The Bullet (23 page)

Forty-eight

T
here is no waiting period to buy a gun in Georgia.

No need to secure a firearms permit. You can waltz right in, select the one you want, and carry it out fifteen minutes later in a plastic bag.

There is one catch, though: you have to have a Georgia ID. Gun stores won't sell to anyone flashing an out-of-state license. I sat in the parking lot of Sonny's Sporting Goods for more than an hour, pondering this problem.

Sonny's is a warehouse forty minutes due east of Atlanta. An eleven-­aisle superstore, like a surreal Target just for guns.
WE BUY AMMO BY THE TRACTOR TRAILER LOAD!
announced a banner hanging above the registers.

I had walked the aisles in wonder. Camouflage pants and T-shirts were stacked near night-vision goggles. An entire section was devoted to quivers and crossbow accessories. Plastic bins separated elk whistles from squirrel calls, hog squealers from Canada-goose flutes. I picked up a white tube labeled a Double Reed Cajun Squeal, wondered what kind of swamp animal it was designed to lure.

And then there were the guns.

The entire back wall of the store was lined with them. Scopes and sniper rifles hung suspended. Handguns were laid out on brown felt
trays inside glass cases. Everything from tiny, silver Berettas, to Texas Defender derringers, to an antique Colt .45 with a walnut grip and a stamp from General Custer's Seventh Cavalry.
MORE THAN 12,000 GUNS IN STOCK
boasted another banner. I couldn't tell how the guns were organized. I only knew that with this many on display, what I was looking for was bound to be here.

“Help you, miss?” A big, bearded man behind the counter.

“Oh, no, thanks. Just browsing.”

I walked the entire perimeter of the store, then stationed myself near checkout, watching how it worked, pretending to engage in an involved conversation on my cell phone. Four cash registers were open and humming away. The cashier closest to the doors was ringing up an overflowing cart of trout-fishing tackle. Not of interest. The next was explaining to an irate customer why his 20-percent-off coupon wasn't valid on duck waders. But at the third register, a customer was waiting to buy a gun. He had to fill out a two-page form on a clipboard; the cashier took his answers and typed them in. After several minutes, the official FBI seal appeared on her screen, along with a large green rectangle ringing the word
PROCEED
. The customer handed over five crisp $100 bills. The cashier ran an orange marker over them. Waited. Looked satisfied and stuffed them into the register. Some sort of anticounterfeit check? The man walked out of the store sixty seconds later, whistling and swinging a plastic bag.

I retreated to my car to watch the front door and think. Sonny's seemed busy for a Tuesday afternoon. An almost exclusively male clientele came and went, revving and reversing pickup trucks into bus-size parking spaces. My compact rental car sat dwarfed between a Chevy Silverado and a rusted-out Dodge Ram.

Around dusk, a Toyota Tacoma with Rockdale County plates pulled into the spot opposite me. One headlight had stopped working, and the truck bed was piled high with firewood. A lean man wearing a flannel shirt and frayed work pants hopped out. He looked my age, maybe a few years older. He walked around the back of his truck, yanking on the
ties securing the wood, tightening them down. I watched how he dragged his feet as he worked, and how he kept his shoulders hunched, like a dog that's used to getting kicked. I scanned his face, hoping to see kindness there, but the light was gone and he was too far away.

Now or never.

I swung my car door open.

“Hey,” I called. “Hey there. Could I trouble you for a minute?”

•   •   •

FIVE MINUTES LATER
he was bent over my car engine, checking the oil.

“I feel so silly that I couldn't even figure out how to open the hood.” I giggled girlishly and clapped my hands together. “When that warning light came on, saying to check the oil, I didn't know what to do. Thank goodness you were here.”

He had his sleeves rolled up, his finger looped through the top of the dipstick to wipe it clean. When he leaned back over the motor to reinsert it, I placed my hand lightly on his arm. He flexed his biceps through the flannel, bulking it up for my benefit. This was going well.

“Everything looks fine, ma'am. Start up the engine again, let's see what she says.”

I slid behind the wheel of my perfectly operational car and turned the key. “You fixed it!” I beamed at him.

“Sometimes those dashboard lights act up. I didn't do nothing. Your oil's good to go.”

“I'm so relieved,” I purred. “How can I thank you?” I slid back out of the car, watched him drink me in. My lips were painted ruby red, and I was wearing a blond wig and hip-hugging jeans tucked into my stiletto boots. The sartorial equivalent of the Double Reed Cajun Squeal, expressly designed to lure the human male.

