The Homecoming

by Carsten Stroud

  “Two. Twyla and Bluebell. Lost the mother to cancer a while back. Her name was Lucy. Twyla’s sort of Coker’s main girl, by the way.”

  “Perky black-haired thing? Big brown eyes and candy-red lipstick? Curves like a French staircase? She’s a killer. I’ve seen her at the Bar Belle with Coker.”

  “Apparently you have.”

  “Young for him, isn’t she?”

  “No comment. But Coker has that Clint Eastwood thing going for him, you gotta admit. And you’d be amazed how many gullible young girls think police snipers are sexy.”

  “Do you?”

  “No. I’m more inclined toward your ex–Special Forces steel-jacket CID detectives with flinty eyes and a gigantic weapon named after a snake.”

  “Mavis, I never suspected.”

  “I wasn’t talking about you. Anyway, I’ve got cars on the way to their homes, break it to them both as easy as they can.”

  “We got a time frame for when Littlebasket hit the wall?”

  “Various witnesses pinned it at 10:41.”

  “And twenty-odd minutes later that Lear over there flies into a cloud of crows?”

  Mavis nodded.

  “That’s what I was thinking. Littlebasket hits Tallulah’s Wall, the explosion spooks all those crows that live in those trees around Crater Sink. Flock takes off and heads northwest. Enters Mauldar Field airspace just in time to get into the Lear’s flight path.”

  “So just wrong time, wrong place.”

  “Yeah. A thing like this, everything’s gotta go wrong in exactly the right way, but when it does, when all the dominoes fall, Bob’s your uncle.”

  “I never know what that means.”

  “Neither do I. Guess it’s like, there you go.”

  “We know anything about the passengers on the Lear?”

  Mavis looked down at her notepad.

  “Plane was owned by a Chinese trading company based in Shanghai. Daopian Canton Incorporated. Two thousand Fortunate City Road. Pilot and copilot were employees of the company. Three other passengers, also employees. Top dog was a man named Zachary Dak. Title was Director of Logistics.”

  “Where were they going from here?”

  “Filed a flight plan for LAX to refuel and then on to Honolulu and then Macao.”

  Nick worked through that.

  “Macao? What were they doing in Niceville? Something to do with Quantum Park?”

  “Says on their entry visa that they were looking at real estate for a possible branch office.”

  “Who’d they meet with? A local agent? Somebody out of Cap City?”

  Mavis gave him a tilted look. “What are you thinking?”

  “Don’t know. I’d just like to know who they met with. And why. Five Chinese nationals, a private Lear, and now they’re garden mulch. We should be ready for a whack of questions from the State Department. Where were they staying? The Marriott?”

  “Yes. Checked in Friday, flight crew and the three civilians. Separate rooms all around. Rented a Lincoln Town Car from Airport Limos. It’s still parked in the lot at the Marriott.”

  “I don’t know. Something’s … not right.”

  Mavis had known Nick long enough to take his instincts seriously.

  “The manager on duty is Mark Hopewell. I’ve already called him and he’s pulling together whatever he has. Also, there’s a retired deputy sheriff at the Marriott, Edgar Luckinbaugh. Works as the senior bellman. Edgar pays attention. I could go have a talk with him, see what he knows about these guys.”

  “Or I could,” said Nick. “I know Luckinbaugh. He strings part-time for Coker, one of his CIs.”

  Nick was quiet for a moment.

  “Mavis, somebody should give Boonie Hackendorff a heads-up about this. The Cap City FBI will sure as hell get queried by State. I don’t want Boonie to get caught flat-footed.”

  “I’ll see he gets the report. Right now he’s got his hands full.”

  Nick heard something in her tone.

  “Yeah? Why? What’s up with Boonie?”

  Mavis had been sitting on this for a while.

  She gave Nick an anticipatory grin.

  “Well, it looks like, maybe an hour ago, on Highway three six six, just past the Arrow Creek on-ramp, State Patrol clocked Byron Deitz at one-forty, pulled him over, a hostile stop, guns out, the whole deal. He was in that fat yellow Hummer. They found a pill bottle full of ecstasy in the cup holder beside the driver’s seat, plain sight, so they cuffed Deitz and did a routine search of the Hummer. Guess what they found in the tailgate?”

