‘Keep it,’ Guillory said, pushing it back. ‘It’s a copy. There isn’t much point checking these out’—she pointed at the list of messages—‘he’ll be using a burner phone and an anonymous web-based email service from a public access computer.’
‘There’s nothing you can do?’
‘We can check them out if you like. It’ll be a waste of time.’
He shook his head and got out his phone, took a picture of the image of Floyd Gray, then put the paper copy in his pocket.
‘Even if we made a connection between Hendricks and Gray, found out Hendricks calls Gray right before each message, we can’t prove anything.’
‘I’ve just got to wait until he makes his move, have I?’
‘I didn’t want to say that ...’
Evan slid out of the booth. There was nothing more to say.
‘C’mon, let’s go. You want that?’
He pointed at the scrap of paper. She picked it up and read it again, screwed it into a ball and dropped it into her coffee cup.
‘No point. I think I know them by heart now anyway.’
‘Me too.’
After they left, the waitress came over to clear the table. She scowled when she saw the screwed-up ball of paper in Guillory’s cup. She hated it when people did that. Why didn’t they take their crap with them? She picked it out of the cup, shook a few drips of cold coffee off it. Then something made her open it up, smooth it out on the table top.
She read it, snorted. What the hell was that all about?
I know where she is.
You were so close.
How’s it feel, Buckley?
Don’t worry, it will all be over soon.
Chapter 7
MARLENE’S EARS PRICKED UP, a low growl in the back of her throat.
‘Shush.’
Floyd Gray stroked the smooth, sleek fur on the back of her neck, pushed himself out of his chair. He stood off to the side of the window in the kitchen of Carl Hendrick’s farmhouse and watched for movement in the yard. It had been dark outside for an hour or more. If there was anybody in the yard they wouldn’t see him, the whole house in permanent darkness now, the electricity cut off long ago.
He didn’t mind living in the dark. He’d spent most of his life in a lot worse places than a large comfortable house, even if it didn’t have electricity or heating. The property was up for sale although people weren’t exactly beating down the door. The charred remains of the barns across the yard and the stories of what happened beneath them were sufficient to keep inquiries to a minimum. He didn’t know who’d get the money if they ever did sell it. He didn’t suppose they’d let Carl have it. Not that Carl could spend it where he was. Maybe they’d give it to the woman whose husband and kid Carl and that psychopath Adamson buried alive in the basement.
There wasn’t anybody outside, must’ve been the wind. He almost wished there had been, give Marlene some exercise, some sport. She was bored with rabbits and squirrels and so was he. It wasn’t what she was bred for, what he’d trained her for. It was insulting for her, bunnies and tree rats. They liked to hunt prey that walked—or ran—on two legs, not four.
He turned away from the window, picked up his bow—a takedown recurve with a sixty-pound draw weight—and ran his fingers over the polished wood, admired its beauty, the perfect curves. He was a traditionalist, wasn’t interested in a compound bow with all its cams and pulleys, looking like you needed a college education to work out how to use it.
No, in nature, the really dangerous things were beautiful too. Like Marlene. Apart from which, if he couldn’t take down what he was after with a sixty-pound recurve, it was time to give it up. He wasn’t a particularly big man, he didn’t need to be. He was wiry-strong, his muscular arms rivered with blue veins. Some guys laughed, said he wasn’t big enough to use a bow with a sixty-pound draw. They were wrong. Those guys, that tended to be the last time they laughed for a while, unless they found something inherently amusing about the inside of a hospital.
He settled back down in the chair, scratched Marlene behind the ears as she sat between his legs, rested her muzzle in his lap. He dug his phone out of his pocket, checked for messages. There weren’t any, but then nobody had the number. Apart from Buckley of course. He’d stopped sending emails, switched to text messages, after he almost got caught sending the last one from a computer in the public library. Carl hadn’t been happy at all. Not just that Floyd nearly got caught. He liked the email address, was sorry to give it up.
Sarah_Buckley_0712
Floyd sniggered. The guy’s wife. And the day she disappeared. Bet that made him feel like he sat on a cattle prod when he saw it. You had to hand it to Carl—he’d put a lot of time into finding out the guy’s history. It amazed him, the depth of hatred Carl had for him. He had a lot of time on his hands to think about it. And Carl’s face was a mess now, thanks to Buckley. Floyd found it difficult to look at him, and he’d seen some things. Carl wouldn’t ever get any pussy again, not unless he paid for it—and paid well. If he ever got out of prison, which he wouldn’t—unless of course he said he was really sorry and he’d found Jesus. Then the bleeding-heart liberals would let him out, pay for a vacation for him, buy him a new suit and shoes.
He got out the faded newspaper clipping Carl had sent him—as if he needed reminding how much he owed him—and read the headline again. He closed his eyes. They’d had some good times back then, before the shit hit the fan. And when it did, nobody cared what Carl had done. They were all the same, these people.
Sometimes it annoyed him Carl felt the need to remind him every time he wanted something done. Like he was going to say no. He enjoyed sending the messages to Buckley. He hoped he might get at least one reply, even if only to tell him to fuck off.
