The Big Finish

by James W. Hall

  “Like doing it myself. It builds my muscles. A girl needs muscles, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” Thorn said. “Muscles come in very handy.”

  “Come on, Duke,” she said.

  The big dog followed them up the path toward the house, nosing Thorn hard in the butt twice along the way.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  SUNDAY WASN’T THE BEST DAY for it, but Sunday was all Sugarman had. Mid-afternoon, blasting along I-95 at twenty miles an hour above the limit, traveling the same route as two days before, cell phone pressed to his ear, calling the Florida Highway Patrol office in Tallahassee.

  After fighting through the phone cascade, then half an hour on hold and four handoffs, he finally found a state employee willing to help track down the green Nissan Tina Gathercole had hijacked from the Shell station in Vero Beach two days earlier.

  Sheila Barnes had a south Georgia voice, sweetly asking him to identify himself, which Sugarman did by giving his old badge number and work history from twelve years ago when he was a deputy for Monroe County sheriff’s department. Sheila sounded skeptical, then put him on hold, and Sugarman thought, shit, here we go, impersonating an officer, but she came back in a few minutes and said that, yes, in fact, two days ago a green 2003 Nissan had been found abandoned in the emergency lane three miles south of the Vero Beach exit, and it was subsequently ticketed then later towed to an impound lot servicing Indian River County. Sheila gave him the name of the trooper who’d written the violation and the phone number for the garage where the car was being stored.

  Sunday must’ve been a big day for the impound garage because a gruff guy snatched it up on the first ring.

  Yeah, they still had the car, at least for the moment. Vehicle was stolen from a Miami shopping mall three days ago, the owner was on his way up right now to collect it. No, there was no blood or sign of struggle inside the car, and nothing of note left behind. A few CDs, some cigarettes, loose change, he’d check again if Sugarman wanted, but he was pretty sure the car was clean.

  Sugar asked him, if he didn’t mind, to give it another look, but don’t touch or disturb anything, this was a homicide investigation. The driver’s body was found a few hours north of the location where the car was abandoned and Sugarman was trying to piece together exactly what happened. When the tow truck guy started hemming and hawing, Sugarman told the guy that the driver of the car was a woman and she’d been killed by being suffocated with meat.

  The guy groaned, set the phone down, and came back in a few minutes. Quieter, subdued. No, he’d found nothing in the car. Clean as a new whistle.

  One last thing Sugarman wanted to know. Was the tow truck guy absolutely one hundred percent positive the car was found south of Vero Beach exit 147, not north? The guy huffed, smacked the phone down again, and came back in two or three minutes, paper rattling in the background.

  He had the record sheet in his hand. Yeah, yeah, it was three miles south of exit 147. South, south, south. Now you got everything you want?

  “Don’t go near the car again,” Sugarman said. “And don’t deliver it to its owner. The car’s an active crime scene. FBI will be contacting you shortly.”

  If the car was found south of exit 147, it meant Tina was heading home after playing her part in Cruz’s bogus sting operation. Which meant somebody intercepted her, and that person was likely in league with Cruz. It was hard to imagine how the guy managed to shield what he was doing when he bound her up and tossed her in the trunk, all this going down along a busy section of the interstate. People whizzing by.

  Sugarman settled on a more likely scenario. The killer hailed Tina, got her to pull over, then he strong-armed her into his vehicle, took her to a remote location to truss her up and put her in the trunk. In that case, Tina probably recognized the person in the car, which meant this encounter may have been a part of the plan from the outset. Cruz promising she’d send somebody to extract Tina from the stolen vehicle and drive her home to Key Largo, then double-crossing her big time. All of it was speculation, but Sugarman was sure it was one of those versions, or something close.

  He called Sheffield. Got him as he was about to enter a Home Depot to buy a few more gallons of paint.

  “You might want to call a pal at the bureau, let them know the car Tina Gathercole was kidnapped from is about to be delivered to its owner, contaminating a crime scene.”

  Sheffield sighed, took down the number of the impound lot.

  “That it?”

  “No. One more thing.”

