“We’ll take a couple of pizzas and a couple of sandwiches.”
She scurried off to wrap them, the pizzas in square containers, the sandwiches in wax paper. She dug out two huge dill pickles from a jar and wrapped those individually to go with the sandwiches. In less than a minute she was back. Still no questions, no conversation. Other than the first once-over, she didn’t really look at them.
“With the gas that comes to $43.67.”
Andrew handed her his American Express card.
She swiped it through the machine and handed him the copy to sign. Just as she handed him a pen, he said, “Gum, I forgot gum.”
Jared looked around, and when he turned to grab a pack off a rack behind him, Andrew flipped the charge slip over and scribbled “CO via 6.” By the time Jared tossed the gum onto the counter, Andrew had his name signed and was handing the slip back to her.
She picked up the gum in one hand and charge slip in her other. “You paying for this separately?”
“Yes.” Andrew dug the change out of his pockets, hoping his hieroglyphics wouldn’t be noticed, at least for now.
Finally finished, Jared gave Andrew one of the two bags, then tucked the six-pack under Andrew’s arm, as if purposely weighing him down. Melanie had brought the car right up to the front door. They headed outside, Jared holding the door to the convenience store open while Andrew handed Charlie the beer through the car window. He was getting in the front passenger seat when he noticed Jared hadn’t left his post, hand still holding open the store’s front door, as if he was waiting for someone else to go in. Andrew looked around the parking lot, only there was no one else there.
“I saw what you did, Andrew,” Jared said, waiting for Andrew’s eyes to meet his. As Andrew began to understand, Jared slipped back into the convenience store.
Andrew’s stomach fell to his feet even before he heard the gunshot.
CHAPTER 49
12:15 p.m.
“What the hell did you do, Jared?” Melanie asked for the second time, trying to keep her voice controlled. She had driven with hands shaking, pretending that what she’d heard wasn’t a gunshot. Now, as she waited at a stop sign, she glanced at Jared in the rearview mirror. He was stuffing his mouth with a slice of pizza and popping the cap off a beer. Another glance at Andrew made her insides churn. The writer had doubled over, his forehead pressed against his hands, almost as if he was expecting to be sick.
“What did you do, Jared?” she asked again.
“What did I do?” he asked through a mouthful of food. “You should ask your buddy what he did.” This time he flung a piece of paper over the seat. “Take a right.”
“We just came from that direction.” But she didn’t argue and pulled onto the highway. She grabbed the paper before it slipped off the seat to the floor. It looked like an ordinary credit card receipt with a signature.
“What? He signed the correct name.”
“On the back, stupid.”
“Don’t call me stupid,” she said before she could stop herself. Her hands were shaking so bad she couldn’t read what was printed on the back. “What’s coviale?” she asked, pronouncing it as best she could.
“No, no. It’s CO via 6. Don’t you get it? He was trying to tip them off. Tell them which way we were headed.”
“Oh, I get it,” Charlie piped up and Melanie could see him grinning in the rearview mirror like a schoolboy who’d answered a question correctly. “Colorado via Highway 6. That’s what it is, right?” He looked to Jared for approval.
“You didn’t need to kill her,” Andrew said without lifting his head, his voice a quiet muffle.
“The way I see it, buddy, pal, Mr. Ordinary Citizen Kane, you killed her.” Jared spat out the words with such exaggerated enunciation that Melanie could feel his angry spittle on her neck and could smell the pepperoni on his breath.
Silence. It was suddenly so quiet Melanie could hear Jared chewing and swallowing. There was some rustling of paper and she saw that Charlie had joined in, unwrapping a sandwich and ripping open a bag of chips. Nothing seemed to spoil either of their appetites.
She knew as far as Jared was concerned the subject was closed. This was crazy. Another person dead? When would it stop? Had Jared lost his mind? This was not the brother she knew. She tried to keep her mind on the road. Every intersection had her checking for police cars. What if someone heard the gunshot? What if someone saw them drive away?
