The Shop (24 page)

Jackson, Davis, and Green all came in together, which surprised Landry. For one second, he felt he was on the outs. As if they had all lined up against him, as if they knew what he was planning.

But logic won the day. There weren’t that many flights into Panama City. It was likely they would have all arrived on the same puddle-jumper from Atlanta, since Atlanta was the closest hub. The Panama City airport was small and never crowded, so common sense would dictate they’d end up at the same place, the rental car desk, at about the same time.

Of course Jackson, Davis, and Green didn’t drive up in the car. The rental car was parked somewhere in the neighborhood, many streets away. They had walked in, separately, from different directions. But all of them arrived about the same time, so he knew they’d come together.

They went through the instructions on the kitchen table and gamed a few scenarios, landing on the simplest. Come in quietly by boat. Put someone on the road, command and control. The presence of a vehicle would also provide a second means of escape if the first was blocked.

Set up before midnight, come in around four a.m. Everyone asleep, probably in a deep sleep. This mission would be closeup work—knives—with automatic rifles afterward for window dressing. A fire. Make it look like Congolese rebels. Landry told them he had already rented the boat and laid in the necessary materials.

But they would never get a chance to accomplish their mission. Landry knew that if they reached the island, they would carry out their orders or die trying, as they had been trained to do. But Jackson, Davis, and Green would never get a chance.

The first rule of warfare: kill the enemy before he kills you.

In this case, he would kill the team before they had a chance to massacre the people on Indigo. Landry felt responsible for them—everyone with the exception of Franklin Haddox was innocent. If they died, they would be collateral damage and he could live with that. But he would do his best to make sure that didn’t happen.

Franklin Haddox’s days were numbered, but Landry would not kill him yet. He still needed the former attorney general.

And so Landry and his team went over the probable number of people on the island, including the help and the security team the Haddoxes had hired, and where they would be.

On paper, the raid would be simple and clean. Nobody anticipated any trouble. Jackson, Davis, and Green for one reason, and Landry for another.

When they were through planning the raid, Jackson, Davis, and Green got settled in their rooms, and Landry went to his. After ten minutes, Landry walked to the kitchen. His room was at the back of the house, at the end of the hallway. Jackson’s room was on his right, and Davis’s was on the left. Also on the left, closest to the living room, was Green’s room. Landry walked past the open doors to the other rooms. All three men were preoccupied with their weapons. In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator, took a drink from a bottle of water, returned it to the refrigerator, and walked back. He glanced in at Jackson. Jackson was on one knee, breaking down an AR-15. The rifle would be no use to him except as a club, but there were plenty of other firearms lying within arm’s reach. Landry didn’t expect it to get to that point. He gave the doorjamb a quick tap with his knuckles, and Jackson, instantly alert, looked up. Smiled.

“What do you think?” Landry asked.

“Good stuff.” Jackson was not a man given to hyperbole.

Landry stayed by the door, and they talked. Mostly about weaponry, but a little about the mission. Landry walked casually to the window, lifted one of the blinds, and looked out. Mentioned the number of foreclosures. They talked about that. Got into a rhythm. It was an interesting conversation. He kept the conversation going even as he stepped away from the window and came up behind Jackson. He clapped his hand hard to Jackson’s forehead to steady him, then drove the ice pick deep into the soft hollow where the skull met the neck.

Immediately, Jackson crumpled. When the ice pick punctured his brain stem, his fuse box was blown. Death was instantaneous. Landry eased him down to the floor. He pulled gently on the handle and it disengaged, leaving only the eight-inch steel spike in the base of Jackson’s skull. He dragged Jackson into the walk-in closet and closed the door.

Landry listened for noise in the house. But he heard only the sounds he expected: men breaking down their weapons.

Landry tapped on Davis’s door next. His door was ajar. Davis said, “Come in.”

