The Shop (25 page)

“Investigate. It’s part of your case.”

“Where do I start? There’s no chain of custody. I can’t use this.”

“I suggest you start at the beginning.”

“What’s the beginning?”

“The standoff at the Starliner Motel on Memorial Day weekend. That was the same weekend the vice president was here—at Indigo.”

She filled him in on what she’d learned from Nathan Dial’s roommate, Scott Emerson. Told him about the man, Rick, trolling for young men at Cove Bar. “That could have been a fake name. He could be the big guy giving the kid CPR in the photo.”

Louis shook his head. “I don’t think this is going to fly. Why don’t
you
go to Skeet?”

“Because he’ll listen to you.”

Louis considered that. He motioned to the laptop. “It could get you fired.”

“Right.”

“So I can take this?”

“Go ahead. I’ve got it on my hard drive.”

He removed the thumb drive and rose ponderously to his feet. “I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of doing anything about this. We’re talking about the vice president of the United States.”

“You’ve got a better chance than I do.”

“Okay, lemme see where you found this thing.”

She gave him the can of Copenhagen and the photos she’d taken of the boat and the grassy area where she’d picked up the can.

He sighed. “My wife’s lawyer’s got me jumping through all sorts of hoops—and now this.”

Jolie had done what she could. Louis would have to go at it from another angle and come up with evidence of his own. He’d have to build a case; he was a talented detective. As long he could deal with his personal problems, Jolie had no doubt he’d find a way to connect the dots.

But she wouldn’t leave it at that. She’d be riding herd on him, funneling information to him as it came up. She might have handed him the case, but this wasn’t the end of her involvement.

Her first thought after seeing the photos was to get Kay to take her to the island. She wanted a look inside the cabanas. She wanted to look for the Saltillo tile, a pale green striped bedspread, the wall sconce.

Kay wasn’t going to help her now, though.

Belle Oaks
.

The words had been in the back of her mind all this time, nagging like an aching tooth. Maybe now was the time to address it. Back at home, she turned on CNN to see what was going on in the world—a habit she’d gotten from her dad. Then she sat down at the kitchen table and Googled “Belle Oaks” plus “Tallahassee.”

There were a number of matches: the Belle Oaks Restaurant and Golf Club, the Belle Oaks Riding Academy, and a private health care facility. Jolie eliminated the riding academy immediately. There was a Belle Oaks Drive, too.

Again, Jolie wondered what Kay had been aiming at. Did her parents fight in the bathroom, and she’d somehow witnessed it? She was not even eighteen weeks old when her mother died, and she had no memories from that age. But perhaps she’d absorbed it in some way. Was that the reason for her panic attack at the house?

She thought she knew her father, but maybe—

No.

Maybe someone had broken into the house—a home invasion.

The CNN music for breaking news came on. Jolie ignored it. Since 9/11, these channels had “breaking news” on twenty times a day.

She clicked on the private health care facility. A photo of a red brick Federal-style mansion came up, framed by tall oaks draped with Spanish moss and a green lawn. Another photo at the side—two elderly women and an elderly man eating ice cream cones in the sunshine.

Jolie was still looking at the elderly man and the elderly women having the time of their lives, when she heard the words “Vice President Pintek.”

She looked at the TV.

The screen was dominated by an aerial view of the vice president’s residence, the Naval Observatory.

As a cop and a longtime watcher of CNN, Jolie knew aerial views seldom meant good news. Maybe someone had breached the grounds.

But it was worse than that.

The vice president of the United States, and Jolie’s number one suspect in the death of Nathan Dial, wasn’t the victim of breached security.

He was dead.

Whatever had been, whatever she had planned up to this moment was no more. The vice president was dead—no one could prosecute him now.

She needed to get away from the hot, muggy house. Needed to get away and think. She went for a drive.

Jolie didn’t know how she felt about the VP’s death. A number of things, actually. First, satisfaction. Payback. Owen Pintek was dead. Now she could leave it alone. Louis would drop it, and Jolie could stay on paid leave and forget about turning over any rocks or tweaking any noses. She wouldn’t get into any further trouble with Skeet. She could keep her job without even trying. Jolie knew this. Skeet didn’t have enough to fire her, not without her help. And now she wouldn’t give him any more ammunition to use against her, because it was over.

Except there was one thing. Her family. It was possible—likely, in fact—that someone in her family knew about Nathan Dial’s death. Uncle Frank, probably. He was the attorney general and a longtime friend of the VP’s. They’d both been in President Baird’s cabinet. Maybe Franklin had been part of the cover-up. And there was Luke’s death. Who had he tried to blackmail with the images on his phone? The vice president of the United States, or the Haddoxes?

