Another Big Bust

by Diane Kelly

  “You good at Fortnite?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I was never into video games as a kid. I liked to play outside, ride my bike and climb trees. But it’s about the only way I can get any time with my brother.”

  “You’re close to your family?”

  “Sure am.” All but my biological father, who, despite what I’d learned about his traumatic childhood, remained on my shit list. I’d bailed the guy out of jail, provided him with my contact information, and he couldn’t be bothered to get in touch with a simple thank you? As much as I hated to admit it, it felt like fresh rejection and it hurt. Not as bad as when he’d taken off two decades ago, but still. “What about you?” I asked. “Are you close to your family?”

  “Closer than you might suspect.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it became a moot point when the waitress returned with my soda and readied her pad. “What’ll you have, hon?”

  I went for the soup and salad.

  She shifted her focus to Zane. “Your usual burger and fries?”

  “Make it a double today.”

  “I will not,” she snapped. “You don’t need all that beef weighing you down when you might have to chase a bad guy. And you’re getting a side salad, too. You need some vegetables.”

  The exchange told me that Zane must eat here regularly.

  He looked up at the woman. “Can I still have the blueberry pie for dessert?”

  “Of course you can, sweetie. I’m not a monster.” She patted his shoulder before leaving our table again.

  “Your turn,” I told Zane. “What do you do for fun?”

  “Paddle,” he said. “I take my kayak out every chance I get.”

  “You go down rapids and over waterfalls, stuff like that?”

  “Hell, no. I prefer flat water. I don’t have a death wish, and I don’t kayak for the thrills. I do it for the peace and quiet. Being out on the water alone is a great stress reliever.”

  I could relate. There was something about spending time in nature that restored a person’s soul. “When I need to clear my mind, I take my bike out on country roads and putter around for a few hours.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  We chatted while we waited for our food. He mentioned that his favorite places to kayak included the paddle trails at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in the northeastern part of the state, as well as Dismal Swamp State Park which, besides its name, was actually a beautiful place full of ancient cypress trees. The swamp straddled the North Carolina and Virginia borders, and had served as a hiding place for escaped slaves making their way along the underground railroad. I told him about my favorite rides, including the Blue Ridge Parkway in the western mountains and the loop in the southwest arm of the state through area known as the Land of Waterfalls. North Carolina offered no end of natural beauty.

  Zane spun the salt shaker between his fingers. “I’m guessing the Durham PD has put some time into trying to identify the car thief. Got any good clues?”

  “Only one,” I said. “The culprit is a white guy with a full beard. One of the victims thinks he might have seen the guy by his car. He said it looked as if the man had glitter in his beard. My guess is it could have been metallic paint flecks.”

  Pauline arrived with our plates lined up along her arm and slid them onto the table in front of us.

  Zane looked up at her. “Do me a favor. Keep an eye out for a dark-haired white guy with paint flecks in his hair or beard. It might look like glitter at first glance. Call dispatch right away if you see him. He’s a person of interest in a current investigation.”

  “Oooh.” She leaned in close, wagged her brows, and whispered. “What did he do?”

  Zane whispered back. “I’m not telling you. You can’t keep a secret.”

  She stood up straight and scowled. “I’m rethinking that blueberry pie about now.”

  “He’s not violent,” Zane said, “at least as far as we know. But it would really help us out if you’d be on the lookout for him. Inform your crew, too, but tell them to be cool. We don’t want word getting out to this guy that we’re on to him, whoever he is.”

  “All right,” she acquiesced. “Y’all enjoy your food.”

  As she left the table, Zane said, “This place serves the best pie in the county. The best biscuits, too. If the guy who took the Barracuda is from around here, he’ll show up at the diner sooner or later.”

  “Good to know.” I eyed him pointedly. “Who’s ‘us?’”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You told Pauline that if she kept a lookout, it would help ‘us’ out. You including me now, even though my badge is no good here?”

  A mischievous gleam sparkled in his eyes. “Nope. You’re just a civilian here as far as I’m concerned. By ‘us’ I meant the sheriff’s department.”

  I brandished my fork at him. “You’re a glory hog. A self-aggrandizer.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “I’ve been called worse.”

  We dug into our meal. While food at rural diners could be dicey, such was not the case here at Pauline’s Place. The greens were crisp and fresh and the salad dressing, made in house, rivaled anything I’d tried at far more fancy and pricey restaurants in Durham and Raleigh. The zucchini soup was fabulous, too. When Pauline came to clear our dishes, I gave her an in-person review, “This place should be featured on the Food Network.”

  Zane put a finger to his lips. “Shh. We don’t want all those big-city folks coming out here and forcing us locals to wait in line.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Pauline said to Zane before turning back to me. “You tell anyone and everyone, Officer Sharpe. I’m happy to cook for any comers.” She walked away with our dirty dishes, returning a moment later with enormous slabs of blueberry pie.

  The pie, too, was delicious, the perfect proportions of pastry and berries. When I finished the last bite I said, “This pie has—”

  “A certain je ne sais quoi?” Zane suggested, twisting the ends of an invisible mustache.

  “Je ne say what now?” I replied in my best Cackalacky accent.

