It was half past eight on a clear, balmy evening when Ken pulled the starter on Bill’s boat. The engine sputtered to life, coughing fuel through the sun-cracked hoses. A quiet sunset cruise was exactly what he needed just then. Away from all thoughts of Burton Sabini, Myth Daniels, Ted Michaelson, and the mess he had gotten himself into.
If Myth had been sleeping with Sabini, the guy probably would have told her anything she wanted to know. Anything. So she may actually have the stolen money. That would explain her initial resistance to looking for it. She had participated in Ken’s investigation only after it was clear he was pressing forward without her. Maybe she just wanted to keep tabs on him, to make sure he didn’t catch on.
But could he trust Michaelson? It was obvious the P.I. still suspected that he and Myth had worked together to stash the money away. Michaelson was keeping him under observation, and the warning was probably intended to arouse his suspicions and shake out information. Ken just wished to hell he had some information to give.
He backed the Vivianne away from the slip. He’d wait until he was farther out to crank up the stereo. There were probably people sleeping in some of the other boats, and they wouldn’t appreciate Van Halen blasting them awake.
Ken steered away from shore for fifteen minutes. He finally eased back on the throttle, and the engine dropped to a gentle purr. He looked up. Stars. How long had it been since he had noticed the stars?
Too long.
If only his brother were with him. Bobby had loved tagging along on these excursions, relaxing as the Vivianne gently rode the waves. Bobby would be here again, Ken thought. Someday.
A warm breeze caressed Ken’s face as he turned starboard into the wind. He took a deep breath. There was a scent of pine in the air, drifting from a dense forest on the darkened shore.
He cut the engine. Blissful silence. Playful waves lapped against the Vivianne’s hull. For the first time in weeks, Ken felt himself relax. He grabbed a beer from the cooler and popped the top. The solutions to his problems weren’t any closer, but they didn’t have to be. As long as he could forget for a while.
He heard something.
The faint roar of another boat.
Ken looked fore, aft, port, and starboard. Nothing. But as the roar intensified, he thought it was somewhere off his port side.
He switched on the running lights to make his presence known. The roar was getting closer, but Ken still couldn’t see another boat.
A couple of kids out for some makeout action, probably. City kids had their cars, farm kids had their haylofts, and lakeshore kids had their boats. Ken had been a lakeshore kid.
The roar grew closer still. Where were the boat’s lights?
He switched on the mounted spotlight and turned it toward the sound.
Still nothing. The roar became louder.
Suddenly a gray hull broke the spotlight’s beam fifty yards away. It was a much larger boat, maybe a thirty-footer. It slowed to a stop and idled in the glare of the Vivianne’s halogen spotlight. No lights emanated from the mystery vessel.
Ken looked incredulously at the boat. It was like sitting in an empty movie theater and watching a stranger walk in and take the seat right next to you.
As he considered averting the spotlight beam, the other craft revved its engines. What the hell? Was someone looking for a race?
The other boat lurched forward and hurtled toward his port side.
Holy shit.
Ken gripped the wheel and braced himself. The impact knocked him to the deck. He scraped a leg across sharp rigging as he went down. The larger boat’s engines rang in his ears. Deafening. Angry. Violent.
The Vivianne spun away from the other vessel, rocking in its powerful wake. Ken clutched his right knee. It was damp.
Blood.
He pulled himself to his feet. His right leg couldn’t support him. He eased down behind the wheel.
The other boat was circling back.
Ken punched the starter. Nothing.
Again. Still nothing.
Come on, you son of a bitch…
The big boat rammed his stern, jolting Ken as the Vivianne’s fiberglass hull cracked. Water seeped onto the deck.
Ken struggled with the starter.
Come on, come on, come on…
The engine finally roared to life. It was far weaker than the monster that was after him.
Ken glanced up. The bigger boat was coming back for another run.
Why?
He throttled the engine. Gotta outrace it. His life depended on it.
He looked back at the vessel. Could he beat it back to shore?
Not a chance. It was gaining fast.
His leg was killing him.
More water sloshed on the deck.
The boat rammed his stern again. And again. And again. Each collision shook his boat with ferocious intensity. The craft moved alongside his own.
Ken squinted to see who was at the wheel.
He saw no one. There were no lights on deck. The vessel loomed large, a shadow against the night sky.
It struck the bow. A starboard window shattered, and glass sprayed across his face. Some of it stuck like day-old stubble. He opened his eyes and gunned his engine harder.
Bam!
Another hit on the bow.
Ken veered away. He glanced around, frantically trying to get his bearings.
Bam!
He gripped the wheel hard. It was sticky with blood. He smelled the oily stench of his craft’s engine overheating.
How much more could the boat take?
How much more could he take?
Water sloshed around his ankles.
The pump. Gotta find the pump.
