Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop (32 page)

“I should go with you.”

“No need,” he said firmly. “You get some rest. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

Kathryn reluctantly walked to the house. At the door she turned back.

“As soon as you know anything,” she called after him as he pulled away in a billow of blue smoke.

He drove less than a mile and parked again on Dalrymple Street, two full blocks from the sheriff’s office where he could clearly see the Crown Victoria patrol car parked in front. It was almost an hour before the figure of the sheriff emerged from the office, followed closely by a second and much larger figure ambling behind. The patrol car pulled slowly away from the curb, and Nick reached for his door.

“Excuse me, is Sheriff St. Clair here?”

A stout-legged woman about fifty years of age sat staring intently at a glowing computer monitor. A shapeless blue dress hung haphazardly over her trunk, and short, tight curls hugged her head like a salt-and-pepper shower cap. Her left hand held open an instruction manual while the thick, blunt fingers of her right hand occasionally pecked at a key.

“Just missed him.” She nodded toward the door without breaking her concentration. “He went on rounds—should be back in about an hour.”

Nick cocked his head to one side and looked at her.

“Wait a minute. You must be Agnes, the one Pete talks so much about.”

She glanced up from the flickering screen.

“I’m Dr. Nicholas Polchak.” He rolled up a chair across from her and casually straddled it. “But you can call me Nick. I’m working with your boss on an investigation. Has he mentioned me?”

“Can’t say he has.”

“Well, he talks about you all the time. It’s always, ‘Agnes does this,’ or ‘Agnes takes care of that.’ Sounds to me like you do most everything around here.”

“You name it, I do it,” she said with increasing enthusiasm. “I’m the secretary, accountant, and dispatcher. I’m the first one here every morning and the last one out at night. See this?” She pointed to a cheap wood-burned plaque above her desk that proclaimed, “IDEA girl.” “That’s me—the IDEA girl. That stands for I Do Everything Almost.”

“I can tell you one thing. They sure don’t pay you enough.”

“Who you tellin’?” she said with a backward glance. “I swear sometimes I’m nursemaid and mother to those two boys!”

Nick nodded sympathetically. “What about time off? Do you ever get a vacation around here?”

“It’s just the three of us. I take vacation when they take vacation. I can’t make rounds or take calls without them, and they can’t do nothin’ without me—so we just close up shop for a few days. The Harnett County boys come over and take our calls.”

“When was your last vacation, Agnes?”

“I got three days back in February—no, January. Went to see my sister—she lives up Edenton way, you know? She got this disk problem, gets laid up real bad, pain shoots all down her legs and—”

“Six months ago? Six months with no vacation?”

“Till a couple weeks ago, that is.”

Nick leaned forward and smiled. “Well, it’s about time. So—the whole office shut down just a couple of weeks ago?”

“I went back again to see Rayleen—not that it did much good, not this time. That disk of hers, it just pops out on her one day and then right back in the next. She never—”

“And the boys,” he cut in. “Where did they head off to?”

“Down to Myrtle Beach. Spent a few days in the sun.”

Nick paused. “That’s funny. I thought Pete said he did a little hunting—down in Georgia. You’re sure they didn’t go to that place of his in Valdosta?”

“It was Myrtle Beach all right. See? They brought me this.” From the corner of her desk she slid a small, paste gray sand dollar.

Nick turned the sand dollar over slowly.

“I guess it must have been the beach then. Where else could you get one of these?” He handed it back to her. “Did they bring you any pictures?’

“Can’t say as they did.”

“No pictures?”

“Do you take pictures on vacation?”

He smiled. “You must have had a couple of sunburned boys to take care of when they got back.”

She paused. “That’s funny …”

Nick rose from his chair. “Agnes, you’ve been a big help—and I’m glad to hear your sister is doing better.”

“Want me to tell Pete you stopped by?”

“No need. He’ll know soon enough.”

Nick slumped a little lower in his seat as he turned onto County Road 42, headed back toward the lab. He was tired—bone tired—but he was not about to rest. This was the way he preferred to work, driving himself day and night, never stopping to rest until his mind was no longer able to focus—and his mind was clearer than it had been in days.

The sheriff and his deputy were out of town just a week ago, contemporaneous with the death of James McAllister. They went to Myrtle Beach—or so they told their secretary. They brought her back a sand dollar—maybe from the beach, maybe from any gift shop between there and Miami—but no other evidence of their stay. And no tan. A few days at the beach and no sun?

Got to check the meteorological records for Myrtle Beach last week.

Nick began to drum his fingers on the steering wheel in time with some imaginary tune. Behind the great glasses, his dark eyes darted from thought to thought like worker bees.

He rolled to a crunching stop in front of the green Quonset.

That’s odd. Teddy’s car is not here.

Nick headed straight for the office. He opened the door—and then froze. The left exit door stood wide open.

He glanced quickly around the office. Nothing seemed to be missing, nothing was broken, but the exit door had been left open—an error that Teddy would never make. Too many predacious species could be allowed in, or …

Allowed out.

He ran to the Biotronette and began to search through the specimens. Left ocular … thoracic … right temporal … right ocular … They were there. They were all there.

Wait. Where is … Where could it possibly …

He searched desperately around the room. There in the center of the worktable was a single plastic container—with the lid removed.

Nick ripped a cardboard box from a shelf and dumped its contents onto the floor, fumbling frantically for another lid. He found one and slammed it down on top of the open container.

Too late.

Inside the container was nothing but a tiny, empty capsule about the size of a grain of rice.

