The Shoal of Time Read online

  The actual office was, however, more commercial, next to a child-care center and pawn shop. Interesting combination. They were all located in a long strip mall. Even in the dark it was showing its age, had probably been built around the time of the houses in the sixties and meant to be torn down thirty years later and replaced with something better. But nothing better had come along, and it was still here. The putative Alligator Shipping and Export, Ltd. office was at the far end. On the other side of the strip mall was a pizza place still doing a decent amount of business, a closed nail salon, and a more permanently closed store with tattered Going Out of Business signs in the window.

  There was a decently large parking lot for all the buildings. I drove around, spotting Jack in his car. I chose a spot about midway, close enough to the pizza place to look like I might be there, but not so close that I’d be quickly spotted hanging out in my car.

  Jack was already pulling out before I turned my motor off. If he was smart he’d have waited a few minutes. But no one seemed to be paying any attention, and maybe he wanted to get back to Sandy. Or to pee.

  I considered going into the pizza joint and buying something to give my being here a patina of reality, but rejected the idea. The place seemed to have mostly adolescent white boys as customers, and a middle-aged woman like me would stand out. The beans would do me fine and the last thing I needed was anything to drink.

  If anyone asked, I’d say I had a fight with my boyfriend, had stormed out and needed some time to think about things.

  Not that anyone asked.

  The pizza place closed up around ten and even the cleaning crew was gone by ten thirty.

  My car was getting cold. No, my car was probably fine; it was used to all kinds of weather. I was getting cold. I turned the car on, although I left off my headlights and moved about ten spaces closer to the office. I left the engine on long enough to get warm again.

  I planned to case the building, but wanted to wait until after midnight to do so. The later it was, the fewer people were likely to be around. Boring as this was, sitting here for a few hours would give me time to watch the routine for the place. How many cars came past on the service road? Was anyone working late? There were still a few cars in the lot, but they were all back in the most well-lit area, like someone had left them there while out of town or this was where they parked.

  I didn’t do things like read or listen to the radio while on stakeouts. Not looking and not listening can cause problems. Yes, it’s boring, but observing is what I was paid to do. Not that we talked about pay, but I trusted Ashley to be reasonable and businesslike about this.

  I liked that she was taking her time. We were getting to know each other, not just through movie or dinner dates, but by actually working together. Much as my body relished the tryst with Emily, she came on too hard, no warning or notice, as if she was too focused on work to know how to interact with a human. I was also annoyed that she just assumed I’d say yes—and chagrined that’s what I’d done.

  I could use a little romance right now, not the hard sex Emily offered. I didn’t want a fuck buddy, I wanted someone to go to the grocery store with and pick out food to cook for a special meal, to call when I was having a rough day, to make popcorn with, watch an old movie and snuggle afterward.

  I wanted someone to replace Cordelia.

  Maybe Ashley was that person. Or maybe she was the person who could help me find my way out of the fog, to be a person who might find love again.

  In the distance a church bell tolled midnight.

  I gave it another fifteen minutes. Some shifts might end at midnight. I didn’t want to be prowling around the back of the building just as a neighbor was coming home.

  At 12:16 a.m. I got out of my car. It was even colder outside than in. Feeble as it had seemed, my body heat had added some warmth to the car. The air was damp, adding to the chill. It would probably rain before morning.

  I walked slowly to the office, taking my time, like a wronged girlfriend trying to clear her head. It was about twenty feet across, a tacky fake brick façade on the front, with a heavy wooden door and two windows on either side of it. I was able to press my face against the window and see there was an alarm keypad inside the door. The interior was dark and I could make out little. I had stuffed a small flashlight in my pocket but didn’t plan to use it unless it became necessary.

  Scanning the parking lot and seeing no one, I moved to the side of the building. Drat. It had one small window—why did I think bathroom—that was high and would be hard to reach. The silver lining was the property was marked by a ragged line of bushes. Like most of what was here, regular maintenance wasn’t a priority, so they were tall and shaggy. If I had to come back with a ladder, they would give some cover. There was about two feet between the building and the bushes, the usual clearance to keep the bugs and mold away from the structure.

  I slid quietly to the back. It was set up much like the front. Two windows and a door leading to an unkempt stone patio surrounded by a wooden fence. The fence, like everything else, was old, short enough that I could easily look over it. It wouldn’t take much to remove a board or two.

  Or even reach over and open the back gate, as I easily did. The small yard outside the fence sloped down to a drainage ditch. Memo to self—do not run hastily out of here without making a sharp turn. They’ve pulled alligators out of suburban ditches. And water moccasins. I considered a quick look with my flashlight to see if any red eyes stared back at me, but decided against it. There were houses across the ditch and it wouldn’t do for them to see a light where there shouldn’t be one. This was more exposed, but the door and windows were old, and from the looks of it could easily be jimmied. That didn’t solve the alarm problem, but maybe I could take care of that by cutting the wires. Most alarm systems had battery power now, mine certainly did, but the keypad looked old, so maybe the alarm was old as well. This was the suburbs, a safe area.

  But I wasn’t going to try anything tonight.

