“Oh,” he said. “Really?”
“Yes.” She had become Dr. Nicely again, Luke’s expensive sex therapist, who made house calls, one of their favorite recurring role plays. “I won’t know for certain until we have a look, but I’m getting a little concerned,” she said.
Luke smiled, but Charlotte, fully in character now, would not smile back.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe I do need a session.”
“Yes.” Charlotte stood and her eyes nodded toward the bedroom. “Let’s go into the examining room and have a look. I’m getting very worried.”
“SHIT!” AMY HUNTER said, gesturing emphatically at the television. “What ‘sources’ told you about the caliber?”
Hunter’s long-haired tuxedo cat Winston watched alertly from his perch atop the bookcase. They were alone in her apartment above the marina, case files and crime photos stacked neatly on the coffee table. A small empty pizza box from Domino’s was on the stove, and the last two inches of a bottle of red wine on the table.
Hunter knew that the church case was about to turn a corner. She wasn’t sold on the Psalms verse, but she had a gut feeling about Jackson Pynne. She didn’t like it, though, that someone was leaking information to the media. Was this the sheriff, she wondered, trying to keep her off-balance? Who else could it be?
“What do you think, Winnie, should I try to extend an olive branch to him in the morning?” Winston sashayed through her legs, swishing his tail against her. “Of course, it’s not so easy when he won’t return my calls, is it?”
Winston made his favorite comment, a superior-sounding ellll! that often sounded to her like “Hell!” He trotted importantly back to the bedroom, tail pointed straight up, as if he didn’t have time for such concerns.
Hunter drank the rest of the red wine straight from the bottle. She sat for a long time that evening on her porch in the dark, watching the marina and the stars. How much longer would it take to wrap this case? To find what was behind the numbers? In three weeks she would celebrate her thirty-first birthday—although celebrate was not the right word. She wasn’t big on birthdays, or any holidays, for that matter. Holidays made her uneasy, particularly the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners in Pennsylvania, where her brother’s wife and children always became the center of attention. Last year, Ship had suggested the two of them go out for dinner on Thanksgiving and then catch a movie. She’d almost agreed. Maybe this year. Her mother would send her a Hallmark card for her birthday, with a check inside for $150. It would arrive one day before her birthday. Her cousin Richard from California, who still wasn’t sure of the date of her birthday, had already sent this year’s card. It normally arrived three to five weeks early. The only other card would be from Ben Shipman, a novelty card that would inevitably make her laugh.
Hunter had a hard time sleeping that night. She couldn’t turn off her thoughts—wondering if the sheriff or someone from his office was slipping details of the case to the media. Several times she was awakened by the wind, gusting rain against her windows. Once, she was jolted out of sleep by her telephone, which rang once and stopped. “Unknown Caller.” Was it a wrong number or someone trying to rattle her? Don’t be paranoid, she told herself.
Wide-awake now, she looked out at the darkened marina through the rain-beaded windows of her living room, the boat masts tilting from side to side. For a few minutes the raw sweep of nature conjured in her the happy energies of childhood—before what her mother referred to as the “unfortunate incident.” Hunter’s thoughts drifted back to their single-family brick house, the hopscotch sidewalks and afternoon lawn mowers of suburban Pennsylvania. She still drew strength from those memories. But her ambitious personality always seemed to propel her forward to whatever was at hand.
She padded to her study and checked e-mails, saw one from Shipman. Sent at 10:32 P.M. It was just a subject line: Meet for breakfast?
Hunter debated calling him then; but no, not at three-fourteen in the morning.
She lay awake in bed awhile longer, her eyes open, her thoughts shuffling restlessly. Finally she closed her eyes and waited for sleep.
TWELVE MILES AWAY, Gil Rankin walked on a gravel driveway alongside Jimmy Creek. He noticed lights in distant farmhouse windows, the way the ice in the wind made a glassy rattle through the marsh grasses, the long casts of moonlight on the creek water, the stealthy movement of predators, and potential routes of escape. Rankin was in his element at night, moving, hearing everything clearly, breathing the cold, bracing air, figuring out exactly what he had to do here in Tidewater County.
Chapter 13
THURSDAY, MARCH 16
IN THE MORNING, newly minted icicles hung from the wooden awnings and drain spout just outside the bedroom window. Luke pulled on his robe and stepped into his slippers. He savored the quiet of early morning, the chance to spend time in prayer, to be thankful. After thirty minutes in the sitting room, he walked down the hall and glanced out at the front lawn.
Sneakers was thumping his tail in anticipation as Luke debated whether or not to pull on his wool topcoat. He decided to go out in just his robe and slippers. It’s only to the end of the driveway and back. Sneakers trotted out ahead of him but almost immediately stopped and hesitated, noticing the wet pavement under his paws. He looked mournfully at Luke.
“I know,” Luke said. “But what can we do?”
Starting down the driveway, he realized he should have worn his coat. The robe felt as flimsy as tissue. The wind gusts were like ice on his face. “Careful,” he said, steadying himself, walking backward in baby steps, his knee hurting again.
