Dawson could tell that the attorney’s pride struggled with the concept of surrender and that it got the better of him. “Sorry, Mr. Scott. No soap. At least not until I’ve considered it, consulted my client, and weighed our options.”
Dawson wanted to grab him by his well-tailored lapels and shake him. He didn’t, but he leaned forward and spoke rapidly, aggressively. “What options?
What options
?
You have two. Twelve people are ready, even eager, to have a needle shoved into Willard’s vein. He dies an innocent man and you chalk up a big ugly black mark in your loss column. That’s one option.”
He leaned even closer. “And then there’s me, the town crier on Willard’s behalf. He goes free, you’re hailed a hero, you go on TV to talk about it, and every felon in the South is begging you to be his defender.”
Dawson could tell he liked the sound of that, but still he was wrestling with it. “That all sounds good, but—”
“What?”
“It might not work out that way.”
“It for damn sure won’t if you turn me down.”
“I’m not turning you down flat. But caution is called for here.”
“No time for caution. You’ve got to decide.”
“But—”
“You gotta say yes and say it now.”
“You—”
“I’m the only hope for your client.”
“He—”
“Hasn’t got a prayer and you know it.”
“I—”
“
Grant me the goddamn interview.
”
Dawson’s imperious shout took him aback, but it also worked. He unfolded his arms. He licked his lips. “It’ll be like a webcam.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll be right there the whole time.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll record the entire interview and have it transcripted afterward.”
“Fine.”
“If you slander him, I’ll sue you and your magazine.”
Dawson stood up. “Deal.”
The short-notice meeting with the prisoner took time to arrange. It seemed interminably long to Dawson, who paced while Gleason dealt with staff who seemed to have nothing but time on their hands. Eventually, they were situated in a room that allowed them a video interview with Willard Strong.
In another part of the jail, Strong was led into a room, manacled and shackled. Radiating hostility, he slumped down into the chair in front of the monitor through which he could communicate. He regarded his lawyer with patent contempt. Then his belligerent gaze shifted to Dawson. “Who the fuck are you?”
Dawson gave him a lazy smile. “Be nice, Willard. I’m the guy who’s here to save your sorry self.”
* * *
Amelia and Headly were headed back toward the jail. She was driving. Headly was in the passenger seat, talking on his cell phone to Knutz. A minor collision on the expressway had slowed traffic to a crawl. The sheriff’s unmarked cars were having as much difficulty switching lanes as she.
Headly ended his conversation. “Knutz is trying to buy us more time, using that phone call to Dawson’s boss as leverage. Why would little ol’ Bernie phone her in the first place? Why would he lie?”
“Unless he was Carl.”
“Knutz is acting on that. Meanwhile the boat hasn’t given up any clues.”
Nor had the strongbox. Nothing useful was discovered: no map, property deed, lease, or paperwork of any kind.
That having proved fruitless, they’d divided the list of Jeremy’s former friends that she’d compiled, and working on their separate cell phones, the two of them had placed dozens of calls. In preparation for the inevitable question
Why are you asking me about Jeremy now?
Headly had made up an explanation involving a fictitious tax return with a questionable deduction that was affecting the trust funds set up for Hunter and Grant. He’d advised Amelia on the buzzwords to use.
“Do you think they’ll understand that gibberish?” she asked.
“No. And to avoid any further involvement, no one will ask for clarity. That’s the point.”
Many of the numbers they called were no longer in service. Some had been answered by voice mail, on which they’d left messages asking the individual to call them back on a matter of grave importance.
Of the few people with whom they’d spoken, all were reluctant to talk about Jeremy and were actually ill at ease for having been singled out as a former acquaintance. Most reactions were wary, some downright hostile.
Repeatedly both Headly and Amelia were told that the questions they were putting to them now had already been asked by police more than a year earlier, when Jeremy went missing and was presumed dead. They’d told everything they knew then.
She braked for a pickup truck trying to wedge its way in and looked over at Headly. “Where do we go from here?”
