TWENTY-FIVE
I could see clear through to the end of Kenny’s street from Clover, the main drag. A cop car was parked at the Brayfield house, in front of the gates, like a warning. I kept driving and turned on the access road that had taken me to the overlook the other day. The rain was steady now, slanting against my windshield as I pulled over along the back edge of the Brayfield property. The wrought-iron fence made it easy to spot. I switched from my leather jacket to my raincoat, transferred my phone and keys to the pocket, and, in a last-minute inspiration, grabbed my revolver from the glove box, hoping this act would not draw trouble to me. More trouble. I snapped the magnetic holster onto my jeans at my right hip and pulled my hood over my hair.
I probably looked like I was up to no good, which I was. I had no idea how the situation had escalated to this point. Danielle Stockton had hired me to track down a woman she saw at a gas station, but she was really asking me to save her brother. Everything else sprang up around this like a cage I couldn’t get into. Or out of. But Veronica Cruz was somewhere, and I had reason to believe Kenny knew where. I looked up at the fence, almost waiting for it to talk me out of this. I told myself that I would go through the front if I could. But I couldn’t. And something had to be done. If the Belmont police weren’t willing to look everywhere, I sure was.
I got out of the car and went up the slight hill to the fence, which was comprised of square-shaped iron beams about the width of a quarter, spaced roughly ten inches apart. They stood a good eight feet tall and tapered to a point on the top. The fence was old, the metal going rusty on the edges. I looked past them at the house, a hundred or so yards ahead. There was a light on above the pool, and it cast a murky glow over the water and through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The house was huge. There were endless places to conceal a person in there. Was that what had happened? Had Veronica been in the house while I was drunkenly looking out the window by the pool? I rested my forehead against the fence. I’d never forgive myself if that was the case. But there was really only one way to find out.
I considered whether or not I could squeeze in between the gap between bars in the fence, experimentally putting one foot inside to see if I could get my hips through. But I didn’t get far before I heard a faint creaking sound behind me. A cop’s utility belt was the only thing that made that sound. I pulled my foot back and turned around to see Jack Derrow a few feet down the embankment. His face was partly in shadow from his own raincoat hood. Somehow the coat made him appear bigger than he was.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said. “You know this is private property too, right?”
“I know,” I said. I wondered if he’d help me, as he had on Sunday. But something in his face told me he’d already gotten the download from Lassiter. I would just go back to the car and wait for him to go away. “I was about to leave.”
I took a step, but he moved into my path.
“I’m afraid you used your freebie the other day,” he said. The smile was gone. “I’m going to have to ask you to put your hands above your head.”
“I’ll seriously just go—”
“You’re under arrest for criminal trespass,” Derrow said. “Hands above your head.”
“A fourth-degree misdemeanor,” I said. A current of panic vibrated through my body. I was no use to Veronica if I got arrested, something I probably should have thought more seriously about. But I hadn’t. “I don’t think this is necessary, is it?”
“I don’t make the rules. Put your hands above your head.”
I exhaled slowly, disbelieving, but I did want he wanted.
Derrow went behind me, so close he stepped on my heel. I could hear him breathing. “Do you have anything on your person that I should be aware of?”
“Handgun, right hip,” I said.
I felt his hands on my torso. Then one arm snaked up as he reached for the zipper pull on my coat. As a reflex, I found myself stupidly reaching down to hold the collar closed.
“Do not move,” Derrow said, all business now. He jammed his elbow between my shoulder blades, forcing me face-first against the fence. My cheekbone cracked against the iron beam and the rough metal tore into my skin.
Derrow continued shoving his elbow into my back as he used his other hand to reach into my coat, his fingers brushing the bare skin of my hip as he unfastened the holster.
“You’re hurting me,” I said.
“No, I’m not,” he said. “You got a CCW permit for this, or are we adding to the charges?”
“I have a permit,” I snapped. Rain had immediately begun to soak my shirt.
“Thank God for small blessings, right?” Derrow said. He pulled off my hood and continued the pat-down. “I’m going to cuff you now, and then we’ll get you to the station.”
“Then what?” I said as he jerked my hands down to the small of my back and tightened a set of handcuffs around my wrists, the cold metal biting into me.
“I think that depends on you,” Derrow said. “Doesn’t it.”
“What is that supposed to mean,” I said. The rain was running down my face now. My cheekbone was on fire and I tasted blood.
“It means you might want to start behaving yourself,” he said, “because you’ve got some people pretty pissed off.”
*
First he made me wait, wet and handcuffed, on a bench in the holding area of the police station while he slowly removed his raincoat and hung it up. Then he uncuffed me and directed me to empty my pockets onto the counter. I complied and just tried to breathe evenly. Anything else seemed likely to make the situation worse. That was a self-preservation tactic I wished I’d discovered about thirty minutes sooner. Derrow examined my driver’s license, then put my phone, keys, wallet, and the handgun into an envelope, which he tucked under the counter.
“Okay,” he said then, “come on.”
“Come on where?” I said. I had hoped for one na?ve second while he was at the counter that I could pay a fine and get back to my search for Veronica. But that wasn’t going to happen.
He grasped my arm just above the elbow. “I’m going to need you to sit tight,” he said, steering me into a painted concrete holding cell.
“Wait,” I said. The small cell had a buzzing overhead light, a short row of cloudy glass-block windows near the ceiling, and a long stainless-steel bench that looked like it belonged in a slaughterhouse. The same instinct that made me try to hold my coat closed in the woods now made me dig my heels into the floor.