Revenant (11 page)

“Your brother said the man called the young woman ‘Raven,’ is that correct?”

“That’s right, and the older man’s name was Max.”

“Really. Bo didn’t mention that you heard the man’s name.”

“That’s because I never told him,” she explained. “I don’t speak with Bo very often. He’s always so negative about everything I try to stay away from him for the most part. You know what I mean?”

“Of course,” Mike answered with a smile. “You were saying? About their names?”

“Oh yes, about the older man’s name. I never told Bo that I heard his name. The only reason I even mentioned the young woman to him is because she was just so incredibly beautiful I wondered if he had seen her around town, too. But of course up until that point he hadn’t. Anyway, as the couple was walking out the door after paying for their purchases, the young lady said, quite clearly, ‘Thank you, Max, these things are lovely,’ and then they disappeared.”

Sharon jotted the name in her tiny notebook as Mike asked, “Have they been in your store since that day?”

“No, they walked out the door and I’ve never seen either one of them again.”

“But you’re certain the woman was named Raven and the man’s name was Max.”

“Completely certain, at least to the extent that’s what they were calling each other. Whether or not those were their real names, I couldn’t say.”

Mike smiled again. “I don’t suppose either one of them happened to mention where they were staying in town, did they?”

“No. They really didn’t say much of anything at all while they were in here except for the very short snippet of conversation Bo mentioned, and then the couple of words I heard as they were walking out the door. I’m afraid I don’t know anything else; I’m sorry.”

“No problem,” Mike answered. “You’ve been very helpful. If you see either of them again, would you please call me right away? It’s a matter of considerable importance.” He handed her a business card with the Paskagankee PD telephone number as well as his personal cell number printed on it.

“Of course,” she said, walking them to the door. The bell tinkled as it opened, the sound warm and inviting, and Sharon wondered how two people who had grown up and lived their entire lives in the same town could have turned out as differently as Bo and Rose Pellerin, one dour and uncooperative, the other pleasant and helpful.

They walked into the warm June sunshine, crossing the paved parking lot to the cruiser. Sharon asked, “Want me to drive?”

Mike grinned. “It’s up to you, Princess. You’re the heartbreaker, after all.”

Sharon groaned and rolled her eyes as she made a fist around the car key. Mike was still laughing as she pulled onto Main Street and gunned the engine, turning toward the center of town. For a few minutes it was almost like the old days.

14

The plot of the TV soap was hard to follow, but Josh Parmalee was trying like hell to keep up. One chick was sleeping with another, stringing along two guys, engineering a plot to kidnap the baby of her former lover, while faking her own death in order to defraud a life insurance company out of millions of dollars. Josh loved soaps. They were the only thing on television that even came close to approximating some of the bizarre shit he had seen during his days on the Seattle PD.

Treachery, backstabbing, random violence, drug deals gone sour, bad people cutting down even worse people in hails of gunfire, Josh had seen all of it and more before retiring and somehow, against all odds, landing squarely in the middle of this unbelievably cushy job.

It was the sort of once-in-a-lifetime incredible shit luck that never happened for guys like him. Josh was under no illusions about what he was: a mostly unmotivated cop who had spent his entire career in the shadowy grey area between strict enforcement of the law and earning dirty money by discreetly looking the other way during the commission of certain illegal activities.

Josh had been careful to protect his back at all times, but had always been willing to do business with the right people at the right time—or the wrong people at the wrong time, depending on how you looked at it—if those people showed a willingness to contribute enough cash to his secret retirement fund. Then the shit luck that never happened for guys like him had actually happened.

Looking back on it, Josh could still hardly believe his unlikely good fortune. It almost seemed like a dream. Only it wasn’t a dream, because if it had been, he would not be sitting here today, lounging in front of the big-screen TV in the living room of Brett Parker’s brand-new vacation hideaway watching two gorgeous soon-to-be Hollywood starlets make out with each other while stuffing his face with Doritos.

Brett Parker, for crying out loud! One of the richest and most influential men in America, the guy People Magazine had named one of the Sexiest Men Alive two years running, not that Josh cared about how sexy any dude was. But the point was this guy was the Real Deal, and Josh Parmalee, of all people, had been hired to provide his security. Unbelievable.

The soap went to a commercial just as things were getting hot and heavy between the two girls, and he thought back to the day that had changed his life forever. He was a patrolman, stuck in the world of the law enforcement foot soldier, unlikely ever to receive the promotion to detective that he craved, thanks to questionable decision-making skills and his tendency toward over-reliance on the enthusiastic employment of fists and baton in keeping suspects in line.

On that fateful day, Josh had been patrolling a local park where rich and influential native son Brett Parker, local software magnate extraordinaire, was scheduled to dedicate a brand-new baseball field for underprivileged children he had financed out of his own pocket. A podium was set up on the pitcher’s mound, with television cameras and print reporters gathered around home plate to memorialize every second of the Great Man’s appearance among the unwashed masses.

Josh had been patrolling the outfield, ostensibly on the lookout for trouble but mostly eyeing the hordes of beautiful young women who always followed Parker around, drawn to the man’s wealth and power like moths to a flame.

He trailed along behind one particularly scrumptious young thing; a girl dressed in a tiny t-shirt barely covering her ample assets and the tightest pair of jeans Josh had ever seen. He wondered whether she would even be able to slide them off if she ever managed to corral Parker.

As he did his best to look inconspicuous while keeping her in his sights as long as possible, a sudden furtive movement ahead and to the girl’s right caught his eye. He almost ignored it; after all, you didn’t see female specimens like this one every day; not unless your name was Brett Parker, of course. But something about the activity raised his hackles.

He glanced to his right, annoyed at the distraction, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw some dude who looked as though he had just woken up under a bridge abutment—long, dirty beard and filthy jeans that probably had never seen the inside of a washing machine—pull a handgun out of his pocket and begin bringing it to bear on Parker.