“Maybe Dawson got something out of Willard.” He shifted in his seat and turned slightly toward her. “What do you think of him?”
“He gives me the creeps.”
He laughed. “I meant Dawson. Or does
he
give you the creeps?”
“Oh. Dawson.”
Headly waited her out, and she was the first to look away. Taking her foot off the brake pedal, she rolled forward only a few yards before having to stop again. “Dawson and I didn’t get off to a great start. Did he tell you about our initial meeting?”
“He began playing with the boys on the beach. Things went from there.”
“More or less,” she murmured.
“Huh. More, I think.”
When she said nothing, he chuckled. “Okay. Keep that story to yourselves. Back to my original question.”
“What do I think of him? In what way?”
“In any way.”
“He’s good with the boys.”
“Surprisingly.”
“Why?”
“He has no former experience with kids. He was raised an only child. He was around our daughter, Sarah, a lot, but she’s a few years older, so they squabbled as much as they played.” He told her that Sarah was married and living in London.
“Children?”
“Not yet. My wife drops hints about as subtle as crashing meteorites.”
Amelia laughed. “In the meantime Dawson receives parental doting from you and Mrs. Headly.”
“Which he resists, of course.”
Temporarily stopped in the logjam, she looked at him. “Why ‘of course’?”
“The detachment that makes him a good journalist carries over into his personal life. He sets himself apart, sees himself only as an observer, a loner. That’s why he’s never married. Why he hasn’t even come close.”
She gave him an arch look. “Mind you, I didn’t ask.”
“No, but I figured you wanted to know.” He grinned at her and winked. “Oh, there have been a few women who stayed on longer than others. A couple of them were lovely ladies, who met Eva’s rigid standards. But even with them, once things got too warm and fuzzy, he called it quits.”
“Commitment issues are common. Especially for a man who’s a loner.”
“I didn’t say he was a loner.”
She looked at him with puzzlement. “You just did.”
“I said he
sees
himself as a loner.”
“What’s the difference?”
“His true nature. Would a natural-born loner have gravitated to your children the way he has?”
“Wait.” She held up her hand, wanting to understand. “You’re saying Dawson fights his natural tendencies?”
“With a vengeance.”
“Why?”
“It’s a defense mechanism.”
“Against what?”
“You’ll have to ask him.” He held her gaze for several beats, then called her attention to the traffic. “You have an opening.” Once past the fender bender, he continued. “When you’ve exhausted that subject, ask him what happened in Afghanistan.”
“I have. He refused to talk about it. You?”
“The same.”
“I witnessed him in the throes of a nightmare. We weren’t sleeping together,” she added hastily.
“Mind you, I didn’t ask,” he said, throwing her words back at her.
She gave him a smile of chagrin, then turned serious again. “I heard him crying out and went to check. He was in quite a state. Visibly tormented. He woke up screaming. Like Jeremy used to do. Except…”
“What?”
“Dawson was drenched with sweat and trembling. Even after he was fully awake and aware of his surroundings, it took him several minutes to recover. He experienced the horror of the nightmare physically and emotionally. After seeing him that way, I believe Jeremy was faking.”
“The nightmares?”
“All of it. I think he was only pretending to suffer from post-traumatic stress. If so, that’s yet another betrayal, isn’t it? They’re adding up.”
“Amelia.” Headly spoke her name quietly. When she turned her head toward him, he said, “Dawson isn’t like Jeremy. Not in any respect.”
That reassurance, coming from someone who knew him well, was what she’d needed and wanted. They drove the rest of the way to the jail without further comment. But as they approached the visitation center, she said, “He’s not out front.”
“That’s a good sign. The longer he’s able to talk to Willard, the better his chances of obtaining information. Park and let’s wait inside, where it’s cooler.”
* * *
It was a full half hour before Dawson reunited with them in the lobby of the center. Headly reached him first. “Well?”
“Gleason was four square against it, but he finally caved.”
“You saw Willard?” Amelia asked.
