Watch Me (22 page)

She grinned and shook her head. ‘No, Winter, you’re not going to work it out, and I’m going to be two hundred bucks richer.’

‘I’ll give you a hundred now if you tell me.’

Hannah made the sign of the loser on her forehead, thumb and forefinger making an L.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘If you’re so sure, let’s make it four hundred.’

‘You’re on.’

There was no hesitation, which was a slight worry. Hannah could probably take a two-hundred-dollar hit, but four hundred would sting. Whatever Taylor’s name was, she was convinced I wouldn’t find out.

There was also a more intriguing implication to consider. Taylor wasn’t advertising his name. If he had been I would have found out by now. He was acting like it was a state secret and he was the only person in the world who knew the truth, apart from his parents, of course. But Hannah was acting like she knew what it was. The way she’d jumped at my suggestion to double the wager, she couldn’t not know.

The bell above the door
ting-a-linged
and Taylor came in. He said ‘Hi’ and Hannah scooted along the seat to make space for him. Lori shouted over a ‘Hi’ and made her way over with a Pepsi. According to my watch, it had been exactly five minutes since Hannah got here. I glanced out the window. A black sedan with sheriff’s department markings had appeared outside the guesthouse. My money was on this being the same car we’d used yesterday.

‘Anything you kids want to share?’ I asked.

‘We don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Taylor.

‘
We
,’ I said, with plenty of emphasis.

Hannah nudged Taylor in the ribs. ‘Idiot,’ she hissed.

Taylor made a what-did-I-do face. He looked so pathetic I almost felt sorry for him.

‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ I said to Hannah. ‘I already had it worked out before you guys got here.’

‘How?’

‘The name thing was the big one. You know Taylor’s first name, don’t you?’

She nodded.

‘Then there was the way you two were bickering last night. My first thought was that you were going at it like an old married couple. My second thought was that if a bird’s making quacking noises, chances are it’s a duck. Then there’s Taylor’s clothes. Yesterday I sent him away to change out of his uniform and he came back dressed like one of the Men In Black. He might as well not have bothered changing. Today he’s wearing his off-duty clothes. Blue jeans, a grey T-shirt, sneakers. Those are the clothes he keeps at your place. You don’t want him dressed like a cop when he’s off duty, right?’

Hannah nodded again.

‘The cop car was a nice touch. Last night when I headed up to my room, Taylor drove the car around the corner so I wouldn’t see it from my window. Before he got here, he snuck out the back of the guesthouse and went and got the car and parked it across the street.’ I took a sip of coffee. ‘So when do I get my wedding invitation?’

‘We don’t advertise our relationship,’ Hannah said. ‘This isn’t the fifties, but it is northern Louisiana. There are some people around these parts who wouldn’t approve.’

‘You don’t strike me as someone who’d care about something like that.’

‘And you don’t strike me as someone who’s ever tried to run a business in a small Southern town. Sometimes you need to play the game. I don’t like it, but I’m not about to cut my nose off to spite my face.’

‘So how serious are you guys?’

‘Serious enough for Taylor to get down on one knee.’

‘The old romantic. I take it you said yes.’

‘Of course I said yes. I’d be a fool not to. He’s the best man I know.’

‘Guys, I’m sat right here,’ said Taylor. His cheeks were redder than I’d ever seen them. It was kind of endearing.

Lori arrived with two plates. Six blueberry pancakes for Hannah. Taylor had ten plain ones, and steak, and eggs. You couldn’t see his plate for food. ‘Enjoy,’ she said, then headed off around the room, topping up coffee mugs. For a while we ate in silence. I finished first, drank some coffee.

‘My guess is you guys are on a three-year plan.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I know your mom’s dead, Hannah.’

For a second I thought she was going to deny this. She didn’t. Instead, she stared at me with her big fawn eyes, then gave me an almost imperceptible nod to go on.

‘The other thing I know is that you wouldn’t be hanging around here working your ass off in the guesthouse unless you had a damn good reason. Reason number one is you need money. You’re going to get a chunk of cash when you sell the guesthouse, but not enough to build a new life.’ I nodded to Taylor. ‘He’s reason number two. For whatever reason he wants to be a cop, but he needs more experience, so you need to hang around here a while longer.’

