Restoration (28 page)

  There was a slight pause. He's not going to go for it, Sally thought. Damn it, he's going to hang up on me!

  "I can't see a number anywhere," the voice replied eventually, "but we're at a splendid place called Dunkin' Donuts, just along the road from the building site. Is that enough for you to get in touch?"

  Bet your ass it is, Sally thought, saying: "That's just fine sir, you hang in there for a short while and I'll ring you right back."

  "How kind," the man said, "thank you so much for your help."

  He put the phone down and so did Sally, but only for as long as it took for her to find the number for the police.

 

 

Captain Shepard was by no means sure what to make from Alliss' story. In his experience every statement a police officer took was a mess of fact and fiction, assumption and observation folded over like pizza dough until what you had was something that needed careful sifting to figure out what was what. Like the old joke about blind men touching parts of an elephant (one thinks it's a snake, another thinks it's a tree and so on) the truth could only be found by a careful amalgamation of views. Alliss' story didn't make an elephant, he sure as hell knew that much. But what did it make? Two guys pulling onto the site in Loomis' car, one black and one white, with a half-assed joke – or so Alliss had thought at first – about having killed its owner and stolen it. Shepard wondered if that had been a joke at all. He'd heard stranger admissions during his time in the uniform, some folks just thought they were untouchable and it made them say stupid things. Time would tell.

  The thing that jarred most of all was the discrepancy between Alliss' description of the white man and the effect he had so clearly had on him. Alliss didn't strike Shepard as a man who would scare easily. Hell, anyone walking around with that haircut had to have some grit in his shit. So how come this man – a small, balding English guy in glasses by the man's own account – had put the frights on him so heavily? Shepard knew he could just about knock the man into a clean faint by smacking his fist on the desk hard enough, he was
terrified
.

  
Something in his eyes,
Alliss had said,
the kind of look you imagine the devil to have just before he turns on the oven.

  Colourful description aside, it was clear how much the man had got under Alliss' skin. Something in his eyes… Shepard thought about the row of dead hands in the earth outside and wondered, just for a moment, whether Alliss might have seen the elephant for what it was after all.

  The door to the Portakabin opened and Dutch walked in. "You might want to take the radio, cap'n," he said, "the woman from the real estate office called in, says two guys that claim to have been out here this morning have been trying to get hold of Loomis. Pair of 'em are sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts would you believe? Not a couple of miles from here."

  Alliss gasped and Shepard scowled at Dutch, damned idiot should know better than to go flapping his gums in front of Joe Public. There was the sound of trickling water and he looked to the roof of the cabin, thinking,
damn, is that rain?
Then he realised that Corben Alliss was busily pissing himself, staring out of that dirty window towards the highway again.

 

 

Miles watched Carruthers talk to the waitress. She shook her bottle blonde hair and swiped her hands over her ample arse as if trying to push it back into her pelvis. What's the old goat up to? He wondered. Finally Carruthers tore himself away and came back to the table.

  "Any luck?" Miles asked as Carruthers sat back down, looked at the solitary donut left – apple and cinnamon – and then shrugged, picked it up and took a big bite out of it.

  "With the service staff, most definitely," the explorer said, smiling, "we have an assignation planned for this evening – or so she hopes at least," he chuckled. "Apparently there will be dancing, beer and the 'best goddamn country' I ever heard." He took another bite of donut and leaned in close. "I think if we stay here much longer she may just wrestle me to the floor, it's something to do with the accent, she says it's 'dreamy'."

  "Any luck with
Loomis?
" Miles clarified, rolling his eyes.

  "Ah… not as yet. He's not at his place of business but the kind lady who works for him has promised to track him down and call us back."

  "She's calling us here?"

  "Yes, she said she had the number."

  "She had the number?"

  "Yes, or could find it at least, I forget her precise words."

  "What were
your
precise words." Miles felt a nagging feeling tug at him, this didn't feel right at all.

  "What? Is this because I didn't let you make the call?"

  "Of course not," Miles rubbed at his legs, wishing that concerned coil in his gut would go away, "I just want to know what you said."

  "I told her that I wanted to speak to her employer. She said that he hadn't been in his office yet today. I mentioned that we'd had a few drinks last night and – just making a bit of small talk you understand – if her employer had felt as tender as I the following morning then it may well explain his absence."

  "Then what?"

  "Then I said that Mr Loomis had wished to show us around his building site today and that we were hoping to get hold of him to discuss that very thing, or words to that effect."

  "Did you tell her that we'd been to the site."

  "Of course not… oh… well, no, not exactly."

  "What do you mean 'not exactly'?"

  "She… let me get this right… she asked if I'd managed to 'catch him' there to which I replied that I hadn't."

  "Implying that you had been there."

  Carruthers face fell. "Oh dear, that wasn't what I meant."

  "Then you told her you were sat in Dunkin' Donuts a mile or two down the road and she told you to stay put while she made a few calls."

  "Well, she didn't put it like that of course, she said she was… damn!" Carruthers slapped the table with his palm. "I'm so sorry, I've been an idiot haven't I?"

  "Let's get out of here," Miles said, standing up and reaching for money to pay.

  "She misunderstood me," Carruthers insisted, "or I misunderstood her… oh dear…" he gestured towards the forecourt beyond the window as a police car pulled in. He turned to the waitress. "Sorry my dear but I rather think I won't be available for beer and dancing after all."

  "Hell," said the Dunkin' Donuts waitress, "if it's police trouble you're in, you just step out back here and get yourselves gone."

  "Excuse me?" asked Carruthers, struggling with the woman's vernacular almost as much as the concept.