  “Please don’t make me.”

  “Cash from the First Third robbery in Gracie.”

  That rocked Nick.

  Rocked him right back.

  Byron Deitz was his brother-in-law, a thug and a wife beater. Kate’s sister was married to the guy. Just last night Beth had finally gotten one too many smacks in the mouth.

  She’d packed her kids into the SUV, told Byron she was going to a hotel, and called Kate on her cell. When he’d left for work this morning, Kate and Beth were still in the sunroom talking it through. Nick was planning on dropping in to see Deitz later in the day, straighten him out, a righteous meet that had been too long coming.

  But this?

  The First Third robbery had happened last Friday afternoon. Take was at least two million five, maybe more. Four cops had been executed during the pursuit.

  As much as Nick loathed the guy, he found it hard to believe that Deitz, who was retired FBI himself, could have had anything to do with something as ugly as the cold-blooded slaughter of four cops.

  “How’d they know it was from the First Third?”

  “Still had the bank bands on it. A big fat sheaf of brand-new hundreds. They also found a Rolex that was part of the stuff stolen from the safety-deposit boxes.”

  “I don’t—I just don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” said Mavis. “It gets better. Deitz connects to this Learjet crash too.”

  “How?”

  “Parkhurst said somebody called the tower about a quarter to eleven, ID’d himself as Byron Deitz, says he wants the Chinese Lear on the runway to be held until he gets there.”

  “Deitz did this?”

  “Parkhurst can’t confirm the voice, but the caller ID was BD SECURICOM, which is Deitz’s company. I called the number back when I got here, and got Deitz’s voice mail.”

  “So it really was Deitz.”

  “I’d say so. The caller claimed to be FBI, but when Parkhurst asked for a badge number, the guy lost it, started screaming, swearing—”

  “That’s Byron.”

  “All over. Parkhurst hung up on him, cleared the jet for takeoff. After that, things went all rat-shit and he never thought about the caller again until the First Responders started asking him questions. I was about to go up and talk it over with Parkhurst right now. You wanna—”

  “Let me get this straight. Deitz was on his way here.”

  “Looks like he was on the cell phone screaming at Parkhurst when the State Patrol guys clocked and locked him. Anyway, you wanna come along? Maybe we’ll find out something.”

  Nick stared at her, trying to take all this in.

  “If Deitz did the First Third, he killed four cops. Why is he still alive?”

  “Early in the day, Nick. He could still be dead by sundown. Patrol is taking him to their HQ up in Gracie. Boonie Hackendorff is on the way up to see that the FBI gets a piece of him. First Third is a multistate bank, so it’s a federal beef.”

  “Jesus. Mavis, does Reed Walker know?”

  Reed Walker was Kate’s brother. A blade-thin guy with the air of a raptor about him, intense, aggressive, crazy-brave, he drove a Police Interceptor pursuit car for the Highway Division of the State Patrol and was, in Nick’s opinion, certifiably nuts. Two of the cops who had been killed in the First Third robbery were his personal friends, one of them a guy he had trained with at the Police Interceptor Training School. Reed was up in Virg
inia, looking for Kate’s father, who had not been seen since Saturday afternoon.

  Mavis was ahead of him.

  “It’s covered, Nick. Marty Coors called him up at VMI and told him to stay there. He said if Reed came flying back and showed up anywhere around Deitz he’d shove him into the back of a dog car and let one of those werewolves chew on him. Reed’s handled. For now, anyway.”

  A silence.

  “Anything on that, Nick? On Kate’s dad?”

  Nick looked at his hands, shook his head.

  “Not so far. There’s a state cop up at VMI, name of Linus Calder. He’s doing everything he can. I was supposed to chopper up there and help, but now we have … this.”

  He made a gesture, taking in the crash, all the cops, and the media trucks that were finally arriving on the scene.

  “So he’s just … gone?”

  “There’s more to it, Mavis. When I can, I’ll fill you in.”

  “But not now?”

