Dead Even (19 page)

“Didn’t it upset your mother when people said unkind things to you like that?”

“It would have killed her if she’d known. We just never told her.” Miranda chewed on the inside of her bottom lip.

He started to say something when the waitress appeared with their order.

“Can I get you something else?” she asked.

“Actually, yes.” Miranda smiled up at her. “Is Ronald Johnson available?”

“He’s here,” the waitress replied, “but I’m not sure if he’s busy. Are you friends of Ron’s?”

“Sort of.” Miranda slipped her ID out of her pocket and laid it on the table. The waitress’s eyes widened slightly, then flickered from Miranda’s face to Will’s, then back again.

“Could you tell him that we’re here, and that we need to speak with him about someone who used to work for him?”

“Sure.” She nodded. “Sure . . .”

She disappeared into the back room.

Before three minutes had passed, Ron Johnson, a balding man in his mid-fifties, with acne-pocked skin and thick glasses, appeared at their table. “You the folks who wanted to speak with me?”

“We are if you’re Ron Johnson,” Will responded.

“I am. What’s this about someone who used to work for me?”

“Curtis Channing.” Miranda slid over on the wooden bench and patted the seat next to her. “Can you join us for a few minutes?”

“Curtis Channing.” Johnson sat. “I should have known it would be him. I read all about him. The papers were full of stuff about how he killed those women back in Pennsylvania, and how they traced him to some murders out here. I should have figured someone would be asking about him one of these days.”

“We understand that he used to work for you.”

“Yeah, yeah. ’Bout five, six years ago. The Red Door in Wynnefield.”

“We heard you fired him.”

“Yeah, well, he wouldn’t work the last shift. Midnight till seven in the morning.” Johnson shrugged. “You work at the Red Door, you work all the shifts. The place is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You can’t opt out of the last shift.”

“How did he take getting fired?” Will asked.

“As I remember, he just sort of nodded his head. Said okay. Took his apron off, hung it up, and left.”

“That’s it? He just left? He didn’t argue, plead for his job, threaten you?” Miranda frowned.

“Nah, that wouldn’t have been like Curtis. He never reacted to much of anything. Everything sort of rolled off his back, you know what I’m saying? Never saw him get angry with anyone. Just did his job, kept to himself. He was a good employee, except he refused to work late shift, so I had to let him go.”

“He never got into arguments with any of the other employees? No bad blood between him and any of the others?” Miranda persisted.

“Not that I was aware of. Honestly, a more laid-back guy you’ll never meet. Just did his thing, and when it was time, he moved on.”

“You ever see him after he left the Red Door?”

Johnson shook his head. “Not until they flashed his picture on television a few months back. You coulda knocked me over with a feather. I said, no way is that Curt Channing. No fucking way.” He turned to Miranda somewhat sheepishly. “Sorry. Forgot for a minute I wasn’t in the kitchen.”

She waved it off. “Can you think of anyone Channing might have had a problem with back then? Anyone he might have wanted to hurt. Someone who’d gotten in his way outside of work, maybe.”

“He never talked about himself. Now that I think about it, he didn’t talk much at all. He’d just come in, do his job, leave. Next day, same thing.”

“How about the women on the job? How did he act toward them, do you remember?” Will asked.

“Respectful. Pleasant. Never even cursed when one of the waitresses was in the kitchen.” Johnson shook his head. “No complaints about him. Some of the other guys, yeah. But never Curt. It just doesn’t make sense, you know?”

Miranda handed him a card. “Will you call me if you remember anything else about Channing? Or if you think of someone who might have been on his shit list?”

“Sure thing,” he said as he stood up, “but I gotta tell you, as far as I knew, Curt Channing didn’t have a shit list. He was just a real nice, quiet guy. Never bothered anyone. That’s why when all this stuff came out, man, I just couldn’t believe it, you know? Like, I even said to my wife, they must be talking about some other Curtis Channing, because the one I knew, he just couldn’t have been what they said—a serial killer. I just can’t see him killing all those women.” He looked down at Miranda. “You’re sure it was him? Him that killed all those women?”

