Chapter 24
D
espite what Manuel says, what happened next wasn't my fault. It was the fault of the Onondaga Sheriff's Department. Things were going along just fine. I was keeping Adelina's Taurus in view. I was half a street length behind, which, given the time of night, was the perfect distanceânot so close that she could see me and not so far away that I'd lose her.
Adelina was driving much faster than the speed limit allowed. She went down Oak and through Willow at a brisk forty-five miles an hour. Then she took a right onto Ash, drove five blocks, and came to a rolling stop at the four-way intersection of Ash and Crescent before speeding through it.
“Where the hell is she going?” Manuel muttered as I pressed down on the accelerator.
“I don't have a clue,” I replied.
And I didn't.
I'd expected her to go toward Littlebaum's house, which was in the opposite direction.
I was speeding up because the intersection she'd gone through was a big one, big enough so that there were cars going through it at any time of the day or night, and I wanted to make absolutely sure I didn't lose her. Because all my attention was focused in front of me, I wasn't checking the rearview mirror. Which was too bad. Otherwise, I might have spotted the sheriff's car behind me and come to a full stop at the four-way.
Unfortunately I didn't do either.
The next thing I knew, I saw the lights flashing in the mirror. I cursed and pulled over to the side.
“Good move,” Manuel volunteered. “Very smart.”
“Be quiet,” I hissed as I rolled down my window and waited for the deputy to approach me.
“If the wheels don't rock, you ain't stopped,” he told me as I handed him my license and my registration. Terrific. A poet. Maybe he'd write me a haiku instead of a ticket. Or a sonnet. That wouldn't be bad, either.
He looked older than the normal run of guys in that line of work. Most deputies I see are in their midtwenties to thirties. By their forties they're usually sitting behind a desk or collecting their pension and doing something else. This guy looked to be about fifty. Or maybe he was younger and was just having a hard life. “You should slow down,” he added as he took in my tapping fingers on the steering wheel. “Speed kills.”
I forced a smile. “Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. I'll be more careful in the future, Officer.”
But I was so jazzed by the pursuit, I was practically bouncing up and down in my seat.
His eyes narrowed. “Anything wrong?” he asked. His eyes swept the inside of the cab and lingered on Manuel.
I made myself sit still. “Just anxious to get home.”
“You're sure? What about him?” he asked, indicating Manuel.
“He's coming home with me. He's my nephew,” I added, hoping he wouldn't make us get out of the cab.
He gave Manuel a long, speculative look, then somewhat reluctantly, he took my papers back to his squad car.
“Shithead,” Manuel spat out when the deputy was out of earshot. “He thinks I was carjacking you.”
“Probably.”
He pushed up his sleeve and pointed to his wrist. “He wouldn't have said that if my skin was white like yours.”
“You're right, he wouldn't have,” I agreed.
“I'm gonna ...”
“All right, Manuel.” I rubbed my forehead. I was tired. I was irritable. I was stressed. I wasn't in the mood to listen to one of Manuel's rants about racial inequality tonight, even if it was true. “That's enough.”
“Don't you âall right' me.” His voice warbled with indignation at my lack of empathy. “You wouldn't be liking it if it happened to you.”
“You're right. I wouldn't. I apologize,” I said to keep the peace. The last thing I needed now was Manuel mouthing off to the officer. Then we'd never get out of here.
“Okay.” Manuel slumped down in his seat and began fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. “I still say that's why he stopped us,” he repeated.
“And I told you I agreed.”
“I should report that prick.”
“Go ahead. Just do it tomorrow.”
“Maybe I will.”
“You should,” I said, even though I knew he wouldn't. Doing something like that took the kind of effort Manuel wasn't prepared to make. Instead, he'd mutter and complain until something else came up.
The computer must have been down, because it took the deputy fifteen minutes before he came back, though it felt longer than that. I kept checking my watch every two minutes or so. The hands moved at a glacial pace.
“Now what?” Manuel asked as I shoved the ticket in my backpack.
“Now we're going to Parker Littlebaum's house.”
“Why?”
“Because I think Adelina might be there.” Even though she hadn't been heading in that direction, Littlebaum's was her logical destination.
“And if she isn't?” Manuel said. “What then?”
“We'll check every other place I can think of.”
Manuel groaned. “I was going to a party tonight.”
“Not anymore.” I pulled out, hooked a left, and drove over to Littlebaum's.
It took me more time to get there than it usually would. I had to drive slowly because the sheriff stayed on my ass for a good quarter of the way. Maybe Manuel was right about him suspecting Manuel of carjacking, or maybe he just figured I'd speed up again.
And he was correct. I did. I went into warp speed as soon as he was gone. We arrived at Littlebaum's house ten minutes later. I parked on the road's shoulder, ten feet away from the house, underneath a large oak, and turned the motor off. The house looked as if Littlebaum had turned in for the night. The lights were out on the first floor, although two rooms were lit up on the second story.
“Maybe Adelina's up there,” I said to Manuel, indicating the windows on the left-hand side of the structure.
He threw me a disgusted look. “And maybe Littlebaum can't sleep. Maybe he's watching TV.” He gestured to the house. “I mean, I don't see her car around here anywhere. I don't see anyone through the window walkin' around up there.”
I'd noticed that, too. “The Taurus could be in the garage. I'm going to check.”
“You don't mind if I stay here, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. âCause it's freezing out there. And I ain't fixin' to get my clothes dirty tramping around outside.” He pulled out his cell phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“A friend. I got to do something while I'm waiting. Hey!” he yelled as I took the keys out of the ignition. “Leave those in there. It's cold.”
I handed them to him reluctantly. “Don't play the radio and don't turn on the lights.”
Manuel bristled. “You think I'm an idiot?”