Jolie thought he’d go for the Haddoxes. Blackmailing them would be nowhere near as daunting. The Haddoxes were local. How would Luke get in touch with the vice president of the United States? The simple answer: he couldn’t. But Luke worked for the tree service that took care of Franklin Haddox’s grounds. In his ignorance, he’d think that would be the same as accessing the vice president.

She drove to Gardenia, past the Iolanthe Paper Company, past the shuttered Starliner Motel, then over to Panama City. All the time thinking about the people who had been killed. Luke and Amy died because of their blackmail scheme. Kathy Westbrook and Maddy Akers were collateral damage. Then there was Nathan Dial, whose death started everything.

Now the vice president was dead, too. According to the television reporter, there was no information other than the death appeared to be due to natural causes. His wife discovered him in their bedroom early this morning, “unresponsive.” That was all the information available, although CNN played it over and over again in a loop and the experts had been brought on to make their guesses.

Jolie followed Route 30 into Panama City Beach. She drove past the Waffle House where she’d met Scott Emerson. Thought about Scott, how they worked the Cove Bar together.

He should know the truth.

Shouldn’t do this. But Jolie was tired of all the things she shouldn’t do, so she punched in his number. Almost gave up as the phone rang and rang. Thinking it was just as well he didn’t answer. This could be a Pandora’s box. And then he picked up.

“Have you seen the news?” she asked him.

“Is it Nathan? Did they find him?”

“No. Vice President Pintek is dead.”

A pause. “What does that have to do with anything?” Another pause. She could almost hear him thinking—putting it together. “You think…” Then he said, “
Jesus
. You think that was the party? You have any proof? How…?”

“Listen,” Jolie said. “It’s common knowledge that the VP was into rough sex with young men.” She did not tell him about the photos. About how much she really knew.

“Oh
God
. That guy Rick. Somebody said he looked like Secret Service. Are you sure? And now the vice president’s dead?”

“Turn on the television.”

She heard him do that. Jolie listened to the news in the background, but Scott Emerson said nothing.

Time stretched. She became aware of how hard the phone was pressed against her ear. “Scott?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I thought you’d want to know what happened to Nathan.”

“I don’t know anything, except who you think the guy was. I don’t know how it happened or why it happened, I don’t know how they disposed of him, I don’t know anything. And now this man—the man you
think
did this—is dead and he’ll never pay for what he did, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing!”

“I thought you’d want closure.” She winced as she said it, because people had often used the same word with her, and she despised the word.

“Closure?” he said. “What the hell is that?”

When it was full dark, Landry walked the three blocks to the maid’s car. He drove to the house, backed up into the garage, and opened the trunk. Getting Special Agent Salter out was a challenge, since Landry didn’t have the use of his right hand and Salter was a big man like himself. But Landry had been trained to drag bodies, living or dead, in ridiculously impossible circumstances. By using his body as a brace, he was able to leverage Salter’s body to the concrete floor. That was all he had to do—no need to get elaborate.

The private investigator, Ted Bakus, was easier. He weighed a little more than half what Salter did. Landry pushed Bakus’s leg out of the way to make sure it cleared the back tires of the maid’s car.

He rounded up the weapons from each of the rooms and put them in the trunk, then showered and changed into an extra set of clothes he’d brought with him.

On the way back to Indigo, Landry stopped at the Buy Rite drugstore in Port St. Joe where he bought a wrist brace, a large roll of duct tape, several rolls of packing tape, and an industrial-sized drum of Motrin. The Motrin he popped like candy.

The duct tape was for an emergency, in case he needed to reinforce the wrist brace and keep his arm steady.

He drove to a Dumpster behind a boarded-up restaurant and got out, leaned against the car, and made the call. The phone was answered on the first ring—a young man with an accent. India or Pakistan.

“I’m trying to reach the Realtor for the house on Island Lane.”

“Let me look it up for you, sir.” A short pause, then he rattled off the number. Landry disconnected and punched in the new number.

“Hello?”

Landry said, “Would it be possible to see the house tonight?”

“What time?”

“My friends and I can be there by eleven.” Landry was telling the man that the team would be in place by eleven p.m.

“Why not in the morning? It can be as early as you want.”

“I’m afraid by then it will be too late. I have a very early flight.” This was Landry’s way of saying that they would raid Indigo in the wee hours of the morning and would be flown out shortly afterwards.

“I’ll check with my wife and call you back.”

