The Homecoming (29 page)

Boonie looked at him.

“You got any suggestions?”

“Yes. First of all, don’t let Deitz call out anywhere. To Smoles or the media. Jam his phones.”

“Already done,” said Mavis.

“We’ll need the engineering drawings for the store. The latest. We need to know if anything has changed since Deitz and his crew were there.”

“Already got ’em,” said Mavis.

“Good. For thirds, I’ll need a couple of guys.”

A general pause here.

“
You
?” said Mavis, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes. I’m going in and rip him out of there.”

Boonie shook his head.

“No goddam way. You just got out of the hospital. That’s nuts. I can’t let you—”

“Mavis said Deitz was a multi-jurisdictional problem. Tig Sutter sent me down here, so the CID automatically takes precedence over the Niceville folks—sorry, Mavis. Boonie, you take precedence over the State guys—so if
you
—the FBI—the Special Agent in Charge—step back and let me do this, it will all be over by midnight.”

“But what about this Frankie guy?”

“That’s why we have to move now. So far he’s kept his head down. If we can neutralize Deitz, everything else can be handled. It’s all we have.”

Boonie was thinking it over.

After all, the guy
was
Special Forces. And getting an FBI team down here would take hours. And draw the national media like bats to bugs. “I have to ask you. Is this personal?”

“Yes. But it’s also what needs to be done.”

“Not often those two go together.”

“Hardly ever.”

“You said two guys. Who?”

“My partner. Beau Norlett.”

“He’s just a kid.”

“He’s steady and gutsy and I can count on him. I know how he’ll react. That’s important.”

“Okay. And who else?”

“I’ll need a base of fire, a sharpshooter to keep Deitz pinned down while we move in on him. I need suppressing fire that actually suppresses. So it has to be somebody good.”

“A
rifle
shooter? Not a guy with a SAW?”

“No. A squad automatic weapon’s a bludgeon. And if Deitz is bunkered up in the gun section, which is where I’d be, that means there’s black powder in there too. Pounds of it, all tight packed in steel cans. Lot of muzzle-loaders shop at Bass Pro. Stray rounds hit black powder, that all goes up, maybe a secondary starts in the ammo crates, and thousands of serious hunting rounds start cooking off. People on the perimeter could die. I want a surgical shooter. Somebody with a cool head.”

“How about Coker? He’s the best we have.”

“Is he available?”

“He’s already here. Charlie Danziger too, because it was his Wells Fargo shipment that got boosted. Coker brought his gear with him.”

Nick smiled.

“Coker works for me.”

It was twilight by the time Kate and Lemon got to the southern end of the footpath that ran down the middle of Patton’s Hard. In the half-light the forest of ancient willows loomed in front of the windshield like a high-walled green basilica roofed in tangled webs of overhanging vines. Beth called them as they shut the truck down.

“Kate, where are you?”

“We’re at Patton’s Hard. Where are you?”

“Out of my mind. I called the school and talked to a woman named Gert—”

“Oh dear.”

“Yes. She says that Axel and Rainey have been getting Early Leave almost since the start of the term? How can that be? Why didn’t Alice let us know? How did they get permission for Early Leave? What in hell is going on, Kate? I’m half crazy—”

“Are you driving?”

“Yes. I was on my way home to see if the boys are there yet. I have Hannah with me.”

“Pull over and stop,” said Kate. “Stop as soon as you can.”

“Why—”

“I have stuff to explain, but you need to be stopped. Are you stopped yet?”

“Just a minute … just a minute …”

Kate could hear crying in the background, Hannah, picking up on her mother’s fear.

“Okay. I’m stopped. What’s going on, Kate?”

Kate told her the whole story. Beth had Kate’s talent for listening and hearing.

“Dear God. Faking notes and e-mails?”

“Looks like, honey.”

“And Alice is missing?”

“No. Not missing. There’s a note on her door.”

“Signed by her?”

A good question. Kate figured being around the FBI was rubbing off on Beth.

“Not that I was told.”

A silence.

Then Beth spoke.

“This Gert creature told me that Alice would go out and find the truants and bring them back in her car. She’d even go to Patton’s Hard. Is that true?”

