FIRST DROP: Charlie Fox book four Read online

  The real Keith Pelzner stepped forwards. “I’m Pelzner,” he said, sounding resigned. “What’s he done this time, officer?”

  “Well, sir,” the sergeant said, glancing round meaningfully. “Maybe we could talk about this some place more private?”

  Keith sighed and started to lead them back towards the house.

  “I think I better be in on this one,” Gerri said. “Lonnie, get Juanita to show Charlie her room, then contact Jim and find out what the score is.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lonnie said smartly, and to me: “If you’d like to come this way?”

  “So,” I asked as I fell into step alongside him, “does the kid do this kind of thing a lot?”

  Lonnie rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah,” he said, a slight smirk forming as he recognised somebody further down the pecking order than he was. “But I guess you’ll find out soon enough – seeing as how you’re gonna be looking out for him.”

  He wouldn’t say much more, handing me over to the Hispanic maid in the hallway. On the way to my room I tried to gently pump Juanita for information about how much trouble Trey Pelzner managed to get himself into, and on what kind of regular basis. Either her English wasn’t good enough to understand the question, or she was being loyally tight-lipped. She just led me to the appropriate doorway, waved me inside with another smile, and departed.

  My room was in the block above the garaging, which makes it sound less luxurious than it really was. Suite would be a better description. The whole place was painted white with blue and pink trimmings which would have looked gaudy anywhere else but the subtropics. It had a tiled floor and the kind of finishing touches that have been added by an interior designer rather than a homeowner.

  There was an ensuite just off the bedroom, with shallow but wide bath that I couldn’t have laid down in, but which had a huge shower head over the top of it. Everything had been done in white marble.

  Another doorway from the bedroom led to a small sitting room, with a mammoth TV set and a balcony. I opened the wooden shutters and stepped out onto it, discovering that I was at the front of the house, but right over to one side. If I leaned out and craned my neck, I could just see the police cruiser parked next to Gerri Raybourn’s Mercedes.

  As I watched, the two cops who’d brought Trey home walked down the steps and climbed into their car, their audience with Keith Pelzner over. The sergeant took the passenger seat, while the younger guy, clearly his junior, went round to the driver’s side.

  Just before he got in, the second policeman unfolded a pair of expensive Oakley sunglasses and slipped them on.

  Three

  “OK, Trey,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of us. “I think now would be a really good time for you to tell me who’s after you.”

  I was rewarded by another silent hunch of the boy’s shoulders. Still he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I pressed my lips together and let my breath out slowly through my nose, willing the tension to escape with it. The technique didn’t work particularly well.

  In reality, I didn’t need him to tell me who was after him. I already knew that. What I really needed to find out, though, was why.

  We’d passed the exits for Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach. Maybe, once, they’d been individual places, but now they just seemed to be part of one huge urban sprawl. It started around about West Palm Beach and went all the way down to Miami in the south, swallowing Fort Lauderdale on the way. We were nearly at the junction for the house.

  I knew I needed answers before we got there. Trey hadn’t spoken at all since we’d got back into the car. I was only too well aware how shock has its own way of shielding the mind, but I didn’t have time for gentle psychology.

  “Is this a straightforward kidnap?” I wondered, more to myself than to the boy. “Was he planning on holding you to ransom?”

  Trey snorted suddenly. “For what?” he demanded. “You gotta, like, have a lotta dough to be kidnapped, don’t you? We’re broke.”

  “Broke?” I echoed blankly, thinking of the mansion and the wedge of cash in my pocket.

  “Yeah,” he said, scathing at my lack of comprehension. “The people Dad works for rent the house and give him, like, an allowance. Like he was a kid or something.”

  “Well somebody’s after you.” I said. “You do know who that guy was, don’t you?” It was almost a rhetorical question. After all, the kid had been brought home by Oakley man, sat in a car with him, been torn off a strip in front of him. How could Trey possibly have failed to recognise him?

  The kid glanced at me, little more than a sliding skim that settled longest, I noticed, on the blood which had dried on my shirt and on my skin. I resisted the impulse to scratch at it.

  But I’d caught something in his eyes. Something knowing. Something that made me suspect he wasn’t as horrorstruck by what he’d seen as he was making out.

  “Why was a cop trying to kill you, Trey?” I asked now, more brutal, trying to shake it loose. “What have you done?”

  “I ain’t done nothing!” The words had burst free before he had the chance to stop them. Too fast, perhaps? The way the guiltiest kid in the class will issue an instant denial before he’s even been accused of the crime. “I ain’t done nothing,” he repeated, quieter this time.

  “You must have done something for those two cops to have picked you up at the Galleria,” I said. “It was only the day before yesterday. What happened?”

  Of course, I’d heard the official version of events from Gerri Raybourn’s second-in-command, Jim Whitmarsh. He’d filled me in later, on the day I’d first arrived, although it was only after he’d begun speaking that I’d worked out that the Galleria was the name of the local shopping centre – a place so mammoth it made Meadowhall in Sheffield look like the corner Spar.

