seemed to indicate, she could be somewhere within only a couple of miles’ radius of our current location. A bulletin on the radio told about the FBI taking over the case and said agents had been searching some dorm rooms at the university. They must have traced the delivery of the envelope and narrowed down the possibilities.

I picked up Toronto's cell phone and punched in the number for Nicole's room again. She answered on the second ring.

“Dad,” she said, “I've been trying to get ahold of you. I left a message over two hours ago on your office machine.”

“Don't use that line anymore, Nicky.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's probably tapped.”

“Oh.”

I gave her the new cell phone number.

“You're not going to believe who I've been talking to.”

“Nicky—”

“I have a friend who has another friend who's on the swim team with Jed Haynes.”

“Nicky, we've got a problem.”

“What's that?”

“I need you to back off on this, honey. I really appreciate your help so far, but the FBI is all over the place, and there may even have been an attempted murder. More people could get hurt.”

“But, Dad—”

“No buts. You're not a registered private investigator. You're smart as a whip, but you don't have the proper training. The FBI catches you talking to Jed Haynes or anybody else about this, you'll be in hot water, to say the least. Not to mention that you're not trained in self-defense or firearms or … “

The lecture was falling on silence, so I shut up.

“Are you through?” she asked softly.

“For the moment.”

“I know someone, the FBI or whatever, has been watching Jed Haynes. We saw them. They were posing as students, but you could tell they really weren't. They were just hanging around as if they had no place to go or nothing to do.

“Cassidy was right. Haynes is a jerk, but he has something to give you and he says he wants only you to have it.”

“Nicky—”

“I've got it all arranged,” she said. “The FBI, no one's going to be able to track him or see that we're talking to him. We're supposed to meet him in an hour.”

“Nicky, this is not—”

“Please, Dad. I promise I won't talk to anybody else after this.”

I glanced across at Toronto, who was shaking his head and shrugging. “Kids,” he said.

“Where?” I asked.

“Scott Stadium.” The largest venue in the area, the football stadium seated more than 60,000 fans on a game day.

“When?”

“As soon as it gets dark,” she said.

Dion and the Belmonts were doing “The Wanderer” on the truck radio as my headlights shone off the rain-soaked pavement of Alderman Road. Very few people, students or otherwise, were on the streets. The stadium loomed like an ancient acropolis in the darkness.

“The kid better have something important to get us all out here like this,” I said.

“I think he does, Dad.”

We'd picked Nicole up outside Alderman Library. Before that, I'd dropped Toronto off a few blocks from my duplex and he'd walked in, without being detected by whoever might be keeping tabs on the place, to tend to Armistead. I keep pieces of fresh quail in a separate freezer, used only for that purpose, in my storage room. I picked him up a half hour later at a spot over on Rose Hill Drive.

“Kid better know what he's doing, too, as far as losing the people who are tailing him.”

“He said he's sure he can lose them,” Nicole said. “And if anybody's trying to watch us, we'll be able to see them.”

“I'll make sure of that,” Toronto said.

“I'm still not too keen on you being here, Nicky,” I said. “Jake and I could've done this by ourselves.”

“I told you. He said he wants to talk to you, but he's not sure he trusts you and he does trust me.”

“So what's the source of this sudden trust in you?”

“I listened to him, Dad. I didn't beat him over the head by machine-gunning him with a bunch of questions. Like I said, he may be a jerk, but I think he's basically harmless.”

“We'll see about that.”

We drove across to Stadium Road and pulled into the construction entrance. Renovation was still going on on a portion of the upper deck, and several large trucks and a crane were parked against a tall wall of plywood and wire. I cut the lights and backed the pickup between a Dumpster and a panel truck, hoping it wouldn't be noticed by any university policeman who might happen to wander by.

I pulled on my slicker, still wet from standing in Tor Drummond's driveway talking to the turnip. Nicole had on a red raincoat with dark hiking boots.

“You guys ready?”

They both nodded. We stepped out into the rain.

It was cooler now and the air was filled with the rich smell of loam and stagnant water and gasoline. I carried both my sidearm and a flashlight on my belt, but I didn't want to use the light unless it became absolutely necessary. Lights from the street coupled with a few bright security lights farther up the parking lot cast a dim glow over the area, and once our eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, we could navigate with caution.

Just as Cassidy said Jed had told her, there was a narrow break in the construction fence about seventy yards south of the entrance, wide enough to slip through. We stepped inside and about twenty yards later came to a six-foot chain-link fence—easy enough to scale. I turned as I did and looked behind me at the dim outlines of sloppy footprints we had left in the mud, hoping the rain would continue long enough to obscure them or wash them away.

We found the closest entrance and began to walk up the gradual incline of switchback ramps on the exterior walls that led to the top of the stadium. We were under cover now and watched through the glow of the streetlights far below as the rain came down harder. At the top, the wind swirled mist along the girders. The university grounds were nothing but a haze of lights, shrouded in fog and rain.

We crossed another wide ramp to the nearest portal, which brought us out into the rain again, only inside the stadium now, to the railing of the aisle at the bottom of the upper deck. The wind subsided for a few moments. Instantly, Toronto crouched low and positioned himself against the inside rail so that he became virtually invisible. Nicole and I turned to the right, as she said Jed had told her to do.

Barely enough light filtered into the stadium to make out the seats and section numbers. Two sections over, however, it was possible to distinguish a lone figure seated about halfway up.

“Guess that's our man,” I said.

I scanned the other rows of seats as far as it was possible to see around the stadium. No sign of FBI or anyone else. I pulled Nicole behind me and we approached with caution.