“Ten minutes on webcam, but I might have got something. He was all attitude at first, but when I told him I thought Jeremy was still alive, and that it was he, not Willard, who had killed Darlene, he grew considerably more cooperative.” He smiled grimly as he crossed his index and middle fingers. “We’re like this now.”
“Congratulations,” Headly said. “Skip to the good part.”
“I don’t know how good or reliable it is. It’s not like Willard has won my unqualified trust. But when I asked him if he knew about a place that Jeremy might run to, he didn’t even have to search his memory. Which lends credibility to what he told me. Once, when he and Jeremy were out at the dog pens, Jeremy made an unflattering comment about the shack. He said something to the effect that it made his look like a Hilton.”
“His
shack
?”
Dawson shrugged. “Willard couldn’t be more specific, because when he asked Jeremy for details, he blew it off. What he had
meant
to say was that
if
he had a place like that, it would be better than the shit hole Willard had.
“However, Willard is convinced that it was a slip of the tongue, something Jeremy hadn’t intended to mention, but when he did, he tried to talk his way out of it. Do you know of any such place?” he asked Amelia.
She shook her head dejectedly. “If Jeremy owned anything like that, I’m unaware of it.”
“Fishing cabin, deer blind, hut, boathouse, cowshed?”
“I don’t know of anything.”
Headly made a sound of disgust. “The whole thing sounds far-fetched. I think Willard is pretending to remember something that was never said. Or telling you tales to amuse himself.”
“Or something he knows I want to hear,” Dawson said. “I asked him why he didn’t tell the cops about this conversation when they were searching kingdom come for Jeremy or his remains. He said he did tell them, but, to his knowledge, nobody acted on the information. They were searching the marsh for a decomposing body, not a shack with a living Jeremy inside.”
Headly dragged his hand down his face, stretching the skin. “A shack that may or may not exist, and if it does, it could be anywhere in the forty-eight contiguous states.”
“South Carolina.”
Dawson and Headly looked at Amelia, who’d spoken as though thinking out loud. Realizing that she had their attention, she said, “I found a speeding ticket on our closet floor. It must have fallen out of a pocket when he hung up his clothes. I noticed it had been issued in South Carolina, so I asked him about it.”
“When was this?”
“Shortly before we separated. He’d already made Willard’s acquaintance, and even then I wasn’t keen on this new friendship. I hoped he’d gone to Beaufort to visit some of his old friends from Parris Island and the naval air station.
“When I showed him the ticket, he became irrationally furious. That’s why I remember it. He took it from me, tore it into pieces, and threw them away. He cursed me for meddling and told me to mind my own business. Obviously I’d hit on something he didn’t want me to know about. I suspected it was another woman. But perhaps…” She trailed off to let them draw their own conclusion.
Dawson looked at Headly and shrugged. “It’s something.”
Energized, they started toward the exit. Headly said, “With Jeremy’s Social Security number, the DMV over there should be able to look up the ticket. Once we know where it was issued, we’ll have a starting point to begin a search. I’ll get Knutz on that.”
He punched a number into his phone. Dawson held the door and allowed Amelia and Headly to precede him. They emerged into the bright sunlight and headed toward the parking lot.
Headly, phone to his ear, turned his head to say something to Dawson from over his shoulder when suddenly a strange expression came over his face. Then his eyes went completely blank.
Dawson’s brain processed instantly what that vacant look signified, even as Headly’s knees folded beneath him and he toppled forward. Dawson gave a shout of horror and outrage as he pushed Amelia to the sidewalk and followed her down.
The second bullet missed her by a hairbreadth.
The one intended for Headly had found its mark.
C
arl Wingert was one of the few criminals in American history who had the gall to bring the fight to the authorities.
He and Jeremy had spent hours on the roof of a seven-story office building that, due to the recession, had run out of renters. The management company had gone bankrupt, and after being foreclosed upon, the building had stood empty and neglected.
