Acoustic Shadows

by Patrick Kendrick

  ‘Put down your weapon!’ Thiery repeated.

  Alejandro gripped his weapon, his finger tight on the trigger.

  Thiery saw the man’s arm begin to tense and knew he wasn’t going to give it up. He did not hesitate. He was already locked in on his target: committed. His breathing stopped, held, and he applied the pressure on his own trigger. The round sparked off Alejandro’s weapon as he raised it, then buried itself in his chest with a meaty slap. Thiery fired twice more, putting together a small triangular pattern in the man’s chest. A bullet riddled genuflection: Father, Son, Holy Ghost.

  Alejandro went limp and crumpled on top of his brother.

  Thiery kept his gun ahead of him, ready to fire. He glanced around the yard as he approached the now dead Lopez brothers. He admired the Sig Sauer still in Alejandro’s shoulder holster, the silencer sticking out the bottom. He checked the pockets for identification. None. This man wasn’t part of some redneck posse coming to fetch Erica Weisz. Neither was the man with the uncanny family resemblance beneath him. These were professionals. The realization brought Thiery back to his original idea: the school shooting was more than it seemed.

  There was no movement, save the tops of the crepe myrtles bending in the night’s soft breeze. Thiery could smell sulphur and blood and spilled stomach contents. Over the ringing in his ears he could hear the last of the pickup trucks vacating the scene even as the wail of sirens grew closer. Apparently, Sonny and Bubba, and the rest of the posse hadn’t wanted to stick around. He checked the pulses on each of the six bodies he found, including the one in the utility room: Coody Sr. They were as still as mannequins. He was sure he would not find Erica Weisz alive.

  Thiery moved cautiously through the rest of the tiny house, though his gut told him he was alone, or at least, the only one living. He found the bedroom where Erica had been held captive. He saw the broken, scuffed rail on the headboard and wondered if someone had been tied or handcuffed to it. He checked the closet and found clothes and bloody running shoes. She always wore running shoes. Wasn’t that what Sally Ravich had scrawled in her note? And the bartender had said the same thing.

  In the bathroom, he found bloody dressings in the wastebasket, along with an empty IV bag, and Amoxicillin vial, syringes, and an empty bottle of Miss Clairol #98 Natural Extra Light Neutral Blonde. A thought flashed into his head. The woman he saw flying past in the Chrysler 300. He closed his eyes and tried to freeze-frame her face. The eyes had been wild with fear, the hair blonde, not black like her employee picture. But the shape of the face, the urgency in which she was fleeing the scene … Who else could it have been? He cursed himself for not getting a tag number. He concentrated. Was that a barcode in the rear window of that car? That would indicate it might be a rental. If so, it could be traced back to one of the rental agencies. Even without the coded number, he could check for who rented a bottle-green 300 Chrysler. It would be time-consuming, but it might pay off with a name.

  He was sure Erica Weisz had been there. He was also sure she was in bad shape and had to get out of there fast, because she’d left without clothes and medical supplies.

  Then, he found her purse. Inside was a Florida driving licence with Erica’s picture, next to the name Christine Angel. Chris Angel. Another magician. Thiery was now convinced his hunch was right. Why and how would she obtain another identity so quickly if she wasn’t in the witness protection programme?

  Blue and red lights flashed through the bedroom windows, and Thiery heard the squawk of radios. He walked through the house and out the front door, gun holstered, hands in the air displaying his FDLE badge. Several sheriff officers shouted for him to keep his hands where they could see them.

  ‘I’m FDLE,’ he announced. ‘There are at least six men dead in the backyard. I think two of them were pros, here to kill the teacher involved in the school shooting yesterday.’

  ‘Yeah?’ came a familiar voice from outside the ring of light surrounding the cars and cops. ‘Sure it wasn’t a drug deal gone bad?’ Sheriff Conroy stepped into the light as his men fanned out into the house and beyond. He was wearing a broad brim hat, his chest bowed out. He hooked his thumbs into his gun belt as he approached. In the man’s body language, Thiery saw the insolence and confidence of a man who felt that, now that he was in charge, these kinds of shenanigans would cease.