‘You’ve got it all worked out, don’t you?’

‘It’s what I do. So where are you going?’

‘San Francisco,’ Taylor said.

‘Nice city, if you like fog. And they get their fair share of murders too, so that’ll keep you busy.’ I turned back to Hannah. ‘What about you? What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to start my own internet business. I’m going to buy stuff in cheap and sell it on for a profit. Anything and everything. Clothes, shoes, electrical gear, you name it. The one thing I’m not going to do is clean another toilet as long as I live.’

‘The American Dream made real for the twenty-first century.’

‘You’d better believe it.’

‘So what’s the magic number? How much is enough to put your escape plan into action?’

‘Half a million.’

Hannah said this without any hesitation. She’d crunched the numbers so many times she could probably recite them by rote.

‘How much would you get for the guesthouse?’

‘The business is valued at a third of a million.’

‘And how much have you got saved?’

Hannah glanced at Taylor, then looked back at me. ‘Where are you going with this?’

‘That’s fine. You don’t need to answer.’ I thought things through for a second then said, ‘Okay, you would have inherited some cash when your mom died, and you’ve been planning your escape for a while, so let’s round it off at, say, seventy thousand. Does that sound about right?’

Hannah said nothing but her expression indicated I was in the right ballpark.

‘If it’s okay with you guys, I’d like to make a few alterations to our wager.
If
I don’t work out Taylor’s first name then I’ll pay out a hundred grand. That should be enough to get you up to that magic half a million.’ Hannah went to say something and I put my hand up to stop her. ‘Also, I’ll put in a good word for Taylor with the San Francisco PD. I’ve helped them out in the past, so they owe me.’

‘You can afford to lose a hundred grand?’

‘First off, I’m not going to lose. Secondly, I wouldn’t be out of pocket. Jasper Morgan would, but I wouldn’t. As far as I’m concerned this would qualify as a justifiable business expense. And thirdly, if for some reason Jasper didn’t pay up, and if by some miracle I lost the bet, I can afford to take the hit.’

‘That’s a neat trick for someone working in law enforcement. Taylor can barely afford to make the repayments on his car.’

‘I like to dabble in the stock market.’

‘And, if you can afford to give away a hundred grand, you must be doing okay.’

I shrugged and did my best not to look smug. ‘Yeah, I do okay. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I have no intention of losing.’

Taylor shook his head. ‘Maybe you can afford to lose a hundred grand, Winter, but we sure as hell can’t.’

‘And the beauty of this deal is that you won’t have to. If I do work out your name, you guys pay me a buck. You can afford that, can’t you? A single dollar bill? One tiny little portrait of George Washington?’

Both Taylor and Hannah were staring at me like they were trying to work out what the catch was.

‘Let me get this straight,’ Hannah finally said. ‘If we win, you pay us a hundred thousand. If we lose, we pay you a dollar.’

I nodded. ‘And I’ll help Taylor get a job with the San Francisco PD. Don’t forget that.’

Hannah and Taylor turned to each other and started discussing my proposal. They were communicating in their own secret language, lots of hand gestures and head gestures and whispering. I understood the odd word, but they might as well have been speaking Swahili. Taylor nodded. Hannah nodded. They turned to face me.

‘There’s no catch?’ she asked.

‘No catch,’ I assured her.

‘Okay, you’ve got a deal.’

I shook Hannah’s hand first. It was small and her skin was rough from all those hours spent working in the guesthouse. Taylor’s skin was smoother, his handshake much gentler.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Back to business. We’re going to keep quiet about Dan Choat, make the unsub sweat.’

‘And what if that pushes him to kill again?’ asked Taylor.

‘Then that one’s on my conscience since this is my call. You two are off the hook. Sometimes you’ve got to take risks. This is one of those times.’

Reluctant nods from both Hannah and Taylor.

‘Hannah, you get the day off from cleaning toilets and making beds today. You’ll work with me and Taylor. Three heads are better than one.’

‘What about the guesthouse?’

‘I’m the only guest, and I’ll live if my bed doesn’t get made and my suitcase doesn’t get searched.’

I smiled at Hannah and she fired a bright sunny smile right back at me.

‘We need to find the place where Sam Galloway was murdered. That’s our number-one priority. My money’s still on the oil refinery.’

