"There it is," LuEllen said immediately, pointing back over my shoulder. The van was winding through the country club streets, still a block or so away, but moving toward the stone pillars that marked the entrance road. I slowed and took the first turn on the opposite side of the road.
"Now what?" LuEllen asked. The van hesitated before turning onto the highway, then accelerated away, after the white Ford.
"I don't know. Follow. See what happens. If we had a gun."
"If pigs had wings." Hill's van went past an obvious turnoff to animal control.
"Where's he going? Why's he going through town?"
"I don't know."
We found out five minutes later, after a nerve-wrenching job of tailing the white van through light traffic. On the northern highway business strip, just at the edge of town, the van slowed and turned into the Wal-Mart parking lot. We watched from the shoulder of the road as the van stopped at the front entrance. St. Thomas was waiting inside. He walked out and climbed in the driver's side of the van, which then started back out. By that time I'd made a U-turn and was parked behind the gas pumps in the Shell station.
"They ditched Harold's car in the Wal-Mart lot," LuEllen said.
"Let's call the cops."
"And tell them what?"
"That a guy was kidnapped-"
"We'll be on a tape-"
"Jesus, LuEllen."
The van went past on the highway, headed back into town. I waited a few seconds and pulled out after them.
"He's going out to animal control," LuEllen said.
"Yeah. Can't get too close out there. There's nothing else around."
I put several cars between us and the panel truck and, when there was no longer any question where it was headed, pulled over to a drive-up phone outside a convenience store. I dialed Marvel's place, then John's, and got no answer at either.
"Let's go," said LuEllen.
We continued on to the animal control complex and spotted the van parked outside.
"Where are they?"
"I don't know, but we can't go in," I said, continuing past the turnoff. We were on a gravel road that had some traffic, but not much. Even going by the place was a risk. "If they've killed him. or are planning to. there wouldn't be any reason not to do us."
"Maybe they're just talking to him," LuEllen said. She didn't believe it.
"Maybe Hitler was only kidding."
"All right. Let's ditch the car."
Four hundred yards farther on, a track left the main road to the right, away from the river, and a sign said LEVI CREEK PUBLIC HUNTING. It didn't look as if it had been used since duck season. I drove far enough down that a passerby couldn't see the car from the road, killed the engine, and we scrambled out. As I closed the door I noticed LuEllen's camera bag in the back seat.
"Bring the camera," I said.
"Got it," LuEllen answered. We jogged through the heat waves coming off the road, through some nascent wildflowers, toward the base of the hill we'd climbed on our last trip out. From this side a definite track wound up to the top. LuEllen, who is both in better shape and a better athlete than I am, led the way. When I came over the crest, she was crouched on the far side, peering down at the animal control building.
"Nobody around," she said.
I crawled up beside her and looked down. The van was twenty feet from the front door, which was closed.
"What is that noise?" I asked. Ooka-ooka-ooka. We'd heard it the first time we'd been there. It sounded like a broken pump.
"I don't know," she said. She opened the camera bag, took off the short lens she kept on the Nikon, and put on the biggest one she had, a 210mm zoom. Nothing moved. And the building stopped going ooka-ooka. Then started again. We lay on the bare patch, watching.
"If they beat him up, and if he's in obviously bad shape, we want photos of him coming out with Hill. Maybe we could yell or scream or something, they wouldn't know who we are, but they'd have to let him go."
"Jesus, that worries me. Our security could be fucked."
"Yeah, but-" It suddenly dawned on me what the sound was. Ooka-ooka. I half stood and stared down the hill. "Motherfucker."
"What?"
"That's the pump for the fuckin' vacuum chamber. I bet that's what it is."
LuEllen didn't say anything but just stared, and the pump stopped. "You think?" she asked in the silence.
"Maybe they're trying to find out who else knows."
"Jesus, no. I don't believe it."
"We fucked up," I said. "We've gotta get to the car and call the cops. Or maybe we can call them, Hill and St. Thomas. I'll try to disguise my voice, tell them we know they've got Harold."
I was headed for the path down the hill when LuEllen whispered, "Wait. wait. Here we go." She waved me back.
The door to the animal control building opened, and St. Thomas stepped out into the sun and looked around. There was nothing to see but the van in the driveway. He was agitated, jerking around when a dog suddenly started barking from the cages. He walked around the building, checking, then went back inside. A moment later he and Hill came out, carrying what looked like a body wrapped in a sheet. Hill used only his left hand; his right was around the arm of a black woman, who seemed to be weeping.
"Ah shit," LuEllen said, shooting off a string of exposures.
They carried the body to the levee, walking fast, looking around, then along the land side of the levee, down from the crest where you couldn't see them from the river. They went along until they got to the revetment where we'd tied up the boat. Erosion had cut a little notch out of the levee just above the concrete slabs. They dropped the body, both of them breathing hard, and St. Thomas stepped up to the top of the bank and scanned the river. They were in weeds and brush up to their shoulders, and there was nothing on the water. When he was sure it was clear, they unwrapped the body, dragged it over the levee, and heaved it in the river. It sank almost immediately.
With every step they took, LuEllen snapped another photograph.
With the body gone, the two men climbed back down the levee to where the black woman waited. She was half crouched, talking fast. We couldn't hear what they were saying, but Hill laughed and shook his head. St. Thomas said something to her, then stood and offered his hand, and they climbed back up the levee to the path on top, and he gestured into the river.
"Telling her not to worry, the body's gone," LuEllen guessed, looking up at me.
"No, keep shooting," I snapped.
She looked back through the viewfinder and triggered off a shot and then, without looking up, asked, "Why?"
"Because they're going to kill her," I said. I started to stand, thinking to shout, but Hill, already moving, stepped up behind the woman with his hand extended. It was holding the black automatic that St. Thomas had used on the cats. The woman never saw it coming. Hill fired a single shot into the back of her head, and she tumbled down the embankment like a broken doll.
"Motherfucker," LuEllen groaned. She took shots of them going down the levee, pitching the woman's body into the water, then coming back up. Hill was animated, laughing, and slapped St. Thomas on the shoulder. St. Thomas said something, and Hill took the pistol out of his belt, looked at it, and turned and pitched it into the river.
"Shoot it," I blurted. LuEllen was still looking through the viewfinder and fired a last shot just as the pistol hit the water. I tried to mark the spot in my memory and then said, "Let's get the fuck out of here. If they even get a smell of us or decide to check this place out."
We ran back down the hill, down the road, and off onto the track.
"They'd know the car," LuEllen said, looking back toward the hill as we got in it.
"They were a hundred yards away, and they're both heavy guys, and they had no reason to run. Even if they're going up the hill, they wouldn't be more than halfway yet," I said. I turned the car around, rolled it back to the road, and went out the opposite way.
We argued about the killings.
"We can't tell anybody," LuEllen said urgently. "I don't want to quit, but I don't want to get involved in any kind of murder investigation. That'd blow me, that'd blow you."