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.“But I don’t have anything yet to conclusively prove it.”“I have a feeling you’ll find it.I’ve got confidence in you.”The feeling I had at the moment was closer to weariness than confidence.“We’re giving it our best shot, Sam.”“It sounds like any of those three guys could have killed him, if they were all out running around late that night.”“That’s true.We’ll try to dig a little deeper tomorrow into what each of them was doing.”“What’s behind this, Greg? Is it money?”“Probably.”“Damn! How do you put a price on a man’s life? A father of three boys?”“You can’t, Sam.”“Find him.”“I will.”I punched off the phone and sat there.My head hurt.My side hurt.I hurt in places I couldn’t touch.I hurt for Sam.“What happened?” Jill asked.“You look worse than you did on the pavement in Orange Beach, if that’s possible.”“Sam doesn’t understand how somebody could murder his son.”“Do you?”“I’ve got some good ideas.They don’t make sense to a rational person, but rational people don’t commit murders.”“You told Sam ‘I will.’ I will what?”“Find the guy who killed Tim.”She moved over to sit beside me and gripped my hand.“I don’t like the way this is going, Greg.You could have been killed tonight.Don’t you think it’s time to turn this over to Sergeant Payne?”“Turn over what? I don’t think the sergeant or his boss would be impressed with my speculations.”She shook her head with a sigh.“I might have known.You won’t let go of this until you solve it or it kills you.”True.I hoped it wouldn’t be the latter, but if I went charging blindly into another ambush, it might be my last.34I woke up Friday morning on my right side.The pain pills I had taken before going to bed had long since fizzled out.The pain persisted in the left side of both my body and my face.I felt Jill pressed against my back, her arm lying across my hip.Since the surgery, she moved her left arm frequently at night, searching for a comfortable position.Had her hand brushed against the tender spot where I had been kicked, causing me to awaken? I glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly seven.We were not early risers, unless we had something special on our agenda.Normally, the first to awaken would turn over and the other would roll in tandem.Seen by a fly on the ceiling, we probably looked like a pair of porpoises performing at a sea life show.Then we’d play a little game with the clock, saying ten more minutes, five more minutes, one more minute.Jill was fine after she got up, but her resistance to making that first move seemed to grow with age.I didn’t push her since I loved to feel the warmth of her body against mine.Occasionally, the rubbing and patting would lead to other things, but we won’t go into that now.Certainly not this morning.I didn’t even feel up to turning over.But I soon realized I would be better off vertical than prone.Slowly, I pushed myself up and sat on the side of the bed.“Are you okay?” Jill asked.She elbowed herself up from the pillow.I looked around and groaned.“About as okay as a surfer who just got tossed headfirst onto the beach by a twelve-foot breaker.”She sat up and leaned against the headboard.“And you, a career law enforcement professional, a tenacious advocate of law and order, have no intention of reporting what happened to you?”“If I thought it would help anything, if I thought the cops in Orange Beach would have a chance of catching those characters, I would gladly report it.But the answer to both is no.So what’s the use?”“I can’t believe you don’t intend to do anything about it.”I finally managed a halfhearted grin.“And you’d be right, babe.For one thing, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for them.And I’ll be carrying my Beretta from now on.But I also have another little trick in mind.”A hot shower eased the pain and put me in a mood to resume the hunt.I didn’t know whose business I had been butting into, but I was determined to keep butting until I found out.The morning was cool, the sun nowhere in sight, a solid deck of rippled white clouds stretching out over the water.Some sort of front must have come through overnight, putting the mercury in a skid.After checking out the balcony, we decided to stay inside for breakfast.The tasty aroma of bacon and eggs shifted the old appetite into high gear and we talked about the investigation as we ate.“Did anything I got from Sherry yesterday ring any new bells?” Jill asked.“For one thing, we know your hunch was right about Boz being jealous of Tim.Sherry had been playing Boz along until Friday night, when she ditched him.I’ll bet he knew it was because of Tim.I’d love to know what time he left that bar and where he went.”“Think he would talk to you again?”“Not a chance.He probably wouldn’t even give me one of his worn-out tennis balls.Sure wish I had Sergeant Payne’s authority.I’d call Boz in and grill him.”“Could you talk Payne into that?”“Yeah, about as easily as I could talk him into swapping jobs with a pizza deliveryman.I’ll just have to find another way to get the information.Remember, the time he left the bar was the question that set Detrich off the other night at the casino.”“Do you think Boz and Detrich could have been working together on that scheme to save money on the steel and concrete?”“It’s possible,” I said.“Boz should have realized the materials weren’t strong enough to do the job.He obviously raised no objection.I imagine he and Detrich and Baucus will all be on the hot seat at that hearing Monday.”We were finishing our final cup of coffee when the phone rang.I picked it up off the table.When I saw the ID, I handed the phone to Jill.“Maybe you’d better take this one,” I said.The caller was Sherry Hoffman.35Jill answered the phone, listened for a bit, then said, “Sure.We’d be happy to talk to you anywhere.Where would you like to meet?”When she ended the call, Jill had a look of concern on her face.“Something’s happened.Sherry wants to talk to us again, but not where we’d be recognized.She wants us to go to a little souvenir shop down the beach called The Shell Game at ten o’clock.It’s run by a friend of hers.She’ll park in back and meet us inside.”“She didn’t say what it was about?”Jill shook her head.“Just that it was important.And she wanted you there, too.”We had just enough time to make a quick run into the edge of Pensacola before meeting Sherry.I was thankful for the change in the weather, which allowed me to hide my Beretta beneath a jacket.Our destination was a small electronics shop called Chief’s House of Security.I had wandered into the place out of curiosity on a previous trip.The proprietor was a big, muscular, totally bald ex-Navy SEAL known as Chief Vester.He specialized in what he called spy stuff.“Hey, Colonel,” he greeted me.“Haven’t seen you since before the big blow.”I was surprised he remembered me.“Afraid we haven’t been down for a while, Chief.You remember my wife, Jill?”He tipped his black baseball cap and grinned [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]