  ‘You can paint it anyway you like, Sheriff,’ said Thiery, adding wryly, ‘but the hitmen in the backyard weren’t part of your approved vigilante posse.’

  Conroy’s radio crackled with the voice of one of his deputies giving the all-clear. He looked at the paramedics standing by and gave them a nod to go back. Then he turned his attention back to Thiery. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Agent Thiery. I didn’t approve any posse.’

  ‘You didn’t stop it either,’ he accused, ‘and now a few of your friends, including Ellis Coody, are dead, and Erica Weisz is still missing. I’m glad you’re taking over the lead on this investigation. I wouldn’t want this egg on my face.’

  ‘So, you’ve heard, huh?’

  ‘Good news travels fast. Look, I’m fine with that. I didn’t want to come here and step on toes in the first place. But, there’s something more going on here than just the school shootings, and getting the community all riled up isn’t going to help.’

  ‘Well, I guess I know my community better than you do.’

  ‘I know I would’ve had a fully armed SWAT in that school in less than ten minutes if my main station was located three blocks away. I can’t imagine what would take sixteen minutes, Sheriff.’

  Conroy scowled at him. Through clenched teeth, he said, ‘Dispatchers don’t always get the time exact. Sometimes there is a delay when they get too busy, like when a buncha calls come in at once. We’re short-handed. Anybody can see that. You can audit the dispatch records if you’re that anal about it. Isn’t gonna change anything, now.’

  ‘Oh, I’m that anal I already requested the audit.’

  Conroy stared at Thiery as if he were considering drawing his weapon on him. He bent slightly forward and spit tobacco juice on the ground. ‘So what’s this you were saying about hitmen?’

  ‘Take a look for yourself, Sheriff. There are two dead men in the backyard that don’t look like they’re from around here. They’ve got weapons that pros use. One gun has a silencer. I don’t know many people who use muzzle suppression devices that aren’t hitmen, do you?’

  Sheriff Conroy scratched a stubble of black whiskers on his chin. Thiery could hear it like someone rubbing heavy grit sandpaper. ‘Can’t say I do. Did you take any of them down?’

  Thiery knew where he was going with the question. ‘Your friends and one of the hitmen were already down when I got here,’ he told the new man in charge. ‘I shot the guy with the foreign-made assault rifle. I’ll notify my boss and put myself on administrative leave, pending the internal investigation. So, it seems like I would’ve been stepping aside, anyway. It’s all yours, Sheriff,’ said Thiery, offering a mock salute before walking toward his car. ‘Enjoy!’

  ‘Gonna need a few more details about what happened here tonight,’ said Conroy.

  ‘I’ve got your card,’ Thiery replied without looking back. ‘I’ll have my report completed and faxed to you before I go beddy-bye. See you on the news tomorrow. You might want to do something like put out an APB for a blonde driving a new Chrysler 300. Green. And it might be a rental. Oh, and thanks for that tip on the saloon. I confirmed Weisz had been there. Got to meet a couple of your friends, too. They were sweet.’ He could feel Conroy glaring at his back.

  When he fell into his car, it was as if someone had shot him with a tranquillizer dart. Rain drops appeared on his windshield, and he shook his head. There goes the crime scene. Tough cookies, Sheriff. Fatigue swept over him as the rain tapped, then began to beat, on the car’s exterior. His adrenaline surge from the gunfight subsided. He wanted to drive back to the Sun Beam Motel and crawl into the sack. He even thought about calling Sara
Logan. But, he let that go quickly. Nothing good could come from that tonight.

  Still, he felt his loneliness like a wet woollen suit. It smothered him and made him doubt himself again, as he had for the past ten years. His wife’s face flashed into his mind. He wished he knew where she had gone, why she had left him and their children. He never quit wondering if she was alive. Even after he’d reported her missing, after he had gone looking for her, leaving the boys with a kind-hearted neighbour for weeks, after he’d finally given up on finding her alive, nothing revealed itself. It was as if she’d vanished off the earth. He held out hope for the first year, or two. But, eventually, he had to accept she wasn’t coming back.