He licked his lips like he'd been shown the promised land.

“What's your name?”

“Um. Britt. How 'bout you?”

“Tammy.” I batted my eyelashes. “I hate to impose on you for
­another moment. You must be so busy. But I have another little bitty favor to ask.”

“Anything,” he breathed. He looked as if he meant it.

“You're going in there anyway, right?” I darted my eyes toward the Sonny's entrance.

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Well. It's my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Johnny. He's a horrible man. He . . . he hits me.”

Britt opened his eyes wide. “That cocksucker. Excuse my French.”

“It's okay. We broke up months ago. But he keeps following me and threatening me and I . . . I'd feel much safer if I had a gun.”

“Course you would. Let's go in. I'll help you pick a—”

“No. See, I can't buy one. I don't have Georgia ID. So I was wondering . . . if I made it worth your while . . .”

I watched him register this.

“Oh.” He stepped back. “Oh. No, I can't do that.”

“Just something simple. For self-defense.”

“No, I—that's a felony now. Buying a gun for somebody else. They do a background check at the register, ask whether you're an illegal alien, or a convicted felon, or if you're buying it for someone else.”

So lie,
I wanted to hiss. “I said I'd make it worth your while.” I reached into my back pocket, let his eyes linger on the curve of my jeans. “This is a thousand dollars. Cash.” I handed him an envelope with ten bills inside. “You can take it to your truck and count it if you like.”

He stared at me as if snakes had popped out of my head.

“And there's another two thousand, when you meet me back here. Easiest three thousand bucks you'll ever make. Britt? Three. Thousand. Bucks. In and out of Sonny's in less than half an hour. I'll give you cash to pay for the gun, too.” I forced myself to smile alluringly. “What do you say? You'd be helping me so, so much.”

I waited, sweat beading between my breasts, dripping down the
small of my back, wondering whether he was about to shout for the police.

He licked his lips again. “What kind of gun?”

•   •   •

BRITT TUCKED THE
envelope into his shirt pocket. “You need ammo, too? Better off with hollow points. They'll mushroom, rattle around inside the guy.”

I shuddered. “Fine.”

“Fifty rounds'll do you?”

“That's plenty.” I was starting to feel as if I'd placed an overly complicated order with a short-order cook, or a Starbucks barista.
Just buy the damn gun, Britt.

“And you really wanna git .357s instead of .38s,” he said thoughtfully. He had a pack of chewing tobacco out now, was working a wad deep down inside his cheek.

“What's that? A different cartridge?”

“Is your cocksucker ex-boyfriend a big guy? You got a three-hundred-fifty-pound guy on crack running at you, you wanna know you're packing maximum power.”

I closed my eyes. Was I really standing here, in a rural Georgia parking lot, having this conversation?

“I switched 'em in the gun my wife carries in her purse,” Britt added with pride. “Switched her .38s for .357s. She ain't never gonna notice. I'd rather she be firing a .357 when some guy's coming at her.”

His wife. Jesus. He'd thrown out that morsel even as he tried to sneak another peek down my blouse. Sleazy. Not, mind you, that I was in a position to pass moral judgment on anyone at this precise moment.

“I'll stick with .38 Specials. The smallest box. I'll meet you right here.”

Britt nodded, spat a stream of tobacco juice, and shuffled toward the entrance.

I settled into my car to wait. Locked the doors. Then jumped back
out. If flashing blue lights suddenly appeared, or if Britt returned with a security guard, I shouldn't be sitting there waiting like an idiot. I ducked my head and walked to a corner of the lot, near a concrete island of dejected shrubs. From there I had a clear view of the store entrance, the vast expanse of asphalt in front, and the highway beyond. I waited. Shivered. The temperature had dropped sharply with the sunset.

After what seemed forever but was in fact twenty-seven minutes, the doors swung open and Britt walked out. I watched. No one followed him. He wove back toward my car. He was peering into the window on the driver's side, hands cupped around his eyes to cut the glare from the streetlights, when I reached him.

I touched his arm.

He jumped six inches. “Holy crap, you scared me. Where'd you git to?”

“Bathroom emergency.” I nodded toward the shrubs. “Well?”

He held out a bag. I glanced around. A woman was climbing into a truck double-parked at the front curb; a car was reversing on the far side of the lot. No one was close. I had seen no security cameras, but to be safe I shifted position, so we were hidden behind the hulking cab of the Silverado in the next parking space.

