As he watched her, he pulled at his lower lip, head slightly tilted, gaze sliding now and then to option three, a girl with dark curls swaddling her baby against the chill as she cooed at him.
I knew what he was thinking. Option two wasn"t as pretty as three, but she was blond and fair, whereas three seemed to have Mediterranean blood, and could be a tougher sell. Yet three was alone while two laughed and chatted with her friends, more vivacious, probably more popular, with more people to miss her. And number two hadn"t so much as glanced in the stroller since leaving the building, while three couldn"t take her eyes off her baby. Which would be the happier, healthier, better adjusted child? More important, which would provide those important "happy mother and child" photos?
I knew what he"d decided. When the dark-haired girl bundled her baby into his shabby stroller, he turned his car off, then got out. He spent a couple of minutes fussing with things in the vehicle, working out the kinks from sitting while giving her time to get a head start.
"Yes, I"m following," I said when Jack glanced my way. "I"ll leave a big gap. With that stroller, she"s not going to break into a sprint and disappear. Even you could probably keep up."
"Want me to? I follow direct? You circle the block?"
I shook my head. "I"d rather you wait here in case he comes back for the other girl."
I waited until the girl reached the first street corner, with Fenniger tailing twenty paces behind, then I got out of the car.
Chapter Twenty-six.
I followed Fenniger for three blocks. The origin of his nom de guerre quickly became apparent. At least an inch shorter than me, skinny, with a pinched face, he looked like a community theater actor trying to imitate Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Rain Man, right down to the shuffling walk. right down to the shuffling walk.
The girl finally turned into a three-story walkup. I was a few paces from a bus shelter, so I veered in there, where I could stand around without looking obvious.
Fenniger went about ten feet past the doors, then backed up, straining to see a street number. Finding it, he nodded, took an envelope from under his jacket, and hurried into the building. Playing delivery guy an easy way to get in.
Five minutes later, he came out, having seen where the girl went, whether she let herself in, and whether a roomie answered her knock.
He scanned the street low-income housing on one side and storefronts on the other. Then he crossed and went into a tiny Tim Hortons coffee shop, probably settling in for a longer stakeout.
I called Jack.
"I need to find a better place to hang out," I said. "I see another coffee shop a few doors down but it looks dead. Might be closed. The Tim Hortons is packed. I could probably "
"No."
"I"ll head to the other one, then, and call you when I"m settled."
The coffee shop wasn"t closed, but I suspected it soon would be. A shame, really. One step inside and you knew the place had been there forever. The faint smell of cigarettes, worn into the walls long before antismoking bylaws. The grooves in the floor from chairs being pulled in and out, day after day, year after year. Yellowing newspaper articles on the walls, trumpeting the triumphs of countless Little League and soccer teams the owner had sponsored.
But now, only the most steadfast customers remained, all the other regulars probably circling the block guiltily to get their daily double-double at Timmy"s. Can"t say I"ve ever understood the appeal. The coffee"s decent enough, but the rabid devotion the chain inspires is enough to make one suspect there"s something more addictive than caffeine in those beans.
With only a few tables in use, I easily got one by the window. Five minutes later, Jack walked in. I waved him over.
"What can I get you?" I asked. "I"d have grabbed it, but I wasn"t sure whether you"d want decaf, too." On a job, any stimulant was a no-no, but this wasn"t really a job.
"Decaf"s good."
Juggling hot coffee and a crutch was a recipe for first-degree burns, but that didn"t keep Jack from insisting he could manage. That crutch, though, meant I could move a lot faster, and I sprinted for the counter, leaving him muttering behind me.
So we sat, drank coffee, watched out the window, and talked. Or I I talked, about my plans for a meadow picnic area. Intentionally boring conversation. Had anyone been inclined to eavesdrop, he would have given up after about ten seconds... or fallen asleep. Jack seemed interested enough, asking questions and making comments. He always seemed interested in my plans for the lodge. Maybe because he knew it was one topic, other than guns, that I could blather endlessly about. talked, about my plans for a meadow picnic area. Intentionally boring conversation. Had anyone been inclined to eavesdrop, he would have given up after about ten seconds... or fallen asleep. Jack seemed interested enough, asking questions and making comments. He always seemed interested in my plans for the lodge. Maybe because he knew it was one topic, other than guns, that I could blather endlessly about.
After an hour, Fenniger left... to relocate to a restaurant farther down, presumably for dinner. We took his place in Tim Hortons and dined on sandwiches.
As dusk fell, the girl and baby left their apartment. I gathered our trash, preparing to follow. But the restaurant door stayed closed. Had Fenniger been caught unawares on a bathroom break? Or with the bill unpaid? Or had he slipped out the back?
