A Fine Line (26 page)

I shook his hand. “Forget about it.”

“We’ll be in touch.”

I nodded.

I waited for five minutes, then called Horowitz on his cell phone. “Mendoza and Keeler were just here,” I told him.

“That fire in Southie last night,” he said. “I knew they were headed your way. What’d you tell them?”

“Nothing. They wanted to know if I got a call about the fire. I didn’t. That’s what I told them.”

“Nothing about that videotape or the cell phone or Ethan Duffy?”

“I didn’t say anything about any of that. Did you?”

“Me?” he said.

“I had the feeling they knew more than they were saying,” I said.

“They didn’t hear anything from me,” said Horowitz.

“Roger,” I said, “if that was Ethan’s body they found in that fire . . .”

“If it ain’t,” he said, “and if you went ahead and told the cops everything and that fruitcake figured it out, he’d kill the Duffy kid, for sure.”

I blew out a breath. “I’m trusting you on this.”

“He’s gonna call you,” said Horowitz. “He’s holding that boy because he wants something out of you. Hang in there.”

“So you think Ethan’s still alive?”

He laughed quickly. “Let’s hope so.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“Look at it this way,” he said. “If you had told the damn FBI about that videotape and your cell phone and everything, Ethan would sure as hell be dead by now.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I got some ideas on this, Coyne.”

“What—?”

“Not now. Gotta go. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

And he hung up.

Around noon Julie volunteered to take Henry for a walk. She said she’d pick up lunch for the three of us.

Ten minutes after she left, the cell phone rang.

“What?” I said.

“What did you tell them?”

“Who?”

“Those detectives.”

“Nothing. I told them nothing. Let me speak to Ethan.”

He laughed.

“If that was Ethan in that fire . . .”

“You’re in no position to threaten me, Mr. Coyne.”

“He better still be alive.”

“He is,” said the voice.

“Who was it, then? In the fire.”

“Come on, Mr. Coyne.”

“Let me talk to Ethan.”

“Later,” he said. Then he was gone.

I stared at the damned cell phone, with its evil green winking eye, for the length of time it took me to smoke a cigarette. Then I called Horowitz.

“He just called me,” I said.

“The guy on the cell phone?”

“Yes. Him.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said it wasn’t Ethan in that fire.”

“Good.”

“Are we supposed to believe him?”

“If the kid was already dead, he wouldn’t have called.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Like I told you, Coyne. I’m trying to work on it. Unfortunately, I keep getting interrupted by phone calls.”

“Gotcha,” I said, and I hung up.

H
enry and I had just gotten back to my apartment after our last walk of the evening when the cell phone beeped.

I snatched it up, flipped open the lid, and said, “I want to speak to Ethan.”

“Be patient, Mr. Coyne.” He was still distorting his voice. Even so, I felt as if I should be able to identify it. There was something familiar in it. I was certain I’d heard that voice.

“I need to know that Ethan’s all right,” I said.

“You’ve been most cooperative so far, my friend. It would be tragic if you blew it now. Do as I say and you shall speak to young Mr. Duffy.”

“Do I have your word?”

“Does my word really mean anything to you?”

“It’s got to,” I said.

He laughed.

I needed to find a way to get ahold of Horowitz. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Okay,” I said. “You’re the boss. What do you want me to do?”

“Do not disconnect unless I tell you to. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“Excellent. Now, first I want you to get your briefcase. Do it now. Keep the phone to your ear.”

I went to the door where I always left my briefcase. “I’ve got it,” I said.

“Empty it.”

I took out all the documents and letters and piled them on the sofa in the living room. “It’s empty.”

“Now go to your car, Mr. Coyne. Bring that antique briefcase with you. As you go, tell me what you’re doing. I want to hear your voice continually. Leave right now.”

“All right. First I have to put on my shoes.” I picked up my .38. “Okay. Now I’m getting my windbreaker out of the closet.” I slipped the gun into one pocket. “Now I’ve got to fill my dog’s water dish.”

“Make it quick,” he said. “Keep talking.”

