Tess and Po were back on the road, and they’d little to say to each other as they privately ruminated over their latest discoveries.
Much of their theory concerning Wynne’s disappearance was based on supposition, but it gave Tess focus after being beaten to the punch, and Wynne snatched from under her nose. Of course, even the fact that Wynne was missing was based on assumption, but it seemed highly probable. He hadn’t left the house bleeding without reason, and he hadn’t been responsible for breaking his way out of the back door midway through preparing lunch either. It appeared that more than one person had forced Wynne from the premises, and he’d been bundled out of sight through the backyard and along a narrow alley towards the grounds of the church they’d checked out. Presumably the parking lot alongside the church was where his abductors had left their vehicle while they came upon Benoit’s house from behind. Droplets of blood on the crumbling asphalt showed that Wynne hadn’t stopped bleeding before he was forced inside the vehicle and driven away. From the church grounds to wherever, Tess had no clue where next, but she was certain that at that time Wynne was still alive. How long he’d keep breathing was hard to tell. She had to also assume that once he’d been forced to the car and there was no further need for mobility, his abductors might well have finished him off.
Was there still time to save Crawford Wynne’s life?
Doubtful.
Calling the police wouldn’t help him either, because where would anyone look? It was a defeatist attitude, but also a pragmatic one. When considering Mitch Delaney’s murder, no mercy had been shown. The slaying was brutal, and also punishment, and Tess had to force down the images she conjured of what Wynne must be suffering right now.
Visualizing Wynne’s fate made her nauseous. He was a criminal, a racist, a thug, but he was still a human being: no one deserved to die like that.
Po sat stoically behind the wheel. His profile was more aquiline than usual, his nose more pronounced, but that might be because of the way he chewed at his lower lip. She couldn’t tell if he was thinking about Wynne, plotting their next move, or mulling over what he’d just learned about her. In hindsight, exposing her past as fully as she had was probably a bad idea, and she wished she could take everything back. He’d caught her when she was emotional, sickened by having missed Wynne by a whisker, and discovering the horrible truth that they’d been played ever since leaving Maine. Had Po gone in for the kill when she was vulnerable and open to manipulation? The slick son of a bitch had even held her hand to coax her story from her.
She closed her eyes, exhaling wearily.
What if she was wrong about Po’s motives and was doing him a disservice by thinking the worst of him? Maybe, she considered, having learned the truth about her, he was revaluating his original opinion of her, the way she was of him. Initially she’d found him frustrating and annoying, his pig-headedness and contrition rubbing her up at every turn, but now, after she’d bared herself so fully, it was as if she’d earned some respect from him. Well, if she had to be honest, his willingness to remain at her side had also won him some respect in return.
‘Where’d you put the transponder?’ Tess asked, breaking her train of thought.
‘Glove compartment.’
‘Switched off?’
‘On. I thought it best we didn’t let those assholes know we’d found it.’ He finally glanced at her. ‘You do still want them to come after us, right?’
‘I know it’s a big risk, but yeah. My first instinct was to destroy the tracker, but I’m glad I didn’t. It’s evidence that we were being used. And it might bring them to us.’
‘If it’s either of the two we’ve already seen I’m not worried. What if it’s the other guy?’
‘Then all the better,’ Tess said. ‘If we can capture him, it would probably break the case wide open.’
‘Except he might not be as easily captured.’
In her mind’s eye Tess again conjured the shocking violence the killer was capable of. Closing her eyes didn’t help. She shook her head, then reached for her purse where she’d dumped it on the back seat. Pulling it into her lap, she delved inside, feeling the cold metal of the gun, but that wasn’t what she was looking for. She lifted out her cell.
‘Calling Emma Clancy?’ Po asked.