“We are sure. Absolutely, positively sure.”

He shook his head again. “Boy, you just never really know about people, do you?”

Archer sat on the edge of the bed and chewed his last fingernail down as far as he could go and not have a mouthful of skin, and he tried not to blubber like the baby he knew he was.

He’d spent all day out at the edge of Landry’s woods, watching the man go about his business and writing down what he did and when, just like Burt insisted. He hadn’t done it right on Monday, and Burt’s eyes had gone all thin and dark. It scared Archer when he squinted like that.

“You need to write the times down.” Burt had smacked Archer on top of the head with his open hand. “You’re looking for a
pattern
here, asshole. How you gonna figure out a pattern if you don’t write down the times?”

So on Tuesday, then yesterday, and again today, Archer had dutifully written down times. The time Landry came outside, the time he went into the barn, the time he came out. When he walked out to the pond, when he came back. When the other man came out to the field to call him back, when they both went inside. Archer thought it was all a waste of time, but he wasn’t about to tell Burt that.

Today on the way home, Burt had made Archer read his notes aloud.

“Hmmm,” he had said. “So the old man goes out in the morning, strolls around, then someone else comes out and makes him come back in. Wonder who that is?”

“Don’t know.” Archer had shrugged. “And then both days, a police car came up the drive around eleven, and again around one, and then around three.”

“Wonder what that’s all about.” Burt had gone quiet for a long time. “Cops coming by every couple a hours.”

“They don’t stay long or nothing. They just turn around in the drive. This morning, one of them got out and went up to the door and knocked on it. When they came by later, Mr. Landry was already outside, and they stopped and talked for a while with him and the other man. Then when the police left, Mr. Landry went into the barn and came back out with something in his hand, I couldn’t see what.”

“Time them again tomorrow,” Burt said, “then maybe we can probably nail it.”

“Huh?”

“If the pattern holds, then the day after tomorrow will be the day for you to do Landry.” Burt never turned his head; he just kept looking straight ahead, and talked as if they were planning a trip to the beach. “Once you have the pattern down, that’s all you need to know. You hit between visits from the police. All you need to know now is how and when to hit. I have an idea about that. . . .”

Archer’s palms sweated just remembering the conversation. He didn’t want to kill Mr. Landry. He didn’t want to kill anyone. He wanted to go home. That’s all. He just wanted to go home.

He searched the pockets of his jeans for his wallet. In one of the small compartments was the card Miranda Cahill had given him. He’d folded it up so that Burt couldn’t find it, if he decided to look through Archer’s wallet, and who’s to say he wouldn’t do just that one of these days? Archer unfolded the card and studied the phone number, trying to memorize it. In his jacket pocket was the cell phone Burt had given him. Archer thought about getting the phone and calling the pretty FBI agent and just telling her everything. Everything about Curtis and Vince and him and the game. About getting out of High Meadow and planning on forgetting he’d ever met them, ever talked to them, ever played that stupid fucking game. Then Burt came along. Burt had made him kill Unger, was making him kill Landry. And if Archer didn’t figure out a way out of it, that was exactly what he was going to have to do. The thought of taking another life sickened him.

The thought of defying Burt sickened him even more.

He got up and went into the bathroom and turned on the light, then stared at his reflection for a long time. He wasn’t a killer. He’d never wanted to be a killer.

When he’d started this whole thing, he had no idea what it would be like. He wished he’d never had to go into that room with Curtis and Vince that day. Wished he’d never met either one of them. Wished he’d kept his damn big mouth shut.

It had sounded so tough, so cool.
Yeah, let’s talk about who we’d do when we get out.

God, he didn’t know it would be like this.

Tears rolled down his face, and he didn’t even bother to wipe them away. One way or another, no matter what he did now, he was fucked.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

Archer made his way through the early-morning mist and listened to the engine of Burt’s truck fade into the distance. Today was the day, Burt had declared when he woke him up at four that morning.