  Zane slid out of the booth and stood.

  I looked around the table. “Don’t we need to wait for our bill?”

  “There’s only one thing I need to wait for.”

  The next thing I knew, Pauline had returned to the table and stood on tiptoe to plant her lips on Zane’s cheek. What the—?

  After administering the kiss, she stepped back and straightened his tie. “You be careful out there. Don’t go getting yourself hurt or killed.”

  Zane said, “I won’t, Mom.”

  Mom. Now his “closer than you might suspect comment” made total sense.

  Pauline turned to me and said, “It was nice to meet you, Officer Sharpe. You be careful out there, too.”

  “I will. I gotta live so I can come back and have more of that pie.”

  “It’s as good a reason to stay alive as any.” She sent me a wink and went on her way.

  Chapter Nine

  Over the River and Through the Woods

  Zane bleeped the locks on his Tahoe and stepped over to open my door for me.

  “No need for the chivalry,” I said. “This is an investigation, not a date.”

  “You don’t let me get the door for you,” he said, “you’ll get me killed. My mother taught me to always be a gentleman, and she’s watching right now.”

  I glanced back to see Pauline standing at the glass door, looking our way. “How would she kill you?” I asked as I took his warm hand to lever myself up into the seat.

  “She’d smother me in gravy, like a biscuit.”

  “Eh.” I shrugged. “There’d be worse ways to go.”

  He closed the door, circled around to climb in on the driver’s side, and started the engine. We began the afternoon by visiting nearby auto repair shops to look for the man with the paint specks in his beard and to ask them to keep their ears and eyes open for any information abo
ut the Barracuda.

  At the third shop we visited, we came across a mechanic with light skin, a dark beard, and a similar build to the thief I’d seen in the video clips. There were no paint flecks in his facial hair, but he could have easily washed or combed them out. He had a funny walk though, moving on the balls of his feet with a bouncy gait, like a life-sized marionette. The guy in the video didn’t walk that way. I supposed the mannerism could have been faked, but none of the other guys called him out on it, so it seemed they were used to seeing him move in that manner. Though I couldn’t be certain, I felt fairly sure he wasn’t the guy we were after.

  Zane pulled his SUV into the parking lot of a barber shop with the antiquated yet iconic red, white, and blue spinning pole out front. “Let’s see if these fellers might know the guy we’re looking for.”

  It was a good idea. Beauticians and barbers crossed paths with a lot of people. Ladies’ hair salons were a prime place for local gossip, and men’s barbershops were surely the same.

  We went inside, greeted by the buzzing sound of electric clippers, the soapy clean scent of shaving cream, and a portly sixtyish man who was not only bald but virtually hairless all over. “Hey, there, Deputy Archer. Need a trim?”

  “Not today, sir,” Zane said as he stepped up to the counter. He lowered his voice. “Could you round up your guys for a quick discussion?”

  The man raised a curious brow, or at least the flesh where a brow would be had he retained any hair. He turned to address the other barbers. “Guys! Come over here a minute.”

  The men excused themselves and left their clients in their chairs to join us at the counter. Once they were all there, Zane leaned in and spoke softly, “Keep this to yourselves, gentleman, but we’re looking for a white guy with a dark beard, might have some paint residue in it. Average build. Might know something about cars. Any of you know someone who meets that description?”

  One main raised his shoulders and palms. “I got lots of customers with beards. It’s the style now.”

  I chimed in to clarify. “This guy doesn’t keep his beard nicely trimmed. He leaves it more natural.”

  “No one immediately comes to mind,” said one of them.

  “I can’t think of nobody, neither,” said another.

  A third just shook his head.

  Zane handed the shop owner his card. “Keep this in your drawer there. Any of you think of somebody, or a guy fitting the description comes in, give me a call right away. Keep it on the down low, though. Don’t let him know you’re calling in a report. Okay?”

  The men murmured in agreement before breaking our huddle and returning to their posts and their waiting clients.

  Zane and I went back to his SUV and continued our investigation by driving up and down the county roads, starting in the area where I’d lost the car. Zane confirmed what I’d assumed, that other deputies had responded fairly quickly to his request for assistance when I’d chased the car into the county, and that deputies had covered the primary arteries for the rest of the week. There’d been no further sign of the car. Though it was possible the Barracuda had somehow slipped through the county, Zane agreed that it seemed more likely the car had been hidden or ditched in the area.

  I kept my binoculars at hand, instructing Deputy Archer to slow down and pull over on occasion so that I could take a better look at a property. He drove down several driveways so we could examine a place in detail, going so far as to ask one of the homeowners whether we could take a peek into the barn in back of his property. The homeowner had agreed, no questions asked. All we’d found inside was a riding lawnmower, assorted yard tools, and a garden snake who’d slithered inside, seeking a mouse to munch on.

  “We appreciate your cooperation,” I told the man.

  “No problem,” he said. “Whatever you’re looking for, I hope you find it.”

  “You and me both, sir.”

  Down another long, dirt drive, we discovered a car parked in the yard. The car was covered with a blue nylon tarp. I hopped out of the SUV to take a closer look. A quick peek underneath revealed a severely dented Toyota Camry that was missing its windshield, its hood, and three of its tires. Why the thing hadn’t been sold for scrap was beyond me. It appeared to be beyond repair.