Situated in an industrial park where other businesses had similarly succumbed to the bad economy, it was a quarter mile away from the jail complex. In between was a four-lane thoroughfare divided by a wide median planted with crepe myrtle trees.
Trees presented a problem in general, but from that roof, one of the tallest in the whole area, Jeremy could have taken several clear shots. Partially obscured by a ventilation shaft, they’d waited for an opportunity to strike FBI agent Gary Headly where and when he would least expect it.
The playing field had changed for Carl the instant he saw Headly in the photograph. The only reason the veteran agent would be here in Savannah working in conjunction with the sheriff’s office to solve the Stephanie DeMarco murder case was because Jeremy had been linked to the homicide and, even more damning, to Carl Wingert.
The authorities hadn’t publicly declared that Jeremy was indeed alive and the suspected culprit, or that he had a direct bloodline to a notorious fugitive from justice, but Carl knew that those dots of information had been connected. That was the only explanation for Headly’s involvement.
Whether or not Headly had linked him to Bernie Clarkson, he didn’t know. But even if he hadn’t, he would still be hot on Jeremy’s trail if only because he was Carl’s son. Either way, Carl resolved not to wait on the agent to find him. No, by God. The guy wanted him, the guy was going to get him. Just not in the way he planned on it.
Carl had reasoned that sooner or later Headly would show up at the sheriff’s office to confer with the blubber-gutted deputy and that when he did, Jeremy could pick him off, even from that distance.
The assassination of an FBI agent on the campus of the sheriff’s office and jail complex would create chaos. Panic and confusion would ensue. Before anyone figured out from which direction the fatal bullet had come, he and Jeremy would be long gone.
The plan had the stamp of Carl Wingert all over it. It was just audacious enough to work. Certainly there was an element of risk, but it was low enough that Carl was willing to take it in order to rid himself of his nemesis. By doing so, he would also let the rotten American society know that Carl wasn’t done with it quite yet. He may be old, but he was still a fear-worthy entity, a force to be reckoned with.
He regretted not having taken a bold action such as this decades ago, and blamed Flora and her whining for his years of inactivity. So his resentment toward Headly had had decades in which to ferment, and it now made his revenge even sweeter.
The hours they’d spent waiting on the roof for Headly to appear had given Jeremy time to assess the conditions, do his calculations, and practice his aim on uniformed personnel and visitors to the sheriff’s office and jail who entered and exited the various buildings on their various errands, little knowing that they were in his crosshairs.
Jeremy needed no coaching, but Carl kept up a stream of instruction. “You’ll have one chance to take him out, possibly two, but no more before they hear the report. Within seconds, we need to be on the fire stairs.”
When the time came, Jeremy was mentally primed. All he had to do was make the shot. Carl, who’d been watching the complex through binoculars, recognized Amelia’s car when it wheeled up to the entrance of the visitation center. He reported this to Jeremy. “See her?”
“On the car,” Jeremy said, his voice tense with concentration.
“This could be it.”
But it wasn’t. Dawson Scott alighted and went into the building alone, and while Jeremy would have loved nothing better than to blow him away, he hadn’t had a clear shot, and besides, Dawson Scott wasn’t today’s target.
Amelia drove away. They waited, ate energy bars, drank from water bottles. Going on two hours later, Amelia returned and parked. This time she and “Guess-fucking-who,” Carl chuckled, parked and went inside. “Got to come out sometime. Set up, son.”
This time the wait was short. Amelia was the first one out. Headly right behind her, his phone to his ear.
“Got him?” Carl asked Jeremy.
“Roger Dodger.”
But just as Jeremy squeezed the trigger, the agent turned to speak over his shoulder. Carl, who was expecting to see the agent’s head explode, cursed when he collapsed and fell, cranium intact. “Not a head shot, but he’s down. Let’s go!”
The binoculars hung from his neck by a cord, so his hands were free to grab the tripod as choreographed. Jeremy retrieved two shell casings. The shots had come in such rapid succession, Carl hadn’t realized Jeremy had fired a second time. “Amelia?”