“Today’s the day,” he’d growled as he shook Archer awake. “Get up and get moving. You have a job to do.”

Archer had all but frozen to the bed.
I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to do this job,
he’d longed to protest. But the words stuck in his mouth, as words in defiance of Burt’s orders always did. As terrified as Archer was of killing another man, the thought of what Burt would do to him if he refused terrified him even more.

So he had gotten up and gotten dressed and gotten into the pickup while it was still dark, and he rode with Burt in the silent truck through the dawn. When they came to the place where Burt always stopped to let Archer out, Burt asked, “You know what you’re going to do, right?”

“Right.” Archer’s head nodded jerkily. “Sure. Right. I know what I’m going to do.”

“You’re going to hide in the barn. . . .”

“I said I know.” Archer jumped out of the truck and slammed the door before Burt could reach across the seat and slam it in his face. He set off down the dark road in the direction of the woods he’d come to know well over the past week.

In his pocket was the cell phone and the tiny folded-up card with Miranda Cahill’s phone number on it. All the way through the quiet woods he debated. What would happen to him if he called and told her everything? Would she send someone to get him, someone who could protect him from Burt? Maybe even arrest Burt?

“What could they arrest him for?” Archer mumbled aloud as he picked his way through the dark. Burt hadn’t shot anyone. Was it a crime to make someone else do something like that? Archer wasn’t sure, but he thought it might be. Then again, he had no proof. It would be his word against Burt’s. Who would the law believe?

Probably not me, Archer lamented as he reached the edge of the field. No one ever had . . .

He leaned back against a tree and sighed deeply. He’d flip a coin. Heads, he’d call the FBI; tails, he wouldn’t. He took a quarter from his pocket and flipped it into the air, but he couldn’t see where it landed. He got down on his hands and knees and searched the ground, but the coin was nowhere to be found.

“It figures,” he muttered as he walked the tree line down to the fallen log he’d used as a perch the previous days.

He took the cell phone from his pocket and turned it on but did not dial. Instead he sat for a long while, staring at the farmhouse just a few hundred feet away, and thinking. The man who slept in there had only a few more hours to live, and it would be he, Archer Lowell, who would be pulling the trigger. Not Burt. Not Vince Giordano. Archer Lowell. He’d killed one man so far, and he’d hated it. He hated the thought of doing it again.

He took the card from his pocket and unfolded it slowly. He studied the number, then started to dial, and stopped. Started, then stopped. Finally, he made up his mind, and dialed.

If she answers, it means I have to tell her. If she doesn’t . . .

The phone rang six times. Finally, on the sixth ring, he heard a click, then, “Hi, you’ve reached Miranda Cahill. I can’t take your call right now, but if you’ll—”

He turned off the phone and sat shaking, looking over his shoulder, expecting Burt to jump out at him, take the gun from Archer’s own pocket, and shoot him with it.

Maybe the other number on the card . . .

He dialed the second number.

“This is Miranda Cahill. Please leave a message . . .”

Archer sighed heavily, wondering what message he could leave. By the time she got it, Burt would probably be back, looking for him. If he hadn’t killed Mr. Landry by then, well, it wasn’t much worth thinking about, was it?

There was no way out, Archer knew that now. Turning off the phone, he stuck it back in his pocket and started off across the field in the direction of the barn. Sick to his stomach, he stopped partway and lost the little bit of breakfast he’d had that morning.

At the back door of the barn, he paused and took the screwdriver and flashlight from his pocket. Holding the small light in his teeth, he carefully removed the screws that held the lock and bolt on the door. He slipped the three screws into his shirt pocket and opened the door slowly, quietly, though he knew no one was in there. No animals lived there, either. It was like the barn was just for show. Well, for show and for storing Mr. Landry’s gardening tools. If today was to be like every other day this week, in a few hours from now, Mr. Landry would come out of the house and walk to the pond, where he’d watch the ducks for a while. Then he’d go into the barn and get a rake or some other garden thing. He’d rake leaves or something around the flower beds for about twenty minutes, then he’d put the rake or whatever away. At some point—usually while Mr. Landry was working in the garden—the other man would come out and talk to Mr. Landry, and pretty soon they’d go back into the house.