  Sugarman asked if he’d be willing to throw some weight around with the St. Johns County sheriff’s office, find out the name of the homicide cop assigned to Tina’s case, see if he was available for a sit-down in half an hour.

  “You’re asking me to impersonate my former self?”

  “If you’re uncomfortable with that, I’ll find another way.”

  “Will this make us even?”

  “We’re even now.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Frank said. “Give me ten minutes.”

  A little guilt, Sugarman thought, could work a lot of magic.

  Fifteen miles up the interstate, Sheffield called back.

  “Deputy David Randolph is waiting for you at the sheriff’s office. He’s not the lead investigator, but that guy, name of Dickerson, apparently he’s a pompous shithead. Randolph sounds like a decent guy. I asked him to open the murder book for you, share whatever case files they’ve got. Told him it was part of a federal investigation. For the rest of the afternoon, you’re an FBI agent. Enjoy it, because this is it, Sugar, all the assistance I can provide. I don’t want them to yank my goddamn pension before I get the first check.”

  The St. Johns County sheriff’s office was twenty minutes off the interstate on a stark stretch of roadway across from an industrial park. He found Randolph at the coffee machine refilling the reservoir with water.

  Sugarman introduced himself, apologized that he was in a bit of a hurry, had an urgent appointment a few hundred miles up the road. Randolph didn’t ask for any identification.

  The deputy was a good six-four with a hard-looking body and a soft face. Mouth on the edge of a smile like he was easily amused or in on some cosmic joke. There’d been a time when Sugarman wore a similar smile and had a similar outlook, and maybe someday that sensation would return. But for now his own face felt like he was wearing a plaster cast set in a scowl of outrage. Behind his eyes he’d been feeling a pressure building like a gallon of hot tears dammed up back there.

  Randolph led him to a conference room and laid out on a long table the documents they’d collected so far. Two murders, an eighteen-year-old African American male and Tina Gathercole.

  “You want some privacy?”

  “I could use that, yes.”

  “I gotta say, you seem pretty courteous for an FBI guy. I haven’t met that many, but you’re not like the others. Abrupt, abrasive. Bunch of a-holes, mainly.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Randolph left him with the ME’s two autopsy reports along with sets of photos for each, and the two crime scene accounts, photos of the scenes and investigators’ notes. There was also a handful of photos that were still shots taken from the security video footage at the burger place’s drive-through window and more images from another camera mounted above the rear door.

  In the set of photos from the drive-through, a round-faced stocky man with big lips and a shaved head was leaning out the window of a four-door sedan.

  The other security camera at the rear of the burger joint had caught the same husky guy approaching the rear door of the restaurant. The time stamp marked it at 2:23 A.M.

  Sugarman didn’t bother with the autopsy photos. He’d seen more than his share of those kinds of images and didn’t want them skittering around in his head the rest of his life, especially the ones of Tina. He scanned the ME’s report and learned the meat crammed into the mouth of the young fast food worker was uncooked, while the meat T
ina had choked on was flame broiled and there were no signs of bread or condiments, mayo, ketchup, pickles, or lettuce in her airway.

  The manager of the burger joint had given a detailed statement, which was translated into familiar cop euphemisms that were meant to be neutral and professional but always sounded to Sugarman like deadpan satire.

  The verbal altercation with the suspect concerned three issues. First, the worker who would soon become the victim of a murder casually noted to the drive-through customer that it was unusual for anyone to order a plain burger without cheese or any toppings whatsoever. The suspect objected to what he considered the worker’s haughty attitude. Further hostile interchange took place between the suspect and the victim, at which time the manager of the establishment came to her worker’s side and asked if there was a problem. The suspect made further antagonistic remarks to both manager and worker indicating he found the entire fast food industry to be guilty of abhorrent behavior regarding the manner in which chickens, cows, and pigs were raised. Following his final hostile remark, the suspect drove off with the three plain hamburgers.

  Sugarman found Deputy Randolph at his desk drinking coffee and reading from his computer screen. He asked if Randolph could make him a copy of a couple of the photos. They might come in handy up the road.

  Randolph made the copies and escorted Sugarman outside to his car.

