Chapter Twelve

THE Truckwater house sat reflected in the high beams like a nightmare. The driveway was a pile of loose asphalt, and the front porch was ready to be used for firewood. Paint peeled from the clapboards like diseased skin. There was no light anyplace. Amy had driven far to reach her destination, but as she sat in her car and stared at the dark and forbidding place, she prayed there was no one home. If Frank Truckwater lived inside, she thought, he had to be rotten like the building.

Amy got out of her car and walked toward the front door, twice stumbling on the weed-choked lawn. The doorbell hung loose and impotent from its rusty socket, like an eye that had been gouged from an animal. Amy knocked hesitantly and listened for the sound of moving feet, the cocking of a revolver. It was only then she realized that she must have been half mad to pay a visit in the dark to a possible murderer. No sound came from inside.

Amy tried the door. It was locked.

“Hello?” she called.

Still no sound.

Amy circled around back. The house was small, and if time and nature had their way, it would be gone soon. The elements had labored long on its supporting beams, and it looked ready to collapse. Amy stepped to the back door. It, too, was locked, but when she pounded on the door it suddenly swung open.

Yes, Amy, come inside. I’ll give you a red ribbon to wear around your head, too. How is your friend? Was my ribbon too tight?

Amy stepped through the door. The night was cold, but the house was colder. A foul odor touched her nose, a smell that only rats would cherish. She tried the light switch by the door, without luck. She had a small flashlight in her purse. Taking it out and turning it on, she scanned what had once been the kitchen but what was now a cesspool. It looked as if Frank had cooked a turkey dinner the previous Thanksgiving and left the leftovers in the sink and on the counter for ten months. Amy found it impossible to imagine that anyone could live in the place.

Amy explored deeper into the house, through the living room and then into the two bedrooms. There was no furniture in any of the rooms. In the smaller of the two bedrooms a mat and a sleeping bag lay on the floor beside a pile of unwashed clothes. The aroma of marijuana was heavy and sweet, almost covering another mysterious odor she couldn’t identify. Amy knew very little about drugs. She had been drunk only once in her life, and that had been at her parents’ Christmas Eve party. It had been fun while it lasted, but she had awoken the next morning with a headache so severe it had been difficult to open her presents.

On the wall at the head of the mat a picture of a guy and a girl sitting on a motorcycle was pinned. Their arms were wrapped around each other, wild grins on their sunburned faces. Amy removed the picture and studied it under the beam of her flashlight. The girl looked vaguely familiar, although it took Amy a moment to understand why.

She has Julia’s eyes. Bright green. Beautiful. This Kary Florence, Julia’s half-sister.

It had been Kary Florence.

The guy wasn’t so ugly as the one Julia had described to the police. In fact, he was kind of cute, in a sly sort of way. He didn’t have a mustache, yet the more Amy stared at the picture, the more convinced she became that she was looking at the person who had sent Scott to the edge of death. The dark features and thin build were identical to Julia’s description, and something else her friend had said to Lieutenant Crawley came back to haunt Amy.

“He has a vacantness about him. The lights are but nobody’s home. He looks like one of those guys that evil works through. Like a Charles Manson or an Adolf Hitler. He appears more a vehicle of something, than person.”

Lieutenant Crawley had not been impressed by Julia’s insight, wanting less imagery and more details. Focusing harder on Frank Truckwater’s face, trying to see beneath his superficial handsomeness, Amy felt cold. She had to remind herself that this was the preaccident Frank Truckwater, the one with a cute girlfriend riding on the back of his bike. It didn’t help. He may have been happier before Kary’s accident, but he had still been heading for a bad end.

At the wrong end of a smoking gun.

Amy spotted an empty box of bullets on the floor beneath the window. Picking it up, she knew it wasn’t conclusive proof. The box wouldn’t stand up in court. She didn’t even know the caliber of the bullet that had torn into Scott’s head, if it matched that listed on the side of the box. Yet, for Amy, all her doubts were dispelled in that instant.

Frank Truckwater was the one who had shot Scott Hague.

And Julia is on to him. And she’s got my boyfriend with her.

Amy realized, for all the separate threads she had tied together, she had nothing to take to the police. Indeed, her entire investigation of Frank had been based on a passing comment by Julia’s aunt. Crawley would not be impressed, she knew, by the fact that the woman had mysterious powers.

Who are those women? What are they?

What was Julia?

