15 Seconds

smiling, confident, the way I looked just days ago.

And the other of Vance Hofer, which I had taken in my office three weeks before.

I followed her in, but stayed back in the aisle.

A barrel-chested, wide-shouldered guy with curly reddish hair and a thick mustache was behind the counter, just hanging up the phone. Carrie went up to him, resting my iPad on the counter.

“Help you, ma’am?” the amiable gun dealer asked with a wide grin. “Hope I’m not saying something wrong, but you look like just the kind of gal who’d line up pretty nicely with an extended-mag TEC-9.”

“Already got one.” Carrie smiled, as if he had complimented her hair. “You the owner?”

“That be me.” He nodded. “Bud Poole. And you…?”

“My name’s Carrie Holmes.” She pushed her sunglasses up on her head, all business. “I’m with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.” She flashed her JSO ID.

“Jacksonville, you say…? Been getting a bunch of you folk up here these past few days, you must know what I mean…”

“I do… Hope you don’t mind if I ask you some questions… You were at the Mid-Carolina Gun Fair a few weeks back?”

“I was.” Bud nodded again. “Make it every year… Some of my steadiest customers are up there… But somehow I thought this business was all wrapped up…” He shifted a little uncomfortably.

“Just a question or two. Kind of a follow-up. You were the dealer who sold the gun to Henry Steadman?” Carrie opened her file. “An H and K nine-millimeter… I can show you a copy of the invoice here…”

“Save the effort,” Bud said obligingly. “Everyone in the damn country has seen that invoice by now. That was me.” He shrugged, his ruddy face sagging a little like an old orange. “Look, I told all this to the people who were up here before. I always do things by the book. Anyone got a problem with it, write your congressman and change the law…”

“I assure you I’m not up here to hassle you about sidestepping some red tape, Mr. Poole… I just want to show you a couple of photos, and ask if you’d be kind enough to let me know if you recognize the person you sold the weapon to.”

“Hard not to recognize him,” the dealer grunted. “His face’s been on the evening news as much as that guy Gadhafi. But like I’ve been saying to anyone who’ll listen, I was busy; it was crowded that day. You make a lot of quick sales at these shows. Everyone has a way of melding together…” Bud glanced up and saw me in the aisle. “Feel free to look around. Be with you in just a moment…”

“I’m sure they do.” Carrie nodded. She placed the iPad on the counter and brought up the photo of me. “Is that him?”

Bud stared, fingers rubbing his chin. “I keep saying, could’ve been in a cap or a beard or something. Or sunglasses. My reputation is my Bible, I always say. But yeah, looks like the guy.”

“You’re pointing to a picture of Dr. Henry Steadman,” Carrie confirmed, “of Palm Beach, Florida, who’s been accused of committing those killings down in Jacksonville.”

Bud shrugged again. “I can’t exactly vouch for what people chose to do with ’em once they pay me the cash.”

“Or I’m wondering, is it possible it could have been this man that you saw?” Carrie said, switching to the second image on the iPad. “I just want you to look again and think back carefully. I understand that you were very busy…”

This time she showed him the photo of Vance Hofer.

Bud didn’t have to say a word. His eyes pretty much told it all, fastening on the new face, flickering in surprise and then thought, nodding.

“Just take a close look. I know it’s hard to admit you might have been wrong…” She switched back to the photo of me. “But what if I told you that this person, Dr. Henry Steadman, was actually in South Florida on the day of that sale, operating on a patient in the morning and in meetings for much of the rest of it?”

Bud bunched his lips.

“But that this man…” She switched again to Hofer. “Vance Hofer. Is there any chance, Mr. Poole, that it might have been this man who bought that gun from you that day?”

He drew in a deep breath, his ruddy complexion replaced now by a dim pallor, staring and seemingly reevaluating. He tapped his index finger on the counter.

“No one’s trying to get you into any trouble, Mr. Poole. Like you said, you did exactly what was required. But I’m sure there are security cameras somewhere that might show Mr. Hofer coming into the hall that day. And not Dr. Steadman. So which person was it,” Carrie asked again, “this man or this one?”- flashing once more between the two. “Truth is, we’re going to have to clear it up at some point, whether here or in front of a jury, where you’d be under oath.”

My blood began to race in anticipation, vindication only seconds away, as I watched the wall of Bud’s conviction begin to crack, and he cleared his throat, the lump in it almost visible.

“Guess it coulda been that guy…” he said, flicking his index finger toward Hofer’s photo. “Like I said, it was crowded, and it’s always a good show for me.”

A sense of elation surged through me.

“Sorry”-Bud scratched behind his ear-“if I gave anyone the wrong impression.”

“No worries.” Carrie turned and shot a happy glance my way. “I have the feeling you’ve made at least one person very happy today.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

For Vance Hofer, there was only one place to go. One place where he felt at home and knew that no one would find him.

He had driven for hours, with Steadman’s daughter asleep in the backseat, her wrist bound to the door in his old cuffs from his days on the force, her ankles tied.

When he finally turned on the old familiar road, pulled up to the remote, ramshackle house, the last place he had been before it all fell apart, everything suddenly felt right to him.

It looked a little the worse for wear, the grass overgrown, the porch sagging and stripped of paint, no one doing the chores for a couple of years.

But he’d been happy here.

“Wake up now, darlin’,” he said to the girl in back. Vance was proud of how he’d set everything up. Lifting him, he felt, from the speck-like unimportance of his life’s past mediocrity.

He was proud, after his visit to Steadman, about the way he had found her up at college as she was coming from the stables, about how he had posed as an admiring spectator who was watching her ride. A picture of perfection if he’d ever seen one. Unlike his own daughter, who’s only after-school activities, he suspected, had taken place in the boys’ bathroom of the local high school.

And he was proud about how he’d followed Steadman as he got off his plane that day, giving Martinez the heads-up about what he was driving-that fancy white Caddie-and when Martinez might expect him by. How he’d stayed a short distance behind all the way from the airport until he saw the flashing lights and sirens.

Watching it all beautifully unfold.

Surely there were bad things that were a part of it too. Martinez. Vance thought of the cop’s look of befuddlement when he turned and saw Vance pull up beside him.

The gun in his face. No clue in the world what was happening. And then pow…

And Steadman’s friend. In that fancy house. How Vance had found him at his desk, the garage door left open, after polishing up his clubs…

They would require some lengthy conversations with the Man Upstairs.

But Vance felt he’d done his share of good as well, bringing ol’ Wayne and Dexter to mind, plus that Schmeltzer maggot. Ridding the world of vermin like that surely cleaned it up a lick, and might earn him, he hoped, upon his