  “Can’t. Sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’d think I was a fucking fruitcake if I told you the whole story. I don’t believe it myself.”

  “I already think you’re a fucking fruitcake.”

  “I know. So do I.”

  Mavis studied his face for a moment, saw what was there, and set the thing aside.

  For now, anyway.

  “So what do you want to do about this rat-fuck right here, Nick? CID has jurisdiction. So far.”

  “Man. What a cluster … can you stay with it?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Talk to Parkhurst, Mavis, if you don’t mind. Follow up on the Deitz connection from this end. And give Boonie a wake-up on this Chinese national thing, will you? Before State and the FBI director land on him?”

  “I will. What are you gonna do?”

  Nick looked back to see where Beau was. He was in the middle of a group of Niceville uniforms and, from the grin on his face, talking trash, having a good time.

  “I’m going to have to call Beth and tell her.”

  “Maybe not right away? Wait and see how it shakes out.”

  “Deitz won’t be able to talk his way out from under a sheaf of stolen cash.”

  “No. But if you give it a bit you’ll have more to tell Beth than what we have now. And there’s her kids to consider. The more you know, the better.”

  “You think?”

  “I do. Give it an hour. By then Marty Coors and Boonie Hackendorff will have talked it over. The picture will be clearer.”

  Nick took the advice.

  It was a call he didn’t want to make at all.

  “Okay. Good advice. Well, I’m gone.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Go see Edgar Luckinbaugh at the Marriott.”

  “Take him a box of Krispy Kremes. The honey-glazed ones. He loves them.”

  Love May Be Blind, but a Few Years of Marriage Will Fix That

  While Beau Norlett and Nick Kavanaugh were cruising over to the Marriott, Nick’s wife, Kate, and her sister, Beth, were sitting in the glassed-in conservatory at the back of Kate’s town house in Garrison Hills, a neighborhood of antebellum Spanish Colonial town homes with wrought-iron galleries and cloistered gardens. It was a pretty spring morning and they were alone. Beth’s two kids, Axel and Hannah, eight and four, were sound asleep in one of the guest bedrooms.

  Through the leaded glass of the sunroom Kate’s garden, a grassy slope which led down to a stand of pines and willows, was bright with marigolds and hydrangeas and roses. A soft dappled light played on the windows and the lawn, and on Beth’s drawn and weary face.

  Although Beth was only four years older than Kate, and had the same kind of pale skin and fine-boned Black Irish features, her expression had hardened in the last few years and her eyes were wary and guarded. Kate was having an iced tea, but Beth was well into her fourth scotch and rocks. Her long red hair hung limply down her pale cheeks as she stared into the heavy crystal glass, gripping it so hard her fingers were white.

  “It started with the air-conditioning—”

  “The fight?”

  Beth gave Kate a wry smile.

  “Not much of a fight. He’s got a hundred and fifty pounds on me. The house was hot, the kids were whining, and Byron was all in a lather about something that happened at work. Something connected to that awful bank robbery on Friday.”

  “Did he say what?”

  “Only that the robbers got away with all of the payroll draw for everybody at Quantum Park, that it was all Thad Llewellyn’s fault, and since BD Securicom was responsible for security at Quantum Park he was going to get a lot of heat for it. I tried to tell him that wasn’t true, but he wasn’t going to hear it. He said I didn’t know what the bleep I was talking about and I never bleeping did, so how about I just shut the bleep up.”

  “In front of Axel and Hannah?”

  “No. They were in their rooms. But I’m sure they heard. When Byron goes off, I think they can hear him in Cap City. It wasn’t anything the kids hadn’t heard before.”

  “But last night was different?”

  Beth sighed, took a sip of scotch.

  “Not different. It was just, suddenly, enough. Maybe it was the heat. I just didn’t feel like trying to calm him down anymore.”

  “He hit you.”

  Not a question.

  Beth nodded.

  “Not the first time. But I think perhaps the last.”

  “Beth, do you have money of your own?”

  Beth nodded, not looking up.

  “Where is it, Beth? Because if Byron really believes you’re not going back, he’s the type of man who would drain the accounts and hide the assets.”

  Beth looked up at Kate.

