Shaw assessed: nothing to do against a gun that’s eight paces distant and in the hand of somebody who clearly knows what to do with a weapon.
Odds of fighting: two percent.
Odds of negotiating your way out: no clue, but better.
Still, sometimes you have to make what seem like inane decisions. The wrestler in him lowered his center of gravity and debated how close he could get before he passed out after a gunshot to the torso. After all, lethal shots are notoriously difficult to make with pistols. Then he recalled: if this was the kidnapper, she’d killed Kyle Butler with a headshot from much farther away than this.
The grim-faced woman squinted and moved in, snapping with irritation, “Get down! Now!”
It wasn’t get down or I’m going to shoot you. It was get down, you’re in my goddamn way.
Shaw got down.
She jogged past him, her eyes on a line of trees that separated the trailer camp from a quiet road, the gun aimed in that direction. At the end of the drive, she stopped and peered through a dense growth of shrubs.
Shaw rose and quietly started for the Winnebago’s door again, pulling the keys from his pocket.
Eyes still on the trees, both hands on the gun, ready to shoot, the woman said in a blunt voice, “I told you. Stay down.”
Shaw knelt once more.
She pushed farther into the brush. A whisper: “Damn.” She turned around, holstering her weapon.
“Safe now,” she said. “You can get up.”
She walked to him, fishing in her pocket. Shaw wasn’t surprised when she displayed a gold badge. What he didn’t expect, though, was what came next: “Mr. Shaw, I’m Detective LaDonna Standish. I’d like to have a talk.”
30.
Shaw collected his computer bag from the clump of grass where he’d dropped it.
As he and Standish approached the Winnebago door, an unmarked police car squealed to a stop in front of the camper. Shaw recognized it. It was the same vehicle that had lit him up after the dramatic U-turn on his way to Henry Thompson’s condo. Officer P. Alvarez.
Shaw looked from the detective to the cop. “You were both following me?”
Standish said, “Double team tailing. The only way it works. Ought to be triple, but who can afford tying up three cars these days?” She continued: “Budget, budget, budget. Had to follow you myself last night. Peter here was free this morning.”
Alvarez said, “I didn’t want to have to pull you over but it’d been more suspicious if I didn’t. Was an impressive turn, Mr. Shaw. Stupid, like I said, but impressive.”
“I hope I don’t need to do it again.” He cast a dark glance toward Standish, who snickered. Shaw nodded to the bushes. “So, who’d you spot?”
“Don’t know,” she said with some irritation in her voice. “Had a report of somebody near your camper, possible trespasser. Smelled funky to me, all things considered.”
Her radio clattered. Another officer, apparently also cruising the area, had not spotted the suspect. Then came one more transmission, from a different patrolman. She told them to continue to search. She told Alvarez to do the same. When he drove off, she nodded toward the Winnebago. After Shaw unlocked the last lock, she preceded him inside.
The word warrant glanced off his thoughts. He let it go. He closed and locked the door behind them.
“You’ve got a California conceal carry,” she said. “Where’s your weapon? Or weapons?” She walked to his coffeepot and poked through the half dozen bags of ground beans in a basket bolted to the counter.
“The spice cabinet,” he said. “My carry weapon.”
“Spice cabinet. Hmm. And it’s a . . . ?”
“Glock 42.”
“Just leave it there.”
“And under the bed, a Colt Python .357.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Must be doing well in the reward business to afford one of those.”
“Was a present.”
“Other CCPs?”
A concealed carry permit in California is available only to residents. The California ticket doesn’t let you carry in many other states. He had a nonresidence permit issued by Florida and that was good in a number of jurisdictions. Shaw, though, rarely went around armed; it was a pain to constantly pay attention to where you could and couldn’t carry—schools and hospitals, for instance, were often no-gun zones. The laws varied radically from state to state.
Shaw said, “You thought I might be the kidnapper.”
“Crossed my mind at first. I confirmed your alibi, what you told Dan Wiley. Didn’t mean you weren’t working with somebody, of course. But snatching some soul and hoping her daddy’ll hand over a reward? Well, there’s stupid and then there’s stupid. I checked you out. You’re not either variety.”
He then understood why she’d been tailing him. “You were using me as bait.”
A shrug. “You went and ruined a play date for the perp. Got Sophie home safe. Pissed that boy off in a large way, I’m thinking. Pissed him off enough that he went out and did it again—with Henry Thompson.”
“That was the kidnapper following me?” A nod outside.
“Big mug of coincidence if it wasn’t. And if it’s like Sophie’s case he’d just leave Thompson on his own. Have himself plenty of free time to come visit you. If he was so inclined. As maybe he was. Unless you have other folks might want to have a few words with you? As I suspect might be the case, given your career.”
“Some. I’ve got people who keep an eye on that. And no reports of anything.”
Shaw’s friend and fellow rock climber Tom Pepper, former FBI, ran a security company in Chicago. He and Mack kept track of those felonious alumni of Shaw’s successful rewards jobs who’d threatened him.
He continued: “Description of the perp here?”
“Dark clothing. Nothing else. Nothing on the vehicle.”
“You said him.”
“Ah. Him or her.”
“Is Detective Wiley at Brian Byrd’s condo?”
She paused. “Detective Wiley is no longer with the Criminal Investigations Division of the Task Force.”
“He’s not?”
“I rotated him to Liaison.”
“You rotated him?”
Standish angled her head slightly. “Oh, you thought he was the boss and that I worked for him? Why would that be, Mr. Shaw? Because I’m”—there was a fat pause—“shorter?”