“They sure it was her?”
“For the record, no, but the car was hers, St. Charles County plates and all. Sam got on the horn to Orlando PD. They found an old booking photo, faxed it down to West Palm.”
“Sam’s been busy.”
“He has. An FDLE agent looked at the photo, was pretty sure it was her. White woman hanging out with all those gangstas couldn’t help but catch their attention. She hasn’t been back, though, as far as they know.”
“What was she doing there?”
“Who knows? Just partying, maybe. She popped up on their radar, but they can’t tie her to anything else. Maybe she just likes Haitians. You say Flynn knew she was down there?”
“Yes.”
“He know who she was with, what she was doing?”
“He said she was with friends.”
“I guess she was.”
A breeze moved through the house, bringing with it the smell of cane smoke. The chimes on the front porch rang softly.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know about any of this.”
“You don’t need to worry on it. But you asked, so I needed to tell you.”
But there’s more you’re not telling me. And you’re not telling me because you’re not sure you can trust me.
“I should get going. Thanks for the tea.”
They walked together back through the house and onto the front porch.
“I appreciate what you’re going through,” he said, “and I know none of this makes it any easier. You’ve got enough on your hands as it is.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“I know you will.”
They walked toward the Blazer. To the west, the sun was slipping behind the trees in a dirty haze of smoke. She got her keys out.
“Been a while since I’ve been out here,” she said. “I forgot how peaceful it is, quiet.”
“Too quiet sometimes, with no one around. But it doesn’t bother me that much. My life is pretty simple these days. I get up at six every morning, seven days a week, and I always have my Rule for Today.”
“What’s today’s rule?”
“Don’t drink. I can do anything else I want, but I can’t drink. You know what the Rule for Tomorrow is?”
“What?”
“There is no Rule for Tomorrow. There’s only today. And when I wake up tomorrow morning-if I wake up tomorrow morning-then the only thing I have to worry about is the Rule for Today.”
“And that is?”
“Don’t drink.”
She opened the door, and he slapped her lightly on the elbow. She got behind the wheel and started the engine, and he stood there, watching, as she turned around and headed back down the driveway.
Whatever you’ve done, Billy Boy, you’ve screwed us both.
Her fingers tightened on the wheel as she drove. She missed the turnoff that would take her home, realized she was headed toward CR-23. She remembered what the woman had said. You may not be now. But you will be.
Heading south on 23, she topped the rise, saw the cross in the distance. Thought of what she should have said to her. Why can’t you just leave us alone? Why did you have to come down here and start all this? That boy’s dead, he’s never coming back, no matter what you do or who you hurt.
When the cross loomed ahead, she braked hard, steered onto the shoulder. She got out of the Blazer, left the door open. The air reeked of burnt cane and, under it, the sulfur stench of swamp.
The plastic vase was overturned, the flowers gone, the photo sun-faded. The teddy bear tilted loosely, a single strand of wire holding it to the cross, its fur soiled by dust and rain.
She kicked at the cross, missed, lost her balance, almost fell. Then she reached down, pulled it from the ground. Just leave us alone.
She twisted, threw it. The cross sailed awkwardly through the air, landed in the wet grass, the bear a few feet away, face down. Where Willis’s body had been.
She almost started down the slope to pick them up, throw them deeper into the swamp, out of sight forever. Caught herself, walked back to the Blazer.
She started the engine, U-turned off the shoulder, spraying gravel. A half mile later, she braked, pulled to the side of the empty road, and began to cry.
ELEVEN
The Indian woman behind the counter didn’t greet him, watched him as he made his way down the aisles. Basic foods, brands he’d never heard of, cans with faded labels. Stretches of dusty shelf with no product at all. Morgan remembered the A &P on West Market Street when he was a boy. A city block long, it had seemed. Endless rows of fluorescent lights, everything clean and bright. A store a boy could get lost in.
He picked up two overpriced quarts of motor oil, a handful of chocolate bars. There were no baskets, so he carried it all in the crook of his arm.
On a shelf near the counter, he saw a turn-rack of cassettes with sun-faded labels. A handwritten sign read 3 FOR $5.
Stock left from the previous owners, he guessed. Nobody bought them anymore.
He scanned the titles, remembering what he’d left behind at the hotel. He chose a Sam Cooke collection, O. V. Wright, the Impressions’ greatest hits. The tape cases were covered with a thin film of dust. He found six he wanted, brought them to the counter.
The prepaid cells were on the wall behind the register, between hanging sheets of scratch-off lottery cards.
He pointed. “Two of those.”
She scanned the items without a word. He pulled a roll of bills from the pocket of his leather, handed over three fifties. She frowned, unfolded them on the counter one by one, and passed a counterfeit detection pen over each. Then she opened the register, gave him his change, put everything in a single thin plastic bag.
He went out into the fading daylight, started across Elizabeth Avenue to where the Monte Carlo was parked. He’d taken the chance on driving. With the stops he had to make, a cab would be too much trouble. The bag dangled from his left hand, his right hand free. His coat was open, the Beretta in back. He put the bag in the trunk, got behind the wheel.
His next stop was three blocks away, a hardware store tucked between a fast-food chicken place and a shuttered shoe repair shop. He went up a flight of narrow stairs, through a glass door with an old-fashioned OPEN sign.
Otis was behind the counter, grinding a key. His hair had gone solid gray in the months since Morgan had last seen him. Reading glasses hung from a cord around his neck.
He saw Morgan, stopped what he was doing, the key machine winding down.
“My man,” he said. “Long time.”
“How you doing, Otis?”
“Day by day. Like everybody else.”
Morgan took his outstretched hand in a soul shake.
“Took me a while, after you called,” Otis said, “but I think I got everything you want.”
“Solid.”
Otis came from behind the counter, went to the door and worked the two dead bolts, flipped the sign to CLOSED. “Come on back,” he said.
Morgan followed him behind the counter and into the rear of the store. Otis limped, a souvenir from an Aryan Brother who had stabbed him a half-dozen times with a bedspring shank. Two days later, Morgan had caught the Brother alone in a hallway off Five Wing and taken out both his eyes with a sharpened spoon.
It was overhot back here, smelled of metal, oil, and dust. A radiator clanked. Morgan saw the double-barrel sawed-off that hung on pegs just above the inside of the door, within easy reach. Knew it was loaded.
Otis stopped at a tall shelf of plumbing supplies, put his glasses on, peered up at the boxes there. He took one down marked SHUT-OFF VALVES, set it on a worktable.
“There you go,” he said.
Morgan opened it. Inside were five gray boxes of Winchester Super-X 9 mm shells, fifty rounds in each. Morgan thumbed one open, checked them.
“Early Christmas shopping?” Otis said.
“Something like that.”
“You wanted to see something small, too, in a hand carry? I just got a couple new pieces in. Russian, but they’re in good shape. I’d let them go cheap.”