We were about to leave when Fenniger finally emerged. The girl was a block ahead, but he didn"t hurry to catch up, instead fussing with his wallet under the shadow of the storefront overhang. Two minutes pa.s.sed. Then he crossed the street, and disappeared into her building.
"Recon work," I said.
Jack nodded.
"Should we... ?"
Another nod. I wiped our crumbs from the table, then followed him.
I hoped Fenniger was breaking into the girl"s apartment. Instant interrogation room. An occupied building in early evening wasn"t ideal, but we could make it work.
Unfortunately, Fenniger chose to get his information from a more direct source. As we waited in the foyer, out of sight, we heard him stop a boy who sounded about twelve, naive enough to answer a stranger, old enough to answer intelligently.
Fenniger put on a good show. He was looking for his niece, whom he hadn"t seen in a few years. She was a teenager, dark hair, baby... Oh, right. Tina in 2B. Tina? No, his niece"s name was Katrina. But he"d heard friends called her Trina. Or maybe that was Tina...
Using leading questions under the guise of making sure his Katrina was this Tina, Fenniger fished for the details he wanted, soon learning that Tina didn"t have a boyfriend, rarely had friends over, and was never visited by anyone over twenty. The boy said she kept to herself, and he didn"t know her well, but if Fenniger was her uncle, maybe he could help her out, because she seemed really nice, and he"d heard she was behind on the rent. Another marginalized teenage mother, estranged from her family. Perfect pickings.
Fenniger ended with a few general questions about Tina"s appearance, and finally admitted that, no, this definitely wasn"t his niece. Too bad.
Mission accomplished, he left... and returned to Tim Hortons. Before Jack and I could decide on another place to hole up, Fenniger emerged, large coffee in hand, supporting my theory of addictive properties.
He headed back toward the community center. Jack went for the car as I followed on foot. At the center, Fenniger got into his car and pulled away. We fell in behind.
"A junkyard?" I said, squinting into the darkness at the jagged metal mountains crossing the landscape.
"Auto wreckers"
"Whatever. The point is "
" why"s he stopping? No f.u.c.king idea. Maybe his carburetor broke. Needs a replacement."
I couldn"t tell whether he was joking. I never could.
I peered out at a half dozen heaps of parts on a lot blanketed with rusting corpses. The whole place might be seven acres. Around the front, at the end of the rutted dirt laneway, we"d spotted a tiny building, probably an office, much too small for a house. The only lights came from it, a pair of security floods attached to the roofline.
Whatever the reason, I could only pray that Fenniger got out of that car and walked into that vacant lot, with the nearest neighbors a half kilometer away...
A flare of light as Fenniger opened his door. For a second, he stood illuminated in the glow. Then he eased it shut, trying to be quiet, the click still loud enough to carry through our closed windows. A moment of darkness. Then a second ball of light, smaller, as he flipped on a flashlight and headed for the fence.
I smiled. "Talk about a lucky break."
"Not luck. Wait long enough? Chance will come. Just gotta be patient."
"Evelyn"s right. You are an optimist."
He met my grin with a level look. There was no rebuke in it, but no smile, either.
I rubbed my hands over my face, pushing back the lick of giddy excitement. "Okay, I"m fine."
"Never said you weren"t."
"You don"t have to it"s all in the look."
I ma.s.saged my neck, working out the kinks from a long day of sitting, while trying to forget that my prey was walking straight into a trap as perfect as any I could have set.
Too perfect?
What if Fenniger was the one setting setting it? it?
That slowed my thumping heart.
"Do you think he could have made us?" I said. "If he knows we"re tailing him, this is the perfect place to get us out and separated."
"Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Thought about that. Was going to mention it."
"When? As I"m running after him? Were you going to shout after me, "Oh, by the way, this could be a trap"?"
"Nah. Hate shouting."
I shook my head as Fenniger scaled the eight-foot fence.
Jack continued, "Could always always be a trap. Any stakeout. Any chase. Any hit. You think you"re in control? Never count on it." be a trap. Any stakeout. Any chase. Any hit. You think you"re in control? Never count on it."
Fenniger was at the top now, dimly silhouetted against the overcast night sky. There were two lines of barbed wire across the top. As Fenniger cut it, Jack cracked down his window. I arched my brows.
"Dogs," he murmured, meaning he was listening for guard dogs.
I suspected the barbed-wire fence was the only security. The cars inside didn"t look like they"d have enough salvageable parts to make even fence climbing worthwhile.
