One Perfect Shot

Chapter Thirty-five

“Sorry for the hour,” I said when Mark Arnett answered the door, and I spoke before his blood pressure had a chance to spike. I held up a hand. “Some developments,” I said matter-of-factly, making sure that he heard me. “May we come in?”

He nodded and held the door for us. “We’re in the living room.” Mindi was sitting in a padded rocker, her hands clasped in her lap. She rose as we entered, her hands remaining locked together. None of the office-boss spunk stiffened her shoulders now.

“Mr. and Mrs. Arnett, Albuquerque police have found your vehicle in the Albuquerque airport parking lot. There’s no sign of your son yet. The handgun is not in the car.”

Mark gestured toward a couple of chairs. “You mean he just left the car?”

“It would appear so.” I settled on a stout, straight-backed chair, all leather straps and heavy wood. Estelle took the end of the sofa an arm’s length from Mark. “The car was locked when they found it in the long-term lot. Nothing in the trunk, but the gun was taken. We don’t know if Mo still has it, or if he chucked it somewhere. Maybe in a garbage can or something.”

“Why the hell would he do a stunt like that?”

“Maybe he didn’t want it taken from the car if someone broke in. Maybe he took it, then found it too hard to conceal. Maybe he just got scared with it. We don’t know.”

“So where did he fly to, then?” Mark’s question was blunt, still carrying the tone of voice that promised “an even worse lickin’ when he gets home.”

“APD is surveying the flight manifests right now, double-checking. Depending on when he actually got to Albuquerque, he could have had several choices, but right now, it looks as if he didn’t take a flight at all. I mean it doesn’t take long to check computer manifests.” Mark appeared ready to sputter something, but I held up a hand. “You saw him at breakfast, was I correct in hearing you say that?” Mark looked across at Mindi, a silence between them about a mile wide. I felt like saying,

“Okay…who’s going to lie first?”

“Did you see him at breakfast?”

“No, I didn’t,” Mark snapped. “I had to leave early. I left before he was up.”

I looked questioningly at Mindi. “You saw him at breakfast?”

“I told you that I did,” she murmured.

“Refresh my memory,” I said pleasantly.

“I made sure that Mo was up…he loves to sleep in, you know. I told him that he needed to come down for breakfast. I had it all laid out for him.”

“And he did that?”

“Certainly.”

“You physically saw him enter the kitchen?”

“I…” Mindi came to a embarrassed halt. She glared at me, some of the spirit coming back now that she had a convenient target. “Listen, I had things I needed to do. Mo is perfectly capable of getting up in time for school, fixing his breakfast, and…you know.”

“So you didn’t sit down to breakfast with him.”

“No. I told you I didn’t.”

“When you left the house, it was your assumption that Mo was up and about.”

After a grudging pause, Mindi said, “Yes.”

“And you haven’t seen him since.”

That brought tears from Mindi and a concrete set to Mark’s jaw. I sighed. “If Mo was going to fly somewhere, where do you think it would be?”

“He wouldn’t fly,” Mark said instantly. “He gets airsick just looking at an airplane.”

“Is that right.”

“That’s right.”

“He’d take a train or bus?”

“Train. He loves ’em. You know that already. He wouldn’t take a bus. He thinks only vagrants travel by bus.”

“Who does he know that he’d visit? Let’s say up north, or off to the east. If he took Amtrak, he might be heading toward Kansas City, maybe Chicago. Or connections beyond. Or west to Flagstaff? Kingman? L.A.?”

“Look, how can we know that?” Mark asked. How can we know that? The absurd question needled my blood pressure a couple of clicks upward. “He don’t have many friends anywhere. Neither the wife or me has any relatives out of state.”

“I have an elderly aunt who lives in…it’s Cleveland, I think,” Mindi said.

“We haven’t seen her in a dozen years or more,” Mark snapped. “Hell, Mo wouldn’t even know who she is.”

“So in a nutshell, if Mo boarded Amtrak, either west or eastbound, you wouldn’t have any idea where he’s headed.”

