by Alex Kava
“We recovered a casing in the wall behind her,” Pakula answered. “It’s a .38, but that’s all I know right now. It looks like there were two guns used. Ballistics report probably won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“What do we know about her?” Grace was anxious to find out why Jared Barnett may have singled out this young woman, this bank teller.
“Her name is Tina Cervante,” Pakula began, not needing a file or notes. “She was twenty-three years old, single, lived with two girlfriends in West Omaha. She’s from Texas. All her family’s down there. She came up to go to college, dropped out and landed the bank job. I’m gonna talk to one of the roommates later today. But here’s something interesting. About a year ago she got busted for DUI, her third offense. Pretty serious stuff. Guess who her fucking attorney was?”
Grace was more interested in the woman’s hands. “Hold on a minute.” She pulled the sheet back and checked out her toes. “She probably lived with two roommates because she wasn’t making enough money to be out on her own. Maybe she even had some college loans to pay, especially if her parents were pissed off that she didn’t stick with it. And yet she could afford to have her fingernails and toes professionally manicured? Maybe even on a routine basis.”
“She’s also had a nose job.” Frank pointed to a hairline scar that Grace would never have noticed otherwise. “A very professional job. Not cheap. Probably within the last six to eight months.”
“So she had screwed-up financial priorities. It’s an epidemic with kids that age.” Pakula sounded impatient, as if talking from experience, perhaps reminded of his own daughters. “She could have had someone else helping out or taking care of her. What I wanna know is how an attractive, clean-cut young woman like Tina Cervante ends up with a scum-sucking attorney like Max Kramer.”
“Kramer was her attorney on the DUI?” Grace wondered if Pakula was simply fishing for something. Kramer handled all kinds of cases. A DUI wouldn’t be anything unusual, especially since the client was an attractive young woman.
“It’s not my job to pass judgment,” Frank interrupted. “But I’m not sure how clean-cut a young woman with three DUIs could be. Also…” He brought over a stainless-steel basin from the equipment tray and lifted the towel off to show them. “She was about two months pregnant.”
CHAPTER 36
9:00 a.m.
The nausea had finally passed, though Andrew’s panic had not. While Jared and Charlie prepared for their cross-country trip, Andrew’s mind raced. He tried to go over everything he had brought with him and then began visualizing the contents of the cabin. He remembered there were several dull knives in one of the kitchen drawers, a poker for the fireplace—which he couldn’t see anywhere—but nothing else. Even as the light crept over the treetops in brilliant oranges and began to illuminate the dark corners of the cabin, it seemed hopeless.
His vision still blurred without warning, going in and out of focus like the TV reception. He hardly noticed his shoulder anymore. What did it matter that he couldn’t move his right arm when his entire body had become numb?
He tried to test his feet, but Jared was suddenly there waving the gun at him. He wondered why they didn’t just get it over with, just put him out of his misery. His answer came soon enough, and he couldn’t help remembering one of his father’s favorite sayings, “Be careful what you wish for.”
Jared plopped down in the chair opposite him. The gun was tucked inside the waistband of a pair of Andrew’s jeans, held there by a leather belt and strange buckle, some kind of carved emblem Andrew didn’t recognize. He was staring at the belt buckle, when he realized Jared was talking to him. He caught only the last words.
“…Pretty fucking good. How do you know all this stuff about murder?”
That’s when he saw his latest hardcover in Jared’s hand, his trigger finger inside the pages, marking his place. He must have taken it with him for his nap in the back bedroom. He was reading Andrew’s book. Jesus! And now he wanted to sit and chat about it.
“You must do like lots of research, huh? I mean, I know you make it up, but some of this…man, I’m telling you, it’s pretty fucking real. I loved the autopsy scene where they find out the killer took the stiff’s thumb. How do you come up with that crap?” He opened the book and started flipping the pages, still keeping his place. “Yeah, it’s pretty fucking real.” Then suddenly he looked up and smiled. “I think you like your killer.”
