Harry Dolan (31 page)

Time to move then. She would drive on, let them see she was home, and sort it out from there. She looked up and Billy Rydell had his hand on her daughter’s waist. They were still kissing. Elizabeth released the brake and the car rolled along and Billy’s hand went under her daughter’s shirt. He walked her a step backward until she was against the screen door. Sarah broke the kiss and wriggled sideways. She grabbed his wrist and pushed it down and away.

He moved in for another kiss and she braced her hands against his chest and shoved him away. He spread his arms in a gesture that said,
What’s the big deal?

Both of them turned then. Elizabeth had borne down on the accelerator and then the brake. The car screeched to a stop at an angle to the curb. The headlights washed over the lawn. She had the presence of mind to put the car in park, but not to cut the engine. Then she was out of the car. Billy Rydell saw her coming. He understood his situation. He thought about running—Elizabeth could read it in his face.

To his credit, he didn’t run. He came down the porch steps, palms out, mouthing apologies. He tried to skirt her only at the last moment, when she reached for him. She got hold of his shirtfront, used his own momentum to spin him around. Walked him backward three paces and slammed him into the trunk of the elm tree.

The impact knocked the wind out of him. His eyes stared. The fist of her left hand clutched the fabric of his shirt. Her right hand was down at her side. Her pistol was in it. It took an act of will to keep herself from pressing the muzzle into Billy Rydell’s ribs.

There ought to be shouting, she thought. There ought to be neighbors coming out of doors. There was nothing but Billy whispering, “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Her own voice was scarcely louder.

“What are you doing?” she said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Chapter 31

ON A YELLOW LEGAL PAD, WITH A CHEAP BALLPOINT PEN, DAVID LOOGAN composed a story.

An ocean of cars surrounded him. He had parked in the lot of a cineplex south of Lansing, sixty miles from Ann Arbor. Behind him, on the backseat, lay his duffel bag and his leather coat. The guitar case and Wrentmore’s shotgun were in the trunk.

On the passenger seat beside him there were three small items arranged in a row. The first was his cell phone; the second, a thin canister of pepper spray. The third was the flashdrive that Michael Beccanti had recovered from Sean Wrentmore’s condominium. The flashdrive figured into the story Loogan was writing.

He had looked through Sandy Vogel’s e-mail and read the memo she’d written about finding Beccanti in Tom Kristoll’s office. The memo had gone to Laura Kristoll, Nathan Hideaway, Casimir Hifflyn, and Bridget Shellcross—the members of the
Gray Streets
board. He knew the board would meet for brunch tomorrow at Laura’s house. He planned to join them there and tell them his story.

The story was a simple one, but Loogan was a fastidious writer. He drafted and redrafted and edited. He tore pages from the notepad and tossed them over his shoulder into the backseat.

Shortly after eleven, he produced a final draft. He read through it one last time, put the pad aside, and thought about settling in for the night. He had a reservation at a bed-and-breakfast in Okemos, east of Lansing, fifteen minutes away.

He had stayed away from hotels. There were bed-and-breakfasts everywhere, and their owners were glad to take cash and didn’t require a lot of paperwork. He had searched for listings on a computer at an Internet café, and had made his reservations from pay phones, using the names of his old high school teachers. His pattern was to arrive late and leave early and never stay at the same place twice.

The owner of the place in Okemos had assured Loogan that he and his wife would be up at least until midnight. That gave Loogan some leeway. He glanced at his cell phone, lying dormant on the seat beside him. He could turn it on and check his messages, and then turn it off again and be on his way. He debated for a few seconds and then pressed the power button.

The screen showed him two missed calls, both from Elizabeth Waishkey, both within the last hour. He considered the wisdom of calling her back, and his curiosity got the better of him. She answered on the third ring.

“Mr. Loogan,” she said. “Where are you?”

“I like hearing you say that,” he told her. “It reassures me that you haven’t caught up with me yet. If you didn’t say it, I’d have to assume you had me surrounded.”

“You’re not surrounded. Why don’t you tell me where you are?”

