Never Go Home (16 page)

“What happened
next?”

“Well, I ran to
the window. Nearly did myself in, that time. Couldn’t breathe for a minute.”

“Did you see
anything?”

“Not a thing,
man. The car was gone.” He took a minute, sighed a couple times. “I went over
there. The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and saw her.” His eyes
watered over. He tried to speak again, but couldn’t.

“OK, Mr. Fults.
I got it. I’m going to have someone come by tomorrow and get a statement from
you.”

“Can I do it
after the funeral?”

“I’ll talk to
the sheriff.”

We sat there
for a few minutes. Neither of us looked at the other. I rose, excused myself,
went through the front door and jogged across the street. April stood in front
of her cruiser.

“Jesus, Jack.
It’s a mess in there. This doesn’t look good.” She kept her composure.

“Yeah, well,
you gotta hear the story the old man across the street just gave me.”

“He’s a drunk,”
Skagan said.

“And he also
sits on that porch or behind the front window and watches everything that goes
on out here. Normally, that’s not much. But these past few days, a ton.”

“What’s that
mean?” April said.

I recounted the
story Fults had told me. Everything from the African-American guy gaining
access to the house, Craig being dumped in a trunk, and what happened the night
Jessie died.

April pushed
past me, headed toward Fults’s house.

“What are you
doing?” I said.

“I’m going to
find out why he didn’t let us know this before. Why didn’t he call in when
Craig was being beaten and abducted?”

She spun around
and drew her sidearm. Skagen and I both went after her. I got there first and
grabbed her with both arms. She tried to pull away. I didn’t let go. She
relented and turned toward me.

“Tell me what I
could have done differently, Jack?”

“This isn’t
your fault,” I said. “It’s mine. That car, the one I saw three times today,
that guy was following me. He’s the one that did this. We need to find him.” I
paused a beat. “I need to find him, and figure out what the hell he’s doing
here.”

“Why would he
take out Craig?”

“Maybe Craig
saw something he shouldn’t have.”

I couldn’t say
anything more than that. I knew that anyone following me would be ruthless and
coldblooded. And, presumably, Craig had been in the way at the wrong time.

Leon drove
through the center of town. He didn’t speed. He didn’t glance around. There
were a few people out. They didn’t seem to pay any attention to him.

He left the
old historic area. The speed limit increased to thirty-five, then forty-five
miles per hour. He kept his speed steady. As long as the road ahead of him was
barren, the high-beams were on.

He came
across what looked like an abandoned road. The turn off was visible, but beyond
that, the asphalt was cracked and overrun with grass and weeds that had forced
their way through. Nature had reclaimed what was once hers.

He turned
onto the road. The headlights washed over the area. The road led into a stretch
of woods a couple hundred feet away. Unsure what laid in wait at the end, he
cut his lights and crept forward.

Tall pines
rose up on either side of him. The road came to an end. He stopped, rolled down
his window and waited with the engine off. The car ticked and clicked for a few
minutes before going silent. A breeze blew past him. Insects sung and hummed.
An owl screeched a time or two.

Satisfied the
road was nothing more than a relic, he got out and walked to the rear of the
Tercel.

The man
inside the trunk banged against the lid. The little car shook and swayed.

Leon stood at
the rear for a minute. He had to get rid of the guy, and letting him live was
not an option. He popped the trunk. In the darkness, he could only make out the
shape of the deputy. The man squirmed. Leon pulled out his pistol, aimed toward
the man’s head and pulled the trigger twice. The man’s flailing legs and
wriggling torso went still.

Leon inhaled
the smell of nitroglycerin and sawdust, turned, and spit. That was the smell of
death.

He had to get
the body out. He walked around the side of the car to check if he had anything
between the front and back seats that he could use to bury the guy. He didn’t
need a shovel, just something to move a little earth around. The less visible
the man was, the better.

He opened the
door and stuck his head inside. He found nothing but a few fast food wrappers.
Disappointed, he exited the car. As he turned to the back, he spotted a light a
hundred feet or so away, in the woods.