I told him I was heading for the kitchen, but I didn’t tell him I was taking my wall phone with its extra-long cord off the hook and putting it face up on the counter. I turned on the faucet in the sink, held the cell phone close to the sound of running water, and pecked out Horowitz’s number on the corded phone.

I heard Horowitz’s voicemail answer. Damn.

I put the cell phone at my ear and bent close to the other phone. “Okay,” I said. “My dog’s got his water. Now I’m leaving my apartment. I’m heading down to my car.” I left the other phone lying faceup on the counter. I didn’t disconnect.

Henry followed me to the door. I held up my hand to him. He sat down and cocked his head. I gave him a quick pat, then went out and closed the door behind me. “I’m
heading for the elevator,” I said into the cell phone.

“Keep talking,” he said.

Our connection got fuzzy in the elevator. If he spoke to me, I couldn’t hear him. I kept talking anyway.

When I stepped out of the elevator into the parking garage, I paused with the cell phone against my ear, tucked the briefcase under my arm, slipped my empty hand into the pocket with the gun, and looked around the garage. This man had been here before. For all I knew, he was waiting for me behind a parked car.

“Are you still there?” I said into the phone.

“I didn’t like that,” he said.

“It was the elevator,” I said. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing now?” he said.

“Headed for my car.”

“You’ve got to keep talking, Mr. Coyne.”

The parking garage was eerily silent, the way it always was late at night. Somewhere the slow rhythmic plink of water dripping on wet concrete echoed softly. I saw nothing except dim orange light and dark shadows.

I went to my car, unlocked it, and slid in behind the wheel, narrating my progress all the way. I put the briefcase and the revolver on the seat beside me. “I’m in my car,” I said. “Now I want to hear Ethan’s voice.”

“Why not?” he said. “Hold on.”

I pressed the phone against my ear, and a moment later, a soft voice said, “Brady?”

“Ethan? Is that you.”

“It’s me.” I recognized his voice.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m . . . yes, I’m okay.”

“What’s—?”

“That’s enough, Mr. Coyne,” said the voice. “Satisfied?”

“I’ll be satisfied when you let him go.”

“Just do as I tell you,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“Of course I’m ready.”

“Then let us begin. Do not doubt this, Mr. Coyne. If you do precisely as I tell you, you shall see the boy very soon. If you fail to obey me in any way, however small, you will hear him die. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Where are we going?”

He chuckled. “You’ll see when you get there. Don’t think, Mr. Coyne. Keep your head free of distracting scenarios. Just drive. Now. Start your car, pull out of your parking slot, exit the garage, and turn right on Commercial Street. Talk to me as you go. Give me a sightseeing tour. Boston after dark, eh?”

He directed me around the loop of Commercial Street that bordered Boston’s Italian North End and merged onto Causeway Street near the North Station. Where Causeway butted onto Cambridge Street by Government Center, he told me to turn right. All along the way I named the restaurants and bars and nightclubs I passed, described the traffic lights I went through, and read the neon signs that were still lit at one o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

Once I put the cell phone down to fish out a cigarette and light it. When I picked up the phone and resumed my narration, he said, “What are you doing?”

“I just lit a cigarette.”

“Keep talking, Mr. Coyne. I don’t like to hear those silences. They make me nervous. You don’t want me to feel nervous, I assure you.”

So I kept talking. I did not tell him about the tantalizing
public phone booths I saw on the street corners or the two Boston PD cruisers I passed that were idling at the curb on Cambridge Street.

I had to keep trying to get in touch with Horowitz.

Precisely to prevent my doing that, I realized, was why he insisted on keeping me on the line.

At the rotary where Cambridge Street intersected with Charles he directed me onto Storrow Drive.

“Are we headed back to the record store?” I said.

He chuckled. “I told you, Mr. Coyne. Don’t think. You lawyers think too much. That’s your problem. Too much thinking, not enough feeling. Just drive.”

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“You can certainly ask,” he said. “Don’t expect an honest answer.”

“Fair enough. My question is: Why me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why’d you pick me to call about those fires? Why am I the one with this damn cell phone?”

“That’s easy.” He chuckled. “I’ve got something you want, you’ve got something I want.”

