Footprints of the Dead (Tom Gabriel #1)

by Tim Ellis

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rae had her face pressed against the window, and her mouth hung open like Macy’s front doors at a clearance sale. Dribble had begun to slither down the glass.

  Except for a single vehicle with its headlights full on coming up behind them, the A1A back to St. Augustine was deserted at that time of the morning.

  He was feeling particularly pleased with himself that he was going to return Allegre’s truck in one piece. Even when he’d told her he’d bring it back unmarked, he didn’t really believe it himself. And then when he’d seen the truck. Well, she would have been hard pressed to identify which mark was new and which was old – the truck was a nut and bolt away from the scrap yard.

  So, after a night on stake-out, what did they have? Who’d have thought Oscar Gilbert would have snuck out of the poker game the back way. If it hadn’t been for Rae, would he have found out? Yes, he was sure he would have gone in that garden and confirmed Gilbert was where he was meant to be. Was he fooling himself that he still had what it took to be a PI? He could have sat outside that house until the sun came up, none the wiser. Maybe he was looking at himself through rose-tinted glasses. Maybe he was merely a has-been with an inflated ego.

  And where the hell had Gibson gone? It was unlikely that the person in the Chrysler who had picked him up had driven him back to Summer Haven – it was too far away. In which case, where had they gone? Did Gibson tell his wife he played poker every night, or was it just on a Wednesday?

  Who was the person in the Chrysler? They’d find that out when Mona ran the license plate.

  The car behind was nearly on top of him. The lights were still on full beam. He tipped the rear view mirror downwards so he wouldn’t be blinded. To signal his displeasure, he pressed the hazard button, but nothing happened. Something else that didn’t work.

  Why would someone from Summer Haven drive all this way to pick up Gibson, and then take him somewhere in the middle of the night? Gibson was up to no good, that was for sure – and he had a partner in crime.

  Instead of answers though, he and Rae were simply piling more questions on top of the stack they already had. They needed to get some answers soon. The longer this went on, the less chance they had of finding out the truth. Carrie had said that they didn’t have much time left, and that the bad guys had begun destroying the evidence – what evidence?

  The jigsaw was spread all over the floor, but he had no picture to tell him how the pieces fit together –, and no edge or corner pieces. He and Carrie had gone through a phase of completing jigsaws, but this was the most difficult one he had ever tried to piece together. He could have used Carrie’s help with this one. She was always better at puzzles than he was. He kept getting distracted by Carrie.

  There was a loud noise, which he’d heard many times before. Someone was shooting at them.

  The front and rear windshields crazed into spider webs, which he found nearly impossible to see through. A small chunk of glass hit him on the back of the neck. A round hole was visible in the middle of both windshields.

  Rae screamed.

  “Please don’t scream,” he said softly. “Use your boots to kick out the windshield, but keep low.”

  He swerved left then right in an attempt to present a difficult target.

  There were two more shots, but he had no idea where they went. He glanced at Rae to check she was okay. Then he lurched forward as the truck was rammed from behind.

  His mind had been elsewhere. They’d caught him by surprise again. Well, this time he wasn’t going to finish upside down in a ditch.

  He braked. The glow from the rear lights revealed a man leaning out of the driver’s side of the vehicle aiming a gun. It was the same man he’d seen at the top of the slope on the LPGA Boulevard.

  Tires screeched.

  Rae was kicking the glass, but it wasn’t shifting.

  “Kick the bottom corner,” he said.

  She was breathing heavy from the exertion and the fear. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  He realized his speed had shot up to ninety. He slowed down to seventy. It wasn’t as if Allegre’s wreck could outrun a Hummer.

  As he slowed down, the Hummer pulled out, increased its speed, and tried to come up alongside him.

  He yanked the steering wheel left. At the same time, the windshield blew out and smashed into the Hummer’s windscreen. The Hummer flew across the road, hit the kerbstone, flipped over, and sailed through the air.