Inside, Davis knelt over his cache of weapons. He looked up for one second but then looked back down at the weapon he was disassembling. Landry talked about their plan for Indigo as he walked in. Fewer than two seconds to reach Davis—keep walking and keep talking. But then Davis half turned, sensing what was about to happen. Landry’s hand made a claw as he walked and talked, and he shoved the claw hard into Davis’s throat, temporarily paralyzing him. Landry whipped him around, steadied the forehead with one hand and planted the ice pick in the brain stem with the other.

As Davis began to topple, Landry caught him under the arms and gently let him down.

Davis’s boot thumped against the closet door on the way down.

Landry froze. He listened—nothing. Green was in the next room. Landry wriggled the handle on the second ice pick, but he had trouble getting it to come off. He could just as well leave the handle in—by the time the evidence was sorted out, he’d be long gone. This wasn’t the time to get anal-retentive about it. He left the handle on.

Landry heard Green’s voice behind him. “You guys—”

Then an intake of breath. Then nothing. Landry looked at Green.

Green stood in the open doorway, black cargo pants and vest, nylon and Velcro—bulky. Peeling sunburn, yellow buzz cut. He looked like a dandelion.

Hands empty
.

Realization came to Green’s eyes as Landry launched into him, another claw to the throat, but at the last moment Green twisted. Landry was put off balance, and his hand thwacked hard against the wall.

His wrist might be broken.

He got Green in a half nelson with his right arm, and with his left he dug into his vest and found the last ice pick. Kid’s hands prying at his elbow, Landry clamping the kid hard against his body, the kid kicking out in a panic, no martial arts stuff but pure adrenaline, Landry letting go and shoving Green to his knees, shoving downward, downward, so the kid’s nose was in the carpet, the ice pick slipping in Landry’s hands as he pushed it in hard.

But he missed the hollow, the soft place. The pick dug in and then stuttered sideways, nicking the carotid, blood spouting, the pick pinging to the floor, the kid fighting like a tiger for his life.

Landry flashed on one of his dad’s colts. The colt’s leg had snapped, and they were waiting for the vet. The colt thrashed in agony, the shine of confusion in his eyes when he realized he could no longer run. That was the look in Green’s eyes, even as he fought on. His arms and legs not working the way they should be.

Green was dying, but it would take time. Landry couldn’t let him suffer. He still remembered the relief he’d felt when the colt was finally euthanized. Ten years old, and he desperately wanted that horse to die. He stepped in close, ignoring the manic blows, many of which connected. Maneuvering behind Green, he clasped his hands on either side of the kid’s head. He dug his nails in, his fingers slipping in the cascading blood before gaining purchase. He wrenched Green’s head sideways, jerking back at the same time. Heard the audible
chuck
as the neck snapped and the kid dropped.

Landry looked down at Green, then at his own wrist. The pain radiating from his wrist could no longer be ignored. A hairline fracture, probably. He might have done the wrist even more damage in the few seconds it took to put Green out of his misery.

But it was worth it.

The house felt stale, as if Jolie had been away for a month. It felt empty, too. She turned on CNN, went to the kitchen, and poured herself a Coke. Hot outside, hot inside.

The cat came in and looked at her. He wanted something. She dug around in the refrigerator and gave him the last of the deli chicken. “You’re not supposed to have scraps,” she said, but he ignored her.

She hadn’t told Ed specifically why she was stranded at the Burger King in Port St. Joe, just that it was job-related. Which was pretty much the truth. Jolie liked it that Ed was happy to drop everything and come and get her. She had to listen to some war stories on the way back—the same ones she’d heard probably seven or eight times now—but that was fine with her. Ed telling her his war stories and Jolie listening was a big part of their relationship.

Jolie tried Kay but got her voice mail. It was the third time she’d tried to reach her, and it was clear Kay had decided to ignore her calls.

Jolie had always been sure about the story of her life. Her mother died when she was a baby, leaving her dad to raise her on his own. A father and mother who loved each other, both of them doting on their baby girl. Their happy future cut short by the ticking time bomb in her mother’s head—the aneurysm that took Dorie Burke’s life.

