Dance for the Dead (43 page)

Farrell gave an apologetic
shrug. “Do you remember that guy who kept calling up bank
tellers and saying he had their kid, so they’d leave money in a
bag somewhere?”

“Sure,” said
Barraclough. “Ronny Prindle. That must be nine or ten years
ago. What about him?”

“Well, there was something
I tried that time that didn’t pan out. I took one of the
telephone tapes to a linguistics professor and asked him for an
opinion of the accent. We caught Ronny Prindle before the report came
back, but I remembered being surprised when I read it because the
professor got it right. Prindle was from the east coast of Maryland.
So I cleaned up the tape we had from Jane and sent it to the same
guy. He thinks I’m still a cop.”

Barraclough smiled at the paper
he was signing, and Farrell thought he heard a chuckle. “Every
time I can’t imagine why I’m dragging your dead ass
around with me, you surprise me, and I remember. Let me know as soon
as you hear from him.”

Farrell’s hands stopped
shaking. He had bought himself more time.

Two days later Farrell hurried
across the same lobby, pushed the elevator button, and walked into
the same office. Barraclough looked up at him expectantly.

“She’s started using
the credit cards,” Farrell said. “We got a Katherine
Webster at a hotel in Saint Louis, a Denise Hollinger renting a car
in Cleveland, a Catherine Snowdon in Erie, Pennsylvania – ”

“She’s heading
northeast,” said Barraclough. “Start moving people into
her path.”

Farrell’s eyes twinkled.
“It’s done. Everybody we’ve got is either up there
already or on a plane to northern Pennsylvania or upstate New York.
I’ve got some strung out in rest stops along the big highways,
some checking the parking lots of hotels, restaurants, and malls for
the car she rented, others waiting at rental offices for her to turn
it in. I’ve got some more – ”

Barraclough interrupted. “Can
you tell from the reports what she’s doing?”

Farrell scanned the credit
reports in his hands. “Pretty much what Mary Perkins told us
she does. She alternates identities, so the same person never turns
up two places in a row. She’s paying the single-room rate, and
the meal charges don’t seem to be enough for two, so she’s
probably traveling alone.”

“But what’s she
trying to accomplish?” Barraclough snapped. “Where’s
she going?”

Farrell smiled. “Well, let
me tell you what the professor says.” He moved another sheet of
paper to the top and stared at it. “She’s got a little
peculiarity. Her lips don’t quite touch when she says
m, b,
or
p.
He thinks that means she grew up speaking two
languages, but it’s not enough to tell him what the other one
is.” He moved his finger down the paper. “Oh, here’s
the part I was looking for. Her accent has what he calls an
‘intrusive schwa.’ It’s a marker that places her in
a narrow linguistic belt that stretches from Chicago east as far as
Syracuse, New York.” He shrugged. “If I had to make a
bet, I’d say she’s had enough and is going home.”

It was only twenty hours later
that Farrell returned to Barraclough’s office, looking
exuberant. “She’s been spotted.”

“Where?”

“She turned in the rented
car at the Buffalo airport, went to the long-term lot, got into a
parked car, and drove off. We had two guys there.”

Barraclough glowered, his eyes
narrowing. “They let her get away?”

“No,” Farrell
answered quickly. “They followed her to a house in a little
town on the Niagara River between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.”

“And?” Barraclough
asked impatiently.

“She put the car in the
garage and opened the door with a key,” said Farrell. “It
must be her house.”

Barraclough
and Farrell arrived in the Buffalo airport after midnight in the
beginning of a snowstorm. The Nissan Pathfinder four-wheel-drive
vehicle with tinted windows that Barraclough had specified was
waiting at the curb with one of Farrell’s trainees behind the
wheel, but Barraclough stepped into the street to the driver’s
side and said, “Get in the back.”

Barraclough drove the Pathfinder
out to the slush-covered gray street and watched the wiper sweep
across the windshield to compress the snowflakes into a thin,
ruler-straight bar, then slide back for more while the defroster
melted the bar away.

Farrell inspected and loaded the
two pistols his trainee had brought for them, attached the laser
sights, and tested the night-vision spotter scope he had brought with
him from California. “Where is she?”

