Something Missing_ A Novel - Matthew Dicks [98]
Martin was impressed. This man clearly knew what he was doing.
Martin watched the man climb into a dark blue pickup truck, start the engine, and pull out of the lot. Quickening his pace, he managed to reach his Subaru in time to see the pickup turning left out of the parking lot and heading up the short side-street that connected to a main road. Moments later, Martin was turning left as well, onto Audubon Avenue, less than two hundred feet behind his quarry.
The chase was on.
Though Martin had tailed clients before, his previous endeavors were always preplanned and carefully staged. Prior to tailing a client, Martin would locate the client’s home and probable place of employment (whenever possible), and then map the likely routes between the two, allowing him to follow with ease. Occasionally a client might make an unexpected stop or detour, but in these cases it wasn’t critical for Martin to maintain his tail. If he lost the client in traffic or if he feared detection, he could always call off the chase and try again the next day. But in this case, he had just one chance. If he lost the intruder or was detected before he could identify the man’s home address, it was unlikely that he would have a second chance at uncovering the truth. And without this information, he would surely have to cancel the Pearls as clients immediately and leave his burning curiosity unsatisfied.
At the end of Audubon Avenue the pickup turned right, heading up the road toward the center of Newington. Martin had parked the Subaru in the center many times (it was one of his random parking spots for the Pearls’ home) and knew the area well. He was relieved. There would be plenty of traffic in which to conceal his car, and only one or two traffic lights to potentially interrupt the chase. At the next intersection, the pickup turned left onto Main Street and began a three-mile trip out of Newington and into neighboring West Hartford. Martin waved on the driver of a red Toyota Corolla before pulling onto Main Street, effectively placing the Corolla between his car and the pickup. This three-car procession continued for the entire drive into West Hartford, breaking up only when the Corolla made a right onto New Britain Avenue, heading toward Hartford, and the pickup made a left, proceeding further into Martin’s hometown.
Without the cover of another car, Martin immediately grew more anxious. He had read about vehicle surveillance in several criminal investigation texts and understood how difficult it was to follow a suspect alone. In order to avoid detection, police manuals suggest multiple units should participate in the surveillance, traveling on routes that are parallel to the suspect so that the surveillance vehicles can rotate as the suspect changes directions. Alone, Martin knew, the likelihood of following the intruder very far would depend upon his ability to put traffic between him and the pickup truck without losing his visual of his suspect.
Less than half a mile north on New Britain Avenue, the pickup turned right onto Quaker Lane. As Martin approached the intersection, he noticed a dark sedan in the opposite lane, its directional indicating the desire to turn left onto the same road. Though Martin had the right of way, he waved the sedan on, placing it between himself and the pickup.
One of the dangers of this tactic is falling behind your quarry if the driver of the middle car fails to drive fast enough, which quickly became the case now as the pickup began gaining ground on Martin and the sedan over the next half mile. Martin surmised that if he didn’t pass the slower-moving sedan soon, he would lose visual contact with the pickup altogether. Fortunately, the traffic light ahead split Quaker Lane into two. Martin waited until the sedan chose the left lane before pulling right in preparation to pass it. Before he could arrive at the next intersection,