“What is it, Benny?” Carol asked. She leaned in close, as if worried that he might be sick.
“I thought she was trying to rob him,” Ben said. “I swear to God, that's what I thought.” He shifted his eyes toward Carter. “But she was trying to help him, wasn't she?”
Carter just held his gaze, letting him close the loop for himself.
“I'm so sorry,” Ben said. “I just assumed.”
“I understand,” Carter assured him.
“How many lives can one afternoon ruin?” Carol asked no one in particular.
Where Carter came from, lives were ruined every hour. “How different was the story that you just told me from what you initially told the police?”
“They didn't even ask the same questions.” He looked to Darla. “You know that.”
Darla clasped her hands. “We all made assumptions.”
Carter didn't want to travel that road again. It was all asked and answered. “Think hard on this, Ben: Do you have any idea who might be inclined to rob your store? Or, perhaps more to the point, to kill Chas Delphin?”
“Absolutely not,” Ben said.
“We have our toughs and our hoodlums just like any other community,” Carol added, “but we don't have murderers in Essex.”
Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding,
Carter didn't say. He decided to change tacks. “Tell me about the tapes in the security recorder.”
“They're not there.”
“But you thought they were.”
The old man frowned. “I'd have sworn on a stack of Bibles that I'd loaded it just this morning.”
“But you're sure it's empty now?”
“It's the first place the sheriff went when he arrived on the scene,” Darla reported.
“I can't understand,” Ben said. “Changing the tapes is the first thing I do every morning. I don't know how I possibly could have forgotten it.”
Something stirred in the back of Carter's brain. It was rare in his experience for nondelusional, healthy people to claim that they had done something so recently only to find that they in fact had not. It was much more common in the reverseâthat people would go to do something twice, forgetting about the first iteration.
“Is it possible that the shooter was aware of the cameras and took the tapes on the way out?”
“I don't see how. There's no way someone could have passed without me seeing.”
“How about a back door?” Carter pressed. “A separate entrance where they could have slipped in after the fact, while you were tending to Chas?”
“There's a back door, but that's locked, all the time. I got a iron bar that needs a key to pull it away. The fire marshal don't like it, but I don't care. I'm tired of having stuff stolen from back there.”
Carter tried to make the pieces fit. “Have you looked at the tape deck yourself, Ben? I mean, since the shooting?”
“I haven't been back in the office at all,” Ben said. “They wouldn't let me. I don't think anyone's been back there except the sheriff. They've got it all roped off.”
It made sense, Carter thought. As long as the Quik Mart was an active crime scene, it would have been inappropriate to let anyone enter.
The shadowy outline of an idea began to form. Carter hesitated, then went for it: “Is there a chance that the sheriff made off with the tape?”
Darla nearly launched out of her chair. “Whoa, whoa. Where did that come from?”
Carter raised his hand to calm her down. “Take it easy, Deputy. It's just a question.”
“Well, I don't like what you're suggesting.”
“I'm not suggesting anything,” Carter said. “I'm just following a lead. If Ben is certain that he put the tape in the machine, and the sheriff is the only other person to walk into the back office, what's left?”
“Why on earth would he want to do that?” Ben asked.
“One question at a time,” Carter said. “I'm trying to balance both sides of the equation.”
“That doesn't even make sense,” Carol huffed. “Why would the sheriff want to destroy evidence?”
Carter shrugged. “To keep anyone else from seeing it.”
Darla stood, ready to walk out. “Oh, for God's sake.”
“But
why
?” Ben asked again.
“You tell me.” Darla was clearly upset by the mere hint that the sheriff might have been involved, but Ben seemed only intrigued.
Ben's scowl deepened. “I suppose just about anything is possible, but I don't see how he could have smuggled them out, either. I was standing out front, and I already told you that the door in the back is barred. And before you ask, I don't think he could have snuck it past everybody in the front, either. You already seen how he fills out his uniform shirt. It ain't like he could stuff it under there.”
Darla had had enough. “I can't sit here and listen to this.”
“Then leave,” Ben said. Coming from him, the words startled everyone.
Carter spoke up to keep Darla from having to respond. “Look, Deputy, I know it's startling, and maybe we're way out of line, but at this stage, the only dangerous question is the one we don't ask. There's a long list of those in this case. Have you been listening to Ben?”