Andrew leaned his head back against the worn fabric of the sofa. He wished the throbbing would stop. It skewed his thinking and interrupted his hearing. If he didn’t know any better he’d say a murderer had just given him one of his best reviews. He smiled to himself, wondering how his publisher might use it, maybe on the paperback—four-time, no make that five-time murderer says, “It’s pretty fucking real.”
Jared didn’t seem to mind that he wasn’t getting any response, any feedback. Maybe the man preferred one-sided conversations. He continued to remark on the realism before he launched into his analysis of the parts Andrew had gotten wrong. Yep, a true book reviewer after all.
Andrew simply rubbed his aching head and listened. Somewhere during Jared’s diatribe Andrew realized that Charlie and Melanie had been in and out of the cabin, packing the car. He noticed his belongings being carted off. He jerked forward, sitting up and twisting around. Where the hell were his briefcase, his notebooks and laptop?
“Relax, man,” Jared said, but this time he sounded as if he was comforting rather then restraining Andrew. “I’m making sure they get everything you need.”
“Everything I need?”
“Yeah, you’re coming with us. Consider it research.”
CHAPTER 37
9:41 a.m.
Omaha Police Department
“What else do we have?” Grace asked Pakula over really bad cheap coffee at his desk. Maybe it only tasted bad because she kept remembering the smell of Kramer’s Starbucks.
“Shoe print is a size twelve Nike Air. Darcy might have the breakdown of those pebbles tomorrow.” He met her eyes and held her gaze as he said, “So, what if they match the ones from your backyard?”
“Just one more reason to believe it’s Barnett.”
“Why would he snoop around your house?”
“Are you kidding? He shows up in the courtroom, outside my dry cleaner’s, at the same grocery store I shop? He’s trying to freak me out.”
“Yeah, but how can he freak you out by sneaking around your backyard if you don’t know he’s there?”
“Look, Pakula, I’m not making this up.”
“Hold on. I’m not saying you are. All I’m saying is if he gets a rush by showing up and having you see him, then why sneak around your backyard? Why not pull in to the driveway or something like that?”
“So what are you saying, Pakula?”
“Are you sure he wasn’t inside?”
Grace stared at him. It wasn’t possible, was it? She didn’t want to think about Jared Barnett walking through her rooms, touching her things.
“We need to catch this bastard,” she said. “What about the manhunt? Last I heard on the news they had found the Saturn.”
“Yup. Crashed in a field off Highway 6. A farmer had his pickup stolen about the same time. Didn’t see it taken. It was gone when he came home. They must have made their way through the storm and the field and took the pickup before the roadblocks got set up. We’ve got an APB on the pickup. They won’t get far.”
“Okay. Great. So we’ll probably have him by the end of the day. If it is Barnett, he won’t be getting out of jail free this time.” Grace shoved aside her coffee and stood up to stretch. The mess on Pakula’s desk was worse then hers; she couldn’t remember having ever seen its surface. “What about the receptionist?”
“Upgraded to critical. She’s not conscious. Doctors aren’t sure if she’ll regain consciousness. Doesn’t sound good.”
“I need to get back.” She crumpled her foam cup and tossed it into
Pakula’s wastebasket. For once it wasn’t overflowing. “Oh, here’s something that might cheer you up. Max Kramer wants to plea-bargain a client who just happened to recognize our convenience-store robber.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient, indeed. Who’s his client?”
“Carrie Ann Comstock.”
“You gotta be kidding. That crack whore couldn’t remember and identify her own mother if she saw her robbing a store.”
Grace shrugged. “Probably, but I’m curious to see who she’s willing to finger.”
Pakula’s phone interrupted them, and he held up his hand, a familiar gesture Grace knew meant, “Hold that thought.”
“Pakula.”
“Yeah,” he said and waited, nodding at first then shaking his head. “Holy crap.” He tapped a pen against a notepad on his desk, so hard Grace expected it to snap. “No, I’ll meet you out there.”
