A Killing Rain

by P J Parrish

  “We were in a hostage standoff situation and we had managed to get the father out of the house and onto the lawn, but he was holding his five year old in his arm, a gun at the kid’s head. We couldn’t get a clean shot.”

  “You got him to the lawn. You were almost there,” Louis said.

  Joe shook her head. “He started to lay the gun down, but then he just pulled the trigger. Almost wasn’t good enough.”

  Louis brought the glass to his lips and took a drink. After the burning in his throat subsided, he spoke. “How’d you deal with it?”

  She sat back in the chair, the glass dangling in her hand. “Once I realized I couldn’t get rid of the memory, I decided to live with it. I keep a photo of the kid in my wallet. Whenever I need to, I take it out and look at it.”

  “Can I see it?”

  She put down her glass and reached into the back of her jeans for a thin billfold. She pulled a photo from behind her Miami PD identification card and handed it to him.

  Louis held it up to the light of the kitchen window. He was a tiny child, looking closer to three years old than five. His shaggy light hair was in his eyes, and he wore a crooked grin.

  Louis handed it back.

  “I talk to him sometimes,” she said.

  Louis didn’t want to tell her he’d talked to skulls and graves, so he said nothing.

  She brought her legs up to her chest, wrapping them with her arms, curling into a ball, stretching her baggy gray sweater down over her knees, pulling the sleeves down to cover her hands. It was like she was trying to make herself safe and warm, but she was too tall and the chair was too small. She sat there in a tight ball, chin on knees, staring out into the dark yard.

  Louis was looking again at her profile, sharply outlined in the stark kitchen light. The strands of hair unloosed from her ponytail did nothing to soften the angles of her face, the darkness did little to hide the fatigue in her eyes. He realized she probably hadn’t had any more sleep than he had in the last forty-eight hours. He wanted to reach over and brush the hair back from her face.

  He wanted...

  He wanted her to wrap herself around him, pulling him close. He wanted to hide, somewhere inside her. He wanted to feel safe and warm. He wanted to make her feel that way, too. He took another drink of brandy instead.

  “I should go see how Susan’s doing,” he said.

  “I heard her go into the shower. I think she’s still there.”

  “Still?”

  “Women do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Cry in the shower. It’s easier that way. No one can hear you and the water feels good, like someone holding you.”

  Louis rolled the glass between his hands.

  “I better go,” she said, standing.

  “Where?”

  “I saw a motel up near the town center. I need some sleep.” She shook her head slightly as she looked to the kitchen. “I can’t sleep here.”

  Louis looked up at her. “Why don’t you go stay at my place? I’m staying here until this is over.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay, thank you.”

  He gave her quick directions to his cottage on Captiva.

  “Do I need keys?” she asked.

  “It should be open,” he said. “If not, try the front window. Just don’t let my cat out.”

  “Ok, thanks.”

  She started to leave, then turned back. “So where do we go from here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Louis said.

  She gave him a small smile.

  “Get some sleep,” Louis said.

  “You, too.” She turned and was gone.

  Louis heard her speaking to Wainwright. Then it was quiet. A little while later, the light went off in the kitchen.

  Letting out a long breath, he finished off the last drop of brandy and set the glass down on the tile. He dropped his head back against the wall. It was just before dawn and a heavy gray light was starting to take over the blackness. Gray like her sweater and eyes.

  He ran his hand over his unshaven chin and it dropped heavily down to his T-shirt resting on the hole over his heart.

  CHAPTER 25

  Monday, January 18

  It was morning but the kitchen was full of shadows, the overhead florescent light weak and flickering. They could hear the steady patter of another day’s rain against the windows, but all the bad jokes about it had stopped long ago.

  Chief Wainwright sat at the small yellow table, an empty coffee mug and a plate of untouched toast in front of him. His white hair was wet, combed back away from his lined face. Bags of flesh hung under his eyes, seeming to pull down his face.