Leaves
rustled. Branches popped. Someone approached.

Leon had been
around the block enough times to know that no sane person would head toward
gunfire unless they were armed as well.

And standing
next to the car, he was a sitting duck.

He crouched
behind the rear wheel. The approach continued. He shuffled toward the rear of
the car, and tried to get a look into the woods. The headlights were on, but
the cone of light didn’t extend toward the light in the distance. Whoever
approached had come from that direction.

Leon was
bathed in red light behind the car. He couldn’t stay there. He moved back to
his spot behind the rear wheel. Trees surrounded him on three sides. Running
back to the highway wasn’t safe. Neither was running toward the oncoming
person.

Leon took a
breath, closed his eyes, and composed himself. Then he took a sprinter’s stance
and darted into the woods.

April grabbed
Skagen by the elbow and pulled him to the side. She told him to keep the house
locked, and not to let in anyone but her. He went inside. The front door shut.
She paced the length of the porch for a minute or two. She came to a stop,
wrapped her hands around the back of her head.

“You can’t
blame yourself for this,” I said.

She’d been
staring at the house across the street. It seemed to take a few seconds for my
words to settle in.

“Who should I
blame then?” she said.

“Craig, for
one,” I said.

“That guy
could barely figure out a revolving door, Jack. I should have never put him in
this position. Give him a radar gun and tell him to pull someone over when they
did ten over the speed limit, he did fine. But something like this? It was too
big. He was probably thrown off by the scene inside and relieved that someone
showed up. He’d have bought any story.”

“You think
something about the guy seemed familiar or trustworthy?”

She shrugged.
“Only Craig knows that. Hopefully we’ll be able to ask him when we find him.”

She joined me
on the walkway. We headed toward her cruiser. I offered to drive her home. She
protested at first, but gave in after a few minutes. When we reached her house,
I cut the engine. We remained seated with the windows up and the ignition off.
Our breathing was rhythmic, in time with one another, and the only sound in the
car.

“I’m not
going to be much for company now,” she said.

“Understood,”
I said. “I need to be out there, anyway. You have a car I can borrow?”

She gestured
to nothing. “Take my patrol car.”

“You sure?”

“You’re not
going far, are you?”

“Maybe to the
other side of town.”

“Just stay
away from those guys. Let us handle that, OK? I’ve already got the on-call on
his way over.”

“I’ve got
other concerns, April. Someone is here because of me. Your man is missing
because of me. I’ve got to get this figured out quickly.”

She said
nothing.

Neither did
I.

Another
minute passed. The windows fogged up from the bottom. The streetlight cast a
faint pool of light through the back window. It lit up the right side of her
face as she turned to face me.

“What is it?”
I said.

“I really
hope you’re going to come back.”

“I’ll be back
in the morning.”

She smiled,
leaned over and kissed my cheek. “That’s not what I meant.”

I knew that,
but I didn’t say so.

She reached
out and grabbed the door handle and cracked it open an inch. The crickets sang.
The cicadas screamed. She hesitated.

“What is it?”
I said.

“Nothing.”

She walked to
her front door and went inside. A minute later half her torso emerged from the
dim opening. She held out her hand and stuck her thumb in the air. Then she was
gone. The door closed. The lights cut off.

I didn’t feel
safe leaving her there alone, not with someone skilled enough to kidnap a cop
on the loose. So I drove to the end of the street with my lights off, made a
U-turn and remained there for fifteen minutes.

The street
remained quiet, empty, still. Houses looked dead and deserted. The trees had a
rhythm of their own. They swayed with the breeze at random intervals. A heavy
gust blew through. It sounded like the ocean. Waves breaking.

I started the
cruiser and shifted from park to drive. I slowed as I passed April’s house. The
windows were still dark. The front door still closed. April, I presumed, was in
bed. Alone.

I’d only
managed to get a hundred feet away when a call came over the radio. Someone had
found Craig’s body in the back of a mid-nineties Toyota Tercel. He’d been shot
at point blank range, twice, in the head.

