The Shop

by J. Carson Black

  The plan had been to set him up and then widen the circle to his friends, the white supremacists he hung with. From what Landry had seen on the television, that plan seemed to have worked. Donny Lee insisted he spent the night playing pool at a Salida tavern, but it appeared there was no one to corroborate his story. Donny Lee Odell had been on the wrong path long before the knife was discovered in his car.

  Landry knew about Odell from an incident in Iraq four years ago. Donny Lee Odell’s lack of caution and subsequent cowardice had been responsible for the death of another soldier. Everyone in the armed services who was in Iraq then knew about it. Odell had received a dishonorable discharge, but he had returned stateside to continue on with his life.

  Until Landry found him.

  If Odell was executed, or if he spent the rest of his life in prison, Landry wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

  If he was going to lose sleep, it would have been over Nick Holloway, ignominiously wrapped in plastic and stashed in the Aspen murder house. But if you looked at it from a karmic standpoint, Nick had cheated death once already. He couldn’t stave it off forever; Landry was merely the instrument of his fate.

  He sat on his heels and regarded the weapons in the closet Jackson would be using. Jackson was the strongest. He was smart and skilled. Levelheaded—not easily distracted. A professional. No hesitation in him.

  Green was like his name. Green. He was somebody’s cousin. He’d never been in the military, never known hand-to-hand combat. He did have a black belt, but his black belt was earned in a Bushido storefront at a strip mall in El Cajon.

  Davis was a hothead. When he was angry, he had the strength of three men. Not ten men, not two men. Three. He was dangerous the way a wounded bull in the bullring is dangerous. Unpredictable. Like Landry, he was a SERE graduate.

  Still, Jackson was the most like Landry.

  Jackson would go first.

  47

  Jolie sat at a table at the Burger King in Port St. Joe. Her neighbor Ed was on his way to pick her up. She fiddled with the realty card with the words “Belle Oaks” scribbled on it, now crushed into bad origami, her mind going back to the interminable time she’d spent in her parents’ house.

  Jolie thought she’d had it all figured out. She could take a shower but not a bath. Needed to be careful around ponds. But this time, there was no water involved at all.

  But something must have happened there, in the bathroom of their little house. Just the three of us.

  It had taken her an hour to get to the Burger King, mainly because she didn’t go in a straight line. She’d managed to get out of the house and then walked for miles, forcing herself to keep from breaking into a run. After putting block after city block between herself and the house, Jolie began to feel better. The feeling of doom finally dissipated.

  She must look like a crazy person.

  This is your life. You’re about to be fired from your job. You are rendered completely helpless by panic attacks that can come on at any time without any warning. You’re willfully disregarding orders and planning on investigating a sitting vice president of the United States. You’ve alienated your closest friend.

  That alone was a revelation. Kay was her closest friend. If you went further, you might say Kay was her only friend. The only friend who had stuck around to get past her defenses, if you didn’t count her father’s pal Ed, whom she’d known since she was in high school. Jolie realized she’d changed since Danny’s death. She’d withdrawn from people. Okay, big revelation. Who wouldn’t change after someone you love commits suicide? But Kay had managed to break through.

  And this is how I reward her.

  But there was no going back now. Jolie was sure Nathan Dial had been lured to Indigo. She was sure he’d been killed there. She was almost sure that the vice president of the United States had something to do with it. Think about that. The vice president of the United States.

  Kay’s own words: He likes boys.

  Jolie doubted Owen Pintek had planned to kill a young man. Maybe it was a choking game that went too far.

  And then there was the cover-up.

  She uncrumpled Kay’s card and looked at it again. Belle Oaks was a place in Tallahassee. She could go look it up right now on her phone, but she had a feeling—and this was all it was, a feeling—that doing so would derail her investigation.

  Kay was angry with her, and she’d lashed out. She’d never once mentioned a place called Belle Oaks. Never said anything bad about Jolie’s parents, either. But Kay knew something, and whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  Loved each other! The contempt in her voice.