“Why would Sheriff Hines do such a thing?” Darla asked. “Surely, you're not suggesting that he's the killer.”
Carter waved that off as preposterous. “Of course not. Maybe he's covering for someone else.”
“Who?”
“You tell me.”
“How about his boy?” Carol asked.
Ben and Darla answered together: “Impossible.”
Ben expounded, “That boy's never done a wrong thing in his life. He's the local baseball star. He's got a bright future ahead of him. His father's the
sheriff,
for God's sake. That's just not possible.”
Carter turned to Darla, expecting more confirmation. Instead, he found her staring at infinity. “Deputy?” He broke the trance, got her attention. “You disagree?”
“Huh?” she grunted. “Oh, about Jeremy Hines? Absolutely not. He's not capable of something like this.”
Ben jumped as if someone had poked him. “Wait a second!” he proclaimed. “There
is
someone you need to talk to. Oh, goddamn, why didn't I think of this before? There's a kid, a troublemaker, been in and out of my store a lot the past couple of months. Tall kid. Dark hair.”
Darla's head whipped around. She knew exactly. “Peter Banks?” she asked.
“That's him,” Ben said. “He and Chas had a big fight a couple of weeks ago.”
“They did?”
“Okay, not a fight, I guess, but words. Angry words. Chas caught him tryin' to steal and made him give it back.”
“Did you call the police?” Darla asked.
Ben waved away the idea. “Nah, the kid put it all back, so I figured no harm, no foul. I was right proud of Chas for that, though. He told the kid that he was banned for life from the store.”
Carter thought it seemed thin. It was a place to start, butâ
“It don't fit with your theory of the sheriff coverin' for somebody,” Ben said. From his tone, it was hard to tell if he was relieved or sorry.
“Don't be so sure,” Darla said.
Carter shot her a curious look and she responded with a little shake of her head that said, “Not now.”
She asked, “Do you remember if Peter came to your store alone, or was he with someone else?”
Ben had to think on that one. When he remembered, his eyes grew large.
“It was Jeremy Hines, wasn't it?”
Ben looked like a man who'd had an epiphany. “Yes, it was. And he was as angry at Peter as Chas was. I remember that. He told him to give it all back and went on and on about getting him in trouble with his dad.”
Carter arched his eyebrows. “Time to pick up Peter Banks?”
“Gotta find him first,” Darla said. “I know exactly where to go to start looking.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“C
'mon, Nicki, wake up. We're here.”
The words startled her. She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep. When she sat up and looked around, it occurred to her that maybe she'd pulled a Rip van Winkle. The whole world had changed. The beach road had given way to just a beach with a house in the middle of it. Dunes surrounded them on three sides, with the front door facing the fourth.
“Where are we?” she asked. Her mouth was so dry that her tongue felt swollen.
“The end of the line,” Brad said.
Scotty correctly interpreted her confused look. “This is where we live,” he said.
Nicki wondered if they were playing a joke on her. The place wasn't even a house, at least not in the classic sense of the word. Roofing shingles doubled for siding on all the vertical surfaces, separated from the roof itself only by a difference in color. The wall tiles were gray, the roof brown. The driveway brought them in on an angle, and on the side of the house closest to them, the most prominent feature was a red-stained heating oil tank listing on rusted legs. Next to it rose a twenty-foot steel tower, capped at the top by an elaborate antenna of some sort. The place had the feel of a wartime military outpost erected in a hurry and designed to last only a day or two. Most remarkable of all were the heavy steel bars over all the windows.
“What is this,” Nicki asked, “a converted jail?”
“Shitty neighborhood,” Scotty mumbled, just loudly enough for Nicki to hear. When she looked at him, the boy rolled his eyes, clearly embarrassed to call this place home.
She was about to say something vapid like “Be it ever so humble,” but Brad interrupted her thoughts with a command: “Nicki, I want you to get out with Scotty and make sure he doesn't run off.”
“Where would I go?” the boy protested. “We're in the middle of freakin' nowhere.” He offered the comment as bait to his Gramma, but when she didn't rise to it, he realized again how frightened she was.