He opened the car door and got out to stretch his legs. “I’m standing in a parking lot,” he said, “an undistinguished parking lot, in an unspecified city.”

“Do you see lights flashing, red and blue?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you’re safe for now.”

He walked along the side of the car. The marquee of the cineplex hung suspended in the distance.

“You called me twice,” he said. “You must be working late.”

“I couldn’t sleep. Tell me what you were doing in Ann Arbor today.”

“I already told you, I went to the cemetery. I visited Tom’s grave. Are you all right?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You said you couldn’t sleep. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “Why did you visit Tom’s grave?”

“It’s been a week since Tom was buried. I’m a sentimental man. Did you know there’s a headstone already? A thick chunk of granite. I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did.”

“So you risked a trip to Ann Arbor just to visit Tom’s grave,” she said. “Because you’re sentimental.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth,” she said.

“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth when you say nothing’s wrong.”

He stared at the marquee and listened to her silence.

Eventually she let out a long breath. “I almost shot a sixteen-year-old today.”

 

 

 

Elizabeth paced in her bedroom with the phone to her ear. She stopped at the window, pressed her fingers against the glass. Moonlight came from behind a cloud.

She heard Loogan ask, “What happened?”

The glass cooled her fingertips. “He’s a friend of Sarah’s,” she said. “Her boyfriend, though I didn’t know that for sure until today. I came home tonight and saw them making out on the porch. He got a little aggressive.”

“Is she all right?” said Loogan. Sharply, fiercely.

“She’s fine. She handled him—told him no, pushed him away. He was a little slow getting the message, and I overreacted. Before I knew what I was doing, I had him pinned against a tree, my nine-millimeter in my hand. It was a close thing.”

It had been closer than Elizabeth would have liked. Sarah had been the one to bring it to an end. She could have panicked, she certainly had cause, but she never raised her voice. She came down from the porch and put her palm against her mother’s back. Elizabeth felt it there, a soft touch between her shoulder blades. She heard her daughter say, “Okay. I’m okay. Let him go.”

And she holstered the gun and let Billy Rydell loose and sent him home. She went inside with Sarah and calmed down enough to talk. The talk was reassuring. Billy had never done anything like that before, Sarah told her. He had never tried to force her.

They had talked for an hour and then fixed a late supper. Sarah had gone to bed. Elizabeth had been unable to sleep. And now she stood at the window in her room, in a T-shirt and sweats, her raven hair tied up. And now she said to David Loogan, “I wanted to shoot him.”

“I know,” he said.

“That wouldn’t have gone over well. There’s a term for it: disproportionate force.”

“You didn’t shoot him,” Loogan said.

“If I’d shot him, I might not have stopped with one bullet.”

“It’s over now.”

She left the window and paced across the room. “That’s what I keep telling myself, and it’s comforting to think so. But it isn’t really over, is it? Because I know how close I came. This time I’m safe. I got through it. But what happens next time?”

“You controlled yourself this time,” he said. “You’ll do the same thing next time.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because you’re an honorable person.”

“Is that enough?”

“It should be.”

“But you can be an honorable person and still do the wrong thing. Isn’t that right?”

The question echoed in the confines of her room. Silence on the line. She imagined him standing perfectly still.

“Do you know why I wanted to talk to you tonight, David?”

The smallest of delays before he answered. “Yes.”

“I shouldn’t say David. I should say Darrell. Darrell Malone.” She braced her back against the bedroom door. “I like David better.”

“So do I.”

“We’ve heard from the Nossos police,” she said. “We know about Jimmy Wade Peltier.”

No response to that. She realized she had been hoping for puzzlement—
Who’s Jimmy Wade Peltier?
—or a denial.

“I’ve talked to Roy Denham,” she added after a moment. “Do you know what he said about you?”

“What?”

“He said he thought you were an honorable man.”

“That was nice of him.”

“He also said you stabbed Jimmy Peltier seventeen times.”

 

 

 

David Loogan, who had once been Darrell Malone, leaned against the fender of the car.