Fenniger hit the ground with a thump. No thunder of running paws answered. Not a bark, growl, or whine, either.
"Toolbox?" Jack whispered as he put the window up.
I pulled it from under my seat and checked for wire cutters as he outlined a plan.
When he finished, I laughed softly. "An oldie but a goodie."
"Think you can manage?" he asked.
"I do believe I"ll be a natural."
I turned off the dimmer so we could open the doors without the lights going on. I waited for Jack to step out, then crawled across his seat. The fewer doors opening, the less noise.
We searched for a good spot to scale the fence. Clip ping the barbed wire at the top was a noise we couldn"t eliminate, so we"d make our cut under a tree, where I couldn"t be seen.
After last night"s warm evening, the temperature had dropped again in typically unpredictable spring fashion. I could see my breath hanging in the air. Cold always seems to make every noise louder, as if the sound waves bounce off the frozen surfaces. More likely, it"s just the absence of compet.i.tion on nights like these, most living things hole up.
I helped Jack over the fence one time he didn"t pull the "I can handle it" routine. Then we stood in the dark patch under the tree. After a moment, I picked up the faint scratch of metal on metal the wind rubbing parts together deep in the yard. A furious rustle erupted to our left. Rats or other night animals. A rhythmic plinking from the direction of the building would be rain gutter runoff or fluid dripping from a car. A cow lowed in the distance. A dog answered, a trio of hopeful barks trailing off in a mournful howl.
Jack"s fingers brushed my hip, and he directed my attention to a faint glow behind the wreck mountain closest to the office. The light bobbed, then swung across the building. Fenniger"s flashlight.
Was he heading for the office? Junkyards and auto wreckers were popular businesses for both petty criminals and crime organizations a legitimate business on a big piece of property in an isolated location.
There was unlikely to be anything of value in the office, but Fenniger wasn"t a thief. More likely there was a drop box here where he could pick up weapons, fake ID, or other equipment he"d bought.
Only a guess, of course. He might be moving closer to the building to lure us in. Or he might be searching the parts heaps for that carburetor he needed. As Jack would say, it didn"t matter. Consider the possibility his target was the office, consider the possibility it wasn"t, and give neither the dangerous weight of expectation.
Chapter Twenty-seven.
I motioned to Jack that I"d loop around the two intervening junk piles, letting him take the straightaway along the dark fence. Again, he didn"t argue. With his cast, he was in no shape to creep through a minefield of rusting metal. He was in no shape to be hunting a killer at all, but there was no sense trying to tell him that.
I picked my way through the part-strewn strip between the fence and the first heap. As I circled behind it, the going got tougher. In the city, "darkness" means you have to squint to read signs. In the forest, you"re almost guaranteed a "can"t see your hand in front of your face" black. But in a rural area? Conditions can change by the minute. With a full moon and stars, it"s brighter than any city street. Once those astral illuminations sneak behind the clouds, though, every source of light makes a huge difference. By the fence, the office floodlights had been more than enough. But when I pa.s.sed behind that first mound, the building disappeared, and so did the light.
I waited ten seconds, hoping my eyes would adjust more, my racing pulse reminding me that with each pa.s.sing moment, I could be losing my best shot at Fenniger. I gave up, started forward, and knocked my knee against a tire. The rubber absorbed the sound, but it was lesson enough better a dim light than a loud crash. I turned on my penlight, holding it under my hand, the beam lighting only the ground at my feet. Then I continued through the automobile graveyard.
There was an eerie unnaturalness to the place that made my hackles rise. It looked like something from a postapocalyptic nightmare, the wrecks like mutilated corpses, front ends hacked off, tops peeled away, empty headlight sockets staring blindly. The stink of gasoline and rust and vinyl blocked any natural scent. The wind carried only an icy, metallic chill that seared my lungs. When I rounded the last heap, the office light opened up a landscape of fields and fences and barns a natural view that eased my nerves.
I turned out my light and crept along in the shadows. Finally I had a clear view of the building. Fenniger was less than ten feet ahead, stepping away from the very parts heap I was using for cover. I stopped. He kept going, cutting across the dozen empty feet between us and the office door.
I eased forward for a better view. To the left of the door was a lit window. Did that mean someone was inside? If so, Fenniger was exposed now. Either he was taking a huge chance or he expected to find someone there. Not a blind pickup but a meeting.
I should have considered that. Jack would have.
d.a.m.n.
A second party meant a potential witness.
Unless...
I lifted my gun, my fingers automatically adjusting their position as I a.n.a.lyzed my target. Shoulder shot. The right No, his left hand was poised by his open jacket, ready to grab his firearm. I shifted my target.