The Deceiving Look (Shepard & Gray), page 15
Finally, he opened his eyes.
Two words had been texted to the phone: Hello, Solomon.
Who are you? Solomon texted.
A couple of minutes later, the response came.
Is that really the question you want to ask? Be honest or I’ll know
Solomon hesitated and then texted, How do you know about my mother?
There it is. That’s the right question. How about I show you?
Confirmation of his worst fears: this was about him.
Show me how?
Where’s the fun in ruining surprises?
Solomon’s shock quickly turned to anger as he started typing out a long message, filled with berating words and threats toward whoever was on the other end. But he soon realized that it was pointless and deleted it.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he put on his jacket, slipped the phone into his pocket, and summoned an Uber.
Tooele lacked the fast pace of a big city but still had enough trendy shops and businesses to occupy someone wanting to take a stroll down Main Street. Solomon remembered doing just that on his lunch breaks at the DA’s office.
He felt the handle of his cane. After he had to use it, he no longer went on those walks.
The Uber dropped him off on a corner where a coffee shop and bookstore stood on one side of the street, and a piano bar, trinket shops, and thrift stores on the other.
As he crossed the intersection, the sky began to darken. On the opposite side of the street, a group of young men walked into the piano bar and gave him a critical look, sizing up his cane and the unevenness of his gait.
Solomon entered the dimly lit bar, the last ray of light from the setting sun vanishing behind him. The place was already starting to fill up with young and vibrant people, their voices and laughter filling the room with a lively energy. He showed his state ID to be scanned since he no longer had a driver’s license, and took a seat at the bar, watching the crowd. There was something infectious about youth, the way it saw the world as full of possibilities and not limitations, as something worth celebrating and fighting for. It was a stark contrast to the darkness he felt inside him right now.
“Just a Guinness, please,” he said to the bartender.
The beer came in a cold glass and was frothy. He took a long drink and then decided it wasn’t what he wanted, so he just turned and watched a group of college-age kids playing a drinking game, though the night was clearly just getting going.
Solomon sat in the warmth of the bar and watched people a long time. Something he could do for hours. Words were empty and too easily manipulated, so to understand people, he liked sitting somewhere and just watching. The way someone glanced away and slipped their hand out of their lover’s, or whether they leaned in to kiss someone or pulled away first. Those were the actions that spoke volumes.
When he was a social worker attempting to help the prison population, he would frequently just sit quietly and let the inmates talk. Sometimes he wouldn’t say anything for an entire session. He knew they had hit a sensitive spot when fidgeting started. Rubbing the thumb and fingers together or tapping the foot in a frantic motion. It was the nervous system processing whatever it was they were speaking about, and that’s when Solomon knew it was a trauma that they hadn’t processed yet. But by the time someone had killed another human being and was serving a fifty-year sentence—because of a long criminal history going back to when they were in grammar school—it was impossible to bring all that trauma to the surface in the one hour per week Solomon had gotten with the inmates. It was the reason he left and went to law school. The system was set up to punish, not to heal, and it was too difficult for him to function within it.
Solomon finished his beer and left a good tip for the bartender.
He exited the piano bar into the cold night and strolled leisurely along the frosty sidewalks. A gentle breeze picked up, sending swirls of snowflakes in every direction, some of them landing softly on his face and melting into droplets of icy water.
He was about half a block away when he noticed the car.
It was black with tinted windows and was slowly following behind him.
He started walking faster. The car sped up and pulled alongside him, and he could hear the low hum of the engine. The tinted windows made it impossible to see who was inside, but he could feel their gaze on him.
He quickened his pace, but the car matched his speed.
It sped past him, and he felt relief wash over him.
Then it flipped a U-turn.
Solomon felt his heart pounding as he rushed across the street, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the car with the tinted windows. As he made it to the other side, the light still hadn’t changed, and he could feel the car’s presence looming closer. Distracted by the menacing vehicle tailing him, Solomon didn’t notice the other car that came hurtling toward him from the opposite direction, its tires slipping on the ice and the driver frantically laying on the horn. Solomon narrowly dodged the speeding car, his heart skipping a beat as he stumbled, nearly falling to the ground. Regaining his balance, he hurried inside the safety of the bookstore.
Solomon cautiously moved to the center of the store, his eyes darting around, scanning for a second exit. He felt a chill running down his spine, knowing he was being followed. Tommy had managed to hire a marine sniper on short notice; Solomon had no doubt he could find another one just as quickly. But why toy with him? Why leave him the phone and send him cryptic texts? In the past, the old-school mobsters and bikers who wanted a hit carried out would hire gunmen who simply walked up to the mark on the street—perhaps waiting for a crosswalk light or browsing through shops—slipped a bullet into the back of their head, dropped the gun, and calmly walked away. It was a cold, calculated method that increased the odds of getting away with murder more than anything else. Killing successfully was smooth and efficient; stalking was not. Tommy had something else planned for him.