Archer climbed the ladder to the loft and settled himself down in a spot where he had a clear view of the door. If Mr. Landry was alone, he was supposed to shoot him then. If the other man was there, he’d have to wait until later in the day and hope that Mr. Landry came back out without the other man following right away.

He hunkered down on the hard wooden floor, the gun in his hand, and waited for the door to open. He would not permit himself to think any more about what he was going to do when Joshua Landry stepped through it.

Archer had all but fallen asleep waiting. His one arm had gone numb, and he’d just sat up and leaned back against the wall, shaking the arm to get the blood flowing again, when he heard the latch lift on the wide door below him. He rested his head on the wall behind him, shaking his head slowly and fighting back the tears. Then, knowing there was no use, there was no way out now, he stretched his neck to look down into the barn.

Now or never . . .

Josh Landry pushed the door open just enough to walk through it. He stood with his back to Archer and sorted through some garden implements as if searching for just the right one. He’d just reached out for one when the first bullet whizzed past him on the left. Landry jumped back, ducked, and looked around the barn.

“What the—”

The second bullet passed him on the right.

“Son of a bitch,” Landry yelled.

The third bullet struck him in the chest, and he fell back, a surprised look on his face. The fourth and fifth bullets missed the mark, but the sixth hit near the third, taking him all the way down to the ground. As if in a daze, Archer came down the ladder holding on with one hand, the gun still in the other.

Just as he got to the bottom, the door was flung open, and the other man stood there, a gun held in front of him as he scanned the interior. Before he turned in Archer’s direction, Archer fired twice. The man fell, his gun useless now.

A loud discordant hum in his brain, Archer Lowell ran out the back door and fled for the shelter of the woods.

“This is getting old,” Miranda grumbled as she climbed into the passenger seat of Will’s car the next morning. “Old, old, old . . .”

“Hey, you were the one who wanted to work on Saturday, remember? I was just as happy to work from home.”

“Well, after losing half a day, yesterday, chasing our tails in Ohio . . .” She snapped her seat belt closed. “All that way just to find out that Curtis Channing had been a model employee. Who’d have thought that?”

“Yeah, the least he could have done was show a little hostility toward the waitresses. Give us something to work with.”

“Shut up and drive.” She sank into her seat.

“I see we’re just a little ray of sunshine this morning.”

She glared at him.

“No coffee this morning, Cahill?”

“I was out.”

“Uh-oh. We all know what that means.”

“I said shut up, Fletcher.”

He chuckled, further incurring her wrath, but he redeemed himself when he pulled into the first convenience store they came to.

“No, no, you stay right there,” he told her as he got out of the car. “I’ll get your coffee.”

“I’ll come in.” She opened the passenger door. “You don’t have to go in for me.”

“I do if I ever want to shop here again. God only knows what kind of damage you could do to my reputation, the mood you’re in. . . .”

She slammed the door closed again and sat back in the seat.

Will was back in under five minutes, a cardboard carrier holding three cups of coffee in one hand, a bag in the other.

“I got you an extra cup. And look, Cahill. Doughnuts.” He got into the car slowly, trying not to tip the cups. He tossed the bag in her general direction, then looked over at her when the bag hit the floor. “Hey, you were supposed to catch—”

Miranda sat stock-still, her phone up to her ear, her face white. “Fuck,” she yelled. “Fuck!”

“What . . . ?”

She got out of the car and paced the parking lot wildly. She looked stricken, furious.

Will followed her, pinned her up against the car, and took the phone from her hand.

“What happened? What?”

“Landry is dead.” She spat the words at him. “The Plainsville police found his body about forty minutes ago.”

“Jesus.” He appeared momentarily stunned. “What about Phillips?”