  Jolie itched to look it up. She wanted to know what Kay meant.

  Outside, she heard a big diesel engine as the black Dodge Ram rumbled into the parking lot.

  Ed was here.

  48

  Jackson, Davis, and Green all came in together, which surprised Landry. For one second, he felt he was on the outs. As if they had all lined up against him, as if they knew what he was planning.

  But logic won the day. There weren’t that many flights into Panama City. It was likely they would have all arrived on the same puddle-jumper from Atlanta, since Atlanta was the closest hub. The Panama City airport was small and never crowded, so common sense would dictate they’d end up at the same place, the rental car desk, at about the same time.

  Of course Jackson, Davis, and Green didn’t drive up in the car. The rental car was parked somewhere in the neighborhood, many streets away. They had walked in, separately, from different directions. But all of them arrived about the same time, so he knew they’d come together.

  They went through the instructions on the kitchen table and gamed a few scenarios, landing on the simplest. Come in quietly by boat. Put someone on the road, command and control. The presence of a vehicle would also provide a second means of escape if the first was blocked.

  Set up before midnight, come in around four a.m. Everyone asleep, probably in a deep sleep. This mission would be closeup work—knives—with automatic rifles afterward for window dressing. A fire. Make it look like Congolese rebels. Landry told them he had already rented the boat and laid in the necessary materials.

  But they would never get a chance to accomplish their mission. Landry knew that if they reached the island, they would carry out their orders or die trying, as they had been trained to do. But Jackson, Davis, and Green would never get a chance.

  The first rule of warfare: kill the enemy before he kills you.

  In this case, he would kill the team before they had a chance to massacre the people on Indigo. Landry felt responsible for them—everyone with the exception of Franklin Haddox was innocent. If they died, they would be collateral damage and he could live with that. But he would do his best to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Franklin Haddox’s days were numbered, but Landry would not kill him yet. He still needed the former attorney general.

  And so Landry and his team went over the probable number of people on the island, including the help and the security team the Haddoxes had hired, and where they would be.

  On paper, the raid would be simple and clean. Nobody anticipated any trouble. Jackson, Davis, and Green for one reason, and Landry for another.

  When they were through planning the raid, Jackson, Davis, and Green got settled in their rooms, and Landry went to his. After ten minutes, Landry walked to the kitchen. His room was at the back of the house, at the end of the hallway. Jackson’s room was on his right, and Davis’s was on the left. Also on the left, closest to the living room, was Green’s room. Landry walked past the open doors to the other rooms. All three men were preoccupied with their weapons. In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator, took a drink from a bottle of water, returned it to the refrigerator, and walked back. He glanced in at Jackson. Jackson was on one knee, breaking down an AR-15. The rifle would be no use to him except as a club, but there were plenty of other firearms lying within arm’s reach. Landry didn’t e
xpect it to get to that point. He gave the doorjamb a quick tap with his knuckles, and Jackson, instantly alert, looked up. Smiled.

  “What do you think?” Landry asked.

  “Good stuff.” Jackson was not a man given to hyperbole.

  Landry stayed by the door, and they talked. Mostly about weaponry, but a little about the mission. Landry walked casually to the window, lifted one of the blinds, and looked out. Mentioned the number of foreclosures. They talked about that. Got into a rhythm. It was an interesting conversation. He kept the conversation going even as he stepped away from the window and came up behind Jackson. He clapped his hand hard to Jackson’s forehead to steady him, then drove the ice pick deep into the soft hollow where the skull met the neck.

  Immediately, Jackson crumpled. When the ice pick punctured his brain stem, his fuse box was blown. Death was instantaneous. Landry eased him down to the floor. He pulled gently on the handle and it disengaged, leaving only the eight-inch steel spike in the base of Jackson’s skull. He dragged Jackson into the walk-in closet and closed the door.

  Landry listened for noise in the house. But he heard only the sounds he expected: men breaking down their weapons.

