sorts of problems usually present. The family knew about it, knew Lucas got the bad seed. He had a crazy uncle, Tree-house Boy or whatever. Insanity repeating in the family. But intervening in Lucas’s madness would mean… what? Committing him? Embarrassment? Bringing up sordid bits of Maylene’s history and humiliating her all over again?”
The breadth of Crandell’s smile was unsettling. “Hang on a sec, Ryder…” he said, jogging from the room, returning seconds later with a chair. He sat it in reverse, arms crossed on the chair back.
“I got to sit, Ryder. Listening to your theories is better than a movie. OK, keep going.”
I glared at him and continued. “Then one day Lucas does the big wig-out. Kills Frederika Holtkamp. She was Freddy’s teacher. Freddy mentioned her name the other day.”
Crandell nodded. “She was Fred’s teacher for years. Brought that boy a long way, I hear.”
“The Kincannons knew Lucas was about to flip out, knew the signs well enough to stay on Lucas’s trail. They were too late, finding him under the microwave tower, covered with Holtkamp’s blood.” I lifted my head from the pillow. “Was that when they called you in for the dirty work, Crandell? To co-opt Barlow? It was your idea to pull Pettigrew to Montgomery, get him off the case, right?”
“What’d make this movie perfect,” Crandell chuckled, “was if I had me some Milk Duds.”
His grin was maddening. I said, “I know about Rudolnick, Crandell.”
“Oh my. Do tell.”
“I figure Mama K thought her boy could be brought back from the brink of madness. Rudolnick’s drug problem was probably known in a small circle. You found out, set him up for a fake bust. From that point on, he belonged to the Kincannons. Rudolnick consulted at Mobile Regional Hospital, right? The Kincannons give big bucks to MRH. Carrot and stick. One hand has money, the other can slip an arrest report into the system. Easy when you own cops like Shuttles, right?”
Crandell clapped his hands. Stomped his feet on the floor. “You ever think of renting out as an entertainment center, Ryder? You’re amazing.”
“Rudolnick wanted out, conscience maybe. But that couldn’t happen, could it? Leland Harwood handles the disposal. He takes the fall, but a paid-off group of witnesses sends him on a light flight. He gets promised big compensation when he gets out. But he’s a loose end, a talker. You drop Tommy the Bomb on him.”
Crandell shook his head, sighed. “I wish you hadn’t been at the prison that day, Ryder. This could all have been avoided.”
“We would have dug you up, Crandell. Just from a different direction. Answer me one thing: Why did Lucas kill Taneesha Franklin? Miss Gracie keeps the music on during the day when no one’s here. WTSJ. Did Lucas form a bond by listening to her?”
Crandell stood, picked up the chair. He was leaving.
“Come on, Crandell,” I yelled. “Give me something.”
He turned, a big smile on his face.
“You got a couple things right, Ryder. But you ain’t near the core.”
“What’s the core?”
He winked. “This whole shitaree ain’t nothing more than a little family business. That’s all.” He checked his watch. “Business calls. Enjoy breathing, Ryder. You got less than a day of it left.”
CHAPTER 41
Nautilus started to put music on, sorting through a stack of recently played CDs, nothing feeling right. He knelt to a shelf of vinyls, flicked through the titles, the musicians: Armstrong, Bechet, Beiderbecke, Coltrane, Johnson, Monk, Parker, Rainey, Spanier, Teagarden…a century of jazz and blues. Nothing sounded right. For the first time he could ever remember, there was nothing he wanted to hear. He fell into the couch and willed his head to stop thinking. Wait on the call from Hembree.
An hour later his phone rang. He checked the incoming number: Forensics.
“What you got, Bree?”
“You don’t live too far, do you, Harry?”
“I’ll be right there.”
Hembree was alone with the kayak when Nautilus arrived, the skinny Forensics expert standing with his hand on its surface. Hembree looked up, saw Nautilus.
“We spoke with the kayak’s manufacturers, Harry, WaveDesign out in San Diego. They’re big on engineering, their niche in the market. They do impact tests, strength tests. Drop the things from cars going sixty miles an hour, slam them with big boats, little boats, jet skis. They float them in front of oil tankers to see what pops up in the wake. They’ve even devised a torsion test where they-”
“Bree…”
“Sorry. We e-mailed WaveDesign photos of the kayak, close-ups, full-lengths, micros. They called back with more questions, wanting additional photos from other angles. MacCready talked their lingo, made it easier. The WaveDesign folks were fascinated by the problem.”
“And?”
Hembree looked side to side. All the other staffers were gone for the day or in other parts of the building. He lowered his voice.
“Were you guys working on anything dangerous?”
“It’s possible. Why?”
“From everything the folks at WaveDesign could ascertain, the kayak’s been run over by a vehicle. Several times.”
“Tire marks?”
“None, but all someone had to do was drop a heavy-duty tarp over the surface. Damage without tracks.”
Nautilus scratched his fingernail over the gouges in the surface of the boat.
“Faked, you’re saying?”
“Someone may have wanted this thing to look like it’d been plowed under by a big-ass ship. Nothing’s washed ashore?”
“Let me get an update.” Harry dialed the Coast Guard, asked for Sanchez, held his breath.
Sanchez came on. “It’s not quite what I expected. We’ve had a wind shift. Wind’s been running with the current for ten hours. When the wind and current are at cross purposes, so to speak, a, uh, floating object might lay motionless in the water, pushed toward shore by current and waves, pushed out by wind. With the conditions as they stand, I expected we’d see something by now.”
“It’s rare to not see something?”
“I still wouldn’t be hopeful, Detective Nautilus. Not after this much time. It pains me to say that.”
“Thank you.” Nautilus clicked off, dropped the phone in his pocket.
“Not so much as a scrap of cloth, Bree.”
Hembree thought a long moment. “What should I do with this information, Harry? There’s no investigation number for the kayak on the books. It’s not official.”
“Let’s keep it that way for a while.”
Hours passed. The door opened. Miss Gracie stepped inside.
“The only people watching are outside waiting for someone who ain’t coming yet.”
She kicked off the brakes on the bed and grabbed the push bar, wheeling me out into the common area. The lights were lowered and the room was suffused with amber light, like candlelight. The shades over the windows were drawn tight.
Low music drifted from hidden speakers, an old Motown piece I couldn’t identify. A radio station, I assumed WTSJ. Miss Gracie spun the bed to angle me down a wide and dark hall jutting from the large room. She stopped at the door. I saw Freddy asleep on a large bed, the broad, flat face, button nose. Beside Freddy, on the pillow, was the dog puppet.