“He’s in the emergency room at Princeton Hospital. He took one shot, but he’ll survive.” She pushed Will away with a two-handed shove to the chest. “Son of a bitch! How the hell is this little wienie getting away with this shit?”

Before he could answer, she’d taken off around the car and was getting back in.

“Drive,” she pleaded. “Get back in and drive.”

All the way to Plainsville, she muttered curses under her breath, stopping only long enough to make those phone calls she knew she needed to make. The first was to John Mancini. The second was to the Plainsville police for an update.

“You were supposed to be watching this guy,” she’d said in her most controlled voice. “Why weren’t you watching him?”

“Hey, we don’t have enough officers to have one stationed twenty-four hours a day watching any one individual, okay?” the chief of police had spat back. “And besides, since the FBI had a man there, we figured Mr. Landry was in good hands. So why don’t you ask your own man what happened, Agent Cahill? Ask him what he was doing while Josh Landry was being shot and killed on
his
watch.”

“I just can’t believe this.” She shook her head after she’d hung up the phone. “I can’t believe that Archer Lowell has pulled this off. Where the hell was Art Phillips?”

She leaned forward and turned to Will. “How could he have outsmarted us, not once, but twice? How could he have shot not only Landry, but the agent who was supposed to be watching Landry? What is wrong with this picture?”

“All reasonable questions.” Will accelerated as he hit the highway. “Ones I intend to ask of Phillips, assuming he lives.”

“He’ll live. It didn’t sound as if his injuries were that serious.” She sat back in her seat and exhaled. “This is the damnedest case I ever worked, I swear it is.”

“Drink your coffee, Cahill, and calm down a little.”

“I don’t want to calm down. I’m so pissed off right now—”

“I understand. I feel every bit as pissed off as you do. But save it for when it will do some good. Right now, drink your coffee.”

She took one of the cups from the holder, peeled back a portion of the plastic lid, and passed it to Will, then fixed one for herself. She sipped at it for a few minutes, watching the highway fly by.

“I really liked him, Will,” she said without turning her head from the window. “Landry. I really liked the man.”

“So did I.”

“And his daughter. I liked her, too. This is going to be just terrible for her.” She looked at Will. “She trusted us. She knew that we knew her father could be in danger, and she trusted us to keep him safe.”

“There has to be some reason why it was so easy for Lowell to get to Landry. Before we castigate ourselves or Phillips, let’s find out what happened.”

“I hate this case. It’s been a total screwup right from the start.”

“It happens sometimes. Sometimes, no matter how well you think you’re doing the job, something, someone, screws up, and it’s bad right on through to the end.” His jaw set tightly. He didn’t want to think about what might mark the end of Archer Lowell’s run.

So far, it was bad guy 2, good guys 0. And the third and last name on the list might very well be Miranda’s.

Well, he can’t have her. I will personally rip his heart out before I let him have her. I will shove that gun of his so far up his—

“What’s that for?” she was asking.

“What?”

“That look on your face. Jesus, Fletcher, you looked like you’re going to rip someone’s head off.”

“Close enough,” he muttered. “Close enough . . .”

The local crime scene techs were already at work in Landry’s barn and in the fields when Miranda and Will arrived. The first person they saw when they got out of the car was Regan Landry. She stared at the two agents with red-rimmed eyes set in a face that was almost blank with disbelief. Miranda stopped to speak with her, but it was clear that the woman was in shock.

“Regan, is there someone I can call for you?” Miranda asked gently.

Regan shook her head no.

“A friend, maybe. A relative?”

Again, the blonde head moved slowly, side to side.

“I shouldn’t have left him,” she said. “I should have known he was going to play this his own way.”

“I’m so sorry,” Miranda told her. “I don’t know what to say—”

“If I told him once, I told him fifty times this week. Agent Phillips is here for a reason, stop treating this like a game. He took every opportunity to slip away, outside, alone. He wanted to confront the killer,” Regan said without taking her eyes from the open barn door. “He was fascinated by the thought that he was a potential victim. Can you believe it?”

She turned to Miranda and grabbed her arm.