Chapter 7
Wick approached the table where Lozada was having breakfast. "Hey, asshole, the glare reflecting off your head is blinding me."
Lozada's fork halted midway between his plate and his mouth. He looked up with anger-controlling slowness. If he were surprised to see Wick, he gave no indication of it, but rather treated him to an unhurried once-over. "Well, well. Look who's back."
"For about a week now," Wick said cheerfully.
"Is the Fort Worth Police Department so hard up they invited you to rejoin their miserable ranks?"
"Nope. I'm on vacation."
Wick pulled a spare chair from beneath the corner table, turned it around, and straddled it backward.
Other customers in the hotel's dining room would think him rude, but he didn't care. He wanted to get under Lozada's skin. If the tick in the other man's cheek was any indication, he was succeeding.
"Say, those pancakes look good." He dipped his finger in the pool of maple syrup on Lozada's plate and licked it off. "Hmm.
Right tasty."
"How did you know I was here?"
"I just poked my head out the window and followed the stench."
Actually this hotel coffee shop was known by the department to be one of the killer's favorite breakfast places. The son of a bitch had never kept a low profile. In fact, he jeered at his would-be captors from the driver's seat of his fancy car and the panoramic windows of his penthouse, material luxuries that gave the cops all the more reason to despise him.
"Are you having something, sir?"
Wick turned toward the young waitress who had approached the table. "Fun, darlin'," he said, sweeping off his cowboy hat and placing it over his heart. "Just having a little fun here with my old friend Ricky Roy."
Lozada despised his first two names and hated being addressed by them, so Wick used them whenever an opportunity presented itself. "Have you two met?"
He read the waitress's name off the plastic tag pinned to her blouse. "Shelley--pretty name, by the way--meet Ricky Roy. Ricky Roy, this is Shelley."
She blushed to the roots of her hair. "He comes in here a lot. I know his name."
In a stage whisper, Wick asked, "Is he a good tipper?"
"Yes, sir. Very good."
"Well now that's nice to hear. And somewhat surprising. See, actually, Ricky Roy has very few redeeming qualities." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, being a good tipper might be his only redeeming quality."
The waitress divided a cautious look between them that eventually landed on Wick. "Would you like some coffee?"
"No thanks, Shelley, but you're a sweetheart for asking. If I need anything I'll let you know." He gave her a friendly wink. She blushed again and scuttled away. Coming back around to Lozada, he said, "Now, where were we? Oh, yeah, long time no see. Sorry I missed your trial. Heard you and your lawyer put on quite a show."
"It was a waste of everybody's time."
"Oh, I agree. I surely do. I don't know why they would bother with a trial for a sack of shit like you. If I had my way, they'd skip the folderol and you'd go straight to death row."
"Then lucky for me my fate isn't up to you."
"You never know, Ricky Roy. One day soon it just might be." Wick flashed him a wide grin and the two enemies assessed one another.
Eventually Wick said, "Nice suit."
"Thank you." Lozada took in Wick's worn jeans, cowboy boots, and the hat he had set on the table. "I could give you the name of my tailor."
Wick laughed. "I couldn't afford him. Those look like expensive threads. Business must be good." He leaned forward and lowered his voice.
"Whacked anybody interesting since that banker fellow? I'm itching to know who hired you for that one.
His daddy-in-law maybe? Heard they didn't get along. What'd you use on him, anyway?
Piano wire? Guitar string? Fishing line?
Why not just the old one-two with your trusty blade?"
"My breakfast is getting cold."
"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to stay so long. No, I just stopped by to say hello and let you know I was back in town." Wick stood up and reached for his hat. He turned the chair around and pushed it back into place. Then he leaned across the table as far as he could reach and spoke for Lozada's ears alone. "And to let you know that if it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna carve my brother's name on your ass."
"I'm not sure that was a smart move, Wick."
"It did my heart good."
"In fact, I'm certain it was a dumb move."
Wick had miscalculated. Oren hadn't found the account of his meeting with Lozada funny.
