Across the river was a faded billboard.
Beneath the slogan was painted a parade of industrial items. Merritt had no idea what exactly they were. Metal parts, tubes, tanks, boxes, controllers. Ferrington was not known for consumer products.
Merritt came to a commercial strip on Fourth, most of the offices dark, but he passed a storefront that was still inhabited. He stepped into an alleyway across the street and checked his gun. Soon this office too went dark. A short man in his forties but with prematurely gray hair stepped outside. He was in a suit and a short overcoat and carrying a briefcase. He locked the door and walked north, his gait a waddle. Merritt stepped from the alley and followed, twenty feet behind him.
They covered a block in tandem, when he heard a car bleat and saw the lights flash their brief inanimate welcome. Merritt moved in quickly.
The man climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Before he started the engine, Merritt approached and rapped on the window. He stood tall so his face wasn’t visible and held his police ID against the glass.
The window came down.
“Officer, can I—”
Instantly Merritt reached in, pressed the passenger-side lock and ripped the door open, pulling out his pistol. He dropped into the seat and swung the gun into the face of David Stein, Allison’s lawyer.
The man’s shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “Jon, Christ.”
“Shh.” Merritt rolled the window up.
“What’s this getting you? Just a shitload of trouble. I never did anything to you.”
Merritt shivered in rage at those words.
Stein backed down. “I’m sorry, Jon. I was just doing—”
“Shh.” Merritt pulled on his seatbelt. He said, “Keep yours off, start the car and drive where I tell you.”
“Jon—”
“Straight. Left on Monroe.”
Grimacing in disgust, the lawyer did as told.
Merritt cocked the gun, drawing a gasp from the lawyer, and rested the muzzle against his neck.
This message was: Drive slowly. He didn’t need to add that the road surfaces of Ferrington were in such sad shape that any kind of heroic maneuver would in all likelihood not end well for him.
32
At 11 p.m....
The receptionist stepped out the front door of the Safe Away shelter.
The dark-haired woman was slimmer than Moll remembered, though just as top heavy. He could tell because her black leather jacket was close-fitting.
She walked away from the door and lit a cigarette, the smoke vanishing fast on this cool windy night. Hiking a gym bag higher on her shoulder she made a cell phone call and had a conversation.
There were four cars parked in the lot. Moll wondered which was hers. He hoped it was the white Camry, easier to follow.
The plan was simple. They’d force her off the road, grab her, and get her into the Transit. Then they’d park in the shadows and get to work. Did she know where Allison Parker had gone?
She’d say either yes or no.
Moll could tell if she was being honest, either way.
“Would you hang up the damn phone and move,” Desmond muttered, eyes on her.
They couldn’t do anything until she got to her car and left.
The woman just puffed and talked, puffed and talked.
“Check out her—”
“—belt,” Moll said. “I saw it.”
The reference was to a canister of pepper spray.
Victims fighting back was always a risk, ranging from karate to spray to firearms, but never insurmountable. Just something you took into account and handled.
The woman nodded and swayed, as if ending a conversation and mentally moving on from the caller.
At last.
Then Desmond stiffened. “Shit.”
He’d been looking in the side-view mirror. Moll did the same and saw the cruiser — a county deputy’s vehicle — moving slowly toward the Transit.
Both men instinctively slipped the guns into compartments under the front seats. They looked like built-in DVD players. Moll had made them himself.
Moll and Desmond remained calm. They hadn’t been drinking and there was no evident blood on the bed of the van. Luminol would reveal some traces of Edgar’s blood, but using those fancy lights would require a warrant or probable cause.
They’d pulled over simply to make a phone call and send some texts. Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of traffic deaths, I heard, Officer. My friend and I are always careful.
But the car cruised past, the deputy paying them no mind. He pulled up to the front of the clinic, and the receptionist disconnected her call, ground out the cigarette and climbed into the front seat. She and the deputy exchanged a ten-years-married kiss.
The man put the car in gear and they drove off.
“Well.” Moll grunted. He sent a text delivering the bad news. Tonight, at least, the shelter was a dead end. He tucked the phone away.
They retrieved their guns.
Moll pulled slowly onto the state route and headed back toward his house in Ferrington.
Desmond pulled out the willow branch and began fiddling with it, tapping it again with his black knife.
Moll thought about poor Edgar, becoming less human every hour. He had to get to Ralston and take care of it. By now it would be VapoRub in the nose to handle the stench. Though the sawing would be easier.
Tomorrow. Please tomorrow. Let’s get this finished.
He was tired... and hungry. Chain burgers, not fine barbecue, had figured in the day’s calories.
Desmond was sighting down the branch. “You had no problem with the banker’s wife.”
This again?
“No, the job is a hit. Pure and simple. Your dick cannot figure in this picture. And that wife? You got to her before I even knew what you were up to. And we had to burn the cabin after. For the evidence.”
Thonk, thonk, thonk... More pounding on the willow branch. This part of the project took a long time, Moll knew.
Moll looked Desmond over. “You do understand that just by sitting there, you’ve left enough clues to earn a one-way ticket to Harper Maximum. Imagine what you’d leave if you unzipped.”
Desmond tilted his head, reflecting. “Rest assured, friend, I will refrain from having carnal knowledge with the vehicle. Tempted though I am.”
The man could occasionally display a sense of humor.
“Go to one of your truck stops.”
Desmond scoffed. “There? Half those girls didn’t start life as Betty or Sally.”
“What do you care who you put it in?”
“I’m just saying.”
Where the hell did the man get his hormones?
An incoming text. Moll read it, glancing between the screen and the road.
“Merritt had a talk with her lawyer. It did not pan out.”
“Shit. That could’ve been a good lead.”
Desmond seemed to get tired of playing with the branch. He put it away, the knife too. “What about that guy, Motorcycle Man?”
“What about him?”
“I mean, he’s got a gun, he breaks into her house. Who knows what he’ll do?”
Moll considered this. “The way I look at it: he is both helpful and a problem.”
“Uh-huh.” Desmond’s I’m-not-in-the-mood look emerged. “And that means what?”