Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  “Did he say what happened?”

  “Funny thing. It got pretty nasty over there, but Jim could always talk about it, he could describe it—except when it came to his problem with this one guy. He’d always start into it and just shut down. I figured whatever it was, it must have been a pretty serious business.”

  “You said he would ‘start into it,’ as if he wanted to talk about it, but couldn’t. What did he say at those times? Did he give you any idea what had happened between them?”

  The man continued to massage his temples in long, slow circles.

  “Mr. Arranzio, did he ever mention anyone named Andy?”

  Arranzio squinted hard.

  Nick looked down into his teacup and noticed the small flecks of black leaf resting on the bottom. The Chinese believed that the remains of tea leaves formed symbols that could reveal hidden knowledge. The rim of the cup foretold the immediate future, the sides of the cup revealed more distant knowledge, and the bottom of the cup contained the darkest secrets of all.

  “Mr. Arranzio,” Nick said without looking up, “did you know that Jim McAllister used cocaine?”

  Silence.

  Nick leaned forward. “I’m not with the DEA, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  The man shook his head slowly. “You must think I’m some kind of idiot to ask me a question like that.”

  Nick raised both hands. “You’re right—I apologize. Let me put it another way. I know Jim McAllister used cocaine—I examined his body shortly after death. And I know his cocaine use started in the Gulf. What I want to know is, do you think it had anything to do with this problem he kept talking about?”

  Mr. Arranzio sat quietly for a moment, glaring at Nick. He took a long, slow, backward glance over both shoulders, then leaned in again.

  “It was part of it,” he said quietly, and when Nick opened his mouth to speak again the man added sharply, “and that’s all I’m going to say about it. Clear?”

  Both men sat back in their seats and studied each other for a moment. Mr. Arranzio shook his head and made a kind of snorting sound.

  “What kind of an investigator did you say you are?”

  “A forensic entomologist.”

  He sneered. “Seems to me you’re asking the wrong questions.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “When did Jim die?”

  “Less than two weeks ago.”

  “And Desert Storm was over eight years ago. You keep asking about what happened in the Gulf. I’d be a lot more interested in what happened after.”

  “Go on.”

  “What’s the street price of cocaine these days?”

  Nick shrugged. “I suppose a hundred, a hundred-and-fifty bucks a gram. Why?”

  “What do you suppose a moderate user like Jim would consume in a week—four, five grams? Well, the last time I saw Jim he was flat busted—not a dime to his name, no job, no prospects. Now where does a guy like that come up with seven-hundred-and-fifty bucks a week for flake?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You beg, you borrow, or you steal. It’s as simple as that.”

  Mr. Arranzio slid to the edge of the booth and stood up. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. Answers are pretty scarce these days.”

  Nick handed him his card. “That guy you mentioned—the one that Jim McAllister had the big problem with. If his name ever comes back to you, drop me a line, will you?”

  Nick looked down once again at his teacup and the random bits of stem and leaf that still clung to the bottom. He stared long and hard—and then a pattern began to emerge.

  Kathryn heard the key in the lock and opened her eyes. The door opened and Nick entered, stopping to observe her motionless form before stepping into the bathroom.

  “Too much tea,” he said. “Did you get any sleep?”

  Kathryn raised her head and looked at the clock—4 a.m. She lay diagonally across the queen-sized bed with the bedspread pulled roughly over her, exactly as she lay down three short hours ago. She heard the sound of rushing water, and Nick stepped out, wiping his hands on a coarse white towel. He dropped it on the carpet and looked at her again. He stepped slowly to the bed and sat down, his hip touching hers. He said nothing for a moment, watching, then leaned forward and gently straightened the bedspread stretched across her. His eyes were truly enormous at this distance, and they hung above her like chestnut moons.

  “Mrs. Guilford,” he said quietly. “I want to ask you something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Did your bank ever grant a substantial loan to Jim McAllister?”

