The Shop (6 page)

First thing you saw when you reached the outskirts of Gardenia was the pulp mill, which looked like a giant scorched shuttlecock. Beyond the pulp mill was a labyrinth of gray buildings and industrial pipes. Sometime in the late nineteenth century, the sign “Iolanthe Paper Company” had been affixed to a trestle above the main building. The sign, lit by two dim lamps from above, featured a beauty with long flowing hair and tiny wings—Iolanthe, Queen of the Fairies.

Iolanthe was Big Paper in the Land of Big Paper. Jolie’s family, the Haddoxes, sold out in the early seventies, laying the groundwork for two Haddox senators and a plum cabinet job, culminating in regular visits by the vice president.

Hard to be unmoved by such grandeur, but Jolie managed to keep a sense of perspective.

The Royal Court Apartments weren’t royal at all, but just a regular stucco rectangle two stories high. Cramped little balconies fronted sliding glass doors.

Jolie didn’t turn in the first time, but drove around the block and came back up the side street. On that first pass, she spotted a car parked alongside the outer wall of the apartments next to the office. A 1960s-era convertible. Cherry red, cherry condition. The writing on the trunk said
Ford Starliner
. A U-Haul truck was parked nose-out from the apartment closest to the office.

The sky was baleful red, the last light of day. As Jolie drove in from the right side of the parking lot, a wind blew in all the way from the Gulf, hot and pregnant with rain and dust, foul-smelling from the paper mill. An ill wind, rattling the tall palms out front like sabers. It buffeted the car as she slowed. The door to the office was wide open, and the wind caught angry voices and kited them into the ether.

A dark shape materialized in the doorway. As Jolie watched, it bent into a lurching run toward the U-Haul—a tall man, awkward running style, one arm folded across the other.

Hurt.

Young.

He could have been hit, knifed, or shot. She would assume whoever was inside had a gun, or a knife, or both.

Jolie stopped the car on a diagonal partway between the office and the U-Haul. Got out, crab-walked her way around the open door, and crouched behind the engine block. From there she could see both the office doorway and the U-Haul.

Glad she’d thought to wear her vest.

Another gust of wind and the office door blew shut. The angry diatribe continued.

She concentrated on the wounded man, now hunkered down by the front right tire of the box truck.

She identified herself and shouted, “You by the U-Haul truck. Sit down. Sit down now.”

The man complied, trying to keep his hands out toward Jolie despite the injured arm.

“Cross your legs. Do it now.”

He did.

“Put your good hand on top of your head. Do it now.”

He did it—painfully.

“Do not move.” She keyed the mic and got the Palm County dispatcher—Lonnie—and blurted out the code for officer needing assistance. She told Lonnie the subject inside had a weapon and asked for paramedics. Keeping her SIG trained on the man sitting by the U-Haul, Jolie also kept an eye on the office door. On the radio she heard distant chattering sounds—Palm County on another frequency. Another voice, another code. That would be the Gardenia PD. They’d be closer, even though technically it was not their jurisdiction. On her drive over, Jolie had checked to see if the Royal Court Apartments was inside or outside the Gardenia city limits. They were outside.

Which made this hers.

Lonnie said, “Palm County and Gardenia PD are on their way. What are you wearing?”

Lonnie was asking so they wouldn’t mistake Jolie for the bad guy. “Jeans, a white tee, navy windbreaker.”

“All units are responding.”

The guy sat on the asphalt Indian-style as Jolie had instructed him. In the sodium arc lights she could see his dark blood, slick and shiny, where his shoulder met his forearm. She worried he would bleed out. She wanted to instruct him to take his hand off his head and stanch the wound as hard as he could with the palm of his hand, but she couldn’t do that. The units would be here in minutes, but Jolie found herself counting down the seconds. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand.

Time stretched. Adrenaline, at first quicksilver running to her extremities, started to recede. She had to be sure her strength and resolve wouldn’t go along with it. Hoped she wouldn’t be here alone long enough for her body to let down completely and start shaking.

But her bigger problem was the guy on the ground. Jolie didn’t want him dying on her watch.