I whipped the
wheel around and raced to April’s house.

She had the
front door open before my foot hit the pavement.

“Have you
heard?” I called out.

“Yes,” she
said.

“Get in,” I
said.

“Let me
drive. I know where we’re going.”

I met her at
the front of the car. She reached out and squeezed my hands. She looked
steeled, determined.

It took her
twenty minutes to reach the location. She turned onto an old, abandoned road
that dead-ended in the woods.

“What was
back here?” I said.

She shrugged.
“I’ve never been back there before.”

Her
headlights washed over the unkempt field. The cruiser straightened out. The
beams of light settled straight ahead. I saw the Tercel parked at the end of
the road. Skagen had arrived before us. He’d pulled up next to the car. I
wondered if he’d locked up before leaving Jessie’s house.

April gunned
the engine and hit the brakes a second before it would have been too late. She
left the engine running and hopped out. I cracked my door open to the sound of
thunder. Lightning splayed across the sky over the gulf.

Skagen met
April at the back of the Tercel. He shined his light inside the trunk. April
stared down into the makeshift tomb for a moment. She didn’t gasp or cry out or
reach for something to steady herself. I stood behind her, squeezed her
shoulder. She took a deep breath and turned and shook her head. Her eyes
watered over.

Skagen said,
“An old man lives in a cabin behind us. He heard the shots. Caught a glimpse of
the man that did it, but it was dark. Said by the time he got over here, the
man was gone.”

“How long ago
was that?” I said.

“Half hour,
maybe more,” Skagan said.

“He wouldn’t
get far through the woods,” April said. “Maybe a mile.”

“If he went
through the woods he’d find a place to hide,” I said. “But if he took to the
road and ran, he could be four miles away, if he’s in decent shape.”

April walked
past me, beyond the cone of light cast by her headlights. She stopped a few
feet past the cruiser. She faced the highway.

I walked
toward her.

She said,
“There’s dozens of streets four miles in either direction. Some dead end,
others will lead you back to I-75 if you follow them long enough and make the
correct turns.” She turned around, shaking her head. “Christ, we don’t even
know what this guy looks like.”

“Fults saw
him,” I said. “Told me the guy was African-American.”

“Fults is
delusional, Jack,” she said. “The other day he told me that aliens came down
and took Jessie away. We can’t put out anything based on what he told us.”

“Sounds like
we’re…” I was going to say ‘screwed,’ but didn’t.

She walked
past me, and called for Skagen. “Finish up with the witness and head back to
town. Check every street there, then start back this way. I want you to go up
and down every road. Got it?” She paused long enough for him to nod. “We’re
going to head south.”

I joined her
in the patrol car. She flicked on the high-beams as she spun around and drove
toward the highway. I scanned the area to the right. She took the left. The
grass was high, probably up to the middle of my thigh. If anyone had been
through it, or hid in it, I couldn’t tell. A K-9 unit would have been helpful
in this situation.

“Can you get
a dog out here?” I said.

“Not now.
Maybe in the morning. I told dispatch to notify all the adjoining towns and
highway patrol. I’m sure they were all happy to get a notice to be on the
lookout for an armed man, possibly African-American, definitely a cop killer.”

The first of
several fat raindrops hit her windshield. I saw a flash of lightning stretch
from the heavens to the gulf. A crack of thunder followed. Then the sky opened
up and pelted the area with rain.

“Guess the
dog’s out of the question now,” she said.

I shrugged. I
didn’t know enough about how they worked to agree or disagree. “Call in the
morning and find out anyway.”

We drove
eight miles down the highway, going about half the speed limit. The rain let up
after a mile or so. She slowed down at every intersection. It took three times
as long as it should have to make the drive. We saw nothing.

She stopped
in the median and called Skagen. He hadn’t seen anything, either. She aimed the
cruiser toward town. We drove down every side street we passed until we reached
the murder scene. Houses rose out of the earth like skeletons. Silent dark cars
waited for their owners. Trees swayed with the gusts coming in off the gulf.
But there was no sign of the man. He’d vanished into the night.