aunt’s home.
He did it by a very circuitous route. If people who could call off the Pentagon were involved in this, then Puller had to raise the level of his game accordingly.
He stopped near a fenceline and studied the terrain ahead. It was ten o’clock, dark even on the Emerald Coast, where the sun purportedly never stopped shining. It was quiet on Orion Street. A slight cooling breeze was blowing in from off the water. A car started up somewhere, its ignition shattering the silence.
Puller hunkered down and took cover behind a bush to remove himself from the possibility of headlights reflecting off him. The car drove past. It wasn’t the sedan with the two men inside.
But Puller still recognized it.
It was Jane Ryon driving past in her blue Ford Fiesta, the dent in the side door looming large in the wash of streetlights.
What the hell was she doing here? She had already gotten her things from his aunt’s house.
There was no way he could follow her. The Fiesta was nearly out of sight as it turned the corner. By the time he hustled back to his vehicle and took up the chase she would be long gone.
He slipped out into the open and continued down the sidewalk, his gaze moving like radar. He reached his aunt’s house and opted for entry through the rear door. The lights in Cookie’s house next door were on. Apparently the retired baker was in for the night. Or perhaps he had not yet gone out.
As he was walking through his aunt’s backyard Puller heard a little yap. He trotted to the fence and peered over.
Sadie looked up at him and yapped again.
Puller eyed the dog and then glanced over at Cookie’s house. Then he eyed the dog again.
What had Cookie said to him? He knew the Storrows, the couple found dead on the beach. They were friends. He was stunned by their deaths. Just like he had been stunned by his friend Betsy’s death. There was nothing surprising there. But there was one unanswered question.
Had Betsy Simon known the Storrows?
He looked down at Sadie barking. The little dog seemed sad. And lonely. And, if it was possible, her little features seemed confused.
Cookie said he would usually let Sadie out late in the morning to do her business. Puller had seen multiple leashes hanging on a hook by the back door when he had visited the house previously. And he had seen Cookie walking Sadie.
But Florida had snakes and gators and other types of nocturnal predators. Why let your little dog out alone at night even in a fenced backyard?
Puller jumped the fence and landed near Sadie, who jumped back in surprise and started yapping again. Puller scooped the little dog up in one arm and pulled his Mu with his right hand. Sadie, perhaps sensing that something was amiss, stopped yapping. Her tongue gently licked Puller’s arm.
Puller kept his gaze on the house. He reached the back steps and slipped quietly up them. The door was unlocked. He passed through, checking out all possible ambush angles before venturing farther in.
He cleared one room after another, keeping low and to the side and giving limited opportunity for anyone hiding inside to get a clean shot at him.
His search ended in the upstairs bathroom.
He put Sadie down and the little dog started licking at the water.
Puller put his gun away and stared down at Cookie.
He was naked and in the bathtub.
More precisely, he was resting at the bottom of the tub.
Puller made no move to pull him out and attempt to resuscitate him. It would have been for naught.
The eyes stared up at Puller.
The eyes of a dead man.
Drowning, he was certain, would be the official cause of death.
Just like his aunt next door.
Folks found submerged in water usually died because water was in their lungs, where water should not be.
The question then became, how did the person become submerged?
Three possible scenarios presented themselves.
Cookie could have had some medical crisis, a heart attack, a stroke, a seizure, or a drug reaction that had rendered him unconscious. He then would have slipped under the water and died.
Or he could have hit his head, knocked himself out, and gone under.
Or someone could have held him under the water.
Puller did not think the fourth possibility, suicide, was realistic. The body had its own emergency reaction to attempted suicide by drowning.
It fought for air. You could kill yourself out in the ocean by drowning because you gave yourself no opportunity to get back to land.
But not in a bathtub.
Puller spotted the bottles of medication on the sink next to the tub. He didn’t touch any of them, but did read the labels.
Blood pressure pills. Fluid retention capsules. Arthritis. Vascular. Beta blockers. Pills presumably to counteract the interaction of the other medications. The bottles went on and on.
Welcome to being old in America, the land of the blissfully overly medicated.
Puller looked around once more, taking in tiny details that might have great significance. Seeing nothing else, he decided he had intruded enough on what was now no longer a suburban residence, but a potential crime scene.
He pulled out his phone and hit 911.
It was shaping up to be a long night.
CHAPTER 46
The long night did not start off well.
The police cruiser skidded to a stop at the curb with its rack lights turning and its siren blaring, crushing the quiet of the night.
Officer Hooper climbed out and pulled his gun as soon as Puller stepped clear of the house. The other cop with him was a man who looked similar enough in appearance to be Hooper’s brother. He had his gun out too.
“I can’t freaking believe this,” said Hooper as he eyed Puller.
Puller said, “Landry’s off duty. Why are you still working?”
“None of your business,” snapped Hooper. He turned to his partner. “Boyd, this is the jerk-off I was telling you about.”
Puller said, “Body’s in the upstairs bathroom.”
“If you screwed with the crime scene you are in serious shit trouble,” said Hooper, keeping his gun pointed in Puller’s direction.
“Hoop,” said Boyd. “Who’s to say he’s not our guy?”
“I called it in,” said Puller. “I waited here for you to arrive. Why would I do that if I’m ‘the guy’?”
Hooper said condescendingly, “Well, that way we wouldn’t suspect you. Shit, you Army guys all that stupid?”
“And the motive?” asked Puller.
“Not our problem,” said Hooper. “That’s your problem.”
“Actually, our criminal justice system adheres to the ‘innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt’ philosophy,” said Puller. “So it is your problem.”