Inside the office, the shouting continued, riddled with expletives. Jolie worried that whoever had the gun might shoot someone else. But there was nothing she could do about that. All she could do was maintain the status quo.

Ten-one-thousand, eleven-one-thousand
.

Jolie kept her eyes on the man by the U-Haul. It was as if he’d been preserved in amber. His hand remained on top of his head, and Jolie saw no weakness there. He’d probably be all right. He wore cargo shorts, a surfer’s shirt, and boat shoes. In the yellow light, his face was stamped with his heritage along with his pain. Pakistani or Indian. Even sitting down he was amazingly tall. A beanpole.

The yelling turned up a notch. “I can’t believe this. You sneak off with your boyfriend, and I get left behind to deal with the cops?”

The yelling man must have moved closer to the window, because now she heard whole sentences. The voice was familiar.

She heard a woman’s voice but couldn’t make out the words.

“How do you know?” the man demanded.

The female mumbled something unintelligible.

“How do you
know
? They aren’t dumb. One thing’s for sure—I’m not going down for this. I didn’t do anything!”

The woman spoke, her voice barely there. If cringing was a tone of voice, this was it. “…be all right. You just… ”

“So what happened? The three of you got together and said, ‘Let’s get Royce in on this, string him along, and
let him take the fall
’?”

Royce Brady. The owner of the Starliner Motel.

“…wasn’t like…”

“Screw the old guy, huh? Like you really had the hots for me. How could I be so stupid? You guys having a threesome? Is that it? Are you and your boyfriend meeting that lying bitch somewhere while I sit here waiting for a knock on the door?”

“You shot Niraj. He’ll go to the cops—”

“I don’t give a shit. The way I feel right now, I might just call them myself. All I did was look the other way. That’s all I did, but you…
you
. You set the poor fucker
up
!”

What Jolie was hearing was an impromptu confession. She saw it as a gift.

“Poor bastard…poor fucking fool didn’t know he was sleeping with a goddamn viper!”

The woman said something else Jolie couldn’t catch.

The man again: “I come here, thinking you and I had a thing, and there’s this fucking
camel jockey—
” A pause. “It was all a lie, wasn’t it? He didn’t beat his wife.”

The girl, whimpering now. “Please…”

He mimicked a female voice. “
Oh, Royce, she’s scared to death he’s going to kill her!
That was bullshit, wasn’t it, Amy? Like everything else—just something you two girls cooked up to get me on your side.”

Amy and Maddy.

Jolie realized that something had been bothering her all along, but she’d ignored it. Now, though, it all became clear. She recalled the sequence of events—Amy Perdue driving up Chief Akers’s street this morning. An hour later, Maddy Akers drove into Bizzy’s parking lot, just as Jolie caught up with Amy.

Just happened to show up.

Jolie flashed on the interrogation. The way Maddy gave it up so quickly. Jolie had thought at the time how it was like pushing over a domino.

We suicide widows have to stick together
.

Maddy Akers had played her.

Before going in to interrogate Amy Perdue, Jolie found a quiet spot and tried to put herself in Amy’s place. On a notepad, she wrote four reasons why Amy might have helped Maddy Akers set up Chief Akers’s murder. Jolie would try one rationale after another, until one of them worked.

All you did was arrange to meet Chief Akers at the motel?

Did you think you’d lose your job if you didn’t help your boss?

Was Maddy afraid of Chief Akers?

Did Chief Akers threaten to kill Maddy?

Amy wasn’t the prime target here. Maddy was. Jolie wanted to make it easy for Amy to give up Maddy Akers. Her job was to find the right lever to pull.

To keep Amy around, Jolie was holding her on a domestic violence charge—Royce Brady claimed she’d hit him—but in a few minutes, she would tell Amy she was no longer under arrest. She would tell Amy that her only goal was to take Amy’s statement and get her side of the story.

She’d already interviewed the gunshot victim, Niraj Bandhu, at the medical center in Panama City, and Royce Brady. Brady corroborated what Jolie had already surmised: that Maddy Akers had made her husband’s death look like a covered-up suicide, when in actuality it was a homicide.

