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Authors: Archer Mayor
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What else?”
No one answered. “How about a smoke screen?” he continued. “The old theory that you hide a needle best among other needles. Could be only one of the arsons really counts.”
“Then which one is the needle we want?” Shafer asked.
Gunther smiled. “That’s easier than it sounds. It may not matter. Again assuming that Loomis is an arson, we have three felonies to investigate anyhow. If you want to get technical, we don’t want to rule out two to find the one left over; we need to solve them all. If we’re successful, we’ll find out at the end.”
Now it was Michael’s turn to sit back. “But that was true from the start.”
Shafer couldn’t resist the dig. “Except that until now, we didn’t know to give Loomis a second look.”
Gunther gave Jonathon high marks—he merely pressed his lips together briefly before admitting, “Point taken.”
Joe tried to clear the air. “Okay, there are three of us and three roads to go down. Tim, you stick with Farley Noon; Jonathon, I know you have some of the Cutts case to organize, but while you recheck Loomis, let me carry the investigative load there. I suggest we get in touch every couple of days, face-to-face or by e-mail or phone, just to share updates. Also, I’m going to have someone at headquarters make a few calls, find out how many other farms in the area have gone on the block—when, where, why, and who bought them.”
He slid off the booth bench and stood up, looking down at them both. “You wanted something to chase, Tim. Guess we all got lucky—in spades.”
Chapter 7
DEPUTY SHERIFF LEON LEDOUX ROLLED HIS CRUISER slowly to a stop at the edge of the shopping mall parking lot, far away from the nearest light source. In general, his assignment here was simply to patrol the lot, giving comfort to merchants and instilling caution in those planning mischief. But he’d done that earlier, as he’d been doing for more years than he could count, and it had been as effective—or not—as usual. The trouble with such gestures, he’d discovered—the reason they were so void of satisfaction—was that success was measured by the absence of activity.
His immediate boss, the chief deputy, always asked him the same question when he checked in every night: “See anything at the mall?” And to Leon’s perpetual “Not a thing,” he always responded, “Good. That’ll teach ’em.”
Leon had a good idea who the “them” were. He was less convinced about the value of his supposed teaching.
Not that it mattered in the long run, since that conversation only applied to when the stores were open and people milling about. Later, there was no doubt about either Leon’s lesson plan or the people he hungered to instruct. All ambivalence or frustration was replaced by the thrill of the hunt.
For right now, long after hours, the chief deputy was asleep in his bed and Leon Ledoux was out to catch bad guys.
He’d been doing this for ten years, ever since he left the Marines and joined the department. By day, he served papers, stood around court, drove prisoners from one spot to another, and chased taillights—and made those “demonstrations of force” so dear to his boss’s heart. But by night, with the setting of the sun, as the glow from his car’s dashboard slowly replaced daylight, Leon felt his nondescript, bulky, uniformed persona metamorphose into something predatory and lithe, like a watchful panther.
Leon Ledoux lived for the night.
His cruiser dark, its engine running, he reached for the binoculars he kept under his seat, and trained them on a tight circle of figures clustered around a car before the abandoned Ames department store across the parking lot. The store’s black and featureless windows supplied a suggestively apocalyptic backdrop to what was clearly a drug deal under way.
“I got you, you bastard,” he murmured, still staring through the binoculars.
Leon lowered the glasses and surveyed the snow-dusted ground
No one answered. “How about a smoke screen?” he continued. “The old theory that you hide a needle best among other needles. Could be only one of the arsons really counts.”
“Then which one is the needle we want?” Shafer asked.
Gunther smiled. “That’s easier than it sounds. It may not matter. Again assuming that Loomis is an arson, we have three felonies to investigate anyhow. If you want to get technical, we don’t want to rule out two to find the one left over; we need to solve them all. If we’re successful, we’ll find out at the end.”
Now it was Michael’s turn to sit back. “But that was true from the start.”
Shafer couldn’t resist the dig. “Except that until now, we didn’t know to give Loomis a second look.”
Gunther gave Jonathon high marks—he merely pressed his lips together briefly before admitting, “Point taken.”
Joe tried to clear the air. “Okay, there are three of us and three roads to go down. Tim, you stick with Farley Noon; Jonathon, I know you have some of the Cutts case to organize, but while you recheck Loomis, let me carry the investigative load there. I suggest we get in touch every couple of days, face-to-face or by e-mail or phone, just to share updates. Also, I’m going to have someone at headquarters make a few calls, find out how many other farms in the area have gone on the block—when, where, why, and who bought them.”
He slid off the booth bench and stood up, looking down at them both. “You wanted something to chase, Tim. Guess we all got lucky—in spades.”
Chapter 7
DEPUTY SHERIFF LEON LEDOUX ROLLED HIS CRUISER slowly to a stop at the edge of the shopping mall parking lot, far away from the nearest light source. In general, his assignment here was simply to patrol the lot, giving comfort to merchants and instilling caution in those planning mischief. But he’d done that earlier, as he’d been doing for more years than he could count, and it had been as effective—or not—as usual. The trouble with such gestures, he’d discovered—the reason they were so void of satisfaction—was that success was measured by the absence of activity.
His immediate boss, the chief deputy, always asked him the same question when he checked in every night: “See anything at the mall?” And to Leon’s perpetual “Not a thing,” he always responded, “Good. That’ll teach ’em.”
Leon had a good idea who the “them” were. He was less convinced about the value of his supposed teaching.
Not that it mattered in the long run, since that conversation only applied to when the stores were open and people milling about. Later, there was no doubt about either Leon’s lesson plan or the people he hungered to instruct. All ambivalence or frustration was replaced by the thrill of the hunt.
For right now, long after hours, the chief deputy was asleep in his bed and Leon Ledoux was out to catch bad guys.
He’d been doing this for ten years, ever since he left the Marines and joined the department. By day, he served papers, stood around court, drove prisoners from one spot to another, and chased taillights—and made those “demonstrations of force” so dear to his boss’s heart. But by night, with the setting of the sun, as the glow from his car’s dashboard slowly replaced daylight, Leon felt his nondescript, bulky, uniformed persona metamorphose into something predatory and lithe, like a watchful panther.
Leon Ledoux lived for the night.
His cruiser dark, its engine running, he reached for the binoculars he kept under his seat, and trained them on a tight circle of figures clustered around a car before the abandoned Ames department store across the parking lot. The store’s black and featureless windows supplied a suggestively apocalyptic backdrop to what was clearly a drug deal under way.
“I got you, you bastard,” he murmured, still staring through the binoculars.
Leon lowered the glasses and surveyed the snow-dusted ground
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