“I’ll let you know,” he said and hung up.

Caitlin stared out at the wet soccer fields while Mary talked Lakshmi through a rough draft. She finished and ended the call. “Now what, Caitie? We wait?”

“Where is everybody? No soccer in the rain?”

“Field’s too wet.”

Caitlin grabbed the steering wheel, leaned forward. “I hate waiting.”

Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the local number, but the female voice sounded familiar.

“Is that you?”

“Is what me?” Caitlin said, close to attaching a name to the woman.

“Someone’s in my back field. I thought maybe you and your friend were painting again.”

Carol McGovern, the woman with the farm across the creek.

Caitlin started the truck. “Carol, I’ll be there in two minutes. Can you see who it is?”

“Let my check my birding binoculars,” the woman said.

Caitlin switched the phone to speaker and spun the truck toward the road.

Carol returned. “Looks like a young man traipsing around in the mud near the trees.”

Caitlin thought back to their stakeout, shot Mary a look. “Does he have a shotgun?”

“A shotgun?” Carol answered, amused. “Oh no, looks like he has a ten-speed, but he’s not going anywhere fast.”

Caitlin pulled out and sped toward the woman’s house. “What about you, Carol? Do you have a shotgun?”

*   *   *

They ran from Carol McGovern’s door, got back in the truck, Mary at the wheel, Caitlin riding shotgun.

Mary pulled out, the spinning tires flinging mud into the air. “You sure we shouldn’t call the police?”

“Both Carol and I called Jerry directly,” Caitlin said, loading a second shell into Carol’s Remington. “He didn’t bother to answer.”

Mary turned the rental truck down the muddy field road leading toward the Bro-duce farm. “And you know how to shoot one of those things?”

Caitlin laughed. “You forget who my dad was?”

Mary pointed to the tree line. “Jackpot.”

A mud-covered man facing the trees struggled to get a red bicycle through the bushes.

“Get us there, Mary.”

Lubbers swung to a stop thirty feet away. Caitlin hopped out, shotgun up and ready.

David Amireau, dressed in a once-white T-shirt, a mess of brown where pants should be, and bare feet, turned her way.

His eyes narrowed. “You?”

“Stop there, Pig-pen. Hands up and all that shit.”

He dropped the bike, started running for the trees. Caitlin shot once into the weeds, ten feet to his left. He stopped, raised his hands.

Mary yelled from the truck. “Now do you want me to call the police?”

Caitlin smiled. “I just did.”

Chapter 48

CHAPTER

48

TWO HOURS AND a whole lot of questions later, Chief Renton offered Caitlin the chair in front of her desk once again. “I understand you’ve played a significant part in today’s events.”