As if he could read her mind, Jared said suddenly, “We need a new car.”
“But I just filled this one up,” Melanie said, recognizing immediately what a stupid thing it was to say. Stupid, yes. Maybe Jared was right. She was stupid. Stupid to ever trust him, now knowing full well why she wasn’t in on “the plan” from the start. The guns, the getaway—she would never have agreed to any of this. Now Jared had them all in such a mess there was no turning back.
“Whadya think, Charlie?”
“I noticed some kind of manufacturing plant a few miles out. Parking lot with a bunch of cars. Should be up here.” Charlie sat forward, surveying the area.
Melanie hadn’t noticed it, but, of course, Charlie would have. Sure enough she could now see the building back off the highway, partially hidden by trees. Some farm-implement maker or so she guessed something called Val-Farm Manufacturing would be.
She took the turn for the access road without needing Jared’s instructions. She noticed Andrew had sat up. He had taken off the sunglasses and was rubbing his eyes and forehead with such force she expected the wound to start bleeding again. What was wrong with him? Did he want to hurt himself? Sure enough, drops of blood fell onto the car seat. She grabbed a napkin she hadn’t used earlier and tossed it into his lap. He stared at it, then finally, after glancing at her, picked it up and put it against the wound.
Jared and Charlie looked like two kids in a candy store scoping out the cars as Melanie drove up and down the rows.
“Not another Saturn,” Jared said. “And nothing flashy.”
“I can do Tauruses pretty good,” Charlie said. “How ’bout that one over there? It’s kinda dirty. I can’t even tell what color it is. I can exchange license plates with that Ford Escort behind it.”
“It’s perfect. Melanie—”
But she was already pulling in to an empty slot two cars away.
Charlie jumped out and walked up to the car as if it was his and they were dropping him off. It didn’t matter. There was no one around. And the building didn’t have any windows that looked out over the parking lot.
Charlie grinned as he opened the Taurus’s door without jimmying the lock. The owner hadn’t even bothered to lock it. Melanie watched him slide into the driver’s seat, his head disappearing while he hot-wired it. But suddenly his head popped up with a wide grin as he dangled the car’s keys for them to see.
“Christ,” Jared said. “People are so fucking trusting out here. They deserve to have their cars stolen.”
CHAPTER 50
4:10 p.m.
Max Kramer slammed the telephone receiver into its cradle. He couldn’t believe it. Grace Wenninghoff had just passed on his offer. Was she recklessly stupid or did she know something?
Rumor was the cops didn’t have jackshit as evidence in the string of convenience-store robberies. Nothing except maybe the stores’ videos, which they had shown snippets of on the ten o’clock news. Not much to see there. It looked like the same routine, even the same guy in the same getup, but it also looked as if it would be impossible for anyone to ID the guy from those crappy videos.
There went his insurance policy, down the drain. Now he was stuck defending another crack whore who couldn’t afford to pay him. Not even two weeks ago he was on the Larry King Show and he didn’t think life could get any better. Well, he was right, because just when he thought he was on top of the world, he was sliding down shit hill again.
He leaned back in his leather chair and stared out his office window that overlooked the Gene Leahy Mall an
d downtown Omaha. It was this window and this view that made the small, cramped space prime commercial real estate. He couldn’t afford it, but did, because he liked looking out over the city and feeling a sense of power. He had worked long and hard to win this city’s respect. He wasn’t about to have it taken away from him now.
He could cash in on his national media coupe for only so long. He knew that. It wouldn’t take much before his colleagues started to try to knock him down—the bastards.
He sorted through the stack of voice messages. A half-dozen idiots, all wanting something from him. The one idiot he needed to hear from hadn’t called. He checked his watch. He had to start thinking about an alternative insurance policy. It shouldn’t be this difficult. After all, who better than a defense attorney knew exactly what the cops were looking for?
Max set aside the three messages from his wife. She’d want to know what time he’d be home. Should she keep dinner warm?