He threw open the storage locker and fished out the water pump. He had never used it before. How did this thing work?
Bam!
Hell of a time to learn.
Ken plugged it in, threw the hose over the railing, and prayed the pump would do its thing.
It did. At least for the moment.
Ken jumped behind the wheel. He spun it hard to port, leaving the larger boat behind. He had more maneuverability, which was his only advantage.
Unless he found a way to exploit that advantage, he’d be dead meat.
Up ahead, Ken recognized what locals called “Klang’s Thicket,” a dense patch of trees, vegetation, and overgrown weeds. It was big enough that the larger boat could still follow him, but that was the plan.
If only he could make it there.
The boat struck his stern again. Engines roared and water churned. Ken couldn’t feel his right knee.
The pump was working overtime, but cool water continued to wash across the deck.
He gripped the wheel harder. He had to be careful. If he was off by only a few feet, he would bury himself in the trees and probably stall. He’d be a sitting duck.
But he needed speed so the larger boat couldn’t easily follow.
One…two…three!
Ken yanked the wheel hard starboard and flew into the thicket. The larger boat whizzed past.
Perfect. He probably had thirty seconds before it could circle back and come after him. He aimed his spotlight forward and plunged past the water pines. This was his old makeout territory. Was the other boat’s pilot as familiar with it?
Ken swerved into a clump of weeds and cut the lights and engine. He waited, listening as the other boat roared through the thicket, snapping low-hanging branches as it barreled through.
Surely it wouldn’t be going so fast if the wheelman knew what was ahead.
Ken held his breath as the boat sped past.
It was still going!
After another few seconds he heard the sweet sound of the larger boat’s hull being ripped apart by the rocks of Klang’s Thicket.
His first impulse was to confront the murderous bastard, but he could barely stand, much less fight.
Whoever it was would be there for a while.
Ken punched the starter. Nothing.
He tried it again. It started. He backed out of the weeds and left the thicket. There was less water in the boat than before.
As Ken sped for land, he felt his leg again. Cold and numb. It was a mess.
He beached the boat on the sandy shore. If he docked the vessel, it would probably sink before the hull could be repaired.
He hopped back to his MG on one leg, casting a nervous glance back to see if he was being followed. Not as far as he could tell.
Ken started up his car and drove. His leg hurt. His head ached.
He saw a Waffle House. As expected, there was a blue-and-white Forsyth County police car in the parking lot.
Ken pulled in and honked his horn. He waved at the cop through the glass window. The cop waved back and resumed his conversation with the counter girl. Ken honked again. This time the cop scowled, left the counter, and walked toward him.
“What’s your problem?”
Ken gestured down to his leg. “Take a look.”
The cop approached cautiously, as if Ken might have an assault weapon in his lap.
He recoiled at the bloody mess Ken’s leg had become. “Jesus Christ.”
Ken gritted his teeth. God, it hurt. “Nail the bastard who did this to me. I’ll tell you where he is.”
The officer reached for his walkie-talkie. “We gotta get you to the hospital, pal.”
“But the guy who did this—”
“We’ll take care of that later.”
Ken gave his statement in the waiting area at the Kensington Hospital emergency room. He felt better after his leg was X-rayed, cleaned, and bandaged. The knee didn’t look so bad.
It took an hour and a half before the doctor could see him. While he waited, the police officer returned.
“Here’s the story,” the cop told him. “We sent a patrol unit out and found the boat. It’s right where you said it was. There’s no one inside, and we’re conducting a search of the area.”
Ken assumed the cop was invoking a general “we,” since he obviously hadn’t left the cozy confines of the hospital. “Do you know whose boat it was?”
“Yeah, it was stolen this evening from a dock on the lake. The owner didn’t even know it was gone. They’re dusting for prints.”
“Whoever it was tried to kill me.”
“Is there anyone who would have reason to do that?”
Ken found himself shaking his head. “No.”
“Look, it’s my guess some kids stole the boat and went joyriding. It happens all the time. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Joyriding. Right.
The doctor put twenty stitches in his leg and informed him that there did not appear to be any permanent damage. He suggested a crutch, but after Ken hobbled around the room a few times, the idea was rejected.
He paid the emergency room tab with his credit card, deciding not to look at the total until the next morning. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with it.
He limped back to his car and drove home, all the while wrestling with the inevitable question: Was Myth behind the attack?
Maybe Michaelson was right.
Ken cast a nervous glance in his rearview mirror. All clear. For now.
Since he was limited in what he could tell the police, he was entirely on his own.
So what else was new?
Another of Gant’s least favorite clichés of police TV shows was that of the department’s seemingly inexhaustible resources. Apparently, money and manpower were always in plentiful supply, and officers could have as much time as it took to crack every case.
This simply was not true.
