Never Go Home (11 page)

I pointed at
the phrase in the center of it all. There was a gap of at least two inches on
all sides separating the group of words from the rest of the magnets. It looked
deliberate.

April read it
out loud. “Back off get out.”

“And look at it
closely. See how that white is smudged? Kind of darker than the others?”

“Kind of red?”

We stood with
our arms pressed tight to one another. She looked over at me. I felt her breath
on my face.

“Is that
blood?” she said.

“You got
something to test with?” I said.

She shrugged.
“We’re a small department, Jack. We don’t have anything fancy.”

I placed my
hand on my face and rubbed down to my chin. Someone had to be able to help. It
was an hour’s drive to Tampa. One of her deputies could get there in thirty to
forty.

“Grab a camera
and an evidence bag,” I said. “We can have one of your guys run it to the
city.”

“OK.”

“You’ve got
some contacts down there, right?”

She nodded as
she pulled out her cell phone and called back one of the deputies. She walked
away from me and filled him in on the details.

I continued to
stare at the message. I had a good idea who had left it, and why. What I didn’t
understand was why they didn’t just track me down and deal with me? Why’d they
have to bring Sean and his family into this? These guys knew me twenty years
ago. They had no idea who they were messing with now. I could make their lives
a living hell.

And I would.

I needed a car,
and I had to get rid of April so that I could put an end to this.

I made my way
to the living room. April stood in the foyer. The front door opened. She greeted
her deputy, and together they walked into the kitchen. I followed behind. I
didn’t know this man. He took several pictures of the refrigerator, donned a
pair of blue latex gloves, and placed the poetry magnets into an evidence bag.

April said,
“Have them test it for blood first, DNA second.”

The guy nodded,
and said, “Yes Ma’am,” and left.

April followed
him to the front door. I waited in the living room. After her deputy left she
joined me.

“I guess we
wait,” she said.

“You should go
home,” I said.

“I can’t leave
you here.”

“Why not?”

She waved her
hand around. “What if they come back?”

“I’m a big boy.
I can handle it. Go home, April.”

She took a few
steps back. Whether she did it purposefully or unconsciously, she blocked my
path to the front door.

“Why are you
acting like this, Jack?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re
going to do something.”

“Probably best
you don’t ask a question like that.”

She hesitated
before answering. I could see her struggling with the choice. Leave or try to
detain me. She threw a curve ball at me.

“I’m going with
you,” she said.

“Where?”

“You know
where. Those two jerks from the bar.”

I hadn’t
considered this option. It made sense. She could keep me from doing something
stupid, or she could cover up anything stupid that I did.

“You know where
they live?” I said.

She lifted her
eyebrows an inch, nodded. “Been there several times.”

I followed her
outside. The sun had set. It was dark and muggy. Crickets and cicadas competed
for our attention. A water bug the width of a golf ball skated across the
driveway. Halfway to her patrol car, I began to sweat. I started to long for
London.

She started the
engine and blasted the AC before she closed her door. I stole a glance in her
direction. She took a few deep breaths. Her hands white knuckled the steering
wheel. She whispered something. I had no idea what she said.

“You sure you
want to do this?” I said.

“Yes,” she
said.

“You can just
drop me off and give me directions. No one will know. I sure won’t tell.”

“I’m not
leaving you there alone. You nearly killed them in the bar and that took a
couple seconds. I’d probably roll up to their house in the middle of the night
and find their heads on stakes.”

Ironic,
considering where I’d been only a few days ago.

“Besides, these
guys are armed to the teeth. They won’t do anything if I’m there.”

She backed out
of the driveway, threw the transmission into drive and gunned the engine. We
flew around the bend in the road. I saw a turtle off to the side. She slammed
on the brakes at the stop sign. Burned rubber seeped in through the vents. I
rolled my window down once we began moving in an effort to dissipate the odor.

“How far is
this place?” I said.

“Other side of
town.”