“You get on the Thruway up
here and take it west. Get off at the Delaware exit and head north.”

Farrell glanced at Barraclough
to be sure he had heard, then back at his trainee. “What’s
the place like?”

“It’s a two-story
house. We didn’t see any sign of anybody else. She went to bed
just before I left for the airport.”

“You mean her lights went
out,” Farrell corrected. “Who’s watching the
house?”

“Mike. Mike Harris.”

“From where?”

“He’s in a black
Dodge. He’s parked down the street, facing away, where he can
see in the mirror the front door and the door that goes to the
driveway.”

Farrell felt a slight,
pleasurable warmth in his chest. The boys weren’t much to begin
with – just oversized balls and a mean streak – but by
the time he was through with them they knew how the game was played.

When they arrived at the street,
Barraclough stopped the Pathfinder a distance from the Dodge. Farrell
took out the radios and handed one to the trainee. “You
remember how to use one of these, right?”

“Press the button to talk,
keep the volume low when anybody might hear it.”

“Good,” said
Farrell. “We’re Unit One, you’re Unit Two. Anybody
picks up the signal, he thinks we’re cops. No chitchat over the
air.”

Barraclough picked up the night
scope and turned it on, then swept it slowly up and down the street.
Houses, trees, shrubs seemed to burn with a bright green
phosphorescence, but there were no signs of movement. He aimed it
through the rear window of the Pathfinder. “Is that the house
back there on the left?”

“Yeah.”

“You been around the other
side to check for other exits?”

“Sure.”

“Did you check the houses
around it?”

“Yeah. Couples with kids
on one side and the back, an old guy on the other. Curtains were open
long enough so we saw people watching TV.”

“Okay. Here’s how
it’s going to be,” said Barraclough. “Give Mike one
of the radios and tell him to sit tight and watch. Then come back
here and get ready to drive this vehicle. Farrell and I are going in.
When we come out with her, pull up to the curb quick and pick us up.
I want the burlap sack lying where I can reach it so we can get it
over her head as soon as she’s in the back.”

The young man grunted his
assent, then took the radio over to the black Dodge and got inside to
talk to his partner.

Suddenly Barraclough hissed, “A
light just went on…. She’s coming out.”

Farrell ducked his head below
the window and spoke into his radio. “Heads down! She’s
out of the house.”

Thirty seconds later Farrell
heard a car door slam, an engine start, and the sound of tires on the
wet pavement. He saw the red glow of taillights reflected on the
dashboard. After a moment the glow receded.

Barraclough started the
Pathfinder and pulled out into the street. Farrell said into the
radio, “Change of plan. Unit Two, we’re following. Stay
behind us for now.”

Barraclough swung the Pathfinder
around the block and stopped with his lights off on the next street
until he saw Jane’s car pass under the street lamps of the
intersection. The color was gray. It was an old Chevy – maybe a
Caprice or Impala. “She’s going too slow to be running.”
He waited another few seconds, glanced in the mirror to verify that
Farrell's trainees had followed, and then started up after her.

“I’d sure like to
know where she’s going at this time of night,” said
Farrell. “She may have spotted the Dodge and decided to see if
they’d follow her.”

“I don’t think so,”
said Barraclough. “If she had, she would have tried something
like that while Mike was alone. If she saw him and us too, she’d
have gone out the back window.”

“Then what do you think
she’s doing?”

Barraclough shrugged. “She’s
been living like a scared rabbit for years. When she moves, it’s
nearly always at night. If I had to guess, I’d say she got a
phone call.”

“Mary Perkins?”

“Could be,” said
Barraclough. “But she might even be meeting new clients by
now.”

The gray car drove a few blocks,
then turned left at the Niagara River. Barraclough waited for a long
time before he turned after her. He had to be careful not to get
stuck behind her at a traffic signal, where she would be able to get
a good look through the rearview mirror.

When he could see her taillights
far enough ahead, he gauged her speed and matched it. “She
doesn’t drive as though she’s seen us. We’ll wait
until she gets to a dark, deserted stretch before we try to take
her.”

