There were four money boxes still upstairs. They restacked hymnal boxes on top of them, then went down to finish loading the van and, as they did, Parker saw a streak of mud on the floor that hadn’t been there before. It was near the closed door to the basement, a place they’d holed up in after the robbery, a one-time community room from which all the appliances had been removed.
They each carried a carton of hymnals out to the van and Parker said, “You keep working, I got something to do.”
McWhitney was curious, but kept working, as Parker moved forward to Sandra in the Honda and said, “I need a flashlight.”
“Sure,” she said, and took one from a small metal box of supplies she kept bolted to the floor in front of the seat, to the right of the accelerator. “What for?”
“Tell you when I get back.”
The basement, as he remembered it, would be pitch-black, because it had plywood panels that slid across in front of the windows, for when they used to show movies down there. That meant he wouldn’t be able to open the door at the head of those stairs without Nick, down below, knowing he was coming down.
Why would Nick come back here, of all the places in the world? Maybe he still thought there was some chance he could find an edge for himself. Or maybe he just didn’t have any place else to go any more. Maybe his life was a maze, and this was the far end of it, and he didn’t have any other choices.
Parker opened the door, slid through, shut the door behind himself. As dark as he remembered. He silently went down two steps, then sat on that step and waited. Nick wouldn’t have another gun, but he might have something.
No light down there, no sound. Parker waited, then abruptly there was a sound, and an instant later light; gray daylight. Nick was sliding back one of the plywood panels, baring a window. Maybe he thought that would level the playing field somehow.
Parker put the unnecessary flashlight on the step behind him, stood, and took the marshal’s automatic from his pocket.
Nick said, “Hold it, Parker. You want to see this. Take a look out there. I mean it, take a look.”
“At what?”
Nick backed away from the window, gesturing for Parker to help himself. “Do yourself a favor,” he said.
Parker went down the rest of the stairs, crossed to the head-high window, and looked out at a state police patrol car, stopped in front of Sandra’s Honda, just blocking it. Two uniforms were getting out of the patrol car, shrugging their gunbelts at their waists as they moved toward Sandra, one of them a man, the other a woman, both white.
Looking at the automatic in Parker’s hand, Nick said, “You don’t want to make any loud noises. Not now.”
3
Had Sandra honked twice, when she saw the patrol car, as she’d said she would? If so, Parker hadn’t heard it down here. Concrete-block walls, room mostly underground, plywood over the windows. But a shot would be something else. Cops would hear a gunshot.
“We don’t want them looking in that window,” he said, and slid the plywood closed with his right hand as his left hand reached for Nick.
“Hey!”
Nick had backpedaled, but his shout told Parker which way he was moving. And then his ragged breath gave him the spot, and then Parker had his hands on him.
This had to be fast, and then he had to find that window and slide the plywood open just far enough so he could find his way back to the stairs and collect the flashlight. Bring it back, shut out the daylight again, switch on the flash, shine it quickly around.
There. Across the rear end of the room had been a kitchen. The appliances were long removed, making broad blank insets in the Formica counter that ran all across the back, but the sink was still there, set into the counter, with closed cabinet doors beneath. They opened outward to the left and right, with no vertical post between them.
Parker opened the cabinet doors and saw that the pipes for the sink were under there, but nothing else. Plenty of room.
He dragged Nick across the linoleum floor, bent him into the space under the sink, and shut the doors. Then he went back upstairs and outside, where the male cop was giving McWhitney back his license and registration and the female cop was looking at one of the hymnals from a carton in the van.
“Hello,” Parker said, and they all looked at him. He nodded at Sandra and said. “There’s nothing down there.”
“Good,” she said, and explained to the cops, “This is Desmond. He’s the other volunteer.”
“I’m in recovery,” Parker said.
The male cop said, “You were in the basement?” Nobody interrogates somebody in recovery.
“We wanted to know if there was anything useful down there,” Parker said. “But it’s been cleaned out.” To Sandra he said, “The refrigerator’s gone, dishwasher, everything.”
The female cop pointed at the flashlight Parker carried. “No electricity in there?”
“No water, nothing.” He looked over his shoulder at the building. “Empty forever.”
“Not forever,” she said, and surprisingly smiled. “I went to this church when I was a little girl.”
Sandra, delighted by the news, said, “You did? What was it like?”
They all had to discuss that for a while. Parker saw that Sandra had toned herself down, made herself look softer, and that both cops had bought into the idea that she was connected to some sort of religious mission on Long Island, and that he and McWhitney were rehabilitated roughneck volunteers.
After the reminiscence about the old days at the church wound down, the male cop said, “Louise, do we have to toss this place? These people have been all through it.”
“Maybe I’ll just peek in,” Louise said. “See what it looks like now.”
“It looks sad,” Sandra told her. “Been empty a long time.”
Louise frowned, then shook her head at her partner. “Maybe I don’t wanna go in.”
“I think you’re right,” he said, and told the others, “We’ll let you people finish up here.”
Louise said, “I’m glad the hymn books are going to a good home anyway.”
Sandra said, “Would you want one? You know, as a reminder.”
Louise was delighted. “Really?”
“Sure, why not?” Sandra grinned at her. “One hymn book more or less, you know?”
Louise hesitated, but then the male cop said, “Go ahead, Louise, take it. You can sing to me while I drive.”
Louise laughed, and Sandra handed her a hymnal, saying, “It couldn’t go to a better person.”
McWhitney said, “Could I ask you two a favor?”
“Sure,” said the male cop. His partner hugged the hymnal to her breast.
“We’re driving a little truck,” McWhitney pointed out. “Just what everybody’s looking for. If we’re gonna get stopped by all these roadblocks, we’re not gonna get back to Long Island until Tuesday. If you could get the word—”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Louise told him. “The roadblocks are stopped.”
“They are?”
“That’s why we’re out here,” Louise said. “We’re searching every empty building in this entire area.”
“Not for the fugitives,” the male cop said. “For the money.”
“It has to still be somewhere around here,” Louise explained. “So this is a change of policy. The idea is, if we find the money, we’ll find the men.”
“That makes sense,” Sandra said. “Good luck with it.”
“Thanks.”
The cops moved off, Louise holding her hymnal. They got into their patrol car, waved, and drove off. McWhitney watched them go, then said, “Good thing they didn’t start that new policy yesterday.” Looking at Parker he said, “We can throw those prayerbooks out of the van now. We get to take the rest of the money after all.”