Mean Streak(89)

“Oh.”

“You sound surprised.”

She glanced toward the denuded bookshelves. “He treated it as an owner would. But if he’s a renter, then surely his name is on the lease.”

“Rent’s paid by a lawyer in Seattle.”

“Seattle?”

“On behalf of an LLC, and the general partner of the LLC is a corporation. We’re trying to cut through all the red tape necessary to get to a human being behind the corporation, but in the meantime, our suspect is getting away.”

Grange joined in. “The Floyd brothers claimed not to remember what he looks like. Their mother, too. The description Lisa gave the deputy could’ve been of me or Beyoncé. We find it real hard to believe that their powers of recall are that imprecise. And we think you remember him in a lot more detail than you gave us.”

Knight said, “That could be construed as obstruction of justice.”

“How could you prove what I do and do not remember about him?” she challenged. “I had a concussion and a CT scan that shows it.”

In frustration, Knight switched tactics. Sighing as though in resignation, he said, “We’re getting nowhere fast. I can hear your husband arguing with the deputies outside, and I sympathize with his impatience. He’s had it up to here with us.

“And, pardon me for saying so, Emory, but you’re looking peaked. Maybe you shouldn’t have checked out of the hospital so soon. We should’ve thought twice before hauling you up here.

“But since we made the trip, tell us one thing. Just one thing that’ll help us. Then we’ll go back to Drakeland, see that you’re put up someplace nice and made comfortable so you can rest.”

She waited out the inanities, then said, “Please stop talking to me as though I’m an imbecile.”

“Last thing I think is that you’re an imbecile.”

“I’m not infirm either. I am, however, tired of your hounding me to give you information that I don’t have.”

“I think you do.”

“Then you think wrong.”

Grange said, “We could charge you with aiding and abetting a criminal.”

“You don’t know that he’s a criminal.”

“We’ve got video of him committing a burglary.”

“No you don’t. You’ve got video of me.”

“Did he threaten you and the Floyds not to reveal his identity?”

“I don’t know his identity.”

“Every minute you sit here and refuse to cooperate—”

“I’m not refusing.”

“—he’s getting farther away.”

“Tell us his name.”

“I don’t know it.”

“Emory—”

“I don’t know his name!”

*





“Hayes Bannock.”

“What about him?” Jack asked.

“His fingerprint was lifted off a kitchen sink faucet in North Carolina.”

Just before six fifteen yesterday evening, Jack had left Rebecca Watson’s house wanting to throttle her.

Except for locating her, the trip to the West Coast had been a total bust. Reasoning that there was no sense in hanging around and placing his manhood in jeopardy, he’d gone straight from her house, all the way back across the water on the damn ferry, through Seattle proper, finally reaching Sea-Tac in time to claim one of the few remaining seats on the red-eye to New York. He killed time in the airport by reading a bad novel about a good cop, until the flight’s departure, which was delayed by an hour and a half. It had been bumpy to the degree that food and beverage service had been limited and passengers were required to stay buckled in their seats.

Then, because of weather, the flight was kept in a holding pattern for hours until finally getting clearance to land. He’d waited in the half-mile-long taxi line at JFK, stamping his feet and trying to keep his back to a polar wind. He had just now trudged into his apartment, trailing his roll-aboard, and feeling grimy, gritty, and generally like hammered shit.

He’d almost ignored Greer’s call. Now he let go of the handle of his rolling suitcase. It toppled. “Say again?”

Greer repeated the stupefying statement.

Jack stood perfectly still, waiting for the punch line, for the second shoe to drop, for the “Gotcha!”—although he couldn’t imagine his trusted associate pulling a dirty trick like that on him.

After fifteen seconds of stunned silence, Greer said, “Jack?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” His heart began to beat again. He found some oxygen. “When?”

“When did they lift it? Some time this morning. It was copied in an e-mail to you. Came in about three minutes ago. I thought you’d’ve seen it.”

“I was dealing with the taxi and getting into the building. Keep your phone in your hand.”

Jack clicked off and accessed his e-mail. The most recent in his inbox was from a Sergeant Detective Sam Knight. He tried to read it so quickly the message would just as well have been written in Zulu. He started with the salutation and began again, forcing himself to go slower.

Words leaped out at him. Breaking and entering. Assault and battery. Kidnapping. Statutory rape. “Jesus.” He called Wes Greer back.