  Landry tapped on Davis’s door next. His door was ajar. Davis said, “Come in.”

  Inside, Davis knelt over his cache of weapons. He looked up for one second but then looked back down at the weapon he was disassembling. Landry talked about their plan for Indigo as he walked in. Fewer than two seconds to reach Davis—keep walking and keep talking. But then Davis half turned, sensing what was about to happen. Landry’s hand made a claw as he walked and talked, and he shoved the claw hard into Davis’s throat, temporarily paralyzing him. Landry whipped him around, steadied the forehead with one hand and planted the ice pick in the brain stem with the other.

  As Davis began to topple, Landry caught him under the arms and gently let him down.

  Davis’s boot thumped against the closet door on the way down.

  Landry froze. He listened—nothing. Green was in the next room. Landry wriggled the handle on the second ice pick, but he had trouble getting it to come off. He could just as well leave the handle in—by the time the evidence was sorted out, he’d be long gone. This wasn’t the time to get anal-retentive about it. He left the handle on.

  Landry heard Green’s voice behind him. “You guys—”

  Then an intake of breath. Then nothing. Landry looked at Green.

  Green stood in the open doorway, black cargo pants and vest, nylon and Velcro—bulky. Peeling sunburn, yellow buzz cut. He looked like a dandelion.

  Hands empty.

  Realization came to Green’s eyes as Landry launched into him, another claw to the throat, but at the last moment Green twisted. Landry was put off balance, and his hand thwacked hard against the wall.

  His wrist might be broken.

  He got Green in a half nelson with his right arm, and with his left he dug into his vest and found the last ice pick. Kid’s hands prying at his elbow, Landry clamping the kid hard against his body, the kid kicking out in a panic, no martial arts stuff but pure adrenaline, Landry letting go and shoving Green to his knees, shoving downward, downward, so the kid’s nose was in the carpet, the ice pick slipping in Landry’s hands as he pushed it in hard.

  But he missed the hollow, the soft place. The pick dug in and then stuttered sideways, nicking the carotid, blood spouting, the pick pinging to the floor, the kid fighting like a tiger for his life.

  Landry flashed on one of his dad’s colts. The colt’s leg had snapped, and they were waiting for the vet. The colt thrashed in agony, the shine of confusion in his eyes when he realized he could no longer run. That was the look in Green’s eyes, even as he fought on. His arms and legs not working the way they should be.

  Green was dying, but it would take time. Landry couldn’t let him suffer. He still remembered the relief he’d felt when the colt was finally euthanized. Ten years old, and he desperately wanted that horse to die. He stepped in close, ignoring the manic blows, many of which connected. Maneuvering behind Green, he clasped his hands on either side of the kid’s head. He dug his nails in, his fingers slipping in the cascading blood before gaining purchase. He wrenched Green’s head sideways, jerking back at the same time. Heard the audible chuck as the neck snapped and the kid dropped.

  Landry looked down at Green, then at his own wrist. The pain radiating from his wrist could no longer be ignored. A hairline fracture, probably. He might have done the wrist even more damage in the few seconds it took to put Green out of his misery.

  But it was worth it.

  49

  The house felt stale, as if Jolie had been away for a month. It felt empty, too. She turned on CNN, went to the kitchen, and poured herself a Coke. Hot outside, hot inside.

  The cat came in and looked at her. He wanted something. She dug around in the refrigerator and gave him the last of the deli chicken. “You’re not supposed to have scraps,” she said, but he ignored her.

  She hadn’t told Ed specifically why she was stranded at the Burger King in Port St. Joe, just that it was job-related. Which was pretty much the truth. Jolie liked it that Ed was happy to drop everything and come and get her. She had to listen to some war stories on the way back—the same ones she’d heard probably seven or eight times now—but that was fine with her. Ed telling her his war stories and Jolie listening was a big part of their relationship.