“Thanks.” Landry disconnected, stomped the cheap cell phone into bits, and threw it into the Dumpster.

Landry was all for covering his tracks, but an enigmatic conversation like the one he’d just had seemed more like something out of
Mission Impossible
than real spycraft. But from what Landry had learned of Cardamone, the man was CIA all the way. If the CIA had a choice between doing something straightforwardly or in a sneaky way, they’d take sneaky every time.

When he got to the island, he went looking for Franklin. He needed to get some sleep and wanted a quiet room.

Jolie lay in bed, watching the numbers on her alarm clock roll over from 5:29 to 5:30 a.m.

The vice president of the United States is dead.

The world was completely out of whack.

She sat up.

All of this was much bigger than she’d thought. It had gone from scandal to the death of a sitting vice president. If the vice president of the United States died because he’d become a liability, the enormity of the crime was stunning.

Yesterday, Jolie had lowered the flag as she did every evening. Ed was outside puttering around, so he came by and stood with her. Jolie felt tears collect in her eyes and drain into her throat—she couldn’t talk. Ed had been in the infantry and had seen so many kids his own age die right in front of him. He had accepted their deaths because of what the United States of America meant. Because dying for your country was worth it, if that country was the United States.

Jolie thought about her dad and his strong belief in this country. He knew it wasn’t perfect and he was often on the wrong side of issues—at least that’s how this town saw it—but he still had that belief. He’d loved his country probably more than any other single thing.

She got up and turned on CNN, expecting more coverage on the vice president’s death, sure they’d run it into the ground. But they surprised her. There was another aerial view, this one of a burning building in Tallahassee.

Breaking news.

Jolie was about to switch channels when she heard the name of the building in question. The Victorious Redemption Spiritual Church.

Grace’s church.

Goosebumps ran up her back and fanned out along her shoulders.

Oily black flames poured out of the roof, people running like ants along the sidewalk. Jolie sat down, stunned, and watched.

At least thirteen dead, but probably many more.

Gunmen had stormed the church compound in the early hours of the morning, shooting people in their beds, torching the church and the outbuildings.

The Reverend Wembi and his wife were unaccounted for and believed to be dead.

The fire in the church itself was still burning, but the police had secured all but one of the outbuildings, and the survivors had been taken either to a hospital for treatment or to a school nearby where contact could be made with loved ones.

Stunned, Jolie watched.

There was speculation who set the fire, but the general consensus was political. At least one terrorist group had claimed responsibility—a rival faction from the Congo.

Among the missing was Grace Haddox, wife of the former attorney general of the United States.

The phone rang.

Kay’s voice—sounding lost. “Did you hear what happened?”

“I’m watching it now. Is there any word about Grace?”

“No, but I think she’s dead. I had this feeling…it’s…” She stopped. “I have to get out there.”

“To the church?”

“No—I think we need to be there for Riley. Just in case. Zoe and me.”

Jolie said, “Can I go with you?”

“I guess. Maybe that would be good—you deal with emergencies all the time, don’t you?”

They were silent on the drive over. Zoe in the backseat. Jolie in the passenger seat.

Kay’s knuckles tight on the wheel.

Jolie’d only met Grace once, for less than half an hour. Grace had been polite, but dismissive.
Look who Kay brought home
. But Jolie had had recent dealings with Riley. Riley was a frightened child. Behind all the attention-seeking, Jolie felt Riley’s desperation. There was something she wasn’t getting. And now her mother might be dead.

Jolie looked at Kay but Kay ignored her, her eyes on the road. Jolie could see Kay going through the contingencies, considering the alternatives, what she’d find, what she’d do. Jolie wondered if Kay was rethinking bringing her along.

Jolie knew everything had changed. Kay was still mad at her, but that didn’t matter anymore. Kay had put that behind her for the moment. There was too much to deal with. Riley needed help, and Riley was family. Jolie marveled at how quickly Kay dropped what she’d thought was important before and focused only on her family and how she could help them. Kay had a strong bond with her family. Kay belonged, and she would always be there to help.

Kay had invited her to belong, too.

Jolie realized she
wanted
to belong. She wanted to have a family again. She prized her friendship with Kay. But something stood in the way. Her own small family. Her dad and herself. All her life her dad had told her to watch out for those less fortunate, to protect the weak. It had been ingrained in her. It was the reason she became a cop.

Nathan Dial had been treated like so much garbage. His body was disposed of and his death was covered up. He had no one to speak for him, no one to step up and bear witness to the atrocity of his death.

No one to give him justice.

No one but her.