  Trey had been caught near a store that sold computer accessories with a considerable amount of unpaid-for merchandise stashed in his school bag. The store manager had been all for pressing charges until Whitmarsh and Sean had been down there.

  It was Sean, I’d gathered, who had politely pointed out the name of the company Trey’s father worked for. It might not have been up to Microsoft standards, but it still had enough clout in that field to dampen the guy’s enthusiasm for a prosecution. Particularly when Sean had hinted that the company might possibly be needing a rake of new hardware in the near future. By the time they’d left, he’d told me, the manager was falling over himself to be helpful.

  Now, I waited for Trey’s side of the story. It took him a while to get it straight in his head before he tried it out on me.

  “They set me up,” he muttered.

  I ducked my head to catch the words, unsure for a moment that I’d heard him right. I couldn’t believe he’d actually come out with that one as a viable excuse, but I put a lot of effort into keeping my voice neutral. “Who set you up?”

  Again, that sideways flick of the eyes from beneath his lashes, to check how this was going down. “That cop and my dad,” he said at last. “He didn’t want me to go up to Daytona for Spring Break, so he set it up just so’s he could ground me.”

  I actually felt my mouth fall open, had to consciously issue the instructions to my jaw to close it. Don’t jump, I told myself. Think it through before you rip his head off.

  It was certainly true that after the shoplifting incident Keith had, in no uncertain terms, forbidden his son to go to Daytona Beach for the annual Spring Break weekend coming up.

  This was, I gathered by Trey’s reaction at the time, a major catastrophe. He’d sunk past being upset and had moved almost into grief-stricken at the prospect of missing out. In the end I had to brave Lonnie’s condescending attitude and check with him what the story was.

  “It’s the first major school vacation since Christmas,” he’d told me. “The kids kinda go a little wild, let their hair down, y’know?”

  “So what happens at Daytona Beach that’s so special?”

  “Lots of partying, lots of dr
ink, maybe a little drugs,” he’d said, flashing me the kind of perfect smile Trey would be able to muster in a few years’ time if he kept up with those braces. “The kids with the cool cars go down there and hang out, do some cruising on the beach. There’s a big car stereo competition they all go to. It’s a cool time, y’know?”

  “So, missing out on it is a big deal?”

  “Oh yeah,” he’d said. “It’s a big deal all right. Trey is not gonna forgive him easy for this one.”

  Now, as I took in the thin set line of the boy’s mouth, I would have to say I agreed with Lonnie that Trey hadn’t forgiven his father. To the point where he was prepared to spin me this ludicrous story to explain what had just happened.

  “Don’t you think,” I said, allowing a trace of acid to leak through my voice, “that there were easier ways of your dad stopping you going to Spring Break if he didn’t want you to, other than organising an elaborate setup with a couple of local cops?”

  The sudden thought occurred to me that what if Oakley man wasn’t a cop at all? What if his fat sergeant hadn’t been a cop either? What if this whole thing had been a set-up right from the start? Where did that leave us?

  “You don’t believe me,” Trey said, flushed and defensive. “No one ever does! I’m just a kid, right? I don’t know nothing, right? Well how the fuck do you explain what that cop did then, huh?” His voice had risen sharply, the note cracking. “How do you explain that?” And he waved his hand towards the bloodstains on my arms and clothing.

  I didn’t answer straight away because, the truth was, I didn’t have one to give him.

  ***

  I deliberately exited I-95 a junction early, turning left towards the sea. I’d quickly discovered that most of the city layouts were dead easy to navigate. If you made a mistake there was no need to do a U-turn when everything was laid out on a grid pattern. Two wrongs may not make a right, but in the States three lefts generally do.

  I was searching for something specific. Somewhere I could leave Trey in reasonable safety. It went against all my instincts not to have him with me, where I could protect him, but for what I needed to do now it was just too risky to take him along. I’d just have to pray I’d been good enough for them not to follow me from the park this far. For both our sakes . . .

  It wasn’t long before I found what I was looking for. A little independent diner with few cars in the parking area. It was only after we’d actually stopped that Trey seemed to notice where we were.

  He eyed me with disgust. “You wanna eat?”

  “No,” I said. “Look Trey, I’ll level with you.” Which was more than he was doing with me, I reckoned, but one of us had to make the first move. “No-one’s answering the phones at the house. I need to go back and check what’s happened there and I don’t want to take you with me while I do that.”

  “I can handle it,” he shot back, touchy. “I’m not a baby.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t doubt it,” I lied, “but that’s not the reason.” I paused while I gathered my thoughts. Treating him like a kid wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Besides, I’d already proved how bad I was at handling kids. I was going to have to pick another strategy.

