The Big Dirt Nap

Forty-one

When you walk confidently and with purpose, people generally think you know where you're going and that you have every right to be there. So even though neither was true, that's how we strode through the first set of doors labeled Authorized Persons Only. Eventually we wound up in the same corridor that I'd been in with Hector and the cops when they brought me to identify Nick's body. Past two or three unmarked doors and a laundry room, where one of the busboys was folding tablecloths.

"Kitchen?" I asked.

"Around the corner."

By that time we could smell it. The kitchen was immaculate. Two men were busy chopping vegetables on gleaming stainless-steel surfaces when Lucy and I breezed through the Employees Only door, announcing to whoever might have cared that Helayne the bartender had said it was okay for us to enter.

My only experience with the kitchen at Titans had been a decent club sandwich, but the head chef and his staff looked like they knew what they were doing, at least to a woman whose idea of cooking was nuking a can of soup.

"Helayne doesn't run my kitchen. You two don't even have hairnets on. What the hell was she thinking?"

"We're not health inspectors and we don't want to get in your way, we just want to know if you've seen Sam," I said, talking fast before he had the time to kick us out.

At the mention of Sam's name, he softened, and walked us over to the sinks, where our long hair wouldn't get in any of the food. "Sam hasn't been here since the night of the murder and I'm worried sick. He was hunkered down, waiting by my van, the night Nick died. He looked terrible. I had two containers of food with me that I was taking to my mother. I gave them to Sam instead to tide him over until the police had cleared out. If I'd known he was going to be in the parking lot I would have brought more."

"Did Sam ever mention a hiding place, or someplace he went when it was too cold to stay outside?"

The chef shook his head. "He might have gone to Billy's cabin—if the police weren't looking for Billy." He was genuinely concerned. As the bartender had been.

"Sam must be a pretty nice guy for all of you to have tried so hard to help him."

"Years ago every kid in this town that wanted a summer job went to Sam," the chef said, smiling. "Sam would ask for a résumé and give them a formal interview and then always announce that they'd gotten the job. That's how we met. He was the foreman at a shoe factory, but it closed down eight or nine years ago."

That's when I knew what our next move was.

___________

"You expect me to go to a deserted factory with you?" Lucy asked, out in the parking lot. She plucked a bite-size dinner muffin out of a doggie bag the chef had given her, and popped it into her mouth. "Are you nuts?"

"You went to a deserted cabin with a man you barely knew."

"That was different. Besides, I wouldn't have gone if I'd known there was a killer on the loose."

"I'm strapped." It was an expression I'd heard in a movie.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?" Lucy said, wincing, and poking through the bag for more food.

"I have a weapon."

"I know what it means, I took you to that screening. When did you turn into Sarah freaking Connor?"

Inside the car, I showed Lucy the Taser, carefully sliding it out of the leopard-print case. I was getting more comfortable with it, especially since the cartridges were in my other pocket.

"Are you planning to shave the bad guy's legs?" Now that she mentioned it, it did look a bit like an electric razor.

"It's a Taser. Don't worry, Babe showed me how to use it this morning. Put your seat belt on."

"I feel so much better knowing you had a five-minute lesson on how to use a weapon with a former backup singer."

Still muttering, Lucy did as she was told and we went to find the factory. Now that we could charge her TomTom, we plugged it in and followed the disembodied voice as it instructed us to turn left and take the highway, take the highway.

"Why does this woman have to sound so snippy?" Lucy asked, playing with the TomTom and testing other voices. "Someone could make a bundle marketing one of these that sounded like George Clooney."

Our destination was less than seven miles away. TomTom/not George chose the fastest route; it took us half a mile past the turn for the mobile park.

"If we don't find him, we can go back and ask some of the residents at the mobile park if they've seen him. He might have hitched a ride with one of them," I said.

"I want to find him, too, but you are officially on drugs. I am not going into a trailer park at this hour, ringing doorbells or whatever they have and asking if anyone's seen a homeless man with an American flag and a Big Y shopping cart. It's not happening."

"Then you and Claude have to hope we find him here," I said, pulling into the deserted parking lot.

The For Sale or Lease sign was faded from so many years in the sun, and the new banner's information that the owner was willing to subdivide the twenty-thousand-square-foot facility hadn't made it any more attractive to potential occupants. Except perhaps one.

Having seen the two-story property on the news, I recognized the spot where Billy Crawford had eluded the cops. "Let's circle the building first to see what looks promising," I said.

"Nothing looks promising. Let's go. This place is creeping me out."

We drove around to the back and parked, out of sight of the road. We tried all four doors to the building but they were locked.

"Satisfied? Now can we go?" Lucy said. The sun had gone down an hour ago and it had turned chilly; she rubbed her arms to warm them up.

"There," I said, pointing to an overturned trash can and the partially open window above it.

"There what?"

"That's where he goes in," I said.