My heart was pounding so hard, my hands were shaking. I'd hit the jackpot. In the old days, I would have bought a round for the house after a find like this. Now I couldn't even claim the victory, and I wouldn't be welcome in the cop bars even if I could have. I stood there in the dim light of the garage, trying to temper my excitement, forcing myself to think through the next crucial steps I had to take.
Landry needed to find the shirt. As much as I would have enjoyed throwing it in his face, I knew that if I took it to him, it would never make it into a trial. As a private citizen, I didn't need a warrant to search someone's house. The Fourth Amendment protects us from agents of the government, not from each other. But neither could I be in that house illegally. If Van Zandt had invited me over, and during the course of my visit I had found the shirt, that would have been a different story. And still there might have been complications. Because I had once been a law enforcement agent, and because I had had contact with the Sheriff's Office about this case, a good defense attorney would argue that I should be considered a de facto agent of the Sheriff's Office, thereby blowing my status as an innocent citizen and rendering the evidence I had found inadmissable.
No. This had to be done by the book. Chain of custody had to be established. The SO needed to come into the garage with a warrant. An anonymous tip, along with Van Zandt's history and his connection to Jill Morone, might be enough to get it.
Still, I didn't want to put the shirt back into the trash container. I couldn't trust that something wouldn't go wrong; that Van Zandt wouldn't spook after his chat with Landry, come back here and get rid of the evidence. I needed to hide it somewhere Van Zandt wouldn't find it.
No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than came the sound of a car pulling into the drive, and the garage door opener started to growl.
The door was already a third of the way up as I turned and ran for the kitchen door, the car's headlights illuminating the wall like spotlights on a prisoner escape.
The car horn blasted.
I bolted into the kitchen, slammed the door, and locked the dead bolt, buying a few precious seconds. Frantically, I looked around the room for place to hide the shirt.
No time. No time. Ditch it and run.
I stuffed the shirt into the back of a lower kitchen cupboard, shut the door, and ran on as the key turned in the dead bolt.
Jesus Christ. If Van Zandt recognized me…
Running through the dining area, I caught a chair with my hip, tripped, stumbled, struggled to stay on my feet, my eyes on the sliding door to the screened patio.
Behind me I heard a dog barking.
I hit the patio door, yanked the handle. The door was locked.
A voice-a woman? "Get him, Cricket!"
The dog: growling. I could see him coming out of the corner of my eye: a small, dark missile with teeth.
My thumb fumbled at the lock, flipped it up. I yanked the door back on its track and went through the opening as the dog hit my calf with its teeth.
I jerked my leg forward and the dog yelped as I tried to slam the door on his head.
I dove across the small patio for the screen door, fell against it, then through it as it swung open. I was in the backyard.
Lorinda Carlton's town house was the last on its row. A tall hedge bordered the development. I needed to be on the other side of that hedge. On the other side of the hedge was an open, undeveloped space owned by the village of Wellington, and at the far end of that property, the Town Square shopping center.
I ran for the hedge. The dog was still coming behind me, barking and snarling. I took a hard right and sprinted along the hedge, looking for an opening to the other side. The dog was snapping at my heels. I pulled my jacket off as I ran, wrapped one sleeve of the windbreaker tight around my right hand, and let the rest of it trail the ground.
The dog lunged for and caught the jacket between his jaws. I grabbed hold of the one sleeve with both hands, planted one foot, and pivoted around, swinging the dog around on the end of the jacket. Around once, twice, like a hammer thrower in the Olympics. I let go.
I didn't know how far the dog's weight and momentum would carry him, but it was far enough to buy me a few seconds. I heard a crash and a yelp just as I caught sight of a way over the hedge.
A pickup sat parked beside another of the end unit town houses. I scrambled up onto the hood, onto the roof, and over the hedge.
I landed like a skydiver-bent knees, drop and roll. The pain that went through my body was sharp and shattering, starting in my feet and rocketing through all of me to the top of my head. For a moment I didn't try to move, I simply lay in a heap in the dirt. But I didn't know if anyone had seen me go over the hedge. I didn't know that horrid little mongrel wasn't going to come tearing, teeth bared, through the foliage like the shrunken head of Cujo.
Cringing, I pulled my feet under me, pushed myself up, and moved on, staying as close to the hedge as I could. Twin lightning bolts of pain shot from my lower back down my sciatic nerves to the backs of my knees, making me gasp. My bruised ribs punished me with every ragged breath. I would have been cursing, but that would have hurt too.
Another fifty yards and I would be at the shopping center.
I broke into a jog, fell back to a quick walk, and tried to will myself along. I was sweating like a horse, and I thought I smelled of garbage. I could hear a siren in the distance behind me. By the time the deputies arrived at Lorinda Carlton's/Van Zandt's town house and got the lowdown on the break-in, I would be safe. For the moment, anyway.
Of all the rotten luck. If I had left the house two minutes sooner… If I hadn't spent too much time looking at the horse tapes or marveling at Van Zandt's porn collection… If I hadn't stayed those extra few minutes and gone into the garage to dig through Van Zandt's garbage… I would never have found the shirt.
I had to call Landry.
I walked into the lights of Town Square. It was Saturday night. People were on the sidewalk in front of the Italian place, waiting for a table. I walked by, head down, trying to look casual, trying to regulate my breathing. Music spilled out the door of Cobblestones, the next restaurant on the row. I passed China-Tokyo, breathing in the deep-fried MSG, reminding me I hadn't eaten.
Normal human beings were having a lovely evening eating kung pao chicken and sushi. There probably wasn't a woman in the place who had ever broken into a house to search for evidence in a murder.
I've always been different.
I wanted to laugh and then cry at that thought.
In Eckerd's drugstore, I bought a bottle of water, a Power Bar, a cheap denim shirt, and a baseball cap, and got change for the pay phone. Outside, I tore the tags off the shirt and put it on over my sweat-soaked black T-shirt, broke in the bill of the ball cap and pulled it on.
I pulled a couple of scraps of paper out of my jeans pocket-one: the note from Van Zandt's garbage, the other: Landry's numbers. I rang Landry's pager, left the pay phone number, and hung up. While I waited, I tormented myself wondering how clearly the woman at Van Zandt's had seen me, wondered who she was, wondered if Z. had been with her.
I didn't think she'd gotten a very good look. She had told the dog to get "him." She'd seen the short hair and assumed, as most people would, that burglars are men. The cops would be looking for a man-if they looked at all. A simple B amp;E, nothing taken, no one hurt. I didn't think a lot of effort would go into it. I hoped to hell not.