  Austin was seated on Wainwright’s right. He wore the same clothes he had been in last night, the khakis and pink shirt. Louis knew he had slept in them, if he had slept at all.

  Susan was standing at the sink, her back to the window. She wore a white chenille robe, her hair pulled back with a white scrunchie. Her face was etched with a deep pain, but her eyes held a look of renewed determination.

  Louis hadn’t spoken to her last night. By the time he had come in from the Florida room, she had been asleep. He had closed her door and stretched out on the sofa, but the pain in his chest had made sleep difficult.

  “I wanted to talk to all of you before I left this morning,” Wainwright said. “I think I have a plan but before I put it in motion, I wanted to make sure we are all on the same page.”

  The kitchen was quiet as they waited for Wainwright to go on.

  “I think we all know now that this was never about the money,” Wainwright said. “They were after Outlaw, plain and simple.” His eyes drifted to Austin. “I wish I knew why.”

  Austin shifted in his chair and when no one spoke, he glanced around quickly then crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I told you I don’t know,” he said tightly. “I borrowed the money from the business and the only person who might be pissed about that is Wallace Sorrell and he’s dead now, isn’t he?”

  Susan glared at him. “You stole the money.”

  Austin’s eyes slid to her. “Whatever. But unless Wallace was into things I don’t know about and that money was owed to someone else, I got nothing for you guys. Nothing.”

  “As usual,” Susan said.

  “Mrs. Outlaw, please,” Wainwright said. “Just listen to me for a minute. So far, we’ve been waiting on them to communicate with us and after last night I don’t think they’re going to call us with another ransom demand since now they know that we know all they ever wanted was Outlaw.”

  “Then let’s give him to them,” Susan said.

  “Ma’am,” Wainwright said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “You know we can’t do that. We can’t trade your husband for your son.”

  Susan’s mouth opened to respond, but she closed it quickly, biting back her words. Louis was pretty sure it was damn close to “Why not?"

  Wainwright stood up. “All right. Here’s the plan.”

  He took a breath, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his uniform pants. “We’re going to release the story to the media that we’ve had a kidnapping, a ransom demand, and that the victim’s father, one Austin Outlaw, was killed making the ransom drop.”

  Susan’s head snapped up but Wainwright held her silent with an open hand.

  “We need to draw a reaction here,” Wainwright said. “Because if we don’t, there’s a good chance they’ll come after him again and in the process kill more innocent people. Or they’ll decide to wait until we call off all the dogs.”

  “You’d call this whole thing off?” Susan asked.

  “After a while, we’d have no choice,” Wainwright said. “With no contact, eventually the threat disappears. The police can’t protect your ex-husband forever.”

  “Who cares about protecting him?” she asked, throwing her hand toward Austin. “What about finding Benjamin?”

  “Let me finish,” Wainwright said. “When we announce t
hat Outlaw is dead, the kidnappers will believe their mission has been completed. Then, one of two things will happen. They’ll either release their hostage or dispose of him.”

  Susan let out a half-scream, half-growl and tried to stand up, but her chair banged against the wall behind her, sandwiching her between the chair and the table.

  “You’re crazy!” she said.

  Wainwright put a hand up again, but Susan ignored it. “I say we do just the opposite,” she said. “We tell them Austin is alive, and if they want him bad enough they’ll try again. They’ll come to us and we...we can --”

  “Do what, ma’am? Sit in your house for God knows how long and wait for these two guys to come bursting through the door?”

  Susan leaned on the table. “No. If they think Austin is still alive, we buy time. Time to find them.”

  She grabbed Byron Ellis’s file from the table. “We have a suspect. If you give him a reason to bail out, we’ll never find him or Ben.”

  “We’ve got two different agencies crawling this side of the state for him right now. We’re out of time.”

  “No we’re not!” Susan yelled. “Benjamin is alive. Louis saw him just hours ago!”

  “That’s part of the point, damn it,” Wainwright said.

