“He's with George and them. They'll be drinking for hours.”
“I guess so. What are you doing? Damn it, Frank, not here.”
“Come on, Betts, you're wet already.”
She giggled. “Stop it. What if somebody comes?”
“ I'm going to come. Feel that? It's about to explode.”
“All right. Ten minutes and I mean it.”
“I'll make it in five.”
Nicky looked through the peephole and saw an overweight couple disappear into a doorway across the hall.
He retraced his steps, replacing first the straw and then the chip of paper as he left.
John Adams had dismissed him as an incompetent, crippled bum. Nicky Green knew the value of having people underestimate you.
Sometimes Providence smiles. Nicky was heading back toward the River Club when he spotted the black Lincoln Town Car parked on the edge of a public lot across the street from the Wyndham Hotel. He drove slowly by the car, making sure it was the right license plate. How can it get any better than this? He scanned the lot, looking for the couple, but didn't see them. Well, they'll be back. His radio coming to life startled him.
“Nicky, we're all done. You still on the pair?”
“I'm at the Lincoln. I got caught in traffic. They parked in the lot and they're on foot. I'm trying to spot them. You guys meet me here, and we can spread out and look for them.”
“We're on the way,” Winter said.
54
Concord, North Carolina
When the phone rang, Rush Massey was sitting in the porch swing listening to the latest Harry Potter novel on CD over a portable entertainment center roughly the size of a breadbox that sat on a Stickley side table.
Nemo, who had been sound asleep on the tile floor beneath the swing, barked in alarm.
“Like I couldn't hear the dang phone, Nemo.” He stood and went inside with the dog close behind him. The call wouldn't go on to the answering service until the sixth ring because Sean hated to have to run to answer it. At that moment she was across town grocery shopping. Rush would have let it ring but for the chance it might be his father calling with news about Faith Ann. More likely it was Sean with a question about something he might not eat. She was still getting accustomed to his tastes, so if he didn't accompany her to the store she often called for his food-related advice. He turned into the home office and, putting the book down, lifted the receiver.
“Massey residence,” he announced. “How may I direct your call?”
He was stunned to hear the sobs and Faith Ann's fractured voice. “I… I… I. Rush. It's me, Faith Ann. Please… I need help.”
“Faith Ann. We've been worried sick about you! Where are you?”
“Rush, Mama's dead. I saw him… So is… Aunt Millie and Uncle Hank.”
She cried loudly, and his heart went out to her. “I know, but Hank's not. He's just unconscious-he's not dead. He's at the hospital where they have real good emergency doctors. Daddy went there when they shot him in the leg.”
“He's not… dead? Are you sure? I saw him. I thought sure.. But… Rush, I saw them run over them.”
“He's not good yet, but he's alive.”
“Who ran over them?”
“I'm not sure. Have you seen my daddy yet?”
“No.”
“Well, he's looking high and low for you.”
“Where?”
“In New Orleans.”
“Where in New Orleans?”
“Sean knows the hotel name. She'll be back in a few minutes.”
“Can you ask her and call me back?”
“I can call her on her cell phone. What's your number?”
As fast as she told him, he had it committed to memory.
“Faith Ann, Daddy said you didn't ever call the police. Why didn't you tell them about your mother?”
“One of them did it.” She was crying again. “They're trying to kill me too.”
“No, Faith Ann. My daddy won't let them. You know him.”
“Will you call me right back?”
“Sure. But I'll call Daddy and tell him where you are. Where are you exactly?”
“I'm at the aquarium.”
“Where is that?”
“Right by the Mississippi River.”
“I'll tell him. You just sit tight and wait. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Why did the police kill your mother?”
“Because of Horace Pond.”
“Just wait there, Faith Ann.”
“Okay, I will.”
“It's going to be okay, Faith Ann.”
“Thanks, Rush.”
“Good-bye, Faith Ann.”
“Good-bye, Rush.”
“And, Faith Ann?”
“Yeah.”
“We love you.”
“I love you too.”
Rush took a deep breath, pressed down the button, and dialed his father's cell number. There was no answer, just his voice mail. “Dang it.”
Rush tried again, same result.
He dialed Sean, and she picked up.
55
Marta and Arturo approached the aquarium from the rear. “Remember, Arturo. No guns. She's seen you, so we let Tinnerino and Doyle get her, and they'll hand her over.”
“What if people see them take her? How can they hand her to us after that?”
“They'll do what they're told to do.”
“We don't know for sure that she saw me,” he said sourly.
“You don't know that she didn't. So we aren't taking any chances. There are a lot of people around. We can't afford to do anything stupid. Remember that we have to get the tape.”
“And the negatives.”
“And those too. If we can.”
“Maybe the two cops will get the negatives and the tape and try to keep them. Bennett would pay a lot more for them than he'll pay if they just hand her over to us. I don't trust them.”
“If they try something like that, we'll handle them. We'll have to anyway, eventually. But we should plan everything so we get them all before they know what we're doing.”
“That's cool. But when I take them out, I want them to know I'm doing them.”
56
Winter had turned off his phone at the club, so he turned it on and called Detective Manseur to fill him in on the conversation with Bennett in his office. He described the couple: “Short woman in leather with long hair and a young dark-haired man in a black Lincoln Town Car. They were in Bennett's office just before we got there.”
“They aren't with Homicide, Vice, or Narcotics,” Manseur told him. “They could be uniforms on special assignment, but if they were working with the detective bureau, I'd know about them.”
“I don't think Bennett had anything to do with the Trammels' hit-and-run,” Winter told him. “He was easy to read because we came out of the blue and rattled him good. I don't think he ever expected to be connected to anything, because he didn't have a straight story and he mentioned his close friendship with Suggs. By the time we left he was almost under control, but I'm sure he's never heard of Hank.”
“But it has to be connected to Kimberly Porter,” Manseur said.
“Oh, Bennett's tangled up in that. Proving it is going to be a different matter. He'll lawyer up.”
Adams, overhearing the conversation, nodded, agreeing with Winter's assessment. “He's a narcissistic jerk. He thinks he's bulletproof and smarter than everybody else. He'll get more pissed if you criticize his lousy office decor than if you accuse him of a crime,” Adams said.
Winter said, “Amber didn't take any money from him, but she might have taken something worth killing her for. That charade probably allowed him to get the cops to locate her. I'd bet Suggs helped him with that. Maybe Bennett found her, he went postal, and Suggs is trying to cover for Bennett.”
Manseur said, “I don't think Bennett confronted Amber in Porter's office and there was an argument that escalated. The choice of the weapon says that whoever did it was there to kill Amber all along.”
“If Faith Ann saw Bennett do it, and Bennett ran to Suggs-his pal-that could explain why Suggs immediately started stacking the deck against her.”