A children’s cartoon was on the flat-screen TV.
Shaw returned to the office.
“And?” The clerk’s voice quivered.
Shaw said, “Nobody’s there. The two men and the guests in three oh six? You see any of them leave?”
“No, sir. They were going to kill me!”
No, they weren’t. Or they would have.
The clerk nodded at the phone. “I called the sheriff. They’re on the way.”
“What were the men driving?”
“I don’t know. They just, you know, were here, with their guns.”
Shaw looked out the greasy window. The boxy Ford van was gone. “Any guests drive a white Transit?”
“Not that they put down when they registered.”
Eighty percent that was their ride.
“Security tape,” Shaw said.
“They took the hard drive.”
“What county are we in? Marshall?”
“Yessir.”
Shaw jogged outside. He put it at ninety percent that the responding law, in a different county from Ferrington, would have little sympathy for Jon Merritt — at least not now, after killing Allison’s lawyer and breaking in here. Still, he didn’t want to count on the burdensome protocols of law enforcers. He’d go after them himself on his Yamaha. They had a head start, but not much of one. He could catch them easily.
Though, which way?
Probably back toward 55, the main north — south highway.
But only probably. If he chose wrong, he’d lose them entirely.
He tucked his gun away. He noted a family — husband, wife, two teenage boys — packing up their SUV. He asked if they’d seen a white Transit leave the parking lot. He was prepared to say the driver left his phone in the office and he wanted to get it to him — leaving it to the family to work on the improbabilities of that.
No fiction was necessary. The husband said they’d like to help but they hadn’t seen the vehicle. The wife nodded a confirmation. Shaw believed them.
Then, looking for other guests, his eyes strayed to his camper. He walked toward it, mouth tightening as he got to the rear.
No high-speed pursuits after all.
Both tires of the motorbike had been slashed.
And, for good measure, so was one of the Winnebago’s.
45
Ah. Here we go.
Detective Jon Merritt is crouching beside some unfinished sewer drains in a construction site — half built out and abandoned, as there are no supplies and equipment anywhere near. The sky is clear on this late autumn afternoon, the temperature unusually warm. The scent of mud and decaying leaves is strong.
He has just leveraged a cinder block aside with a piece of rebar and is training a flashlight into the twelve-inch pipe that would have gone to the city sewer system but now goes nowhere.
Looking around. He doesn’t see anyone. But there are kids on skateboards nearby. He knows this from the rushing clatter of the wheels on concrete. Hannah tried it for a while. Broke her wrist and that was that.
Merritt’s partner, Danny Avery, is canvassing nearby buildings to see if they can describe the workers who were here, any names on pickups, bulldozers or cement trucks, if any limousines were parked in front of the site.
Merritt has records that show that pouring this foundation and putting in a few pipes — the going-nowhere kind — cost the city two point seven million dollars. For a job that was worth thirty thousand. Tops.
The detective peers into the sewer pipe, his tactical flashlight turning the dark visible. He sees rubble.
Where there’s no reason for rubble to be.
He pulls on latex gloves and digs through the muck and stone and dirt.
His radio, on his hip, clatters, startling him.
“Detective 244, come in.”
He turns the volume of the Motorola down with his left hand, the one that is unmucky.
“This is 244, Central.”
“You’re in Beacon Hill?”
“Affirmative.”
What was this?
“Reports of shots fired, 8248 Homewood.”
It’s a block away, less. He wonders why he didn’t hear the gunfire. But much of the construction in Beacon Hill is early twentieth-century stone and brick. Built to survive winters here, built to last.
“History of domestics. Owner is Harvey Trimble, convictions for possession. Held on suspicion of battery, released.”
I’m busy, he thinks. But he mutters, “Copy. Where’s Tac?”
“Fifteen out.”
The Ferrington SWAT team was good but spread out like a half pat of butter on a whole piece of toast, a captain had once said — to groans in the watch room.
“There’re kids in the house, Jon. Neighbor heard screaming.”
“Shit. We’re responding. Over.”
“ ’K. I’ll advise Tac you may be inside.”
It’s now that Merritt moves one more piece of rubble and sees what he’s been looking for: several letter-size envelopes, thick ones. He pulls them out and slips them into his jacket pocket. Spends sixty seconds looking for more. None.
He stands and shouts, “Danny, got a 10–71 up the street. We gotta go.”
The stocky detective, thick brown hair, which matches his suit, joins Merritt, who’s at the car and popping open the trunk.
“What? Shit. You hear that?”
Two shots. Maybe a scream.
They have no armament other than their sidearms. Some detectives keep M4 assault rifles in the trunk but Merritt and Danny don’t. Glock 17s will have to do.
They shed their suit jackets, Merritt making sure the envelopes don’t fall out. Then they’re strapping on the body armor.
His partner, nervous, says, “The hell is Tac?”
“About fifteen out.”
“Jesus Christ. The city isn’t that big.”
Merritt laughs. “You want to live forever?”
Avery slows, eyes down.
A joke too far.
He recalls that the detective, seven years younger than Merritt, has never been in a firefight, has never drawn his weapon anywhere but on the range.
“Hey, Danny. It’s cool. The shooter’s a tweaker. He’s gone on his own product. We’ll be on him before he even sees us.”
Another shot.
Another scream.
The detectives begin the short jog to the squat brick house.
Colter Shaw returned to the corridor where room 306 was located.
He found an elderly couple in colorful jogging outfits, peering out the front door of their room across the hall. They saw Shaw — no ski mask, pistol on his hip, close-cropped hair — and made the common assumption. “Officer?”
Shaw nodded. “You see what happened?”
They were oddly calm, considering.
The wife: “These two men, bullies, thugs. One of them was in here. He said not to say anything. Threatened us.”
Husband: “But we got one up on them.”
Which meant what? Shaw wondered.
He gestured for them to continue.