The waitress came and removed their plates, inquiring whether they cared for dessert. Both refused and refused coffee as well. The waitress, remaining sullen, seemed to have anticipated their responses; she had already totaled their check and dropped it unceremoniously on the table between them. Shaeffer insisted on paying her half. They walked to their rooms without further conversation. They did not say good night to each other.
Andrea Shaeffer closed the door behind her and went straight to the bureau dresser in the small motel room. Images from the past few days, snatches of conversations, raced through her head, ratcheting about in a confusing, unsettling manner. But she steeled herself and started to act slowly, steadily. She placed her pocketbook down deliberately on the top and removed her nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. She released the clip of bullets from the handle, checking to make certain that it was fully loaded. She pulled back the action on the pistol as well, sighting down the barrel, making sure that all the moving parts were in working order. She reloaded the weapon and placed it down in front of her. Then she rummaged through the pocket-book, searching for her backup clip of bullets. She found this, checked it, then put it next to the gun.
For a few moments she stared down at the weapon.
She thought of hours spent practicing with the nine-millimeter. The Monroe County Sheriff's Department had set up a combat practice range on a deserted spot just below Marathon. It was a simple procedure; while she walked through a series of deserted buildings, little more than the cinder-block shells of homes bleached white by the constancy of sun, a range control officer electronically operated a series of targets. She'd been good at the procedure, scoring consistently in the nineties. But what she'd enjoyed the most was the electricity of the practice sessions, the demand to see a target, recognize it as friend or foe, and fire or hold fire accordingly. There was a sense of being totally involved, unconcerned by anything save the sun, the weight of the handgun in her hand, and the targets that appeared. In a killing zone. Comfortable, alone with the single task of proceeding through the course.
She looked down at the weapon again.
I've never fired except at a target, she thought.
She remembered the mist and cold of the streets in Newark.
It wasn't like what she had expected. She had not even known that she was in combat in those moments. The people on the sidewalk, the threatening looks and motions, the hopeless pursuit through the streets. It was the first time it had been for real, for her. She gritted her teeth. She promised herself not to fail that test again.
She set the weapon down on the bed and reached for the telephone. She found Michael Weiss on her third try…'Andy, hey!' he said quickly. 'Jesus, am I glad to hear from you. What's been happening? What about your bad guy?'
This question almost made her laugh.
'I was right,' she said. 'This guy's real wrong. I have to help this Escambia cop with an arrest, then I'll be there.'
She could sense Weiss absorbing this cryptic statement. Before he could say anything, she added, 'I'm back in Florida. I can get to Starke tomorrow, okay? I'll fill you in then.'
'Okay,' he said slowly. 'But don't waste any more time. Guess what I came up with?'
'Murder weapon?'
'No such luck. But guess who made a dozen phone calls to his brother in the Keys in the month before the murder? And guess whose brand-new pickup truck got a speeding ticket on 1-95 right outside Miami twenty-four hours before Mister Reporter finds those bodies?'
'The good sergeant?'
'You got it. I'm going over to the truck dealer tomorrow. Gonna find out just exactly how he purchased that new four- by-four. Red. With fat tires and a light bar. A redneck Ferrari.' Weiss laughed. 'Come on, Andy, I've done all the legwork. Now I need your famous cold-hearted questioning technique to close the door on this guy. He's the one. I can feel it.'
'I'll get there,' she said. Tomorrow.'
She hung up the telephone. Her eyes landed on the pistol resting beside her. She cleared her mind and picked up her handgun, and, cradling it in her arms, lay back on the bed, kicking off her shoes but remaining fully clothed. She told herself to get some sleep and closed her eyes, still holding the gun tight, slightly irritated with Matthew Cowart for perceiving the truth: that she was in this to the end.
Cowart locked the door behind him and sat on the side of the bed. For a few seconds he looked down at the telephone, half as if he expected it to ring. Finally he reached down and seized the receiver. He pushed button number eight to receive a long-distance line, then started to punch in his ex-wife and daughter's number in Tampa. He touched nine of the eleven digits, then stopped.
He could think of nothing to say. He had nothing to add to what he'd told them in the early morning hours. He did not want to learn that they had not taken his advice and were still exposed and vulnerable, sitting in their fancy subdivision home. It was safer to imagine his daughter resting safely up in Michigan.
He disconnected the line, pushed number eight again, and dialed the number for the main switchboard at the Miami Journal. Talk to Will or Edna, he thought. The city editor or the managing editor or some copyboy. Just talk to someone at the paper.
'Miami Journal,' said a woman's voice.
He didn't reply.
'Miami Journal,' she said again, irritated. 'Hello?'
The operator hung up abruptly, leaving him holding a silent telephone in his hands.
He thought of Vernon Hawkins and wondered for a moment how to dial heaven. Or maybe hell, he thought, trying to make a joke with himself. What would Hawkins say? He'd tell me to make it right, and then get on with life. The old detective had no time for fools.
Cowart looked at the telephone again. Shaking his head, as if refusing some order that had not been given, he held it back to his ear and dialed the number for the motel's front desk.
'This is Mr. Cowart in room one-oh-one. I'd like to have a wake-up call at five A.M.'
'Yes, sir. Rising early?'
'That's right.'
'Room one-oh-one at five A.M. Yes, sir.'
He hung up the phone and sat back on the bed. He felt a sickening amusement at the thought that in the entire world, the only person he could think of to talk with was the night clerk at a sterile motel. He put his head down and waited for the appointed hour to arrive.
The night draped itself around him like an ill-fitting suit. A cashmere heat and humidity filled the black air. Occasional streaks of lightning burst through the distant sky, as a big thunderstorm worked out in the Gulf, miles away, beyond the Pensacola shoreline. Tanny Brown thought it seemed as if some distant battles were taking place. Pachoula, however, remained silent, as if unaware of the immense forces that warred so close by. He turned his attention back to the quiet street he was riding down. He could see the school on his right, low- slung and unprepossessing in the darkness, waiting for the infusion of children that would bring it to life. He listened to the crunching sound the car tires made as he drove slowly past, and paused for an instant beneath the willow tree, looking back over his shoulder toward the school.
This is where it all started. It was right here she got into the car. Why did she do that? Why couldn't she have seen the danger and run hard, back to safety? Or called out for help?
It was the age, he realized, the same for his own daughter. Old enough to be vulnerable to all the terrors of the world, but still young enough not to know about them. He thought of all the times he'd sat across from his daughter and Joanie Shriver and considered telling them the truth about what lurked out in the world, only to bite back the horrors that echoed in his head, preferring to give them another day, another hour, another minute or two of innocence and the freedom it brought.
You lose something when you know, he thought.
He remembered the first time someone had spat the word 'nigger' at him, and the
