Deadly Pursuit

by Michael Prescott

  Could he navigate the harbor waters without his glasses? Probably. He might nudge a few buoys along the way, but there would be few other obstacles this time of night.

  Within twenty minutes he could be at the sheriff’s station, reporting everything.

  But if he did that, he would be abandoning his wife. Leaving her alone on Pelican Key with Jack.

  He remembered her desperate shriek: Stop it, you son of a bitch!

  Afterward, nothing except a final gunshot, some moments later.

  The coup de grace? The bullet that had ended her life?

  Or was she still alive, but a prisoner?

  He pictured her, bleeding, helpless, Jack’s toy. Not hard to imagine the kind of games Jack would play with her.

  If he went to the authorities, how much time would pass before they believed his story and agreed to send a patrol unit to the island? An hour? Longer?

  He could not leave Kirstie for an hour. Not when she might be in agony, might be dying.

  The boat would have to wait. He would find his wife first. Find her and save her life.

  If she was not already dead.

  The thought stabbed him, icicle-sharp. He blinked back a stinging eyewash of tears as he headed up the trail.

  37

  Thirty-one pages of documents had come over the fax line at the sheriff’s station in Islamorada, to be produced as hard copy by an inkjet printer, then stapled together by a thoughtful deputy. A complete record of the Montclair Police Department’s 1978 investigation into the death of Meredith Turner, preserved on forms filled out when Tamara Moore was still in grade school, forms typed on electric typewriters and doctored with correction fluid, forms that were artifacts of the pre-computer age.

  The death investigation form was first, followed by a crime-scene log, press release, chronological record, victim and crime information form, suspect information form, multiple pages of signed statement forms, a master report information form, and the follow-up form that had closed the case. After that, a new sheaf of papers: autopsy protocols, lab reports, and miscellaneous crime-scene photos, sketches, and evidence-collection inventories.

  Moore scanned the file once, then went back to study the suspect information form and the signed statements. As she read, she smoothed the flimsy fax paper with her hand.

  “Something interesting here, Peter,” she said without looking up.

  Lovejoy, distracted and half asleep, was fumbling with the controls of a Mr. Coffee machine. “Mmm?”

  “Jack was a suspect.”

  That got his attention. “In the Turner case?”

  “Right.”

  He stared at her across twenty feet of checkered linoleum. They were alone together in the station’s squad room, surrounded by schoolroom trappings: front desk, fluorescent ceiling panels, comical or inspirational posters tacked to cinder-block walls. Moore sat at the desk like a teacher; Lovejoy was a misbehaving student being held after class.

  The rest of the station was largely deserted now, at two A.M. In the lobby, a sergeant biding time until retirement manned the night-watch desk; nearby, in a tiny alcove labeled Communications, a sleepy deputy tapped at the keyboard of a computer terminal; in one of the holding cells at the rear of the building, a sun-blistered transient snored on a steel bench. Somewhere a dog was barking, and no one seemed to care.

  “So what does it say?” Lovejoy asked finally. The coffee machine began to gurgle.

  “Meredith suffered a skull fracture and subdural hematoma. Cause of death was drowning; her lungs were filled with chlorinated water that matched a sample from the swimming pool. The head injury was consistent with a diving accident. She could have struck her head on the edge of the diving board itself or on the bottom of the pool.”

  “Except ...?”

  “Except the coroner’s investigator found no blood or tissue on the diving board, and given the height of the board and the depth of the pool, she probably couldn’t have hit bottom, at least not with any force.”

  “People don’t always use the board. They dive off the side of the pool, into the shallow end. They’ve been known to crack their skulls.”

  “But Meredith was an experienced diver, a lifeguard. Not the type to make that kind of mistake.”

  “Unless she was drunk, stoned, something like that.”

  “Serology tests all came back negative.”

  “All right. Suppose her death wasn’t an accident. How does Jack fit in?”

  “Meredith’s friends told detectives that Jack had been openly hostile toward her for years, and that Meredith was afraid of him.”

