Cry Me a River (27 page)

It held.

She put her other foot down.

That held, too.

She let herself stand on it. It was the top of a shed much like the one in Rhetta and Ronnie’s barn. Taking
a breath, she let go of the roof and made herself as small as possible. Waited a few beats, and shimmied down the side.

Then she crab-walked in the darkness in the direction she had heard the gunshot and the music. An owl hooted. She kept going.

It was a long building with corrugated aluminum siding, like many of the buildings on the property. Grace scanned the area as she sidled up to the door and leaned against it, and then slowly tried the knob. Locked. She ran her hand along the latch and smiled. She had brought a lock-pick kit. She unfastened it from her belt and went to work. Ordered her hands to stop shaking.

Got the lock picked.

Slowly, very slowly opened the door.

A light was on; she stopped, remaining motionless while she ascertained that there was no one else in the room. She chanced flicking on a penlight, and crept inside. What she saw chilled her blood: targets, as in target practice, but with photographs of faces where the dark silhouettes would normally be. Six of them: Haleem, Chris Jones, Malcolm, with bullets right between their eyes, and a fourth guy she had never seen before. Numbers five and six had no bullet. Five was white and middle-aged. Six was young, and black.

They’re still alive
, she guessed.

She whipped out her phone and took pictures, quickly, and sent them to Ham. Then she turned it off, because if it so much as vibrated at the wrong time, she was dead.

Witnesses
, she thought.
They saw something these guys did
.

I’ve got you, assholes. Not now, but soon
.

Jubilant, she edged back to the door. Tested opening it a crack. Went out and crept around the building to the other side. She couldn’t go out the way she’d
come—the sentry—but maybe there was another weak spot along the perimeter.

God, I hope so
, she thought.

“There is,” Earl whispered from his position on top of the barn. And if, well, he sent a little …
intuition …
her way, he didn’t think he’d get in a peck of trouble over it.

    “Hello,” Rhetta said into the landline phone. She checked the time. Two a.m.
Don’t let it be Mom or Dad. Or Grace
.

“Mooo,” someone whispered. “I smell barbecued beef.”

Oh, God
. She rolled over and nudged Ronnie. He woke instantly. She pointed outside; there was a squad car out there, watching their house. And a shotgun in the barn.

He reached for the phone, but she shook her head. She was afraid they would hang up.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

The phone clicked. Rhetta dropped the phone and threw herself into Ronnie’s arms.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

    “Good news first,” Ham said to Grace when they met up the next morning. It was Friday. They were stopping in at a donut shop because it was Ham’s turn. Grace pointed to all her favorites—maple bars, chocolate cream filled, lemon custard—while Ham held out his phone and brought up one of the target pictures she had taken.

“This white guy? The one without the bullet? I know
him. He hangs out with Indian. Sometimes he comes to the diner with us.”

“Shit, Ham, are you kidding me?” Grace cried. Heads turned. She lowered her voice. “Two French crullers,” she said to the clerk. “And that’ll do it.” She looked back at Ham. “Did Indian say anything to you about this guy being a witness to a crime?”

“Naw, but he was acting all jumpy last time I saw him.” Ham whipped out his wallet and paid the clerk. “He’s a heroin addict, though, so he acts jumpy a lot.”

“God, we have to find him. And Jeannie. We have to pry her loose, make her talk to us.”

He nodded. “Bad news. One of the uniforms who’s been patrolling the area around the Catlett residence found a bunch of insulin bottles. Looks like they were dropped. Rhetta did an inventory and Bobby checked with Dr. Salzman. Forrest doesn’t have a week’s worth of insulin with him. He probably doesn’t have any.”

Grace’s jaw dropped. “That’s gotta be wrong, Ham.”

“It’s not.” He took the box of donuts, and they walked toward the door.

“Shit.” Grace’s mind began to race. “We’ve got to find him. He’ll go into diabetic shock. Then a coma. They’ve got to give him sugar, get him to a hospital.”

“Butch is going to talk to Kendra.” He opened his truck and handed Grace the box of donuts. “That scumbag in Edmond, Bo Halliford? Local law in Edmond’s got him. He confessed to sending the note but he doesn’t have Forrest.”

