Hostile Witness (Sanctuary, Inc. #1)

Chapter 36

36

H arlan Brinker cursed as he got out of the pickup truck.

“Damn sciatica.” Muttering a string of oaths, he hobbled to the entrance of the Sandpiper Diner. The bells jingled as he opened the door and stepped over a worn marble threshold.

“Happy Tuesday morning, Harlan,” hailed Jake, the diner’s owner. “Nice to see you in town. How’s the farm these days?” He poured a glass of water and set it on the counter where Harlan usually sat.

“Fine, Jake, just fine. But this damn sciatica’s put a hurtin’ in my leg and back.”

Harlan spared a glance at the blaring television hung high on the wall behind the counter. “Can you turn that contraption down a little bit, please? And would you cook me three sunnies with well-done sausage, no potatoes, and burned rye toast? Give me real butter and none of that margarine stuff.”

“Sure, Harlan. It’ll be about five minutes.”

“Okay. I’m still mad at the cable company for raising my rates, Jake. How can a person afford to pay almost two hundred dollars a month for cable and cell-phone bills? It’s nuts. Just crazy. I canceled the cable and internet a couple of months ago and go to the library now and use their computers when I need to order feed and seeds. Sure do miss the games on the internet though. There’s nothing like playing backgammon with someone you don’t know and can’t see. It brings out the competitor in an old man.” He gave a sardonic laugh.

“I’m sorry, Harlan. I know you enjoyed the old-time movies and game shows, too.” Jake prepped the filter for another pot of coffee.

“I haven’t seen the news in a couple of weeks. Can’t say the sabbatical’s done me any harm. All they do is talk about terrorists and politics anyway. I’ve read a slew of my favorite books instead.”

Jake set the plate of breakfast in front of Harlan and reached under the counter to grab silverware rolled in a napkin. “You need anything else? Want some orange juice?”

Harlan shook pepper over his eggs. “Nah. I’ll take a cup of that fresh coffee once it’s done brewing. This looks great. You know how to burn food good and proper.” He speared a blackened sausage link and poked a hole in an egg for dipping. Raising his eyes to the television, he watched a house fire burning somewhere in the world.

“Hey Jake, change the channel to the local news, would you, please? I may as well catch up on the town happenings. The international news will give me indigestion.”

Jake aimed the remote, and the picture settled on a pretty blonde newswoman. He set the remote on the counter before pushing through the swinging doors to the kitchen.

Harlan stabbed a second sausage link and pierced another egg. He mopped the steaming yolks with burned toast and eyed the television again. The pretty blonde was replaced with Chief Carson speaking into a microphone on the left side of the screen and an artist’s rendition of a suspect on the right. Harlan strained to hear what the chief was saying and squinted at the face in the drawing.

Something was familiar about that face.

I’ve seen that guy somewhere.

Where have I seen that face?

The screen changed, and a ticker ran across the bottom offering a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who’d killed Lieutenant Plante.

Harlan spat out a bite of sausage and dropped his fork. He swiveled his stool and ran for the remote at the end of the counter but crumpled against another seat and cursed, “Damn, damn sciatica.” Reaching down the counter, he grappled for the remote, raised the volume, and froze the picture before hobbling back to his stool.

After dunking his spectacles into the glass of water, he dried them on his blue flannel shirt and perched them back on his nose. Harlan studied the picture on the screen again. “Well, I’ll be a Christmas ham... hey, Jake! Come out here... I need you, Jake!”

Jake burst through the swinging doors, drying his hands on a towel. “What’s the matter, Harlan? What’s wrong?”

“Look at that face on the screen. I think that’s my renter.”

“What renter?”

“Remember I used to let Tilly rent out the apartment on top of the big garage? I had converted the second floor and told her if she could keep it rented, the money was all hers. We had renters living there off and on for twenty years. I cleaned it up about a year ago and started renting it again because I needed extra money to heat the greenhouse. I think that’s my renter. Can that TV record?”

Jake grabbed the remote and pushed the red button. “There you go.” The broadcast resumed with the announcement of the reward. “You sure that’s your renter?”

“I’m sure as chickens and shit go together.” He studied the television screen.

“You can’t go back home, Harlan. Call the police. Don’t even think of going back to your house. They think that guy killed the retired policewoman.”