  The last of the coffee dribbled into the pot. Lovejoy poured two cups. “But apparently the D.A. didn’t file charges, or they would have shown up on Jack’s rap sheet.”

  “That’s because Jack had an alibi.” She consulted the sixth page of the statement form. “On the evening of Meredith’s death, he took a long car ride with a friend. Steven Gardner.”

  “Steve ...”

  Moore nodded. “The postcard. ‘Jack and Steve and I took the boat out yesterday.’ Same Steve, I’ll bet.”

  “The skinny kid with the glasses.” Lovejoy carried the coffee to Moore, a boy bringing his teacher an apple. “Why wouldn’t the police see through a ruse like that? One friend lying to protect another. Hardly an unusual occurrence.”

  “According to the report, Steve Gardner had a good reputation in town. A real straight arrow. And he stuck to his story pretty convincingly. Besides, the coroner’s office wasn’t certain of foul play. Meredith could have slipped and fallen into the shallow end—or hit her head on the diving board without leaving any obvious mark—or suffered a seizure in the water and struck the side of the pool while thrashing around. A hundred possibilities.”

  “And of course, the authorities wanted the case closed.” Lovejoy sipped his coffee. “Looks bad for a town—one kid killing another, friend covering up. Better if it was an accident. Neater that way.”

  “You’re a cynical man, Peter.”

  “Just a bureaucrat at heart. I know how these things work. Getting to the truth is less important than sweeping a messy situation under the rug.”

  Moore pushed her chair away from the desk. “So what do we do now?”

  “Locate Steve Gardner and ask him a few probing questions.”

  “At two A.M.?”

  “Sometimes that’s when you get the best answers.”

  A rap on the door frame. The sleepy deputy was there.

  “ ’Scuse me, folks. Sergeant Banks’d like to see you.”

  Moore stood. “He say why?”

  Yawn and shrug. “Something turned up on patrol.”

  The desk sergeant, Banks, was gray-haired, red-faced, and badly overweight. His uniform sagged in some places and clung to him skintight in others. Deep half moons of sweat had formed permanent discolorations under his arms.

  He refused to talk fast. Leaning back in his chair, lording over the lobby desk, he seemed to savor each syllable as it passed, slow and sweet as molasses, through his lips.

  “There’s this condemned restaurant over on Blackwood Drive, west of Route One. Patrol unit checks it out nearly every night. Rousting transients, y’know.”

  He paused to clean his teeth with a ragged thumbnail. Moore had to step down hard on an urge to grab the man and shake the information out of him.

  “So tonight Parker and Ross are cruising the area, and when they go around back of this place, what do you suppose they find?”

  “A Pontiac Sunbird,” Lovejoy said, then caught himself making a definitive statement and added, “in all probability.”

  Banks cocked an eyebrow. “Aw, now you’ve gone and spoiled my story.”

  “Sergeant”—Moore kept her tone cool and professional, fighting back a rush of excitement—“did the patrol unit give you a description of the car? Year, color, license plate?”

  “No plates. They’re gone. Vehicle identification number’s missing, too. Car’s prett
y well junked. Not stripped, exactly, Parker says. More like ... trashed.”

  “What color is it?”

  “White exterior, blue interior. It’s a four-door hardtop, relatively new. Could be a ’92.”

  “That just might be the vehicle we’re looking for,” Lovejoy said.

  Banks nodded heavily, multiplying his chins. “I know.”

  “Jack trashed the car so it would pass for an old wreck.” Moore was thinking fast, her mind remarkably clear despite long hours without sleep. “Took the tags so we couldn’t link it with the airport theft.”

  “Conceivably. On the other hand, the possibility exists that this is a different Sunbird altogether.” Lovejoy turned to Banks. “Was that location checked last night?”

  “Doubtful. Darby and Brint work patrol on the Thursday p.m. watch, and those two sumbitches never do jack. Oh, they’re supposed to poke around behind the restaurant, sure, but more’n likely they were sawing lumber in their car somewhere out on Industrial Drive.”

  “How about the night before?”