Not in the slightest. "Why's that?"
"Because now he knows we're watching him."
"Oh, like that's a shocker," Wick said sarcastically. "He knows we're always watching him." He'd been irritable to start with, and Oren's disapproval wasn't helping his mood.
He lunged from his chair and began to pace. He snapped the rubber band against his wrist.
"That slick-headed bastard doesn't care if we've got a whole division watching him twenty-fourstseven. He's been mooning the police department and the DA'S office every day of his career. I wanted him to know that I hadn't forgotten what he did, that I was still after him."
"I can appreciate how you feel, Wick."
"I doubt that."
At that Oren got pissed, but he bit back a retort and remained calm. "You shouldn't have placed your personal feelings above the investigation, Wick. I don't want either Lozada or Rennie Newton to get wind of our surveillance. If they were involved in Howell's murder--"
"He might've been. She wasn't."
"Oh. And you're sure of this how?"
Wick stopped pacing and made an arrow of his arm to point out her house two lawns away.
"We've been watching her for a whole friggin' week. She does nothing except work and sleep.
She doesn't go out. Nobody comes to visit.
She doesn't see anyone but the people she works withand her patients. She's a robot. Wind her up and she does her job. When she runs out of juice, she goes home, goes to sleep, and recharges."
The second-story room of the vacant house was uncomfortably warm. They'd had the electricity turned on so they could operate the central air-conditioning system, but it was antiquated and inefficient against the brutal afternoon heat.
The room seemed to Wick to be shrinking around him, and the schedule was as confining as the room.
Couple his claustrophobia with Oren's stodgy adherence to the rule book and it was enough to drive him nuts. The investigation had turned stale. It was tiresome, and boring to boot.
"Just because we haven't seen them together doesn't mean they're not communicating," Oren said. "Both are too smart to do anything publicly. And even if they haven't made contact since Howell's murder, that doesn't mean they didn't conspire."
Wick threw himself back into the chair, his temper momentarily spent. Dammit, Oren was right. Dr. Newton could have hired Lozada to take out her rival before the police got suspicious and started watching her. It would have required only one phone call. "Have her phone records been checked yet?"
"All were numbers she calls regularly. But you wouldn't expect her to use her home phone to arrange an assassination." Oren sat down across from him. "Okay, enough of this BS. Out with it.
What's bugging you?"
Wick pushed back his hair, held it off his forehead for several seconds, then lowered his hands.
"I don't know. Nothing." Oren gave him a paternal I-know-better look. "I feel like a goddamn window-peeper."
"Surveillance work like this has never bothered you before. What's making this time different?"
"I'm out of practice."
"Could be. What else? You miss the beach?
Salt air? What?"
"I guess."
"Uh-huh. It's more than homesickness for that swell place you have down there in Galveston. You look to me like you're about to claw out of your skin.
You're restless and edgy. What's the matter? Is it because this investigation involves Lozada?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"You tell me."
Wick gnawed on the inside of his cheek for several moments, then said, "It's Thigpen.
He's a goat."
Oren laughed. "And he speaks so highly of you."
"I'll bet."
"You're right. He thinks you're a jerk."
"Well at least I don't stink. This whole house reeks of those godawful onion sandwiches he brings from home. You can smell them the minute you open the door downstairs. And his butt crack sweats."
Oren's laughter increased. "What?"
"Yeah. Haven't you ever noticed the sweat stains on his pants? It's disgusting. And so are these." Again, he came out of his chair like a circus performer shot from a cannon. He was across the room in three strides, yanking the photographs off Thigpen's "gallery" wall.
He crumpled them and tossed the wadded pictures onto the floor. "How juvenile can you get? He's got the mentality of an adolescent pervert. He's crude and stupid and ..." Oren was gazing at him with a thoughtful frown.
"Shit," he muttered and returned to his chair.
