| |
Halifax, June 18
3:43 p.m.
When Seth saw the pimped-out Honda Accord, he knew Todd Dory had given him the right address again. The car sat in a paved lot on Charles Street beside a two-story, square box of a house with light blue siding, white shutters, and a bold red door.
Looking the place over, Seth figured it had been converted into two or four small apartments inside. Lee Higgins supposedly lived in number two.
Seth had no idea what the man even looked like. He only knew the chimp-brained cretin had murdered Camille and left Seth to die in his own bed. For that, the punishment needed to be brutal and painful and spectacular. Even more so than the other two. Maybe something involving gasoline and a match. Roast the son of a bitch alive. Each breath that man sucked into his lungs was a travesty to the beauty he took away from the world.
Seth drove a Mazda 2 he’d rented from Budget over in Dartmouth. As he coasted slowly past the building, he noticed an auto repair shop on the other side. Four bay doors were open, and mechanics worked away on vehicles hoisted above them.
Seth couldn’t get turned around; Charles Street went only one way. He drove down past Joseph Howe Elementary to Creighton Street, where he hung a right and found himself in a frustrating maze of other one-way streets just to make it back.
The leafy neighborhood had lots of cars parked at the curbs, making it easy to blend in. He tucked the Mazda in behind a blue sedan just up the street on the opposite side of Higgins’s address. He lowered his window and killed the engine. Sat back in the seat and watched for the bold, red door to open. Then he could finally see the face behind the scarecrow mask.
Around him came a mélange of sounds: voices talking and laughing, distant thumping music, city buses squeaking and squealing, engines revving and slowing.
At four thirty, a navy-blue Impala rolled by and pulled up to the curb in front of Higgins’s building. Seth watched a middle-aged man step out. He wore black pants and a white shirt under a khaki sport coat with the lower button fastened. His eyes looked tired and sad, his face chiseled with lines. Gray patches dabbed his hair at the temples.
Seth slid his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose, squinting over the top. He recognized the man. He was the cop who had visited him in the hospital. A decent man, loyal to his job. What was his name? Seth couldn’t remember.
The cop reached into his car and brought out a brown paper bag. He shut the car door, heading toward the building.
As Seth watched him disappear inside, he fished his wallet from a back pocket and rifled through the few business cards he had inside. He found the one the cop had given him.
Detective Allan Stanton, it read. Homicide.