Carl said Buckley would come out to the farm, try to get into the basement under the barns. Floyd was looking forward to that. Marlene too. Last time he visited, Carl said the time for words and messages was nearly over. Soon it’d be time to act. He smiled to himself. The Doberman resting her muzzle in his lap sensed it somehow, lifted her head, yawned as if in nervous anticipation.
The hunt was about to begin.
Chapter 8
‘HOW’S IT COMING ALONG?’ Kate Guillory asked.
Even though she was on the other end of the phone line, Evan knew there was a smile on her lips. He couldn’t blame her.
‘Doing all the work yourself, I mean.’
He snorted.
‘It doesn’t have a lot to recommend it. I’ve done a search on a few of the bigger proprietary databases and didn’t come up with a single hit. It doesn’t help if you don’t have a date of birth, address or social security number. And being—’
He stopped short, aware he was about to say being an illegal which might have been too much information.
‘Being what?’
‘Nothing.’
She laughed, that deep throaty laugh that always made him smile along with it, even when he was the butt of the joke.
‘Have it your way. I’d help you if you’d let me.’
‘Ask Frank Hanna next time he takes you out to dinner.’
He didn’t get the bite he was hoping for.
‘Maybe I’ll do just that. You tried DMV yet?’
‘The next brick wall to bang my head against, you mean? I’m going to drive over there as soon as I’m finished up here, kill two birds with one stone.’
It was out before he knew it.
‘What’s the other bird, or can’t you tell me that either?’
He might as well tell her, now the surprise was spoiled. He hadn’t been planning on telling her about his new car, was just going to pick her up in it when he took her out to the dinner she said he still owed her for all the help she gave him on the last case.
‘I’ve got a new car. I need to get it registered.’
‘Really? I hope you look after it better than the last one. What’ve you bought? Something with a small engine so you can’
t do too much damage, I hope. And rubber bumpers all the way around.’
He gave a nervous laugh, no idea what he had to be nervous about.
‘It’s a ‘69 Corvette Stingray.’
He almost hunched down as he said it, knowing what was coming. She didn’t disappoint.
‘What?’
‘A 1969—’
‘I heard what you said. You rob a bank or something? Or am I in the wrong job?’
‘It’s a long story—’
‘For this, I’ve got all day.’
He was sure he heard the sound of a chair being pushed back, then the sound of heels landing on a desk.
‘Comfortable?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘You remember the girl I told you about in Louisville—’
‘Gina?’
‘No, the other one, Destiny.’
She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth like she was having trouble keeping up, all the women in his life.
‘She’s the one saved yours and Angel’s asses, right? Not the one who got abducted because you were fast asleep in her bed—that’s Gina. Or did I get that the wrong way around?’
He knew there’d be a certain amount of this sort of thing when he told her, supposed it was better to get it out of the way over the phone. He got up and walked to the window, looked down at the Corvette that he’d parked in Tom Jacobson’s double-sized slot, the paintwork immaculate, gleaming in the sun.
‘The Corvette was hers. Then the club where she worked got closed down—’
‘Thanks to you.’
‘Exactly, thanks to me. She lost her job—’
‘Surely there’s more than one strip club in Louisville.’
Evan paused a moment.
‘It’s lucky you’ve got all day, because this’ll take that long if you don’t stop interrupting.’
There was a very realistic zipper sound on the other end of the line, then a muted mmm, mmm.
‘She lost her job. She also lost her appetite for it, decided she didn’t want to do it anymore. She wants to go to college or open her own gun shop depending on which day you speak to her. She had to choose between the car or her guns—’
‘That’d be the guns she used to save yours and Angel’s asses with.’
‘And she decided to let the car go. Trouble was, the offers she was getting were so low—’
There was a burst of laughter from Guillory. He knew he wouldn’t get away with it.
‘So low, that a big, soft-hearted schmuck stepped in and offered her, what, five grand over the going rate?’
He didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. Anybody would think they’d been married twenty years, she knew him so well. Despite the fact she’d mentioned it twice in the last five minutes, she was forgetting that if it wasn’t for Destiny, he would’ve come back from Louisville in a box. She was having too much fun.
‘Four grand over? Three?’
‘Two.’
There was a silence between them, the sort of silence that goes with head shaking and wry smiles.
‘Remind me to call you first next time I want to sell my car. Where’d you get the money anyway?’
‘Took out a bank loan. I still had what Linda Clayton insisted on giving me as well. It seemed like a good thing to use it for. Besides, it’s an investment.’
‘Only if you look after it.’
She sounded just like Destiny. At one point he thought she was having second thoughts about selling it to him. She’d taken him through the three-part polishing and waxing process, demonstrated how to do it and then made him do a complete fender until she was satisfied. On the drive home, the tailpipe almost dragged on the ground from the weight of cleaning products in the trunk.
‘Where are you going to keep it?’
Destiny asked him that too. He got the impression the correct answer was in my bedroom.
‘In my sister’s garage most of the time. She’s got plenty of space after her husband moved out. And I can give her kids a couple of bucks to wash it.’
‘You better hope, what’s his name—’
‘Mitch.’
‘Hope Mitch doesn’t come back and trash it. How are things between you and Charlotte?’