  Payback time, shot through Tom’s mind as he put his foot on the brake.

  Even before the Hummer hit the ground, it exploded into a ball of fire.

  Once the truck had come to a stop, he reversed. The A1A was still deserted.

  The sun was peeking over the horizon and transforming the ocean into burnished gold.

  “God, I was scared,” Rae said, staring out of the side window at the burning Hummer..

  “You’d have been a fool not to have been.”

  “Are they dead, do you think?”

  He opened the door. “Stay here.” He ran over to where the Hummer was burning, and circled it. He was hoping for some answers, but he wasn’t going to get any. Both men were blackened corpses inside the vehicle.

  As he walked back to the truck, he trod on something hard. When he looked down, he saw that it was a Glock 21, probably the gun the driver had been using to fire at them.

  “Have we got a plastic bag anywhere in here?” he asked Rae when he reached the truck.

  She pulled one out of the rucksack at her feet, took her tablet out of it, and passed it to him. “In case of water,” she said in answer to his creased up face.

  He walked back to where the gun lay on the grass, put his hand in the plastic bag, picked up the gun, and encased the gun by turning the plastic bag inside out.

  “What’s that?” Rae said as he slipped the plastic bag in the glove compartment.

  “A gun. Mona might be able to get some fingerprints off it, and the serial number is still visible as well.”

  “Who do you think they were?”

  “I wish I knew. Hopefully now, we’ll be able to find out.”

  She stared at him. “You’re not holding your breath though, are you?”

  “No. If the license plate doesn’t exist, I have the feeling that neither will the man or the gun.”

  “Have you any idea what’s going on?”

  He put the truck into gear, swerved back onto the right side of the road, and set off toward home again. After adjusting the rear view mirror, the burning Hummer gradually became a small flickering light in the distance.

  Did he have an idea what was going on? The simple answer to that question was “no,” but nothing was ever that simple. He had an idea that those two men were government agents. If that were true, why the hell were they trying to kill him and Rae? The only explanation had to be related to the case they were working on. First, two assassins were sent to kill them, and now two government agents – if that’s what they were.

  If the man and the gun didn’t exist . . . well, that would tell a tale also. Government agencies made people disappear all the time – especially people who were working black ops. He’d seen a few things that never made any sense in Vietnam. Plausible deniability it was called. If the operatives get killed or captured, they can’t be traced back to the agency they worked for. So, the question was: who did they work for?

  “Maybe it’s time to ask your father for help.”

  The wind whistled through the truck and made him shiver. It wasn’t cold. The early morning sun was beginning to make everything sizzle, but driving at fifty miles an hour with no windshield took the edge off any warmth the sun might have provided.

  “I just knew you were going to say that. Well, if you do, I’ll go back to making Mr Franchetti’s coffee again. I think I’ve made it fairly obvious that I hate my father, and I never want to talk to him again.”

  “You’re not keen on the idea then?”

  ***


  As soon as they arrived back at the hotel and parked the truck up, they went to the restaurant for breakfast.

  “Shouldn’t you give the keys back to the bitch?”

  “Maybe later.” He wasn’t really in the mood for an argument, and he wasn’t going to roll over meekly and let Allegre fleece him out of a pile of money.

  They’d just placed their orders when Allegre breezed in with Rattlesnake snorting and hissing at her feet.

  “I just knowed it. You turned a prize-winning vehickle into a pile of junk in less time than it takes to spit into the wind.”

  He started eating. As much as he wanted to defend his honor, integrity, and savings he was famished. “It was a pile of junk to start with, Allegre. Now, I’d like you to leave me alone while I eat my breakfast. I’ve been up all night, and after I’ve had a couple of hours sleep, I’ll come and haggle with you.”

  “You better, Mister prize-winning-truck-wrecker Gabriel, who goes back on his word – you better.” She stamped out, and Rattlesnake snarled after her.