Stooping to pick up the Tidewater Times, he heard tires spinning into motion where the road tucked into the tall brown marsh grasses and veered east.
A white Audi skidded to a stop on the pavement beside him.
The tinted passenger window whirred down.
“Luke?” the driver exclaimed, as if startled to find him in front of his own house.
“Jackson?”
So he’d been right.
“How you been, Luke?”
“Good.”
“Thinking about you. You doing all right?”
Jackson Pynne set the car in Park and got out, leaving the driver’s door wide open, the engine running. Walking vigorously around the front to shake Luke’s hand, as if that was the important thing—that they shake immediately. He wore an expensive-looking cashmere overcoat, his scarf tucked inside, resembling an ascot.
Pynne still moved with the swagger of a young man, his arms swinging out to the sides, as if he was used to people giving him a wide berth. His face was striking, as always, hinting of drama as he stretched out his arm. For all that, though, it was a soft handshake, which had always struck Luke as peculiar for someone so forceful in other ways.
“So, how you been?” he asked again.
“Still good.”
“How’s Charlene?”
“Charlotte? She’s fine.”
“Good. You holding up okay?” he said, patting Luke on the shoulder, his breath turning to vapor.
“In what sense?”
“That business down at the church. Jesus Christ, I just heard about it.”
“Yeah,” Luke said. He glanced up for a moment at the branches moving in the wind. “What brings you here, Jackson?”
“Just driving through. Looking at a piece of property.” He nodded vaguely over his right shoulder, as if the property were across the road. “I’m on my way out of town, actually. Working on something down South. Just thought I’d swing by, say hello. Figured you might be walking your dog or something. Dumb luck finding you.”
Luke turned so his back was to the wind. He wondered how long Jackson Pynne had been parked around the corner, waiting for him to come out to retrieve the newspaper.
As he turned again, he noticed that Snea
kers had jumped into Jackson’s car and was now sitting in the passenger seat, watching them.
“So, what’s the story down at the church, anyway?”
“The story?”
“Yeah.” Pynne pushed his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. His eyes shifted, becoming colder all of a sudden, as if he were about to rob him. “I saw the thing in the paper yesterday. And then today.” He nodded at the paper Luke held tightly in his hand. “Neither one really said anything.”
“I guess there’s not much to say yet.”
“But you found her?”
Luke nodded, tightening the belt of his robe.
“She was killed, right? I mean, it wasn’t suicide, an accident? Natural causes? Nothing like that?”
Luke shook his head. His teeth were chattering.
“They find anything? A car, personal belongings, anything like that?”
“I don’t think so. But I’m sure the police could tell you more than I can.” He tucked the paper under his other arm, shivering. Sneakers’s head was sticking out of the open passenger window of Pynne’s car. “Can I invite you in for a cup of coffee, Jackson?”
“Nah, I’m in a rush.” A note of impatience in his tone.
“Sneakers! Come here,” Luke called.
Pynne turned his head partway, uninterested in what was happening with Sneakers. “And she was, what are they saying, early thirties? Asian features?”
“Mm hmm,” Luke said, although the original report in the paper had said “Caucasian.” A mistake that had struck him as odd, although the local paper was known as much for its mistakes as anything else.
“Asian features?”
Luke nodded. Pynne turned his head and said something, “Dammit!” maybe. The wind blew strands of hair onto his forehead.
“You knew her,” Luke said.
“What?”
Pynne turned to him, his eyes wet from the cold, or maybe emotion.
“You knew her.”
.“What?” He feigned a laugh. “Who said anything about knowing her?”
“No, I was just asking.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re asking the wrong question, then. Okay?”
“Okay.” Luke added, “I’d be glad to talk with you about it, if you’d like, Jackson.”
“Nothing to talk about, Pastor. And it’s really none of your business anyway.”
“Okay.”
After a moment Jackson Pynne forced a smile, probably realizing that his response was inappropriate. Sneakers had jumped back out of the car and was sniffing tentatively now at Pynne’s shoes.
“Look,” he said. “Don’t get the wrong idea here, Pastor, okay? I’m just making conversation with you. I haven’t seen you—what’s it been? A couple of years? I’m making conversation. What is this, you’re giving me the third degree?”
“Sorry.”
Pynne pretended to laugh, but another version of himself had emerged and he couldn’t just put him away. Luke had seen this often in the past; anger was Pynne’s problem, the thing that got him in trouble and kept him from being where he wanted to be. Years before, he’d been charged with assaulting his ex-wife, a detail Luke had forgotten until now.
“Anyway, good to see you,” he said, reaching to shake his hand again.
“If you want to talk, I’m here.”
“I heard you the first time, Pastor,” he said, smiling stiffly. “Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” He walked around the car and got in.
“Oh, and Pastor?” he said through the passenger window, trying out a new demeanor—polite, reasonable. “I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone we had this conversation. Or that you even saw me.”
Luke watched him.
“Can we agree on that?”
“I guess we could,” Luke said. “Do good things with your life, Jackson.”
“We agree, then.”
“Where are you headed?”
“South,” Pynne said. “Okay? I’ll be in touch.”