He hated that the bitch kept such tabs on him. He was sick and tired of her subtle threats. He had hoped after his national media blitz that he wouldn’t need her or her money. What was he thinking? That Fox News would cancel Greta Van Susteren and be calling to offer him his own legal talk show? How likely was that?
Instead, he had a shitload of messages from death-row assholes all across the country, all wanting him to get them off. More assholes who didn’t have a fucking dime to pay him. And there weren’t any more favors he needed from any of them. Hell, the one bastard who did owe him couldn’t get things right.
He checked his wristwatch again. He had better be getting a phone call and soon.
CHAPTER 51
5:56 p.m.
Tommy Pakula searched the bleachers, squinting against the sun and finally putting a hand up to his forehead. Claire was on the second row from the top, waving at him and at the same time yelling at their daughter to “use your head.” It looked as if he had missed most of the first quarter, but his team was ahead by one goal.
He climbed up the bleachers, and the pack of screaming parents automatically parted, allowing him to get to his designated seat. But because he was late he got only nods as greetings, no time for talk. The game was on.
This was the first year Pakula had sat in the bleachers instead of on the sidelines, wearing his sweat-stained ball cap with the tattered white COACH embroidered across the front. He missed it, but both he and Claire had decided something had to give. He was running himself ragged.
He barely sat down before Claire was pulling out a Pepsi and a sandwich from their beat-up mini-cooler. She handed him the drink while she unwrapped the sandwich, her eyes never leaving the field. He could already smell the spicy meatballs, last night’s leftovers that she’d managed to resurrect with mozzarella cheese, hot mustard and sourdough bread. His mouth started watering before she had it out of the wax paper. It was a running joke between them that he’d never be able to divorce her because he’d never be able to live without her cooking. Of course without it, he probably wouldn’t have to spend as much time and sweat every morning in their basement, slamming all those calories off with his punching bag.
“How’s she doing?” he asked, his eyes finding their eight-year-old with no problem. Jenna was the smallest one, a skinny little blonde who could dart in between the other players. He found her easily on the field.
“It’s so muddy,” Claire said. “They’ve all been sliding into each other. Oh, she did that thing you showed her.”
“Yeah? How’d it work?”
“Too hard. The ball flew out of bounds.”
“That’s okay. She had some power behind it. That’s good.”
He glanced over at Claire as he took a bite of the sandwich. She turned and looked at him, smiling. He automatically wiped at his mouth, thinking she must have spotted a wad of mustard. She shook her head, the smile still there when she turned back to the game, but she reached over to pat his knee and that’s where her hand stayed.
For some reason the gesture reminded Pakula of Andrew and their conversation out at the cabin. Andrew had given him a hard time about being an old married guy who couldn’t possibly advise anyone on romance. But this, watching their daughter on the soccer field on a glorious evening with the sun setting behind them, having a meatball sandwich and his wife’s hand on his knee, this was good, really good.
All he had tried to get across to Andrew was that he was missing out. He knew there was something in his friend’s past, some miserable breakup, some failed relationship that had happened before the two had become friends. Stuff like that happens. You shake it off. You go on and find someone else. But not Andrew. Andrew seemed to react by closing himself off. There were too many emotional barricades set up with that guy. Even as friends, Andrew had only allowed Pakula to see and know as much about him as he wanted, bits and pieces doled out little by little. From what he did know about Andrew, he guessed the guy’s father had really played a number on him, instilling in Andrew that he wasn’t worth much. Amazing how easily parents could fuck up their kids.
Claire was watching him again, only this time she looked concerned. “You’re worried about him,” she said and Pakula did a double take, wondering how the hell she could always do that. How did she always know what was on his mind?
“He’s not prepared for something like this.”
“My God, who is?”
“I should have checked on him sooner. Especially when I knew they were headed in that direction.”
“Tommy.” This time she squeezed his knee to get his full attention. “You can’t take care of all of us all the time.” When she could see he wouldn’t let her words exonerate him, she added, “Andrew’s going to be all right. He has to be or I’ll never forgive him.”