Wick lapsed into a sulky silence and stared out the window at Rennie's house. Earlier she had gone for a run through her neighborhood. As soon as they saw her strike off down the sidewalk, Oren had rushed downstairs and followed her at a discreet distance in his car.
After doing five miles she returned, breathing hard and sweating through her tank top. According to Oren, she had done nothing on the outing except run.
"The lady's fit," he'd said.
She hadn't gone out again. Because of the outdoor glare on the windowpanes, it was difficult to see anything inside her house except occasional movement. After nightfall she had started drawing her blinds closed.
Wick sighed. "All right, maybe I shouldn't have approached Lozada. But it was hardly a red alert. He knew I would come after him one day.
I swore I would."
Oren was contemplative for another several moments, then said, "I think he did Howell."
"Me too."
He had read the completed report as soon as it was available. The CSU had done its detail work, but the crime scene had been as sterile as the victim's operating room. They had no cause for searching Lozada's condo or car, and even if they did, they would find nothing that connected him to the crime. Experience had taught them that.
"He's a fucking phantom," Wick said.
"Never leaves a clue. Nothing. Doesn't even disturb the air when he moves through it."
"We'll get him, Wick."
He gave a curt nod.
"But by the book."
Wick looked at Oren. "Go on and say it."
"What?"
"You know what. What you're thinking."
"Don't put thoughts in my head, okay?"
"You're thinking that if I'd played by the book, we would've had him three years ago. For Joe."
The fact was indisputable, but Oren was too good a friend to say so. Instead, he smiled ruefully.
"I still miss him."
"Yeah." Wick sat forward and planted his elbows on his knees. He dragged his hands down his face. "So do I."
"Remember that time--you'd just graduated from the academy. Wet behind both ears. Joe and I were staking out that illegal gambling parlor on the Jacksboro highway. Coldest night of the year, freezing our nuts off. You thought you'd be a good rookie and surprise us with a pizza."
Wick picked up the story from there. "I showed up in a squad car, marked you for damn sure.
Joe didn't know whether to horsewhip me for blowing your cover or eat the pizza before it got cold." He shook his head with chagrin. "Y'all never let me live that one down."
Joe and Oren had attended the police academy together and shortly after their graduation had been made partners. Joe had been with Oren when both his daughters were born. He'd waited with Oren through anxious hours when Grace had a cyst in her breast biopsied. He'd traveled with him to Florida to bury his mother. Oren had cried with Joe when the woman he loved broke their engagement and his heart.
They had trusted each other implicitly and entrusted one another with their lives. Their bond of friendship was almost as strong as the one Wick and Joe had shared as brothers.
When Joe was killed Oren had assumed the role of Wick's big brother, and later his partner, although each acknowledged that no one would ever fill the void that Joe had left in their lives.
Almost a full minute of thoughtful silence elapsed before Oren slapped his thighs and stood up. "If it's all right with you, I'm gonna shove off."
"Sure. Tell Grace thanks for the ham and potato salad. It'll go down good tonight after all those lousy sandwiches. Give the girls hugs."
"Sorry you have to spend your Saturday night here."
"No problem. I--" He stopped, remembered something, glanced at his watch.
"What's the date?"
"Uh, the eleventh. Why?"
"Nothing. Just lost track of my days. You'd better move along. Don't want Grace to get pissed at you."
"See you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see ya." Wick slumped down in his chair and stacked his hands on the top of his head, trying to look casual and bored.
He waited until he heard Oren's car pull away, then he scooped up his keys and followed him out. He climbed into his pickup and drove past Rennie's house. No signs of her. No hint of her plans for the evening. What if his hunch was wrong? If it was, and Lozada paid a call to her house tonight, Oren would have his head on a pike by daybreak.
But he was going to gamble that he was right.
* * *
He made it to the church with three minutes to spare. He jogged from the parking lot toward the sanctuary and barely made it into a seat in the last row before the steeple bells tolled the hour of seven.
Upon leaving the surveillance house, he'd driven like a madman to the nearest mall, entered the department store at a dead run, and had thrown himself on the mercy of a haberdasher who was looking forward to the end of his long Saturday shift.