He slammed the phone into its cradle.
“That farmer’s pickup? Turns out his stepson and a friend took it without his permission. Who knows where the bastards are by now. We’re back at square one.” He grabbed his jacket from the chair’s back and threw it over his arm. “I’ll talk to you later.” He headed for the door but stopped and came back, standing directly in front of Grace. “I’m gonna have a black and white checking your neighborhood. I’m just telling you so if you happen to see it, you don’t go busting my balls about it, okay?”
He headed out the door, without waiting for a response, without letting her thank him.
CHAPTER 38
10:00 a.m.
Melanie didn’t think Andrew Kane was in any shape to drive. His eyes didn’t look right, even after he put his glasses on. And the baseball cap hid very little of the wound. But Jared had insisted. And quite honestly, Melanie was too relieved to argue, thankful that Jared hadn’t decided the writer was a liability better left buried somewhere back in the woods.
This was more like the Jared she knew, making the best of a bad situation. Or as Jared liked to say, “Making chicken salad out of chicken shit.” She didn’t know the Jared who may have left four people dead at the bank. She didn’t even want to think about that Jared. She wanted to put it all out of her mind. The important thing was to go someplace where they’d be safe.
“We’re gonna do some zigzagging, Andrew,” Jared said from his favorite seat, directly behind the driver. He had told Melanie to sit up front, claiming cops wouldn’t be looking for a good-looking couple in a red luxury car. He sat in the back with Charlie’s map folded open across his legs so he could follow the yellow-highlighted route he had mapped out at the cabin.
“We’re gonna go southeast first. Then we’ll…hey, turn the fucking radio up.”
Melanie found the volume. The news report had already started.
“…learned that the two young men had taken his pickup without permission. Authorities now believe the two alleged robbers had a backup vehicle stashed somewhere. According to an anonymous tip, that vehicle, another stolen Saturn, this one white, was reportably seen traveling south of Rock Port, Missouri, on I-29, heading possibly toward Kansas City. The license plate of this vehicle is Nebraska NKY-403. However, we’re told that these two suspects have been known to trade license plates with other vehicles, vehicles sitting in parking lots at malls or at the airport. Also, we’re reminded to advise listeners that the men are considered armed and dangerous. If you see this vehicle, call authorities immediately. We’ll have another update at the half hour. For news radio KKAR, this is Stanley Bell.”
The radio talk-show host came on next.
“It’s 10:06. Do you know what your license-plate number is? How do you like that? We can send guided missiles to hit targets hundreds of miles away. We can watch live pictures of Mars. But we can’t find a white Saturn. And what is it with these two guys and Saturns—”
“Turn it down,” Jared said and Melanie reacted without thinking, even though she wanted to hear more. Or maybe she didn’t.
Jared pulled a cell phone out of the writer’s briefcase. He punched in a number and waited.
“Hey, it’s me. Never mind that.” Jared sounded cool and calm even though Melanie could hear the person on the other end yelling. “You called in the tip, right? You’re the fucking anonymous source? How the fuck did you know I wasn’t in that fucking white Saturn? Huh? How did you know I didn’t backtrack and get it? You setting me the fuck up, you son of a bitch? Is that it?”
Melanie wished she could hear the other person’s response. Who else knew about this job? Who the hell would Jared trust with details about his backup vehicles? She hadn’t even known about it until they were on the road. It had to be someone he had met in prison, she decided. She put her thumbnail between her teeth, a recently developed habit to avoid biting down on her lower lip.
“I left some unfinished business,” Jared was telling his friend. “You’re gonna need to take care of it for me.” More yelling and this time Jared held the phone away from his ear. “Just do it,” he yelled, then snapped the phone off and closed.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to no one in particular. “Can’t trust anybody these days.”
