Motor Mouth (Alex Barnaby 2)

Hooker had his head in his hands. “I feel really bad about Butchy.”

I leaned against him. “You were nice to Butchy. You gave him a place to live when he had no money. You gave him a job when no one else would hire him. You invited him into your poker games.”

“I got him killed.”

“You didn’t get him killed.”

“I set the wheels in motion.”

I wanted to comfort Hooker, but I didn’t have a good answer for him. At the moment, I was low on intelligent thought. I was tired. I was confused. I was scared.

I pulled a knit hat out of one of the clothes bags and tugged it onto my head. “I’m going to take Beans for a walk and then I’ll get us some breakfast.” I zipped a winter jacket over my long-sleeved T-shirt and pocketed the room card and the keys to the SUV. I clipped the leash on Beans and led him out of the room, down the hall, and out into the crisp morning air.

The sky was flawlessly pale blue. The sun not yet visible. It was cold enough for my breath to make frost clouds, and I could feel the cold air clearing my head, jump-starting my brain. Beans and I were the only ones in the parking lot. We crossed the lot to a hardscrabble grassy field and walked around until Beans was empty. I loaded him into the SUV and set off in search of coffee.

NINE

Hooker was showered and shaved when I got back to the hotel room. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I borrowed your razor. I made up for its pinkness by swearing a lot while I shaved.”

“The razor is fine. When you start borrowing my underwear, we need to talk.”

I unpacked two cups of coffee and two plastic cups of orange juice from one bag, and I had a second bag filled with breakfast sandwiches. I handed a sandwich to Hooker, kept one for myself, and gave the rest of the bag to Beans. “Everything you could possibly want for breakfast with the exception of pancakes,” I said to Hooker. “An egg, a sausage patty, cheese, and a biscuit.”

“Yum,” Hooker said. And he meant it. Gourmet food was lost on Hooker.

I finished my sandwich, juice, and coffee and took a shower. Hooker was back to watching television when I came out of the bathroom.

“This isn’t good,” he said. “They’re saying the murder weapon that was used on Butchy was also used on Oscar Huevo. I’m now wanted for questioning by the local police and the Miami police. And I hate to tell you this, but they’re looking for you, too.”

“Me?”

And as if on cue, my cell phone rang. It was my mother. “I just got home from the cruise, and I heard your name on television,” she said. “They said you were wanted for murdering two men.”

“No. I’m only wanted for questioning. And it’s all a mistake. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

“Don’t let them take you to jail. I saw a show on it once. They watch

you on television when you go to the bathroom.”

More information than I needed right now.

“My mother,” I said to Hooker when I disconnected. “She suggested I don’t go to jail. She thought I wouldn’t like it.”

“If you don’t want to go to jail, we need to check out of this motel,” Hooker said. “It’s too easy to spot my SUV sitting out there in the lot. There’s an empty factory that’s up for sale on the road to Kannapolis. It’s been vacant for over a year. I took a tour of it a couple months ago, thinking I might want to buy it for a shop. Maybe build my own cars someday. It wasn’t right for a shop, but it might be okay to use as a hiding place while we think this through. There’s no alarm on it, so it’ll be easy entry. And it’s on a secluded stretch of road.”

I added breaking and entering to my mental crime tally.

The building had originally been a tool-and-die factory. When the factory went belly-up, the place had been gutted and used to store motor oil and assorted car-care products. Those products had since moved on, and we now sat in a dark, damp, cavernous cinder-block bunker of a building. It hadn’t been locked, and one of the garage-bay doors had been left open, so we were only guilty of entering. Hooker drove the SUV into the interior and parked close to the wall where we were in shadow and not visible from the outside.

“For a short time it felt like things might get normal,” I said to Hooker. “But now they’re worse than ever.”

“One step forward, two steps backward. Let’s test-drive a couple things. We know Ray was using illegal technology to cheat. We’re not sure why because Ray never seemed to be interested in racing. We also know Ray employs two goons who kill people. And we’re not absolutely sure, but it feels like Ray knew his brother was in the locker. In fact, chances are probably good that Ray killed Oscar.”

“There’s something very high stakes here. Something we don’t understand,” I said to Hooker. “There has to be more going on than cheating at a race.”

“I agree. I think we need to find out why Ray killed his brother.”

“You were thinking Madam Zarra and her crystal ball would tell us?”