“Gert said so, for what
that’s
worth.”

“And now you’re at Patton’s Hard too. Are they there? Axel and Rainey?”

“We’re still looking. But I’m thinking no.”

“God. Kate, what should I do? Should I come down and be with you?”

“You have Hannah. She sounds upset.”

“It’s the hearing aids. She’s hearing now, and I think it frightens her.

Kate, I’m … you know Byron’s out, don’t you?”

“Yes, honey. I heard.”

“At first I thought he was coming for me. But now I hear he’s in the Galleria. Somebody got shot. The police are there. Is Nick there?”

“Yes. He and Boonie went together.”

“God. Kate, what’s
happening
to us?”

Niceville
, Kate thought, but she didn’t say it.

“Honey, I think the best thing you could do is go home with Hannah. Eufaula’s there all alone, waiting for the boys to show up. If you go there, she can go home.”

“You’re not at Patton’s Hard alone, are you? I hate that place. And it’s getting dark.”

“No. Lemon’s with me.”

“Good. I like him.”

“I know, Beth. All the women like Lemon.”

She looked over at Lemon and smiled.

“Beth likes you.”

“Tell her I like her right back.”

“Did you hear that?”

“I did. Will you call me?”

“I will, Beth. And you call me if they show up at home. Okay?”

“Okay … Kate … is everything going to be okay? Will they come home?”

“It will be fine. Just no more Early Leave for either of them.”

“I’m grounding Axel for the next ten years.”

“Good idea. I’ll ground Rainey and they can live in the basement like a couple of trolls.”

“I love you, Kate.”

“I love you too. Kiss Hannah for me.”

“I will.”

She clicked off.

Kate looked over at Lemon.

“Well, shall we?”

“We shall.”

The footpath, never intended for cars, was barely wide enough to let them run the Envoy down the middle of it, with the willow branches scraping across the windshield and clutching at the sides of the truck. The surface of the path was muddy and uneven and the going was slow. Lemon was looking at the ruts in the pathway.

“We’re not the first vehicle to drive down here. See the tracks there?”

Kate turned the lights on, and the beams picked out two shallow trenches, parallel and much narrower than the Envoy’s tire prints. Beyond the lights the darkness was closing in as the sun went down. There was a chill in the air and Kate turned the heat up.

“Honk,” said Lemon, as they rolled slowly along the path, the huge willows pressing in around them. “If they’re around they’ll hear you.”

Kate blipped the horn a couple of times. There was no response. Patton’s Hard was deserted.

“They’re not here,” said Kate. “I can’t feel either of them.”

“Let’s go all the way through. If they’re not here, maybe it’s time to call the … Hold on a minute.”

Kate slowed the truck.

“See that?” said Lemon. “The car tracks turn off there.”

“How do you know it’s not the parks people on a golf cart thingie.”

“You don’t golf, do you, Kate?”

“No, I’m too young to die of boredom. So it’s not a golf cart?”

“No, it’s a car, a subcompact.”

Kate peered through the misty half-light. The narrow tracks they had been riding over came to a sharp turn beside a huge stand of willows.
The tracks went under the cascade of hanging willow branches and disappeared into the greenish gloom under the trees.

“I am not,” said Kate, “following those.”

“Wait here,” said Lemon, popping the door. He stepped out, and then leaned back in.

“Have you got a flashlight?”

“In the glove box. Lemon, I’ve seen this movie.”

He flashed a bright, slightly crazed smile and Kate remembered that before he became an “escort” to the Ladies Who Lunch he was a Marine Corps combat vet with two Bronzes for valor.

“Nothing can happen to us. We’re the leads.”

“What if you’re just the faithful sidekick? They always get it first.”

“Depends on whose movie it is,” he said, reaching into the glove box. He pulled out a Streamlight and, with a flourish, Kate’s compact Glock pistol.

“Would it make you feel better if I took this along?”

Kate sighed, reached for the keys.

“Yes. But I’m coming too.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes it’s the chickenhearted wimp who stays in the car who gets it first.”

Lemon laughed, closed his door, and Kate got out and hit the remote lock. He turned on the Streamlight—a powerful halogen beam—and they followed it down a few yards, reaching the point where the car tracks—if that’s what they were—disappeared under the willow branches.