  I made my way back along the side of the building, looking for the electrical box. It was near the front, high up enough that the bottom edge was about brow height. As a test, I tried to open the cover. Too bad I was right. It hadn’t been opened in a while and might take work to pry open. Bring WD-40 and a sturdy screwdriver, I told myself.

  I cautiously stuck my head out to scan the parking lot.

  A car was driving this way.

  I slunk back into the shadows, taking several paces back, then pushing into the bushes, using their mass to obscure my presence. They were thick enough that getting through the branches would be difficult, but it was a better alternative to the ditch.

  The car was probably nothing, someone cutting through the parking lot on their way home.

  I couldn’t see the lot from where I was. I held my breath and listened. Car wheels on asphalt. Getting louder. Light slid around the side of the building. The headlights of a car.

  Keep going, I told it.

  The wheels stopped.

  I pushed against the bush, trying to melt through it. It was too dense; I started pulling branches aside while still looking to the front of the building.

  The engine turned off, but the lights were left on.

  I had to be quiet; this was not the time for broken twigs. What the hell would anyone be doing here at this time of night?

  Other than yourself?

  Maybe this is when the crooks came out to play.

  Doors slammed. Two? Three?

  The sound of shoes on the macadam.

  “This don’t look like no drug den,” a voice said.

  I was no more than fifteen feet from the front of the building and therefore them.

  “Shut up. We need to be quick.” Another voice. Both male.

  I had my cell phone with me but didn’t dare use it. I tried to quietly step over twigs and into the bush, but a sturdy branch at my back wasn’t moving.

  “Cut the power,” the first voice said.

 
Major, double shit. I pulled a branch in front of my face. If I was really lucky, they wouldn’t bother to check out that someone else might be around. This is why I always wear black to events like this. Hiding in the shadows is never out of style.

  What are the odds that someone else would break into the very place I was planning to break into?

  I weighed my options. I could skitter as quietly as possible to the back, hope they didn’t seem me, hope I could get out on the other side of the strip mall. But movement was a much more likely giveaway than staying still. I could try to shove through the bush and hope the branch at my back would give way without enough noise to alert them. Or I could stay as still as possible here, hope they wouldn’t spot me and we’d all have a happy ending. If they wanted drugs, I was happy to let them pilfer drugs.

  If they did see me, my options were about the same, shove through the bush—I wouldn’t need to worry about making noise at that point. The branch binding me felt breakable, just not quietly so. That seemed my best option. On the other side was a street, and half a block would take me into the residential area. If they followed, I would start yelling “Fire,” and that would get the populace out on the street.

  “You cut the power. I don’t know nothing about that shit.”

  “What kind of faggot are you, you can’t flip a circuit breaker.”

  “The kind of faggot that doesn’t like getting his fingers fried.”

  So far I’d heard only two voices.

  “At least you know what to call it.” A third voice.

  “Yeah, whatever. Let’s get this over with. It’s fucking cold out here.”

  The beam of a flashlight shined down the side of the building.

  I held my breath, trying to see what was going on and yet be as still as possible.

  The light blinded me.

  Then quickly swung away.

  The patron saint of private detectives had been kind. He was only using the flashlight to find the electrical box and wasn’t looking ten feet beyond it. Once he spotted the box, he turned the light on it, leaving me in relative darkness.

  I took a shallow breath and looked at the man at the circuit box.

  He was tall, heavyset, with several days’ growth of beard. He wore a knit cap, so it was hard to tell hair color in the feeble light, but it looked either light brown or dirty blond. He had a weak chin, one that didn’t help a face only a mother could love—narrow-set, beady eyes and a hawkish nose, crooked as if it had been broken a few times. His jowls were starting to sag, although he looked to be no more than late twenties or early thirties.

  “Goddamn it,” he let out as the covering failed to open for his scrabbling fingernails. “Give me a fucking screwdriver.”

  The light flashed across my face again.

  Then away, again just random movements, not a search.

  A second man came around the building. He was slight, skinny in an unhealthy way, his shoulders sloping. He had floppy brown hair in need of a cut and a smattering of stubble across his cheeks and chin as if he was trying to grow a beard and didn’t notice he’d failed. “Here’s your fucking screwdriver, bro.”

  “Fuck you very much,” the first man said.

  They laughed.

  Meth mouth. They both exhibited the graying, rotted teeth of habitual meth users.

  The first one, Mr. No Chin, took the screwdriver and jammed it under the lid, using it to lever the electrical box open. It came loose with a loud screech. They didn’t seem to care.

  Mr. Chinless jammed his hand in the box and flipped all the switches.

  “Hey, you turned everything off,” the third man from out front said.

  “Who gives a fuck,” Mr. No Chin muttered.

  “The light at the day-care place went out.”

  “Like I said, who gives a fuck.”

  The light retreated. They went back to the front of the building.

  Then a loud pounding. It sounded as if they were sledgehammering through the front door.

  “Hurry, faggot,” Mr. No Chin said. This sounded like a loosely organized gang and he was its loosely organized leader.

  Another bang, then a splintering crash.

