Hardly more than half a minute had passed since the dog-walker had been killed.
The crack of the rifle had not brought anyone out of any of the beautiful houses. In this neighborhood, a gunshot would be perceived as a slammed door, dismissed even as it echoed.
Across the street, at the client's house, Iggy Barnes had risen from his knees to his feet. He didn't appear to be alarmed, merely puzzled, as if he, too, had heard a door and didn't understand the meaning of the fallen man, the grieving dog.
Midnight Wednesday. Sixty hours. Time on fire, minutes burning. Mitch couldn't afford to let hours turn to ashes while he was tied up with a police investigation.
On the sidewalk, a column of marching ants changed course, crawling toward the feast within the cratered skull.
In a mostly clear sky, a rare cloud drifted across the sun. The day paled. Shadows faded.
Chilled, Mitch turned from the corpse, stepped off the curb, halted.
He and Iggy couldn't just load the unplanted impatiens into the truck and drive away. They might not be able to do so before someone came along and saw the dead man. Their indifference to the victim and their flight would suggest guilt even to the most unworldly passerby, and certainly to the police.
The cell phone, folded shut, remained in Mitch's hand. He looked upon it with dread.
If you go to the cops, we'll cut her fingers off one by one…
The kidnappers would expect him to summon the authorities or to wait for someone else to do so. Forbidden, however, was any mention of Holly or of kidnapping, or of the fact that the dogwalker had been murdered as an example to Mitch.
Indeed, his unknown adversaries might have put him in this predicament specifically to test his ability to keep his mouth shut at the moment when he was in the most severe state of shock and most likely to lose his self-control.
He opened the phone. The screen brightened with an image of colorful fish in dark water.
After keying in 9 and 1, Mitch hesitated, but then entered the final digit.
Iggy dropped his trowel, moved toward the street.
Only when the police operator answered on the second ring did Mitch realize that from the moment he'd seen the dead man's shattered head, his breathing had been desperate, ragged, raw. For a moment, words wouldn't come, and then they blew out of him in a rough voice he barely recognized.
"A man's been shot. I'm dead. I mean, he's dead. He's been shot, and he's dead."
Chapter 3
Police had cordoned off both ends of the block. Squad cars, CSI vans, and a morgue wagon were scattered along the street with the insouciance of those to whom parking regulations do not apply.
Under the unblinking gaze of the sun, windshields blazed and brightwork gleamed. No cloud remained to be a pirate's patch, and the light was merciless.
The cops wore sunglasses. Behind the dark lenses, perhaps they glanced suspiciously at Mitchell Rafferty, or perhaps they were indifferent to him.
In front of his client's house, Mitch sat on the lawn, his back against the bole of a phoenix palm.
From time to time, he heard rats scrabbling in the top of the tree. They liked to make a high nest in a phoenix palm, between the crown and the skirt.
The feathery shadows of the fronds provided him with no sense of diminished visibility. He felt as if he were on a stage.
Twice in two hours, he had been questioned. Two plainclothes detectives had interviewed him the first time, only one on the second occasion.
He thought he had acquitted himself well. Yet they had not told him that he could go.
Thus far, Iggy had been interviewed only once. He had no wife in jeopardy, nothing to hide. Besides, Iggy had less talent for deception than did the average six-year-old, which would be evident to experienced interrogators.
Maybe the cops' greater interest in Mitch was a bad sign. Or maybe it meant nothing.
More than an hour ago, Iggy had returned to the flower bed. He had nearly completed the installation of the impatiens.
Mitch would have preferred to stay busy with the planting. This inactivity made him keenly aware of the passage of time: Two of his sixty hours were gone.
The detectives had firmly suggested that Iggy and Mitch should remain separated because, in all innocence, if they talked together about the crime, they might unintentionally conform their memories, resulting in the loss of an important detail in one or the other's testimony.
That might be either the truth or malarkey. The reason for keeping them apart might be more sinister, to isolate Mitch and ensure that he remained off balance. Neither of the detectives had worn sunglasses, but Mitch had not been able to read their eyes.
Sitting under the palm tree, he had made three phone calls, the first to his home number. An answering machine had picked up.
After the usual beep, he said, "Holly, are you there?"
Her abductors would not risk holding her in her own home.
Nevertheless, Mitch said, "If you're there, please pick up."
He was in denial because the situation made no sense. Kidnappers don't target the wives of men who have to worry about the price of gasoline and groceries.
Man, you aren't listening. I'm a gardener.
We know.
I have like eleven thousand bucks in the bank.
We know.
They must be insane. Delusional. Their scheme was based on some mad fantasy that no rational person could understand.
Or they had a plan that they had not yet revealed to him. Maybe they wanted him to rob a bank for them.
He remembered a news story, a couple years back, about an innocent man who robbed a bank while wearing a collar of explosives. The criminals who necklaced him had tried to use him like a remote-control robot. When police cornered the poor bastard, his controllers detonated the bomb from a distance, decapitating him so he could never testify against them.
One problem. No bank had two million dollars in cash on hand, in tellers' drawers, and probably not even in the vault.
After getting no answer when he phoned home, he had tried Holly's cell phone but hadn't been able to reach her at that number.
He also had called the Realtor's office where she worked as a secretary while she studied for her real-estate license.
Another secretary, Nancy Farasand, had said, "She called in sick, Mitch. Didn't you know?"
"When I left home this morning, she was a little queasy," he lied, "but she thought it would pass."
"It didn't pass. She said it's like a summer flu. She was so disappointed."
"I better call her at home," he said, but of course he had already tried reaching her there.
He had spoken to Nancy more than ninety minutes ago, between conversations with detectives.
Passing minutes unwind a watch spring; but they had wound Mitch tight. He felt as though something inside his head was going to pop.
A fat bumblebee returned to him from time to time, hovering, buzzing close, perhaps attracted by his yellow T-shirt.
Across the street, toward the end of the block, two women and a man were standing on a front lawn, watching the police: neighbors gathered for the drama. They had been there since the sirens had drawn them outside.
Not long ago, one of them had gone into a house and had returned with a tray on which stood glasses of what might have been iced tea. The glasses sparkled in the sunlight.
Earlier, the detectives had walked up the street to question that trio. They had interviewed them only once.
Now the three stood sipping tea, chatting, as if unconcerned that a sniper had cut down someone who had been walking in their community. They appeared to be enjoying this interlude, as though it presented a welcome break from their usual routine, even if it came at the cost of a life.