I wanted to ask
her about Jessie. Despite being in town for a day, I knew nothing other than
she was dead and they suspected it had been suicide. Our earlier conversation
led me to believe that April doubted this. I tried to bring it up a couple
times, but couldn’t find the angle.

April gave me
one.

“She lived in
that neighborhood.”

I followed her
gaze toward the community of brick ranch houses. The roofs were all low
pitched. The yards all had palm trees and lots of flowers and manicured lawns.

“Kids?” I said.

“Two,” she
said. “Boy and a girl.”

“Drive by it,”
I said.

She hit the
brakes and made a hard left into the neighborhood. Kids playing soccer in the
street took to the sidewalks. April slowed down and pointed at a brick house
painted light yellow or off-white. Too dark out to tell for sure. The car
rolled to a stop a few feet past the driveway.

Yellow police
tape covered the front porch and the door.

“How’d she die?
I mean, I know it’s being looked at as suicide, but how?”

“Gunshot.”

“Did it look
self-inflicted in your opinion?”

“Jack, I’m an
amateur when it comes to this stuff. I’ve never investigated a suicide, much
less a murder. I’ve been promised a detective from the city, but they haven’t
showed up yet.”

I reached out
and placed my hand on her forearm. “It’s OK. I’m not grilling you here, just
asking a couple questions.”

She took a deep
breath. Her gaze left the front of the house. She stared at me.

“It doesn’t
look right to me,” she said. “The position of her body, her hand on the gun,
the blood on the wall… none of it seems right.”

“Have you sent
the pictures to Tampa’s homicide department?”

She shook her
head. “They’re all at the morgue. Anyway, I’ve spent some time online,
researching. So far, the feeling in my gut seems right. I guess the detective
will let me know if I’m wrong.”

“Can we go in?”

“Key is in the
glove box.”

I reached for
the latch. It didn’t open.

She pulled her
keys from the ignition, fished around for a second, then handed it to me with a
small key pointing up. I inserted it into the lock and opened the glove box.

“Grab the
flashlight, too,” she said.

I grabbed the
key to Jessie’s house and the large stainless steel flashlight. “Got gloves?”

“In the trunk.”

We both got
out. The wind had picked up. It blew in from the gulf. Fresh air. Salt air. It
felt good and made the humidity a little more bearable.

I met April at
the trunk. She popped it, grabbed a box of gloves.

She turned to
me, and said, “You need a gun?”

“I’m good.” I
didn’t care how she took that. I was armed. If she knew, she did nothing to
stop me.

We walked up
the driveway and across the paved walkway to the porch. She ducked under the
yellow tape. I followed close behind. She cut the tape on the door. It fell in
two even length strands along the frame.

“We’ll replace
it before we go,” she said.

I heard voices
behind us. Looking back, I saw a couple sitting on their porch. Orange embers
at the end of a cigarette glowed in the dark. I was surprised I hadn’t picked
up on the smell.

The door
clicked open. April looked back at me. “Ready?”

I shrugged.
“Guess so.”

I clicked on my
light and stepped into the dark house. Nothing could have prepared me for what
I encountered.

Leon Barber
idled on Suncoast’s dirt and gravel shoulder. He had a view of the police car
and the front of the house. The cruiser had pulled up next to the curb and
lurched to a stop. Jack and the woman had remained inside for a minute before
getting out. They met at the back of the car. She had reached inside the trunk.
Leon couldn’t tell for what. Jack reached behind his back, tugged at something.

His piece, Leon
presumed.

They walked up
the driveway. He lost visual contact with them when they ducked under the
darkened porch.

Leon counted
back from fifty, slowly. When he reached zero he checked his mirrors then cut
across the two-lane road. Gravel pelted the Tercel’s undercarriage. The rear
end of the compact car fishtailed. He let off the gas and regained control on
the blacktop. By the time he passed the first house in the neighborhood, he
drove a steady twenty miles per hour. He slowed down and coasted past the
police cruiser. Turning his head toward the house, he searched for Jack. Didn’t
see him, though. Police tape covered the porch. The door to the house was
closed. Either they’d gone inside, or walked around back.