He knew it was certainly different in small towns, but on a big-city police force there came a time when it was wiser to cut one’s losses. If, after a few days, there were no strong suspects in a homicide investigation, the detective had to present a strong argument for continuing full-time on the case. There were other, solvable murders that required more immediate attention.
He knew the cutoff time was coming on the Carlos Valez investigation. The autopsy report hadn’t turned up anything useful, and the only suspect, Ken Parker, had no priors and no evidence against him. It also did not help matters that Valez was a lower-class Latino with a criminal record. That, coupled with the fact that he died in a poor area, didn’t bode well for the case. Gant ruefully noted that if Valez had been a white physician murdered in fashionable Buckhead, the investigation would continue indefinitely. At least until well after the local media coverage stopped. For an unemployed janitor, alas, the incident merited a story the day of the murder, but nothing more.
The Burton Sabini killing was another matter. Sabini had been a public figure due to the high-profile embezzling case that had caught the attention of the local business community. And it did not go unnoticed that another recent murder victim, Don Browne, had worked in the same industry as Sabini. What were the odds of two Atlanta metalworks executives being murdered within a week of each other? Gant had spoken with Serena Misner, the investigating officer on the Browne case, but so far there was no other apparent link between the two men.
In Sabini’s case, the lack of a strong suspect was crippling the investigation. His murder looked more and more like a random mugging turned deadly. Sabini had been drinking at the Blues Junction bar at the Atlanta Underground entertainment center, apparently celebrating his passing the D.A.’s polygraph test. He left alone, and the next time anyone saw him, he was dead in an alley four blocks away.
It was possible he staggered into the wrong place at the wrong time. That was certainly the way it looked. But here, as in the Carlos Valez case, there was a connection to Ken Parker. Maybe Sabini did have Parker’s name, number, and address so he could telephone him and ask a few questions. Gant wasn’t sure. But he knew the only likely solution to cracking the mysteries rested with Parker. Otherwise, the cases would soon just stall, residing in the “unsolved” files, likely to forever remain that way.
Gant strode into the audiovisual lab at nine A.M. sharp, greeting the two officers on duty. A/V patrol was a popular slot for cops sidelined with injuries. Carlton and Wittkower were manning the consoles, and both had crutches next to their chairs. Carlton had been shot during a drug bust, and Wittkower had slipped on a cupcake wrapper in the squad room. Ironically, it looked as if Carlton would be the one to recover more fully.
“What’s going on, guys?” Gant asked as he peered over their shoulders.
“Not much,” Carlton groused. “I’m just logging in the Michael Moss show.”
Gant looked at the monitor, and sure enough, there was Officer Moss in his uniform, giving a sobriety test to a suspected drunk driver. The video camera was mounted inside the police car, recording the officer’s each and every move.
“Look at the way Moss keeps playing with his hair,” Carlton pointed out. “And he always tries to keep the right side of his face to the camera. He thinks that’s his good side.”
Gant laughed as he kept watching. He caught a brief glimpse of Moss’s left profile. “I’ll be damned. His right side is better.”
Carlton smiled as he noted the time on a log sheet. “He thinks he’s gonna be on TV. Maybe Cops.”
Gant turned toward Wittkower. “What do you got for me?”
“Nothing yet. You know that expression, Doing nothing but watching the grass grow? I’ve just been watching the grass grow. Literally.”
Wittkower motioned toward the monitor above him. There, in black and white, was the side of Ken Parker’s office building, with the tape being played at several times faster than normal speed. Wittkower turned the dial to slow it as he saw someone. He pushed a button, and the picture zoomed in on a man entering the building. Wittkower compared it to photos of Ken and Sabini taped onto his console. Satisfied it wasn’t either of them, he continued scanning.
“How much do you have done?”
“About twelve and a half days. I haven’t even seen Parker yet. He obviously doesn’t use this entrance. Do you really think we’ll find anything?”
“We might. Keep watching, Wittkower.”
Ken walked with a slight limp as he tried to make out the worn house numbers along St. Charles Avenue. It was a pleasant street in the trendy Virginia-Highlands section of the city, but Ken couldn’t enjoy the scenery.
Someone had tried to kill him.
Who was behind the wheel of that boat?
Was it the same person who killed Sabini? Don Browne? Carlos Valez?
Ken glanced around. That person could be any of the people he saw walking on this sunny street. Just waiting for another chance at him.
Ken had never visited this address before. It belonged to one Stan Warner, a self-described “information broker.” Ken had met him the year before, when the man’s then-employer, Greenfield Electronics, suspected Warner of stealing computer time from a mainframe at the firm’s New York headquarters. When he came in for a polygraph test, he offered Ken his own unique services to coax a passing grade. His lucrative side business involved the selling of personal information, ranging from credit histories to driving records to unlisted phone numbers.