‘I’m still putting off my next update; there’s something I want to check before I speak with her.’ She didn’t ring a number, but brought up the browser application instead, opening the website of the Daily Review – a local news agency. Already the first hasty reports were coming in from the scene at the Cottonmouths’ clubhouse. The reports were sketchy but – yes – shootings had been reported to the local PD. There were no details concerning the number or identities of the fatalities, but it didn’t take much imagination to piece the facts together. ‘Oh, man,’ she moaned.
‘Not good news, then?’
‘The worst.’
Po exhaled deeply through his nostrils, but that was as far as his show of regret went. Perhaps he’d grown inured to violence while incarcerated at the Farm. When she was a deputy, Tess had dealt with violent death, and like most cops she’d formed an ability to compartmentalize the horror and shock most people experienced, but she had to admit it had been a while, and the deaths of Marnie and the others weighed heavily. She didn’t doubt that the fundraising Cottonmouths were far from the paragons of virtue Marnie made them out, but still …
‘Their deaths aren’t your burden to carry,’ Po warned. ‘Let it go, Tess, or it’ll eat you up. The only ones responsible for their deaths are Sower’s punks. Let it go, OK.’
Tess’s vision grew blurry. ‘Sower’s people followed us to the clubhouse; they wouldn’t have gone there otherwise. Those people would still be alive.’
‘You can’t say that. They’re resourceful, they would’ve probably tracked down Wynne themselves, and the outcome would most likely have been the same. Instead of blaming yourself, use your anger for something else. Let’s focus it on taking down these sons of bitches before they hurt anyone else.’
She used her sleeve to mop her eyes. Po was right. Tears and recrimination wouldn’t help. After the Chinese clerk died in the convenience-store shoot-out, they hadn’t helped then. Circumstance was a bitch, and not something she could change. As a reminder of that simple truth she studied her scarred wrist. Her fingertips tingled.
‘How do you suggest we do that?’ she finally asked.
‘I’m not sure yet. One thing’s for certain, we need to get on the front foot again.’ He had steered the Honda out of Morgan City, and they were back on the levee between Lake Palourde and the Atchafalaya River retracing their route back to Baton Rouge. ‘You left your stuff locked up at the hotel, right? We followed my methods to get here,’ he went on, ‘and it’s done us little good. I’m thinking it’s time that you worked some of your wizardry and gave us a lead as to who exactly we’re dealing with. You up to that?’
‘You expect me to do what the police have been unable to?’ Tess shook her head in remorse.
‘Yes I do. We’ve a starting point they hadn’t.’ Po gave her a quick nod. ‘Has Clancy replied to your text yet?’
Clancy hadn’t replied yet, though Tess hadn’t given it much thought since hitting the send button. Perhaps Clancy wasn’t the texting type, and was waiting until they spoke in person before offering the information she’d asked for.
‘You don’t think they’d be as stupid as using their own vehicle? It’s likely that it’s a rental; I don’t know how they knew where we were coming, but after they followed us from Portland I think they picked up a car at New Orleans the way we did.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Po said. ‘But did they expect us to spot them, and check them out? Those guys didn’t come over as the most professional to me. They could’ve made an amateur’s mistake when hiring the car and used their genuine details.’
‘That’s hoping for a lot.’
‘That’s the thing with most criminals. They’re not the geniuses they’d like us to believe.’ Po grunted deep in his chest. ‘Even I got caught, remember?’
Tess laughed at his frankness.
She caught a sly grin from her companion, and realized he’d intentionally lightened the mood.
‘I guess it’s one lead to follow. I might be able to come up with something else too. You know that the principle behind plotting family trees is similar to how cops collate known criminal accomplices, right? Perhaps if I follow similar threads I can pinpoint who’s doing Sower’s dirty work.’ She took in a deep breath, steeling herself now that she had a plan in mind. It felt good to have direction, even if it might not play out. She took out her cell again: now was as good a time as ever to get started. But one look at the screen told her that the detective work would have to wait. Now that they were back out in the bayous cell coverage was poor, and her Internet service was non-existent and would probably remain that way until they returned to civilization.