Gone 'Til November

SIXTEEN

Sara signed on to the computer, got the keyword prompt, typed in “Taurus revolver,” hit RETURN.

Three hits, links to reports. The first was the Willis shooting. She clicked on the second, waited for it to come up. It was a case from a year ago that she remembered, an attempted armed robbery at a gas station, the suspect dropping the weapon as he fled. She wrote the evidence control number on a pad.

The third link was a domestic violence case from two years ago. Three guns had been seized as part of a restraining order-a Smith and Wesson.38 Chiefs Special, a Colt.45 automatic, and a Taurus revolver-but the Taurus was logged as being a.357. She wrote down the number anyway, did a fresh search on “Taurus” with no qualifiers, found nothing else. She signed off, tore the top sheet from the pad.

The Evidence Control Room was in the basement. A long, institutional-green corridor, pipes running along the ceiling, fluorescent lights hanging below them. There was a window halfway down the hall, a closed door beside it.

Charlie Stern was at the window, writing on a clipboard. She could hear his faint wheezing. He was in his late fifties but looked ten years older, his belly sloping over his belt, his flattop solid white.

“ ’Lo, Sara,” he said.

“Charlie, I’m wondering if you can help me with something.”

He looked at her, then at the clock on the wall behind him. “Five forty-five.”

“I know. This will only take a couple minutes.”

After six, when Charlie left, anyone wanting access to Evidence had to go through the sheriff. She didn’t want that.

“What have you got?” he said.

She handed him the slip of paper. “I need to see the weapons under these numbers. I’m looking for a Taurus,.38 caliber.”

“What’s this about?”

“Case I’m working. Just need to make sure they’re accounted for.”

“Hold on,” he said and left the window.

She waited. Through the window she could see rows of metal shelving rising to the ceiling, brown banker’s boxes. She could hear his breathing, his slow, heavy footsteps.

Five minutes later, he came back to the window, put two heavy plastic evidence bags on the sill, got his clipboard.

“You’ll need to sign these out,” he said.

“I just need to look. Only take a minute.”

She opened the bags, looked at the weapons inside. The first was the.38, with cracked walnut grips. The second was bigger, the.357, nickel plated. Both had yellow plastic cord threaded through the barrels and cylinders.

“Let me ask you something, Charlie.”

He raised an eyebrow. She could sense his impatience.

“When did we start computerizing all our evidence, logging it in?”

He shrugged.

“Nineteen ninety-nine maybe. They had a clerk in here for a while, backlogging the hard copies into the computer, but I don’t know how far back she got. Couple years maybe, why?”

“If I was looking for a weapon taken as evidence before that, how would I find it?”

“Well, if you knew the case file number, I could track it that way. Everything back here is in order, more or less. I need to go soon, Sara. Can this wait?”

She smiled at him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But as long as I’m down here… if you could just help me out a little.”

“We used to keep logs, hard copy, of all the weapons moved into Evidence. That’s before my time, though.”

“You still have them?”

He sighed, then touched a button under the window. The door buzzed open. “Come on in.”

When she went through, he shut the door behind her, pulled the grate down over the window, secured it with a padlock.

“Last thing I need is someone else coming along,” he said. “They’re over here.”

On one side of the room was a desk and wall shelves stacked with ledger books.

“Each of those covers about four years,” he said. “None of them are in the computer yet.”

She took the first book down, dusted her sleeve along the spine-1986-1990.

She nodded at the desk chair. “You mind?”

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ve got paperwork to finish up.” He went back to the window and the clipboard.

The desktop was cluttered with papers. Near the phone was a half-eaten cheese sandwich on white bread. A fly crawled along its edge. She sat, opened the book on her lap.

It was set up like a standard financial ledger, headings for each year, then each month, tabbed columns. Most of the entries were in blue ink, some in green or red. The same spidery hand throughout. Charlie’s predecessor, whoever that had been. Each entry had a case number.

She ran her fingers down the tabs, looking at the annotations. Shotgun, 12-gauge, single-shot. Colt.45, Peacemaker. Star.25. All weapons that had been seized during or after a crime. She stopped every time she came to a.38. Smith and Wesson. Rugers. Dan Wessons. No Taurus.

She turned pages, scanned columns, her nose itching from the dust.

“How we doing back there, Sara?”

“Okay, Charlie. Sorry about this.”

“Let me know when you’re done.” Resignation in his voice.