“Missed her.”
Carl didn’t waste time on disappointment. There would be another occasion for Amelia. As for Headly, if he wasn’t dead, he was ruined.
The two of them jogged across the gravel roof and squeezed through the heavy metal door that had given them access to it. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the enclosed stairwell, but there was no one to hear them as they descended through the deserted building. Jeremy was carrying the rifle, but he could still move with more speed and alacrity than Carl, whose hips pained him with every tread.
Jeremy asked if he needed to take a sec to rest. Carl shoved him aside and went past him. “You’ll have trouble keeping up with me, sonny.”
As though to underscore their need for haste, the wail of sirens reached them through the exterior walls.
“Christ, that was fast,” Jeremy said.
“Don’t think about them. Just keep moving.”
By the time they reached the ground floor, both were laboring to catch their breath. They left the building through the back door by which they’d entered after destroying the lock. Jeremy opened the rear door of his car and was carefully placing the rifle in the floorboard behind the driver’s seat when a patrol car, running hot, lights flashing, turned into the alley between the abandoned building and its vacant neighbor. It screeched to a halt about ten yards away from them.
“Stay calm,” Carl said, instantly adapting the persona of Bernie Clarkson.
The officer behind the wheel was middle-aged, which told Carl a lot about him, namely that he wasn’t the sharpest of cops or he wouldn’t still be on routine patrol. He clambered out while unsnapping the holster on his right hip.
“Put your hands where I can see them!” He worked the pistol out of the holster and aimed it at them in turn.
“What’s going on, officer?” Carl asked in Bernie’s age-rusty voice.
He shouted, “Come out from behind that door! Hands up!”
Jeremy eased away from the open door of the backseat and, along with Carl, raised his hands shoulder high. “What are all the sirens—”
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“As of this morning, we’ve leased this building for our medical supply company,” Jeremy said. “Came to check it out, see if the utilities had been turned on yet. We were just about to leave when those sirens started screaming.”
Carl asked, “Was there a robbery in the area?”
The officer’s eyes sawed between them. “Stay where you are.” He reached for the transmitter clipped to his shoulder.
“Daddy?” Jeremy said.
“Got him.” Carl yanked a pistol from his waistband at the small of his back and pulled the trigger only once. The cop went down. “They never learn.”
Shooting a cop hadn’t been part of their plan. Jeremy said, “We need to get out of here
now
.” He turned to close the car’s rear door.
Carl hobbled around the front of the car to the passenger side and was halfway in when he heard the crack. It was still several seconds before he realized that the policeman, lying crumpled on the pavement with a pool of blood forming beneath him, had managed to get off a shot.
That infuriated Carl. He walked over to him, bent down, and jammed the barrel of his pistol against the officer’s temple. Looking into his fear-stricken eyes, he smiled. “Impress the devil. Tell him you got killed by Carl Wingert.”
He left the body and the car where they were, but made note of the name on the tag pinned to the officer’s uniform and yanked the squawking police radio from off his belt.
Jeremy was behind the steering wheel with the motor running by the time Carl slid into the passenger seat. “Drive toward the bridge. Easy like.”
He jacked up the volume of the radio and had listened for several minutes before anyone tried to contact the officer he’d killed. Muffling his voice, he said, “Nothing moving over here.” The dispatcher gave the officer new instructions, which Carl acknowledged, then switched off. “We should be miles away before they start looking for him.” When Jeremy didn’t respond, he looked over at him. He was sweaty and grim-faced, focused on his driving.
Then Carl noticed that his hand was flattened against his right side. Blood was leaking between his fingers. “Jesus! He hit you with that shot?”
Jeremy peeled his lips back to form a parody of a grin. “Just a scratch, Daddy.”
* * *
“We, uh, found an SPD officer and his unit behind an abandoned building. He’d been shot twice. Once in the abdomen, once…” Tucker glanced at Amelia, who was sitting beside Dawson on a short sofa in the trauma center waiting room. The deputy amended whatever he had been about to say. “He was dead.”