“That sounds about right,” he said.

“Denham said you stabbed Peltier until he went down, then came back and stabbed him some more. I didn’t want to believe that.”

He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. “Elizabeth—”

“I came up with an alternative,” she said. “The woman you were with—Charlotte Rittenour. She could have played a part. You started the job, and then went off to call for help. And while you were gone, she finished it.”

Loogan watched the blinking light of an airplane passing overhead. Slow progress, east to west. “It could have gone like that,” he said. “I’m sure it would have—if it was a story in
Gray Streets.
”

“But it wasn’t a story in
Gray Streets,
” she said.

He reached for the handle of the car door, feeling suddenly cold and tired. He got in and dragged the door shut after him.

“I wish I could give you what you’re looking for,” he said. “But there’s no mistake. I did what I did to Jimmy Peltier. I’m not going to try to make excuses now.”

Quiet on the line. He was about to turn off the phone when she said, “Are you getting ready to leave?”

He touched the key in the ignition. “I’ll have to, soon. I can’t stay here all night.”

“I mean
leave
leave,” she said. “You went to Tom’s grave. That’s the action of a man who’s moving on—who’s not sure when he’ll come this way again.”

“I’m not leaving yet,” he said. “There are one or two more things I want to do.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said lightly. “You wouldn’t approve.”

He expected protest—the familiar admonition to turn himself in. But he heard her laugh softly, and then she added two words: “Be careful.”

Chapter 32

A BRIGHT YELLOW LEAF BROKE FREE OF A HIGH BRANCH AND DRIFTED down, spinning slowly through the autumn air. David Loogan followed its descent and at the last moment reached out and caught it on his palm.

From his vantage point at the edge of the woods, he could see the Kristoll house: the lines of the slate roof, the broad windows, the path of crushed stone that led to the front door. He had watched the four guests arrive. Nathan Hideaway first, then Casimir Hifflyn and Bridget Shellcross in Hifflyn’s Lexus. Sandy Vogel had shown up last, and had parked her minivan away from the other vehicles. Laura Kristoll had come to the door to greet each of her guests.

Loogan held the stem of the yellow leaf between his finger and thumb and spun it slowly. His car was parked on the side of an unpaved road about a mile away. He had left it there and had hiked up the side of a hill and through the woods. After a while he broke onto a path that he remembered—he and Tom had used it once to walk down to the river. He followed it up to the Kristolls’ backyard, then skirted around to the front.

He had been waiting for more than two hours now. He wasn’t sure how long they would be. A leisurely brunch, he thought, and then a discussion of
Gray Streets
business. He spun the leaf side to side and let it go and watched it drift to the ground. Yawning, he stood on his toes and stretched his arms over his head.

He had not slept well at the bed-and-breakfast in Okemos. His dreams had been troubled. In one of them, he had stood shoulder deep in Sean Wrentmore’s grave, holding Wrentmore’s pistol up to the moonlight.

Now he leaned his back against the trunk of a birch and watched as the front door of the Kristoll house opened. He had assumed and hoped that Sandy Vogel would be the first to depart. She was the outsider, the employee. The other four were old friends.

He was right. Sandy came out; Laura waved her good-bye and went back in. Sandy, in her navy blue coat, walked down the crushed-stone path and got into her minivan.

Loogan watched her drive away and then crossed quickly to the front door of the house. The knob turned and he slipped inside, through the entry hall, into the living room. He heard voices from the back of the house. He made his way past Tom’s study—empty. A right turn at the stairs and there was the dining room. Casimir Hifflyn was coming through the doorway. He saw Loogan and stopped short.

Loogan put on a friendly smile. “You’re not leaving, are you, Cass?” he said. “You can’t leave. I just got here.”

 

 

 

The curtains in the dining room had been drawn back, and the windows were panes of glass over canvases of autumn leaves, dots and strokes of orange and yellow and red. The plates from brunch had been cleared away to a sideboard, and the main table held a smattering of papers and copies of the latest issue of
Gray Streets.