  Susan was rigid, her eyes narrowed at Wainwright. “I don’t understand.”

  “Looking back, I think these guys grabbed Ben at the park figuring that eventually your husband would think it was safe and return to get his kid.”

  “But he didn’t,” Susan said.

  “No, so they took Ben with them. I think the ransom-kidnapping thing was an afterthought, a way to make good use of their unexpected package. I’m not sure they ever really wanted to kill the boy. I think they intended to release him last night after they killed Outlaw.”

  “They would have released Ben with me lying there dead?” Austin asked.

  Wainwright nodded. “I think so. They were betting we’d eventually find the boy.”

  “No, this won’t work,” Susan said, shaking her head. “It won’t matter if they think Austin is dead. They will kill Ben anyway. Ben can identify them.”

  “We’ll cover that,” Wainwright said. “We release Ellis’s name and mug shot, announce he’s our suspect. Then the identification issue becomes moot. We take away their reason to kill Ben.”

  Susan slowly sank back into her seat, her eyes locked on Wainwright. She wanted desperately to believe him, believe that what he was proposing would work, believe that what he was saying was true —- that they wouldn’t kill Ben.

  Louis’s eyes went to Wainwright. A few days ago the chief had been sure Benjamin was dead. Had he really changed his mind, or was he grasping at something else, something closer to faith? That was an even stranger concept. Faith that a couple of psychos would stop short of killing a child when they had sliced up everyone else in their path. Faith that somehow this could still work out okay.

  “That is the plan,” Wainwright said. “I need you all to go along with it. Once it’s announced, you’ll get questions, phone calls. Promise me you won’t talk to the media. Especially you, Mrs. Outlaw.”

  Susan looked up at Wainwright then turned to Louis, a question in her eyes.

  She wanted to know what he thought. As a defense attorney she had a learned distrust of cops, but she had grown to respect Louis and he knew that if he told her this was the right way to play it then she would agree, even if reluctantly. And he knew that if Wainwright was wrong, he himself would also carry the blame.

  He wasn’t sure if Wainwright’s plan was brilliant or stupid, but something about it made some kind of weird sense. Why had they even brought Benjamin to the drop if they hadn’t intended to let him go?

  “Louis?” Susan asked.

  He met her eyes.

  “I think it’s better than just sitting here and waiting to see what they do,” he said. “At least this way, we’re in control.”

  She dropped her head, her clasped hands resting on the table. “All right” she whispered.

  Wainwright gathered up his things and left the kitchen. Susan watched him go then pulled Byron Ellis’s file to her and started reading. Austin got up and muttered something as he headed to the Florida room. A moment later, Louis smelled the pungent odor of his cigar.

  Louis rose and went to the living room. He pulled on a jacket and went outside, pausing on the front porch. Through the drizzle, he could see the taillights of Wainwright’s car as it pulled away. A Sereno Key cruiser still sat at the curb, an officer inside. Half a block away, Louis watched a couple of Lee County Sheriff's Crime Scene investigators in yellow raincoats working the crime scene at the old people’s house. Another county car sat at the end of the street.

  In Susan’s driveway he saw another man, squatting next to the open passenger door of his Mustang. He wore a raincoat that had LEE COUNTY CSI stenciled on the back. Louis walked to the driver’s side, his eyes moving over the muddy car.

  The side window was shattered, a few shards of glass still stuck in the rubber molding. Small crystals of glass shimmered in the rain water that had puddled in the backseat.

  There was a rip in the cloth top where a bullet had passed, and he touched the frayed edge, seeing again how Jewell was positioned in the backseat, knowing how close this bullet must have come.

  There were two more bullet holes in the door panel and one more near the front of the car.

  “Looks like a nine millimeter.”

  The man’s voice startled him and Louis looked back over the roof of the car.

  “What?” Louis said.

  The crime scene investigator was holding a bullet in gloved fingers. “I said it looks like a nine millimeter. Same as the ones in the vest.”