He lunged for the open door and jerked it shut. He stood silently, his eyes searching every inch of the ceiling and walls in the desperate hope that the fly had not yet escaped the lab. He began to step slowly around the office, waving his arms in great circles over every table and shelf, straining every sense to detect a quick streak of black or a telltale buzz.

Nothing.

Nothing but a handful of moths drawn to the stark fluorescent ceiling lights the night before.

The door was left open last night.

Nick searched the worktable near the Biotronette and found Teddy’s log, the one he used to record changes in the specimens at fifteen-minute intervals. He fanned through the pages, scanning the entries—almost nothing had been entered for more than a day now, when the rest of the specimens had emerged from their puparia.

1515 Left ocular specimen reaches eclosion

1530 No change

1545 Second temoral specimen reaches eclosion

1600 No change

He flipped forward to yesterday’s entries—it was an endless list of “No change” notations penned in Teddy’s flawless script. He ran his finger down the list, turned the page, and continued until he came to the final entry:

2356 inal specimen eclosion

He closed the book. At 11:56 last night the final specimen emerged from its puparium, and Teddy faithfully noted the event in his log—but what happened next? How did the specimen come to be left out of the Biotronette and allowed to escape? Why was the lab left open and unsecured?

Nick glanced down again at the cluttered counter.

Teddy’s cell phone.

Nick flipped it open and jabbed the TALK button twice; the
auto-redial activated, and a number appeared on the tiny LCD screen—Nick’s number. Teddy did try to call—but if he couldn’t get through, why didn’t he leave a message? Nick pulled out his own phone and checked again: No New Messages.

It never occurred to Nick for even an instant that these events could be accidental. Teddy was a consummate professional who took pains with the slightest details of his work. The idea that he would leave a door open or allow a critical specimen to escape was more than impossible, it was unthinkable. No, someone else had been here, someone who had purposely left the office door open—someone who had an interest in allowing this specific specimen to escape. But how did they get in? How did they get around Teddy? And why was Teddy’s cell phone still there?

Where is Teddy?

Nick grabbed the logbook, threw open the lab door, and ran for the parking lot.

Kathryn sat cross-legged in front of the coffee table, working her way through accumulated junk mail and stopping to pay an occasional bill. She hadn’t been able to “get some rest” as Nick had suggested, but that came as no surprise. Sleep was a rare and delicate bubble for Kathryn, and once disturbed it was impossible to restore. Her night’s rest consisted of the few moments of sweet oblivion she had managed to snatch between bone-jarring potholes on I-95 South.

The muted television in front of her flashed images of chatty news anchors exchanging smiles and nods. Kathryn stared at it blankly for a few minutes, then reached for the remote and switched to channel four. The screen turned bright blue. From the
bottom drawer of the entertainment center she took a videotape marked OUR WEDDING and slid it into the machine. She sat back down on the floor and pulled her legs up tight against her chest, resting her chin on her knees.

The church custodian had reluctantly agreed to shoot the video, and he seemed to spend the first fifteen minutes learning to work the camera. A random shot of the church ceiling was followed by a shot of his own shoes, followed by a series of nauseating pans and zooms to nothing in particular. There were broken sound bites of music and laughter interspersed with a few colorful words from the custodian himself. The cinematography slowly began to improve, however, and soon a shot of the front of the sanctuary revealed two bridesmaids and the groom—with Peter and Jimmy at his side.

Finally the bride herself appeared in the double doorway leading down the center aisle. A crude facsimile of the “Wedding March” began to blare from the organ—even worse than she remembered it—and the dozen-or-so guests scattered throughout the pews rose and turned toward Kathryn as she entered the sanctuary. She walked alone, no father to give her away.

She arrived at Andy’s side and turned to face him. Words were spoken—the sound was indistinguishable—then the camera jostled, cut off, and started again several yards closer to the bridal couple. It was a tight shot on their faces, and at the sight of Andy’s smile her tears began to flow.

From somewhere beyond the wedding party a voice began, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together today in the sight of God and man …” Kathryn watched her own face, then his, then hers again. She saw nothing in their eyes but hopes and dreams and possibilities.

How long ago was this? It seems like forever.

“Repeat after me,” the voice continued. “I take you, Kathryn, to be my lawfully wedded wife, knowing in my heart that you will be my constant friend, my faithful partner in life, and my one true love.”

“I take you, Kathryn, to be my lawfully wedded wife …”

For some inexplicable reason the custodian chose this moment to pan slowly across the members of the bridal party. There was
Amelia on the left, who constantly hitched up her slip throughout the service, followed by dear cousin Rose who married shortly thereafter and moved away to … Where was it? Colorado?

The voice boomed out again: “I affirm to you in the presence of God and these witnesses my sacred promise to stay by your side as your faithful husband for better or for worse, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health.”

“… my sacred promise to stay by your side …,” Andy repeated, while the camera suddenly jumped to the other end of the row and settled on Jimmy. Smiling Jimmy, always happy—maybe not so happy, Kathryn thought, but always a smile on his face. The camera panned slowly to the left, stopped briefly on Peter, and finally came to rest on the groom once again.

Kathryn suddenly stopped. She reached for the remote and backed the tape up to the image of Jimmy, then watched again as the camera rolled past Peter. What was that? What was he doing? She rewound the tape again and let it go, moving closer to the screen this time.

“I promise to love you without reservation,” said the preacher, and after each phrase Andy repeated his words. “To honor and respect you, to provide for your needs, to protect you from harm, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.” Was it just her imagination? No—there it was again! Each time Andy spoke, Peter’s lips also moved. He was repeating the vows himself, but in silence.