  Jolie tried Kay but got her voice mail. It was the third time she’d tried to reach her, and it was clear Kay had decided to ignore her calls.

  Jolie had always been sure about the story of her life. Her mother died when she was a baby, leaving her dad to raise her on his own. A father and mother who loved each other, both of them doting on their baby girl. Their happy future cut short by the ticking time bomb in her mother’s head—the aneurysm that took Dorie Burke’s life.

  That was gospel.

  But maybe Kay was right. Maybe her parents didn’t love each other. Maybe they were on the verge of a divorce. Maybe one of them committed adultery. Maybe even domestic violence.

  Jolie couldn’t believe that. Not her father. He was a gentle, loving man. A hopeless romantic. A tilter at windmills—a liberal Democrat in a right-wing county.

  She couldn’t picture her father hurting her mother. Not beating her, not sleeping around. It wasn’t in him.

  Her phone rang. It was Louis. “Just wanted you to know we looked at Amy Perdue’s phone and didn’t find anything substantial.”

  “You looked at her photos?’”

  “We looked at everything. There was nothing I would call incriminating—not in her e-mails, anything like that.”

  “What kind of photos did she have?’”

  “Usual stuff—lots of photos of her and her boyfriend, parties, the beach. Stuff like that.”

  “Her brother Luke worked for a tree service on Indigo—the attorney general’s place on Cape San Blas. Were there any pictures there?”

  For a moment there was quiet. Then Louis asked, “Why would you want to know that?”

  How much should she tell him? “This is something I was working on before Amy was shot. Luke might have seen something illegal going on there. He might have taken photos and shared them with Amy.”

  “Illegal? What are you talking about?”

  “Sex stuff.”

  “You mean wild parties?”

  “Yes, wild parties.”

  “The kids or the adults?”

  “The people in the house, Louis.”

  There was a pause. “What are we talking about here?”

  “Have Ted do forensics, will you do that? Maybe he could recover data that’s been erased.”

  “What would he look for?”

  “Evidence that Luke sent her photos. Evidence that photos were erased. I don’t know what those guys can do. It’s possible she downloaded them to a disk, something like that.”

  “I don’t see probable cause here.”

  “So
mebody shot her, Louis. There’s your PC.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

  But she had the feeling he wouldn’t. Not if he knew the caliber of people who might be taking part in wild parties on Indigo Island.

  Few people would touch something that radioactive.

  Jolie drove to the neighborhood down the hill from the Starliner Motel and parked outside the house with the boat on blocks. A barechested man in baggy shorts answered her ring. Sixty or so, uniformly tanned from the sun and water, had wild gray hair that made him look like Nick Nolte in his booking photo. He wore a choker around his neck with a shark’s tooth tied into the leather cord.

  “Help you?”

  Jolie saw him looking at the gold shield on her belt. She gave him her spiel, that she was a detective with Palm County Sheriff’s, that she had two kids in custody whom she believed were committing burglaries in the neighborhood. She told him a neighbor had seen kids crawling out from under his boat, and asked if she could look under there for evidence.

  He regarded her skeptically. Jolie wondered if her lying skills had gone downhill. Lying was like that cartoon coyote running off the cliff into thin air. You were fine unless you looked down.

  “What are you expecting to find there?”

  “Fingerprints.”

  He nodded. “Let me get my sandals on, and we’ll go take a look.”

  They went out to the boat. The man lifted the edge of the boat so Jolie could see under. There were the beer bottles. There was the snuff can.

  This time she had evidence bags and gloves with her. She donned the gloves and bagged each bottle and the snuff can.

  Back at home, she pried the lid off the snuff can—Copenhagen Wintergreen. The rich tobacco smell wafted out at her with its twin siren promises of comfort and death.

  Inside, surprise, surprise—snuff. The can was about half full. She touched her finger to the snuff and pushed it around. And there it was. Wedged crosswise across the bottom of the can, packed in cellophane and previously hidden by plugs of chew, was what could have been the tiniest cigarette lighter in the world.