“Shit, I don’t see how we could,” Mark said. He glanced sideways at Estelle, who was regarding him thoughtfully. “You know how kids talk. ‘I’d like to do this, I’d like to do that.’ It don’t mean a whole hell of a lot.”

“For instance?”

“For instance what?”

“When Mo talks about what he’d like to do…”

“Well, shit. He wants to go to Sea World, that place out in San Diego. He thinks that he wants to go out in a boat and do something or other with whales. That whale talk stuff.” Mark grimaced. “All talk. He’d probably get seasick. He says that he’d like to go to New York and be a stock broker, for God’s sakes. Hell, you got kids. You know how it goes.”

“Where was he planning to go after graduation? Has he decided?”

“Damned if I know. I’ve tried to talk him into working for a year or so with me. Get some of the kinks out. Get some fresh air and some muscle on his bones.” He shrugged. “Or see what the service has to offer. Do him good.” He glanced at Mindi, who had frowned and shifted position as if someone had poked her in the butt with a hot poker at the mention of military. “The wife don’t think much of that idea,” Mark added.

“Well, either direction, east or west, if he’s on the train, there’s a good chance he’ll be found,” I said. “If. If he didn’t take the train, it’s still anybody’s guess. If he had a chance to visit the bank, how much money would he have with him?”

“Couple hundred bucks, maybe, I don’t know.”

I sighed, liking Mark Arnett less and less. We were spinning our wheels with these people, and every moment we spent here was a moment farther away from Posadas for Mo.

“You’ll let us know?” Arnett said as we made for the door.

“Of course.”

“What’ll happen now?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. “I mean, Mindi said that he didn’t even take many extra clothes.”

He won’t need them when he’s wearing jailhouse orange, I thought, but I kept the unkindness to myself.

I looked at Mark, wondering what made him tick. “If Mo took plane, train or bus, we’ll find him. Unfortunately, we have to assume now that now he’s armed, and that’s a complication. What was the weapon you left in the car?”

“Just a beat up.45 ACP Springfield I’ve had for a while.”

“Loaded, I assume?”

“Full mag. We didn’t keep one in the chamber.”

How goddamn thoughtful. “ If police are able to arrest him without incident, he’ll be returned here for questioning and in all likelihood, arraignment.”

“Damn right he’ll be questioned.” He didn’t ask me what the other side of that if was, but he had to know. I gazed impassively at him. “He’ll be questioned by us, Mr. Arnett. Then we’ll see.”

Outside, the air was fresh relief.

“They’re glad that he’s out of the house,” Estelle said.

“That’s my impression,” I grumbled. “Was it Robert Frost who said that home is the place, that when you have to return there, they have to take you in? Something like that? Mo’s going to have a hard time coming home.” I shook my head wearily. “Once the justice system is finished with him in twenty years or so.”

“Do you suppose that he knows that? Mo, I mean?”

“Probably not. My experience has been that kids aren’t fundamentally believers in reality. Whatever gremlins that might be lurking out there, teenagers believe that the bad luck doesn’t apply to them.”

Estelle remained silent for a while, but I could see her dark eyebrows furrowed in thought. “How do we go about getting him back?” she asked finally.

“I wish we had an easy answer for that. We can hope that he’s jumped on Amtrak. In a way, that would be a good thing. It doesn’t matter where the container goes. He’s inside, bottled up. If the rail security can locate him, they’ve got a captive audience. As long as he doesn’t do something stupid.”

“His track record isn’t good in that regard,” she said soberly. “And if he has the gun with him?”

“Then all bets are off. It depends, of course, what he does with it, but I’m optimistic that he’s not in a hurry to be found. Nothing will bring the wrath of the law down on his head faster than trying to use a weapon. I hope he knows that, and I hope that he took the gun in the stress of the moment, and ditched it the first chance he got. If he’s smart and just blends into the woodwork, we’re going to have a hell of a time finding him.”