His other hand reached for a reverse peephole viewer, which revealed stairs directly behind the door, a dining area to the left, and a hallway leading to the living room.
He pocketed the viewer and stepped to the side, ringing the doorbell. When several seconds had elapsed, he rapped firmly on the wooden door.
Nothing. The odds of a dog were slim to none.
Seconds later, Carson entered Hicks’s home. The still, silent air confirmed that he was alone in the sparsely furnished town home.
Clearly, the man continued to follow the military’s strict code for tidiness, at least downstairs. Not a scrap of paper was lying about. All the dishes were neatly put away in the cabinets. The remote controls were arranged side by side next to the cable box.
Upstairs reinforced Hicks’s fastidious nature. Carson could have bounced a quarter off the queen-sized bed, the only piece of furniture in the room. After searching the closets and the bathroom, he moved on to the second bedroom, which was an office.
Here Carson found the only personal item in the entire apartment: a framed photo of a red-haired woman. He studied the picture. She was posing on a bench in New Orleans’ Jackson Square, the St. Louis Cathedral soaring in the background. He removed the photo from the frame and tucked it into his breast pocket.
Driving downtown on Main Street, past the gentrified Mid America Mall, Carson slowed as he approached the converted warehouse that housed Buddy Martin’s office. Half a dozen city vehicles, including four police cruisers, crowded the street. Carson casually turned west onto Linden, but not before spotting the sedan marked Forensic Medical.
The meat wagon had already arrived, so police must have been on scene for at least an hour or two. Given the looming deadline, Carson hated the delay but adjusted his plans.
He drove north and then east, returning to the revitalized section of downtown Memphis. He deposited the car in a public garage across from the commercial playground of Peabody Place, where he blended in with the tourists who thronged the shopping oasis in the still-bleak inner-city zone.
Carson joined the small crowd of gawkers who had assembled at the crime scene perimeter. Snatches of conversation confirmed that Buddy Martin had been found dead of multiple gunshot wounds, most likely killed the previous day. The receptionist had been out all week, visiting her mother in New Jersey.
After twenty minutes, Carson concluded that he had learned all he could. He headed north toward Charlie Vergos’s famed Rendezvous. He could think of no better temporary office, preferring a slab of ribs to overpriced coffee any day of the week.
Carson had visited the Memphis institution on several occasions, but the surly waiter who seated him didn’t recognize him. Perhaps because he now had dark blond hair and green eyes — a dramatic departure from his natural coal-black hair and brown eyes so dark they, too, looked black.
A few keystrokes later, Carson discovered that Hicks’s black 2007 Land Rover was registered to a Jennifer McLaren of 1375 Agnes Place. He also confirmed the twenty-four-year-old Miss McLaren as the redhead from the photo in New Orleans.
Carson’s food arrived and he made short order of the tender, smoky meat. As he ate, he scanned the current edition of the Memphis Flyer, the local tabloid, which he had picked up in the lobby. Carson turned to page seven, to an article on an exhibit opening referenced on the cover. On the lower right-hand corner of the page, his client’s frosty blue gaze stared back at him — this time from the face of a stunning brunette, hair upswept to showcase a swanlike neck. He checked the caption, tore out the photo, and placed it with the snapshot of Jennifer McLaren.
“She’s not here.” Standing no more than five-foot-two, the elderly woman in the doorway managed to look formidable with her scrawny arms folded on top of an ample, but sagging bosom. The short, wide body and skinny appendages made her look like a dwarf, but Carson suspected that Jennifer McLaren’s grandmother had been a magnificent specimen some forty years earlier.
“Can you tell me where she is, ma’am?” said Carson, returning his credentials to his back pocket.
Piercing green eyes peered out from the wizened face. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it looks like one of Jennifer’s friends might be dangerous,” said Carson. “One woman is already missing. For all we know, Jennifer could be next.”
One birdlike claw, sporting a fresh coat of pink nail polish that clashed violently with the auburn hair dye, flew to her throat. “Dear God,” she whimpered. Her mouth tightened in a crimson slash. “It’s that Hicks boy, isn’t it?” She studied Carson’s face and then nodded to herself. “I told Jenny that boy was bad news. The damn fool kept handing over her hard-earned money every time he smiled at her... Well, come on in,” she said at last, returning her gimlet stare to Carson. “Can I offer you some coffee?”
“That would be mighty kind of you.”
He returned to the Charger, checking his watch. This time tomorrow, his client’s daughter would either be dead or alive, depending on whether Carson completed his mission.
Jenny’s grandmother had given him an address in New Orleans, where the girl had moved the previous month. The woman wasn’t sure about the circumstances, but she thought that Jenny and Hicks had been having troubles.
Driving away, Carson considered his options. Leaving now would put him in New Orleans around midnight. If he waited to check out Buddy’s office, it would be morning before he reached the Big Easy.
Of course, the link to New Orleans was circumstantial. He didn’t have time for a dead end that would eat up more than half his remaining time.
Carson resigned himself to several hours of cooling his heels. He headed west on Union and returned to the garage near Peabody Place.
He took out his cell phone and dialed. “Daddy!” squealed a voice almost instantly.
“Were you waiting by the phone?”
“Yep,” came the smug reply.
“How’d you know I was getting ready to call?”
“We women have our ways.” The grown-up words coming from her eight-year-old mouth reminded Carson of the fleeting nature of childhood.
After a few minutes of banter and a recap of her day, he asked to speak with her mother.
“Hey, handsome.” Tara’s sultry voice never failed to warm him. “And where in the world is my husband now?”
Carson let her know that he was in Memphis and quickly turned the conversation to her and their life in central Texas, what he thought of as his “real life” — separate from the world of his job.
Reluctantly, he ended the conversation. Carson snapped his phone shut and sat for a few minutes, savoring the peace that these conversations always produced.
He finally stirred himself and headed to Beale Street, where he passed the evening hours listening to a performer who sang like Johnny Cash and looked like Jerry Springer. At a quarter to 11, he settled the tab for his nachos and club soda and went back to work.
As Carson left the lights and activity of Beale Street and Peabody Place, he tossed his car keys in the air and caught them. He whistled softly while he walked, casually scanning the now-deserted section of Main Street.
By the time he arrived at the redbrick warehouse, Carson had confirmed that he was alone. He quickly dispatched the lock on the street-level door and entered. He turned left at the second-story landing. To his immediate left, yellow crime scene tape sealed the glass door with black-and-gold lettering that announced: Sherman “Buddy” Martin, Certified Public Accountant.