Death Wants Three

  Chapter 7

  I went back to KAMALA, popped a Yeungling and sat in the cockpit. It was cool, but we’d been spared the worst of the killer front that was raging through New England. The wind was northeast, but the sun was glowing like the savior. A few minutes with it on my back warmed me and reminded me I was still alive. Probably not a bad thing at this point. I took a deep breath and began to play the possible scenarios in my mind.

  Boss Lady or not . . . I got the message. Sunny and I were in deep shit. The smartest thing to do was get the hell out of town. Head south, meander down the ICW, drink a few cold beers and make love. There was probably nothing I could do about Glen, much less his friends, Paul, and BelleAmie, the murder victims I told you about in Death Times Two. It was the beginning of this crippling case and I wanted it to end. It had for them. They were all simply dead. When the final cards land on the table, it happens to each of us. Sarah? It wouldn’t help a damned thing to add us to that list. And given what I’d seen of Bill, I figured he would handle that all by himself. But something ugly was lingering in my gut. Part of me wanted to run . . . wanted my lady and I to be safe, but the thing writhed in the acid in my belly and hissed like a serpent. I’d risked my life before . . . and Sunny’s. Why should it be different this time? I didn’t have an answer.

  The truth is that I was never cut out for this “Knight in Shining Armor” thing . . . never meant to be the damned Ghostcatcher. For God’s sakes, I’m an English professor, not the FBI or the CIA. I didn’t want things to be wrong, but I couldn’t make them right. Sometimes the world is a pile of stinking crap. Maybe the weak will inherit the earth, but it will be a long time coming and I won’t be around to be part of it. I thought about the Existentialists again. Camus, Sartre . . . they didn’t fool themselves into believing they could defeat the lack of meaning . . . the hideous evil of the Nazis that surrounded and engulfed them. But the triumph, if that word even applies, lay in the attempt. If there was any hope of redemption, man had to try.

  So now I was what Sunny sometimes called sappy, her term for sentimental and downright dumb. Cheap philosophy and twenty-five cent analysis. But it was over. I knew Sunny wouldn’t leave now, not with Sarah being burned alive in the Saab. There were no choices. We’d stay and do what we could do.

  I called Bill on his cell. No answer. Then I tried the station, but they said he was on indefinite leave. Maybe he was off somewhere with “His Boys.” Still, that was somewhat unusual. A cop’s best friend is his weapon. Number two is his cell phone. I left a message.

  Sunny came by the boat in the late afternoon for a cocktail and an update. Her insurance had paid off quickly after the explosion. She had bought a 1999 Miata, British racing green with a tan interior. Low mileage and very handsome, not like some of the rest of us who might be showing more than a bit of wear. What the hell? It probably ran better than I did.

  When I told her about my meeting with our mayor, she smiled like a rattler and pursed her sometimes dainty lips. Her voice was quiet and delicate, yet determined.

  “Well . . . she can go fuck herself.”

  That’s my darling Sunny. Selecting the sparkling bon mot for every occasion. I wasn’t exactly shocked.

  “There’s one more thing,” I said, “I think I’m being followed.”

  I explained the slow moving car and the man who had ducked in and out of the store fronts as I walked down the street. I couldn’t pinpoint anything, but in my situation it paid to be cautious. Elmer? Maybe, but I never did spot his hulking Ma, and I had the distinct impression that she was never far behind her fair-haired boy. A chill crawled up my spine. I’d know soon enough, and hopefully the Kel-Tec would prove to be my most trusted companion.

  It wasn’t a night for love-making. Sunny was trying to be tough, but she was still mourning over the death of her friend . . . a death that she felt responsible for . . . and one that involved body bags. I asked if she was carrying the Taurus. She pulled it from a small handbag and thumbed the hammer back with a deadly click. I could see the lead slugs in the chamber reflected in the dull light. I nodded. She eased the hammer down, and gently returned it to the bag. She left about eleven with the promise that she’d call when she got out of class. I locked KAMALA and walked her to the Miata with my old buddy, the Kel-Tec 9 mil, at my side.

  Then I did something stupid.