like the good boy he is. One foot in the air, polite as you please. “Go pee,” I tell him, and point at his favorite tree. He looks at me, then the tree, and then his ears go down and he snuffles his way there, circles it three times, and does his business. By that time I’ve got the back door open, and he launches himself into the car at a dead run. The car bounces on its springs as he lands.
Boot is about seventy pounds of solid muscle, and as far as backup goes, he’s better than most of the local officers I know around here. Listens better too. I have a twinge of worry as I start up the car, and I pay attention to that. I call my pop. He’s gruff and fine. Talking to him, even in a mood, makes me feel better.
Boot puts his head through the gap between the headrests and rests his chin there.
“Such a good boy,” I tell him, and he grunts deep in his throat. I laugh. “Should have named you Prester, you sound like him.”
Another doggie grunt, and I hear the slap of his tail against the upholstery.
“Okay, partner. Let’s do this.”
I put the car in drive.
My plan is pretty simple: follow the track laid down by the 911 caller’s burner phone as traced out by Gwen. I know this is probably a huge waste of time, but since Sheryl Lansdowne’s case is being tossed up the food chain well above my reach, this is the last lead I can follow. I call Prester to let him know where I’m going; he tells me it’s probably a boondoggle. I don’t care. I keep driving, since there’s nothing more urgent demanding attention from me.
I hit the spot of the hidden pond. Yellow crime scene tape flutters and flaps in the wind, but the place is deserted now. TBI’s long gone, and FBI hasn’t yet arrived. I expect I’ll be requested to face-to-face once the feds hit town, so I figure I should make use of what time I’ve got. I check the map Gwen emailed and start driving the route.
Boot changes to staring out the window; I roll it down so he can stick his head out, but not enough that he can jump if he gets excited. He seems content. We pass the broken-down wreck of the two abandoned houses. Then the crime scene of the McMansion; this one’s still active. I don’t stop. A couple of deputies eyeball me as I drive past, and I don’t acknowledge them. They don’t know me, and the closed expressions tell me they’re not giving me any benefit of the doubt.
The hill slopes down. The road curls through dark trees and not a lot else, and then we emerge into full spring sun. The meandering rough track meets a positively spacious blacktop farm-to-market road. I turn south. It leads me past fields and distant farmhouses, and then a couple of businesses. I slow down and check the map, and yep, I’m nearly to the end of Gwen’s track. Right on target.
I stop at the first business—a gas station—and buy a soda. Once the elderly black proprietor makes it to the register, we do some friendly chatting about nothing in particular. When I show him my badge and ask kindly to take a look at his camera recordings, he looks crestfallen. “Ma’am, I’d be glad to help you out if those cameras were real. They ain’t. Just there for show. I can’t afford the real stuff.”
“What if you get robbed?”
He shrugs. “Get kids in here all the damn time,” he says. “Mostly polite since I know all their mommas. No black boys robbing me out here. Only white tweakers, time to time.”
“Okay. Here’s my card, you call me if you get in trouble,” I tell him, and slide it over. He nods and pockets it. “You recall anybody coming by here early morning on Monday, maybe? What time you open up?”
“Five,” he says. “But Mondays I stock shelves ’round three thirty or four. And I live right upstairs.” I’d suspected that, since it was a two-story building. “Cars don’t usually come by here that early, but I saw one that day.”
“What kind?”
“Some kind of big black SUV. Sorry, I don’t know nothing else. Didn’t see the driver, and it didn’t stop in, since I didn’t have the lights on. Just kept on going.”
“Heading where?”
He points wordlessly in the same direction as the rest of