Five miles later, near the exit for U.S. 202, Payne saw the Tahoe braking at a sign on the right that
read BUCKS COUNTY HOME IMPROVEMENT.
It took Payne a couple seconds for it to register why the name seemed familiar.
So that’s where the pressure washer trailer was stolen.
There can’t be a connection between it and Austin. Can there?
Has to be coincidence . . .
Austin continued past the home improvement store, pulling into the parking lot of a mini-mart next door.
Payne saw that just beyond the mart was a gas station. He glanced at the fuel gauge. The needle sat as far as possible in the red.
“Damn. Too close.”
Payne passed Austin as he entered the mart. He pulled up to a fuel pump island where he and the car would be mostly hidden if Austin happened to look that way when he came out.
As Payne filled the tank, he kept an eye on the mini-mart and the home improvement store. He tried to think if there was any significance to the fact that the equipment had been stolen way out here, some twenty-five miles north of the city, and way back in November.
What was their time line? Had the doers all along planned on using the pressure washer on the shooters strung up in the coal tower?
For two months?
Or had it simply been available, after having been stolen for some other purpose?
That text that fingered the shooters said they had acted on their own—“went rogue”—which really suggests a spur-of-the-moment act, not one more than a month in the making.
Austin came out of the mini-mart holding a small brown paper bag. Payne rushed to return the nozzle to the pump as he watched Austin pull a quart bottle of what looked like orange juice from the bag. Austin emptied about half of the bottle into a potted plant, got back in the SUV, and looked to be pouring two little bottles into the orange juice.
Making himself a screwdriver breakfast, Payne thought.
More miniatures for the self-medicating. Probably got them from Camilla Rose. Or she got hers from him.
Payne, watching as Austin’s Tahoe blew past, put the car in gear and started rolling. He looked in the mirror for traffic, saw it was clear, then glanced back at the home improvement store. He decided if it worked out, he would stop there on the way back.
Spend ten minutes or so, ask a few questions, see if there are any stones under the stone that could be turned over.
—
Austin took the exit for U.S. 202, heading east toward New Hope.
So he’s not going to Easton, Payne thought, hitting his turn signal to follow him.
After a mile or so, Payne saw the Tahoe’s brake lights come on, and then, ahead of it, saw a line of slowing traffic. He could see up ahead, at the top of the rise, the emergency-flashing light bar on a police cruiser that had stopped on the roadway.
As the stop-and-go traffic crept closer, Payne saw an officer standing beside the cruiser, a silver Dodge sedan with DOYLESTOWN TOWNSHIP POLICE covering its side in bold, reflective lettering. He was directing a line of eighteen-wheeled tractor-trailer rigs that was exiting a manufacturing facility about thirty yards off the highway on the right.
On the browned-grass shoulder of the highway on the far side of the big rigs, he caught a glimpse of a folded-over, half-inflated cartoon animal that looked to be about the size of a school bus. Around it were a dozen beefy men—all wearing bulky winter coats and distinctive red hats—a few of whom were busy getting the animal fully inflated while the others set up folding chairs and coolers nearby.
What the hell is that inflatable thing doing out here?
Looks like one of those jump houses for a kid’s birthday party.
The big-rig trucks rolled out and turned onto U.S. 202, headed in Payne’s direction. He saw that they carried identical cargoes—enormous pods, shrink-wrapped in plastic, that hung over the sides of the trailers.
And he realized that the trucks were more or less identical to the one that had driven out of the construction site right before Austin raced out of it. Including signage on the driver’s door reading FMM, LLC, DOYLESTOWN, PENNA.