He saw an employee nearby, busy shelving books, and approached her.
“Excuse me, is there another way out of this store?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
The employee looked at him with surprise. “No, sorry. This is the only public exit. Is everything okay?”
Solomon hesitated for a moment before nodding and quickly left, making his way toward the front of the store. He tried to keep his head down, not wanting to draw any attention to himself. As he reached the entrance, he saw the black car parked outside. Fear crept up his spine, and he knew that he needed to get out of there right now.
Solomon quickly scanned the front windows before making a beeline toward the back of the bookstore. He passed by the coffee shop and the restrooms, and found the entrance to a dimly lit hallway that was marked with an “Employees Only” sign. Without hesitation, he rushed down the corridor, past several storage rooms and offices.
As he made his way toward the back exit, a woman’s voice called out to him from one of the offices. “Can I help you?” she asked, but Solomon didn’t stop.
He nudged the groaning door open and stepped into the frosty outside air that bit his skin instantly. The world was draped in darkness, except for a lone light above the door. It cast a ghostly glow, barely disrupting the night’s thick shroud.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, he realized that he was in a shared parking lot that was surrounded by a chain-link fence. He spotted an opening on the far side of the lot that led to a residential neighborhood behind the stores.
The snow crunched underneath his feet, and a few times he slipped. The neighborhood hadn’t been plowed as well as the streets in front of the businesses, and it was hard to make his way through with his cane.
Solomon hauled himself over a towering mound of snow, finally reaching a relatively snow-free sidewalk. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath, his lungs aching with the effort of each inhale. His legs felt like lead, burning with exertion, and he struggled to keep moving. His cane was useless in the soft snow. Every time he took a step, a sharp pain shot through his lower back, radiating down his legs and up into his hips. It happened whenever he walked too fast.
It felt like a vise grip squeezing the life out of him, suffocating him with each labored breath. The pain was so intense that he thought he might collapse at any moment, but he gritted his teeth and pushed on, determined to put as much distance as possible between himself and that car.
Solomon paused by a gnarled tree, bracing himself against the trunk as the biting wind whipped his face. The cold sensation sent a shiver down his spine and triggered a long-forgotten childhood memory. He’d been walking home from school when a group of bullies cornered him between two houses. There were three of them, and they had tackled him to the ground and shoved snow into his mouth, eyes, and nose until he was coughing and choking.
Solomon remembered crying uncontrollably, but he’d forced himself to stop before he got home. His father had strictly disallowed crying in their household, claiming that it was not manly. If Solomon ever cried, his father, in a drunken rage, would force him to hold up the Bible while he whipped him with a belt, leaving welts on his skin that would take days to heal.
It had taken Solomon a long time to come to terms with the fact that he could feel contradictory emotions at the same time. He loved his father, as a son would, but he also hated him.
What a thin line between the two emotions, Solomon thought.
He pushed himself away from the tree and continued down the quiet neighborhood, taking in the modest homes that lined the street. Most of the houses were no more than a couple of stories and somewhat small, with only a few sporting fences. As he walked, Solomon noticed a distinct lack of toys or basketball hoops in the yards, which made him wonder if there were any children living in the area.
He approached an intersection, and a bright streetlamp overhead illuminated his path. Just as he was about to cross the street, a sudden flash of lights caught his attention. He looked up to see a car parked across the street, facing him. The engine roared to life and jerked forward a foot or two.
Solomon’s mouth was dry as he took a few hurried steps back, his mind racing with fear and uncertainty. He considered turning and running back the way he came, but the thought of slogging through the deep snow and ice made him hesitate. He didn’t have enough time to call Billie or anyone else. The only option was to run.
He turned and hurried in the opposite direction of the car as fast as he could, his heart a jackhammer in his chest. But as he limped over the icy sidewalk, a sharp, intense burning sensation shot up his leg, jolting his sciatic nerve and threatening to render his leg useless. The pain was so intense that he collapsed into the snow.
The car lurched up onto the curb, its engine roaring as it careened toward Solomon. He barely had time to react before the vehicle slammed on its brakes just feet away from him. Solomon rose and looked at the car, but the lights were bright, and he couldn’t see the figure inside.
Solomon bolted.
He used his cane to approximate the closest thing he could do to running and went across the nearest lawn and ran toward the driveway. As he hurried, he could hear the car’s tires screeching behind him.
Reaching a tall wooden fence, Solomon frantically searched for a way to escape. He stumbled upon a small gate that was luckily unlocked, and he quickly pushed it open. He staggered into the backyard of a stranger’s home, not sure if he was any safer than he was before.
With the car’s headlights glaring in his direction, Solomon moved quickly, darting across the backyard and falling several times.
The fence loomed high above him, seeming impossible to climb, but he had no choice. He made a desperate leap toward the top, his fingers barely managing to grasp the wooden planks. He pulled himself up, his heart thumping as he felt the car coming closer and closer behind him.