  ***

  Sally Stackhouse didn’t much like rules. In fact, everyone said that about her: rules and Sally Stackhouse were like two ends of a slippery eel. When it came to authority, Sally simply dug in her heels. She didn’t like being told what to do – not one little bit. Oh, she got herself into trouble all right, and lots of it.

  There were many times that Sally’s mom told her to do this or do that, but Sally wanted to do what she wanted to do, not what other people wanted her to do. And the people who wanted to tell Sally what to do stood in a long line just waiting to give her orders, instructions, lists, and things to fill up her days.

  As well as her mom, there was her teacher Mrs. Green, the uncles her mom brought home to live with them, and the policeman who caught her exploring an abandoned warehouse and said, “There are laws about trespassing, little missy.” She asked what “trespassing” was, and he said, “Ignorance of the law ain’t no excuse.” There was the old fortune-teller Mrs. Angie Bianchi, who lived four doors away. She said that Sally was heading down the road to ruin – and Sally didn’t even know where Ruin was. One time, she looked on a globe of the world, but there weren’t no place called Ruin that she could find.

  Well, as far as Sally was concerned, no one was going to tell her what to do. Rules were for breaking – everybody knew that. And if anybody was going to crack open some rules, it was going to be none other than the famous rule-breaker herself – Sally Stackhouse.

  One time, Jimmy Seraphin said, “You can’t come in my bedroom, Sally Stackhouse – it ain’t right.”

  “I’m here now,” she said with a toss of her hair. “Too late to say I can’t come in when I’m already in.” She’d climbed up the tree in the garden, slithered along the branch that led to Jimmy’s window, and crept into his room like a thief in the night.

  The trouble was – it was past midnight. Sally had snuck out of her house and gone to Jimmy’s. She’d been in her bed, woke up, and knew she had to be with Jimmy. So, she just went right over there and climbed up the old elm tree like a coon searching for food.

  Sally slid into his warm, and snuggled up in front of him. “You watch where you put your hands, Jimmy Seraphin, and make sure you keep control of your body.” They fitted together like two long lost pieces of the same rock.

  “I’m trying, Sally,” Jimmy said.

  She smiled and snuggled up even more until she felt . . .

  She’d been running. Once her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she could see the ruts in the field. Even though she was achingly tired, standing in that pond had been like a rest for a long-distance runner.

  Henry was gone. She was free. All she needed to do now was find someone to listen to her, to take her to the sheriff, and then to take her back home to her mom and Jimmy – even her slimy half-sister Lilly. She didn’t want to be here anymore. This was the worst place in the whole world – wherever this place was.

  And then she wasn’t running anymore – she was standing next to herself.

  How was that possible?

  She figured it out fairly quickly though. The one thing people always said about Sally Stackhouse was that she was quick. You told Sally anything, and in no time at all she was there right along with you. Knew exactly what you were talking about even before you did.

  The real Sally was lying sprawled out in the field with the back of her head missing.

  She put her hand up to feel the back of her head, but it was still all there. Thank goodness. The one thing she didn’t want was to wander for all eternity with the back of her head missing – that wouldn’t be very nice.

  Henry arrived in his Jeep. She watched him smile and stroke his rifle, as if he’d done a good thing.

  “Got you in the end, bitch. I just knew you’d come out in the dark.”

  He took a shovel from the back of his Jeep, and began digging a hole right next to where she lay. It wasn’t very deep, and when he’d finished digging the hole he just threw her into it like a sack of rubbish, and covered her over.

  It was done.

  She was dead.

  And yet, here she was.

  Henry left in his Jeep.

  What about her?

  Why was she still here?

  Where should she go?

  A fine lady’s elegant hand reached down to her. “Come with me, Sally Stackhouse.”

  She took the hand.

  The touch was soft and warm.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To heaven, Sally.”

  Even though it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, she pulled her hand free. “I ain’t ready just yet, lady. I got some things I got to do before I go up there.”

