Halfway into the car, he hesitated and turned and looked back at Deputy Simmons. 'This ain't a trick, is it?'
'No kinda trick I know of,' Simmons said. 'Just regulations, sir. We got passengers, there's where they gotta sit.'
Joe Ray nodded and disappeared into the back of the car. Juan followed.
As the deputy walked around to get in behind the steering wheel, he glanced over at Cathy Lee. His smile seemed genuine again. And at this distance, he was youthful again.
'This is just a formality. We won't be long, ma'am.'
'I'll make some coffee,' she said.
When the sheriff's deputy's car reached the spot where the F-150 was bogged down off the road, Simmons steered slightly onto what passed for a shoulder and braked to a halt. The back of the blue truck's bed was visible through lush green foliage. Flattened-out grass and some sheared-off small saplings showed where the big Ford had gone in. The road had curved, and the truck had gone straight and just missed some good-sized cypress tree trunks, one on each side. It hadn't missed their lower branches.
'Looks like you broke some wood goin' in,' Simmons said over his shoulder.
'Tell you the truth, I mighta fell asleep at the wheel,' Juan said. 'I got sleep watchamacallit-a sleep disorder-so I'm tired most of when I'm awake, doze off unexpectedly at the darnedest times.'
'Sleep apnea,' the deputy said. 'Doctor can treat that for you.'
'I don't wanna wear one of them breathin' apparatus things when I sleep,' Juan said. 'Looks to me like they'd suffocate you.'
'Cure your sleep apnea,' Joe Ray said.
'I'll be right back,' the deputy said and climbed out of the car and shut the door before they could answer.
Deputy Simmons didn't look back at them as he approached the truck. Morning sunlight slanted in low through the trees, and the F-150's bulbous blue tailgate gleamed like an Easter egg badly hidden among the greenery.
When he was as close to the vehicle as he'd been last time, Simmons rolled up his uniform pants and waded into shallow, brackish water. He thought about removing his shoes, but it wasn't worth the risk of stepping on something. Or getting bitten by something. Besides, the sheriff's department would compensate him for a pair of regulation shoes ruined in the performance of his duties. He hoped. There was no other, dry way to reach the damned truck.
He felt the cool water rise on his bare legs, then spill into his leather shoes. His socks were soaked within seconds.
All in the job.
When he got to the mired truck, he attempted to open the driver's-side door and found it locked. He could see across the cab that the opposite door was also locked.
Laugh's on me.
In part so he wouldn't look foolish to the two men confined in the rear of the cruiser, he began a slow, sloshing circuit of the truck, making a show of examining its exterior.
When the one called Juan had driven it into the swamp, the branches had scratched it considerably. One deep gouge in the right front fender revealed black paint beneath the blue.
Black.
Simmons was pretty sure the truck hadn't been manufactured with black primer paint. This vehicle had been repainted. It was awfully new for a repaint, unless it had been in an accident.
Standing and staring at where black paint showed through some other, smaller scratches, the deputy suddenly remembered it hadn't been that long ago when every lawman in the South was looking for a black Ford F- 150. It had been stolen by that Coulter guy who'd been found dead and full of shotgun pellets about ten miles down the state road. This truck had a different license plate number, but that was no surprise.
Sheriff's Deputy O. E. Simmons decided to leave the two men locked in the backseat of his car for a while. Wading back toward the car, he was surprised to realize he was excited. Somebody had sure as hell shot Coulter, the Torso Murderer, and left his dead body on the side of the road. Maybe it was the two assholes in the back of the patrol car. A couple of killers. Wouldn't that be some collar? Maybe get him elected sheriff someday.
Slow down, slow down… Don't jump to conclusions, get ahead of yourself, and screw up royally.
Simmons played it casual and acted like there was nothing wrong as he drove the two men back to the ramshackle house. He parked where he had last time, in the shade of a big willow.
Cathy Lee Aiken was nowhere in sight outside.
'Any guns in the house?' Simmons asked the two men behind him, making it a casual, routine question.
'Not as I know of,' Juan said.
'Not a one,' Joe Ray said. 'I got an old shotgun, but it's back in the truck. Broke down proper an' outta sight behind the seat back.'
Leaving the two men confined in back, Simmons locked the car and left it. He went up on the plank porch with his gun drawn. Knocked. Got no answer. Knocked again. Same result. He could feel the hot sun on the back of his neck.
'Ma'am?'
Silence.
He tried the knob and found the door unlocked.
When he glanced back at the patrol car, he saw the two men staring at him intently through the back side window. The skinny one, Joe Ray, actually had his nose pressed to the glass.
The deputy hurled the door open and went into the house fast, gun level and held before him with both hands. Keeping his arms rigid, he swept the barrel from side to side.
The living room was unoccupied.
With his heart lodged low in his throat, he checked out the two bedrooms and found them also unoccupied. A ceiling fan was turning slowly in the bedroom with the double bed. There was a used condom on the floor. There was also a double-barreled shotgun leaning in a corner.
So much for no guns in the house.
As he entered the tiny, unoccupied kitchen, he smelled it.
He relaxed and holstered his gun.
The coffee was on, but Cathy Lee was gone.
68
Sometimes love was grand.
Linda had brought some take-out Chinese to Quinn's apartment, and they were eating lunch at the tiny table in the kitchen. It was comfortably cool despite the outside temperature of almost ninety. Quinn was having orange- flavored chicken; Linda, moo goo gai pan. They shared egg rolls and a large foam container of white rice. Quinn had gotten some bottled water from the refrigerator to drink and put it in tumblers with ice so it would stay plenty cold..
The kitchen smelled good with the aroma of food and soy seasoning. Quinn thought it remarkable that he didn't feel strange sitting here sharing a meal in this kitchen, at this table, with a woman other than May or their daughter, Lauri. So many years in the apartment with May, with Lauri growing up. Then the divorce, and Lauri coming back to live briefly with Quinn, while May stayed in California with her new husband.
Now they were both in California, May and Lauri, and here was Quinn in the apartment with a woman named Linda. A stranger to them, and sometimes to him.
It was almost as if the apartment and its contents were different in some strange, unidentifiable way. Quinn remembered the comedian who'd claimed someone had stolen everything in his apartment and replaced it with identical duplicates. That was how Quinn felt, as if he were playing himself in a dream of his life. And in that context, everything seemed normal. Pass the rice, please, whoever you are. Quinn wondered if Linda ever felt the