And no one noticed, except for Josh.

It was freaking unbelievable. Here they were, smack in the middle of a huge crowd of who knew how many thousands of people, and a grubby bum most people would cross the street to avoid was brandishing a gun,
and nobody noticed!

The bum was positioned almost directly behind Parker now, the Great Man’s back completely exposed to the commoners as he addressed the reporters and TV cameras transmitting his words to the millions of other commoners not fortunate enough to attend the ceremony. The moment the guy fired, Parker would go down. There was no way he could miss. It was the perfect angle and the perfect opportunity for this sleazeball—probably crazy as a loon, suffering from paranoid delusions or something—to make his nutty statement to the world by assassinating Parker.

And Josh reacted.

He reacted immediately. Just because he was a semi-dirty cop, willing to take his money where he could get it, didn’t mean he wasn’t a halfway decent officer when he wanted to be. He knew instinctively if he drew his gun dozens of people would die, there was no question about it. He would spook the nut-job, the crazy bastard would spray the crowd with bullets, and people would die.

So he left his sidearm in its holster and instead, launched himself at the man. No bullshit fair play warning like the cops always gave on TV; Josh wasn’t about fair play, he was all about getting the upper hand by any means possible. He launched himself like the middle linebacker he had been back in high school, hitting the guy with his powerful shoulders and driving him sideways into a crowd of teenagers.

The gun flew up into the air as it was jarred out of the asshole’s hand, and as if someone had flipped a switch, chaos erupted. People started screaming and running and Josh brought the guy to the ground, shoving his face into the dirt, grinding a little more grime into the bum’s already filthy beard, not that anyone would notice.

And just like that, Josh Parmalee became a hero. He was the flavor of the day, receiving a commendation from a grateful mayor, whose finely tuned political instincts told him it was the right move despite the singularly uninspired nature of the record in Josh’s personnel folder. There was a ceremony on the steps of City Hall, presentation of a medal, and a sincere handshake from Brett Parker himself at the end of a moving speech where he thanked Officer Parmalee for saving his life. All of it captured by the greedy eye of the Seattle TV news cameras, then transmitted around the country by virtually every network.

But the best part, the unbelievable part, came after the ceremony, while Brett Parker and Josh relaxed in the Mayor’s office, sharing a beer and casual conversation. That was when Parker had sprung the job offer on Josh, admitting the events that afternoon at the park had shaken him up badly. “I need personal security,” he said, and Josh nodded, still with no freaking clue where the conversation was headed.

By the time Parker got around to spelling out the job offer, Josh had stared at him for at least thirty seconds, mouth hanging open like a damn fool, unable even to formulate a response. He waited for the billionaire to begin laughing, to pull the rug out from under him and declare the whole thing a joke, but he never did. He simply waited for a response from the man who had saved his life, the man he now wanted as his head of personal security.

And Josh had accepted on the spot.

Now he sat munching on Doritos and shaking his head at his unlikely good fortune. One moment in the right place at the right time, a few seconds of sheer luck, had given him this cushy gig with all of the trappings of wealth and power. One moment of action—the whole crazy incident had taken maybe ten seconds from beginning to end—and now he had life by the balls.

The commercials ended—laundry detergent, diapers and tampons were all they ever seemed to advertise on soaps; that was the worst part of watching—and the show came back on. Josh was disappointed but unsurprised to see they were now focusing on a different storyline for the time being, one which didn’t feature beautiful young actresses French-kissing each other.

He assuaged his disappointment with another Dorito, crunching away happily, when he heard a drawn-out
creeeeeak
just outside. The sound seemed to come from the porch, and although this brand-new house creaked and groaned all the time as it began the process of settling on its foundation, this particular noise seemed somehow different. Furtive, like the movement he had detected so long ago at the park, and which had ultimately been responsible for changing his life.

Josh stopped chewing and listened hard.

15

There were less than a half-dozen real estate agents in the Paskagankee area who might have rented a home to the mysterious Max and his beautiful companion. The pair wasn’t living in the small downtown area—it would have been impossible to do so and remain as invisible as they had—and the only apartments for rent in Paskagankee were all located within a fifteen minute walk of the police station, so Mike assumed if they were living in the area at all it would have to be in a house somewhere on the outskirts of town.

This still left them with a vast expanse of territory to consider, given the sheer geographical vastness of Paskagankee. But the handful of local realtors became the logical starting point for the search. If none of them panned out, Mike knew more research would be required to uncover names and contact numbers for homes available for rent by individuals outside the immediate area.

He eased into the wheeled chair behind his desk and picked up the telephone, gazing through the glass office wall at Sharon, busy working the phone out in the mostly empty squad room. They had split the numbers evenly, three for him and three for her, and he watched as she sat with her feet on her desk, holding the telephone receiver to her ear and biting her lip as she tried to coax information out of a realtor clearly unwilling or unable to part with it.

For those few minutes back in the cruiser, after leaving
Needful Things,
the shroud of tension and regret which had been hanging over them since the breakup seemed to lift. Then reality reasserted itself. They drove into the police station parking lot to continue the search for Earl Manning and the easy familiarity they had shared disappeared like the popping of a child’s balloon. They trudged into the station and split up, Mike disappearing into the chief’s office and Sharon sitting down at her desk, the moment rich with symbolism and pain.

Mike sighed and looked at the telephone numbers he had printed out, selecting the top one and punching the digits into the keypad on his phone with more force than necessary.

“Green Mountain Realty, Barb speaking, how may I help you?”

Mike was surprised but grateful for the opportunity to talk to a real human being rather than a machine. “Hello, Barb, how are you today? This is Chief Mike McMahon of the Paskagankee Police Department.”