Cold Vengeance

CHAPTER 47

Coral Creek, Mississippi

NED BETTERTON PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT of YouSave Rent-A-Car and sprang out of the driver’s seat. He walked briskly toward the building, a broad smile on his face. For the last couple of days, fresh revelations had been practically tumbling into his lap. And one of those revelations was this: Ned Betterton was a damn good reporter. His years of covering Rotary luncheons, church socials, PTA meetings, funerals, and Memorial Day parades had been better training than two years at Columbia J School. Amazing. Kranston had started to scream bloody murder about the time he was spending on the story, but he’d temporarily shut the old man up by taking a vacation. There was nothing Kranston could do about it. The old bastard should have hired a second reporter years ago. It was his own fault if he was left covering everything himself.

He grasped the handle of the glass door, pulled it open. Now it was time to play another hunch — and see if his luck was still holding.

Inside, at one of the two red counters, Hugh Fourier was just finishing up with a late-afternoon customer. Betterton had shared a dorm room with Fourier during their sophomore year at Jackson State, and now Fourier ran the only rent-a-car place within seventy miles of Malfourche — another nice coincidence that convinced Betterton he was still on a roll.

He waited as Fourier handed a set of keys and a folded sheaf of papers to the customer, then stepped up to the desk.

“Hiya, Ned!” Fourier said, the professional smile morphing into a far more genuine one as he recognized his old roommate. “How’s tricks?”

“Getting on,” Betterton said, shaking the proffered hand.

“Any breaking stories you’d care to share? A scoop on the spelling bee at the middle school, maybe?” Fourier chuckled at his own witticism.

Betterton laughed gamely. “How are things in the rental car game?”

“Busy. Really busy. And with Carol out sick today, I’ve been running around like a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.”

Betterton forced himself to laugh at that one, too, remembering Hugh considered himself the class cut-up. He wasn’t surprised to hear YouSave had been busy — with Gulfport-Biloxi International undergoing some major renovations, business at the local airport had picked up considerably.

“See any of the old crowd from Jackson?” Fourier asked as he stacked and squared a pile of paperwork.

They chatted about old times for a few minutes before Betterton got around to business. “Hey, Hugh,” he said, bending forward over the counter. “I wonder if you could do me a favor.”

“Sure. What do you want? I can get you a great weekly rate on a convertible.” Fourier chuckled again.

“I was curious whether a certain individual might have rented a car from you.”

Fourier’s smile faded. “A certain individual? Why do you want to know?”

“I’m a reporter.”

“Jesus, this isn’t for a story, is it? Since when did you start doing hard news?”

Betterton shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. “It’s just something I’m following up.”

“You know I can’t give you information about our clients.”

“I’m not looking for a lot of information.” Betterton leaned still closer. “Listen. I’ll describe the guy. Tell you what he was driving. All I want to know is his name and where he flew in from.”

Fourier frowned.

“I don’t know about this…”

“I swear I’ll keep you and YouSave out of the story completely.”

“Man, this is asking a lot. Confidentiality is really big in our business—”

“The guy was foreign. Speaks with some kind of European accent. Tall, thin. He had a mole below one eye. Wore an expensive raincoat or trench coat. He’d have rented a dark blue Ford Fusion — probably on October twenty-eighth.”

A look crossed Fourier’s face, and Betterton immediately knew he’d struck gold. “You remember him. Right?”

“Ned—”

“Come on, Hugh.”

“I can’t.”

“Look, you can see how much I know about the guy already. I just need this little bit more from you. Please.”

Fourier hesitated. Then he sighed. “Yeah. I remember him. Just as you describe. A heavy accent, German.”

“And this was the twenty-eighth?”

“Guess so. It was a week or two back.”

“Can you check?” Betterton hoped that, if he could get Fourier to enter the information into his terminal, he might sneak a glance at the results.

But Fourier didn’t bite. “No, I can’t.”

Oh, well. “And a name?”

Fourier hesitated again. “It was… Falkoner. Conrad Falkoner, I think. No — Klaus Falkoner.”

“And where was he coming from?”

“Miami. Dixie Airlines.”

“How do you know? Did you see the ticket?”

“We ask the customers to give us their arrival flight, so in the case of a delay we can hold the reservation.”

Fourier’s face had closed down and Betterton knew he’d get nothing more. “Okay, thanks, Hugh. I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do.” As another customer came in, Fourier turned away with evident relief.

Sitting in his Nissan in the YouSave parking lot, Betterton fired up his laptop, ensured his wireless connection was good, and then made a quick canvass of the Dixie Airlines website. He noticed they had only two flights into the local airport each day, one from Miami and another from New York. They arrived within an hour of each other.

He was wearing a fancy raincoat, like you see in those spy movies. That’s what Billy B. had said.

Another quick check of the web informed him that October 28 had been a hot and sunny day in Miami. In New York, however, it had been cold with heavy rain.

So the man — Betterton was almost convinced he was the killer — had lied about where he’d come from. Not surprising. Of course, it was possible he’d lied about the airline as well, maybe given a phony name. But that seemed to be carrying paranoia too far.

Thoughtfully, he shut down his laptop. Falkoner had come from New York and Pendergast was living in New York. Were they in league? Pendergast sure as hell wasn’t in Malfourche on official business, not with blowing up a bar and sinking a bunch of boats on his agenda. And this NYPD captain… New York City cops had a reputation for corruption and for being involved in the drug trade. He started to see the big picture: the Mississippi River, the burned-out lab in the swamp, the New York connection, the brutal and execution-style killing of the Brodies, corrupt law enforcement…

Damn if this wasn’t about a major drug operation.

That did it: he was going to New York. He plucked his cell phone from his pocket, dialed.

“Ezerville Bee,” came a shrill voice. “Janine speaking.”

“Janine, it’s Ned.”

“Ned! How’s the vacation going?”

“Educational, thanks.”

“Are you going to be back at work tomorrow? Mr. Kranston needs somebody to cover the rib-eating contest over at the—”

“Sorry, Janine, I’m going to extend my vacation by a couple of days.”

A pause. “Well, when are you coming back?”

“Not sure. Maybe three days, maybe four. I’ll let you know. I still have a week coming to me.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure Mr. Kranston sees it that way…” Her voice trailed off.

“See you.” Betterton snapped the phone shut before she could say anything more.