ZERO HERO (The Kate Huntington Mystery series) (25 page)

            Dave sat up straighter. Canfield had just stepped out of the house. He came down the front porch steps and headed toward the Explorer.

           
Excellent
. Now he just had to wait for the wife to come home from work.

            He didn’t have a concrete plan yet, but something would present itself. He had to make sure her death looked like it had nothing to do with him though.

            He pulled his Glock out from under the driver’s seat and put it in his left hand. The weight of it made his arm, inside its cast, ache. He gritted his teeth while his right hand fished inside his jacket pocket. Whatever he ended up doing, he definitely didn’t want to draw the neighbor’s attention.

            His hand closed around the object he sought. He pulled the silencer out of his pocket and attached it to the customized barrel of his gun.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

            As Skip drove them around the streets of Towson for a few minutes, checking for tails, Kate noted the clenched jaw. Finally he pointed the truck toward western Maryland.

            He was silent, staring straight ahead. She really didn’t know what to say either.

            Or feel for that matter. Anger and disappointment were doing battle in her chest while anxiety gnawed at her gut. No, it was more than disappointment. She felt hurt, as if Pete had done something
to her.

            She blew out air. Boy, had
she
lost her detachment with this case. She’d practically canonized Pete just because he’d saved lives on 9/11. No, that wasn’t being totally fair to herself. She’d assumed it would be relatively easy to get the competent young man he once was to shove the addict aside, especially when her first intervention worked so well. It was a mistake an experienced addictions counselor probably wouldn’t have made.

            Staying clean and sober had been part of their original contract. She should probably try to find an appropriate referral for him. Yeah right, who the hell was going to take on a recovering addict who was charged with murder and had no money?

            The evening rush hour had just barely started. It hadn’t taken long to get around the Beltway to I-70. Now they were zipping along through Howard County. The still wintry March sun was beginning to set in front of them. Kate caught her breath at the beauty of the sunset–the sky aglow with oranges and reds.

            Skip frowned and lowered his visor.

            “I’m sorry I dragged you and the agency into this,” she said.

            “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

            She couldn’t tell if he meant that sarcastically or not. “I guess we shouldn’t get too mad at Pete until we find out what the deal is.”

            Skip just glanced sideways at her.

            “Guess that boat’s already sailed, huh?”

            “And you’re not pissed?” he said.

            “Yes, I am, but... I guess I’m just used to putting my own feelings on hold while I do what’s best for the client. I could really use a sounding board for that right now.”

            “You know he’s slipped. He went looking for drugs.”

            “Maybe, maybe not.” Kate paused, trying to gather her thoughts.

            Skip snorted. “That’s what addicts do.”

            “Okay, hear me out, please. Pete’s a combination of two people at this point. The earnest, responsible person he used to be, before the PTSD. And the addict he’s become. If the addict took over for awhile and made him sneak out on your guys, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s totally slipped.”

            Skip opened his mouth. She raised her hand in a hold-on gesture.

            “I thought you wanted a sounding board?”

            “I do, but I haven’t finished. What all this does mean is that Pete can’t take being out here. He’s not dealing well with the isolation. He needs to be where he can get to a meeting, or call his sponsor.”

            “He’s had the option of going to a meeting all along. I told the guys to take him to the one in town if he asked.”

            “Did he know that?”

            “Well, no, but I figured he’d ask them if he wanted to go.”

            Kate shook her head. “The old Pete would, maybe even the recovering addict Pete might. But addict Pete is going to assume they’d look down on him for needing a meeting, for feeling shaky. He’d try to suck it up and hang on.”

            “Until he couldn’t anymore. And if he’s feeling shaky, addict Pete would be front and center.” His tone had lost most of its hard edge.

            Kate breathed out a soft sigh. “Most likely. And addict Pete might also lie to himself. Tell himself he’s going to find a meeting when he’s really looking for a way to get high.”

            “Thus the sneaking away from his guards,” Skip said. “Instead of just saying he wanted to go to town to catch a meeting.”

            Kate nodded. “I’m not suggesting we should forgive him for screwing up and dragging us out here, but he’s fighting a battle. Today, the enemy is winning. If he feels like the battle’s completely lost no matter what he does, he won’t keep fighting.”

            “That’s what you’ve been afraid of all along. That he’d give up.”

            Kate swallowed a lump in her throat. She forgot sometimes just how astute her husband could be. “Yes. He wasn’t totally on solid ground, before all this started. And he’s also lost his friend. I’m quite sure he hasn’t really grieved for Jimmy Matthews yet.”

            “When I first interviewed him in jail, he told me that when he couldn’t get drugs, he’d drink.”

            She nodded again. “So we need to find out if there’s any local drug trafficking, and also where the bars are.”

            They were silent for a few minutes. Then Kate said, “If he’s slipped completely then maybe we should both find a way to extricate ourselves from the case.”

           
If I can find someone crazy enough to take it.

            “We still need to bring him back to Towson though” she said. “There’s the little matter of Rob having to answer to Judith and a judge regarding his whereabouts. But assuming for a moment that he hasn’t slipped and we decide to keep helping him, where could he stay and be safe?”

            “Rob’s house?” Skip suggested.

            It was the most logical solution. They had plenty of room now that the girls were grown. But she found herself shaking her head.

            Skip glanced over at her. “You don’t like that idea?”

            “It might work. But I’ve been concerned all along that this case... that Rob’s lost his perspective some with Pete.”

           
As have I now.

            “How so? He takes on
pro bono
cases all the time.”

            “Yeah, I know. Most of them are my clients. But this one’s been way too personal for him. He almost lost his temper at the bail hearing. I’ve never seen him be anything but totally in control in the courtroom.”