  “No Sunbird then. I make the rounds myself on Wednesdays.”

  “Time frame is right,” Moore said.

  Lovejoy pursed his lips. “We have no proof that this is the car from airport parking or, even if it is, that Jack was the one who lifted it.”

  “Well”—impatience struggled with Moore’s frayed self-control—“let’s quit yakking and find out. We need to contact Miami, get a search team down here, go over that damn car with a microscope and tweezers.”

  “My recommendation also.” Lovejoy picked up the desk phone, then remembered courtesy. “Excuse me, Sergeant. Mind if I make a call?”

  Banks moved his big shoulders. “At your service. Tell you true, though ... you people sure do move fast.”

  38

  The swamp was hot and fetid, choked with clouds of mosquitoes, the pests swarming thicker here than in any other part of the island. Kirstie had lost the strength even to wave them off. They battened greedily on her, leaving a rash of bumps on every inch of exposed skin. When she brushed sweat from her face, her fingers came away dabbed with blood.

  The bites didn’t matter. The heat and humidity, the sweat trickling from her hair, the aching exhaustion in every muscle—none of that mattered, either. Nothing mattered except planting one foot in front of the other, pushing herself remorselessly forward, crossing the endless yards of the boardwalk plank by plank, and arriving, finally, at the northern tip of Pelican Key. Then she would be at the cove, where maybe—just maybe—she would find the runabout.

  Unless Jack or Steve found her first.

  This boardwalk scared her. It was narrow and crooked and dark, and it could so very easily be a death trap. While making her way along it, she was as badly unprotected as she’d been on the beach. And an ambush would be easy in the swamp—the swamp, with its countless hiding places, its croak and buzz of ambient noise to mask more furtive sounds, its canopy of waxen leaves that eclipsed the stars and hung the trees in shadows.

  She had never been here at night. The labyrinth of contorted mangroves and crisscrossing channels was creepy enough by day. Darkness made it a nightmare, some fevered blend of known and imagined terrors.

  Cottonmouths glided through the opaque, tannin-stained water under her feet. Corn snakes and rat snakes writhed among the fantastically gnarled roots and branches of the mangrove thickets. The foul odor of hydrogen sulfide, signature of decay, hovered over the place like an unwholesome cloud. Somewhere a heron cried; to her left, a clump of marsh grass stirred with unseen activity; behind her, wood creaked in a low, regular rhythm, the footsteps of a restless ghost treading the boards …

  She froze.

  Footsteps.

  Someone else was on the boardwalk. Whether it was Jack or Steve was unimportant. Both were killers now.

  Was one of them shadowing her? Doubtful; the tread was heavy and quick, with no suggestion of stealth. It was the walk of a man in a hurry.

  Most likely he didn’t even know how near she was. If she could hide till he passed by ...

  The footsteps quickened, closing in.

  She ducked under the low railing and silently lowered herself into the murk, then eased beneath the boardwalk. The water, only slightly less saline than the ocean, was warm and pungent. Her tank top and shorts, instantly soaked through, clung to her skin in wrinkled patches.

  It was difficult to judge the swamp’s depth. The tide was not yet in, the red mangroves’ arching prop roots only partially submerged. Her feet kicked, searching for the muddy bottom, then sank into spongy ooze nearly up to the ankles.

  Her collarbone was at the waterline. The underside of the boardwalk loomed ten inches above her head. Not much clearance, but more than there would be at high tide.

  She waited.

  The footsteps were closer now. Touching the boardwalk, she could feel vibrations through the planks.

  How near was he? Thirty feet? Twenty?

  The creaks became solid thumps. Loosened dirt fell from between the planks, showering her in a gritty rain.

  He was directly overhead.

  She willed him to keep going, pass her by.

  He stopped.

  The moan welling in her throat would be fatal if released. She bit down hard and held it in.

  What the hell had he stopped for? There was no way he could know she was hiding here. No possible way.

  A pale flicker of luminescence above her. The wavering beam of a flashlight. It swept over the water near the boardwalk, then stopped, a small floating object pinned its glare.

