“Complaints. We’ve had the benefit of a very good relationship with local law enforcement all along the route. Which we appreciate,” he said, smiling at Dross. “But a number of officers who’ve worked with Lewis have made allegations about his behavior.”
“Such as?”
“Harassing locals for one thing, particularly women. Not interacting well with official law enforcement. You can read that as insubordinate. Reports of drinking on the job. He’d been warned. This last incident at Spirit Crossing, which was reported by a county deputy, was the final straw. We gave him his walking papers.”
“How did he react?”
“I didn’t do the actual firing. That fell to his supervisor. The report I got, however, was that he went ballistic. Which only reinforced for me the wisdom in cutting him loose. The last thing we need is one of our security people losing it during the kind of confrontation we’ve been experiencing lately.”
“Do you have an address for him and a phone number?” Dross asked.
Robbins opened the folder he’d pulled from a file cabinet as soon as Dross and Cork told him about their interest in Adrian Lewis. “For an address, only a P.O. box number in a place called Dahlbert.” He gave that to them, then gave them the phone number from Lewis’s file.
Cork said, “We have reason to believe he was at Spirit Crossing in his security uniform the day after he’d been fired. Is that possible?”
“No idea whether he turned in his badge or uniform, so I suppose anything is possible. Especially with a loose cannon like Adrian Lewis.”
They thanked Robbins and left. They sat a moment in Dross’s cruiser while she tried the cell phone number they’d been given.
“Out of service,” she said.
“P.O. box in Dahlbert,” Cork said. “Same town where Mathias Paavola was renting that garage apartment.”
“Paavola’s landlady didn’t say anything about a roommate. So, if he wasn’t living with Paavola, he must be living out of his trailer.”
“Where do you park a big fifth wheel in Dahlbert?” Cork said.
Dross started the engine of her cruiser. “The town’s only half an hour away. What do you say we find out?”
CHAPTER 30
By midafternoon, the July day had turned hot, but inside the O’Connor house, it was much cooler. The curtains were drawn against the heat but also to block the prying eyes of any reporters who might return. The doors were all locked. Annie lay on the living room sofa staring up at the ceiling, where a solitary fly moved in fits and starts across the textured plaster. She wondered why it didn’t simply use its wings. If she had wings, she’d do nothing but fly.
Maria came from the kitchen. “I’ve made sandwiches.”
“Not hungry,” Annie said, still watching the insect on the ceiling.
“You have to eat.”
“What’s the point?”
“It will be a very long time before this thing in your brain kills you. In the meantime, you should do all you can for your body. And your spirit.”
“What if it’s not this tumor that kills me?”
Maria knelt on the carpet next to the sofa. “What else then?”
“Whoever tried to get into the house last night. Maybe whoever fired that shot this morning.”
“That was meant for Waaboo.”
“If you say so.”
“Everybody says so.” Maria reached out and stroked Annie’s arm gently.
“I’ve been thinking about anger,” Annie said.
“Yours?”
“Anyone’s. If I could strike out at God for giving me this cancer, I would. Viciously.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Oh, but it is. This anger inside me is sometimes worse than the pain of the headaches. So maybe if I were Adrian Lewis, I’d be sorely tempted to take revenge on whoever it was that got me fired.”
“That wasn’t just you.”
“No, but he sure seemed focused on me. Before I blacked out yesterday, I saw nothing but hate in his eyes.”
“If you really saw him.”
Annie smiled, but without humor. “Like everyone else, you think I just hallucinated.”
“I am only saying it’s a possibility. You’ve seen things before. And remember, the deputy told us that man had been fired. He should not have been there.”
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t. And someone was sure eager to get into the house last night when I was alone here.”
“You are not alone now.”
