Start with Chapter 1

CHAPTER 27

March 22 – April 4, 1979

Parked across the street from Adamson’s, Dean and Guthrie had Alex Smith’s car in clear sight. Guthrie had left his car nearby and sat with Dean in the chief’s personal car, a light gray Caprice Classic Landau Coupe. Dean had borrowed it, knowing Alex had seen Dean’s car. He may well have seen the chief’s, but not that Dean specifically knew of.

Guthrie handed Dean a black coffee in a styrofoam cup with a plastic lid on top. Dean lifted the lid, took a sip, and set the cup in the plastic cup holder hanging on the door.

“I’ve never done surveillance before, so what’s the drill?” Guthrie looked around for someplace to place the plastic lid on his cup, gave up, and held it in his free hand.

Dean smiled. “Pretty boring really. Sit and watch. Stay awake. Stay alert. If he moves, follow. Be discreet. I’d rather lose him than let him know we’re following. Keep track of everything.” He tapped the notepad sitting on the seat between them, a pen hooked to its spiral binding. “Have an extra pen?”

Guthrie shook his head.

“Here.” Dean had three in his coat pocket, pulled out a blue Bic at random, and gave it to Guthrie. “Record time and people. And if he’s driving, include the vehicle make, model, and license. I’m guessing he’ll be driving his own. And note any other things that seem relevant. We’re hoping he goes someplace of interest to us. It’s only the two of us, so one of us gets the night shift.”

“I’ll take it.” He looked at Dean. “I need a few nights off from the wife. She’s on me about fixing stuff around the house. Jesus, I’m just too lazy to do it.”

Dean nodded. He looked out the window. He thought Guthrie was seeking a response from him, but he was not sure he wanted to go there. Marriage conversations meant he had to talk about his failed one. In the end, he could not leave his fellow detective hanging out there. “How long you been married?”

“Fifteen years. She’s a saint.”

Dean chuckled. “Okay. We’ll keep her off your back. I’ll radio you my location at nine so you can take over.”

“I bet you never had that issue.”

Dean gave him a closed lip smile. “We had others.” He rubbed his fingers across his lips. “Cindy was a saint too. Remember that. They’re the saints and we’re the morons.” He patted Guthrie on the shoulder, who nodded and left the car to go home and sleep in preparation for that night’s watch.

And so began a week’s long surveillance operation watching Alex go from home to work to the Shambles to home to repeat it all the next day, except on the weekends, when Alex left his parents’ home on Saturday night to go to the Shambles. Josh and Corey showed up at the Shambles on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but no other days. Sarah never made an appearance. The logs the detectives kept were monotonous. An alternating set of black—Dean’s notes—and blue ink—Guthrie’s notes. Beyond boring.

After a week, Dean called a temporary halt to the surveillance. The next day, he decided they instead should watch Josh. His behavior previously, his weird statements, added up to something, so Dean thought. Without consulting the chief, they resumed their alternate shifts with a new notebook. Guthrie agreed to work it on his own time, so they did not watch over him during his normal working hours or in the small hours of the night. Guthrie would watch Josh go into the store and report to the station. Dean would arrive around lunch and sit on Josh until the evening. Guthrie would then watch until he was certain the target had called it a night.

Josh worked longer hours and went out less frequently. More boring. After five days, Dean was about to call the whole thing quits, but he decided to give it one more day. He would never know what intuition told him to stick it out one more day. In the end, he was not sure he welcomed it, bittersweet as it turned out to be.

However, Dean did decide to give it that extra day. Josh left work at 2:02 p.m., alone, and in his ’76 blue Mercury Cougar, license plate 406-BPH, with a 1978 re-validation sticker.

Josh pulled out of the Bridewell’s parking lot and headed north toward High Street, turning east onto it. Not his normal route home. Dean followed a ways behind. As Josh came up to the short jog that split it into two one-way streets—High Street and Clemson Street—he took Clemson. Then past the grain mill’s beige and grey siding, where the freight train tracks ran on the southern side, and out beyond town—where Clemson turned into Route 43, into the countryside where the occasional house loomed from a long driveway and fields not yet planted dominated the landscape.