  “OK, let’s look at what’s happened today,” I said. “Someone’s made an attempt on you. A pretty serious attempt, yes?” Trey’s face froze up at that, as though he was trying to keep some emotion from skating across the surface, but he nodded at least.

  I tried a reassuring smile, not sure if this was the best approach, but at the moment it was the only one I’d got. “OK, so far we don’t know if this attempt extends to Keith or not,” I went on, using his father’s name to detach the whole thing, make it into an academic exercise, depersonalise it. “If I take you back to the house now, I could be delivering you into a trap, you understand? I need you to sit tight here and if it all looks OK, I’ll come back and get you.”

  For a few moments Trey said nothing, staring at part of the dashboard and biting his lip. I almost thought that the events of the day had finally caught up with him, that they were finally beginning to sink in.

  “If you’re the main target,” I added, aiming to appeal to his ego, “we’d be giving them exactly what they want.”

  “I don’t see why I can’t come with you,” he said, as stubborn and sulky as he’d ever been. So much for treating him like an adult.

  “It might be dangerous.” I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Yeah, smart thinking, Fox, that’s really going to put off a fifteen-year-old boy who spends his free time riding rollercoasters.

  “So what?” He flashed me a resentful look. “You’re going and you’re just a girl! You’re just somebody’s girlfriend who came along for a free ride—” He broke off then, abruptly, as if he’d suddenly realised that he’d said way too much.

  “And where exactly did you get that idea?” I said, hearing the soft note of anger in my own voice.

  Trey swallowed, hung his head, “I overheard Mr Whitmarsh talking to Dad this morning,” he mumbled.

  I was glad he wasn’t looking at my face as he spoke. Well, that explained a lot. And there was I thinking Sean and I had been so careful . . .

  “Well, look on the bright side,” I said with a touch of bite, opening my car door and climbing out into instant heat. I ducked back and met his eyes. “I may just be ‘somebody’s girlfriend’ as you put it, but I’ve managed to keep you alive ‘til now.”

  ***

  As we walked into the diner one of the waitresses grabbed two wipe-clean menus from the rack and hustled towards us. She was middle-aged and the kind of slim you get from constant hard work rather than fashionable exercise. But even her jaded gaze fluttered slightly at our appearance.

  “Hi there, how ya doing?” she greeted us, her mouth on automatic pilot as though bloodstained people walked in off the street all the time. Only her eyes betrayed the hint of nervousness. “Just two? Smoking or non?”

  “Non,” I said.

  She led us to a corner booth. I sat with my back to the window, facing the door. Trey slid in opposite.

  “Can I get you guys anything to drink?” the waitress asked, plonking the menus on the scuffed laminate in front of us. Her badge said her name was Joyce and she was happy to help.

  Despite his distaste at the idea of food, now we were sitting down Trey ordered a Coke. I shook my head and asked the way to the ladies’ room instead. It was right at the back, Joyce told me, next to the kitchen.

  On my way there I took a long but casual look at the other occupants of the booths, but nobody set the alarm bells ringing. Inside the washroom I got my first proper look at myself in the half-length mirror, and Joyce’s apprehension became all the more understandable. The blood might have lost some of its impact now it had dried to a dullish dark hue, but there seemed to be a hell of a lot of it. Some had even splashed up onto the underside of my chin.

  I suppressed a shudder and ran hot water into the sink. There were no plugs so I had to wad toilet paper into the plug hole until I’d got half a basinful, then I scrubbed at my arms and face until the skin was pink, although I couldn’t do much about my shirt. I’d just have to wait and change when I got back to the house.

  I left the washroom and moved out past the kitchen again. Ahead of me, at the counter, Joyce was talking in low tones with one of the cooks, glancing constantly in the direction of the restrooms. She broke off quickly when she saw me coming.

  By the doorway was a staff notice board which seemed to be covered more in personal photographs than official paperwork. My eye landed on one of the snapshots, which was unmistakably of Joyce, kneeling on a lawn with a pair of German Shepherd dogs.

  Inspiration was born of desperation.

  I walked as casually as I was able back through the diner towards our booth, managing to snag the waitress between tables.

  “Joyce,” I said, earnest, “I need to ask you a really big favour.”

  She eyed me warily, her jaw working
gum as a reflex action. “What is it, honey?”

  “Well, I’m supposed to be looking after Trey over there,” I said, nodding in the direction of the kid’s back. “And well, this afternoon his dog got loose on the road and got himself run over.”

  “Oh jeez, that’s terrible,” she said, her face animating for the first time as the relief flooded in. “Oh, the poor kid.”

  “Yeah,” I said, waving a hand towards my shirt. “It wasn’t nice. We did everything we could, but . . .” I let my voice trail off, shaking my head, getting into my stride. “The thing is,” I went on, “I’ve got the dog in the back of the car and I really need to go and take him to the nearest vet’s where they can, you know, dispose of him, but I don’t want Trey to be any more upset today. You see, it happened right in front of him.”