“I’m coming to that. So, Boyd, no matter how crazy he may or may not be, has to be aware that he is being chased down by half the cops on the eastern seaboard. Logic would dictate that he would just cut his losses and split. Which, apparently, he did ’cause he’s spotted in Black Marsh heading away from Pine Deep.”
“Without the money or the coke,” Ferro observed. “Witnesses say he wasn’t carrying anything. No bags, nothing.”
“Right, because the area is too hot, and no amount of money is going to do him much good in jail or in the morgue. Probably just stuffed his pockets with as much as he could carry and he’s gone. Except that he
“Well, for one thing he probably doesn’t know Ruger is dead. That hasn’t made the papers yet. Maybe he and Ruger had worked out a rendezvous thing. You know—if we get separated meet me at such-and-such place at such-and-such time. Boyd could have been on his way back to the farm thinking that Ruger was going to meet him.”
“He’d have to be a complete moron to think that there wouldn’t be a police presence at the farm after everything that happened.”
“I thought we already agreed Boyd was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
“Still don’t buy it, though.”
“Another thought is that maybe he hid the money somewhere around here.” LaMastra opened his mouth to speak but Ferro held up a hand. “Consider this, Vince…maybe Boyd let himself be seen in Black Marsh just to establish that he had left Pine Deep. Take the heat off, get us looking in the wrong place. We can assume he knew Macchio was dead, and maybe he witnessed Crow shooting Ruger at the farm the other night and figured that Ruger was dead, too. With the two of them out of the way, and him establishing to witnesses that he was leaving town, then the Pine Deep manhunt is over. Boyd slips back into town to recover the money and drugs he’d hidden.”
“Okay, that’s a better possibility, though he’d still have to be an idiot to believe it. But why attack the cops? How could that possibly work for him in any scenario?”
“Why not? Maybe they saw him when he came back for his stash?”
“Maybe,” LaMastra said and started ladling the soup into a couple of bowls. “But killing two cops? Does that make any sense? Up till now Boyd’s been along for the ride and there aren’t any murder warrants on him. Even in the video from the shoot-out with the Jamaicans it was clear he didn’t even try to hit anyone. Most he’s looking at is drug trafficking and flight to avoid. A good lawyer’d have him out in five even without a plea. Why on earth would he want to up the ante against himself by killing two cops? Does that make any sense?”
“Not if he’s sane, no. Maybe he’s been huffing coke by the handful ever since he hooked up with Ruger. But if Boyd’s that wired and desperate, who knows to what extreme he’ll go?”
“Okay, but does it make sense to tear them to pieces?” He reached over and placed a bowl in front of Ferro.
“Again, not if you’re sane…but when it comes right down to it, do we really know that much about Boyd and his psychological makeup?” Ferro shook his head. “Almost everything we have on him is supposition based on known history.”
LaMastra sat down with his bowl and for a few minutes he and Ferro said nothing as they started in on the soup, which was a rich turkey stock with lots of chunky vegetables and plenty of meat. The fact that it had been sitting on the stove for two days didn’t bother either of them. They’d had much less savory food over the years they’d been on the job.
Ferro nodded. “I don’t have a backup plan here, Vince.”
LaMastra swallowed and said, “I still don’t like it, Frank, because every time I think of it the situation gets worse. I mean, Castle emptied a whole magazine out there. What the hell was he shooting at if not Boyd, and if it was Boyd, how come he missed? And don’t try to sell me any bulletproof vest nonsense, because even with a vest at that range that many shots would have broken just about every one of Boyd’s ribs.”
“Right, and if he didn’t miss,” Ferro said glumly, “how come Boyd isn’t sitting there with a bunch of holes in him? If he was wounded, why was there no visible blood trail leading from the scene?” He sighed. “Maybe we were too hasty about blaming Macchio’s death on Ruger.”
LaMastra looked at him, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Jeez-us Christ.”
“Just a thought. We know what Ruger was capable of because of Cape May, so we just assumed he’d murdered Macchio, but after what we saw this morning…I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either. It’s—” LaMastra sucked his spoon for a moment, trying to phrase it, but only came up with, “It’s weird.”