            “Can’t think of anyplace else, except a motel. Not sure that’d be an improvement over where Pete is now, and he might not be as safe.”

            “True. I guess we should wait and see how he’s doing. If it feels like a bad idea to leave him out here, I’ll call Rob.”

~~~~~~~~

            Why hadn’t the Canfield woman come home yet? The lights had gone out in the upper-level windows of the house a half hour ago. No doubt, the kids were in bed now, and maybe the Mexican maid as well.

            He’d gotten out and walked around the perimeter of the house. The only light was a dim one coming from the front window of the house. Probably left on for the Canfields. He’d checked the garage, just to make sure the woman’s Prius wasn’t parked in there all this time. But it was full of boxes and old furniture.

            He went back to his car. As he sat, watching the house, a plan began to form in his mind. If he could get into the house without waking the maid, he could take a few valuables, then lie in wait for the bitch and make it look like she interrupted a burglary. Canfield might come home first, or they might come in together. That was fine. He wouldn’t mind taking them both out, for all the trouble they’d caused him.

            A niggling voice in the back of his mind told him this wasn’t a great plan. Rage surged, threatening to take over. He was getting tired of sitting out here in the fucking cold.

            With effort, he tamped down the anger. He needed to think the idea through more, fine-tune it.

            Hopefully the kids wouldn’t wake up. He wasn’t fond of kids, but he’d prefer not to have to kill them.

~~~~~~~~

            Just past Hancock, Maryland, Skip took the exit for I-68. “How ’bout putting that fancy new phone of yours to good use. See what you can find in Finzel. I don’t remember seeing much in the way of business establishments when we drove through there.”

            Kate tried to recall the layout of the tiny town. “Me neither. It was mostly houses.”

            She punched buttons for a few minutes, then blew out air. “One of these days, I need to sit down and figure out how to use this properly.” After another few minutes, she decided she wasn’t finding much because there wasn’t much to find.

            “Doesn’t look like they have their own police or sheriff’s department. Finzel truly is just a wide place in the road. I can’t imagine where Pete would find drugs there.”

            “Any bars?”

            “Just one, on Finzel Road about halfway between the highway and the town. It’s the only one he could have conceivably walked to.”

            “He could hitchhike.”

            Kate groaned. Frostburg was less than ten miles from Finzel, and it was a college town. Lots of bars, and probably places to score drugs as well.

            They almost missed it. A car coming the other way lit up the front of a muddy brown building that was obviously not a house. There was a sign on the roof but they were past it before Kate could read it.

            “Turn around. I think that might’ve been it.”

            The sign read
Cindy’s Tavern
. The parking lot was deserted.

            Skip backed into a parking space so that his headlights fell on the building. He plucked his gun from the console between the seats and leaned forward to tuck it into his belt. “Stay here.”

            He came back around the corner of the building in less than two minutes. Kate stepped out of the truck, leaving her door open.

            “Definitely closed, maybe permanently.”

            She had opened her mouth to answer him when a voice from behind her had them both spinning around. “Kin I help you all?”

            Skip’s hand had flown to the small of his back, and was no doubt resting on his gun butt. Kate squinted at the vague figure by the side of the road. The voice could have been male or female.

            “We’re looking for a friend of ours,” Skip said. “Thought he might have stopped here.”

            “Place is closed.” A match flared, a hand cupped around it as the owner of the hand lit a cigarette. A brief glimpse of a weathered face with gray stubble before the match went out. “Your friend a young guy? Sandy hair, needs a haircut.”

            “Sounds like him,” Skip said.

            “He was hanging ’round here earlier. I thought you might be him and his buddy coming back, maybe to try to break in.”

            “His buddy?”

            The end of the cigarette glowed brighter as the man took a drag. “Some guy stopped and picked him up.”

            “What kind of vehicle, and which way did they go?”

            “Toward the highway. Old junker, light colored. Didn’t pay no ’ttention to the make or model.”

            Kate’s heart sank. Pete could be anywhere by now.

            “Did you see the driver?” Skip asked.

            The end of the cigarette moved back and forth as the man shook his head. “Pretty sure it was a guy though.”

            Kate had a thought. It was a long shot but... “Sir, do you happen to know if there’s an AA meeting around here tonight?”

            The end of the cigarette jerked. A pause, then, “Yes, ma’am. At the Methodist church. Ain’t that far from here but kinda complicated gettin’ there.”

            He gave them directions that sounded like he was sending them in circles. “Do you happen to know the street address?” Kate asked. She had her phone in her hand, ready to punch it into the GPS function, which she had found, miraculously, without much effort.

            “Pocahontas Road. Don’t know the number.”

            They thanked him and climbed back in the Explorer.

            After three right turns, the last two within a block of each other, Skip said, “We’re headed back the way we came.”

            “This thing says it’s two hundred feet ahead, on the left.”

            Skip ducked his head forward to search for a street sign. “Yup, there it is. Pocahontas Road.”

            The church was near the corner, a simple but modern red-brick structure. Only a small white steeple identified it as a church. The front was dark but over a slight hill they could see a lighted parking lot. It held a dozen cars.

            Skip pulled around to the side of the building. Two people came out of a door.

            Skip lowered his window. “Excuse me,” he called out.

            “No!” Kate hissed. “Don’t ask about a meeting.”

            “Oops.” He waved at the two men who had stopped by their cars. “Never mind.”

            He parked the Explorer and they climbed out. Kate spotted a light-colored, older model car with rust spots on the side and a dented fender. She dared to hope it was the junker the old man had described.

            As they neared the door, a young woman, bundled up in a coat and scarf, came out.

            “Did we miss the meeting?” Kate asked.