Surest Poison, The (27 page)

“Did you hear about Percy Pickslay’s
death in a car accident?”

“Yeah.
THP contacted us.”

The Highway Patrol would have been
involved, Sid thought. “It may be pure speculation, but there’s a
possibility he was run off the road by somebody involved in a case I’m
investigating.”

“Are you
back
in Lewisville?”

“No, I’m doing private work in Nashville.
But if my hunch is right, these people could try to destroy some of
Pickslay’s records that I’m after. I talked to him this afternoon, and he
agreed to bring the information to me in the morning. The wrong people could
have found out about it. Do you have any idea where he might keep his old
case files?”

“At his house, I’d guess. He works out of
there.”

“Could you have somebody check out the
place, keep an eye on it tonight?”

“Not much going on around here. I think
we could do that. I’ll have the sheriff call you. What’s your number?”

Sid gave the deputy his cell number and
handed the phone to Jaz. “Let’s go eat our cake and wait for Emmons to
call.”

Back in the rec room, he picked up a
plate and dug into the cake with its thick layer of chocolate icing. Though
not a chocoholic, he could do serious damage to a much larger portion. He
stood in front of the TV, which both ignored.

“I’ve been thinking about what it would
mean if that car on I-40 was the one we saw Friday night,” Jaz said.

“That deputy reminded me of some advice I
once gave him, advice I should have taken myself.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t overlook the obvious.” Sid put
down his fork. “That car sighting reinforces the link between Bobby’s
problem and Auto Parts Rehabbers.”

She nodded. “We were coming from Bobby’s
house when it passed us.” Her blue eyes snapped open wide.
“The explosion . . . Pete Rackard’s man.
Of course.
The fellow asking about Bobby at the
Welcome Traveler Store must have been working with them.”

“Bobby told Connie the man who called him
was somebody he knew from the past, but he’s refused to say where.”

Jaz picked up the remote and muted the
TV. “It could have been Auto Parts Rehabbers. He would have been out of high
school for only a short time back then.”

Marie came in with a coffee pot and
offered Sid a refill.

“Just half a cup.”
He set his plate on the tray. “This cake is delicious.”

“Glad you like it.
Anything else for you, Miss Jasmine?”

“Does Auto Parts Rehabbers sound familiar
to you? Could that have been a place Bobby worked just out of high school?”

She held her hands to her cheeks,
concentrating.
“Maybe.
I don’t know. I’m sorry. I
just can’t remember. John says he thinks I’m getting Alzheimer’s.”

“He’s just teasing,” Jaz said. “Don’t
worry about it. Isn’t it about your bedtime? If we need anything else, I can
get it.”

Sid held up his hand. “Nothing else for
me, thanks.”

The elderly woman had a pained look. “I
know you said Bobby and Connie and Little Bob are safe now. But what happens
next?”

“They’ll be okay,” Jaz said. “I’m hopeful
Bobby will be here in the morning.”

“If he isn’t, we’ll go get him,” Sid
promised.

After Marie left, Sid finished his cake
and coffee and checked his watch. “I thought I’d have heard from the sheriff
by now.”

“Maybe he’s on another call.”

“I doubt he gets involved this time of
night, unless it’s something major.”

Sid’s cell phone rang.

He flipped up the cover and answered it.

“Chief Chance, this is Sheriff Emmons.”

“Hi, Sheriff.
Appreciate your calling. How are things in Centerville?”

“It’s pretty hot right now.”

“Hot?”

“Yeah.
And I need some answers.”

“Did Deputy Ross explain what I was
after?”

“He did. And when my men got to
Pickslay’s house, somebody had just torched it.”

Sid bolted upright.
“A fire?
How bad?”

“Thanks to my
deputies, not all that bad.
They got busy with a couple of fire extinguishers and had it pretty well
beaten down before the firemen arrived. There’s some exterior damage, but
the fire didn’t get inside. A dark-colored car went racing off right after
they got there. They thought it was the firebug, but they had the choice of
giving chase or trying to save the house.”

“Good decision.”

“Yeah, I doubt they’d have caught the
car. By the time they could’ve gotten started, it would have been too far
ahead.”

“Could they identify it?”

“One of the guys thought it was a
Chrysler, black.”

“According to the TV, a witness to that
wreck on I-40 said a black Chrysler forced Pickslay off the road into a
bridge abutment. Did they by chance see a Predators sticker on the back
bumper?”

After Sheriff Emmons uttered a growl like
a snarling dog, he barked into the phone, “Damn right. You’d better tell me
what you know about all this, Chance.”

Sid filled him in on the chemical spill
investigation, including the explosion and fire at Jaz LeMieux’s. He told
about his meeting with Pickslay during the afternoon and the ex-lawyer’s
deal to bring him the information on First Patriots, Ltd.

“Sounds like you saved yourself five
hundred bucks,” Emmons said.

“But I don’t have the names. They’re
needed for a hearing in a few days. How about giving me a look at that
file?”

“No telling where it would be. That man
has box after box of files in his basement.”

“I’ll come down and go through them.”

The sheriff hesitated. “I’d say you need
permission from the owner.”

“Who’s his next of kin?”

“That would be his brother, Dave. He runs
a gas station down here.”

The actual owner would depend on Percy’s
will, Sid thought. He hoped Emmons wouldn’t be that much of a stickler. “If
you could give me a phone number, I’ll call Dave and get his permission.”

“I think I saw a phone book around here.
Let me look . . . here it is.”

