John Puller 02 - The Forgotten

by David Baldacci

  Tonight would be busy. He had two things to do.

  The first surely would be problematic.

  The second might be catastrophic.

  But he had come here to take risks, not to avoid them.

  CHAPTER 43

  Cheryl Landry was not in uniform. She wore light blue capri pants, a yellow sleeveless blouse, and white sandals. Her hair, unconstrained by a police cap, was down around her shoulders.

  Puller rose from the table at Darby’s as she approached.

  He had taken a shower at a local YMCA for a daily fee and changed into fresh clothes—khaki pants, short-sleeved shirt, and loafers.

  As she sat down, she looked, he thought, a little self-conscious, as though she preferred the uniform and clunky shoes to what she had on.

  The waitress brought menus and Puller glanced over his while also checking out the folks at the other tables.

  She caught him doing this.

  “Scoping the place?” she asked.

  “Always good to have alternate exits, just in case.”

  “One behind the bar. Another left of the kitchen.”

  “I take it you like scoping too.”

  “Comes in handy.”

  “What’s good on here?” he asked, indicating the menu.

  “Scallops, swordfish, mussels. And the New York strip, if you’re into cows.”

  They ordered drinks and their meals. Puller had opted for the swordfish over the cow.

  They sat back and Landry finally seemed to focus on him.

  “Something you want to say?” asked Puller.

  “I don’t know. Should there be?”

  “We could run that one in circles for days.” “You invited me to dinner, not the other way around.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “But you do make people nervous, Puller.” “I’ve been told that before.”

  “I’m sure you have. Eight guys beaten up. Nearly ramming another car. Doing your own investigation. And we found out you got a set of elimination prints from your aunt’s body. The chief was not happy about that.”

  “No law against me visiting my aunt’s remains.”

  “But there is a law against obstructing a police investigation.”

  “I was under the impression that you weren’t conducting one, so what exactly am I obstructing?”

  “It’s not that simple and you know it.”

  “I do?”

  Their drinks and appetizers came and they both plunged into them, perhaps as a way to avoid more conversation, at least until it became absolutely necessary. They didn’t return to the topic until their entrees were nearly done.

  Landry took a sip of her Riesling and glanced at him.

  “Ready to resume the War of the Roses?” he asked.

  “Oh, I haven’t started to fight.”

  “I think we should be on the same side. A house-divided thing, you know.”

  “I’m in one kind of uniform. You’re in another.”

  “Not that much of a difference, really.”

  “Look, I’m not saying that your aunt wasn’t murdered.”

  “And I’m not necessarily saying that she was. That’s why people investigate. So I’m really not seeing the problem.”

  “You come here, do your thing, and let’s say you find out she was killed.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “Find the killer.”

  “Wrong. That’s for the police to do. That’s my job.”

  “So you want me to do all the grunt work and then hand off the arrest to you?”

  “I don’t need you to help me look good,” she said heatedly.

  “Never said you did. So where does that leave

  “I don’t know.”

  “You could work with me.”

  She glanced sharply at him.

  “I usually work solo,” he added. “So it’s a remarkable offer. Shows I have great confidence in you.”

  “And exactly how would that work? I do it on my off time, the little I have of it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then what? We crack the case and shove my boss’s face in it? How does that advance my career in law enforcement?”

  “I’m not saying it does. And if that’s your only goal then your answer to my offer should be no.”

  “What other goal should I have?” she asked.

  “Bringing to justice somebody who killed an old lady.” He leaned forward, his look growing as dark as he suddenly felt right now. “I hoped that might be why you put on the badge in the first place.”

  “Don’t read me the riot act. I don’t deserve that.”

  “Twenty seconds ago I would have agreed with you.”

  “Do you really want to go down that road? I can make your life miserable.”

  “I think the police department has already done a good job of that.”

  “Yeah, well I’m a lot more subtle than Hooper.”

  “I’m not looking to make enemies, Cheryl. I’m just trying to find out the truth. If this had happened to your family I have to believe you wouldn’t just walk away.”

  This comment seemed to pierce whatever wall Landry had built up during this exchange. She looked away and then down, all the classic signs of capitulation, Puller knew, from interviewing so many suspects.

  She said, “I get how you’re feeling. I really do.”

  “Okay. Then I guess it’s just a matter of where we go from here. But just to be up-front, I’m going to keep looking into this. It’s just how I’m built.”

  He paused, searching Landry’s face for her reaction to this. When she said nothing, he continued. “If I find something substantial, I will bring it to you. Then we can determine what to do from there. Does that seem workable?”

  “What do you define as substantial? If it’s a suspect or a body, I think that might be too late.” “I will work really hard to keep you in the loop the whole way, how about that?”

  “How about if I work with you on my own time?”

  He studied her. “Is that what you want?”