  One of her sandals.

  She drew a quick, silent gasp.

  The sandal must have slipped free when she entered the water. Bobbing on the surface, it pointed out her hiding place like a traitorous hand.

  He’s on to me. Oh, God, he knows I’m here.

  Abruptly the flashlight swung downward, shining on the boardwalk itself, the beam’s splintered rays fanning through the gaps between the planks.

  Could he see her through the cracks? She didn’t think so.

  Her teeth wanted badly to chatter. She ground her jaws.

  The light inched toward her, arriving in successive waves of vertical bands, crawling over her face, her hair, then slowly moved on.

  He hadn’t seen her. She might be okay, then. If he decided to keep walking—

  A yard from her head, the planks exploded in a hail of splintered wood.

  Shock and terror nearly tore a scream from her lips.

  He had the gun—must be Steve, then—and he’d fired directly at the boardwalk, hoping to either kill her with a lucky hit or drive her into the open.

  Over the shrilling clamor in her ears, she faintly heard the creak-thump of another footstep.

  Above her. Directly above.

  Heedless of noise—his ears must be ringing, too—she flung herself backward, dog-paddling wildly.

  A second blast. Another yard of the boardwalk, shredded. Debris showered her. The blue muzzle flash lighted the swamp like a burst of fireworks.

  She refused to be panicked into committing a suicidal error. What she needed was cover. Cover that would allow her to swim to a new hiding place without being seen.

  Scanning the black water, she saw a thicket of red mangroves growing adjacent to the boardwalk twenty feet away.

  Overhead, creak-thump.

  Again he was above her, tracking her by luck or instinct.

  She executed a clumsy breast stroke, using her arms only, afraid to kick because the churning water might draw his aim. She swam for the trees.

  Behind her, a third gunshot. Spray of splinters and nails. Was he planning to obliterate the entire boardwalk three feet at a time?

  She kept swimming. The mangroves glided alongside her. Their exposed roots glistened in the patchy starlight, a cage of polished wicker. She kept the roots between her and the flashlight’s glow as she circled around the mangrove cluster and took cover behind the trees.


  From this position she couldn’t see the boardwalk, couldn’t know if Steve had glimpsed her escape. She could only wait for the next shot, and the next.

  Nothing.

  The gun was silent.

  The flashlight beam swept slowly over the swamp, first on the far side, then nearer to her. She saw its silvery trail in the water, gleaming like a long finger of moonlight.

  The dense mesh of roots hid her from the beam even when it prowled over the mangroves. Still, the funnel of light hesitated, as if studying the trees.

  “Kirstie ...!”

  Jack’s voice—not Steve’s—raised in a shout.

  What was he doing with the gun? Had Steve given it to him? Or were there two guns somehow?

  “I know you’re hiding there. No other place for you to be.”

  The beam glided across the water near the trees, silent and supple as a snake.

  “You can’t stay hidden for long, darling. I can see in the dark. Got my flashlight back; picked it up on the trail while I was heading for the cove. Not hard to guess that you’d be on your way over there. I’m afraid your game plan has been entirely too predictable.” His voice lilted, became laughter. “Come on out now. Ollee ollee oxen free ...” The childhood call of hide-’n’-seek.

  The flashlight bobbed, trembled. A soft splash.

  The angle of the beam was suddenly flatter, its point of origin near her eye level.

  Rippling-water sounds.

  Oh, hell.

  Jack had left the boardwalk. He was coming after her. Sloshing through the water toward the trees.

  At her back was a narrow channel unspooling like a ribbon between walls of mangrove roots. She took it, paddling furiously, retreating deeper into the swamp.

  Her beating legs and arms stirred up new eruptions of mosquitoes. Their frenzied whines pursued her like the screams of angry ghosts.

  * * *

  Steve was on his way to the dock at the south end of the island when three gunshots sounded from the north.

  He turned back, heading up the trail at a run. From somewhere ahead rose Jack’s voice, faint but audible.

  “Kirstie ... I know you’re hiding there ...”