When we got within thirty feet or so, I could tell it was Haynes. He looked like a car bomb survivor. His hair and clothes were soaking wet, dirty and disheveled. Across the center of his forehead ran a big smudge of grease. We came to within about ten feet of him, I held out my hand, and we stopped.

“Funny place to meet,” I said.

“Tell me about it. I been friggin’ freezing up here waiting for you guys.” He blew on his hands.

“How'd you lose your FBI people?”

He shrugged. “I know the grounds. They don't. Simple as that.”

Maybe it was just me, but this Jed seemed like a much more contrite individual than the one I'd first encountered. Of course, being detained and questioned for hours and having your every move shadowed by the feds does tend to have that kind of effect on a person, not to mention being soaked to the bone.

I waited. Jed looked at his fingernails. “I don't care what anybody tells you. I didn't kidnap Cartwright,” he said.

“That seems to be a popular line these days. Her father's saying pretty much the same thing.”

“I don't care what he says—I didn't do it.”

“If you say so.”

“Hey, Nicky, you said your old man would believe me if I just told the truth.”

“That's right,” she said.

He shivered and rubbed his arms and legs. “I'm sick and tired of this crap, of these guys following me around and everything.”

“Sometimes part of the object of surveillance is to let the suspect know he's being observed. It increases the pressure. Causes him to make a mistake,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I ain't about to make any mistakes. You can tell those assholes that.”

“I'll be sure to pass on your compliments next time I see them.”

He tugged at his ear, which sported a small gold ring at the moment, and ran his fingers through his wet hair. “You want to know something? I really thought when they brought me in and stuff, that it was like some kind of joke or something.”

“I guess they grilled you over the car.”

“Geez … you don't even know, man. One dude, I thought he was going to send me to death row or something. Wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom or nothing. I thought I was going to piss in my pants.”

“I guess these last few days have kind of put a crimp in your plans.”

He snickered.

“How's the swim season going for you?” I said.

“It was going great till all this happened. Now Coach says I won't be allowed to swim with the team till it gets cleared up.”

“Too bad.”

“You think Wright's okay?” he asked.

“I don't know. She might not even be alive anymore.”

He stared blankly into the wind and rain.

“You all right, Jed?”

“Yeah. Jesus.” He shook his head as if to clear it.

“What have you got for us?”

He looked at Nicole.

“It'll be okay,” she said.

He focused on me again. “There's something I want to ask you,” he said. “I hear you used to be a homicide detective.”

“That's right. A long time ago.”

“How do you know when someone's losing it? I mean, you know, about to go off the deep end and do something crazy?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know… like what kinds of things do they do and stuff?”

“There's no easy answer to that, Jed. Some people are better at masking their emotions than others. Some are sociopaths who seem capable of totally shutting off any feeling. Why? You think you know someone like that?”

“I don't know, man. I don't know.”

“Does this someone have anything to do with Wright's disappearance?”

“Maybe. Listen, one thing I didn't tell you before… Wright, she can get a little crazy sometimes. You know, she comes up with all sorts of wild ideas.”

“What are you talking about, Jed?”

“I've got something to give you.”

He wiped his hand on his pants and fished in the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a small object and rolled it in his fingers, examining it. Then he held it out to me. “Here,” he said.

I stepped up to him and took it from his hand. It was a round post earring, looked like white gold or silver, with a distinctive blue dot, maybe turquoise, in the center.

“Where'd this come from?” I asked.

“I think … I think it might be Wright's,” he said.

“Do you know if she was wearing it the night she disappeared?”

“I don't know, man. I told you, I never saw her.”

But I knew at least three people who would know the answer to that question. And maybe the cops could ID it from the Polaroid. “Where did you get the earring?”

“On top of the clock radio in my room. This morning. But it wasn't there when I went to bed, I swear.”

“Have the police or the FBI gone over your room?”

“Yeah, man. Twice.”

I thought about it.

“Have you gotten your car back, Jed?”

“No way.” He shook his head. “Bastards said they had to run more tests or something.”

“Normally who else but you has access to your car?”

He shrugged. “A few buddies. I let people borrow it. The guys at the house.”

“You said you didn't know Cartwright was coming to see you the night she disappeared.”

“That's right.”

“The next morning your car was right where you had left it the night before?”

“Yes.”

“No sign of a break-in?”

“No.”

“You notice anything different about the vehicle—mirrors changed, gum wrappers on the seat—that sort of thing?”

“I don't know. I didn't even pay attention. That's what I told those guys from the FBI, too. The next time I drove it was on my way to class and practice that afternoon when you came to talk with me, and I was in a hurry. Besides, even if I had noticed something I wouldn't have thought anything about it. Like I said, I let lots of different people drive my car.”

“Wouldn't they have had to get the keys from you, though?”

“No, not necessarily. I been through this with everybody already—all of us have to keep an extra set of keys hanging on a rack in the kitchen at the house. Parking is like hell around there. Sometimes we gotta switch the cars all around, or back somebody else's out of the way. It just doesn't make any sense, that blood or whatever they said they found in the Cherokee.”

“And it only costs fifty cents to make a copy of a key.”

The wind gusted and swirled, blowing heavier sheets of rain against the top of the stadium.

“Why are you giving this to
me,
Jed?”

He looked at Nicole, then back at me. “Because she said I could trust you.” He rubbed his nose. “And because you stood up to me. Not many people do that.”

“Your parents know you're in trouble?”

“Yeah, right,” he snickered. His eyes picked out a spot among the rows of seats. “My old man's a computer company executive. Sometimes I almost forget what the guy looks like. He goes overseas a lot.”

“You're from California, right?”

“San Francisco.”

“Your mother work, too?”

“Mom's an accountant—she's great when she's around, which is more than Dad, but not all that much.”