“Got you a five-shot revolver,” whispered Britt. “Smith and Wesson, .38 Special. Made in the 1970s, like you asked for. She's scratched up but she'll shoot fine. Two hundred and forty-nine dollars plus tax. Decent gun for the price.”

I handed over the second envelope. “Thank you.”

He stood there, smiling hopefully, wide, little-boy eyes above tobacco-­stained teeth. “Buy you a beer?”

“Another time.” I was already in the car, strapping on my seat belt, shoving the plastic bag deep inside the glove compartment.

Britt leaned in the open window. “Can I git your number?”

“I think you ought to go on home, don't you? You wife's probably got dinner on the table. Use some of your new money, stop and buy her flowers on the way.”

•   •   •

BEFORE BED THAT
night I did four things.

The first was to write a check for $10,000 to Jessica Yeo. I'd teased her once that if my birth parents left me a million dollars, I'd split it with her. They hadn't, but they'd left enough that I could afford to return a few favors. In the memo line, I wrote,
For being relentless
. I dropped the check into a hotel-stationery envelope and printed her name and the newspaper address on the front.

Next I called Mom and told her that I would be tied up with projects for the next few days. I assured her that I was fine, eating well, and would check in soon.

After Mom, I dialed Martin's number and asked him to keep an eye on my house.

“What's this I hear about Mexico? Dad says you're going to Cabo.”

“I want to disappear for a while, get off the grid,” I replied, more truthfully than my brother could have realized.

“You'll be okay on your own? Tony said you were behaving a ­little . . . erratically the other day, when you two drove out to that gun range.”

“
Erratic?
That was the word he used?”

“Err, no.
Full-on wack job
was actually the way he put it.”

“Can you blame me?” I sighed. “Mother Teresa herself would be behaving like a wack job if she'd been in my shoes these last few weeks.”

“I know. I'm glad you're getting away, Sis. It'll do you good to unplug.”

“I'm thinking of staying down in Mexico a couple of weeks, maybe a month or so. To rest and clear my head. Think Mom will go nuts if I'm not around for my birthday?”

“Yep. She'll go nuts, all right. I'll do my best to remind her that the wine will keep and the steaks will freeze. Tony and I'll distract her on Thanksgiving, too. Just promise me you'll come home by Christmas? Otherwise I can't be held responsible for her actions.”

The last thing I did before sleeping was to slip on boots and a jacket, exit the side door of my hotel, and walk five blocks to a bar. From the pay phone by the bathrooms, I called Ethan Sinclare. He answered on the fourth ring. I kept it neutral and short. I was in Atlanta for a brief visit, I told him. An appointment tomorrow had been canceled, leaving me with an opening in my schedule.

Might he have time to meet?

Forty-nine

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2013

Y
ou couldn't plan things this way, you really couldn't, not if you tried. I could have needed the bullet removed in February. Or December. The pain could have slammed me on a breezy, warm day in May. It had happened when it happened, who could say exactly why?

I had been keeping an eye on the date. As the clocks fell back and the nights grew longer, I had watched it creeping closer. But still it felt momentous, to roll over in the morning and to see it—
WEDNESDAY, ­NOVEMBER 6
—
illuminated in bright digits on the home screen of my phone.

November 6. The anniversary of Boone's and Sadie Rawson's murders. They had died on this date, in this city, exactly thirty-four years ago.

Here's another point to consider: Boone Smith was shot through the brain, his wife through the heart. Only the one bullet ever recovered, as you know. The one pulled from my neck. A .38 Special. And now here I was. Their only child, the only survivor of that day's carnage, back in town with fifty rounds in my pocket and a newly purchased Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver. You see?

There was a lovely symmetry to it. Even, you might say, a certain ­inevitability.

•   •   •

BEAMER BEASLEY HAD
talked about a volcano. The one that erupted, spewing rocks and ash, after lying dormant for more than a century. The metaphor had given me pause.

But it was a different image that took root in my mind this morning. I thought of a bear. How a hibernating bear will sleep through long winter months, its chest rising and falling, dreaming sweet dreams of honey. But wake that same bear, provoke it, and it will attack with speed and savagery, biting and slashing with claws like knives. There is no way to know which bear you may encounter—placid or violent—when you stand at the mouth of the cave, peering into the dark.

Standing on Ethan Sinclare's front porch felt a little like that.