  Kathryn blinked hard and worked to clear her mind.

  “Are you asking me if I ever approved a loan to Jimmy?”

  Nick nodded.

  “No. Never.”

  “If I checked the bank’s records, is that what I would find?”

  Kathryn paused. “Did you just ask me if I’m lying?”

  “I’ve been wondering how your friend managed to come up with several hundred dollars a week to finance his drug habit.”

  “I work in commercial lending,” she reminded him. “Jimmy would never have qualified for a personal loan either—he had no income, no collateral …”

  “If you don’t beg, and you don’t borrow,” he said thoughtfully, “then you steal. Did your friend have any criminal record? Burglary, breaking and entering, assault?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Nick raised one eyebrow and Kathryn rolled her eyes.

  “None that I know of.” She sighed. “If he did, Peter would have to know.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I keep telling myself—Peter would have to know.”

  He sat for another minute staring straight ahead at the wall, then slapped his hands down on the mattress.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Home, of course.”

  Kathryn glanced back at the clock. “Right now? It’s four o’clock in the morning!”

  “Okay.” Nick shrugged. “Then roll over.”

  Kathryn sat upright. “I’ll get my things.”

  As Teddy turned his Camry down the secluded dirt road, his headlights flashed across a pickup truck half-hidden by a grove of trees, then onto a single-wide trailer a hundred yards ahead. The trailer was long and roomy enough but it was mud-ugly. Despite Teddy’s best efforts to add a touch of decoration or landscaping here and there, it was still essentially a tin shoebox with a propane tank attached. Its one redeeming virtue was that it was cheap, and that made it the perfect residence for a research assistant on temporary assignment.

  He parked in front of the trash cans, which had been plundered for the third night in a row by the local raccoons—that was the problem with living so far from the main road. He tidied up and fastened the lids down securely, took two sacks of groceries from the backseat, and headed for the door. A single cinder block step led up to the doorway, which was covered by a twisted aluminum screen door that long ago ceased to serve any useful purpose. He went through the gesture of entering the key in the lock, though the door fit so loosely in its frame that all it really needed was a good push to open it. He stepped in and fumbled for the light switch.

  He flicked it on.

  Nothing.

  He turned left into the shadows, feeling his way carefully toward the kitchen counter. The sagging plywood floor creaked with every step. He stopped to hoist the paper sacks higher, and the floor creaked behind him—a deep, groaning sigh—and Teddy stood erect, straining to extend his senses out into the darkness. He felt exactly like the Blattidae, the cockroaches that lined his cupboards and pantry, whose tiny hairs search the air for the slightest vibration and allow them to react ten times faster than the human eye can blink. Teddy saw nothing, he heard nothing, but he sensed something—a weight, a presence, a shifting shape in the blackness behind him.

  He felt something cold touch the base of his skull and through the back of his eyes saw a blinding
white flash of fire.

  We’re here.” Nick gently nudged Kathryn’s shoulder. “You slept like a brick.”

  She shook her head and felt the deep mists of sleep begin to evaporate from her mind. They were back in Rayford, parked directly in front of her house. She looked at her watch: 9:30 a.m.

  “I feel like I slept on a brick,” she groaned, stretching and rubbing her backside.

  “I thought I’d drop you off.” He nodded toward the house.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got one quick stop to make, then I’m headed to the lab to check in with Teddy. That last specimen should be ready to pop any time. I should have heard from him by now. I checked my cell phone just outside of Raleigh; it said One Call Missed from Teddy’s cell phone, but there was no message. I called the lab—no answer.”

  “I should go with you.”

  “No need,” he said firmly. “You get some rest. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

  Kathryn reluctantly walked to the house. At the door she turned back.

  “As soon as you know anything,” she called after him as he pulled away in a billow of blue smoke.

