carried a small shopping bag, and smiled at Anthony as she headed past him toward the exit. Anthony was pretty sure she wasn’t the
one. Still, better to play it safe.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Anthony said.
She turned and took the gun from the shopping bag and shot him in the forehead. As Anthony went down, one of the men from the elevator stepped up and took the woman’s arm. He was wearing a
leather jacket and a long-billed low-crowned baseball hat.
By the time Anthony hit the floor the man and woman were walking
firmly past him and out the front door of the mall. As they reached the parking lot several people pushed past them, running toward a Paradise Police car. The people crowded around the car, all talking at once to Eddie Cox and gesturing toward the mall. The man and woman passed the crowd and got into a rented Volvo, and drove quietly away.
64
Jesse sat with Healy in the front seat of Healy’s unmarked
car.
“We found their other clothes in the washrooms,” Healy
said.
“Had the change of clothes in the shopping bags,” Jesse
said.
“Maybe you should have asked for help,”
Healy
said.
“We had all the exits covered,” Jesse said.
“Which means they walked right past one of your guys.”
“Simpson and I were the only ones really knew what they looked
like,” Jesse said.
“If you’d brought us in
…” Healy said.
“You wouldn’t have known what they looked like
either.”
“True, but we might have had more people at the elevator.”
“And your people couldn’t have started shooting,” Jesse said,
“any more than Anthony could. There were eight or ten people coming
off that elevator.”
“And he was probably a little less cautious because it was a
good-looking broad,” Healy said.
Jesse shrugged.
“Whether it would have gone better if you’d invited us in,”
Healy said. “It couldn’t have gone worse.”
“No. One of my guys is dead, and the Lincolns are gone.”
“You’re sure it was them,” Healy
said.
“It was them.”
“You recognized them.”
“It was them.”
Healy nodded and didn’t speak for a moment.
Then he said, “We’re covering their condo.
Their Saab is still
in their parking lot.”
Jesse nodded. “Maybe a rental,” he said.
“We’ll be checking the rental agencies, but it’s,” he glanced at
the digital clock on his dashboard, “two twenty-six in the morning.”
“If they used their own names,” Jesse said.
“Have to show a credit card.”