She found it on the sixth page. March 1988. A Taurus.38, seized in a motor vehicle stop. The serial number was written down. At the end of the column, the case number.

She opened desk drawers. There was a Penthouse in the top one, an inhaler. She opened the second, found a blank sheet of SO stationery. She wrote down the two numbers.

“Charlie?” she called out.

“You want to tell me what this is all about, Sara?”

They’d found the box. It was on the fourth rack up, three aisles back, and Sara had pulled the sliding ladder over, climbed up herself. Charlie seemed grateful. He stood beside her, looking up, breathing heavy.

She pulled the box off the shelf, backed down the ladder carefully, Charlie steadying it for her.

“Thanks,” she said and carried the box to the desk. Before taking the lid off, she checked the case numbers written on the front-01404 to 01411. She was looking for 01408.

There were six evidence bags in the box, each with a case number written on the plastic. She went through them carefully. Clothes, a Buck knife, a.25 automatic. No Taurus, and no bag that matched the case number.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie said.

“Anybody check anything out of here recently, Charlie?”

“Not when I was around. That far back, why would anyone want to? Those cases are long closed, and if they weren’t, they won’t ever be.”

She fit the lid back on.

It doesn’t mean anything. Things get misfiled all the time. Probably half the things down here are misfiled.

“Okay,” she said. “All set.”

“Good.”

She went up the ladder again, slid the box back into the cleared space in the dust. She climbed down, brushed the front of her uniform.

“You all right?” Charlie said. “You look like you’re not so happy all of the sudden.”

“It’s okay,” she lied. “Turned out to be nothing after all.”

He looked at her for a moment, then went around the room switching off lights. The overhead fluorescents hummed, blinked, and went dark.

She followed him into the corridor. He locked the door behind them.

“One other thing, Charlie?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell anyone about this, okay? It’s just something I had to see for myself.”

“If you say so,” he said and held the stairwell door for her.

Back upstairs, she changed in the ladies’ room, bundled her uniform and vest into her tac bag. When she got out to the parking lot, Billy was leaning against the hood of the Blazer. His truck was parked behind it.

She stopped.

“Hey, Sara.”

He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, looked like he hadn’t slept.

She didn’t move.

“I didn’t want to come out to the house again,” he said. “I didn’t know if I’d be welcome.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“About what?”

“Not out here, Sara. Not like this.”

She looked back at the front door. Hoped someone would come out, see them together.

“I was thinking about the other night,” he said. “I didn’t like the way we left things.”

“Not the time, Billy. I need to go, Danny’s waiting.”

“Maybe you could call JoBeth, ask her to stay a little later. Then we could get a drink, talk.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Has your opinion of me changed that much? We can’t even have a friendly drink anymore?”

“You look like hell, Billy. And you shouldn’t be here anyway.”

“Did Danny like the dinosaur model?”

“He did.”

“Just one drink, Sara. I just want to talk. Can’t you give me that?”

She looked at her watch, then back at him.

“Twenty minutes. That’s all.”

“Good enough.” He gestured to his truck.

“I’ll follow you,” she said.

“Don’t want to drive with me?”

“You want to talk or not?”

“Sorry. Whatever you want,” he said.

“If I lose you, I’ll see you there.”

“Not Tiger’s. Not tonight.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere else. I’ll find a place.”

“Not far.”

He nodded, moved toward his truck.

She got behind the wheel, set the tac bag on the passenger seat. She watched him pull out of the lot, the truck bouncing as a tire went over the curb.

She followed him, opened the bag, took out the leather Cordura waistpack she sometimes wore. She pulled the Velcro breakaway tab that opened the front pocket. Steering with one hand, she took the Glock from the tac bag, tugged it free of its holster. She slid it into the waistpack, closed the Velcro.

As they got farther from town, heading west, she noticed the gray Toyota about three car lengths back, moving at a steady speed, not closing the distance. Something about it jogged her memory, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen it before.

Or maybe you’re just getting paranoid.

In the half-light of dusk, with the Toyota’s headlights on, the figure behind the wheel was only a shadow. Four miles later, the car was still there. She slowed, but it didn’t try to pass.

Ahead, Billy had moved into the far right lane, was signaling to turn. She put her blinker on, followed. The Toyota pulled into the left lane, sped up. As it passed, she caught a glimpse of a black man at the wheel. Then just the glow of the Toyota’s taillights, down the road and gone.