The boy opened the door of the Bronco and they climbed out into the rain. Nicki's legs and ankles were swollen and throbbing. After only a few steps, she was ready to go back to sleep.
The rain had let up a little, settling into a steady mist. “What is this place?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“We're off the road,” Brad explained. “I don't know how you slept through the ride.” His face darkened. “You look awful.”
Nicki forced a smile. “I feel worse.” She worried that she'd passed the point of no return.
“Are you going to be okay?”
She looked at him. What could she say?
“We'll get you some meds,” Brad said. “That's the very next thing on the agenda.”
“What's wrong with her?” Scotty wanted to know.
Brad changed back to badass. “Mind your own business and get inside,” he said. He gave the kid a little shove, and when he did, Scotty jerked away and whirled on Brad, who met him with the pistol pointed at his face. “You think you're tough, kid, but do yourself a favor and don't mess with me.”
Gramma looked horrified. “Please don't hurt him.”
“It's his choice,” Brad said. “Pain or kindness. It's all up to Scotty.” He let the words settle on the boy, who'd already taken two giant steps backward. “Let's get inside.”
Gramma led, with Scotty close behind and Brad helping Nicki.
The inside of the house belied the destitute appearance of the exterior. The furnitureâa chair and a sofa, arranged in front of a televisionâwas worn but not worn out, and the television and DVD player couldn't have been more than a couple of years old. There was a faint old-person odor to the place, but on balance it seemed clean enough.
“How long have you lived here?” Nicki asked.
Gramma gave her a contemptuous look. When Scotty opened his mouth to speak, her withering glare froze his words in his throat.
Brad gestured with his gun toward the chair. “Have a seat, Gramma.”
“Let the boy go,” she said. “He's got nothing to offer you. I can be your hostage.”
Brad gestured one more time. “I don't do hostages,” he said. “And if I did, I guarantee that two is always better than one.” He turned to Scotty. “Okay, kid, you take a seat on the floor next to your grandmother.”
The boy did as he was told as Brad helped Nicki onto the sofa. “We're going to stick around here long enough for the weather to break.”
“I'm hungry,” Scotty said. He sat Indian style on the floor to the side of Gramma's chair.
“Suck it up,” Brad snapped.
Nicki had had enough. “Why are you being such a shit to them? They're doing everything you tell them to do.”
He ignored Nicki and asked Gramma, “How far away is your nearest neighbor?”
“The Mellings,” Gramma said, pleasing Brad by answering right away.
That
was why he was being such a shit. “They're about a quarter mile south of here. We passed them on the way here.”
“They friends of yours?”
Gramma made a noncommittal motion with her head. “I suppose.”
“Cathy Melling is hot,” Scotty said. “She showed me her father's
Playboy
collection.”
Gramma's jaw dropped at that, and her head whipped around. “She did
what
?”
“Day before yesterday,” Scotty said. “Out on their dune.”
Gramma swatted the boy on the back of the head.
Scotty smiled and bounced his eyebrows. To Nicki's eye, he looked small for twelve, but she had always been a bad judge of boys' ages. Handsome and lean and capped with a mop of brown hair that hadn't seen a comb in way too long, he had struck her as the kind of boy who mercilessly teased girls like her.
Gramma caught the expression and swatted him again.
“Ow! You can't do that! You're not my mother!”
“Hey!” Brad boomed, startling everyone. He leveled a finger at Scotty. “You show some respect.”
“Tell
her,
” Scotty snapped.
“I'm telling
you
.” The silence that followed made Brad uncomfortable. “Sorry,” he said.
Gramma rubbed Scotty's hair. “You're just fine,” she cooed. “You're a good boy. Don't listen to him.”
The boy jerked his head free. “What's wrong with
her
?” he asked with a nod toward Nicki. Her face had lost most of its color. “She looks like crap.”
Brad growled, “Shut up.”
“I've got a bad heart,” Nicki said.
“So, you're dying?”
“Scotty!” Gramma couldn't believe he'd just said that.
Nicki allowed herself a smile. “Yes, I am. Not today, though. At least, I hope not.”
“Nobody's dying today,” Brad snapped. “Or tomorrow or the next day. We're getting out of here, we're getting you your medicine, and we're letting these people get their lives back.”