kept rolling, passing the Crown Vic, not giving it so much as a sidelong glance. Continuing east, he passed the Cadillac. It stood facing the mouth of a gravel service road that ran through a park field into some brush.
About 150 feet ahead lay the public entrance to the park. Before reaching half that distance, Steve looked in his rearview mirror and saw the Cadillac enter the service road and head south along it.
Behind it, the Crown Vic was in motion, its headlights swinging right as it entered the street on the west side of the park.
Steve drove to the park entrance, the head of a two-lane road that cut the park in half lengthwise. A sign warned that the park proper was closed for use after ten P.M. That prohibition didn’t hold for the road, which was a through route.
Steve turned into the park road, a straightaway lit at intervals by lampposts whose globes looked like a string of shiny pearl onions. The road was empty of vehicles in both directions. Trees and brush banded the western rim of the park; through them, he saw occasional glints of light that might have been from Quentin’s car making its way toward the south end of the park.
Acting on a hunch, Steve wheeled the sedan around in a U-turn, exiting the park and turning left, going back the way he came. Approaching the street bordering the west side of the park, he glimpsed red dot taillights off in the distance. The Crown Vic, he assumed. Hoped.
He turned left, into the street. Its east side bordered the park, its west side was lined with two-and three-family wooden houses separated by driveways. Most of the homes were dark save for lamps burning above the front doors and backyard garages. The curb was lined with parked cars.
Steve couldn’t see the Crown Vic’s taillights, but to be on the safe side, he switched off his headlights and cruised south down the street, creeping along at a snail’s pace. Street lamps provided enough light to see by. No other moving vehicles were in view, no pedestrians, not even a stray dog walker or drunk.
The trees edging the park formed one wall; the houses lining the opposite side of the street formed another. He could smell foliage and earth smells. The street was several hundred yards long; nearing the midpoint, he saw the mouth of a road on his left.
Steve paused at the entrance, looking in: a two-lane road that crossed the park east-west. It was bordered on both sides by a knee-high metal-strip guard rail, and lit at intervals by those pearl onion-globed street lamps. About a hundred feet in, the roadway rose up, cresting a low humped hill whose top was twenty-five feet above the fields that made up most of the park.
On the flat, a gravel service road emerged from a clump of trees, meeting the hillside at right angles. A tunnel underpass ran through the hill, allowing the service road to go through it and continue its course on the opposite side. The paved road ran over the top of the underpass.
The Crown Vic stood idling in a narrow shoulder of the eastbound lane at the bottom of the near side of the slope, its emergency flashers blinking.
Street lamps nicely lit the scene. The driver got out, walked around the back of the car, and stepped over the guard rail on the south side of the road, onto the grassy field. He rounded the base of the hill and vanished from sight.
Steve put his car into park, got out, and crossed to the roadway mouth, standing behind the cover of a clump of bushes. It was very quiet. He could hear the whoosh of unseen vehicles driving somewhere in the distance.
After a pause, a couple of pops sounded from the direction of the underpass. They sounded like firecrackers going off. They were accompanied by several flashes that looked like flashbulbs going off.
A minute passed, two. A figure came into view, rounding the base of the hill: the Crown Vic’s driver. Not running, not even jogging, he walked briskly to the guard rail, stepped over it, and got in his car. The emergency flashers were switched off. The car drove up the slope, went down the other side, and continued at a moderate pace eastward across the park.
Steve hopped back in his car and drove deeper into the park, not bothering to put on his lights. Zooming to the foot of the hill, he skidded to a stop on the shoulder, threw the car into park, and hopped out, hurdling the guard rail and scrambling around the hillside.
The service road had been built for the use of maintenance vehicles doing their park cleanup chores. The underpass was designed for their convenience. Its rounded archway and shaft were large enough to accommodate the passage of a two-and-a-half-ton truck.
Only, it wasn’t a truck that stood in the tunnel, it was a Cadillac. Its headlights were dark, its motor was off. The driver’s side door was ajar, causing the dome light to glow.
Durwood Quentin III and Ginger were tumbled in the backseat, dead. She’d been shot twice in the left breast, both heart shots, either one of which would have been fatal. Quentin’s pants and underpants were pulled down around his knees. A bullet hole punctured the center of his forehead. Clutched in his hand was a small-caliber pistol, all shiny and with mother-of-pearl handles. A .32 probably.
In a glance, Steve could see how it was supposed to read: Quentin hooks up with a hooker. Instead of giving up the booty, she tries to rob him. The pistol was the kind of piece a street hustler might pack. They struggle; during the fight, he shoots her dead. Overcome with shock and remorse, he kills himself.
Except that guys who commit suicide by gun usually don’t shoot themselves in the middle of the forehead. But the cops wouldn’t let a little detail like that stop them from closing the case.
Steve didn’t just stand there scratching his head, puzzling it out. As soon as he saw that Quentin and Ginger were both dead, he was in motion, making himself scarce from the scene.
Outside the tunnel, he saw the lights of the Crown Vic, nearing the far side of the park. Running back to his car, he threw it into gear, switched on the lights, and drove off, taking off after the Crown Vic.
He didn’t peel out of there like a bat out of hell. He wasn’t a damned fool. That was all he needed, to look like he was fleeing the scene of a crime and attract the attention of some passing police car. That would be all he needed, to get tagged for a double kill he was innocent of!
He drove at a brisk pace, ten miles or so above the limit, but not like some frantic getaway car. The Crown Vic was behaving in the same fashion, proceeding at a moderate clip as he exited the east end of the park. He turned right, southbound.
Not seeing any other cars in the park, Steve took a chance and punched some more speed out of the sedan, zooming it up to sixty to cut the distance, slowing as he neared the east exit.
It opened on to a street that met it at right angles. He was in luck. The street ran parallel to a highway that was elevated about twenty feet above ground level, supported on sets of stone pillars. Between the pillars could be seen the river, all tarry black smeared and spangled with rainbows of reflected light. The pillars were fenced in by a waist-high concrete median, an impassable barrier. Opposite it, on the other side of the street, was the park. The street was a trough hemmed in at both sides. Vehicles could progress only two ways on it, north or south.
The Crown Vic had turned south out of the park. Steve went the same way. About fifty yards ahead in his lane was a set of taillights. One set of taillights looks pretty much the same as another, but Steve reckoned that it was the Crown Vic. There was no other place for it to turn off.
Steve took off after it, hoping it was his quarry. He had to tread a fine line between going fast enough to overhaul it, yet not so fast that he’d alert the driver to his
