But instead a thin cardboard box slipped through the two-inch opening in the doorway. Bob grabbed it, shook it, and tossed it on the floor.
He opened the door, signed his name with a stylus on the computerized notepad, and watched the fellow trundle off, slightly absurd in his short pants and brown socks.
“Those guys always arrive at the wrong time,” said Nick. “They have a gift for it.”
They sat down again, and Bob told the whole story, from start to finish, his arrival in Bristol after his daughter’s accident, his investigation, the sheriff department’s investigation, the opposing conclusions of each, the two critical incidents that left three dead, Bob’s remorse about leaving poor Terry Hepplewhite alone back there as the supposed shooter, the death of Eddie Ferrol, the police politics of Johnson County, the situation as it now was with Nikki awake.
“So let me sum up your findings,” Nick said.
He ticked them off.
The strange economics of methamphetamine in Johnson County.
The Baptist prayer camp, run by an Alton Grumley.
The driver.
The tire-change jack and possible exercises to refine that skill.
The night firing of guns.
The attempts on Bob’s life by Grumleys as he tried to investigate.
“Grumleys are a southern crime family, headquartered near Hot Springs,” Nick explained. “Kind of a family training camp for the criminal skills. Been around for generations. They produce all kinds of mischief, force-based mainly, but also confidence, bunco, extortion, and kidnapping. Very tribal group of bad guys. If they’re involved, I’m suddenly seeing a lot of dough.”
Bob took it in, then continued.
The missing pages in his daughter’s notebook, the crushed car, crushed recording devices.
The trip to the gun store.
And finally, Mark 2:11.
“That’s it,” said Bob. “Now here’s my take. Somehow Nikki picked something up. So she visited the camp but saw through the Reverend. She poked around on her own and she found something. Clearly these Grumleys were involved. But what she found made her think of-I don’t know, here’s where it gets blurry, guns or the Bible or both? She wouldn’t call me to ask about the Bible, that I guarantee you. So maybe it is about guns. She tried to call me but I was out in the horse ring. So she went to the first Baptist minister she heard about, who turned out to be Eddie Ferrol, and asked about Mark 2:11, thinking that fella would know.”
“And the fact that he owns a gun store is coincidental? I don’t buy coincidences that big.”
Bob stopped. “Yeah, this is where it comes apart: the bullet or Bible issue. And she called me first, and I don’t know jerk about Bibles. But the fact that he claims she didn’t go there, and we know that’s a lie…She drives home, and that guy, who’s later killed, somehow gets to the driver, and he’s sent after her. Now he had to be close. So he was clearly at the prayer camp run by old man Grumley. We have his tracks as he raced down 421 to catch up to her.”
“That sounds right. Okay, we don’t have Mark 2:11, but what do we have? Here’s what I’m getting. It seems to me what they’re planning isn’t a conspiracy, a murder, a scheme, a plot. That doesn’t sound Grumley. It’s more of a caper, a one-time thing, some kind of raid or operation. Maybe a robbery. That’s the urgency. That’s why everything has to happen fast, ’cause they’re up against a tight deadline, and what happens happens soon. They have to go at a certain moment, not before, not after. And that information has to be protected. It’s so fragile that even the suspicion of something going on would screw things up. Their plan must depend on total surprise, and even minimum-security upgrades would defeat it. That’s why they go after Nikki. Even if she knows nothing, she might make phone calls or ask questions, and someone else might figure something was up and those upgrades would be made and their plans would be screwed.”
Bob thought, Yeah he’s pretty smart. That’s good for government work.
“Could it be a code, a signal? Let’s Google it again. Maybe we missed something.”
But they came up with nothing except the endless and seemingly fruitless biblical references.
“Let me call this kid Charlie. He’s real smart, maybe he’s come up with something.”
Bob called Charlie; the boy was apologetic, self-doubting and disappointed because he hadn’t come up with anything.
“I even ran it by a guy I know who specializes in codes. He looked at it for numerology, misplaced letters, anagrams, displacements, upside down writing, backwards writing, and he came up zilch.”
“Okay, Charlie. Thanks.”
“Sorry I couldn’t do better for you, Mr. Swagger.”
“Well, you actually cross out a lot of possibilities, son. So that’s of some help. It ain’t a code, it ain’t nothing from the Bible or the numbers or letters in the Bible. That cuts it way down.”
“I won’t charge you.”
“Charlie, how many times do I have to say this: Charge me!”
Bob disconnected.
“Nothing. And if you’re right, if they have some kind of caper going on against a deadline, here we sit with nothing to show for it, no progress made. Could it have to do with the race? The big race?” He looked at his watch. “Hell, eight-thirty. It’s started. Could it be a rob…”
But he let it trail off.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Nick. “How could they rob something in the middle of the biggest traffic jam in Tennessee this year? How could they get in, get out? I suppose they could go on foot, but how much could each man carry? I just don’t see any reasonable methodology here. Those roads are going to be like parking lots for hours. Nobody’s going anywhere.”
“I am at the end of the road.”
“Man, I’m about to say, call it a day. Maybe tomorrow I can run it by the analysts back in D.C. and get some genius to look into it and see what we don’t. I do need a drink, a real one. But let’s ask: What do we know the most about?”
“The answer is Nikki. I know Nikki. I know how her mind works and what a stubborn little cuss she can be.”
“So let’s think along with her. Take us through her thoughts on that last night. You know she’s called you.”
“She calls me…but I’m not answering. She gets a burr under her saddle, she’s got to get it out. She calls me, I ain’t there. What does she do? Call someone else? Who else would she call? She’s been to a gun store, she had a Bible she got from the Reverend, she can’t find no satisfaction, she calls me, I’m not there, who else does she call? It’s early evening, most places are closed down. Who does she call? The newspaper? Could she have called the newspaper?”
“But you said she didn’t.”
“That’s right.”
“Maybe she didn’t call anyone. Maybe she just up and left for home and the driver caught her and-”
“No. Gal wouldn’t give up. That’s not how she was taught. She’d want to do something positive, achieve a sense of progress. So somehow she’d continue to search. So, who’s open that late? Who never closes? Who has information on anything on tap even if you’re in the woods in rural Tennessee in the dark?”
They looked at each other.
“She had a laptop, right?” said Nick. “Wireless, right? She went to the Internet. She tried to Google Mark 2:11 and came up with what we came up with-ten thousand explanations of how Jesus cured the cripple and sent him home, and she couldn’t make any sense of it. Who does she call next?”
They looked at nothing and then they looked at each other again.
They looked at the package that Bob had just dumped on the floor. It said AMAZON.
“She buys a book!”
THIRTY
Vern’s cell rang.
“Yes sir.”
“What’s the word, Vern?”
“Ernie, what’s the word?”
“Ain’t no word, goddamnit, Vern, and you’d know that if you done your job. Don’t know how you can take money for tonight, just sittin’ there hammerin’ on that poor little girl and her family.”