Interesting how it unraveled. Royce had thought he and Amy had a thing going, but when he dropped in on her unexpectedly at the Royal Court Apartments, he found out about Niraj, Amy’s boyfriend.

“She set me up,” Royce told Jolie. “I didn’t even know what they were doing until I got to the room and saw him lying there dead.”

He told her Maddy was desperate to escape her bad marriage, that her husband had threatened to kill her.

The gunshot victim, Niraj, had known nothing about the scheme, but he did fill in a few blanks. He told Jolie about the five thousand dollars Amy said she’d be getting soon. Amy told him it was money from a dead uncle. She told Niraj that as soon as she got the money, she’d move in with her cousin in Baton Rouge. He could stay or go—up to him. When she got the money, she’d be gone. She’d rented a U-Haul and had started to move the furniture.

The image of Maddy Akers searching the brush at pond after pond looking for guns and cell phones made Jolie laugh out loud. Despite the fact she’d been fooled, she couldn’t help but admire the way Maddy’s mind worked.

The two of them, beating their way through the bushes—what a show. Wherever Maddy had thrown the weapons, she would never have taken Jolie to the spot.

It was clear Maddy knew about Danny’s suicide. It was common knowledge. She’d used Jolie’s own feelings about her husband’s suicide against her.

The theory was this: Amy lured Chief Akers to the motel, and Maddy snuck up on him and shot him point-blank. In one inspired stroke, Maddy deflected attention away from the act of homicide by making it appear to be a covered-up suicide, eliminating the spouse as primary suspect in the bargain. Not only that, but she’d provided a viable explanation for any trace evidence she might have left at the scene.

It was a brilliant, audacious plan.

But Maddy’s scheme fell apart, as brilliant schemes often did, when she relied on the wrong people.

Amy Perdue looked small and childlike, her limp red hair concealing half her face.

Jolie led her through the confrontation with Royce Brady. As the injured party, Amy was cooperative. She was the wronged woman, a victim of domestic violence.

“No idea why he was so angry?”

“No. It was like he had a crush on me or something. It was crazy. He said really crazy things.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, just crazy stuff. He was paranoid. Like a paranoid schizophrenic. Why? What did you hear?”

“You work for Maddy, right?”

“Uh-huh. Did—” She stopped.

“Did what?”

“Nothing. Can I go now?”

“Just a few questions and we’re through.” Jolie smiled.

“Okay. It’s just, I’m really tired and it’s been so scary and I want to see Niraj. I want to see if he’s okay. Is he all right?”

“Niraj is fine.” Jolie leaned forward so their legs were almost touching. “Amy, was Maddy afraid of her husband?”

Jolie noticed that every time Amy got nervous, the leg crossed over her knee bounced. Right now Amy’s legs were going like a jackhammer. “How would I know?”

“Royce said you were worried about Maddy Akers because her husband beat her. He even threatened to kill her.”

“Is that what Royce said? She did mention something about that.”

“So Maddy thought he was going to kill her?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“Thing is,” Jolie said, “Royce said that you and Maddy planned to kill Chief Akers and make it look like a suicide. He said you asked him for help because the chief was beating his wife and he threatened to kill her.”

“That’s bullshit!” Her legs shook so much, the one on top slid off, hitting the floor with a smack.

“Is it? He went into a lot of detail.”

Amy kept quiet, but Jolie saw something in her eyes. More than worry—the beginnings of panic.

“You know what I think?” Jolie said. “Maddy’s a bad influence on people. Telling Royce that her husband wanted to kill her. That wasn’t even true, was it?”

Amy concentrated on the table.

“Maddy lied to Royce. I bet she lied to you, too. It sounds to me like she used you. She told you she was afraid for her life. I can understand you’d be sympathetic—it’s not easy being a woman. Domestic violence isn’t taken seriously, is it? Men threaten their wives, and you just know some day they’re going to do it. It happens all the time. So I can see how you’d believe her. Why
wouldn’t
you believe her?”