Evan turned away from the window, most of the pleasure he’d got admiring the Corvette sucked out of him by her question. He dropped into his chair and spun himself back and forth.
‘She still blames me, of course.’
‘You should have told her no. What sort of a person asks her brother to tail her cheating husband? She’d have found somebody else to do it.’
They’d been through all this before. There was no use trying to argue with her, she couldn’t understand. She wasn’t a man, and she hadn’t had to listen to his little sister crying pitifully down the phone line. It didn’t matter she could turn it on and off like a faucet. It had worked for the last thirty years, he saw no reason why it wouldn’t work for the next thirty. At least he had somewhere safe to store his car.
‘At least you’ve got somewhere safe to store your car,’ Guillory said. ‘You think I should put my hair in a ponytail when you take me to dinner in it?’
The impatient sound of a car horn being leaned into drifted up from outside Evan’s window. He jumped up again and went to look, saw Tom Jacobson’s Volvo in the middle of the parking lot.
‘Gotta go.’
He cut the call, dashed downstairs before Jacobson tried to push the Corvette aside with his tank-sized vehicle.
***
EVAN IGNORED JACOBSON’S COMMENTS about a rent increase and turned the key. The big V8 engine roared into life, drowning out Jacobson’s voice, and settled to a deep throaty burble. A grin a mile wide split Evan’s face as he backed out of Jacobson’s space and pulled into the traffic.
Half a block down the street Hugh McIntyre almost swallowed his gum when he saw what Evan was driving. He was so busy staring as Evan floored it, the sound of the exhausts loud even half a block away, he pulled into the traffic without looking in his mirror. There was a screech of brakes and a long blast on a horn as the car he just pulled in front of nose-dived into the pavement. He raised a hand in apology and set off in pursuit of the Corvette, following along by the sound of the engine as much as keeping a visual check on it.
Evan pulled into the local DMV office and parked up, pulled out his phone and took a couple of photos of the car before heading inside. There was somebody very specific he hoped was working today. He was in luck, caught sight of her as he entered the office, sitting at the back. He went straight to the position reserved for private investigators.
‘Hey Rizzo.’
She looked up and smiled when she saw him, held a finger up and mouthed one minute. He pulled the registration form and documents out of a plastic bag and waited for her to come over. She finished up what she was doing and came across, looking no more than half her thirty-nine years. And looking like she’d just walked off the set of the movie Grease. Despite the name badge she wore that said Janet, everybody called her Rizzo. Her eyes dropped to the documents Evan was holding.
‘I hope you’re not trying to abuse my good nature and jump the line, Buckley.’
‘Would I do such a thing?’
‘Only if you thought it might work.’
He gave her his best you got me smile.
‘No, I’m here to do a search. I thought you might like to see these while I’m here.’
He put the application form on the counter, turned it so it was facing her.
‘Wow. A registration application form. How can I resist?’
She looked anyway. Then her head shot up, her eyes narrowed.
‘Told you,’ he said.
‘I’m sure it’s an offence to waste government stationery,’ she said, but the smile on her lips gave her away. ‘There’s no way you own that car.’
He pulled out his phone, found the pictures he’d taken outside, handed the phone to her.
‘Sitting outside a
s we speak. I’d take you for a spin if you weren’t working.’
She nodded as he spoke, like she’d heard it all before.
‘Nice car. Be even nicer if you knew how to use a camera. I thought people in your job needed to know one end of a zoom lens from the other.’
Her husband was a professional photographer who specialized in classic American cars from the ‘50s and’60s, often using her to model them.
‘Any time you want to catch the bus to work, I’ll give you a ride home. I’ll let you wax it too, if you play your cards right.’
She handed him the phone back.
‘I might take you up on that. Here, give me those.’ She took the rest of his documents out of his hand. ‘I’ll get one of the girls on it. You said you wanted to do a search as well. Did you fill out the form?’
Evan hesitated. She raised a perfectly drawn eyebrow.
‘Why do I get the feeling you’re going to owe me a ride home every day for a month?’
‘It’s not worth filling out the form. After what you just said about not wasting government property.’
She shook her head like a disappointed parent, a gesture which immediately reminded him of Guillory. Of all the women in his life, in fact.
‘What have you got?’
‘A name. Margarita Narvaez.’
‘Well, at least it’s not Garcia. Date of birth?’
‘Sometime between June and September 1948.’
‘Nice and specific. Anything else?’
‘Uh-uh. Apart from the fact there’s a chance she’s not a U.S. citizen.’
She nodded like she didn’t have anything better to waste the taxpayers’ money on.
‘Right. You’re not expecting to get a hit, are you?’
He shook his head.
‘No. Probably not.’
She gave him a big smile and waved his registration documents in the air.
‘At least it won’t be a completely wasted journey. You’ll get your car registered. Wait here, it won’t take long.’
She headed back to her desk, handing his registration documents to a clerk at one of the other desks on her way. She was right about it not taking long. He watched her tapping away at the keyboard, saw her chew her bottom lip, the unconscious head shakes as everything came up blank. Then she sat up straighter and leaned forward, made a note of something. Even so, she was back in under five minutes.
The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets) Page 59