“Gimme your phone, Jake. I gotta call the hotline. Wouldn’t that be something if my renter was him? Geez, that reward would pay for a lot of internet backgammon. I sure hope my hounds are safe. I left them in the front yard.”

Earl yanked open the door to the diner, perused the clientele, and locked eyes on the table where Harlan was now sitting. He sauntered over, grabbed a chair, and straddled it backward.

“Harlan Brinker, how the hell are you? I haven’t seen you in what... a week now?” He shook the older man’s hand and motioned to Jake for a cup of coffee.

Harlan leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Little Earl Thompson, I’ll never forget the hot summer day I caught you skinny-dipping in my creek with EmmaMae.” Harlan’s eyes lit up as he motioned to Jake for a refill.

“By God, Harlan, that was decades ago. I thought for sure you’d forgotten it by now. My daddy made me muck stalls for a month after you brought me home in that old pickup and pulled me by my ear to tell him where you’d found me.” Earl chuckled. “Did you get your fields planted last week?”

“Oh yeah, the tomatoes and cantaloupe, too. Gotta supply the farm stands in the summer. I hire seasonal help. They helped me get the planting done.” Harlan took a sip of his fresh coffee.

“So what’s this about somebody living on your property that looks like the suspect you saw on TV? Tell me about him.” Earl set his pad of five-by-seven sticky notes on the table, pulled out a pen, and unfolded a composite drawing of the suspect.

Harlan tapped the picture. “This guy here sure looks like my renter, and he’s an odd one, Earl. He showed up about three weeks ago in answer to my ad in the county news and wanted to look at the apartment over the garage. Said he was a little down on his luck, but he had a security deposit and the first two months’ rent. Seemed like a nice enough young man.

“He said his name was Vince Jones and he was from up north. The guy has a New York accent so thick I gotta listen twice as hard to understand him. Anyway, I let him move in on a month-to-month basis, and I get to noticing that he’s a little peculiar. Always real friendly to me, smiles and waves, but the minute I move on, he’s talking to himself. Now, I know we all talk to ourselves once in a while, but mostly in our heads. Not him, he laughs and answers himself. Comes and goes all hours of the day or night, and he’s constantly putting fancy lights on his car and then taking them off. He’s just... unusual.”

Earl rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, Harlan, I could go over and have a little chat with him, but I can’t say that talking to himself is enough probable cause to bring him in for questioning. Although the lights may be something we could look into.”

Harlan pushed the spectacles higher on his nose. “I’d only tell you this, Earl, because I don’t want anybody thinking I usually invade my renters’ privacy, but he went away for a few days last week, mentioning he’d be back on Thursday. Once I was sure he was gone, I went up in the apartment. He keeps it real neat and everything, but the closet was empty. I started wondering if he’d left for good until I saw a big bag of laundry in the hallway. Everything in the bag was blue, right down to the socks and Jockeys. I just left it there, and true to his word, he came back on Thursday night.”

Harlan took a gulp of coffee. “I haven’t had TV and internet for a couple of months, so I haven’t been watching the news lately unless I’m in a restaurant or doctor’s office. And I don’t have the newspaper delivered anymore ’cause there’s a fox on the farm that steals it for his den. But this morning, I watched the television here at Jake’s, and my renter really resembles this sketch.” Harlan tapped the drawing with his finger again. “The eyes are spot-on, but the nose ain’t right.”

Earl leaned in closer. “Okay, Harlan, was he there when you left?”

“Yup, talking to himself per usual and tinkering with his new car, but there’s a half acre between my house and the barn. I haven’t gone over to actually talk with him since the weekend before last. I’m kinda concerned ’cause I left my hounds out in the yard. Guess I shouldn’t worry, ’cause he’s never hurt them before.”

“What make of new car?”

“He used to have a dark-blue sedan, but now he’s got a white one. It looks similar to the vehicle you drove into the parking lot today, but his looks brand-new.” Harlan handed Earl a key to the garage apartment.

“All right, Harlan. Stay put, and have lunch on me. I’ll call you here at Jake’s once I’ve checked out your place. Don’t be talking to people about this. Keep it quiet so I can do my job, all right?” He slapped some money on the table for lunch, picked up his notes, and left.

Via phone, Earl assembled a team for the raid before he left the parking lot. He’d much prefer to have Ethan with them when the search went down at Harlan’s place, but the detective had taken a few comp days. Shit.

That was Ethan’s code for being on standby for Sanctuary missions.