Good Day In Hell (11 page)

Marie was seated on the couch. The TV was on and she was flipping through the channels. “Don’t feel like sleeping,” she said.

Keller dropped the bag by the couch and sat down next to her. “What’s on?” he said.

“Nothing,” she replied. She sounded morose.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked startled for a minute, then smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m still pissed off over this work thing.”

Keller thought for a moment. An idea occurred to him. “I’ve got a jumper I need to go after,” he said. “The sooner the better—maybe tonight. You want to come with me?”

Her lips quirked slightly. “It’d be better for me than brooding, is that what you’re thinking?”

“Pretty much.”

She sighed, then smiled. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

“We’ll need to go by the office first. Oscar has the info we need. You bring your weapon?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s in my bag. With my badge.”

“It’s not your jurisdiction,” Keller said.

“Yeah,” she said, “but your jumper won’t know that.”

“I’ve got a shoulder rig you can use that’ll fit the Beretta,” Keller said. “And a Kevlar vest. It’ll be a little big on you…what?”

Marie was chuckling. “I was just thinking,” she said. “I could write a magazine article. Dating experiences you’ll never read about in Cosmo.”

He laughed. “I can wait, you know,” he said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“No,” she said, “You’re right. It’s better than stewing over things. It helps to keep busy.”

“That’s the way I always handled it.”

She looked at him with a wry expression. “And that worked, did it?”

“Not always,” he said, “but it helps pass the time ‘til you get better.”

There was a large steel cabinet shoved back against one wall of the house’s spare bedroom. Keller opened it with a key and took a stubby shotgun out. The next item was a leather shoulder holster.

Marie walked into the room. She had put on a pair of black jeans and a burgundy T-shirt. He handed the holster to Marie. As she began strapping it on, he took out a black vest. He walked over and handed it to her. The words BAIL ENFORCEMENT were stenciled in yellow lettering across the back.

She handed it back. “You take it. You’re going in first. I’m just along for backup.”

“I’ve only got the one,” he said. “I usually work alone.”

“You used to,” she said. “But you’re getting better about that.”

He slung the vest over one shoulder, the shotgun by its strap over the other. “Let’s go.”

They drove up the coast road, back into the city. Long rolling stretches of inland dunes gave way to a strip of car lots and cheap restaurants near the Port of Wilmington, then to shabby housing projects, then to tree-lined residential streets overhung with Spanish moss. When they got to the downtown area near the courthouse, the restaurants and clubs were in full swing, the illumination from neon signs glowing through the windows from the dimness inside. Clumps of people roamed the sidewalks.

The storefront that housed H & H Bail Bonds was lit, the sign in the window advertising 24 HOUR SERVICE. Oscar Sanchez sat inside behind the desk. He looked surprised when he saw Marie, but quickly recovered his composure. They embraced warmly. There was a clatter of footsteps on the back stairs as Angela came down from her small apartment above the office. She also looked surprised when she saw Marie. “She’s going with you?” she asked Keller.

“What can I say?” Marie grinned ruefully. “He knows how to show a girl a good time.”

“What have you got, Oscar?” Keller asked.

Sanchez took a file and spread it out on a nearby desktop. “The address the Marks girl gave us was false,” he said. “She has not lived there in some time.”

“Right,” Keller said.

“So I searched for property in the name of this man Randle. I searched property and tax records in both New Hanover and Brunswick counties.”

“And?” Keller said.

“Randle owns a three-acre lot in a subdivision called Riverwoody.”

Marie looked at the printout on top of the stack of papers. “I think that’s Riverwood, Oscar,” she said. “Sometimes these developers stick on that extra ‘e’ to make it seem, I don’t know, more English.”

Sanchez looked confused. “But this is in English.”

“Skip it,” Keller said. “How do we find this place?”

Sanchez pulled out another sheet of paper. “I ran the directions on the MapQuest Web site,” he said, “but here is the first strange thing. The address on the deed and the tax records is 100 River Lane. But there is no such street listed.”

Keller took the sheet from Sanchez and looked it over. “You said the first strange thing. What else?”

Sanchez took another sheaf of papers from the file. “There are many judgments and lawsuits concerning the property.”

“Ah,” Keller said. “Probably the developer went belly-up, ran out of money, and they never officially opened the street.”

“I see,” Sanchez said. “That explains much. Many of the lawsuits are for bills not paid. But one was from the United States government. The Environmental Protection Agency.”

“The EPA?” Angela said. “What’s that about?”

Sanchez looked apologetic. “I do not know,” he admitted. “Much of the language was not familiar to me.”

“Don’t worry, Oscar,” Keller said. “If it’s a lawsuit, it’s not in any form of English either of us would understand.”

“In any case,” Angela said. “It looks like this guy Randle is the only one who has any property out there.”

Nice little hideaway,” Keller said.

“Isolated,” Marie agreed.

“Glad you brought backup, huh?”

“Yeah,” Keller said. “Let’s go.”

Grace Tranh pushed herself away from her desk in the newsroom and rubbed her face in her hands. She had been working for three hours and she still didn’t have her piece finished for the eleven o’clock newscast. The problem was, there was only so much you could say about a county commissioner accused of misusing county funds to buy himself a bass boat.

Her eyes flickered at the clock on her desk. 9:40. Shit. Her producer was going to start screaming for copy soon. She wished she was doing a stand-up report somewhere, anywhere. She knew the promotion to anchor of the Eleven was a huge boost to her career. But it was hard to work up any enthusiasm for composing narration to run behind shots of the errant commissioner waddling from his house to his car, shaking his fist at the cameraman.