  If I couldn’t find my own wife … He thought of Erica Weisz. Can you get your shit together and find her? That’s your fucking job, isn’t it? Are you always going to think of yourself as a man who couldn’t quite cut it? Couldn’t cut the NFL, couldn’t cut it as a husband. And, as a cop, couldn’t find your wife? You can only make so many excuses …

  Thiery watched the blurred, flashing blue lights through the rain on his windshield, rubbing his tired eyes, considering his options. After a few minutes, he picked up his iPad and began to look up rental car agencies.

  TWENTY

  Thiery called Dunham on the way back to the motel. It was just after midnight and he was speeding down two-lane roads, wet and slick as black ice, the car windows open and drops of water sprinkling his face, refreshing him.

  ‘He … llo?’ said Dunham, coming out of a deep sleep.

  ‘Hi, Chief. It’s Thiery. I’m sorry to call at such a late hour, but I could use some help. I know you were told to back off the case, but, if it wasn’t urgent, I wouldn’t be calling.’

  ‘What do you need, Agent Thiery?’

  ‘The Guava Lane tip turned into a big shoot-out. Six dead, including two guys I think were professional killers. And Weisz managed to slip past all of them, I think in a rental car. I need someone to check out the rental agencies, and see if they can find one that loaned a late model, green Chrysler 300. I know it’s a lot of work … ’

  ‘Yeah, it could be,’ the Chief interrupted. ‘Or, we might get lucky and get it on the first call. Don’t get me wrong here, but don’t you have people who can do that for you?’

  ‘Well, it’s a matter of timing. I, uh, I’m essentially off the case at this point.’

  ‘Thought that wasn’t going to happen until tomorrow.’

  ‘I shot a man tonight.’ There was silence for a moment, then Dunham spoke. ‘Oh. I see. Who did you shoot?’

  ‘One of the hitmen who came after Erica Weisz.’

  ‘Did you see her?’

  ‘Only in passing. And I didn’t know it at the time. She was going out as I was coming in; I didn’t put it together fast enough. But, I found where she had been staying, or held captive. I’m not sure about all the details, but I know she was there. The stolen Camaro was there. It was a small house outside Lake Wales. I found bandages, hair dye, and her purse. In the purse was a driving licence with the same picture, new name: Christine Angel.’

  ‘Isn’t that another magician’s name feminized? That guy with the tattoos and all?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Hmmn, then your theory was right about her.’

  ‘I think so. Can you help out? I don’t want to get you into any trouble with your city manager.’

  ‘Hey, I’m a law enforcement officer, first and foremost. Political whipping boy comes way after that. You need help with this case, you got it. I’ll get started right away. You try to stay out of trouble for a little while, okay?’

  ‘Thanks, Chief. I owe you big time.’

  ‘Okay, then buy me another breakfast at Dutch’s.’

  Thiery smiled for the first time in a long while. ‘You got it, Chief.’

  It was after midnight and Sara Logan couldn’t sleep. Sleep is overrated, she thought. All it did was bring her the same nightmare, the one where she, a long distance swimmer, would look up from her swim and find herself alone, in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight, no sense of which direction to go. An overwhelming fear would awaken her, and she would find her heart hammering in her throat, her body so drenched with sweat, it seemed she’d just emerged from the sea.

  She wanted to call Thiery and let him know she had located the pawn shop in Vegas where the guns used in the school shooting had been purchased, but she was hesitant. She couldn’t decide if that information was significant enough to wake him, or if the real reason she wanted to call him was to try to entice him into her bed. She turned on the nightstand light and picked up a Jodi Picoult novel she’d been reading for several weeks, but couldn’t stay focused on the story, as her thoughts kept returning to Thiery.

  She turned her laptop back on, thinking she’d attempt to make a dent in her never-ending flow of emails. The scheduled meetings and new directives and protocols. The titbits of reports that came from all over the nation about another Islamic terrorist cell caught making pressure-cooker explosives in Connecticut, or some neo-Nazis who were threatening to assault a gay rights parade in Nebraska, or some castor beans – the basis of ingredients to make ricin – seized in the makeshift lab of a former FBI research scientist who held a vendetta against the ‘system’. All fun stuff and truly endless. Crime and crazy never takes a holiday, she thought.

  Logan was picturing herself like a mouse running on a wheel that would never stop, her life passing her by like a missed bus, when the phone rang. She recognized the number of the forensic lab: Miko Tran, the agency’s most thorough forensic IT specialist.