  He drove less than a mile and parked again on Dalrymple Street, two full blocks from the sheriff’s office where he could clearly see the Crown Victoria patrol car parked in front. It was almost an hour before the figure of the sheriff emerged from the office, followed closely by a second and much larger figure ambling behind. The patrol car pulled slowly away from the curb, and Nick reached for his door.

  “Excuse me, is Sheriff St. Clair here?”

  A stout-legged woman about fifty years of age sat staring intently at a glowing computer monitor. A shapeless blue dress hung haphazardly over her trunk, and short, tight curls hugged her head like a salt-and-pepper shower cap. Her left hand held open an instruction manual while the thick, blunt fingers of her right hand occasionally pecked at a key.

  “Just missed him.” She nodded toward the door without breaking her concentration. “He went on rounds—should be back in about an hour.”

  Nick cocked his head to one side and looked at her.

  “Wait a minute. You must be Agnes, the one Pete talks so much about.”

  She glanced up from the flickering screen.

  “I’m Dr. Nicholas Polchak.” He rolled up a chair across from her and casually straddled it. “But you can call me Nick. I’m working with your boss on an investigation. Has he mentioned me?”

  “Can’t say he has.”

  “Well, he talks about you all the time. It’s always, ‘Agnes does this,’ or ‘Agnes takes care of that.’ Sounds to me like you do most everything around here.”

  “You name it, I do it,” she said with increasing enthusiasm. “I’m the secretary, accountant, and dispatcher. I’m the first one here every morning and the last one out at night. See this?” She pointed to a cheap wood-burned plaque above her desk that proclaimed, “IDEA girl.” “That’s me—the IDEA girl. That stands for I Do Everything Almost.”

  “I can tell you one thing. They sure don’t pay you enough.”

  “Who you tellin’?” she said with a backward glance. “I swear sometimes I’m nursemaid and mother to those two boys!”

  Nick nodded sympathetically. “What about time off? Do you ever get a vacation around here?”

  “It’s just the three of us. I take vacation when they take vacation. I can’t make rounds or take calls without them, and they can’t do nothin’ without me—so we just close up shop for a few days. The Harnett County boys come over and take our calls.”

  “When was your last vacation, Agnes?”

  “I got three days back in February—no, January. Went to see my sister—she lives up Edenton way, you know? She got this disk problem, gets laid up real bad, pain shoots all down her legs and—”

  “Six months ago? Six months with no vacation?”

  “Till a couple weeks ago, that is.”

  Nick leaned forward and smiled. “Well, it’s about time. So—the whole office shut down just a couple of weeks ago?”

  “I went back again to see Rayleen—not that it did much good, not this time. That disk of hers, it just pops out on her one day and then right back in the next. She never—”

  “And the boys,” he cut in. “Where did they head off to?”

  “Down to Myrtle Beach. Spent a few days in the sun.”

  Nick paused. “That’s funny. I thought Pete said he did a little hunting—down in Georgia. You’re sure they didn’t go to that place of his in Valdosta?”

  “It was Myrtle Beach all right. See? They brought me this.” From the corner of her desk she slid a small, paste gray sand dollar.

  Nick turned the sand dollar over slowly.

  “I guess it must have been the beach then. Where else could you get one of these?” He handed it back to her. “Did they bring you any pictures?’

  “Can’t say as they did.”

  “No pictures?”

  “Do you take pictures on vacation?”

  He smiled. “You must have had a couple of sunburned boys to take care of when they got back.”

  She paused. “That’s funny …”

  Nick rose from his chair. “Agnes, you’ve been a big help—and I’m glad to hear your sister is doing better.”

  “Want me to tell Pete you stopped by?”

  “No need. He’ll know soon enough.”

  Nick slumped a little lower in his seat as he turned onto County Road 42, headed back toward the lab. He was tired—bone tired—but he was not about to rest. This was the way he preferred to work, driving himself day and night, never stopping to rest until his mind was no longer able to focus—and his mind was clearer than it had been in days.