That made Pakula smile, as if her ability to inflict motherly guilt could overreach all boundaries. But before he could go back to his sandwich, his cell phone began ringing. Not an unusual occurrence, and yet everyone turned to scowl at him as if he had broken some rule. He had it out before the third ring.
“Pakula,” he said, twisting around as much as possible and turning his back to the crowd and the field. Claire reached for his sandwich and drink to free his hands.
“Detective Thomas Pakula?”
“Yeah. Speak up. I’m at a soccer game, so we might…” He was interrupted by the chants and applause before he could get off the warning. He waited then tried again. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Sheriff Grant Dawes down here in Nemaha County. Someone downtown told me I should be talking to you.”
“Yeah, okay.” Pakula didn’t know the sheriff, but he was quickly getting impatient with his slow, polite manner. “What is it you need to tell me, Sheriff?” There were about to be more screams and applause. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his team racing down the sidelines. He turned to watch, not wanting to miss another goal.
“We found…” The rest of the sheriff’s words were drowned out.
“What’s that?”
“We found the red Saab with the license plate A WHIM.”
Pakula froze. The noise erupted again around him, so that he couldn’t even ask the one question that came instantly to mind. Claire stopped cheering when she saw his face and met his eyes. He gestured that he couldn’t hear as he rose, shoving his way back down the bleachers, everyone too excited about their team scoring to bother being upset with him. He retreated to the parking lot, hoping he hadn’t lost the sheriff.
“Are you still with me?” he finally asked when he could hear again.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“You said you found the car?”
“Yep, it’s sitting in a farmer’s garage. They took his Chevy, but not before slitting his throat.”
“Holy crap!”
“There’s more.”
Pakula leaned against his Explorer, bracing himself for the worst. Had Andrew Kane been left behind, too, with his throat slashed?
“Up the road in Auburn we’ve got a dead clerk in the G
as N’ Shop. Son of a bitch shot her right in the face, ripped her jaw wide open.”
Pakula waited. Finally he asked, “Any other victims?”
“Ain’t two enough?”
“No, it’s two too many.” Pakula ran his hand over his head, relieved and kicking himself for sounding like it. “Sheriff, how long ago were the bodies found? I’d like to get our mobile crime lab down there asap.”
“Actually, that’s what I was hoping you’d say. I’ve got my men isolating both scenes, but I don’t have the resources to tackle this kind of thing.”
“This a good number to reach you?” Pakula asked as he checked his cell phone to make sure the sheriff’s phone number got logged on his phone’s memory.
“Yeah, I’ll be here.”
“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll call you back. Hold on. I don’t suppose you have a license number for that Chevy?”
“Not yet. The wife’s not in much shape to be remembering such things, so I’m having someone look it up. I’ll have it when you call back.”
“Good.” Pakula ended the call, punching in the next number without hesitating. He needed to act and not dwell on Andrew. And he reminded himself of Claire’s words only changing them a bit and saying out loud, “Andrew will be all right. He has to be or I’ll never forgive myself.”
CHAPTER 52
8:20 p.m.
It was easier this way, Grace told herself as she searched for clean linens for the guest room. Easier than arguing with the old woman. When Grace picked up Emily from Grandma Wenny’s she had insisted on coming home with them, at least until “Vince returned from the Alps.” That was exactly how her grandmother referred to Vince’s trip to Switzerland as if he was there on some ski trip.
Grandma Wenny had been concerned ever since Jared Barnett had been released from prison, though Grace hadn’t confided anything about him following her. Nor had she shared her suspicions that he was one of the bank robbers now on the run. Yet the old woman seemed to have a sixth sense about these things. Even the night Grace’s parents had been murdered, Grandma Wenny had lit a candle in the window for protection from the “bad air” of the approaching thunderstorms, not realizing it was a storm of another kind that would hit her son’s house only three blocks away.