  Louis nodded absently. “How long before you can release the car?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe in the morning.”

  Louis glanced down the street, anxious to get out of there. He had no idea what would happen when Wainwright’s announcement hit the news. But he sensed that time was running out one way or the other, and that Wainwright was right about one thing. They couldn’t wait for Ellis and his partner to make the next move.

  It was time to go looking for them.

  Louis’s eyes were drawn back to the Mustang’s shattered window. The tech was packing up and noticed him.

  “You need a ride somewhere?”

  Louis shook his head. “No thanks. I got someone I can call.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Things look different in the daylight.”

  Joe glanced over at Louis and then back at the road. They were in her red Bronco, retracing the route Louis and Jewell had taken to the drop site the night before.

  “This is the way they took you in,” Joe said.

  “I know. Things just look different,” Louis said.

  Joe didn’t respond as she headed the truck north onto 29. Louis watched for landmarks, anything that gave him a sense of where he was. Maybe it had been the damn rain or more likely his own anxiety over the drop, but he realized now he had hardly paid attention to where he and Jewell had gone. Not that there was much around here to see. Tamiami Trail cut a clean concrete slash through the wilderness of the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve. They had passed a sign for a place called Carnestown but there was no town there that he could see. Where the hell was the damn “scenic drive”?

  He was just about to tell Joe to stop and turn around, that they had missed the turn, when he saw a small sign that said COPELAND. And then another marking James Memorial Scenic Drive.

  “This is it. Pull in here,” Louis said.

  They rounded a bend and a scattering of houses came into view. A small old ranch-style place here, a beat-up mobile home there. No sidewalks, no neat landscaping, but lots of trucks in dirt driveways and dogs in the yards pulling on their chains.

  “Somewhere up here we turned right. And I remember seeing a quarry or something,” Louis said.

  The road turned from asphalt
to gravel and soon they saw the quarry. A guy in a dump truck stared at them as they drove past. The road narrowed and turned rutty, the trees arched over them as all the meager signs of civilization fell away.

  Joe had to slow down to avoid the watery potholes. Louis grimaced with each bump, the bruises on his chest radiating pain despite the Tylenol Joe had given him earlier.

  He eyed the landscape bordering the road. Above, black cypress trees rising tall and bare until they branched out to grab the gray sky. Below, still stands of inky water punctuated with cypress stumps sharp as thrusting arrowheads. Spiny air plants and pale orchids clinging to the trees, giant ferns moving in the wind like billowing green blankets. And everywhere, a strange oppressive feel, like if you stood still for too long in this place, the plants and moss and trees would consume you.

  The road ended. Louis repeated to Joe the directions he had been given last night. A few minutes later, he saw the yellow metal sign. CAUTION. ROAD DEAD ENDS AT CANAL. NO WAY OUT. And beyond that, the dark shapes of vehicles. A cruiser. A van.

  As they drew closer, Louis realized the vehicles were from law enforcement. A cruiser from Collier County, an FDLE crime scene investigation van. Joe pulled to a stop and cut the engine. They got out.

  Louis scanned the landscape. It looked nothing like what they had just driven through. This was flat with high dry grass that moved like wheat in the brisk cold wind. Far off, he could see a few trees thrusting up through the grassland.

  There were some investigators working the scene, marking shell casings and tracks. Crime scene tape sagged between two bushes and they didn’t cross it.

  “This the right place?” Joe asked.

  Louis nodded, pointing to the deep ruts in the mud beyond the tape. “That’s where I got stuck. There’s a shell casing out there, too.”

  “They’ll find it,” she said. One of the investigators was walking toward them and Joe went over to talk with him.

  Louis was silent, staring out at the grassland. He knew this is where he had come, knew this is where he had stood, where Benjamin had stood. But it had no feel now of the terror of last night. It was empty. Empty of houses, people, and any reason for anyone to have been there in the first place.