On the phone Jim had given Amy the impression that he and Julia were pressed for time. That could only mean that Julia expected to confront Frank soon. But where? At another holdup? Amy went through the rest of the house. She found nothing more, except a disconnected phone. She was on the verge of leaving when she decided to check the garage.

It wasn’t nearly so disgusting as the house, which wasn’t to say it was neat. But at least the tools were in order on the workbench, and even if there were oil stains everywhere, the stains didn’t stink. Amy suspected that Frank spent more time in the garage than in the house.

She didn’t look long before she found two noteworthy articles. The first was a clear glass tube with a hollow ball at one end, a fluted mouthpiece at the other. At the top of the ball was a small hole; at the bottom, a dark lump of melted crystal. The ball was scorched black; it had obviously been held above a flame. She sniffed the open end of the tube.

Vanilla?

It was not vanilla, but the odor was similar. Amy couldn’t identify the drug, but she knew Frank was smoking something that wasn’t good for him. The tube was stained on the outside with what looked like transmission fluid—it felt warm.

He probably left just before I got here.

The second thing Amy found was a little black book. It was filled with neatly printed names, phone numbers, addresses, plus carefully listed amounts. For example: “Robert Rutherford 2 grams $35 > $40.” Amy figured Robert had bought two grams of whatever Frank was selling for thirty-five dollars a gram, and that he still owed forty bucks. It didn’t surprise her that Frank was a dealer.

At the back of the book was a separate list of names. They were of gas stations, liquor stores, convenience stores, small markets. Amy almost jumped out of her skin when she saw the gas station where Scott had been shot listed. Beside the name and address, Frank had jotted down a number of details about each place. With the gas station he had written: “old man on duty, back door, easy lock, open till twelve, attached food, no alarm, probably no gun.” It appeared Frank never hit a place without scoping it out first.

There were literally three dozen places listed, some as far away as fifty miles. Amy had no idea how to begin figuring out where he would hit next, but a reddish smudge beside a liquor store caught her eye. Amy rubbed the stain between her fingertips, then used the fingers on her other hand to test the transmission fluid on the glass tube. They felt exactly the same.

He smoked his drugs, then just before he left he consulted his little black book for the details. “1645 Barnes Road. Closes at eleven. Cage in the back. Strong lock. Alarm. Maybe gun. Middle-aged man. Owner. Safe in the back. Good business.”

Amy checked her watch. It was ten-thirty. The liquor store was about twenty miles away. Frank would probably try hitting it as near to closing as possible—when business would be at its slowest. Amy gathered the glass tube and the black book together. She was turning to leave when she bumped into someone.

“Ah!” she screamed.

She dropped her light, and it went off. Pitch blackness fell over her, along with two powerful hands.

“Did I scare you, Amy?”

It took her a moment to realize it was Randy Classick, but her relief in that instant was outweighed by her fury. She shook off his hands.

“Don’t you ever sneak up on me like that!” she said. “I could have peed in my pants.” Amy dropped to her knees and searched for her flashlight. It was not broken, and when she turned it on, Randy was grinning from ear to ear.

“Are you sure you didn’t pee in them?” he asked.

“No. Yes! You’re smelling the drugs this guy smokes. Here, look at this.” She handed him the glass tube. Randy took a whiff of it and winced.

“Heavy stuff,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Crystal meth. Speed.”

“Is it dangerous?” she asked.

“Speed kills.”

“Have you ever used it?”

“Once. It was enough. It’s more addicting than crack.”

Amy opened the black book to the Barnes Road liquor-store entry. She pointed out the smudge on the tube and beside the entry, and she told him her conclusions. Randy was impressed by her detective work. He agreed that they should drive to the liquor store at warp speed. But he wanted to call the cops first.

“The phone inside the house doesn’t work,” she said.

“We’ll find one on the way there,” he said, heading for the door. “We better take your car. I’m out of gas.”

“Did you follow the aunt and her group?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are they?”

“Probably at the gas station,” Randy said, pleased with himself.

“Huh?”

“I’ll explain in the car.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“You said you were going to the Florences’ and then the Truckwaters’. I figured you’d be here by now. I hope we get this guy. You know, I’m missing a late dinner with that waitress he introduced me to last night. I’m supposed to be at Sally’s house right now.”

“Good old Sally. Did you tell her what happened to Scott?”

“Yeah. She was going to bring him by a pie from her diner.”

“Didn’t you tell her he’s in a coma?”

“Nah,” Randy said. “I didn’t want to depress her. You can’t undress a woman who’s depressed.”

“You’re a pervert, did I ever tell you that?”

“The world’s full of them.”