Amy opened her mouth to say something. Stopped.

Jolie said, “To me, that’s just plain self-defense. If my husband told me he was going to kill me, I surely would try to kill him first. I’m not going to wait there like a sitting duck.”

Amy took a deep breath. Said in a small voice: “She told me he hired a hit man to kill her. He said it could happen any time. She was terrified.”

“And you believed her. Who wouldn’t?”

“If I told you what she did, what would happen to me? I mean, what kind of deal would I get? Would I have to do jail time?”

“Amy, if Maddy lied to you about her husband wanting to kill her, if she used you, that would be a mitigating circumstance. If you’re forthcoming about this, I could talk to the state attorney, see what he thinks…”

She looked relieved. She wanted to talk.

Here we go
.

“What if I had something to trade?”

“Trade?”

“So I wouldn’t have to do jail time.”

“That’s up to the state attorney.”

“What if I knew about something…” She twisted her hair. “You know, something bigger?”

Jolie stared at her.

“Something really huge.”

Jolie said, “You’re going to have to tell me more about it.”

“If we can work out a deal, if you can promise me I won’t go to jail, I’ll tell you.”

“I can’t make that promise.”

“Then I’m not telling.”

“Amy—”

“Do you have a safe house?”

A safe house. Jolie realized something big was happening. It was time to talk to the state attorney. She stood up. “I’ve got to go to the little girl’s room. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She opened the door and collided with her detective sergeant, Skeet.

It was not a pleasant experience. He shoved her back a little, hands clamped on her forearms, his bovine face blocking out the fluorescents above like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon. “Whoa there, you in a hurry?”

He looked beyond her. “That Amy Perdue you got in there?” He leaned in through the doorway and spoke directly to Amy. “Ma’am? Amy Perdue? Your lawyer said to tell you he’s on his way.”

Jolie’s disbelief turned quickly to anger as she realized what had happened. She looked back at Amy—who was as surprised as she was.

Amy didn’t have a lawyer. Correction: she didn’t
know
she had a lawyer. Jolie stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind her, and said to Skeet, “What are you doing?” She didn’t know whether he understood the ramifications of his action or not. Skeet was dumb, but he also had a perverse streak.

Skeet’s mouth turned up slightly at the corner. It made him look even dumber. “You’re going to have to be clearer than that.”

“How’s this for clear?” Jolie said. “You just shut my interrogation down.”

Jolie left Amy in the interview room to wait for her lawyer. From the moment Skeet poked his head in, Amy was off-limits—it was as if Amy’s fairy godmother had come in and waved a magic wand. While she waited, Jolie called Sheriff Johnson at home and asked for a surveillance team on Maddy Akers. She didn’t mention Skeet’s blunder or her reaction to it. There was no point. Tim Johnson was a good sheriff in a lot of ways, but he let Skeet do what he pleased. The reason Tim didn’t do anything about Skeet was because Skeet was married to the mayor’s cousin.

“Surveillance? What are they looking for?” the sheriff said.

“Anything out of the ordinary. If she goes anywhere, I want them to follow her. They’ll need two cars. I want to know right away if Amy goes by to see her.”

She was thinking about the five thousand dollars Amy had coming. Jolie thought it was from Maddy for services rendered. “I’m asking for a warrant, for her financial dealings and also her house.”

“You think you have probable cause?”

“Don’t know unless I try. I’m thinking Doug Sharpe.” Doug Sharpe was a judge who was known to be supportive of law enforcement.

“His wife is in a bridge club with Mrs. Akers.”

“I’ll have to take my chances.”

The ringing phone woke Jolie. The clock said eight fifteen. Jolie’d had about six hours of sleep after being up thirty-eight hours. Typical, when a homicide was going. She lay in bed, let the answering machine pick it up.

A woman’s voice drifted in from the other room—agitated.

Jolie ran for the phone.

“Amy?”

“Oh. You’re there.” She paused. “My lawyer said I shouldn’t talk to you. I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Then why are you?”

“Because…I think they’re after me.” She blurted it out.

“Who’s after you?”