Chapter 12
“What’s the plan?” Teller asked. “Are we going to corner him in the parking lot and question him there?”
“Something like that,” she said. “We have to get there before he gets off to do that.”
They were within a block of the meat-packing facility when a gray sedan passed them going the opposite direction.
Sachie twisted in her seat and looked out the back of the sedan. “That was him. The car has a turtle on the back window.”
Teller slowed, put on his left blinker and waited for a break in the oncoming traffic.
Sachie remained turned in her seat. “I can still see him, but he’s about to go around a curve.”
A gap appeared in the oncoming traffic. It wasn’t much of one, but Teller couldn’t wait any longer. He hit the accelerator and spun the steering wheel at the same time. Tires squealed as the sedan did a one-eighty, fishtailing until Teller had it headed straight ahead.
“I lost sight of him,” Sachie said, leaning toward the dashboard. “He can’t be too far ahead. The traffic isn’t moving that fast.”
The slow traffic didn’t help Teller catch up.
Every chance he got, he wove around a slower vehicle and sped up again, only to get trapped behind another.
As they rounded the curve, Sachie squinted, searching the road ahead.
“I think that’s him, six cars ahead. He’s merging onto H1, heading back to Honolulu. ”
The car in front of Teller slowed almost to a complete stop to take a right turn onto a side street.
With another car passing him on the left, Teller had no choice but to slam on his brakes and wait for the driver to complete the turn.
As soon as he did, Teller punched the gas, sending the rental shooting forward.
Moments later, he flew onto H1, merging into traffic.
With multiple lanes to choose from, he whipped around vehicles using the far-left lane and nearly passed the gray sedan as it veered to the right onto an exit ramp.
“He’s getting off!” Sachie yelled at the same time Teller had come to that conclusion. Quickly checking his rearview and side mirror, he swerved sharply, crossing three lanes of traffic and just making it to the exit to the sound of horns honking.
Ahead, William’s car slowed at a green traffic light and turned left.
By the time Teller reached the light, it was red. He would have blown through it except a police car waited at the light to his right, forcing him to come to a complete halt and wait for the cross traffic to pass, along with the police car, and for his light to turn green.
Sachie sat as far forward as she could and still be secured in her seatbelt.
“Still see him?” Teller asked when the light blinked green. He pulled onto the road and fell in behind the cars slowing for the next light in a long line of traffic lights at every intersection.
Sachie craned her neck to look over the tops of the vehicles in front of them. For a long moment, she said nothing. “I think I see him. No... Yes! That’s him. Second car at the fourth light in front of us.”
Teller did his best to catch up, but he was stuck in the gridlock, slowly moving forward. Fortunately, the lights synchronized in his favor, and although he moved at a snail’s pace, he didn’t have to stop at a red light.
Soon, the traffic thinned. Only three vehicles moved between them and the gray sedan with the turtle sticker. At this point, Teller was in no hurry to close the distance. He didn’t want Williams to know he was being tailed.
They’d left the busier four-lane streets and moved into a residential neighborhood with single-family homes and a park with fields for organized sports like baseball and soccer.
The last vehicle between them turned onto a side street.
Williams’s gray sedan slowed in a school zone across from a park. He pulled into a parking area dedicated to the park and stopped.
“Want to stop and talk with him?” Teller asked, slowing as they approached.
“No,” she said. “Drive on by, then turn onto the street flanking the park. I want to know what he’s up to.”
Teller drove past Williams in his parking area to turn onto the road that ran along the side of the park. “Think he’s meeting someone there for nefarious purposes?”
Her lips pressed together, a frown pulling her brow low. “For all we know, he’s stopping to eat a picnic lunch. It is a pretty park.”
Like so many parks in the area, this one was a mix of walking paths through Banyan trees, baseball diamonds and soccer fields for children’s and adults’ sports leagues.
Sachie pointed ahead. “Pull into that parking area by the banyan trees.”
As soon as Teller brought the car to a halt, Sachie jumped out.
Teller hurried to join her as she set off on one of the paths, meandering through the massive trees with their thick canopies of leaves and arrays of aerial roots and prop roots dangling from the branches above.
