Niceville

day is the evil thereof
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    “Lemon, you said you wanted to take a look at Sylvia Teague’s computer. At what she was doing with the Ancestry program. You still feel like doing that?”
    “Yes,” said Lemon, “I do. Is it all still there, at their house?”
    “Yes. Kate’s Rainey’s legal guardian. She’s kept the house up. Everything’s just the way it was when it all started. Wait a second.”
    Nick took out his notebook, wrote down a string of numbers, ripped the sheet out and handed it to Lemon.
    “That’s the entry code to Sylvia’s house.”
    Lemon looked at it.
    “It’s different.”
    “Yeah. Had it changed. Beau, will you drop him off there? Pick up some beer and a pizza on the way, okay, Lemon? You have some money?”
    “I’m fine,” said Lemon. “But I hate pizza and I hate beer. They’ve got a wine cellar and I’ll call out for some KFC.”
    “Okay. Beau, let the NPD patrol guys for Garrison Hills know that we’ve got someone at the Teague house. I don’t want them kicking in the door because some nosy neighbor sees a light on.”
    “I will. What about the rest of it?”
    “You mean Delia and Gray Haggard? Tig’s had the house locked down. Crime Scene is already out of there. Dale Jonquil and the Armed Response guys are sitting in the driveway. NPD is out looking for any sign of Delia. It’s getting dark, and we’re all dead tired. Tig went home an hour ago. Nothing else is going to happen on that file until tomorrow. You go home, see to May. Lemon, you want somebody to go see if Brandy is okay?”
    “I spoke to her this afternoon. She’s at her place over the needle exchange. She’ll stay there.”
    “Hope her teeth are all okay,” said Beau, with an edge. “Hope she didn’t break one off in my ass or something.”
    Nick took a long look at Lemon Featherlight.
    “You really up to going over to Sylvia’s?”
    “I’m not going to get any sleep until I do.”

Bock Works Late
    Vangelis Kinkedes was the night shift supervisor at the NUC field office on North Kennesaw. He was an avocado-shaped second-generation Greek with droopy bloodhound eyes and bad skin. He was up to his ears in grease from a souvlaki pita when Bock appeared at the glass doors of the office and slipped his ID card through the reader. Bock was wearing all black and looked bone weary.
    “Tony, hey, Tony, what the fuck you doing here at this hour? And what’s with the ninja suit?”
    Bock slumped into the padded chair in front of his computer station, reached down into his pack, and pulled out a six-pack of Rolling Rock, peeled one off and tossed it across to Vangelis.
    “The AC is out at my flat. Too damn hot to sleep. I have a bunch of reports to key in. I figured I’d get them done here, where it’s cool. Is it just you and me, or is everybody out on a call?”
    “We got two trucks out, on account of the heat. Everybody has their AC on—”
    “Except me.”
    Vangelis grinned at him over the top of his Rolling Rock. “Except you. We got rolling brownouts and people calling in all over the place. You want to post on as R2R? I’ll put you down for double OT. We could really use you.”
    “Works for me,” said Bock, typing in his password and looking at the system entry screen. He was concerned about having to log in with his own ID, but he had no choice.
    Chu had him by the throat.
    I chose you when I saw what you did for a living. You can go into any house in the city and no one will pay any attention to you. That is why I chose you. I have studied the Niceville Utility computer. I know that you can disable his home climate-control system from the head office. Then you will arrange to take the service call—
    How?
    That’s your problem. You will go to Deitz’s house and you will search his home office and you will find a way to copy the hard drive on his home computer—
    Why can’t you do that from—
    Because he never goes online with that computer. I need what’s on his hard drive—
    Why?
    To complete my dossier. Deitz was in trouble with the federal government. What he did was bad enough to force him to resign from the FBI. I also believe that he betrayed four men who were conspiring with him, and these four men went to jail in his place. It would be useful to know the names of these men, in order to persuade Mr. Deitz that his interests may best be served by cooperating with me
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    What did he do?
    I believe the details will be on his computer or on files in his home office. I