CHAPTER NINETEEN
Detective Gruley called me the next morning. He wanted to follow up with me on just what I might have been doing at the home of Darryl King, a fugitive currently unaccounted for, and also the lead suspect in the murder of Arnie Bateman.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “My services have been retained by Mrs. King, so by law I am not allowed to divulge any information.”
He expressed a colorful opinion or two on that subject. I promised him I’d call him back as soon as I was in a position to talk more freely.
After another colorful opinion, I ended the call and drove to my client’s house. I didn’t think I’d want to do much more driving around the city, looking for her son. In the light of day that seemed like a waste of time. But I was wondering if he’d contacted her again. Getting him back on the phone, trying to break through and get some answers… That seemed like my best shot.
I pulled up in front of the house. I sat there in my truck for a moment, looking down Ash Street. There was no green minivan parked on the other side of the gate. In its place was another vehicle altogether, a cream-colored SUV of some sort. I wasn’t that interested in the exact make and model. I was more interested in the lens flash I was once again picking up through the windshield. Somebody obviously didn’t realize that you can pick up a pair of binoculars from several blocks way, especially in bright sunlight. But now the question was, what was I going to do about it?
I knew that rusted old gate was locked, and that I’d never be able to get through it before he got clean away. I also knew that if I tried to circle around to MLK Boulevard and the entrance to the apartment complex, he’d still have plenty of time to escape.
I could disguise the fact that I was trying to catch him, but I couldn’t do that if I pulled away right now. I just got here. Cranking the truck around in a U-turn would spook him, and he’d be taking off himself in two seconds.
If I waited, I’d have a better chance. But then I’d have to wait-and hope that he was still parked there when I came back out.
Which left one option.
I got out of the truck. I didn’t look down the street. I went right to the front door of the house and knocked. Mrs. King opened the door, and I went inside.
“Good morning,” she said, looking tired and despondent. I was already moving past her.
“Pardon me,” I said. “I need to use your back door.”
“What’s going on, Alex?”
“Just me doing something stupid. As always.”
I went through the kitchen and out the back door. There were two steps down to the backyard, which ran through the weeds to the far edge of the property. I looked to my left and didn’t see a line of sight to the parked car. So he probably didn’t see me coming out the back. So far so good.
Where the yard had once been neatly mowed, now it was just an unbroken expanse of knee-high weeds, going back to the property line and into the empty lots behind it. I made my way through and eventually hooked a left, fighting my way over some fencing that had fallen down and now was almost completely grown over.
There were six or seven more lots to get through. In one I could see the old foundation of a house that had once stood a couple of doors down from Mrs. King. I saw the remains of a pile of charred wood, now almost completely reclaimed by the earth. The weeds grew taller and thicker as I got closer to the fence that marked the end of the street and the beginning of the parking lot. I had already scraped myself against the thorns of a dozen plants, but now I was faced with the final challenge-how to get through the last thick barrier of foliage on this side of the fence, without going down toward the street, where I’d surely be seen.
I walked a few yards deeper into the field, thinking it might be slightly easier to get to the fence if I got closer to the apartment building. There were abandoned tires and cinder blocks that I wouldn’t see until I was just about to break my ankles on them, but I kept making my slow progress until finally I could see the fence.
I put my head down and pushed myself through the thicket. I felt a hundred pinpricks from the wild raspberry plants. I tried to keep them off of my face, at the very least, but I knew I was destined to donate a pint of blood or two. I thrashed my way to the fence and grabbed it and finally hauled myself over.
When I got to my feet, I was pulling thorns out of my arms and looking down the fence line to where the SUV was still standing. Thank God, because to go through that and see that it was all for nothing would have been too much to bear.
Of course, now I had an even bigger problem. I was about to go roust someone I knew nothing about. Someone who could be armed. Someone who could quite possibly be the same person who killed Detective Bateman in cold blood. Someone who could quite possibly be the serial killer who killed all of those women. And here I was, unarmed and scratched all to hell. My only defense would be bleeding on him.
Something I could have thought about before that moment, of course, but what else was new? I made my way to the SUV, trying to stay low and out of sight. There were a few other vehicles to hide behind on this far side of the lot, so I made my way from one to the other. I was trying to see through the side windows of the SUV, but from this angle I was getting too much glare off the glass.
There was only one thing left to do at that point. I had to commit.
I stepped out from the last vehicle in the line and walked right to the driver’s side door. No hesitation, but no rush either. I went right to the door and grabbed the handle. I pulled. It was unlocked. The door swung open.
I was already reaching inside for the driver’s neck. My surprise was that there were actually two men in the front seat of the car. Their surprise was even bigger, as the man in the passenger’s seat dropped the binoculars and they both looked up at me with wide eyes.
“Out,” I said, pulling the driver from the vehicle. He was a big man, and I was already getting ready for a fight. But when I finally got a good look at his face, I stopped myself.
He looked familiar.
“Who are you?” I said, holding on tight to the front of his shirt. My right hand was ready to hit him if I had to. If they had guns, I was already dead, of course. The second man could have dropped me at any moment.
“Who are you?” the man said, trying to get free. “Let go of me.”
That’s when I finally recognized him. His hair was streaked with gray now. He wore glasses, and he had put on the inevitable few extra pounds. Otherwise he had aged well.
“Mr. Paige? Tanner Paige?”
“How do you know who I am?”
“I’m Alex McKnight,” I said, letting go of him. “I was one of the officers who worked on your wife’s case.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “It is you. What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
The other man opened his door and got out. When he came around the vehicle, I had to take an extra beat to figure out who he was. He hadn’t aged nearly as well. His face had filled in more, and he was sporting the signature red nose of a man who’s spent a few too many hours on a bar stool. But then it came to me.
“Mr. Grayson,” I said. “Ryan Grayson.”
“I remember you,” he said, then he looked down at my arms. “You’re all scratched to hell.”
I tried to wipe away some of the blood but only succeeded in smearing it through the hairs on my forearms.
“Not a bright move on my part,” I said. “I just wanted to see who was watching the house.”
“Here,” Paige said, reaching into the car and bringing out a wad of fast-food napkins. I took them and started dabbing at the worst of my cuts.
“I assume you guys were here yesterday?” I said. “In the green minivan?”
“That was mine,” Grayson said. “We figured it would be a good idea to switch vehicles today. Obviously, that didn’t work so well.”