Sachie moved quickly toward the other parking area, where the gray sedan was parked.
As they neared, Teller spotted Williams seated on a bench eating a sandwich.
Teller chuckled softly. “You called it. He’s having a picnic lunch in the park.
She stopped in the shadow of one of the banyans. “Why here? Why not at a park closer to the halfway house?”
A loud bell rang, drawing Teller’s attention to the school across from the park, and across from where Williams sat on the park bench.
As children streamed out into the playground surrounded by a chain-link fence, the man lowered the hand with the sandwich and leaned slightly forward.
Sachie moved closer to the man on the bench. “Is he watching the children?”
Teller reached for her hand. “In case he looks this way, he will only think we’re a couple walking through the park. “Do you think he chose this park because it’s across from an elementary school?”
Sachie shivered. “I hope not. It’s too creepy. Makes me want to call him out on it.”
When she started forward, Teller held onto her hand, bringing her to a halt. “Wait.”
She turned toward him and then glanced back at the playground.
A small boy chased a ball to the fence, bent to pick it up and paused. He glanced across the road as if looking for something or someone. Then, he grinned and waved.
Scott Williams waved back. He didn’t leave the bench or go to talk to the little boy but kept his distance.
At the angle they stood observing the man, Teller could see his smile.
The boy waved again, turned with the ball and ran back to play with his friends.
Williams sat on the bench until the bell rang again and the children filed into the building. Recess was over.
Williams gathered his trash, tossed it into a bin and headed for his car.
“Do you want to follow him?” Teller asked, ready to sprint back to their rental.
“No. That won’t be necessary,” Sachie said.
Teller turned to Sachie to find tears slipping down her face. He cupped her cheeks and stared down into her watery eyes, his heart squeezing hard in his chest. “Hey, why the tears?” Hell, he could handle bullets better than a woman’s tears, any day—especially this woman’s.
She gave him a weak laugh. “Just when you’ve lost faith in humankind, something like this reminds you that not everyone is bad or out to hurt others.”
Teller glanced toward the gray sedan pulling out of the parking lot. “You think it’s okay for a grown man to lurk outside an elementary school playground?”
“I recognized the little boy.” Sachie looked up into Teller’s eyes, her own filling again. “It was Aiden Williams, Scott’s son. He came to see his son.”
“What about him not leaving the house for an entire day and the house manager not recording that he left?”
“It could’ve happened as you suggested.” Sachie started moving back to where they’d parked.
“Bryan might’ve gone on a bathroom break, not expecting anyone to leave at that hour.
Williams wasn’t supposed to work today, but his supervisor said he was asked to fill in for someone else.
” She shook her head. “I think it would’ve been a stretch for him to fly out to the Big Island, stir up all that trouble and get back in time to show up at work at eight. ”
Teller opened the passenger door and held it for Sachie to climb in.
He rounded to the other side of the car and slipped in behind the wheel. “Now where?”
“I’d like to talk with Candice Franklin if she’ll see me.”
Sachie stared at the front windshield, images of a little boy standing on the other side of a fence waving at his father etched in her mind.
She really hoped Scott Williams was committed to a better life for himself and his son.
Like all children, Aiden deserved to live a happy childhood with a parent who loved and protected him.
She’d never liked taking children away from their parents, but she couldn’t stand back and let a child be neglected or abused by those parents.
Teller checked the text Swede had sent for the address and brought it up on his map application. “Are you going to let Foster know where we found Williams?”
Sachie had rolled that question over in her mind before Teller had asked.
“Though I like to think his picnic in the park is harmless, and he only wanted to see his kid, I’d hate to be wrong.
So, yes. I feel like it’s my responsibility to let Foster know.
I’m not sure if Williams has visitation rights with Aiden or if he has been ordered to keep his distance from the boy. ”
The map led them back to H1 to another exit and back into a seedier neighborhood with homes that had seen better days years ago. Many had cars parked in the tiny front yards, some propped on concrete blocks, missing not only tires but their wheels as well.
If it wasn’t chickens wandering the streets, it was stray dogs that barely moved off the pavement as Teller eased along the narrow streets, coming to a stop in front of a dilapidated shack that appeared to be held together by plywood and duct tape.