  I used the noise to break the branch pinning me in and shoved through the bushes. It was no time to be careful; I was scraped in several places, including a rip in my pants. Damn, and they were my only pair of winter-weight black surveillance jeans.

  Instead of being sensible and hightailing it to a quiet residential street, I crept behind the bushes until I could see as much of the lot as I dared. I wanted to know what these thugs were up to.

  Mr. Third Man was also skinny, although he appeared as if he’d once had weight and been healthy, a hollowed-out man, still wearing a high school letter jacket that was now too large for his emaciated frame. His hair was a thinning, flyaway blond, a faint penumbra around his head in the far-off light from the interstate. He had once been handsome, I guessed, it was still barely visible in his concave cheeks, sunken gums, and eyes that seemed permanently dazed. He seemed capable of little more than watching guard in places that didn’t need to be watched.

  They weren’t amateurs, but they were far from their prime.

  It was time to fuck with them.

  Mr. Third Man was mostly watching his friends inside the building. Perhaps he was being diligent and listening for the sound of sirens.

  He certainly wasn’t listening for stealthy steps around the dim edge of the parking lot. I carefully made my way back around to my car.

  If they just got the drugs and ran, we’d all be happy. But it was possible there were no drugs there. It was also possible they’d find the drugs, but think there was more, and tear the place apart. Meth heads are crazy and I didn’t want to have to wait around for crazy to finally decide their crazy was done.

  My car was still parked more to the center of the lot. It had given me a wide view of the office and the parking area. And most blessedly was now behind where Mr. Third Man was looking.

  I trotted when the noise was covered by what they were doing—which was most of the time. In about a minute I was at my car.

  In the glove box I have a big, emergency flashlight, one with a red blinking light on the back. It’s meant to be used in case of a breakdown on the road, to warn other drivers. Not the greatest theatrical prop, but it would have to do. I fumbled in the backseat and found the big road atlas, one I rarely use in these days of GPS. It would also do.

  Show time.

  I slapped the blinking red light on my dashboard, started up the engine, hit the headlights on high beams, and—this is why I love a stick—squealed my tires as I revved the engine. I charged halfway across the parking lot, then slammed on the brakes, taking care to leave the thugs a wide escape patch.

  I reached across the passenger seat and threw open that door, then did the same on my side, so it looked like two people got out and were hiding behind the doors.

  Using the rolled-up atlas as a bullhorn, I yelled, “Police! Drop your weapons and come out!” The high beams should be blinding enough they wouldn’t see it was only a rolled-up map.

  Then for kicks, I hit the horn, blaring a long blast.

  “Police!” I repeated.

  Yeah, this got their attention. Mr. Third Man was gaping, as if trying to understand how a cop car could be here without him having noticing it before now.

  Mr. No Chin and Mr. #2 were not so philosophical. They charged out of the office and jumped into their car. I was concerned they were in such a hurry they’d leave Mr. Third Man, but he managed to jump in at the last moment.

  “Police!” I yelled again and hit the horn.

  They roared out of the parking lot, well over the speed limit when they got on the service road. At least it was late enough there was little other traffic about.

  I remained in my car until they were well out of sight, only then parking it in a reasonable fashion and getting rid of the props. Then I grabbed a pair of gloves out of the stash I kept
in my car and headed for the office.

  I wasn’t going to stay long, but I wanted a look around. At the warehouse I didn’t have time to get more than a glance at the ledger, not enough to remember it. Ashley had implied someone was on the take, someone supposedly working on her side of the law. I didn’t want anything to get lost because it fell into the wrong hands.

  Misters 1, 2, and 3 had left the place a mess. The door had been shattered, left in pieces. Once inside, their method was to toss and destroy. I risked turning on my flashlight. The first area was bare save for one desk that was probably only there for show, given how little had been tossed from it.

  But no reasonable crook would keep anything out here.

  I quickly made my way to the back. But that was a small kitchen and break area.

  Heading back to the front, I looked first in one office. It was torn up, but again not enough to suggest it was actually a working office. The next office was the same. The third office was also bare, but it looked like it had some use. There was a computer on the desk, some area maps, including nautical ones. It would be up to the cops to get into the computer. No way was anything I’d like to see not password protected, and I’d given myself ten minutes max to be out of here. I glanced at the maps, quickly taking photos of them with my cell phone. They might be a clue to the smuggling routes. But little else was there.

  Seven minutes had passed.

  One more door.

  A janitor’s closet.

  I closed it.

  Then opened it again.

  There was a heavy-duty locked box on the top shelf. The Three Thugs hadn’t even opened the door. I grabbed the box off the shelf and hurriedly carried it to the front office, where I put it on the desk. Before opening it I glanced outside to the parking lot. Saw nothing.

  The Three Thugs had left their tools. I got the screwdriver and used it to pry open the locked box.

  Drugs. Of course. A couple hefty bags of a white powder. I put those aside.

  A red ledger, just like the other one I’d found. Maybe even the same one.

  I opened it. No, not the same one, this one was barely started, less than a page filled. There were only ten entries. I took a photo. Below the last entry an odd message was scrawled: Eula May, 9 at 11 on 18 up the bayou by the germans.