The Husband

to drive past, would fail to give him special scrutiny. He had the look of a fugitive or a madman, or both.
    Fifty yards ahead stood a combination service station and minimart. Advertising a tire sale, scores of bright pennants snapped in the wind.
    He wondered if ten thousand dollars cash would buy him a ride to the Turnbridge house. Probably not. The way he looked, most people would expect him to kill them en route.
    A guy looking like a hobo, waving around ten thousand bucks, wanting to buy a ride, would make the station manager nervous. He might call the cops.
    Yet buying a ride seemed to be his only option other than carjacking someone at gunpoint, which he would not do. The owner of the car might foolishly grab for the gun and be accidentally shot.
    As he drew near the service station, a Cadillac Escalade angled off the highway and stopped at the outermost pumps. A tall blonde got out, clutching her purse, and strode into the mini-mart, leaving the driver's door open.
    The two rows of pumps were both self-service. No attendants were in sight.
    Another customer was fueling a Ford Explorer. He focused on his windows, working with a squeegee.
    Mitch shambled up to the Escalade and peered through the open door. The keys were in the ignition.
    Leaning inside, he checked the backseat. No grandpapa, no child in a safety seat, no pit bull.
    He climbed in behind the wheel, pulled the door shut, started the engine, and drove onto the highway.
    Although he half expected people to run after him, waving their arms and shouting, the rearview mirror revealed no one.
    The highway was divided. He considered driving over the median planter strip. The Escalade could handle it. Fate being what fate is, a patrol car would happen by at just that moment.
    He sped north a few hundred yards to a turning lane, and then headed south.
    When he passed the service station, no tall angry blonde had yet put in an appearance. He raced past, but with respect for the posted speed limit.
    Ordinarily, he was not an impatient driver who ranted at slow or clueless motorists. During this trip, he wished upon them all kinds of plagues and hideous misfortunes.
    By 1:56, he arrived in the neighborhood where Turnbridge's folly stood incomplete. Out of sight of the mansion, he pulled to the curb.
    Cursing the stubborn buttons, he stripped out of his shirt. Jimmy Null would most likely make him take it off anyway, to prove that he was not concealing a weapon.
    He had been told to come unarmed. He wanted to appear to be in compliance with that demand.
    From the trash bag, he retrieved the box of .45 ammunition, and from a pocket of his jeans, he withdrew the original magazine for the Springfield Champion. He added three cartridges to the seven already in the magazine.
    A movie memory served him well. He pulled back the slide and inserted an eleventh round in the chamber.
    The cartridges slipped in his sweaty trembling fingers, so he had time to load only two of the three spare magazines. He stashed the box of ammo and the extra magazine under the driver's seat.
    One minute till two o'clock.
    He shoved the two loaded magazines in the pockets of his jeans, put the loaded pistol in the bag with the money, twisted the top of the bag but didn't knot it, and drove to the Turnbridge place.
    A long chain-link construction fence fitted with privacy panels of green plastic fabric separated the street from the big Turnbridge property. The nearby residents who had put up with this ugliness for years must wish the entrepreneur hadn't killed himself if only so they could now torment him with lawyers and neighborly invective.
    The gate was closed, draped with chain. As Jimmy Null promised, it wasn't locked.
    Mitch drove onto the property and parked with the back of the SUV facing the house. He got out and opened all five doors, hoping by this gesture to express his desire to fulfill the terms of the agreement to the best of his ability.
    He closed the construction gate and draped the chain in place once more.
    Carrying the trash bag, he walked to a spot between the Escalade and the house, stopped and waited.
    The day was warm, not hot, but the sun was hard. The light cut at his eyes, and the wind.
    Anson's cell phone rang.
    He took the call. "This is Mitch."
    Jimmy Null said, "It's a minute past two. Oh, now it's two past. You're late."

Chapter 65

     
    The unfinished house appeared as large as a hotel. Jimmy Null could have been watching Mitch from any of scores of