  “You nail this guy, you’ll let us know, right? Professional courtesy. I mean, this kid at the fast food place, Anthony Pope, he was a straight-A student at our county high school, track star, ran the mile, good hardworking kid with a single mom and three young sisters. Had a scholarship to go to Gainesville. Sang in the choir.” Randolph’s eyes were misty, his voice breaking on “choir.”

  “I’ll let you know,” Sugarman said. “You have my word.”

  Back on the interstate, holding it steady at ninety in the seventy zone, Sugar tugged the drive-through photo from the folder and had another look.

  The guy had his hand outstretched from his car window and was about to take hold of the white paper sack from the attendant.

  The man’s face was fleshy with small, moody eyes, a broad forehead, and a formidable hawk nose. Thick neck, big shoulders, the kind of goon you’d expect to see working as a bouncer in a biker bar.

  One side of his upper lip was curled upward in a snarl that showed a glimpse of his right incisor. The expression seemed to sit easily on that mouth as if this was a man who scowled habitually. All in all, it was a harsh, resentful face, one that would be hard to love and seemed unlikely to express either affection or tenderness. His eyes were murky and lightless, possibly a result of the poor quality of the nighttime photo, or maybe that’s how the guy really looked, a pitiless and vacant stare.

  Of course Sugarman knew he was projecting. He had no way of knowing if this man was ever tender or affectionate, loved or unloved. But he was pretty damn sure of one thing. Those three naked hamburger patties the man was holding in his right hand wound up choking to death a woman Sugarman had cared about a great deal.

  TWENTY-NINE

  AFTER THORN FLED, X-88 STUMBLED out of the car, straightened his shoulders, probed his throbbing nose. Numb, but not flattened. He drew out the plugs to see if he could still smell and found that his nostrils were swollen but not completely clogged.

  While Cruz sat in the front seat of the car and recovered, X stood beside her and made the case for returning to the farm. It was no use chasing the redhead without a fresh sample of her scent.

  “Whatever it takes,” she said. “We can’t let her slip away.”

  At the farm, Laurie and Pixie stayed with the car while Dobbins, with a hankie pressed to his bloody nose, followed X’s orders and went for Ziploc bags and brought them to the room where Cassandra was imprisoned.

  X was standing next to the mound of red hair piled in a corner.

  “Hers?” He kicked at the pile.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dobbins said. “Burkhart thought hacking it off would get her talking. It didn’t work. Nothing did.”

  X-88 picked up a handful of hair, sniffed it, then stuffed it inside the bag and sealed it.

  “You going to tell me what the hell you’re doing?” Dobbins was planted in the doorway. “These fuckers are absconding and you two’re playing games.”

  X bent over and pressed his nose to the vinyl seat where Cassandra had been bound up. He looked back at Cruz and nodded, took out his pocketknife, and sliced a square of vinyl from the seat and tucked it in the other plastic bag.

  “Colored town,” X said. “We’ll start there. Where Thorn was headed.”

  X was getting in the car, Dobbins and Cruz already in their seats, when Pixie tapped him on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow.

  When they’d moved a few yards away, she said, “I know what you’re thinking, X. You want to burn this place down, destroy it. It’s horrible, all these pigs in the cages, your worst nightmare, hell on earth. But I’m pleading with you, don’t do it, X. Please, as a favor to me.”

  “Favor?”

  “I know this is sudden, and I’m sorry, but I’m staying here.”

  “Staying where?”

  “I mean staying for good. She invited me and I said yes.”

  Pixie cut a look toward Laurie, who was leaning against a tree nearby, smoking what looked like a joint.

  “You and her? Hell, you just met the woman a few hours ago.”

  “There was a day when I’d just met you, X. You were an impulse and that worked out pretty good.”

  “I haven’t seen you say two words to her. I haven’t seen you and her even look at each other. Who the hell is she anyway?”

  “You haven’t paid much attention to me lately.”

  “You don’t even know that girl, Pixie.”

  “You sound like my mother. Can you hear yourself?”

  Yeah, he did. He sounded like fucking Cruz.

  “I wouldn’t even consider it except when you tried to push me off on Varla in St. Augustine, then what you said about the train coming to the station, you meant that, didn’t you?”