It seemed better not to answer.
“So I can't go and get me a hot chocolate?” he asked straightfaced as I got out of the car. “Just kidding,” he said before I could answer. “Truly. I wouldn't do something like that.”
I wasn't so sure. As I closed the car door, I could hear Manuel talking to his friend.
“Whatup, Brooke?” he was saying. “No. I ain't goin' to that jive ass party. I got me something better to do. I got me hired as a private investigator. No shit! It's true. I be here right now staking out this place.”
I couldn't help smiling as I started down the road to Littlebaum's house. As I walked, I hunched my back and put my hands in my pockets. It had grown colder since I'd left Adelina's. It was a beautiful night. A few clouds remained in the sky. The moon and a few stars were visible.
Little flecks of ice glimmered on the fence posts. Frozen leaves crunched under my feet. I walked around the remnants of a pumpkin left over from Halloween that lay rotting on the ground, its face now reduced to an orange mush. In another month or so, not a trace would be visible. The air smelled of smoke. Someone must be running a wood-burning stove, I decided as I walked along the road. When I got to Littlebaum's driveway, I halted and considered what I was going to do next.
What I hadn't noticed the first time I'd been there was that in order to get to Littlebaum's garage I had to cross a wide expanse of open, flat land. There were no trees I could hide behind, nothing I could use for cover. Basically, if Littlebaum set Matilda on me, I was royally fucked.
This was not good. I guess I was either getting older or smarter because I decided to see if I could come up with a more conservative solution to getting a look inside Littlebaum's garage instead of charging over there. I chewed on a lock of my hair and watched my breath turn to smoke in the night air. A plane roared by overhead. I looked up. It was flying low, coming in for a landing, its lights blinking in the sky. Then it was out of sight and I went back to studying Littlebaum's house. Whereas the front was clear, the back was shrouded in shadows.
Then I realized what I should have spotted immediately. Littlebaum had lots of trees on his property. They were just in the back of his house instead of the front. Maybe I could get to his house by heading down, then cutting across. I walked a little farther and came to a large privet hedge that bordered the road. It was thick and well tended, but the people who'd planted it evidently hadn't felt the need to extend the plantings back toward their house. Here they'd put in cedars and arborvitae. I was betting it would be easy to follow the cedars down and then cut over to Littlebaum's house. I bet wrong.
The ground wasn't nearly as easy to walk over as I expected. The terrain had been left to go wild. The cedars were being taken over by maples and honey locusts. The ground was littered with their cast-off limbs, in addition to being full of large rocks and holes. I had to keep looking down to see where I was going. Despite that, I kept tripping. Walking would have been easy during the day, but at night, in the dark, it was tough going. After twisting my ankle for the third time in ten minutes, I leaned against a tree and reconsidered my plan for the second time that evening.
At the pace I was going, it would take me a while to get to the back of Littlebaum's house, which wouldn't even matter, except when I got there I didn't know what I was going to find. This wasn't going to work. I backtracked reluctantly. Maybe this was why I usually took the direct approach. On the way to the car I came up with another idea.
Manuel was still chatting when I got behind the wheel.
“That was quick,” he said, interrupting his conversation.
“I didn't go.” I reached out. “Can I have the phone?”
He tightened his grip on it. “Don't I even get a please?”
“Fine. Please. This is important.”
He pushed his chin out. “And my business isn't?”
I gritted my teeth and restrained myself from grabbing and shaking him by reminding myself that it was his phone. “I really need to make this call now.”
“That's all you had to say. Just give me another second.” And he resumed his conversation.
“Manuel,” I repeated urgently when the second had turned into a minute.
He nodded, told his friend he'd call him back, and handed the phone to me. “What's this all about?”
“Listen,” I said, paying him back a little for making me wait. Then I punched in George's number.
“Speak to me,” George said.
“I am.”
“Hey, it's you.”
“Who did you expect?”
“Mike. He's seeing if he can come up with anything on Chapman.”
“It would be nice if he could.”
“Yes, it would, but I'm not holding my breath. So what's going on at your end?”
I told him why I'd called.
“But that was my idea,” Manuel protested after I had promised George I'd let him know what happened and hung up. “You were the one that said calling Adelina's house and telling her mother there was a gas leak wouldn't work.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “What can I say? I was wrong. Here.” I gave him back his phone. Then I reached in my jacket pocket, took out the clip from Adelina's automatic, and reinserted it in the gun.
Manuel's eyes widened. “You using that?” he said. “I thought you don't believe in weapons.”
“I don't. But I also don't believe in getting ripped to shreds.” I didn't want to shoot Matilda, but I would if I had to.
A moment later, the lights in Littlebaum's house went on, bing, bing, bing, one after the other. Evidently, George hadn't wasted any time making the call.
“What you want me to do?” Manuel asked.
“I want you to stay here and call George if anything goes wrong.”
“How will I know?”
“If you hear blood-curdling shrieks coming from the vicinity of Littlebaum's house, I think it's safe to say things aren't working out the way I planned.” I got out of the cab and jogged toward the house.
I wanted to greet Littlebaum and Adelina when they came out. Two minutes later, the front door opened and a dazed-looking Littlebaum emerged into the night. I noticed that neither Matilda nor his shotgun was with him. A definite plus. I waited a few more seconds for Adelina to appear. When she didn't, I stepped in front of Littlebaum and raised Adelina's gun.
“Close the door,” I ordered. “I don't want Matilda out here.”
Littlebaum blinked. “But there's a gas leak.” He stuttered slightly in his confusion. His voice was still sodden with sleep. George must have roused him out of a sound slumber. “The man that called said someone had reported a gas leak and that a repair crew from Niagara Mohawk was coming with a meter to check it out.”