Authors: Matt Hilton
‘I think we’re wasting our time here. She’s in there taking a late lunch or something, so it’s unlikely she’s going to leave any time soon. The sign on the door says the gallery stays open until six. Why don’t we just come back at closing time?’
His words confirmed that he was waiting to make a move of some type but not that he was dangerous. I couldn’t hear the answer, but his body language told me he was on the receiving end of a berating.
‘When will you be back, Kirk?’ the man demanded. ‘I wouldn’t mind taking a leak and I can’t do that standing out on the freakin’ sidewalk.’
I guessed he was speaking to the suit. From his tone of voice the suited man wasn’t a superior, just a better-dressed peer. Smelly wasn’t happy that his buddy Kirk had left him to stand guard all this time. On the contrary I was. I was also happy to note that his pal wasn’t returning in a hurry. It would be so easy to move in close, jam my gun under his ribs and move him somewhere quiet. In fact, I contemplated doing so for a long heartbeat, but decided no. If the man went missing it might draw in his pal, and likely reinforcements, so it was better that I bide my time, consider my next move. Rink would have been proud of me. I moved away and entered a store a couple of units along. I kept an eye on him through the window, while pretending to examine some gifts on a rotating stand. When enough time had passed, I came out the shop again and wandered past him, back to my rental car.
Inside the car I placed my SIG on the seat again and covered it with the corner of the bag supplied by Billie. I took out my cell.
‘Billie? Joe.’
‘What’s happening? Are they still outside?’
‘One of them is.’
‘What does he want?’
‘At a guess I think he’s waiting for you to go home.’
‘You know, something came back to me after you left. Yesterday, before I rang you? I think I saw the same man down by the lake on my property. I can’t be sure, but I caught a flash of red – the same colour as his coat – but I just wrote it off at the time as my imagination. Do you think he’s been out there watching me since Agent Cooper was here?’
Billie was astute, no question.
‘I’ve checked with Cooper, he says they’re not with him. But that’s if he’s telling the truth.’
‘Why wouldn’t he? Oh, yes, I see. He wants Richard and thinks I might lead him to him.’
‘There is that,’ I said. ‘But we won’t know until I speak to our smelly friend. Can Hilary take over your duties at the store?’
‘I’m sure she will, but let me check.’ There was a muffled conversation, and then Billie came back on. ‘Yeah, Hilary’s happy to take over for a while. What’s on your mind, Joe?’
‘All I want you to do is come out of the shop, get in your car and drive home.’
‘You want me to get the man to follow me?’ Surprisingly there was no fear in her voice. If anything she sounded excited at the prospect of a chase. ‘Are you going to trap him, find out what he does when confronted? We could probably make him speak if—’
‘That’s not my intention. I just want to see how he reacts.’
‘Huh.’ My reply was obviously displeasing.
‘It’s important that you don’t alert him, Billie. Try to act as natural as possible. Don’t look for him. He has his eyes on you and won’t miss you coming out. Just get in your car and drive home. Don’t stop. Even if you see him pull over, don’t do anything to let him know you’ve spotted him. I’ll join you at your house, OK?’
‘OK. But what if he doesn’t follow?’
‘He will. I’m sure of it.’
‘Give me a few minutes to get my coat and purse and then I’ll set off.’
‘Great. And don’t worry, because I’ll be close behind.’
‘OK.’
‘Billie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Which is your car?’
‘The blue Jetta parked a few spaces up from the gallery.’
The delivery truck had pulled away. I had a clear view along the street and could see the roof of Billie’s Jetta over the top of a smaller sports car. ‘Got it,’ I said.
I waited for less than two minutes. Billie came out of the shop and strode towards her car. She looked determined, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her shoulders a tad stiff, but she resisted taking a look for the smelly man. He, on the other hand, almost performed a pirouette as he turned away to avoid eye contact. He watched her reflection in a store window, and as soon as she pulled the Jetta away from the kerb he jogged across the road and clambered inside a parked SUV. He peeled away and followed close behind Billie. I gave it a few seconds then also pulled out. I didn’t fear he’d notice me following because he was so engaged in watching his quarry. Through the back window, I could tell he had his cell phone pressed to his ear. Calling in the suited man.
9
Billie led the way over one of the Victorian bridges at the south-west corner of town, and picked up a road that went deep into a valley. We didn’t get far out of town before the woods closed in on both sides. The road hugged the slopes of the northern hills, twisting and turning with each convolution of the terrain. If I hadn’t known where Billie was heading it would have made it difficult to follow, but with foresight I could sit back on the tail of Smelly Man without fear of losing her.
I’d never been to Billie’s farm. But neither had I been idle on my way out to Washington State: I’d brought up maps on my cell phone, noted the main routes and major features of the landscape. Even so, it’s one thing viewing a map, quite another when you’re on the ground. Some of the landmarks were hidden by the hills or forest, and it didn’t take me long to put aside what I’d learned and concentrated on what lay ahead. One feature burned into my memory was of a long teardrop-shaped lake about midway to Baker’s Hole, and I began to look for it, watching for a glimmer of sunlight on water through the trees. On zoom, I’d found that there were a couple of wide layovers opposite the lakeshore, and thought I could put one of them to good use if going with Billie’s idea of a confrontation. Maybe I should get to the bottom of things at first opportunity.
Smelly didn’t make a move to close the gap on Billie. He hung back, just out of the range of her mirrors, and it confirmed to me that he knew where she was going. It also strengthened my theory that he’d been hiding out in the hills near her farm, and that it hadn’t been a trick of her imagination when Billie thought she’d spotted someone in a red coat. I decided to drop the plan I was formulating. Why force his car off the road on to one of the layovers when he would presumably stop before reaching the farm and skulk off to his hiding place?