That was gospel.

But maybe Kay was right. Maybe her parents
didn’t
love each other. Maybe they were on the verge of a divorce. Maybe one of them committed adultery. Maybe even domestic violence.

Jolie couldn’t believe that. Not her father. He was a gentle, loving man. A hopeless romantic. A tilter at windmills—a liberal Democrat in a right-wing county.

She couldn’t picture her father hurting her mother. Not beating her, not sleeping around. It wasn’t in him.

Her phone rang. It was Louis. “Just wanted you to know we looked at Amy Perdue’s phone and didn’t find anything substantial.”

“You looked at her photos?’”

“We looked at everything. There was nothing I would call incriminating—not in her e-mails, anything like that.”

“What kind of photos did she have?’”

“Usual stuff—lots of photos of her and her boyfriend, parties, the beach. Stuff like that.”

“Her brother Luke worked for a tree service on Indigo—the attorney general’s place on Cape San Blas. Were there any pictures there?”

For a moment there was quiet. Then Louis asked, “Why would you want to know that?”

How much should she tell him? “This is something I was working on before Amy was shot. Luke might have seen something illegal going on there. He might have taken photos and shared them with Amy.”

“Illegal? What are you talking about?”

“Sex stuff.”

“You mean wild parties?”

“Yes, wild parties.”

“The kids or the adults?”

“The people in the house, Louis.”

There was a pause. “What are we talking about here?”

“Have Ted do forensics, will you do that? Maybe he could recover data that’s been erased.”

“What would he look for?”

“Evidence that Luke sent her photos. Evidence that photos were erased. I don’t know what those guys can do. It’s possible she downloaded them to a disk, something like that.”

“I don’t see probable cause here.”

“Somebody
shot
her, Louis. There’s your PC.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

But she had the feeling he wouldn’t. Not if he knew the caliber of people who might be taking part in wild parties on Indigo Island.

Few people would touch something that radioactive.

Jolie drove to the neighborhood down the hill from the Starliner Motel and parked outside the house with the boat on blocks. A barechested man in baggy shorts answered her ring. Sixty or so, uniformly tanned from the sun and water, had wild gray hair that made him look like Nick Nolte in his booking photo. He wore a choker around his neck with a shark’s tooth tied into the leather cord.

“Help you?”

Jolie saw him looking at the gold shield on her belt. She gave him her spiel, that she was a detective with Palm County Sheriff’s, that she had two kids in custody whom she believed were committing burglaries in the neighborhood. She told him a neighbor had seen kids crawling out from under his boat, and asked if she could look under there for evidence.

He regarded her skeptically. Jolie wondered if her lying skills had gone downhill. Lying was like that cartoon coyote running off the cliff into thin air. You were fine unless you looked down.

“What are you expecting to find there?”

“Fingerprints.”

He nodded. “Let me get my sandals on, and we’ll go take a look.”

They went out to the boat. The man lifted the edge of the boat so Jolie could see under. There were the beer bottles. There was the snuff can.

This time she had evidence bags and gloves with her. She donned the gloves and bagged each bottle and the snuff can.

Back at home, she pried the lid off the snuff can—Copenhagen Wintergreen. The rich tobacco smell wafted out at her with its twin siren promises of comfort and death.

Inside, surprise, surprise—snuff. The can was about half full. She touched her finger to the snuff and pushed it around. And there it was. Wedged crosswise across the bottom of the can, packed in cellophane and previously hidden by plugs of chew, was what could have been the tiniest cigarette lighter in the world.

Only it wasn’t a cigarette lighter. It was a USB flash drive. Using gloves, Jolie carefully extracted the flash drive from the can and plugged it into the USB port on her laptop. And waited.

