Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [67]
After a while, twenty or thirty minutes, Landry returned the rake to the barn. Then he and the other man went back into the house.
Taking out the little notebook Burt had given him, Archer opened it and wrote on the first page.
Pretty lady left the house in a little white car.
Mr. Landry walked to the pond.
Another man came outside and talked to Mr. Landry.
Mr. Landry went into the barn and came out with a rake and raked some leaves under the tree.
The other man sat on the back steps and watched Mr. Landry and kept looking around.
Archer couldn’t think of anything else to write, so he lay on the ground and looked up into the sky. A flock of birds flew overhead, so many he couldn’t even begin to count them all. They landed in the trees above him, and he lay perfectly still so as to not scare them away. After a while he grew cold, and he decided he’d had enough for one day. When he stood, the birds directly overhead took off, followed by the others; for a minute, the sky was black with them. He grabbed his jacket and walked farther into the woods before putting it on, just in case that other man was looking into the woods with binoculars of his own. The thought spooked him, and he hurried along, hoping that Burt would come along soon to pick him up.
Daylight had already started to fade, and suddenly thoughts of ghostly redcoats taunted him. He walked faster and faster, his breath coming in ragged bursts, as he headed toward the road. He breathed a sigh of relief once he reached the tree line, then paused to lean against a red oak, trying to catch his breath. He patted his pocket for the notebook, and his heart took a dive when he realized it wasn’t there. He searched the jacket and the back pockets of his pants, even though he knew he didn’t have the notebook.
He knew where it was. Right there on the ground where he’d dropped it while he was watching the birds.
Oh, shit. Now what . . . ?
Burt was going to have a fit, that’s what.
Archer looked behind him. The woods appeared even more foreboding than they had just minutes earlier.
He looked back toward the road. Burt would be along any time now to pick him up.
Burt was not going to be happy. The thought of Burt sent fear into Archer’s very bones.
He turned back to the trees.
Ghosts or Burt?
He thought about the way Burt’s eyes narrowed and seemed to glow like the devil’s when he got really mad about something.
Archer buttoned his jacket against the chill and hurried back into the woods. He’d take his chances with the redcoats.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Will leaned over the desk, the phone up against his right ear, while he took notes on the back of an envelope.
“That would be great, yeah. That’s what we’ll need. Thanks. I owe you one. . . .”
He hung up the phone and opened a desk drawer, hoping to find a piece of paper to transfer his notes to, when he noticed Miranda in the doorway.
“That was Evan,” he told her as he opened the center drawer, rooted around, and found a pad of Post-its.
“Has he been able to identify the deputies who were on duty the day that Channing, Giordano, and Lowell were in the courthouse together?” She came into the office and draped herself over the back of the communal visitor’s chair, which somehow had found its way into Will’s cubicle today. A few days ago it had been in Miranda’s cubicle, and before that she remembered seeing it in Livvy Bach’s cubicle down the hall.
“He has the names, but he’s only been able to speak with three of them. They were all assigned to the front of the building when the courthouse went on lockdown that day. He still has several others to track down. One retired in August and moved to Phoenix; another is on vacation; and another one just entered the police academy. But Evan will keep on it.”
“If we can prove they were together, that they had opportunity to hatch this plan, we can go after Giordano on conspiracy charges.” She gazed into space, thinking out loud. “If nothing else, the threat alone might make Giordano open up.