  “I think so, yeah. It’s what you originally suggested, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so. I just never really expected you to bite on it. So why are you?”

  “I don’t like people dying when they didn’t have to.”

  “Then I think we have a deal.”

  As they were leaving the restaurant Puller’s phone buzzed. It was a text from General Carson. She had run down the plate.

  When Puller saw the information his eyes widened.

  This case had just gone to a whole new level.

  CHAPTER 44

  “You want to come back to my place and talk about this some more?” Landry asked as they walked out of Darby’s.

  Puller wasn’t paying attention to her. He was staring down at the phone in his hand. More specifically, he was staring at the text on his phone’s screen.

  “I’m sorry if I’m boring you,” Landry said crossly as she eyed the device in his hand.

  He put it away in his pocket. “Sorry, something just came up. What were you saying?”

  “My place, talk some more? We could walk on the beach. It’s up to you. No skin off my nose if you decline. Just trying to be friendly.” She added, “And keeping you off the streets and out of trouble.”

  Puller thought about this. He still didn’t have a place to stay, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to crash at Landry’s place again. And even though he had finished processing his aunt’s home he still didn’t feel comfortable staying there. She had left it to him, of course, so he had every right to be there if he wanted. But what it really came down to was that until he figured out what had happened to her, Puller didn’t think he deserved to stay in the woman’s house. Not after all those years of not contacting her, letting her tumble from his life like an insignificant piece of debris.

  “You know of any places I can bed down in Paradise?” He paused and smiled. “If you think it�
��s safe enough for me.”

  “Why not stay at your aunt’s?”

  “If those guys in the Chrysler are tailing me it would be too easy for them to keep tabs on me.” “You really think they’re following you?” “Don’t know one way or another. Until I do

  I’m not taking chances.”

  “There’s a place called the Gull Coast. It’s on Gulfstream Avenue. Two blocks south of the Sierra. It’s a little bit more money because it is closer to the beach, but you probably won’t have to worry about being murdered while you’re brushing your teeth.”

  “Sounds right up my alley. Thanks.”

  “So you want to hook up later? I usually take a walk on the beach at night around my condo building.”

  “I’ll meet you there in an hour. That’ll give me time to check into the Gull Coast.”

  “Okay. See you in an hour.”

  She walked to her car and Puller to his. He punched in the numbers on the phone as he pulled out of the parking lot.

  “Wondered what took you so long,” said Carson on the other end of the phone. “I figured you’d call me the second after you got my text.” “Just got a little backed up down here. But tell me something. How can the Pentagon be told to stand down for running a lousy license plate?” “We did trace it, you know. To a big cloud somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Not really, but it might as well have been. Total dead end. I was as surprised as you. Figured it would turn out to be a private company. Then we got the call to knock it off.”

  “Call from who?”

  “The official source apparently did not wish to identify itself to a lowly one-star. I got the word from higher up the chain of command.”

  “So are you in trouble?”

  “I don’t think so. But I might be wrong about that.”

  “I had a friend at USACIL try to run the plate for me. I got called by a Colonel Walmsey. He tried to shame me into coming back and cleaning the mess up, but then he figured out who my father was and backed off. I wonder if he got warned off too.”

  “I don’t know about that. But we sure did. And J2 is not used to having its hand slapped, I can tell you that.”

  “Who has the horsepower to do that?”

  “It’s not a long list. What the higher-ups want to keep secret, they do keep secret, right or wrong.”

  “As a soldier, I get that. As a taxpayer I’m more than a little pissed.”

  “So be pissed. It is what it is.”

  “The two guys?”

  “Anyone’s guess. What did they look like?” “They looked like me, only smaller.”

  “So former military, like you said on our last call.”

  “I don’t know for sure, General.”

  “General?”

  “We’re back on the clock.”

  “Okay,” she said in an amused tone.

  “Maybe they’re still on our side. In fact, since you got called off maybe they are on our side.” “Maybe. But it prompts the question of what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into, Puller.” “Blowback from West Virginia?”

  “That’s what I was thinking. It touched a lot of very hot wires. It looked like things turned out great and you were the hero, but you know D.C. Things could have changed. Maybe they’re looking for a scapegoat for a reason unknown to either of us. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.”

  “Meaning me as the scapegoat?”

  “And I was involved too, if you recall.”

  “So why would they be down here tracking me—”

  He gripped the phone so hard he thought he felt the shell begin to cave in.

  “Puller?”

  Til call you back.”

  “What is it?”

  Til call you back.”

  Puller clicked off and hit a hard right.

  Because the Chrysler guys kept showing up where he was, he had simply assumed that they had to be after him.

  That had been an assumption he had no business making.

  While it was true that the guys had taken up a tail on him—they had been seen around the Sierra after all—they had to have picked him up from some point.

  And he knew what that point might have been.