  Zane and I paid particular attention to areas where the woods were especially thick and the car could have been obscured among the fallen trees and foliage. Unfortunately, it was impossible to see more than forty or fifty feet into the dense woods. We didn’t dare traipse through them. For one, they were too vast to cover on foot. For another, it would be trespassing. We had no warrant to search private property. What’s more, there were ticks, mosquitos, and venomous copperheads to consider.

  Various types of gates spanned the entrances to some driveways. Some of the gates were automated and made of ornate ironwork with brick supports on either side. Others were manual gates made of lightweight aluminum and secured by heavy chains and padlocks. While the close-standing trees served as a natural barrier to prevent vehicles from circumventing the gates, some of the property owners had nonetheless added fences around the perimeter of their land, as well as NO TRESPASSING signs. Those were generally people you didn’t want to mess with. Meth manufacturers. Gun nuts with enough AK-47’s and AR-15’s to outfit an army. Purveyors of so-called Southern pride with Confederate flag tattoos and little grasp of basic human hygiene.

  The glint of sunshine off metal caught my eye and I made a downward motion with my hand, directing Zane to slow down. “Pull over.” I climbed out of the Tahoe and walked to the rail-and-wire fence at one of the properties, raising my binoculars to my eyes. Through the trees, I saw a glimpse of the roof of a large metal pre-fab building, the type many people used for workshops. While the building might be big enough to hide two or three cars in, such buildings weren’t unusual out here in this rural area, where zoning laws were more relaxed than in the city. Many who worked in construction trades, landscaping, or even some artistic pursuits erected outbuildings on their property for workspace or storage. The gate and fence might have been installed to secure tools and equipment. Then again, it might have been put up to keep anyone from getting so close they could see what was going on back there. The only way to know was to speak with the property owner.

  Zane stepped up beside me, putting his own pair of field glasses to his eyes. “Can’t see much from here other than the roof.”

  I exhaled sharply. “It would be so much easier to run surveillance if we worked in a desert.”

  “It would also be a thousand degrees and smell like sand instead of the fresh scent of pine.”

  “Do you always have to be so contrary?”

  “I can be agreeable. You just haven’t given me much to agree with so far.”

  “Smart ass.” I put my glasses back to my eyes and scanned slowly to the right. The corner of a small one-story wood frame house was visible, along with a foot or so of the front porch farther to the right. What little paint remained on the house was peeling, and the porch railing was giving way to wood rot. “Got any idea who lives here?”

  “No,” Zane said, “but we can find out.”

  We returned to the Tahoe. He logged into the laptop computer mounted to his dashboard and ran the address through the driver’s license records. I leaned over to get a better look at the screen. No results.

  “Huh.” I sat back in my seat. “Think the place is empty?”

  “Could be. Let’s see who owns it.” He logged into the property tax records and ran the address again. This time, a name popped up. Elsie Mae Tucker.

  “Let’s see what we can learn about Ms. Tucker.” Zane ran that name through the DMV records. The woman’s most recent driver’s license had expired seven years ago. She held only a state-issued ID card now. Not surprising given that her birthdate put her at 94 years old. Zane tapped his index finger on the screen. “This is the address for the Shady Villas Retirement Home over in Siler City.”

  The place was a city in name on
ly, having a population of around only 8,000. The town’s founders must have had big aspirations when they’d named the locale.

  Zane went on. “I handled a drug case there recently. A nurse’s aide was stealing the residents’ prescription pain meds and selling them on the black market.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “Tell me about it. Nobody caught on until a woman reported her mother complaining about the pain from her hip replacement. Turns out the aide had replaced the woman’s Percocet with Pepto Bismol tablets.”

  What an absolutely awful thing to do to another human being. I sat quietly for a moment before asking, “Does it ever get to you?”

  “Does what get to me?”

  “The awfulness of this job, constantly seeing the worst in people, how horrible they can be to each other.”

  “Honestly?” he said. “Sometimes it does. But then I have a day like today, and I think maybe this job isn’t so bad after all.”

  “You mean a day when you get a big piece of blueberry pie?”

  “The pie’s got nothing to do with it.” He slid me a sexy sideways smile that told me I had something to do with him enjoying his work today. A blush warmed my cheeks. I turned and looked out my window so he wouldn’t notice.

  He started his engine. “What say we go talk to Elsie Mae?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Half an hour later, we pulled into the parking lot of the retirement home. It was a stone building shaped like a horseshoe, with administrative offices and a large multipurpose room in the center, a nursing wing to the right, and an assisted living wing to the left. We stopped at the front desk and the receptionist pointed us to a black woman with white hair seated at a square table. She was playing cards with two other ladies and a man.

  We stepped up to the table. “Mrs. Tucker?” Zane said. “May we have a word with you?”

  The woman looked up at us, her rheumy gaze roaming over us. “You the sheriff?”

  “Deputy,” Zane said, extending a hand. “Name’s Zane Archer.”

  After they shook hands, I introduced myself, too, and offered a hand.