“Of course not.”

Pieces were both shaking loose and fracturing. They had to hustle it up.

She grunted. They started driving. Then she did something she should have done right away: She dialed her old phone number.

Someone answered on the first ring.

“Who is this?” Grace said.

“I’ve been waiting for you to call me,” said a voice.

It was Jamal.

    Jamal came to the station, in his gang colors, but one look at the detectives and he pulled off his do-rag and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he took off his stupid-ass huge necklace and threw it in the trash. Grace gave him a donut while Butch carried his
“I have to shit”
doll to the department Dumpster.

“First, your grandfather,” Grace said. She’d thought this through. She needed Jamal’s help and she didn’t want to distract him. But she had to be honest about Mr. Briscombe.

“Daddy D?” His voice came out choked, scared. His eyes widened. Grace grabbed his hand.

“He had a stroke. On top of his heart attack. He’s in bad shape. But he’s alive.” She took a deep breath. “I think he’s hanging on for you.”

“I got to go, to him, now,” he said.

“No, please, wait. One minute. Jamal, I need your help. I’m getting close to the guys who killed your brother. It’s not a gang. Look at these photographs.”

She showed him the photographs on Ham’s phone. One, two, three, four, five, six. He looked visibly shaken.

“What are these? Where did you get them?” he asked, holding the phone tightly.

“We think they witnessed something. Malcolm, too. We want to find the ones who are still alive. They might help us convict Malcolm’s murderers.”

“I know that kid,” he said. “That one without the bullet. He’s a friend of Malcolm’s.”

“Do you have an address?” she asked him. “Can you help us find him?”

He shook his head as he stared at the picture of Malcolm with the bullet in his head. “They lived near us. Then they moved.”

She shut her eyes. Opened them. Moved to the neighborhood with the minimart? Moved there?

“Please give me his full name. And the names of his parents, if you have them. Especially if their last names are different. And give me their old address, please, Jamal.” She handed him her detective’s notebook. “Then I’ll take you to see your grandfather.”

“Okay.” He wrote slowly. He had beautiful handwriting.

Then he handed it back to her. She carried it to Bobby, who was just hanging up the phone.

“Can you run this, man?” she asked him.

“I’ve got something,” he said, taking the notebook from her. “There was a receipt in the bag with the insulin bottles for KD Supply. It’s an electronics store and it sells all kinds of remote-control devices, that kind of thing. Turns out someone bought a piece of rocketry equipment called an AT-2B.” Bobby typed on his keyboard. “It’s a transmitter.”

“As in … it sends out a signal,” Grace said. “An SOS.”

Bobby nodded. “Quite possibly.”

    “Yeah, you attach the AT-2B to your rocket, and then you have a receiver, and that way it’s easier to find your rocket,” Clay told Grace. They were sitting in the same office where she had conducted the interviews with the novena people. Grace had raced to the church and pulled Clay out of class. Her nephew looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“So he has one? Forrest owns an AT-2B?”

“I guess,” Clay said. “He didn’t mention it to me but it would be really cool to have.”

“So you wouldn’t know if he had it with him now,” she said.

“No, but …” His eyes widened. “But if he did …”

“And if we had a receiver …” She took his hand. “If it was on …”

He sighed heavily. “It’s only good for five miles.” Then he started to get excited, hopeful. “But you could start looking. I mean, it’s better than nothing. He could even be five miles from right here.”

She tried to conceal her disappointment. “Yeah. He could.” Or five miles away from a different part of the nearly seventy thousand square miles that made up the state of Oklahoma. She wanted to hit something. She’d thought this was their ace in the hole. They didn’t have time to look for a needle in a haystack.

“That’s a big help, Clay,” she said.

He looked hard at her. “No, it’s not. You think he’s going to die.” He started to shake.

“No.” She stopped herself. Then she put her arms around the person she loved best in all the world and rocked him. “I hope I find him in time, Clay. I want to find him.”

“I’ve been praying,” Clay said.

“I’m sure that’s helping.” She kissed the crown of his head. “I have to get back to working on this.”

“Okay, Aunt Grace.” He turned away, turned back. “Aunt Grace,” he said, “praying is working on this, too.”

