she'd had to send some stuff to him, for Ross, but when Rinker made some careful inquiries, she found that the stuff was sent to a downtown post office box.
She'd eventually found Johnson's house purely through luck. Johnson had built elaborate teak plant benches for John Ross, for Ross's orchids, and when the benches were delivered, she'd been at Ross's house. The two guys who drove the delivery truck had an invoice that showed both the pickup and delivery addresses. She took the address back to the courthouse and looked it up in the tax and plat records-Johnson was there all right, but his house was listed under 'Estate of Estelle Johnson.'
SHE PARKED IN the street and walked up the driveway. From the driveway, she could hear the planer screaming inside the workshop. She went past the garage, vaulted a chain-link fence-moving fast now, slipping the silenced Beretta from under her shirt-to the open side door of the workshop. As she came up to the door she happened to glance upward, and saw a motion detector tucked in the corner, and she stopped, peeked around the door frame. Johnson was looking right at her, a silent-alarm strobe light bouncing off his protective glasses, and he was moving to his right, quickly. She stepped through the door, following the muzzle of her pistol. He froze when he saw her, his hands empty. She glanced toward the wall that he'd been moving to: A shotgun leaned against a cabinet.
What had Jaime told her, at the ranch, about the need for handguns?
'The rifle will be leaning against a tree, and that's when they will come.'
SHE SMILED, THINKING about it, and Johnson flinched. He took a step back and tried a placating smile. 'Hello, Clara, I…'
No point in conversation. Rinker shot him in the nose, and he went down, twisting away, his face striking the edge of the saw table. He landed faceup in a pile of shavings. She looked at him for a moment, on the floor, judged him dead, but shot him again, carefully, between the eyes. The planer was so loud that she heard no hint of the shot, or of the gun's cycling action.
He was dead for sure now. The planer was still screaming, the plank beginning to buck. Rinker couldn't see a switch, so she pulled the plug, and the machine wound down like a depowered airplane engine.
She couldn't leave Johnson on the floor, or even in the workshop, she decided. The yard was fenced, but it wasn't the best neighborhood, and if somebody broke in, he might be found.
She looked around for a moment, then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to a lowboy he'd used for hauling lumber. She pushed a stack of planks onto the floor-thought better of it, in case somebody looked in, and took a minute to stack them neatly near the wall-then loaded his body onto the lowboy and covered it with four transparent bags full of wood shavings and sawdust.
She pushed the whole load out the door, up the concrete walk to the back of the garage, then into the garage, past an E-Class Mercedes-Benz, and through a breezeway to the house. She couldn't actually get the lowboy into the house, because of a step. She left the body and the cart in the breezeway and let the muzzle of the Beretta lead her through the house. She was, she found, the only living thing in it.
The house was neatly kept, but had no more personality than a motel room-a few woodworking magazines, some reference works, a television set with an incongruous Nintendo console sitting on the floor next to it.
She checked it all out, then hauled Johnson's body into the house and rolled it down the basement stairs. She first thought to leave it there, at the foot of the stairs, but then noticed a chest-style freezer against the wall, and opened it. It was half-full of Healthy Choice microwave dinners, and bags of frozen peas and corn.
She took a bunch of the dinners and some of the corn, then managed to tug and pull the body around until she could boost it into the freezer. Johnson landed facedown, and she had to twist his legs to get him to fit inside. She slammed the lid.
With a few paper towels to wipe up the odd blood smear, she thought, everything would be as nice and tidy as Honus Johnson used to be.
And she had a new phone, a new house, and a new car.
Not bad for twenty minutes' work.
Though, she admitted to herself, moving the body had given her the willies. As did Johnson's bed. She was beat from the day, needed some sleep, but couldn't sleep with the smell of him, and his body still cooling in the freezer. She found clean sheets in a linen closet, sheets that smelled only of detergent, and crashed on the couch.
Long day coming…
18
THEY WOUND UP SITTING IN ONE OF THE FBI rental trucks, a six-seater Suburban, eating Snickers and Milky Ways, drinking Cokes and waiting for anything on the perimeter, any sign that Rinker was coming in. They got nothing except distended bladders, and strange looks in a Shell station when they repeatedly tramped through to the rest rooms. Andreno gave up at nine o'clock and took off. At ten-thirty, Mallard was willing to admit that Rinker had flown.
'We go back to the four main guys,' Mallard said, in frustration. 'Ross must be a target-she worked for him for too long. He must be her original connection. Dallaglio is necessary because of Dichter. If she goes after one, she'll go after the other. Giancati used her at least four or five times-one of her best customers. Ferignetti is marginal, but we can't take a chance.'
'If you're gonna talk to them, I want to be there,' Lucas said.
'You're invited,' Mallard said. He looked out at the darkness across the brewery's parking lot. 'We'll make the rounds tomorrow morning.'
'Don't worry so much, Louis,' Malone said. She'd gotten into a sack of Cheese Doodles, and the back of the truck was suffused with the smell of cheddar. 'We'll get her. We just missed her tonight. We're closing in.'
'You're sure.'
'Yeah, I am,' Malone said. 'And I can't wait. Locking her up is gonna feel so good.'
'It's gonna be hard taking her alive,' Lucas said. 'I think she'll fight.'
'I'll take that,' Malone said. And after a moment of silence: 'I think I've got a pound of yellow cheese goop stuck to my teeth.'
LUCAS LAY IN bed that night, listening to the trains going by along the waterfront. There was no good reason for it, but the sound of distant trains and distant truck traffic, trucks downshifting to climb a hill, left him feeling moody. People going places, doing things, while he was here in bed, alone, staring at the ceiling. He'd talked to Weather, and she was feeling fine, although beginning to wonder how much longer he'd be in St. Louis.
'I'd just like to see you,' she said. 'I'm getting a little lonesome.'
'I'd like to see you, too. I'll give this a couple more days, and then if there's nothing definite happening, I'll run up for a day or two.'
'Fly?'
'Yeah, I guess.'
'Brave of you.'
'How's the kid?'
'Strong little thing. I think he or she is gonna be a soccer player.'
'Not if I have anything to do with it,' Lucas said. 'I've already cut down a hockey stick.'
'Still thinking about an ultrasound…'
'C'mon… that's the easy way out.'
'You've already got a daughter.'
'Two daughters would be wonderful. A son would be excellent. I really don't care. I just pray that the kid's healthy.'
'Maybe come up for a day or two… at the end of the week?'
'Over the weekend, if nothing's happening. A guy down here told me about a weird way to induce labor. I'll show it to you when I come up.'
'It's too early, Lucas.'
'It doesn't always induce labor. It has other uses…'