The teardrop lake seemingly came out of nowhere. I steered round a tight bend in the road, and there it was. On the right the road hugged the lakeshore and I could see the first layover. Billie was already passing it, Smelly about a quarter-mile behind her. I could have sped up enough to catch him at the second pull-off, but I held back. I doubted he had the presence of mind to check if he was being followed, but you never could tell. Then we were all past the lake and heading up an incline to a wedge-shaped pass. Another mile or so further in the next valley Baker’s Hole dominated, and Billie’s farm sat approximately a mile further on again. Less than two miles before Smelly Man would have to pull over or risk alerting Billie to his presence.
Periodically I checked the road behind. I’d be crazy if I neglected to check my six. It was apparent that Billie’s watcher had called his pal and informed him of Billie’s unscheduled return home. If I were in either of their shoes, I’d assume that something had occurred to summon her back to the farm. Being that they were awaiting the imminent arrival of Richard Womack, it would be fair to assume that she’d hurried home at his beckoning. They’d be excited by the possibility and Suit Man wouldn’t want to miss out on capturing their prey. He’d be coming, and probably quickly to make up for lost time.
There were a couple more dogleg turns in the road, and as I came out the second I was just in time to see Smelly pull into a service trail that disappeared between a small stand of trees towards a ridge line on the hills. In the distance, Billie’s Jetta was a blue blur against the mist drifting off Baker’s Hole. She turned on her flashers as she approached the entrance to her farm, a conscientious driver.
It was decision time. If I followed the SUV up the hillside I could no longer stay hidden. Also, I trusted that Smelly would come to a halt before long and I’d have to abandon my vehicle on the trail below him. I didn’t mind the hike in, but if his suited pal was on his way to rendezvous then he’d come across my car and know that they’d been rumbled. I continued on a few hundred yards and pulled the car off road on to a shoulder lumpy with coarse grass and rocks. If it was Suit Man’s intention to carry on towards the farm, then he’d see my vehicle, but I didn’t think he would. I inserted my gun in my waistband as I got out the car, zipped my jacket up to my throat against the chill and tracked back to the service road. A check along the road showed no impending arrival of the second man, and I couldn’t hear the sound of a distant engine. It meant nothing: the turns in the road blocked any view, and the topography would play havoc with acoustics; for all I knew, Suit Man could be very close behind. I began jogging up the trail. It was muddy going, and the deep ruts showed how often vehicles had come and gone up the trail in the last few days: a lot of times. I arrived at the first bend where the road followed the natural ridge and plunged into the forest, continuing to jog at a parallel to the trail.
The going was easy enough. The trees weren’t tightly packed and there was room to move between them without fear of breaking any of the lower branches, though I had to watch for brittle windfalls underfoot. As I’d expected, I came across the parked SUV soon enough. To gain any vantage point on Billie’s farm, the guy couldn’t drive too high up the trail or his view would be obliterated by the mist coming off the lake, or by the low-lying clouds crowning the hills above. I slowed, walking heel to toe, ensuring that each foot was placed with care as I moved closer to the SUV. I pulled my SIG from my waistband, and held it against my right thigh as I progressed.
There was some condensation on the inside of its windows, but unless Smelly was lying down across the seats, I could tell he was out of the SUV. I moved in, got within spitting distance of the parked vehicle, and made out a fresh set of boot prints in the mud. They led across the road and into the stand of trees on that side. I crossed, placing my feet in the same tracks, and then concealed myself among the trees. I couldn’t see Smelly, but decided that he’d have moved towards the farm, not away. I’d progressed barely a hundred yards when I caught a glimpse of red. The young man was squatting on the hillside, using a fallen tree for cover as he surveyed the farm below through a pair of binoculars. He was so intent on watching Billie, or indeed for anyone else turning up at the farm, he had no idea he was being observed in turn. If I’d wanted to I could have walked up, put my gun to his head and that would have been that.
But the hopeless sap didn’t deserve to die. All he was guilty of up until now was keeping an eye on Billie, and being pretty useless at his job. I squatted down, kept him under observation, waited to see how things would play out.
My wait didn’t last. Within a quarter-hour I heard the growl of a car engine making its way up the trail. A sticky brake squeaked as the car came to a halt, then it was followed by silence as the engine was turned off. A dull thud announced the closing of a door. Only one person had come out to the observation point, and I guessed that it was the suited man. He cursed and grumbled as he negotiated the muddy trail, and I pinpointed him by his voice as he picked his way through the forest. He’d donned a raincoat over his suit, but hadn’t had the sense to change to more appropriate footwear. His shoes would be ruined.
Thinking they were out of sight, out of earshot, and therefore beyond notice, the newcomer called out for his friend. ‘Adam, where are you?’
A short whistle hailed him, and there was a flash of red as Smelly beckoned him over to his hiding spot. Their ineptitude was magnificent.
‘What kept you, Noah?’ Smelly – or Adam as I’d heard him called – said to his friend. I wondered if they were using codenames derived from Genesis in the Bible. Earlier he’d mentioned the name Kirk, so probably not. The suited man’s full name was probably Noah Kirk.
‘I took another look at the gallery. There was only that hot girl there, but I wanted to check that Billie wasn’t leading us away while Womack snuck inside.’
‘I take it he wasn’t there?’
‘If he was, I wouldn’t have wasted my time hiking out here in all this crap.’ Noah took a desultory look down at his shoes, and wasn’t particularly pleased at what he found. ‘I’d have grabbed him there.’
Noah’s words confirmed everything I’d surmised. They were watching Billie in the hope that she’d lead them to Richard. I’d been hoping to learn more. All right, Noah had just confirmed that they intended grabbing Richard, but what were their intentions after that? My priority was to keep Billie safe from harm, but I had to assume that once they had her husband in the bag, they’d come back for Billie.