Sting

“I guess,” Joe sighed. “The bottom line, though? He played them like a freakin’ fiddle.”

“Played all of us, Joe,” Hick said grimly.

Joe’s scowl conceded that.

As the afternoon wore on, they decided to use the local evening newscasts to go public with Joshua Bennett’s fugitive status.

Joe called in the office’s media liaison. “Notify the local stations. Tell them in advance that I won’t be answering any questions. I’ll only read aloud a statement, so make it good.”

The agent said jokingly, “What am I supposed to say? Accountant at large? Armed with a deadly calculator?”

Joe didn’t think it was funny. “Say he’s wanted for questioning into his sister’s suspected kidnapping and Mickey Bolden’s murder.”

Hick looked at Joe askance. “He is? Since when?”

“Since I said so,” Joe retorted. “And it’s one hundred percent true. If Bennett hadn’t taken a hike, Panella wouldn’t have sent his favorite hit man and an accomplice after his sister. Mickey wouldn’t be dead, and she wouldn’t be missing. Last night would have been just another night of pool for Skull Head and his cronies, Deputy Morrow could have stayed to finish his victory pizza party, I’d have copped a feel off Marsha during ‘Take My Breath Away,’ and you’d have test-driven one of your promising relationships.”

By now he was boiling over. “That nerd has eluded law enforcement agencies for four days. Maybe the public can do our job better and find him for us. So I don’

t care if we label him a goddamn ax murderer or the sniper who actually shot Kennedy, I want Josh Bennett’s altered-state image on TV by five o’clock.”

The other agent scuttled out to write the official statement.

A few hours later, Joe and Hick watched the first edition newscasts while eating another carryout meal off the desk. While Joe was reading the statement, the stations showed file footage from their coverage of the Panella-Bennett case and placed a photograph of Josh taken at the time side by side with an artist’s sketch of how he’d looked when last seen in Tennessee.

“Well, let’s see if that shakes something loose,” Hick said as he muted the audio. “Wish you’d consulted me on your wardrobe, though.”

Marsha called to tell him she’d seen him and asked when he was coming home. He told her not to expect him any time soon. He could wait for a development at home just as well as here, but while uniformed officers were out beating the bushes and dragging the bayous, he felt he should be on duty, too.

He paced while Hick essentially ran their trot lines.

“Call Morrow back.”

“Joe, I talked to him an hour ago. He promised to call if anything…” He stopped arguing when the phone rang. He answered and identified himself. “That’s us.”

He listened for a moment, then sprang from his chair and motioned Joe out of his. “We’ll call you from our car for directions.” Promptly Hick hung up. Joe was already out the door. Hick followed.

They were moving down the hall at a fast clip when Joe worked up enough spit to ask, “Ms. Bennett?”

“Her brother.”

“Dead?”

“Alive.”

By the time they reached the elevator, Hick had explained that a man who lived in a small town near the Mississippi state line had called his parish’s SO after watching the evening news. He reported having seen Josh Bennett in a convenience store earlier in the day.

“This isn’t another schizo, is it?” Joe asked, and he impatiently jabbed the Down button repeatedly.

“Deputies followed up with the store’s cashier. She didn’t see the news, but they showed her the drawing of Bennett. She confirmed.”

“Hot damn!”

“The chopper?” Hick was already tapping the number into his cell phone.

While Hick made the arrangements, Joe was thinking about Josh Bennett, and as soon as Hick ended his call, he expressed his puzzlement out loud. “He was smart enough to escape, but dumb enough to come back here?”

“This is where Ms. Bennett is, and she’s Josh’s security blanket. He also knows that this is the one place on the planet where Billy Panella ain’t.”