Revenge of The Dog Team. William W. Johnstone

other cities as well. It was good to have other fish swimming around in the pool to provide the cover of relative anonymity.

      Now, out here off the main drag, his caution would have to be doubled. This was a quieter part of town, the quiet of abandonment and neglect. One thing he had working for him was the stink-o state of the economy. Like everybody else, the city was hurting for money. That meant fewer police cars to be deployed, with more of them being assigned to the obvious trouble spots and fewer for routine patrol along the routes less traveled.

      This street was quiet but not dead; a scattering of vehicles traversed it in both directions. Steve hung back a good distance from the Crown Vic, so far back that sometimes he couldn’t get as good a look at the Cadillac as he’d like. That was okay. The tail man would keep it in sight, and he’d do the same for the Crown Vic.

      He still couldn’t figure where the tail man came into this. The guy wasn’t federal, that was for sure. He could have been an undercover cop or a crook; going strictly on appearances, it was sometimes hard to tell the two apart. The Crown Victoria was a car model in use by a lot of police departments, both as marked and unmarked vehicles; on the other hand, its automotive muscle recommended it as a good getaway car, too…

      As he went eastbound, the north side of Claghorn Park came into sight on the right. The left side of the street was fronted by several blocks of long-abandoned brick factory buildings. The city didn’t want to spend the money to tear them down, so they’d been boarded up, padlocked, and forgotten. Somehow, they’d survived the best efforts of the local vandals and arsonists.

      Named after a skirt-chasing, bourbon-swilling Southern senator of yore, the park was a lop-sized oval the size of several football fields lumped together; its long axis ran north-south. Its west side was parallel to the avenue where the strip club was located. On the east, it was bordered by a narrow street that ran alongside a highway, beyond which lay the river.

      It was quartered by two roads, one running through its long axis, the other crossing it at right angles at its midpoint; shortcuts for those not wanting to detour the long way around the park. Access and service roads also wormed through it, eating up more land.

      The grounds featured a broad open flat dotted by several paved courts, some outbuildings, and a duck pond, all ringed and streaked by lumpy patches of scrub brush and skinny, sickly-looking trees. It was the kind of park that savvy parents warned their kids to steer clear of even in broad daylight.

      The Cadillac slowed to a speed of a few miles an hour, causing the Crown Vic and Steve’s car to do the same. The lead car poked along as if it was looking for something. Farther back, the Crown Vic pulled in to the curb, halting at the corner of a street that bordered the park’s west side.

      Steve 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