Dawson felt Amelia flinch. He was too shocked by what had happened to Headly to react.
Deputy Wills cleared his throat, his prominent Adam’s apple sliding up and down his long, wrinkled neck. Dawson thought he looked like a turtle with his small head poking out of his shirt collar, which was too large.
Entertaining such nonsensical thoughts was the only thing keeping him sane. If he started thinking about the reality he found himself in, about Headly inexorably dying while he stood futilely by, he’d go crazy, destroy something, kill somebody.
He was only barely holding on to his reason, and he was able to do that only because Headly hadn’t been pronounced dead at the scene. Perhaps he had died in transit to the hospital, or on the operating table, but no one had had the courage to tell Dawson yet. That was a distinct possibility, because the deputies were regarding him as though mistrustful of his outward stoicism and in fear of an eruption of violent fury at any moment. They were justifiably afraid.
Wills cleared his throat again. “You were right about the direction the shots came from.”
“I didn’t spend nine months in a war zone for nothing.”
“Well, anyway, on account of you, we knew where to start looking for the shooter. They were on the roof.”
Dawson fixed him with a stare. “They?”
“We found two sets of shoe prints in the gravel. And Jeremy Wesson’s fingerprints on the doorknobs.”
“Carl was with him.”
“We don’t know that,” Tucker said.
“I do.” Dawson closed his hand into a tight fist. “Carl would want to take credit for killing Headly.”
After a taut silence, Wills said, “We don’t know who pulled the trigger, but—”
“Jeremy was a sniper, for chrissake.”
Wills nodded. “From that vantage point, with a fancy scope, a skilled shooter…” He didn’t take that thought any further. “The fingerprints—”
“Weren’t an oversight,” Dawson said. “They don’t care who knows it was them.”
“Look,” Tucker said, “you’re making assumptions that—”
Wills nudged Tucker hard enough to shut him up. He, the good cop, realized that every contrary word out of his partner’s mouth was riling Dawson. Like jerking a sleeping tiger’s tail.
After a moment, he continued. “The downed officer had been on patrol over in that industrial park where some vandalism had recently been reported.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Must’ve intercepted them as they were fleeing. His radio was missing. Which explains how they eluded us. They could follow our communications and keep track of our movements.”
Tucker said, “Plus, we don’t know what they’re driving. The car Bernie—Carl—left in that parking lot is still there.”
Dawson shot him a baleful look. “You’ve finally come around to accepting that Bernie is Carl Wingert?”
Tucker had the grace to look abashed.
Amelia slid her hand beneath Dawson’s arm and rested it on his thigh, which served to keep him from lunging at the deputy who’d questioned Headly’s superior knowledge. His muttered epithets toward Tucker were heard by her alone.
He’d tried to persuade her to return to the beach house and take advantage of the protection she’d be afforded there, but she had refused to budge from his side, and secretly he was glad. Over the course of the last few tumultuous hours, her invisible steeliness had manifested itself in quiet but emphatic ways.
She’d spent ten minutes talking on her cell phone to the deputy who’d been watching Hunter and Grant all day. She later told Dawson that they’d been thoroughly entertained until, after a pizza dinner, they’d been tucked safely into bed and were now fast asleep.
She’d also been assured that they were unaware of the personnel, which had been doubled in number, to guard them. Satisfied that her children were being well attended, she’d declared that she would stay with Dawson, at least until they knew the extent of Headly’s injury and the status of his condition.
Several times she had tried to thank him for saving her life, but was unable to complete the sentence without becoming too emotional to speak. He’d told her that thanks were unnecessary, that he understood the depth of what she was feeling. She seemed to understand how he felt as well.
When fear of the worst had caused him to lapse into brooding silences, she hadn’t filled them with mindless promises that all would be well, when the possibility of catastrophe loomed. When he felt like talking, she had listened as though absorbing each word into her skin. She was a soft but stalwart presence he was grateful to have.