Kate hesitated but Lemon reached out, caught a handful of branches, and pulled them aside, shining the beam in as he did so.

Inside the curtain wall the willows rose up in columns, tall, angular branches arching out like flying buttresses in a green cathedral.

The interior—it
felt
like an interior—retained traces of the glow from the setting sun. It soared over their heads, a hundred feet or more, and spread out around them in a radius of fifty or sixty feet. The soaring space was full of creaking and hissing sounds as the wind off the river stirred the upper branches.

Everybody said that the willows in Patton’s Hard would whisper to each other. Kate could understand how an imaginative person could hear voices in those trees.

The air in here smelled of earth and moss and rotting leaves. The ground under their feet was soft and damp. The tracks seemed to fade
into the gloom. Something angular and spindly was up against the trunk of the main willow.

Lemon put his light on it.

It was a lawn chair, a battered old ruin that looked as if it had been scavenged from a thrift store or a junk pile. An umbrella was attached to the arm of the chair with a bungee cord. Beside the chair was an upturned wooden crate, and on the crate was a pile of dog-eared paperback books. The space in front of the chair was scuffed and worn. There were candy wrappers and Coke cans scattered about. Another lawn chair, this one folded flat, was propped up against the trunk of the willow. Kate went over and picked up one of the paperbacks.

It was a Harry Potter book—something about a goblet of gloom. Kate opened it and saw what she knew she would see. Rainey had written his name inside the front cover. He always did that.

Lemon was standing close, shining the light down on the page.

“I think we’ve found their hideout.”

“I guess we have. And they’re not here.”

Lemon turned the light away and shone it deeper into the gloom, following the tracks. Looking at them carefully, he came to the realization that there was only one set of tracks. That is, there was no sign that whoever had driven into this space had ever put the car into reverse and driven back out, smearing and overlaying a second set of tracks on top of the first.

When this thought had worked its way through the levels of his mind, his belly went tight and his breathing got shallow.

“Wait here,” he said, walking away towards the far side of the willow curtain. Beyond it he could hear the roaring rush of the Tulip as it raced around the big bend that it had carved into Patton’s Hard. As he got closer to the bank he could feel the force of the current through the ground. Kate came up behind him.

“Where do they go?” she asked. “I can’t see that anybody tried to turn a car around in this space. You’d see the tracks …”

Her voice trailed off as she got to where Lemon already was in one gestalt.

They were now at the edge of the Tulip. Six feet down the muddy banks the dark brown water swirled and hissed and muttered like a living thing. Farther out, twigs and leaves and river junk turned slowly inside the whirlpool generated by the currents as the Tulip powered through the bend.

Years ago Kate had seen a dog slip off the muddy banks and get caught up in that whirlpool. Some kind of hound, it fought desperately for its life. Kate had picked up a tree branch and tried to get the dog to bite it so she could pull him out, and he had tried to do that, but in the end he had just gone under, never taking his huge brown eyes, ringed in white, off her face. She hated Patton’s Hard as much as she hated Crater Sink.

On the far side of the river the lights of Long Reach Boulevard were coming on as twilight deepened. In the last of the light they could both clearly see the tracks they had been following.

They ran down the steep bank and disappeared into the Tulip River.

Lemon stepped closer to the bank, shining the light into the water. Through the murk he could see a pale white rectangle. When the light hit it, the reflective paint in the rectangle glowed much brighter. The white rectangle had large blue numbers on it. It was a license plate. He held the light closer to the surface of the water.

Behind him he heard Kate whisper.

“Lemon. You
cannot
fall in there.”

He peered down the cone of bright light. The license plate wasn’t caught in the willow roots, as he had been hoping. It was attached to something much larger, something round and metallic, and that larger thing was what had gotten tangled up in the willow roots, like a bull caught in a net.

He straightened, turned, and Kate tugged him back up the banks, his boots sliding on the slippery mud. They got back to solid ground.

“Is it there?”

“Yes,” said Lemon, “it’s there. Some sort of compact car. I think it’s light blue. It went down the bank but instead of going all the way to the bottom of the river, it got caught up in the roots of all these willows.”