The road wound a bit to stay
beside the big, dark river, then straightened and opened up into four
lanes. Farrell unfolded the road map on his lap and checked it
against street signs. After a few minutes he called the other vehicle
on the radio. “Pull ahead of us now, Unit Two. We’re
going to fade into the background for a while. Give her lots of space
and don’t spook her.”

The black Dodge followed Jane
through little towns along the river, past a cluster of oil
refineries, then onto the Thruway just before the Buffalo city line.
Farrell studied the map, and as they approached each landmark, he
would announce it. “There’s a big park up ahead.
Riverside Park. If she takes the exit, we might be able to pull her
over there.” She didn’t. “Up ahead is the Peace
Bridge over to Canada. That could be where she’s heading.”
But it wasn’t. The dark water beside them widened into Lake
Erie.

Jane turned off the Thruway at
Route 5 where it became Fuhrmann Boulevard and hugged the shoreline
into the city of Lackawanna. Ahead of Farrell and Barraclough on
their right loomed an enormous complex of old brick factory buildings
behind a high chain-link fence. “What’s that?”
asked Barraclough.

“The map calls it the
Gateway Metroport Industrial Center. It used to be one of the biggest
steel mills in the world. I was here a couple of times in the early
sixties, before it closed down. You couldn’t breathe unless
there was a strong west wind. It goes on like this for four or five
miles.” He stared through the high fence. “Looks like
they’re renting a couple of nooks and crannies of it to a few
half-assed businesses now.”

The radio crackled. “Unit
One, this is Unit Two.”

“Go ahead.”

“We can’t see her
anymore.”

Barraclough’s head snapped
to the right to stare at Farrell in intense concentration. “She
must have made them.”

Farrell spoke into the radio.
“Is there any chance she just outran you?”

“No. We think she must
have turned off on one of those little streets on the left.”

“Then turn down the next
one and circle – ”

Barraclough snatched the radio
out of Farrell’s hand. “Negative. Cancel that. She didn’t
turn left, she turned right, or we would have seen her go across
three lanes ourselves. Go back to where you saw her and look for
railroad tracks.”

Farrell held on as Barraclough
swung the Pathfinder around on the icy street. What had Barraclough
seen? They had been bumping over old railroad tracks for a long time.
“You’re thinking there’s a way into the factory?
But all the tracks lead smack into the fence.”

“There has to be a line
that goes in,” said Barraclough. “They might have closed
down the spurs that went to different parts of the plant, but to ship
coal and ore in and steel out, there must be a regular railroad
right-of-way. That doesn’t go away just because something
beside it stops making money. And they don’t put a gate across
it.”

More than a mile back,
Barraclough found the tracks. There was a functional-looking
railroad-crossing light at a little rise just beyond a curve in the
road. The big brick buildings on both sides of the boulevard would
have obscured the view of her car just long enough for her to turn
off her lights and coast up the tracks.

Barraclough turned the utility
vehicle onto the railroad ties to straddle the tracks and slowly
bumped along them. The tracks went only fifty yards into the dark
shadow of the mill before they passed through a gap in the fence.
“Here it is,” said Barraclough. “She lives around
here, remember? She’s probably driven by here in daylight a
hundred times.” He wrenched the steering wheel to lurch off the
tracks into the freight yard of the factory and waited until the
black Dodge caught up.

Barraclough had already found
her trail. The snow was clear and unmarked except for two deep
parallel lines from a set of tires that ran deeper into the old steel
mill. Barraclough trained his headlights on the tire tracks and sped
up. He drove past a few small buildings in the complex that had new
signs and recent paint on the doors, but as he went farther, immense
brick buildings with dark windows loomed on both sides like the ruins
of an abandoned city. He judged he had driven nearly a mile before he
saw her car.

It was parked in the shadows on
the lake side of a brick building, away from the distant lights of
Fuhrmann Boulevard. Barraclough pulled to a stop when he was still a
hundred feet away from it and let the Dodge pull up beside him. He
said into the radio, “Watch the car and the doors of the
building. We’ll call when we need you.” He handed the
radio to Farrell and accepted the gear Farrell handed back: pistol,
night-spotting scope, flashlight, nylon wrist restraints.