“That, I don’t know. My boss puts the packages together.”
Juice looked at me. “You good?” I nodded yes. “Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”
Juice and I walked to the car in silence. He opened the car door for me, and I slid inside. I could feel the first inkling of tears. A few seconds later, he climbed inside the car. “Talk to me. What’s the deal with the pictures?”
“The guy he pointed out, his name is Hardy King. He’s the head of security for the company I work for. I thought he was a friend.”
“You think this Hardy guy killed Sam?”
“Yeah.” Jonathan didn’t kill Sam. Hardy did.
It all seemed to make sense. Hardy would have access to the security badging system for making a duplicate for Sam. His showing me the bank logs and pretending to help me. He wanted me to think it was Jonathan who killed Michael and my brother. He must have hired Sam, posing as Jonathan. He knew Sam would tell me who he was working for. Hardy must have left the note in my car, the flowers in Vera’s room. But why?
Juice started up the car. “So your company needs enough firepower that the head of security has to ship out guns monthly? What does your company do?”
“It’s a trucking delivery company and we don’t need guns for what the company does.”
“My guess is this Hardy guy must be making straw purchases for folks who can’t make them.”
“Wait. What?”
“Yeah. It’s a big business down here. Somebody has a criminal record and can’t pass a background check, so they get someone who’s clean to make the purchase for them. People do it all the time here in Georgia, buy guns and send them to other states with strict gun laws. Georgia is one of the easiest places in the country to buy a gun. My guess is that the Hardy guy must be making some money on the side or hooked up with some kind of gun club fanatics or something.”
I leaned my head against the glass of the car door thinking about what Juice said. The shipping orders to Ohio and Illinois. And the recent shipments to San Diego. Hardy must have set up the phony Cavanaugh company to ship the guns on Houghton trucks. Michael had a copy of the flyer for the gun shop. He found out what Hardy was doing and that’s why he was killed. Hardy didn’t realize Michael hated guns, so he’d staged the suicide all wrong. Then I remembered Max’s words from Nate’s party, his southern twang singing in my ear: I don’t think Libertad should be part of this. It’s too risky.
I shot straight up in the passenger seat. “Oh my God!”
“Ellice, you okay?”
It all started to come together, like a camera lens sharpening its focus on a face. The Brethren. The fight. The foot soldiers. The guns.
Hardy was arming the Brethren’s foot soldiers!
Chapter 40
By the time Juice and I arrived back at the Varsity to pick up my car, another kernel of an idea started to form, much like the one that formed back in Chillicothe when I applied for the scholarship to Coventry. I nurtured that small kernel of an idea until it bloomed into a plan back in the summer of 1979.
And tonight, I had another plan.
I thanked Juice for his help and assured him I didn’t need an escort home. He had done as much as I was willing to let him. The rest I had to do for myself. Despite my protests against his following me home, he did it anyway, right up to the entrance to my garage. I waved and watched him drive off. After he left, I made a U-turn inside my garage. I left too. Anyone who hurt Sam had no explanation I wanted to hear, and they got no second chances with me either.
*
It was almost nine o’clock by the time I pulled into Houghton’s garage. The lobby was empty. Quiet. I strolled through the security gate with my new replacement ID badge from Hardy as if it were bright and early on a Monday morning. I gave a friendly nod to the young security guard. One of Hardy’s minions.
“Ms. Littlejohn, is everything okay?” the guard questioned.
“Just fine. Hardy left some paperwork on his desk for me. He told me I could just stop by his office and pick it up.” I decided a little chitchat and friendliness might go a long way tonight. “I see that fourth elevator is still out, huh? They ought to just chuck the whole thing and start all over,” I said jokingly.
He laughed. “I think you’re right.”
I climbed into the elevator and faked a smile at the guard as the doors closed. I hit the button for Twenty instead of Nineteen, where Hardy worked. Moments later, I slipped into the dim menacing ambiance of the reserve lighting system in the executive suite. I didn’t flip the override switch. I needed the darkness to work. Before I left the twentieth floor, I grabbed a miniflashlight from my desk and headed for Hardy’s office on the nineteenth floor. Maybe I was taking a huge risk baiting him here like this. But it was a risk worth taking.