  “I meant it.”

  “Soon?”

  “Can’t say. But yeah, feels like it should be arriving shortly.”

  “I’m sorry, X. I’m really sorry. You’re hurting, aren’t you? The headaches?”

  X waved off her question.

  “Your old lady isn’t going to like this.”

  “Are you kidding? She doesn’t care. She’s never cared. She’ll be glad to get rid of me. I’m the sick and twisted daughter, an embarrassment.”

  From the car Dobbins yelled at them to hurry the fuck up.

  “Pixie living on a hog farm.” He said it, adjusting to the idea.

  “So now you can’t burn this place down, X. I see it in your face, that’s what you were planning, some way or another blow it up, but you can’t. I’m staying here, and listen, I know it sounds crazy, but I was thinking maybe you could stay too.

  “I had this idea, the three of us, we get rid of Dobbins. Laurie hates him, wants to be rid of him. It could be just the three of us, we could fix this place, make it right, put the pigs out to pasture or whatever, go natural, you don’t need to burn down everything just because it’s wrong the way it is.”

  “So that’s what this is about? She’s angling for me to kill her brother?”

  “No, it’s about fixing this place, making it right. What you believe in.”

  “Let the pigs loose? Let them run free in the fields? Let them get old and die a natural death? You can’t make a living like that. It’s a fantasy, Pixie. That’s some silly-girl dream.”

  “Stay, X. Don’t destroy it. Stay with me and Laurie. You’re always saying you want to fix things. Well, this is your chance. Fix this place, don’t tear it down.”

  “It’s a fantasy.”

  “We could make it happen,” Pixie said. “I know we could, the three of us could make it work. We’d throw in together, become a weird, fucked-up
little family, find a way.”

  “Okay, look,” he said. “For you, Pixie, just because it’s you, and because the promise I made to your dad, I won’t burn it down. But you got to know I can’t stay. This is everything I hate. This is the worst fucking place in the known universe. But hey, you’re welcome to it.”

  He reached out and ruffled her white-blond hair, scratched his fingernails into her scalp the way she liked. She closed her eyes and went a little slack. After a few seconds more, X stopped and Pixie’s eyes came open.

  Cruz shouted at them to hurry up.

  “Goddamn it, I’ll miss you, X. You’re fucking unique. I’ll miss you.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You probably will.”

  X-88 left her standing there, got behind the wheel, and drove them the ten minutes through the Mexican slum and parked on the road on the outskirts of Belmont Heights. He felt bad. Maybe it was about losing Pixie, or maybe it was just his goddamn nose, swollen and sore from Thorn’s punches. If it hadn’t been for the plugs in his nostrils, his nose might’ve been smashed flat and pouring blood like Dobbins’s was.

  They got out and he took a few quick sniffs of the air.

  “We’re close,” X said, and led Cruz and Dobbins into Belmont Heights.

  They wound in and out between houses. Children peeked from windows, and a pack of mongrels tagged along barking till X halted and glared their way and they scattered.

  There was no sign of men anywhere.

  He was carrying the three plastic Ziploc bags. The red hair, the vinyl swatch, and in the third was an orange T-shirt from a bar in Key Largo. Cruz picked it up on her first trip to Pine Haven, loot she’d found in the tree huggers’ van, the shirt was Flynn’s. A while ago X took a single snort of the T-shirt. Its scent was a blend of wet wood, caramel, vanilla tea, and toasted bread, sharp and distinctive though not nearly as zesty as Cassandra’s aroma.

  Her mass of red hair was dense with odor.

  Though it was a challenge to smell anything at all beneath the haze of pig shit blanketing the area, in that tangle of red hair he’d detected the nuttiness of marzipan, damp stones, a grassy pasture with a tinge of mint, and a background of cat piss and yeasty warm biscuit. All of which told him she’d been living outdoors, sleeping on pine needles, bathing in river water, using no deodorant or toothpaste for months, and she’d been engaged in unsanitary practices, employing neither soap nor toilet paper. Her hair was sour and greasy, flecked with fecal matter.