“Keller,” he said softly into the phone.
“Where the hell have you been?” Angela’s voice demanded. Her voice sounded strained. There was none of the usual banter.
“Sorry,” he said, still almost whispering. “Turned the ringer off. And I had to run a few errands.” He looked at the truck. “I need you to run a plate for me.”
“In a minute,” Angela said. “You need to hear this. DeWayne Puryear’s parents have been killed.”
Keller tensed. “When?”
“A few hours ago. Both of them, shot in the back of the head. Execution style. It was on the radio.”
“They think he did it?”
“No.” her voice was shaky. “I know a couple of people on the Sheriff’s department down there, so I made some calls. I got a couple of details that weren’t on the news.” He heard her take a deep breath. “They think the father had been tortured. The fingers on his left hand were broken, like somebody bent them back till they snapped.”
Keller winced. “Any idea why?”
“There was some money stashed in a coffee can under the sink, so that’s not what they were looking for.”
Keller thought for a moment. “DeWayne? They think someone else is looking for him?”
“They know he’s on the run. And they know H & H made his bond.” She took a deep breath. “The person I talked to was real interested in where you were.”
“Wait a minute,” Keller said. “They think I had something to do with this?”
“They said they just wanted to talk to you. See if you knew anything.”
“I hope you told them that I wasn’t going to commit murder over a ten percent recovery fee for a fifty thousand dollar bond.”
“They never outright accused you. There was nothing for me to deny. Like I said, they claimed they only wanted to talk to you.”
“Damn it,” Keller said. “This I don’t need.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You tell then where I was?”
Her voice was hurt. “Of course not.” She paused. “Keller, something’s screwy here. There’s somebody else out there who wants to find DeWayne Puryear. Somebody willing to torture a seventy-year old man to find out where he is and then kill him. I want you off this job. Call the local cops and let them handle it. It’s not worth it.”
He looked back at the pickup truck. “It is to me.”
“You just said you weren’t going to kill someone over five grand. Now you’re telling me you want to die for it?”
“I took the job. I want to finish it.”
“What are you, the Mounties all of a sudden? You always get your man?”
“Yeah,” Keller said. “That must be it.”
“Damn it, Keller,” she said. “Call the cops and let them handle it.”
“I’m not exactly fond of the local constabulary right now. Besides, if the cops bring him in, you still going to pay me for it?”
There was a brief pause. “Would you take it if I did?”
“No.”
Angela made an exasperated sound that sounded almost like a growl. “Jesus,” she said. “It’s not the money. You’ve just got the worst case of testosterone poisoning in human history. You ought to have your head examined, Keller, you know that?”
“I tried that,” he said. “It didn’t work. You going to run that plate for me?”
He heard her sigh, heard the click of computer keys. “Go ahead.”
He gave her the license number. He heard the keys clicking again, then silence as she waited. He wished she would say something. She didn’t. Finally, she spoke.
“Vehicle is a 1987 Ford Pickup registered to one Leonard Puryear,” she said. Her voice was flat.
“DeWayne’s cousin,” Keller said.
“Yeah. Where’s the truck?”
“It’s parked at that address you gave me. Crystal Puryear’s house.” He smiled. “Jackpot.”
She sighed. “Yeah. Jackpot.”
“Maybe it’s a family reunion,” he said. He wished she would make a joke back.
“Yeah,” she said. “Except for Mom and Dad.” There was a short pause. “Just be careful, Jack,” she said.
“I will,” he said, but she had already hung up.
Keller glanced over at the stubby black shotgun nestled in the rack by the seat. Rearming himself had not been a problem. Fayetteville was a military-base town. There were a hundred pawnshops where a man with a valid credit card could buy enough guns to outfit a platoon. It had taken Keller only an hour or so to find a weapon that suited him, a Mossberg 500 “cruiser” model combat shotgun with a shoulder rig, no stock, and a barrel short enough that it flirted with the edge of legality. Keller had modified the weapon by covering the hard plastic pistol grip with a rubberized one; other than that, the lethal little shotgun had been good to go. Though Keller always carried a handgun, he preferred a shotgun for takedowns. There was something about the unmistakable sound of a pump shotgun being cocked that made even the most hardened criminal think twice. A handgun carried more ammo and had a faster rate of fire and reload, but Keller was going to try to stay out of any situation where that would be a factor. “Wanted Dead or Alive” was a concept that had long passed out of vogue.
Handcuffs and restraints had been another problem. There were a couple of stores in town that sold police gear, but they had gotten sticky in the last few years about selling to people without law enforcement or government credentials. Keller didn’t have the time or the cash to persuade them that bail enforcement would fit the mold, despite the lack of official standing. He had settled for stopping by a hardware store and purchasing a roll of duct tape. Crude and messy, but effective. He sighed. At least they hadn’t thought to pull the police scanner out, or they hadn’t had time. The numbers pulsed fluorescent green across the front screen of the scanner slung beneath the dash, running rapidly through the freqs he had obtained for the local cops. There was only the occasional squawk of static and brief burst of clipped chatter as the various cars checked in with the dispatcher. It was a quiet night.
He considered his options. He didn’t know for certain if DeWayne Puryear was inside. Besides, he didn’t know the interior layout of the sister’s house. The possible addition of Leonard Puryear was another wild card. He decided to wait and see if DeWayne would come out where Keller could take him in the open, preferably alone. He leaned back in the seat and crossed his hands over his chest. He watched the house through half-closed eyes. To a casual observer, he would have appeared to be asleep.
Angela was right. There was something screwy going on here. He should cut and run. But he knew he wasn’t going to.
For years, Keller had felt like an observer in his own life, as if he had been severed from himself and he was watching someone else go through the motions of getting up and walking through each day. He thought of a poem he had heard in high school. We are the hollow men, the poem read, we are the stuffed men,