He slowed down
a bit more. The Tercel crawled forward. Two strands of yellow police tape hung
from the door frame, about four feet up on either side.

They’d gone
inside.

Leon continued
another couple hundred feet down the road, made a three point turn and parked
about a hundred feet from the house. He studied the tangle of asphalt, grass
and siding in front of him. The sky grew darker by the second. The final
glimmer of red light over the gulf faded.

He pulled out
his cell phone and called Vera.

“He’s at some
house with a cop,” Leon said.

“OK.” It didn’t
sound like the information surprised her.

“Want me to get
closer?”

“No,” she said.
“Stay put.”

Leon hung up
the phone and tossed it on the passenger seat. It skipped twice and came to a
rest next to the door. He was tired of sitting around doing nothing. It’s all
he had done to this point. They had people for this. He wasn’t one of them. His
job had always been to come in, and strike fast and hard. Sitting in parking
lots waiting for the go-ahead was for the desk jockeys. And since he’d been
around the whole time, it might not even be his go ahead.

He couldn’t
stand being played. Vera was jerking him around. She might be able to keep him
from taking Jack out, but she couldn’t keep him cooped up in a car for a week.
He slapped his steering wheel.

“To hell with
this.”

He leaned
across the passenger seat, opened the glove box and pulled out his Glock 17.
He’d decided to see what Jack Noble was up to, and how the man would react when
faced with Mr. Nine-millimeter.

Leon reached
for his door handle and shoved his shoulder into the window. He stopped short
of placing his foot on the ground.

If he acted out
of line, it would come back to haunt him. Maybe not today, or tomorrow. But one
night, he knew, he’d wake up with a sharp blade pressed to his throat. There’d
be no meeting beforehand. He’d get no trial or committee hearing.

He’d disappear.

Simple as that.

But first,
they’d have to find out.

Rotting flesh
and day old blood hit me like a sack of bricks. I stood inside, next to the
front door. April closed it and the odor enveloped us. She gasped a few times.
Her hand hit my shoulder, presumably to steady herself.

My flashlight
beam hit the opposite wall. Blood coated it. The crimson pattern started about
six feet in the air, blossomed, then traveled down in a thick, wide line. The
flow of blood continued on the carpet, forming an area that covered three feet
out and to the side. Two spent shells lay on the floor. They were within two
feet of each other. Someone had placed evidence cards next to them.

The bullet
casings stood out.

Why two?

April must’ve
read my mind. She patted my arm with one hand and shined her light at a spot on
the wall with the other.

“First bullet
missed and went through the wall right there. Nervous, I suppose. I know I
would be.”

I walked
forward, stopped in front of the mess. I looked down, trying to find an
alternate path.

“There’s
booties in the bottom of the box of gloves,” she said.

I slipped a
pair on. The hole in the wall intrigued me the most. I inched closer, then took
a step back. I used the flashlight to zoom in on another section. The cone of
light spread as I leaned back. The comparison between the small section against
the entire wall proved interesting.

“What’re you
doing?” April said.

“It’s hard to
be positive, but doesn’t this section here,” I circled the area with my
flashlight, “look different than the surrounding area?”

She moved in,
turned her body sideways and stood close to me. She took short, quick breaths.
She wasn’t used to this kind of carnage, and, even though she’d seen it once,
it still made her anxious.

“Yeah,” she
said. “It looks faded. Muted, maybe.”

“Like some of
the paint came off, right?”

“Could be.”

“You guys
checked all the linens, the washer, so forth.”

“Yeah, best we
could, at least.”

I lowered into
a squatting position. The light followed me down. April combined hers with it.
The faded pattern matched the blood stain on the wall a couple feet away. A
bloom up top, and a streak heading to the floor. This one was thinner. I turned
my flashlight toward the floor. The carpet looked fine. Unsoiled. It matched
the rest of the room, except for where Jessie’s body had lain.