"Forgot the damn thing until half an hour ago," Wick explained breathlessly. "There I am at the Rangers game, having a cold beer and a chili dog, and it hits me." He smacked his forehead with his palm. "Left the game, and wouldn't you know it? For once the Rangers were leading."
So far the elaborate lie had moved the haberdasher to do nothing except sniff in boredom. Some embellishment was required.
"If I don't go my mom'll never forgive me. Her back went out last Thursday. She's laid up popping muscle relaxers and fretting over missing this thing. So I shot off my big mouth and said, "Don't worry about it, Mom.
If you can't go, I will." I hate like hell to break a promise."
"How much time do you have?"
Ah! Everybody had a mom. "An hour."
"Hmm, I just don't know. You're awfully tall. We don't keep that many longs in stock."
Wick flipped out his credit card and a fifty-dollar bill. "I'll bet this you can find something."
"A challenge," said the haberdasher as he pocketed the fifty, "but by no means impossible."
With the assistance of a tailor who muttered deprecations in an alien dialect while he marked the needed alterations, they outfitted Wick for the occasion, including a pale blue shirt and matching necktie.
"The monochromatic look is in."
Apparently the haberdasher had determined, as Lozada had, that he needed some fashion guidance.
While the suit pants were being hemmed and the jacket nipped in at the waist, Wick went into the mall and had his boots shined. Luckily he'd worn his black ostrich pair today.
Next, he located a men's room and wet his hair. He combed it back with his fingers. Time didn't allow for barbering.
Now, as he settled into the pew, he didn't believe anyone would guess that he'd been assembled for the affair in under sixty minutes.
The ceremony began with the seating of the mothers.
Next came the bridesmaids decked out in dresses the color of apricots. Everyone stood for the bride's grand entrance.
Wick used the advantage of his height to search as many faces as he could. He was on the verge of thinking he'd gone to a hell of a lot of trouble and expense for nothing when he spotted her about a third of the way down the sanctuary. Best he could tell, she didn't have an escort.
He stared at the back of her head for the duration of the ceremony. When it concluded, he kept her in sight as the guests filed out of the church and returned to their cars for the drive to the country club. He was glad to see that her Jeep wagon joined the processional headed toward the reception.
The wedding invitation had been among her opened mail the day he'd searched her house. He'd read it, memorized the day, time, and place, thinking that the information might come in handy. When Oren mentioned this being Saturday night, it had sparked his memory. He had taken a chance on Rennie attending the wedding and had made an instantaneous decision to watch her up close rather than from afar through binoculars.
When he arrived at the country club, he opted to park himself and take his keys with him rather than turning his pickup over to a valet. It was faster, and he wanted to be inside the club ahead of Rennie. The haberdasher had called the bridal department of the store and arranged a wrapped gift for him. He carried it in with him and left it on the table draped in white fabric.
A pretty young woman was attending the guest book. "Don't forget to sign it."
"My wife already did."
"Okay. Have fun. Bar and buffet are already serving."
"Great." And he meant it. He had feared it might be a seated dinner, in which case there would be no place card with his name on it and he would be forced to leave.
But he didn't go to either the bar or the buffet.
Instead he took up a position against the wall and tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
He saw Rennie the moment she entered the ballroom and for the next hour he tracked her every move.
She chatted with anyone who engaged her, but for the most part she stood alone, an observer of the festivities more than a participant. She didn't dance, ate sparingly from the buffet, declined the wedding cake and champagne, preferring instead a glass of clear liquid on the rocks with a lime twist.
Wick gradually made his way toward her, keeping to the fringes of the crowd and avoiding the principals of the bridal party lest one of them introduced himself and asked to whom he belonged.
Rennie was concluding a conversation with a couple, backing away from them with promises of another dinner date soon, when Wick saw his opportunity.
He put himself in her path; she bumped into him.
Coming around quickly, she said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Please excuse me."