  The sheriff and his deputy were out of town just a week ago, contemporaneous with the death of James McAllister. They went to Myrtle Beach—or so they told their secretary. They brought her back a sand dollar—maybe from the beach, maybe from any gift shop between there and Miami—but no other evidence of their stay. And no tan. A few days at the beach and no sun?

  Got to check the meteorological records for Myrtle Beach last week.

  Nick began to drum his fingers on the steering wheel in time with some imaginary tune. Behind the great glasses, his dark eyes darted from thought to thought like worker bees.

  He rolled to a crunching stop in front of the green Quonset.

  That’s odd. Teddy’s car is not here.

  Nick headed straight for the office. He opened the door—and then froze. The left exit door stood wide open.

  He glanced quickly around the office. Nothing seemed to be missing, nothing was broken, but the exit door had been left open—an error that Teddy would never make. Too many predacious species could be allowed in, or …

  Allowed out.

  He ran to the Biotronette and began to search through the specimens. Left ocular … thoracic … right temporal … right ocular … They were there. They were all there.

  Wait. Where is … Where could it possibly …

  He searched desperately around the room. There in the center of the worktable was a single plastic container—with the lid removed.

  Nick ripped a cardboard box from a shelf and dumped its contents onto the floor, fumbling frantically for another lid. He found one and slammed it down on top of the open container.

  Too late.

  Inside the container was nothing but a tiny, empty capsule about the size of a grain of rice.

  He lunged for the open door and jerked it shut. He stood silently, his eyes searching every inch of the ceiling and walls in the desperate hope that the fly had not yet escaped the lab. He began to step slowly around the office, waving his arms in great circles over every table and shelf, straining every sense to detect a quick streak of black or a telltale buzz.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but a handful of moths drawn to the stark fluorescent ceiling lights the night before.

  The door was left open last nig
ht.

  Nick searched the worktable near the Biotronette and found Teddy’s log, the one he used to record changes in the specimens at fifteen-minute intervals. He fanned through the pages, scanning the entries—almost nothing had been entered for more than a day now, when the rest of the specimens had emerged from their puparia.

  1515 Left ocular specimen reaches eclosion

  1530 No change

  1545 Second temoral specimen reaches eclosion

  1600 No change

  He flipped forward to yesterday’s entries—it was an endless list of “No change” notations penned in Teddy’s flawless script. He ran his finger down the list, turned the page, and continued until he came to the final entry:

  2356 inal specimen eclosion

  He closed the book. At 11:56 last night the final specimen emerged from its puparium, and Teddy faithfully noted the event in his log—but what happened next? How did the specimen come to be left out of the Biotronette and allowed to escape? Why was the lab left open and unsecured?

  Nick glanced down again at the cluttered counter.

  Teddy’s cell phone.

  Nick flipped it open and jabbed the TALK button twice; the auto-redial activated, and a number appeared on the tiny LCD screen—Nick’s number. Teddy did try to call—but if he couldn’t get through, why didn’t he leave a message? Nick pulled out his own phone and checked again: No New Messages.

  It never occurred to Nick for even an instant that these events could be accidental. Teddy was a consummate professional who took pains with the slightest details of his work. The idea that he would leave a door open or allow a critical specimen to escape was more than impossible, it was unthinkable. No, someone else had been here, someone who had purposely left the office door open—someone who had an interest in allowing this specific specimen to escape. But how did they get in? How did they get around Teddy? And why was Teddy’s cell phone still there?

  Where is Teddy?

  Nick grabbed the logbook, threw open the lab door, and ran for the parking lot.

  Kathryn sat cross-legged in front of the coffee table, working her way through accumulated junk mail and stopping to pay an occasional bill. She hadn’t been able to “get some rest” as Nick had suggested, but that came as no surprise. Sleep was a rare and delicate bubble for Kathryn, and once disturbed it was impossible to restore. Her night’s rest consisted of the few moments of sweet oblivion she had managed to snatch between bone-jarring potholes on I-95 South.