‘But we checked it out last night,’ said Taylor. ‘Remember we found nothing? Shepherd had some people checking it out yesterday as well, and they found nothing either.’

‘That place is huge. Judging by the maps, and what I saw when we flew in, you’re looking at an area that’s roughly twenty square miles. Five miles from east to west following the interstate, and four miles from north to south. We’re talking haystacks and needles here. We could easily have missed something.’

‘Or maybe it’s not the right place.’

‘It’s the right place. The padlock was oiled recently. An old abandoned place like that, who the hell’s going to oil the padlock? If you’re the security firm employed to patrol it and the padlock gets all rusted up, you cut it off and go buy a new one. But that’s not what happened here. Someone went to the trouble of getting a can of oil and spraying the lock. And that someone was our unsub. It had to be.’

Taylor was shaking his head slowly from side to side. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re basing this hunch on a padlock.’

‘It’s not a hunch, it’s a fact. And the padlock is only part of it. You saw how easy it was to pull the gate open. The wheels had been oiled, too. Believe me, nobody’s going to do that, Taylor. Not in a million years. Our unsub wanted to get in quick, and he wanted to do that without making a sound. He didn’t want the gates squeaking, so he oiled the padlock and he oiled the wheels.’

‘Why bother? That place is right out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody’s going to hear him.’

‘And that’s the third reason. This unsub redefines overkill. This is someone who kidnapped then coerced a street bum to burn up Sam Galloway so he wouldn’t end up stinking of gasoline and barbecues. So, how long ago did the refinery shut down?’

‘It’s got to be twenty years. It was after I was born, but not by much.’

‘Good. That means there’ll be someone still living around here who used to work there. Can either of you two think of anyone?’

Slow head shakes and frowns from the other side of the table.

‘Aunt Lori,’ Hannah called out. ‘You got a minute?’

‘Sure, honey.’

Lori came over, a gentle cloud of perfume and coffee following in her wake. She topped up our mugs without asking.

‘What can I do for you, sweetheart?’

‘Do you know anyone who used to work at the old refinery?’

Lori put a hand up to her mouth and sighed through her fingers. She shook her head slowly and sucked in her cheeks. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you on that one. That place closed down years ago. Anyone I can think of is dead now.’

‘How about Frank?’ I suggested.

‘He might know someone. I’ll go get him.’

‘Don’t bother. I need to stretch my legs.’

I stood and headed to the counter, walked around it and peered through the hatch. The small kitchen on the other side was absolutely spotless. White porcelain and stainless steel shone under the bright lights. It reminded me of an autopsy room. The biggest difference was that it smelled better. A country song was playing quietly in the background on a small radio. Frank was over at the sink, scrubbing a pan clean. He was bald and red-faced, a large man who looked like he enjoyed his own cooking too much.

‘Frank,’ I called over. ‘You got a second?’

‘Sure.’

He dried his hands and came across. I introduced myself and we shook through the hatch.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Do you know anyone who used to work out at the old refinery?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Sorry.’

‘You sure about that? Anyone at all?’

Another slow head shake. ‘No one comes to mind.’

‘Not to worry. And thanks for your time.’

I’d almost reached the table when Frank shouted over from the hatch. ‘Hey, Lori, is Elroy Masters still alive?’

‘Far as I know,’ she replied, nodding. ‘Yeah, he worked at the plant for a while. But he’s got to be in his eighties by now.’

40

Elroy Masters lived out on Horton Street, down at the south end of Eagle Creek. He answered the door wearing a faded red-striped dressing gown and slippers. He looked suspiciously at the three of us standing on his stoop, eyes moving slowly from left to right, like he was behind one-way glass working his way along a line-up.

‘The Jehovah’s are really scraping the bottom of the barrel these days,’ he finally said.

‘We’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mr Masters,’ replied Hannah.

Elroy looked at her like he hadn’t seen a woman for years, as though this was the first time he’d got up close to someone with multiple piercings and a nose stud and a Death Parade T-shirt. ‘Well, whatever damn religion you’re selling, I ain’t interested, you hear. I’ve lasted this long without having Jesus in my heart, I reckon I can make it through the few years I’ve got left without his interference.’