The sheriff read off the number.

“Does Dave know about his brother’s
death?” Sid asked.

“Yeah.
I broke the news to him a little while ago.”

“Do you plan to leave somebody there, in
case whoever set the fire should come back to finish the job?”

“Yeah.
Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Sid broke the connection,
then
called Dave Pickslay. He explained who he
was and what he needed.

“Have you been down in that basement?”
Pickslay asked.

“No.”

“Then lots of luck.
I’ll have to decide what to do with all that mess. Back up a truck, I
reckon, haul it off, and bury it somewhere. I loved my brother, but I didn’t
approve of a lot of the things he did. All that stuff is best buried with
him.”

“I take it you’re saying
it’s
okay for me to come down and look for that
file?”

“If you’ve got nothing better to do than
dig around that basement, you’re welcome to it. I’ll call Sheriff Emmons and
tell him.”

Sid shut off the phone and turned to Jaz.

“It’s a go?” she asked.

He checked his watch. It would soon be
ten o’clock. “Yeah, it’s a go. And I’d better get moving.”

“To where?”

“Centerville.
Where
else?”

“It’s what, seventy or eighty miles?”

“Yeah.
An hour and a half drive
down through the
boonies. Too bad your company doesn’t have a helicopter.”

“We have one on call. It’s tied down at
John Tune. The pilot’s a nice young guy named Agee, who used to be with the
101
^st
Airborne at Fort Campbell. You want a helicopter, I’ll call
him.”

“I’m not sure Arnie Bailey would go for a
chopper bill.”

“Forget Arnie. You’ve been going at it
all day long. You don’t need another three-hour drive.” She grinned. “That
might be too taxing on your pickup.”

“Don’t worry about my truck. A chopper
would save some time, though.”

“How long has it been since you took a
moonlight helicopter ride?” she asked.

“As I recall, it was on the Cambodian
border at a place called Duc Co. That’ll tell you how long it’s been.”

“And I’ll wager it wasn’t in the comfort
of a Bell Jetranger III. Come on in the office. I’m calling Agee.”

When they arrived at John Tune Airport,
the general aviation facility near I-40 on the west side of town, the pilot
was waiting in the cockpit. The sleek helicopter, painted silver with red
trim, perched on its long skids, the rotor revolving slowly overhead. Sid
followed Jaz up the single step into the cabin, ducking his head as was
always advisable around choppers. The burgundy interior had two seats up
front and a three-seat bench in back.

Jaz introduced Sid as she slid onto the
right section of the rear seat. Agee was short and broad-shouldered, dressed
in a military-style flight suit. He had a boyish face that reminded Sid of a
character in a Disney movie.

“Either of you want to ride up here with
me?” Agee asked, raising his voice to compete with the engine’s roar.

Sid folded into the left seat and reached
for his belt. “I’ll stay back here with the Queen Bee.”

“Queen Bee?” Jaz frowned.

“It’s your hive, ma’am.” He turned to the
pilot. “What does it cost to operate this gadget?”

Agee adjusted his headphones before
replying.
“About two-fifty an hour.”
He looked at
Jaz. “I’ve made all the arrangements. I talked to the sheriff’s office.
They’ll meet us at the hospital parking lot. That’s where we’re landing.”

“Have you been there before?” Sid asked.
This was far from combat, but he had never liked flying into strange places
in the middle of the night.

“Yeah.
I flew down there with a Life Flight crew. They’ll have a patrol car with
the headlights pointing to the LZ.”

It had been eons since Sid encountered
that term for Landing Zone. In his imagination he could almost hear the
sound of AK-47 fire. He dismissed the unpleasant memory as Agee glanced at
him and spoke as if having read his mind.

“Miss LeMieux said you were with Special
Forces in Nam.”

Sid nodded. “Were you in Iraq?”

“At the start of the
war.
I got out right after
we took Baghdad.”

“Good timing.”

He grinned.

“How long is the flight?” Jaz asked.

“About thirty minutes.
Everybody ready?”

Sid gave him
a thumbs
up.

43

the chopper
lifted off the ramp, then headed southwest through the murky night sky.
Below them lights scattered about like incandescent blobs floating on a
black sea.
As the rotor clattered above, the terrain
soon darkened to an occasional glow or a streaking arrow formed by a car’s
headlights.

Sid and Jaz soon gave up conversation
attempts and settled back to enjoy the flight. As he thought about the job
ahead, Sid was happy she had insisted on coming along. Finding that file
could turn into a daunting task, even with the two of them digging for it.
One thing for sure, this chopper beat the devil out of driving. He’d try to
pay for the flight, but he knew she’d refuse his offer. It’s a simple
business expense, she’d say. No problem.

Sid considered how to handle tomorrow
morning’s multiple agenda—Bobby’s
return,
the
meeting with Fire Investigator Quincy, the confrontation with Trent
Decker—hopefully aided by the identity of the Auto Parts Rehabbers’
ownership. As he ticked off the possibilities, the pilot looked over his
shoulder.

“Get ready for landing, folks. We’re
about three minutes out.”

Sid craned his neck to get a better view
and saw the glow of lights from the town ahead. As the chopper flew lower,
he spotted the parking area at the hospital. Two pairs of headlights crossed
at the spot they had picked for touchdown. With his landing lights on, Agee
made a turn around the area and settled toward the tarmac. After touching
down, he shut off the engine. Sid and Jaz unbuckled their seat belts as the
rotor slowed its sweep.