  The waitress gestured for the pair of them to follow her, stepping out into a storeroom just as Captain Shepard got out of his squad car. "I've got no love for men in uniform, sugar," she informed him. "If it weren't for them I'd still have a husband to take dancing. As it is they won't be letting him out nights for another four years." She opened a door at the rear which led into a small car park and storage area. "Now shift your asses out there and I'll keep the son of a bitch talking just as long as I can."

  Carruthers gave her a slight bow. "You are a goddess madam."

  "Damn right, and the best night out you never had, sugar, now scoot!"

  Miles and Carruthers ran outside and she pulled the door closed behind them.

  "You attract a great class of woman," Miles said, grinning at the look of discomfort on his friend's face. "Let's hope her husband doesn't come looking for you once they let him out."

  "I'm sure her motives were honourable," Carruthers said. "Likely the poor man was imprisoned in error and she sought nothing more than friendly company."

  "Yeah, 'likely' that's just what it was."

  A small road led from the rear of the cafe back out to the highway. As that would bring them face to face with the local law, they clambered over a wire fence and across a stretch of wasteland that ran parallel to the strip of businesses hawking their wares to passing motorists.

  "We're still no better off than before," Carruthers moaned after they had run a fair distance and found themselves on a dusty road that led away from the highway.

  "Yeah, but at least we're not sat in a police cell," Miles replied. "That would have been infinitely worse."

  "We don't know for sure that the gentleman would have arrested us, after all we are innocent of any misdemeanour."

  "And without any form of ID. Well, any ID that wouldn't get us locked in a mental asylum at least."

  "I'll take your word for it."

  They sat by the side of the road to get their breath back and let their churned up donuts settle back down again.

 

 

Captain Shepard strolled into the Dunkin' Donuts and saw instantly that it was empty. That was typical, he thought, these things are never so damn easy.

  "Help you sugar?" the waitress asked stepping behind the counter from out back. "Get you a coffee maybe or something cold?"

  "Two men been in here?" he asked.

  "You'll have to help me out a little on that one, hon," she replied, "we get a lot of customers in here, 'two men' don't give me much to go on."

  Shepard glanced around, noticing the table Miles and Carruthers had so recently vacated. "One of them was English," he said, strolling over to the table and picking up one of the coffee cups with a napkin. It was warm to the touch. "Don't tidy up behind you?" he asked, gesturing to the cups and donut box.

  "Just had to pop out back for a call of nature," she replied, "you takes your opportunity when you can. Giselle – she does a lot of night shifts – snuck out back one night to water the lettuce and came back to a raided till and a trail of donuts out the door. Half a minute with her drawers round her ankles cost the company a hundred and eighty bucks.

  "Should slip the lock."

  "That I usually do, 'cept I saw you pull in and if you can't trust a police officer then who can you trust? Sure I can't get you a coffee?"

  "Quite sure," he pointed at the cluttered table. "Who was sat here?"

  "Mother and son, him fair bustin' a gut to get over and watch those gators wrestle over at Gator World, her looking like she hadn't had a wink of good sleep from the minute he was born. I never had children, officer and I tell you, the kids I see in this job sure make me glad of the fact."

  He nodded. "Got two myself, boy and a girl, five and six, it's a tricky age. He about the same?"

  "Well yeah, I guess around there."

  Shepard nodded again. "Kind of young for coffee," he said, picking up the other cup, "my two wouldn't touch the stuff, you'd think it was warmed up dog crap to look at their faces when they smell it roasting." He smiled at her. "I guess coffee's just something you grow in to, huh? Unlike Coke or Kool Aid, they can't get enough of that sweet stuff."

  "I suppose it was unusual," she admitted, "but you don't ask in this job, you just give 'em what they want."

  "I bet," Shepard replied, putting the two coffee cups into the donut box – using the napkin all the time, not wanting to touch anything with his bare hands.

  "No need for that," the waitress said, stepping out from behind the counter, "happy to do it."

  "I've got it," Shepard replied. He smiled at her but she knew that a free ride in the back of his cruiser would be the result of her trying to touch the empties. "So you haven't seen two guys in here lately?" he asked again.

  "I had a couple of fellas in an hour or two ago I guess," she replied, glancing at the clock, "you lose track of time, truth be told."

  "I imagine so. These two would have used the phone, that help jog your memory?"

  "Can't say it does," she replied, stepping over to the payphone and – before he could stop her – picking up the receiver and tapping away at the buttons. "Sure there's some number or another that lets you redial," she said. "Oops," she added, cocking her ear away from the receiver, that's sure not it…"

  Shepard sighed, this woman was infuriating and the dance was getting them nowhere. For all her loose talk she'd known that he'd want to check the phone for prints to match against the coffee cups. Probably known he'd hit redial too and see if Ted Loomis' secretary answered. She was playing with him, no doubt about that. Not that he could do anything about it, not without more evidence that she was lying, something she seemed quite determined to eradicate.

  "Well," he said, taking out one of his cards, knowing it was a waste of time but willing to go through the motions. "If anything occurs to you then just give me a call." He put the card down on the counter. "I really need to talk to those guys."

  "Can't see me being able to help," she replied picking up the card – it would be in the trash the minute he left and he knew it – "but I'll think on it just the same."

  Shepard gathered the empties, carried them outside and then dumped them on the back seat of his cruiser. He'd get a hundred and one kinds of shit for running them through the print lab in Orlando – a waste of resources given that he had no real reason to link the cups to incidents up the road – but he'd do it anyway. He may not be paid to make sweeping judgements based on gut instinct, but he sure didn't mind spending a few taxpayer dollars on it, his instincts were good and he considered it money well-spent.

  He picked up his car radio and called through to dispatch. "No sign of the two guys in Dunkin' Donuts, Cheryl," he said. "But do me a favour and have all patrols keep their eyes peeled will you? Two guys, one white one black, the white guy's English."