out, the gist of which seemed to be if he couldn’t stay to be on TV, neither would she.
“Leave the set up,” I told Ainsley the minute the door closed. “Let’s look around.” Ainsley made a face like he’d swallowed something nasty and shook his head
“Don’t panic. I’m not going to ask you to roll camera on his underwear drawer.”
In a worry-whisper, he asked, “What are you looking for?”
“You’ll know when you see it.”
The best thing about my college boy was he mostly did as he was told. The camera came with him. In most camera jocks, this would be because the camera is as much a part of them as some people see their shoes, their keys, their wallets. Ainsley wanted it for his cover story, in case we got busted searching the place.
Exploring Jost’s place did not take long. If there was anything interesting to find, we’d have found it. The only halfway remarkable item was the sheer mass of strawberry jam-at least two dozen jars in the cabinet.
“How much jam can a guy eat?”
“Don’t knock it. This is really good stuff.” Ainsley pulled down a jar and held it out for me. “You ever had Amish fruit spread?”
“Focus, College. Stay focused.”
I grabbed the jam jar and looked more closely at the label. The handwriting on the front was a thin, slanted script that seemed to barely touch the paper. It made me wonder if Tom’s taste for preserves had more to do with the strawberries or the girl who made them.
“Let’s try the bedroom.”
Empty, except for a full-sized box spring and mattress. I looked under the bed. “Nothing.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Ainsley asked. “Is being neat such a crime?”
“Guy had a trunk full of pornography, remember?”
“So?”
“It occurs to me, College, there are more convenient places to peruse your porno collection than the car.”
“Oh. I get you.” Ainsley ducked behind the viewfinder.
There was nowhere in the room to hide anything. The guy didn’t even have a night stand. His phone charger sat empty on the floor, plugged into the outlet closest to the bed. The closet was as sparsely arranged as the kitchen cupboards. I shuffled the few hanging items over to the far side of the closet. A tool belt hung on a hook above a set of construction boots. There was something tucked behind his boots in the back corner, an empty box for a pair of brand new, long-range binoculars.
“Check this out,” I called.
“This guy doesn’t even have a stereo,” Ainsley pointed out. “Why’s he got those?”
“Watching the neighbors?”
Ainsley peeked out around the camera. “You’ve got a bad opinion of humans for the most part.”
“You think?”
“Maybe Jost was a bird watcher,” Ainsley suggested, hopefully.
“I’m back,” Fred called.
I stood up and faced the door.
“Oh, here you are.” He gave a little self-effacing chuckle and then bluntly asked, “Look my wife’s wondering if you can put her on TV too?”
“Sure. Great idea.”
An hour’s worth of interview with Fred and his wife and I was generating spin-offs for future stories: Dangers of Rural Housing Developments.
“We are on a roll, College,” I reported as we pulled out of Jost’s parking lot. “We scored background and meat on the same day. Things are looking up.”
The sun was at the hard edge of the horizon and setting the sky on fire. The green-white light of the street lamps burned like spot-flares above Butterfield Road’s five lanes of strip mall flow. Everything looks better when the work goes well.
The empty binocular box kept running through my head. According to Manager Fred, the cops hadn’t removed anything from the place. “What’s there to take?” he’d scoffed.
The cops wouldn’t make the connection to the death scene I was making because they hadn’t seen my photos. At this point, I was the only one who knew someone had been watching Jost hang through binoculars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask the cops if they knew anything that might explain the empty box or the watcher in the barn without Curzon requesting full disclosure.
Technically, there was no crime here-a broken heart, a soiled reputation, the hell of a public shame. Nope. That’s no crime.
Could Tom Jost have arranged for someone to be looking through binoculars when he kicked that box out from under him? Or did he figure his father would want to check it out after the fact, when the commotion of police and fire trucks arrived on the scene?
Rachel told us her father wouldn’t let her watch. Was that because her father knew exactly what she’d see? Nothing quite made sense.
“Let’s make one more stop, College.”
There might have been a sigh but it was a small one. The Boy Wonder was getting used to me.
“Where?”
“That sporting goods store up ahead, where 355 meets Butterfield.”
A plan started percolating, based on my curiosity and a chink of suspected guilt. There’s more than one way to squeeze info from a situation. Sometimes it’s a question of the right tool.
Ainsley parked but left it running. Swearing I didn’t need a lot of time, I slipped into the store as the manager was locking up. Nobody remembered Jost. I found what I needed and was out in less than ten.
The sky had already faded to twilight-black. I opened my car door. Ainsley and Jenny hit the mute button. They’d been talking, I could hear the silence in Ainsley’s sudden smile.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked.
“Project for tomorrow morning.”
All the stores were closing and it took a while to maneuver through the glut of cars in the parking lot. Ainsley was watching his mirrors closely. I should have known something was up. Boys don’t check their mirrors when they drive; everything important is in front of them.
At the second stop light, he leaned toward me, speaking softly, “What sort of car was it gave you trouble?”
“This morning? Silver SUV.”
“Crap.” Ainsley jerked his chin, toward the rearview mirror. I twisted to look out the back window.
One lane over, one car back, hummed a silver SUV with tinted windows.
“How long has he been back there?”
“First noticed him when we left Jost’s place.” Ainsley was watching the guy in the side mirror. “I didn’t think anything of it, except he followed us into the parking lot. I never saw anybody get out of the car and then when we pulled out of the lot, suddenly he’s behind us again.”
The left turn arrow went green. I had half a minute, maybe.
Something happened to me a long time ago, wires got crossed that were never meant to be crossed. When most people are frightened of something, they back away. I run straight at it.
“Maddy-” Ainsley called. “Jee-zus. Wait!”
Too late. I’d flung open my door and started stalking my way through the traffic. The headlights of the cars I crossed in front of flared like spotlights. A horn blew.
“Okay! You little shithead,” I announced, loud enough the old lady in the Bonneville rolled up her window, speedy quick. “You want to conference with me? Let’s do it. Right here. Right now.”
Another horn blew, longer this time.
“Maddy, no!” Ainsley stood in the gap of the open driver’s door.
Jenny’d crawled out of her seatbelt and had her palm pressed against the glass at the back window of the station wagon as if she were trapped inside. Her small pale face had no expression in the white glare of the