  My aunt’s house.

  They might not have been following him. This might have nothing to do with blowback from what had happened in West Virginia. They might have been checking out Betsy Simon’s home.

  And it wasn’t a huge stretch to their having killed her. He didn’t care if they were from the Pentagon or if someone high up was trying to call the dogs off. If they had killed his aunt they were going to pay for it.

  He punched the gas and the Tahoe sped off into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 45

  Puller parked two blocks over and walked the rest of the way to his aunt’s home.

  He did it by a very circuitous route. If people who could call off the Pentagon were involved in this, then Puller had to raise the level of his game accordingly.

  He stopped near a fenceline and studied the terrain ahead. It was ten o’clock, dark even on the Emerald Coast, where the sun purportedly never stopped shining. It was quiet on Orion Street. A slight cooling breeze was blowing in from off the water. A car started up somewhere, its ignition shattering the silence.

  Puller hunkered down and took cover behind a bush to remove himself from the possibility of headlights reflecting off him. The car drove past. It wasn’t the sedan with the two men inside.

  But Puller still recognized it.

  It was Jane Ryon driving past in her blue Ford Fiesta, the dent in the side door looming large in the wash of streetlights.

  What the hell was she doing here? She had already gotten her things from his aunt’s house.

  There was no way he could follow her. The Fiesta was nearly out of sight as it turned the corner. By the time he hustled back to his vehicle and took up the chase she would be long gone.

  He slipped out into the open and continued down the sidewalk, his gaze moving like radar. He reached his aunt’s house and opted for entry through the rear door. The lights in Cookie’s house next door were on. Apparently the retired baker was in for the night. Or perhaps he had not yet gone out.

  As he was walking through his aunt’s backyard Puller heard a little yap. He trotted to the fence and peered over.

  Sadie looked up at him and yapped again.

  Puller eyed the dog and then glanced over at Cookie’s house. Then he eyed the dog again.

  What had Cookie said to him? He knew the Storrows, the couple found dead on the beach. They were friends. He was stunned by their deaths. Just like he had been stunned by his friend Betsy’s death. There was nothing surprising there. But there was one unanswered question.

  Had Betsy Simon known the Storrows?

  He looked down at Sadie barking. The little dog seemed sad. And lonely. And, if it was possible, her little features seemed confused.

  Cookie said he would usually let Sadie out late in the morning to do her business. Puller had seen multiple leashes hanging on a hook by the back door when he had visited the house previously. And he had seen Cookie walking Sadie.

  But Florida had snakes and gators and other types of nocturnal predators. Why let your little dog out alone at night even in a fenced backyard?

  Puller jumped the fence and landed near Sadie, who jumped back in surprise and started yapping again. Puller scooped the little dog up in one arm and pulled his Mu with his right hand. Sadie, perhaps sensing that something was amiss, stopped yapping. Her tongue gently licked Puller’s arm.

  Puller kept his gaze on the house. He reached the back steps and slipped quietly up them. The door was unlocked. He passed through, checking out all possible ambush angles before venturing farther in.

  He cleared one room after another, keeping low and to the side and giving limited opportunity for anyone hiding inside to get a clean shot at him.

  His search ended in the upstairs bathroom.

  He put Sadie down and the littl
e dog started licking at the water.

  Puller put his gun away and stared down at Cookie.

  He was naked and in the bathtub.

  More precisely, he was resting at the bottom of the tub.

  Puller made no move to pull him out and attempt to resuscitate him. It would have been for naught.

  The eyes stared up at Puller.

  The eyes of a dead man.

  Drowning, he was certain, would be the official cause of death.

  Just like his aunt next door.

  Folks found submerged in water usually died because water was in their lungs, where water should not be.

  The question then became, how did the person become submerged?

  Three possible scenarios presented themselves.

  Cookie could have had some medical crisis, a heart attack, a stroke, a seizure, or a drug reaction that had rendered him unconscious. He then would have slipped under the water and died.

  Or he could have hit his head, knocked himself out, and gone under.

  Or someone could have held him under the water.

  Puller did not think the fourth possibility, suicide, was realistic. The body had its own emergency reaction to attempted suicide by drowning.

  It fought for air. You could kill yourself out in the ocean by drowning because you gave yourself no opportunity to get back to land.

  But not in a bathtub.

  Puller spotted the bottles of medication on the sink next to the tub. He didn’t touch any of them, but did read the labels.

  Blood pressure pills. Fluid retention capsules. Arthritis. Vascular. Beta blockers. Pills presumably to counteract the interaction of the other medications. The bottles went on and on.

  Welcome to being old in America, the land of the blissfully overly medicated.

  Puller looked around once more, taking in tiny details that might have great significance. Seeing nothing else, he decided he had intruded enough on what was now no longer a suburban residence, but a potential crime scene.