“And then a job. You won’t be able to be a policeman anymore.”
The reminder, obvious, infuriates him. He says in an enthusiastic voice, though, “I’ve been thinking about that, Doctor. I’ve got a lot of options.”
“I’ve seen reports from the staff. They’ve said your work in the metal shop is exemplary...” He then pauses, perhaps thinking that the big word is too much for a con.
Merritt had graduated from college before the academy but gives no clue as to the resentful anger. “I enjoy working with my hands. It’s kind of a gift. You?” He puts on a face of genuine curiosity.
“No.” The doctor doesn’t like to answer questions about his life outside the four corners.
“I put myself through college working the line at Henderson Fabrications.”
One of the few companies on Manufacturers Row still operating, if not thriving.
Dr. Evans stares at the tablet. Merritt isn’t sure if he’s reading it or not. Zoning out seems to be a mainstay of his practice. He can be counted on to do this several times a session.
Obsessively wrestling with his prisoner-patients’ mental health?
Daydreaming of the cares of housewives?
Or thinking of tuna sandwiches?
He flutters back to this dimension and looks at Merritt. “The report I got, Jon. That con from C. He jumped you. You didn’t fight back.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that, Doctor.” A laugh. “Nothing good would come of it. That’d be a sure way to really get my ass kicked.”
Oh, it was close. For an instant Merritt was seared by the rage. And though he isn’t a big man any longer, he could still have snapped the neck of the wiry tweaker, crazed because he couldn’t get product and somehow, in his decayed mind, associating Merritt with that absence.
But he’d stepped back and taken the blows.
What choice was there? He wanted to get out. Fighting would keep him in.
So he dropped to the wet concrete and covered his head. He could take a beating like a man—
Take the blows.
Take the belt.
The belt...
And suddenly, he’s surprised to realize that just this once he doesn’t want to deceive the doctor. “Hey, you know, there’s something I’m thinking of. This time I was nineteen.”
The doctor is looking his way, nodding.
“I was working overtime for money for school and I got home after second shift and my father had this tantrum. He thought I’d been out, crowning around. That’s what he called it when you screwed around with girls, smoking, having a beer. ‘Crowning.’ I told him I put in for overtime. For the shift differential. But he didn’t believe me. And, okay, I’m nineteen, remember? He stands up and starts to take his belt off and—”
“Oh, say, Jon. I see our time is up. That sounds like something we should explore.” He flips the tablet screen, queuing up the next hopeless patient.
Merritt is furious. His anger is fundamental. In his soul. But he lets it go and smiles and says, “Sure thing, Doctor. See you next week.”
And as he leaves he’s thinking it was probably a good idea to end it there. If he’d continued down that road the façade of charm might have cracked and certain facts might have spilled out.
Among them the capital-T Truth: that the agreeable patient with the 1 p.m. slot is in fact a murderer. And he’s not talking attempt. The real thing.
Now, in a cell of a different sort, the River View Motel, Jon Merritt shut the light out, nearly knocking the flimsy thing over. He set the alarm on his phone and lay back in bed. Not washing up, not peeing, not brushing his teeth.
All he was thinking at the moment was that he hoped to hear another cry of horn from a tug or a riverboat. It was something superstitious. The more horns, the luckier the lucky man would be.
Over the next few minutes he collected two, one loud, one barely audible, and then sleep took him.
35
At 11 p.m....
Colter Shaw was back in another windowless office within the security department of Harmon Energy Products.
He was not alone. Sonja Nilsson sat beside him at a long desk on which were dozens of computer monitors and keyboards.
Shaw was on the phone with Detective Dunfry Kemp.
Never antagonize law enforcers...
But it was hard to keep the frustration from his voice. “Well, Detective, all respect. Now it’s overt. He was inside the house. He tossed it, looking for where Allison’s gone.”
“You saw him?”
“I saw the mess he made. And a homeless man saw him leave. I’ve got the number.”
“A homeless man has a phone?”
“You want it?”
A pause. “And you were in the house yourself, Mr. Shaw?”
“State Penal Code 224.655. It’s an affirmative defense when one enters upon a premises without permission to save the life of others.”
“You looked that up.”
“I did.”
“Before or after you broke in? Never mind.”
“Detective, this takes it up a notch. Gets some gold shields assigned.”
Or maybe puts it on the desk of somebody who’s not too lazy to do it?
No, that was unfair, given the walls of files. Still...
Nilsson was looking at him. He shook his head.
Shaw remained silent. There was no better prod than this. Quiet beats repeating the question a dozen times for getting a response. “Fact is, it’s still a misdemeanor.”
Again, not a word.
A sigh. “I’ll get it to the powers that be.”
He inhaled long. “Anything you can do, Detective. Much appreciated.”
He disconnected.
“Almost useless,” he muttered. “It’s like Merritt’s walking around in body armor.”
“So, back to the digital legwork,” Nilsson said.
Her text message, the one that he had read when he pulled over on Cross County Highway, had said:
No luck here. Let’s check cams.
The one he’d been about to send:
Too many haystacks. Can we get intersection camera access?
Nilsson explained that the city of Ferrington might be down a number of human law enforcers but in some compensation city hall had invested in an above-average municipal video surveillance system.
“Not inexpensive, but cheaper than bodies and no insurance or pension payments.”
The system was enhanced by access to some private cameras — in retail stores and service stations whose owners volunteered them.
Being the famed benefactor of the city, Harmon made calls and had gotten the okay for Nilsson, and therefore Shaw, to log in to the consolidated system.
This room contained dozens of monitors and they were now searching footage for Allison Parker’s Toyota 4Runner and her ex-husband’s Ford F-150 pickup.
They had started with the fact she fled west on Cross County Highway.
Shaw had called up a map of North Ferrington. Nilsson leaned close, beside him. He detected a flowery scent. Then concentrated again on the grid. Cross County was intersected by many streets and roads. But near Ferrington, they were closed neighborhoods with no way out.