She got impatient, her heart thumping hard. Electricity running through her veins as the computer took a couple of seconds to digest the information. Then the window came up. She clicked past the window, and the data on the flash drive came up.

There was only one file on the drive: “Photos.”

She clicked on it, and up they came. Five thumbnail photos.

At first glance, four of the photos were broken up into light and dark space. The dark spaces formed a V shape in two of the photos. The last photo showed a crowd—men in dark slacks and mostly dark polo shirts, and something white. Very white.

She started at the beginning and clicked on the first photo. There were three sets of dark trousers. Two of them standing, forming the V of light area she’d seen. One set of legs kneeling on the floor—she could see the bottoms of the man’s shoes. He was on his hands and knees, the bottom of a tan polo shirt pulling from belted trousers. Beyond the kneeler, between the trousered legs of the standers, Jolie saw what looked like another leg. A naked leg, stretched out on what looked like gleaming tile. Saltillo tile.

She clicked on the next thumbnail. The picture was out of frame, as if Luke had been too excited and had clicked it hastily. But still, Jolie could see the kneeler better. He’d moved a little, so she could see his shaved head. Big guy,
massive
, his face turned away. He wore an earpiece. The kind worn by the Secret Service.

She saw more of the naked leg between the trousered legs. Men bent forward. One of the leaning men stretched out an arm, reaching toward something Jolie couldn’t identify.

In the next photo the angle was different, and Jolie could see the unidentifiable thing a little better. Red as a beet against the tile.

Mashed, pulpy.

Jolie had seen photos like this before, in crime scene pictures. She’d seen them in person, too. People who had been beaten beyond recognition.

Her stomach recoiled. She knew the man lying on the floor was Nathan Dial, although he would be impossible to identify.

Once again, she was amazed at what one person could do to another. Fourth photo: the man in the tan polo shirt bent over the supine man, administering CPR.

Fifth photo: the men in the polo shirts and slacks and earpieces hustled another man away from the man on the floor. The tableau had the quality of a medieval painting, soldiers ushering someone away to safety—or to his doom. The man they were hustling was pale and clearly bewildered. His gray hair stuck out from his head. She couldn’t see his face. Every line of his body told Jolie he was stunned, that he had difficulty moving under his own power.

A thick white terrycloth towel was wrapped around his waist.

Now what?

She’d been vindicated. Great. But now what?

This was proof, but it
wasn’t
proof.

Chain of evidence
.

There was none.

Maybe if Luke had been arrested before and he had fingerprints on file—this could link him to the flash drive.

It would be helpful. And Jolie bet he had been arrested before.

But was this the vice president? She couldn’t tell. Was this Nathan Dial? She doubted his own mother would know him. The man with the shaved head giving CPR—perhaps he could be identified.

There was the Saltillo tile. Jolie hadn’t spent very much time at Indigo. She guessed the tile belonged to one of the cabanas, but since she’d never been to the cabanas she wouldn’t know.

There were other furnishings, but they were a blur. Something that could be a wall sconce. What looked like the edge of a bed—a bedspread, just one corner. Pale green, a striped design.

Louis met her at the JB’s in Gardenia. JB’s was filled to the gills with the lunch crowd, and the babble covered anything they might say. The waitress was harried, banging down ceramic coffee cups and a carafe, taking their order quickly. She returned in ten minutes with Louis’s food, and Jolie knew from experience she wouldn’t be back for a long time. Jolie had coffee but nothing else; she opened her laptop on her side of the table.

Louis said, “You said something about photos?”

Jolie pushed the laptop across to him.

“What are these?”

“What does it look like to you?”

“Somebody got beat up bad. Where’d you get this?”

Jolie told him about her search for Luke’s missing phone. “No one has his phone—not Gardenia PD or the FBI or you guys.”

You guys
. Jolie realized what she’d just said, and she understood then that she didn’t feel part of the Palm County Sheriff’s Office anymore.

“This is what you wanted me to look for on Amy’s phone? What do you want me to do with it?”