“What—?”

“Besides,” he said quickly, “I don’t like you.”

“Oh,” I said. “We know each other, then?”

“Don’t push your luck, Mr. Coyne.”

“What do I have that you want?”

“All in due time. You are approaching the Harvard Bridge. Exit there, but do not cross the bridge. Swing around onto Mass. Ave. as if you were going to the Convention Center.”

I did as he said. “Okay. I’m approaching Commonwealth. Stopping at the red light. Why don’t you like me?”

“You’re a bloodsucking lawyer, aren’t you?” His voice had suddenly lost its cultured coolness. I heard a hint of profound hatred in it. Craziness, too.

It occurred to me that if I played it carefully, I might get him to drop his defenses and reveal something.

It also occurred to me that I could easily push him over whatever edge he teetered on. Then he would kill Ethan.

“What’ve you got against lawyers?” I said.

He hesitated, and for an instant I thought I’d gone too far. But then he laughed softly. “I thought I told you not to think, Mr. Coyne. We are not exchanging intimacies here. I am giving orders and you are obeying them. Do not forget that. Where are you now?”

“The library’s coming up on my right.”

“Go around the corner, find an empty meter, and park your car there.”

I found a place to park on Huntington Avenue a little way past the library.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m parked. Now what?”

“Look familiar, Mr. Coyne?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “The BPL, the Pru, the Hancock Building, the Plaza—”

“Don’t fuck with me,” he growled.

“I’m trying not to think,” I said, “but I notice that my office building is right here.”

“Bravo, Mr. Coyne. Go up to your office. Bring your briefcase with you.”

And about then, finally, the lightbulb flashed in my head and I understood what he wanted. What he’d wanted all along.

But it didn’t make much sense.

Why kill three men and kidnap a fourth for a few letters
about birds, no matter who’d written them and how old and important and valuable they might be?

My .38 was lying on the passenger seat beside me in plain sight. The last thing I needed was someone smashing my window and setting off my car alarm—or, for that matter, some foot patrolman stopping me.

I shoved the gun under the driver’s seat. Then I picked up the briefcase, got out of my car, locked it, and crossed the street to my building. I punched the code into the keypad that let us tenants in after they locked up at ten every night, and I went up to my office.

“Okay, I’m here,” I said into the cell phone. “Now what?”

“I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, Mr. Coyne.”

“You want those Meriwether Lewis letters, right?”

“Retrieve them from your safe, please.”

“What are they worth?” I said to him. “Twenty-five, maybe fifty thousand dollars? There are plenty of easier ways for a master criminal such as yourself to make that kind of money.”

“You should know,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Lawyers.” He laughed quickly. I heard no humor in it. “Fetch those letters and put them into your briefcase. Do it now. No more chitchat. It tests my patience.”

I kept up a play-by-play in the cell phone as I twirled the dial, opened the safe, took out the envelope with the Meriwether Lewis-to-Alexander Wilson letters, put them into my briefcase, and closed the safe.

And as I did this, another part of my mind tried to piece together the information I had.

This man who was holding Ethan Duffy for the ransom of some old letters about birds seemed to have a profound dislike for lawyers.

Who did I know that didn’t like lawyers?

I almost laughed out loud.

Who
did
like lawyers?

Everybody, sooner or later, ended up feeling he’d been screwed by a lawyer.

Even lawyers didn’t like lawyers. Lawyers got screwed all the time by other lawyers.

Okay. This man was a member of the Spotted Owl Liberation Front. He liked birds. He thought of himself as a savior of bird habitat. He was on a righteous crusade against those he considered the enemies of birds.

I could almost understand trying to call attention to an issue you cared passionately about by burning down empty buildings.

But this guy killed people.

To glorify the spotted owl?

It was all out of proportion. It didn’t make sense.

But, of course, there was no reason it should. The man was psychotic. Normal standards of proportion, logic, and rationality didn’t apply, and I realized that no matter how carefully and thoroughly I tried to analyze it, to piece together clues, to understand the cause-effect nature of the man’s motivation, the simple bottom line was: He was insane.