  Her eyes were greener than Kate’s, and with the tears, they shone like emeralds. She had a fresh bruise along her left cheekbone, a raw purple and green stain with a deep bloody scratch in the middle. From his FBI ring, Beth had explained, while Kate was dressing it.

  “Do you think he would? Really? What about the kids?”

  “Beth, I’m a lawyer in family practice. It happens all the time. I just wrapped up a case on Friday, a horrid creep named Tony Bock. He spent a year tormenting his ex-wife and—”

  “Tony Bock?”

  “Yes. Why? Do you know him?”

  Beth was looking a little shocked.

  “Well, in a way. The reason Byron was so cranky last night was because the air-conditioning had gone on the blink. NUC sent out a guy to fix it, his name was Tony Bock—”

  “Short, squat guy with a face like a frog? Black hair and bad skin?”

  “Well, he wasn’t pretty to look at. But his name was definitely Tony Bock. How odd, isn’t it?”

  “Bock works for Niceville Utility, I know that. He’s a bad person, Beth. Just so you know.”

  “Okay. If I ever see him again, which I won’t.”

  “Anyway, my point is, guys like Tony Bock and your husband, if those guys are willing to punch you with a closed fist—Tony Bock used to beat his wife too—why would they draw the line at taking all your money?”

  Beth reached up and touched the bruise, wincing slightly as her fingertip met the skin. Last night, while Nick had gotten Axel and Hannah safely tucked into bed, Kate had used her digital camera to take several shots of Beth’s face. She had also walked Beth into the master bedroom and demanded to see the rest of her body. When she did, she felt a bolt of pure anger flash through her chest. It was clear from the bruises beaten into Beth’s blue-white skin that Byron had done this sort of thing before. Often. Kate took shots of these old injuries as well. While she did, she tried to think of a way to kill Byron that wouldn’t get her life in prison.

  Nick could find a way, she had thought at the time, and he’d be happy to.

  Here in the conservatory, looking at Beth’s face in the soft sunlight this morning, Kate was still thinking it. It must have been on her face, because Beth managed a smile.


  “No, honey, we can’t kill him,” she said.

  “Was it that obvious?”

  Beth even laughed.

  “Kate, Reed and I always thought you could kill people if you wanted to.”

  “Byron’s lucky Reed didn’t kill him. I know Nick wanted to. But you always held them off.”

  Beth looked away, and then came back.

  “Reed wouldn’t have just beaten Byron up. He’d have hurt him badly. Badly enough to lose his job. Maybe even killed him. He has a terrible temper, you know that. And Nick is just as crazy, only with him it’s under better control, maybe because of the war. And isn’t it true that wife beaters who get that sort of punishment, sooner or later, they find a way to take it out on the wife or the kids—”

  “Not if they’re dead.”

  “But this is real life, Kate, and you can’t kill them, because you’ll go to jail. Besides, I thought … I thought he’d stop. I did love him, once. He was always so … sorry. So crushed.”

  Kate shook her head.

  “Oh, he’s sorry all right. Sorry for himself, sorry that he has to be sorry. And after a while he’ll be mad at you again for making him feel sorry. Beth, he’s never going to stop until somebody stops him. They never do. You cannot ever go back to him. Never.”

  Beth was crying again, in silence, deep, wracking sobs. She fought for control.

  “I know that. But we can’t stay here.”

  “Yes you can. The house is too big for us as it is. It’s just the two of us.”

  “What about Rainey Teague? Isn’t he coming to live with you soon?”

  “Yes. So that makes three.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean. You’ve already got Rainey Teague coming. Poor little kid. Abducted, traumatized, an orphan. Now you’re going to clutter the place up with three more fugitives from life? Why don’t you just open a shelter for abused kids and be done with it?”

  “Family’s enough, Beth.”

  “Rainey’s not family.”

  “He will be. Look, Beth, we have five bedrooms and four baths. Plus the carriage house at the back. There’s even a second kitchen in the carriage house. Dad rebuilt this house for a large family. You could even have your old room back.”

  Beth’s face altered.

  “Dad … I can’t believe he’s gone.”