She tried to smile. “Yeah,” she said.

She cupped his cheek, and Clay headed back to class. Grace watched him go, and then, on impulse, she headed for the sanctuary. Her boot soles brushed the soft carpet.

What the hell am I doing?
she thought.
I am for sure not going in there to pray
.

A second passed. Two.

I’m not
, she told herself.

Nevertheless, she pushed open the door.

Father Alan was kneeling before the altar, hands clasped in prayer. She watched him in silence and saw the rosary between his fingers. Crossing himself, he rose, genuflected, and looked at her.

“Detective,” he said. “Has something … happened?”

“I thought we had something,” she said. Her shoulders rounded. “It seems that Forrest or someone he knows bought an AT-2B. A transmitter. And I thought, What if he has it with him, and he’s trying to send a signal? But Clay told me it’s only good for five miles. I’m going to give it a shot, but …”

“It’s only five miles on the ground,” he cut in. “But it’s fifty miles from the air.”

“From …” She looked at him. “Like, in a helicopter?”

He nodded. Eagerly.

“If I have the receiver with me in the helicopter—”

“I have the receiver you need.” He smiled at her. “I have the answer to your prayers.”

    “Oh, God, oh, Ham,” Grace whispered as he pushed against her in the stairwell where she went to smoke. They were fully clothed; there was no actual sex, but Grace wanted, needed, to feel him
there
while the chopper was fueled up. A department pilot would take them up. Father Alan had given them the receiver and showed her how to use it. In ten minutes, tops, they would be airborne.

“We gotta find him, Grace. We have to.”

“We will, goddamn it.” She pressed herself against his length as energy surged through her. She felt almost like
she had wings. Like she could fly. She felt higher than a kite.

Just as quickly, urgency shot through her. It could end badly. It might.

“God, please, please, let us find him,” Ham gasped.

Amen
.

From their vantage point inside the police department building on North Colcord, Rhetta, Butch, Bobby, and Captain Perry watched the chopper lift off from the pad across the street. Inside the bell sat a pilot, Ham and Grace, and a doctor. They had insulin and glucagon. A receiver for the AT-2B transmitter. And guns.

Rhetta whispered a prayer and crossed herself. Captain Perry gave her a nod, and everyone turned away from the window. Captain Perry would assist with ground support. Butch would be driving the roads, with an additional assignment: They’d gotten a tip about a burning vehicle, and who knew? Grace and Ham would keep a lookout as best they could. But at the moment, Forrest Catlett was their top priority.

After Rhetta secured some evidence so that it wouldn’t be compromised, she met up with Bobby. Both of them were wearing jeans; he had on a long-sleeved shirt and his black leather vest. She wore her ruffled blouse and a denim jacket she’d nearly forgotten she owned. She’d started to go through her family’s clothes, telling herself she was planning a garage sale, although deep in her heart she was bracing for a move.

Tech gave her a little tape recorder to put in her jacket pocket. They were going to fetch Jeannie Johnson, Rhetta accompanying Bobby because Jeannie trusted
her the most of any of them. Bobby because this was a criminal case, and he was an officer of the law.

Bobby and Rhetta left for Shelter Valley in an unmarked department Toyota. The drive seemed to take a lot longer than it had previously; maybe Rhetta was just extra nervous. She looked up at the sky. It wasn’t raining for once, but the wind was picking up again.

“No wonder she was so scared,” Rhetta said, as the truck made its way up the mesa. “If she knows they’ve been killing people.”

“If she’s a material witness, we’ve got something,” Bobby said. “But if it’s just pillow talk, that’s hearsay.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know the difference.” She looked over at him. “You called ahead to Brenda.”

“Yes. Jeannie’s doing pretty well. She had a few shaky moments where she wanted to call Hunter, but she hasn’t asked to leave.”

“Do we have to take her in?” Rhetta asked. “Can’t you just get a statement at the shelter?”

“If she’s really got something, we can offer protective custody. We couldn’t do that before. If she decides to leave the shelter … there goes our witness.”

Rhetta nodded. She looked up at the sky again, wondering where the helicopter might be. Hoping they located Forrest in time.

They reached the shelter. Rhetta tested her little tape recorder and turned it on.