Motion sensors in the yard tripped, abruptly setting off floodlights. The stark brightness revealed a window on the second floor of the home. Behind the blinds, an elderly figure held a large handgun. Clad in pajamas, the man sternly peered out, his face streaked with lines of concern.
Great, I can either get run over or blown away by Elderly Dirty Harry.
With a sense of relief, Solomon watched as the car’s lights turned away from him, and he heard the rumble of the engine fade into the distance. He let go of the fence and slumped against it, gasping for air, feeling like he could pass out right there.
Just as he began to catch his breath, he heard the back door of the nearby house creak open. The old man stepped out, holding the gun in his hand.
29
Billie’s phone buzzed with a text from Solomon while she was still at the station, her nerves already frayed from the day’s events. The stress had been building up inside her, and she knew she needed to leave the office to find some relief. After her meeting with Dave Garcia had gone about as expected—with him losing his temper and flipping over his chair on the way out—she felt like she needed nothing more than a glass of wine and a hot bath to soothe her frayed nerves.
But as she read Solomon’s urgent message, she knew she had to go right now.
As Billie’s truck entered the residential neighborhood, her eyes scanned the quiet streets until she saw Solomon sitting on a porch with an old man. They each held mugs that billowed steam into the chilly air. Solomon noticed her arrival and stood up, exchanging a few words with the old man before shaking his hand. Then he moved carefully across the icy sidewalk, a distinct limp in his step, before getting into the passenger side of her truck.
As she drove away, Billie noticed the old man watching them from the porch, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
“New friend?” she said.
“That guy was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. You should’ve heard his stories, Billie. Actually, after he was done telling me, he said he’d never told anyone those stories and wondered why he had to me.”
“What did you say?”
“That it’s just my charm.” He looked out the window. “Can we stop for a drink?”
“I have beer and wine at my house.”
He looked at her. “Are you hitting on me, Billie?”
She grinned. “I’m just not letting you sleep in a house that’s already been broken into once.” She glanced at him. “You rarely tell me it’s an emergency. What’s going on?”
Solomon was silent a moment before he said, “Someone tried to run me over. Well, not really. If they had really wanted to, they could’ve caught up with me.”
“Who?”
Solomon shook his head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see the driver, but I’m sure it was whoever was in my house.”
“When did this happen?”
“About an hour ago. He chased me in his car, but he didn’t run me down when he had the chance. I was right. I don’t think he wants to kill me. Not yet anyway. Not until I see whatever it is he’s trying to show me.”
“Are you sure it was the man we’re after?”
He nodded. “Unless I was just the victim of a really bad case of mistaken identity, yeah, he was gunning for me.”
“I meant it might’ve been someone Tommy sent.”
“Running me down wouldn’t be Tommy’s style. Not outrageous enough. If he was going to take out the prosecutor that tried to put him away for a decade, he’d want to make a big show of it.”
“Like a sniper in a trailer park?”
“Or a bomb in my sneaker or poison in my Mountain Dew. It’d be something I wouldn’t see coming.”
“That doesn’t sound comforting.”
Solomon’s nerves prickled under his skin, making him fidget and twitch with unease as he thought about the phone and what Billie’s reaction would be after she eventually found out that the killer had contacted him.
He’d decided to keep the phone to himself, at least for a while. If he told her, they would submit the phone to the crime lab for analysis, but Solomon knew they wouldn’t find anything, and it would blow the only line they had to this man. For now, he couldn’t tell anybody.
“I think he’s law enforcement,” Solomon said.
She stayed silent a moment.
“Why would you think that?”
“The way he processes these scenes isn’t amateur hour. He’s left us only the evidence he wants us to see. It’s someone with experience who’s had a long time to think about this. I don’t think it’s Tommy. Not after tonight.” He looked at her with a serious expression. “I think he’s a cop, Billie.”
She shook her head as she ran her tongue along her cheek, using just one hand to steer as she watched the car in front of her drift and slide to the right before the tires caught traction again. “If that’s true, Solomon, if he’s law enforcement, this is an absolute disaster. A resignation-level disaster.”
“I know,” he said softly. “I wish it wasn’t, but I can’t think of anything else that makes sense.”
“This just gets better and better.”
He puffed up his cheeks and blew out a long, slow breath. “My mind is mush right now. I can’t think. So, it’s probably the best time to ask you this.” She looked at him. “I want to interview your cops.”
She was silent and then laughed. “You have got to be joking.”
“It doesn’t have to be me, if you don’t want me involved, but I’m telling you, Billie, he’s one of yours.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
What Solomon wanted to say was Because he left a phone at my house and the only people in there were cops, but what he said instead was “I can’t tell you.”
“You can’t tell me?”
“No.”
“So let me get this right: you want me to accuse my police officers of being murderers, and you can’t tell me the reason why?”
“Well, when you say it that way, it just sounds stupid.”