I had hesitated when he invited me here. His home, his territory, his terms. At least it would be private, I reasoned. On the phone last night he told me that he had been away, traveling. I was lucky to have caught him. He was driving up to his lake house tonight; his wife, Betsy, was already there. Today, though, he was in Atlanta, picking up fresh clothes and running errands. Why didn't I drop by the house for lunch? Something casual, sandwiches and Cokes. He knew a deli that made an outstanding pastrami on rye. He would pick us up a couple, some chips and pickles, too.

Sinclare gave me an address on Tuxedo Road, in the heart of Buckhead. I left the rental car parked at my hotel and took the bus. It dropped me three blocks away, and as I walked, I studied the houses. They were large and set deep in rolling lawns. This was old-money, establishment Atlanta. A van from a pool-cleaning service sat parked in the next-door driveway. From across the street came the whine of a leaf blower. Otherwise the only sign of life was two middle-aged women dressed head to toe in Lululemon, blond ponytails bobbing in unison as they power walked past.

Sinclare opened the door while my finger was still pressing the buzzer. He must have been watching as I picked my way up the prettily curved stone path.

“Caroline.” He extended his hand, took mine in a warm grip. “How good to see you.”

He closed and locked the door behind us, then led the way past the front stairs, past the living room, into a large and sunny kitchen. A round table in the window was set for two. Bone china, linen napkins and place mats, stemmed crystal glasses. I raised my eyebrows.

“I'm afraid you're still stuck with pastrami and pickles.” He smiled. “Betsy would be furious, though, if I didn't at least serve it to you on the good china. Southern ladies and their place settings! Don't tell her I skipped the real silver. Too damn much trouble. You can't throw it in the dishwasher when you're done.”

“I'm sorry to miss meeting her.”

“She'll be sorry, too, when she hears that she missed you. We keep a cabin on a lake, up in the northeast corner of the state. Lake Burton.”

I know,
I wanted to say. “That must be nice.”

“Good fishing. And quiet, especially this time of year. Betsy spends more and more of her time up there. She tears through three or four books a week, mysteries and romance and that type thing. And of course the dog loves it. He keeps the squirrel population of Rabun County pretty much terrorized to the point of extinction.”

“And you? Do you make it up often?”
Were you there last month, like your wife says you were, that night when someone broke into my house?

“Every chance I get. These gadgets make it easier, don't they?” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and laid it on the counter. “Client has no idea where you are, whether you're in the office or out tying fishing lines on your dock.” He smiled again. His face was tanned and cleanly shaven, if thinner than the last time I'd seen him. He was still a handsome, handsome man. You didn't have to work hard to imagine how attractive Ethan Sinclare must have been in his prime.

“But enough about the lake. What brings you to Atlanta? You look
ravishing, if you don't mind an old man saying so. I was glad to read your surgery went so smoothly.”

“Thank you. I'm doing well. And I never had the chance to thank you for your generosity at the St. Regis. Picking up my hotel bill. That was incredibly kind.”

He waved his hand in a think-nothing-of-it gesture. “Least I could do for the daughter of Boone Smith.”

“It's funny, though. At breakfast . . . when we had breakfast that morning, you never mentioned that you also know my family in Washington. The Cashions.”

For a fraction of a second, Ethan looked taken by surprise. Then he turned to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of what looked like lemonade. “Here, set this on the table, would you please? Let's get these sandwiches unwrapped.”

I walked the pitcher to the table and filled two crystal goblets, then used a tea towel to wipe the condensation from the sides and handle. When I turned back around, he was at the counter, watching me with an expression I could not read. The atmosphere in the room had sharpened, as though we both sensed that the pleasantries were concluded, and from this moment forward it would be important to pick each word with care.

“My mother—Frannie Cashion, I mean—recognized you in a ­photograph. She says you've known each other since I was a little girl.”

“It's a small, small world, isn't it? That's right. It's been years since we saw them. Thomas and Frannie. Used to bump into them every now and again at legal conferences.”

“Why didn't you tell me you knew them?”

“Never crossed my mind. Didn't make the connection until later.”

I frowned. “At breakfast we talked about how my father and brother are lawyers in Washington. Cashion is an unusual name. You send my family a Christmas card every year. How could you not—”

“Just didn't. Guess I'm getting old. I was caught up in the fact that I was sitting there sipping coffee across from Boone's daughter, all these
years later. Didn't give any thought to the name of the family that adopted you. I mean, what are the chances I'd know them, too?”

“Exactly. What are the chances?”

“Small world.”

I started closing in. “You called our house last month. You talked to Mom—”

“That's right. I called as soon as I figured out the connection.”