She decided she needed a cup of coffee. First, though, she needed to check e-mail. The station had thought it would be a good idea to give each anchor and correspondent a “public” e-mail address which was shown beneath their name on the screen as they appeared on camera. The e-mail address was made purposely easy to remember: the correspondent’s name and the station call letters. The idea was that it made them seem more accessible to the public. Besides, the station manager had said, beaming at them during the meeting in which he had announced the new policy, maybe they’d get some anonymous tips to big stories. So far, all Grace had gotten was a steady stream of proposals, some of them obscene; a fair number of poorly spelled racist diatribes directed at her Vietnamese heritage; and at least a dozen ads a day for penis enlargement.

She sighed as the number of messages mounted on the screen. Rapidly, she scrolled through the list. Delete. Delete. Delete. Then a message header caught her eye:

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

RE: BIG STORY

There was a tiny icon of a paper clip next to the message header, indicating that the message contained an attachment, such as a document or picture file. She pulled down a menu on the screen. There were four attachments, all pictures: IMGOOI.JPG, IMG002.JPG, and so on. Grace sighed. Somebody probably thought their church ice-cream social should make the eleven o’clock. Still, she couldn’t just blow them off. Someone might complain. She clicked on the icon.

The picture came up slowly, scanning line by line from the top. It looked grainy, like it had been taken with a cheap camera. She saw the cross, saw the altar, and shook her head. She’d been right. Then the bottom half of the picture came into view.

“Holy shit,” Grace said.

CHAPTER SIX

“Huh,” Keller said. The headlights of the Crown Vic shone off the steel cable blocking the road.

“What now?” Marie asked.

“Guess we walk,” Keller replied. He turned off the engine and killed the lights. They got out and stood by the car for a few moments. Gradually, the blackness began to resolve into shadows, then to actual shapes as their eyes became accustomed to seeing by starlight. Keller opened the back of the car and took out the shotgun and Kevlar vest.

“That’s not going to stop a knife,” Marie warned him as he slipped the vest on. Keller had filled her in on Laurel Marks’s history of violence as they were driving. While a bulletproof vest would stop a blunt high-speed entry such as a handgun round, the more focused blow of the sharp tip of a knife had been known to penetrate Kevlar.

“I know,” Keller said. “But she or this Randle guy might have a gun. And if she has a knife… well, that’s where you come in.”

“Great,” Marie said. Keller took out a long black flashlight and handed it to her.

They walked down the road side by side. Darkness surrounded them. There were no other houses on either side of the dirt track. Cicadas buzzed in the trees around them and every now and then the groaning bellow of a bullfrog announced that they were close to water. The road suddenly widened and they stepped into the clearing. They could see moonlight shimmering on the river. The trailer loomed to one side. There was no light through any of the windows.

“Looks like no one’s home,” Marie said.

“Maybe,” Keller said. “Or they heard us from up the road.” He unslung the shotgun and advanced slowly. Marie drew her Beretta and walked behind and slightly to one side. When they reached the door of the trailer, Keller took up a position on one side. Marie crouched on the other. “Hand me the light,” he whispered. She did. He reached up and tapped firmly on the door. Nothing. He
tapped again. Still no response. “Laurel?” he called out. Nothing. Keller relaxed and Marie straightened up. He put a finger to his lips, then pointed to his eyes, finishing with a circular motion of his index finger pointed skyward. Look around.

Marie nodded. She stepped away from the door and stole silently off into the darkness. Keller edged slowly down the side of the trailer to the window. The curtains were drawn and he could see nothing. He stopped for a moment to consider, then walked around back. The windows there were also curtained.

He went back around to the front and stood for a moment, watching the front door and considering the situation. He played the flashlight over the dirt driveway in front of the trailer. He could see the tracks left by a large vehicle, a truck or van.

No lights, no vehicle, he thought. Fuck it, no one’s home. He glanced over to where Marie was standing in the tall grass. He saw her bend over to pick something up. He glanced back at the door. As a cop, she probably wasn’t going to approve of what he was about to do. But one thing he had learned in the army was the old adage “Ask forgiveness, not permission.” He slung the shotgun onto his shoulder and set the flashlight down on the trailer’s rickety wooden steps. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small, flat leather case. He stepped up onto the steps and flipped the case open. He withdrew a pair of slender metal picks and set to work. It only took a few moments for him to pick the cheap lock on the trailer’s front door. He slid the case of picks back into his pocket, then unslung the shotgun and turned the knob. There was a slight feeling of resistance as he slowly pulled the door open. Keller frowned and pulled harder, then yanked on the knob.

Marie stalked silently through the grass, looking right and left for signs of anyone hiding out in the overgrown area around the trailer. There was no sound other than the crickets and the bullfrogs. She straightened up and holstered her weapon. If the bugs and the frogs were raising this much hell in the grass, it was unlikely there was a human crouching there.

Ahead of her, she saw a cleared space. As she drew nearer, it resolved itself into a raised concrete slab. Someone had been building out here, then stopped for some reason. A glint in the moonlight caught her eye. She bent over to look. There was a spent shell casing on the slab. Her brow furrowed as she noticed several more
scattered about. Someone had been doing some target practice and not policing up their brass. She picked up one of the casings and studied it for a moment. Forty-five caliber, she thought. She was going to drop it back onto the slab, but reflex stopped her. From her youth when her father had taught her to shoot, through her time in the military, then as a police officer, picking up her spent brass had become ingrained. She was sticking the shell in her pocket when the roar of a gunshot split the night.

Marie’s head snapped around in time to see Keller being propelled backwards from the door of the trailer as if being shoved by a giant hand.

“Jack!” she screamed. Oh dear God, please not again, God, not again, not Jack, oh please… She drew the Beretta from the shoulder holster and charged toward the trailer.