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“Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly. “That’s Jerry.”
“Huh?”
“Jerry.” She pointed out a face in the airport crowd in the background. The man was looking at her and Dent, not at the camera, but it had a clear angle on his face.
“Who the hell is Jerry?”
She laughed. “He’s… he’s nobody. An ardent fan.” Shaking her head with dismay, she said, “What a bizarre coincidence.”
Tucking the photos under her arm, she unlocked her front door and the two of them went inside. “Let me go first.” Dent moved her aside as he reached beneath his loose shirttail and produced a pistol.
Bellamy gasped. “Where did that come from?”
“Pepe’s Pawn Shop, I think it was called. It’s a tamale stand now.”
“Dent! I want nothing to do with guns.”
“Gun. Only one. And you never have to touch it.”
“What are you doing with it?”
“Discouraging anything our tattooed friend has in mind for us. Now stay put till I check things out.”
After a swift walk-through he returned and reported that the house was as they’d left it the day before. She was relieved to see that he’d tucked the pistol away.
“I checked the mailbox and found this.” She held up the letter envelope with the painter’s estimate inside. “Seems fair. And I like the idea of his being the locksmith’s brother-in-law. Saves me from having to give a house key to someone else.”
She reached for her cell phone, but Dent said, “Call him later. I want to hear about Jerry, your ardent fan.”
“He calls himself my number-one fan.” She picked out the photograph with him in it. “The focus is soft, but I’m almost certain that’s him.”
Dent studied the man in the picture.
His deep frown caused Bellamy to ask, “What?”
“I don’t know. Something. Tell me about him.”
“There’s not much to tell. I don’t know him, not even his last name. He came to one of my first book signings and thereafter kept popping up at personal appearances and lectures in New York, always bringing several copies of the book for me to autograph.”
“New York? So what was he doing at the Austin airport yesterday?”
“I have no idea.”
“You told me that your sense of being watched started when you got to Austin. Ever get that feeling in New York?”
“Sometimes. But I thought it was claustrophobia, being surrounded by a crowd.”
“You’re always surrounded by a crowd in New York.”
“Yes, but—”
“This was different? And it started when you began publicizing your book?”
She nodded. “The first time it happened, I was signing copies at a mystery bookstore. I thought the spooky atmosphere, all the people wa
iting in line, caused me to get flustered and panicky. I felt… airless.”
“Was Jerry there?”