“But you didn't mention it. You didn't tell her that you and I had met. You didn't tell her we'd just had breakfast together in Atlanta. You acted like it was just a casual phone call to say hello—”

“Caroline.” His voice had an unmistakable edge. “You've had a hell of a month. I'm sure it's been hard on you. Shall we get these sandwiches out on plates? Or do you maybe want to wrap yours up to take with you?”

“I went to Nantucket,” I whispered. “As I think you know, since you called my hotel twice, looking for me. I talked to Verlin Snow. He wasn't with you the day that Boone and Sadie Rawson died.”

“I beg your pardon? What are you talking about?”

“Not the whole day, anyway. You made him lie to the police for you.”

Ethan stared at me. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you needed an alibi.”

“Now listen here. I don't know what's gotten into you, what all this nonsense is.” As his mouth shaped the words, before I understood what was happening, he was around the counter and on me. With one hand he pinned both my arms behind me, and with the other he pressed down on the stitches on my neck, hard.

I cried out in pain.

“Are you wearing a wire?” he hissed in my ear. His hand moved down my neck to my back, searching under my arms, around the ­underwire of my bra, around the waist of my skirt, down the backs of my thighs. At last he released me and stepped back.

“Why did you come here?” he panted. “What is it you want?”

I had so many questions. What had happened that day on Eulalia Road, I mean what exactly? Why hadn't he killed me, too, finished me off when he'd had the chance? And last month, in my home in Georgetown—what had he planned to do, if my bedroom door hadn't held? If I hadn't leapt from the window and run? Would he have killed me first, or would he have dug the bullet from my neck while I was still alive?

What I heard myself ask was this: “Did you love her?”

His eyes had gone cold. “Sadie Rawson Smith was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. You don't hold a candle to her, if you want to know the truth.”

If that had been all he said—if he had stopped, if he had left it there—I might still have turned and walked away. Walked out the front door, dropped the revolver in the bushes, kept right on going. Perhaps it was enough to know the truth. Perhaps that's all people mean by closure. To understand what happened, to understand you can't undo it, to find the strength to walk away.

Ethan didn't stop there, though. He didn't leave it. “Be careful, Caroline.” His voice was so low I had to strain to hear. “Be very careful. I'd hate for anything ever to happen to Frannie.”

“You bastard! You wouldn't.”

But, yes, he might. Ethan Sinclare stood there, his eyes like dull coal and his lips stretched in a dangerous smile. At my hotel this morning, when I had lain in bed imagining this conversation, it had uncoiled in grainy black and white. It had been like my Ingrid Bergman nightmares: a long buildup, tension ratcheting scene by scene. But I never made it all the way to the end, to this precise moment. His face had kept dissolving. The picture kept fading to black. Before my finger wrapped around the trigger. Before I had to make a choice.

Ethan and I looked at each other and I thought I saw him twitch right.

Now it was my turn to move and I reached for my bag and he
reached for me and his hands were on my neck and my finger was on the trigger and I pulled.

It is amazing how steady you shoot when you can hold the gun with both your hands.

•   •   •

I SHOT HIM
twice.

Two times.

Bang. Bang.

There would have been a nice symbolism to shooting him once more—one bullet each for me, for Boone, and for Sadie Rawson. But he was already facedown on the kitchen floor, lying on his stomach, black blood spreading like tar across the tiles. I forced myself to count to ten. He did not move.

My hands were trembling and my ears roared and only one thought cut through the noise:
Get out of here
. I grabbed his cell phone and dropped it into my purse. With a napkin I swiped shaky circles along the top and side edges of the counter. I had been keeping track of everything I touched, had been careful to clean my prints from the lemonade pitcher before I'd placed it on the table. I would need to wipe down the front doorbell on my way out. What else?

I glanced down and realized dark droplets were sprayed across my white blouse. His blood. With unsteady fingers I began undoing buttons. One of them was slick and wet and I thought I might be sick. I would have to wear my wool overcoat with nothing underneath until I could retrieve my overnight bag and a fresh shirt. I would wad this soiled one in a plastic sack and carry it with me until I could shove it deep into a Dumpster somewhere. I was still fumbling with the buttons when I heard something. From behind me, from the far corner of the kitchen, came a whimper.

I spun around. Standing in a low doorway, such as might lead to a laundry room, or to the back stairs, stood a woman. A petite, blond,
older woman wearing a tennis skirt and white sneakers. Her eyes wide with shock.

Impossible.

“What have you done?” she moaned.

I had a five-shot revolver. I had three bullets left.

I raised my arm and trained my gun on Betsy Sinclare.