Dean dropped farther behind, worried that being out of Zion exposed him more. A Buick came up behind him, paused, and passed, and he sped up to regain some ground.

Josh drove on Route 43 for ten minutes before turning south onto a small paved road with a leaning, rusting road sign that read 100S. Dean drove past the turn off and double-backed after a mile, turning onto 100S. He drove slowly down the road, past a two-story farm house. A truck was parked in the gravel driveway. After that, the paved road narrowed to a single lane that had not been re-paved for years. The fields gave way to trees, a tall, thick forest of virgin wood: maples, ashes, and birches.

After ten minutes of driving slowly, he saw Josh’s car pulled off to the side of the road, in the grass. Dean stopped his car, eased it in reverse, and backed up a quarter of a mile. He pulled off the road and maneuvered the coupe into the woods, hoping it would not be visible should Josh decide to leave.

Dean stayed in the woods but followed the road back to Josh’s car. He listened for any sounds beyond the rustle of the trees in the breeze, dropping down from the canopy. With every loud crack, he stopped and looked around. Some animal somewhere, he told himself. About twenty-five yards from Josh’s car, he crouched behind a large maple tree.

Josh was not in the car. Dean looked around trying to guess which direction he would have gone, looking for some clue. He reasoned Josh had not walked too far, but what did that mean? By the way Josh had driven out here, he had some purpose and had done it before. Dean retreated back toward his car fifty yards. He would wait for Josh, but he needed to be sure he was out of sight from whatever direction he would return. He leaned against the tree, briefly the image of Billy’s body flashing across his mind. He pulled out the flask and took a pull, but he forced himself to not light a cigarette. The old Marine discipline kicking in.

After two hours huddling against the tree and pulling his sport coat around him tight to ward off the chill, he heard voices and then footsteps, though he could not tell from what direction. Crouching behind the tree now, he looked behind him to ensure they were not coming up on him.

The more steps they took and the more they talked, the more he knew his position was secure. He thought back to the car and wished he had camouflaged it better, but too late now. He recognized Josh’s voice. The other, a man’s voice but just barely audible, he could not make out. Josh and the other man were on the same side of the forest as Josh’s car. Wherever they were coming from, it was from the southwest.

“I’m not liking this,” said Josh.

The other responded but not loud enough for Dean to make out the words. He peered around the edge of the tree, but they were not yet visible. The sun was getting low in the sky. In the forest, it seemed even darker.

“But what if he does that to us too?” asked Josh.

A reply.

“You don’t think so?”

Dean looked toward Josh’s car. He saw two men, one of which he knew was Josh though he could not make him out in the dimming light and shadows. One of them opened the trunk and the sound of something—not hard, not heavy but not light either—landing in it.

“You’re sure it’ll be all right?” asked Josh.

The companion did not reply, but he put his hand on Josh’s shoulder and patted it.

“Fine.”

Both of them got into Josh’s car, who conducted a three-point turn and sped back toward Route 43. As they passed, Dean did not risk exposing himself to see who the passenger might be. Josh did not slow down as they passed his car.

Tempted as he was to head off in the direction Josh had come from, Dean figured it was a fool’s errand at this time of day with night approaching and only an initial direction. Josh and his companion may very well have taken many turns. No, better to come back in the morning, with daylight, Guthrie, and a couple from patrol. He walked through the woods back to his car, hugging the edge of the road.

As he drove back to Zion, he contemplated the scene that had just unfolded. He would have bet Josh’s companion was Alex but perhaps Corey. And he would have bet they were moving drugs. Perhaps their storehouse was in the woods. Hunches all, but they thrilled him. The chase. The waiting in the darkening woods. The deducing of actions, motives, and people. All of it felt like a wonderful high. He had felt this before. In battle. In New York. If not for this case, he might have forgotten altogether that feeling, a dim memory sinking backward into some daze of a different self.

Can't wait for the next chapter next week? Order your copy ($2.99) here:

B&N