  “There are rules, Sally.”

  Telling Sally there were rules was just like telling her she couldn’t do something. Sally was going to do it anyway – come rain or snow.

  “I don’t care much for rules, lady. There are things I gotta do whether a rule says I can or I can’t. So whoever made up those rules needs to unmake ‘em, because I’m gonna do what I gotta do whether someone likes it or not.”

  “You’ll get us both into trouble, Sally Stackhouse.”

  “Then that’s just the way it’s gotta be.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “I was never surer, lady.”

  “Then there’s someone I think you should meet.”

  ***

  Tom sat up in bed.

  Carrie was standing in front of him holding the hand of a pretty little girl. She had sun-drenched light brown hair that reached all the way down to her waist, freckles across the bridge of her nose, and a light in her eyes that not even the darkest night could extinguish.

  After breakfast, they came up to the room for a couple of hours sleep. He checked his watch. It was eleven fifteen, and it crossed his mind that it was nearly time for lunch.

  “Hello, Carrie.”

  “Hello, Tom. This is Sally Stackhouse.”

  “Hello, Sally Stackhouse.”

  “Hello, Mister.”

  “Sally wants to talk to you. Now, I’ve told Sally that there are rules . . .”

  “I don’t care about rules, Mister. One time, I needed to talk to Jimmy Seraphin about somethin’ real important, but he was in the boy’s room. I just went right on in there. Anybody would’a thought I hadn’t seen Jimmy’s widger before the way he stuffed it back into his trousers.”

  “You can’t come in here, Sally,” Jimmy said to me.

  The other boys were bug-eyed.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said.

  “You better tell her not to come in here again, Jimmy,” Tuck Jennings said. “There’ll be trouble if she comes in here again.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Tuck Jennings is a bully, Mister. And I can tell you right now that I don’t much like bullies, so I told him to shut the hell up, or he’d be trying to get his face out of one of those urinal things for the rest of the day if he wa
sn’t careful. He soon shut up.”

  “You’re my kind of girl, Sally. What can I do for you?”

  “I told Sally you’d like her,” Carrie said.

  “You’re not dead like me ‘n the lady then?”

  “No, and the lady is my wife – Carrie.”

  “That right, lady?”

  “Yes Sally, that’s right.”

  “If she’s dead and you’re not, then I think she ain’t your wife no more, Mister.”

  “Carrie will always be my wife – in life and death.”

  Sally looked up at Carrie. “You got a proper one here, lady.”

  Carrie smiled. “I know.”

  “Anyhow, Mister, that’s the first thing I came to talk to you about. I loved Jimmy Seraphin with all my heart when I was alive, and I still love him now that I’m dead and buried, but I want you to go and tell Jimmy that I don’t hold him to no promises he made to me. He’s a man, and my mum always said that being a man was explanation enough. You tell him that if he wants to marry Rebekah Snellenberger, and give her lots of babies, then that’s all right with me.”

  “I’ll go and tell him that for you, Sally.”

  “Good.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Oh yes, Mister. I’m gonna tell you who killed me.”

  A look of shock appeared on Carrie’s face. “You’re definitely not allowed to do that, Sally.”

  “Yeah, but I always do things I ain’t allowed to do, lady. One time, me and Jimmy drank a whole can of beer each. We was sick as pigs, but we did it anyway. That slimy tattletale Lilly saw us do it and told our mom what we’d done. I got a good beltin’ because of her, let me tell you. But I got my own back. I put a handful of roaches in her bed. My mom knew it was me, and I got another beltin’ because of it.” She let out a laugh. “I didn’t care though, ‘cause I nearly died laughin’ at Lilly jumpin’ up and down tryin’ to get those bugs out of her PJs. Yeah, me and Jimmy were pretending we was married . . . well, I would’a married him soon if that Henry Appling hadn’t done killed me.”