Another cruiser pulled up with an ambulance in tow. Chief Bullock climbed out. He was dressed in civilian clothes, so Puller assumed he’d gotten the call at home.
He walked straight past Hooper and Boyd and up to Puller.
“What do we got?”
“Dead man in the bath. No signs of a struggle. Could be he had a medical crisis and went unconscious. Post will tell us a lot more. I saw a car driving away from here a few minutes before I found the body. Blue Ford Fiesta with a big dent in the passenger door.”
“Know who was in it?”
“Woman named Jane Ryon. She was a caregiver to my aunt. And she knew the deceased as well. I don’t know if she was coming from this house or not. If so, she has a lot of explaining to do.”
Hooper and Boyd just stood there open- mouthed as Bullock and Puller talked.
Finally Bullock looked over and said, “Hey, Hoop, what the hell you waiting for? Secure the damn area. We have a potential crime scene here. You too, Boyd.”
Hooper and Boyd holstered their guns and hurried to do this.
Bullock turned back to Puller. “Some days I don’t know why I bother, with the
likes of those people constituting my police force.”
“You’ve got Landry.”
“If I had all Landrys you’d never hear me complain one second.”
He looked up at the house. “If this turns out to be a homicide, that’ll be four in just a few days. I don’t like that. Way out of proportion to the population down here. Scare the tourists away. Town council won’t like that.”
“Any leads on the Storrows’ murders?”
“Not a one. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. But they were murdered, no doubt of that.”
“Cookie, the man in the tub, knew the Storrows.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“He told me so.”
“That’s a link.”
“Yes, it is.”
“My tech will be here any minute. In the meantime I better go see for myself.”
“You better.”
He started off. Puller didn’t move.
“You coming?”
“In a minute. Got something to check first.”
Bullock went into the house and Puller hustled to his truck, passing by first Hooper and then Boyd as they were stringing up yellow police tape. Both cops gave him dirty looks, which he ignored.
He popped the rear door on the Tahoe and dug through his duffel. He found the photos he’d taken from his aunt’s house. He rifled quickly through them.
It took him all of two minutes before he found it. He held it up, letting the interior truck light fall fully on the photo.
In the picture was his aunt.
And Mr. and Mrs. Storrow bracketing her. He recognized their faces from the newspaper story that morning.
Apparently, like Cookie, she’d been friends with them too.
And now they were all dead.
He looked at Cookie’s house and then at his aunt’s house.
If this kept up there might not be anyone left alive on Orion Street.
CHAPTER 47
Puller called Landry and told her what had happened.
“I won’t make it there in an hour,” he told her. “Sorry.”
“Does Chief Bullock need me to come in?” “No, I think they’ve got it covered. Just processing the scene. Your buddy Hooper is working the graveyard shift.”
“I think it’s punishment from Bullock for being such a jerk.”
“I’m starting to like your boss more and more. I’ll see you when I see you. Okay if it’s late?”
“I’ll postpone my walk. But only if you fill me in on the details as soon as you get here.”
“Deal.”
He clicked off and went back into the house. Bullock was upstairs with his tech guy.
Cookie was still dead. Still at the bottom of the tub.
Bullock was looking around. “No fingerprints in the water.”
Puller said, “But most of these surfaces are great for prints. If they left a trace behind, great. If there’s no trace behind, that tells us a lot too. Means it’s been scrubbed. Which means he was killed.” He pointed to the floor. “Dry, but damp. Could be from water sloshing around, which would be the case if someone were holding him under.”
Bullock looked at his tech guy. “Get to it.” They both stared down at Cookie’s diminutive frame at the bottom of the water.
“Hell of a way to go,” Bullock noted.
“Anytime someone other than the man upstairs decides when you die it’s a hell of a way to go-”
“So you do think that’s what it is? Murder?”
Til wait for the post. But yeah, I wouldn’t be stunned if somebody killed him.”
“Looking a lot like your aunt’s situation.” “Yeah, it is.”
“I’ve got a car going to check on this Ryon woman.”
“That’s good.”
“You think she might have done it?”
“Cookie was old and small. She’s young and bigger and stronger. So, yeah, she could have done it.”
“And her motive?”
“No way to tell just yet.” Puller debated and then decided to share it. “My aunt also knew the Storrows.”
“You really think that’s significant?”
“Anytime you can tie murder victims together in some way it’s significant. Or at least it could be.”
“I guess.”
“I’m going to go check into a room at the Gull Coast.”
“About those men in your room last night?” “What about them?”
“We couldn’t hold them.”
“So Landry told me.”
“For what it’s worth, I believe you. Eight against one sort of explains itself.”
“Yeah, it should.”
“Watch your back.”
“I always have.”
On the way to his SUV, Puller scooped up Sadie along with some of her food and a leash. The tiny dog looked up at him mournfully as she sat in Puller’s big hand.
“Yeah, I know, Sadie,” said Puller. “But it’ll be okay.”
CHAPTER 48
The first thing was to make them fearful.
Well, to make him fearful.
Fearful people often took steps to stop that fear.
That is, they often made mistakes when they reacted fearfully.
Mistakes were good, when the other side was committing them.
Mecho looked up at the grand estate in the darkness. It looked different in the moonlight. But he knew exactly where everything was.
Tonight would not be the main assault. Tonight was just the opener.
He did not approach the main gate. The use of that gathered intelligence would come later.
There were six security agents roaming the grounds. They did not use guard dogs. Good for him, because his scent would have already reached them. Dogs were much better guards than humans in that regard. But humans were more dangerous.
Dogs only had teeth and claws.
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