Luke heard him pick up speed as soon as he rounded the corner, the Audi’s wheels spinning on the wet pavement, heading inland, it seemed, although with Jackson it was impossible to know.
Chapter 14
HUNTER WOKE IN darkness, disoriented, her alarm rattling insanely on the bed stand. Was it really morning? She shut off the alarm and blinked at the clock. Winston, sitting on her desk, meowed his approval that she was up. No doubt he was thinking already of his morning tuna.
By the time Hunter finally stepped outside for her run, a cold light was streaming through the clouds and glinting on the marina waters. She started slow, her legs stiff, her eyelids feeling pasted together. But the chill of the air—wet with a trace of snow—soon got inside of her and began to force her awake. Running north on the marina road, she found a rhythm, Maroon 5 cranked on her iPod as she strode through the long shadows of the shipyard, where crab and oyster boats were mounted on cinder blocks. She stretched out her stride on the long incline to Seven Shoals Road, beginning to sweat finally. Coming to the overlook where the road dead-ended, she slowed to catch her breath and ran in place, looking out at the glittering scales of the Chesapeake, the fringes of foam down along the beaches of the bayfront houses. She turned in circles a couple of times, punching her fists in the air as Radiohead blasted in her ear, shouting twice, “We’re going to solve this thing!”
It was Hunter’s version of a “Rocky” moment.
As she ran back, morning light gilded the tall grasslands and blushed the narrow creeks and tributaries to the east. She let her stride unwind full-tilt on the downhill, feeling inspired now, really starting to think that this might be the day the case would break open.
“HEY!” SHIPMAN SAID, waving Hunter over. He’d bought her meal and set her place with a couple of napkins and a spoon. Their breakfasts here were always the same: fruit and yogurt parfait with orange juice and a side of hash browns for Hunter; the Big Breakfast with hotcakes and a large Diet Coke for Ship.
“So,” he said, “you got my message.”
“I did.”
Noticing a smear on Shipman’s eyebrow, Hunter touched her own brow instructively as she sat.. “You have something.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Ship swiped quickly, missing it, and picked up his fork again.
“No, other side.”
He touched his other eyebrow, showing a little-boy expression of mock annoyance.
“Here.” Hunter leaned across the table and wiped what appeared to be a bubble of dried shaving cream away with a napkin. “Okay,” she said. “All gone.”
“Actually, I was saving that for later,” he said, and they both laughed heartily. Somehow, Shipman’s jokes always made Hunter laugh, even when they weren’t funny.
“So, anyway,” he said, his eyes going back to the hotcakes and hash browns. Sometimes, Shipman acted as if he had important news to convey when all he really wanted was to meet. “I wanted to tell you, something changed last night over in the Sheriff’s Department.”
“Oh?” Hunter felt a quick rush of anger at the mention of the Sheriff’s Department.
“Yeah, there’s been a shift in the case.”
“What kind of shift?”
“Not sure,” he said.” He lifted his soda and slurped.
Jackson Pynne, Hunter thought. The sheriff must know about him now, too. Pynne would slow down the rush to indict Robby Fallow. So maybe it was a good development.
Shipman took another bite, and made a face indicating he had to finish chewing before he could speak again.
“The other thing I’m hearing?” he said. “They’re pretty sure now there were two people involved.”
Hunter shook her head. “And I’ll bet Robby Fallow’s still one of them.”
“Fallo
w’s one of them, yeah. From what I hear, the sheriff has something solid on him now.”
“Oh? And what might that be?”
“Well.” He was sawing a sausage link. “Supposedly, they found a .22 caliber shell in Junior Fallow’s cottage. Robby owns a .22 handgun. Which, as we know, was the weapon involved.”
“But they haven’t shared that with us.”
“I know.”
“This is our investigation, right?”
“Right.”
Hunter looked out at the traffic, forcing herself to calm down.
“So what’s the theory du jour, then?” she said finally.
“The what?”
“The sheriff’s theory.”
“Oh. That Junior Fallow got into a fight with this woman. Who was an escort.”
“But an escort working where? There are no escorts in Tidewater County. And Fisch hasn’t found evidence of any escorts anywhere else.”
“I know, I’m just saying—”
Hunter shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “If the Fallows killed an escort, they would have dumped her somewhere, they wouldn’t have broken into a church and posed her. Although I can’t imagine them being involved with an escort in the first place.”
Shipman cleared his throat, nodding.
“Is it possible the sheriff would do something to, let’s say, enhance the case against Fallow?” Hunter asked.
Ship momentarily stopped chewing, his eyes widening as if he were a student who’d been asked a difficult question. “Well,” he said. “I mean, do I know that he’s ever done anything like that before? No, I don’t. But, I mean—is it possible? Sure, I guess it’s possible.”
“And do they think they have enough to convince a grand jury?”
“Well, I mean, it doesn’t take a lot, right? Will they have enough to indict? Probably. Convict? I don’t know. But you know what?”
Hunter realized that her cell phone was ringing. Luke Bowers.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Let me take this.”
“Oh, okay. Sure.”
She turned away from Shipman: “Hunter.”
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