Melanie saw him slump against the car door, and for a brief moment he reminded her of that twelve-year-old boy, staring out the window at the passing pastures and cornfields, looking betrayed and alone, searching for something better and never satisfied. They had both been cheated out of their childhoods, forced to grow up too soon. Sometimes Melanie couldn’t help wondering if things would have been different if only their mother had cared more about her children than the array of colorful pills she washed down with vodka. How could she not see, how could she not stop her own husband—Melanie’s asshole father—from beating her children? Shouldn’t a mother protect her child above all else? Wasn’t it instinctive or something? That was certainly the way Melanie felt about Charlie. And yet, Melanie couldn’t bring herself to blame her mother. Neither could Jared. Maybe it was that blood thing, that thing Jared always said about family sticking by each other. And Jared had stuck by Melanie. She owed him.
She stared at the highway ahead, the two winding lanes with little traffic. The rain had washed everything clean, cooled things and left the sky a freshly scrubbed blue. Melanie remembered how she and Charlie talked about going for drives out in the country. This wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.
“Take the turn for Nebraska City.” Suddenly Jared was sitting forward, ready to be Andrew Kane’s copilot. “We need to look for an ATM.” He held up a bank card he must have taken from Kane’s briefcase. “You’re about to make a little cash withdrawal.”
CHAPTER 39
10:46 a.m.
Platte River State Park
Tommy Pakula slowed his Ford Explorer. He could see the mobile crime lab’s van and a police cruiser off to the side of the Platte River State Park entrance. His breakfast turned to lead in his stomach. Holy crap! He had no idea the crash site was this close to the park. They’d simply said Highway 6 south of Louisville.
The investigators had pulled in as close as they could behind the skid marks and broken barbed-wire fence. The car had plowed through the fence. This morning, after a night of thunderstorms and downpours, the torn path was filled with water. It looked as if it would take some serious boots just to get to the car.
Pakula waved to Ben Hertz and rolled down his window. “Anybody check the park yet?”
“One of the boys talked to the park superintendent. He lives here on the grounds. Said the park’s pretty empty. Only one cabin occupied and everything looked nice and quiet.”
“A buddy of mine is the lone occupant. You know Andy Kane, writes suspense-thriller novels?”
“Yeah, sure. Murderman, right?”
“Yep, that’s him. He’s out here writing. I’m gonna go check on him. I’ll be back.”
“Helicopter guys said the car was empty when they found it. These two hightailed it outta here pretty fast. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did
have another car stashed someplace close. Just heard that an anonymous tip was phoned in about a white Saturn. One thing for sure, they didn’t stick around here long. They’d have to be stupid to do that.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Like I said, I’ll be back.” He rolled up the window and turned into the park.
Hertz was probably right. So why did Pakula have such a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach? He made his way up and around the winding road, climbing to get to the Owen Cabins on the far side of the lake. Before he pulled around the last curve, he knew Andrew’s car was gone. He couldn’t see the bright red Saab through the trees and tall grass. He pulled in to the slotted space, parked, opening the car door while shoving the emergency brake on.
Walking down the pathway to the front door he wondered why he didn’t think to check on Andrew last night. Maybe Andrew had simply gotten cabin fever and gone out for a drive, or maybe headed into Louisville for breakfast. And then again, maybe Andrew had heard about the wild events of yesterday and decided to pack it up and work from home. Andrew had brought his TV with him, so he wasn’t as isolated from the world as Pakula had been making it out.
He knocked on the door but didn’t wait long to try the doorknob. It opened easily, and he could feel the hairs on his arm stand to attention.
“Andrew? Hey, you here, buddy?” Pakula called out, hoping to get an answer, but he already knew the place was empty. That bad feeling was crawling upward from his stomach toward his chest.
Clothes were scattered all over the kitchen area with open jars and empty Pepsi cans thrown onto the heap. He cautiously walked from room to room. A pile of wet bath towels and soiled hand towels lay in the middle of the bathroom floor. Toothpaste and shampoo stained the countertop. Mud and dirt lined the drain of the shower and sink. Checking out the bedroom, he realized the bed looked slept in.