Ken failed Warner, who was immediately fired from his job. But Ken was intrigued by his “information brokering” service, so he kept the address.
This was a stupid move, Ken thought as he walked toward the duplex. Warner would probably K.O. him before he could get two words out. Oh, well. What was one more bruise?
Ken rang the doorbell. After a few moments, a shirtless, wild-haired young man swung open the door. He eyed Ken suspiciously.
“Stan Warner?” Ken asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Ken Parker. I’m a polygraph examiner, and you failed a lie detector test I gave you last year.”
Warner looked closer and burst into a broad smile. “I’ll be damned! Come on in!” he said with a thick southern accent.
He flung the door open wide and stepped back into his home. Ken hesitated. He hadn’t expected a warm greeting.
Warner called back as he stepped into another room. “Don’t worry. I got only one dog, and she doesn’t bite.”
Ken followed to a messy living room area, with newspapers, magazines, and tractor-feed computer paper everywhere. The only illumination came from the sunlight peeking from around the roll-down shades. Warner cleared away some papers from his couch, making just enough room for Ken to sit.
“What brings you here?” Warner asked as he plopped down on a stool.
Ken was still taken aback at Warner’s gregarious manner. “Do you remember who I am?”
“Sure. You flunked me. Made me lose my job.”
“I thought you might be mad about it.”
“Nah. You caught me. I was guilty as hell. I’m just glad they didn’t have me arrested.” He gave Ken a curious look. “You didn’t come here to apologize, did you?”
“No, I—”
“Because you don’t have anything to feel bad about. Losing that job was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never would have had the guts to leave on my own. I work only for myself now. I love it. But what am I talking about? You know how it is. It’s great, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Great. That’s kind of why I came to see you. You’re still in the information business, aren’t you?”
“Of course!”
Ken instinctively distrusted people who were this peppy. Either they were on drugs, or they were masking deep-rooted anxieties that could result only in their going berserk at a playground with an AK-47.
“I need information on someone. As much information as you can find.”
“Do you have a social security or driver’s license number?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re the one who’ll be paying extra for it.”
“How much are we talking about here?”
Warner presented Ken with a rate card listing his entire range of services. Ken smiled at some of the items: UNLISTED PHONE NUMBER $50.00, UNLISTED HOME ADDRESS $40.00, COMPLETE POLICE RECORD $275.00, MEDICAL HISTORY $225.00.
“How do you decide on the prices?”
“Depends on how hard it is for me to get the information, how risky, or how much I have to pay. I have sources, and they don’t come cheap. I think I have the lowest prices in the city though. If you can find any lower, I’ll beat ’em.”
After some haggling, Ken finally settled on a “general background” package that Warner assured was becoming increasingly popular among older, wealthier women who wanted to check out their young suitors. Warner showed him a few samples, reminding Ken of his own file at Myth’s house.
“Okay,” Warner said. “All I need now is the name.”
“Two names. The first is Burton Charles Sabini.”
Warner scribbled it down. “Fine. What’s the other?”
Ken paused a moment before answering. “Daniels,” he finally replied. “Her name is Myth Daniels.”
“What is it?” Margot asked as she fingered the blue-purple metal bar Ken had found in the late Don Browne’s office.
“I was hoping you could find out for me.” Ken leaned against the deck railing outside Elwood’s Pub. Bill and their other friends were watching a Braves game inside.
“Why?”
“It might be important. You guys run tests all the time. No one would notice if you had this analyzed, would they?”
“I would notice,” she said. “And before I send this to the lab in my company’s pouch, I’d like to know why I’m doing it.”
Ken looked away. Of course she’d like to know. How could he explain that he was keeping her in the dark for her own good? Just because he was up to his ass in muck didn’t mean he had to drag her down with him.
He could always make up a lie.
No. Not with her. She deserved better.
“I can’t talk about it right now, Margot. It would help me if you would do this, but if you don’t feel comfortable with it, that’s fine too. You have to know that I’m not telling you about this for a reason, and that when I can discuss it, I’ll answer any question you want. But right now I just need you to trust me.”
Margot was silent as the Braves fans went wild inside. She squeezed the metal bar in her right hand.
“Will you do it?” he asked.
She finally nodded. “I’ll send it out to the lab first thing in the morning. I give them a lot of business. I’m sure they won’t mind doing it for me gratis.”
“Thank you, Margot.”
“You’re welcome. When you feel like talking, just remember I’m here. Sometimes I think you forget that.”
“I never forget.”
Ken returned home to hear the phone ringing. He answered it. “Hello?”
“It’s time.” Michaelson’s voice.
“It’s pretty arrogant to expect people to recognize your voice after only a couple of conversations.”
“I’m just giving you credit. Since you’re a trained observer and all.”
“Uh-huh. So what is it time for?”
“It’s time for the favor you owe me. What are you doing early tomorrow morning?”