  ‘Talk to me, Miko,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, uh, I was going to leave you a message,’ he said, nervously. ‘I’m so sorry, Special Agent Logan. I know it’s late.’

  ‘If I get any more beauty sleep, they’ll be asking me to pose for Vanity Fair.’

  ‘You’re not upset with me for calling so late?’

  ‘I’m getting a little irritated that you’re dragging this out.’ She heard Tran gulp on the other end of the line.

  ‘Okay, I’ll get to the point. Are you near your laptop?’

  ‘Sitting right in front of it. But, please don’t try to Skype me, or I’ll moon you.’

  ‘Is that a promise?’ Tran asked, hopeful.

  ‘C’mon, dude.’

  ‘Okay, Special Agent Logan. We’ve been diligently retrieving data from the Coody hard drive. I now have in my overworked hands a list of email addresses with which Coody corresponded. We brushed through the occasional and infrequent ones, and focused on those that were repetitive and/or had attachments in them. I’m sending you one I think you’ll find most interesting.’

  The email Tran sent to Logan was from a Diceman1960@hotmail.com. It read only: ‘See attachment. Purchase will be arranged through Tito’s Pawn & Gun, F.S. will deliver.’ The attachment was the gun cache from the Kentucky State Police sale.

  ‘Good work, Miko. “F.S.”? Could that be Frank Shadtz?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Who is Diceman1960?’ asked Logan.

  ‘We’re working on that. The account was set up under a fictitious name through a public library in Texas. But, it’s been accessed from several locations, including one in Washington DC. That’s where the one I sent you originated from. We’re trying to pinpoint that locale. The list had to be scanned in and attached though, so if we can find where it was scanned, we can find the person who sent Coody the list of guns.’

  ‘What was the fictitious name?’

  ‘Get this: Wyatt Earp. Mean anything to you?’

  ‘Hmmn. Not really, but Earp was a lawman and a gambler,” said Logan, pondering the possibilities. ‘Maybe that’s why the Diceman 160 moniker. Have to think about that one.’ Good job, Miko. You might get a handjob for your efforts.’

  ‘From you, Special Agent Logan?’

  ‘Of course, not, silly’ she said, and added with a chuckle,’ but, I’ll find a guy with nice soft hands.’
/>   TWENTY-ONE

  Thiery was pulling into the parking lot of the Sun Beam Motel when Dunham called him back.

  ‘Hi, Chief,’ said Thiery, ‘that was quick.’

  ‘We should play the lottery tonight,’ said Dunham, the excitement in his voice noticeable.

  ‘Yeah? Did we get lucky?’

  ‘We did. I called my shift supervisor, and he told me they were slow tonight. They’ve been sitting around listening to the radio dispatches on your shooting, up in Lake Wales, so I had him put some people on the rental car. They got a hit at Enterprise.’

  ‘Super. So, you have a name for me?’

  ‘Yep. Alejandro Lopez. Know him?’

  ‘No, can’t say I do.’

  ‘Enterprise makes a copy of their clients’ driving licences, so I had them send me a copy. Lopez’s DL was issued in Mexico. I’m going to text you and attach the image. Can you take it from there?’

  ‘Absolutely. That’s great, Chief. I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘I’m holding you to that breakfast at Dutch’s.’

  ‘You got it, pal. Now, get back to sleep.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Stay safe.’

  Thiery’s iPad went ting before he was out of the car. He opened the message and looked at the attached file. He recognized Alejandro as the man he’d shot behind the house on Guava Lane. Dunham had also attached PDF files of the paperwork from the rental car agency. The paperwork required that the renter state which hotel he was staying at locally: the Gaylord Palms.

  ‘No shit,’ Thiery muttered.

  Thiery finished cleaning the cut on the back of his head from the bar fight. It was a little tender, but didn’t feel like it needed stitches. He’d had worse.

  It was almost 01:00 a.m. but Thiery guessed Logan was still awake. She’d always been a night owl. He called her number.

  Logan picked up before the first ring tone had stopped. ‘Justin?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s me.’

  ‘Can’t sleep?’

  ‘Haven’t tried yet. Been a busy night.’