Nameless Night (34 page)

“First off, they’ll take you into custody as a material witness.” She devoured a french fry in two bites. “Secondly, they’ll know what you look like.”

“Let me worry about the second part.”

“What do they get out of this meeting?”

“I’ll tell them everything I know,” he said. “I’ll give them her diary.”

She ate another fry. “What’s in it for you?”

“I want them satisfied I had nothing to do with any of this. I want to be left alone.” He held up a restraining hand. “But I want to make sure you don’t get yourself into any trouble here. You already went out on a limb for me.”

She laughed and waved him off. “I’m already in a world of hurt. Don’t worry about it.” She put down her fork and told him about that morning’s confrontation with her boss. “Either I’m going to quit, or Gill’s going to fire me.”

“It’ll be okay,” he said.

“No, it won’t,” she said quickly.

Again, they ate in silence for a couple of minutes.

“They’re going to want to know about Adrian Hope,” she said.

“I’ll tell them what I know.”

“Which is zip.”

“Not quite,” he said. He leaned closer and told her what the killer had said in the moments before Eunice worked her magic with the fire ax.

“No kidding.”

“That’s what he said.”

“You’re saying he was hired to kill Howard.”

“Uh-huh,” he grunted around a mouthful of cheeseburger.

“So you want what?”

“I want to meet one on one at a location of my choice and I want a guarantee that I’m not going to be detained in any fashion.

And . . .” He waggled a finger. “It’s got to be tomorrow.” He tore off the bottom half of the business card on which she’d written her home number. He wrote a phone number on it and passed it to her.

“Call me there,” he said. “Leave a message if you have to.”

“Why tomorrow? Not much lead time there.”

“It’s gotta be tomorrow,” he insisted. “Middle of the day.”

She shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, liberating an-other handful of fries from his plate. She read the look on his face.

“They’re not as fattening if I don’t order them myself,” she said.

50

Randy watched as the cab pulled to the curb. The driver reached over the seat and popped open the door. Before slipping into the backseat, Kirsten looked his way and smiled. “I’ll let you know,” she said.

“Thanks.”

The clouds had rolled in while they were at lunch. The air smelled of salt water. The slate-gray sky roiled like a cauldron as he hurried north toward the bus stop, three blocks down on Blundred Avenue. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, turned up his collar, and bent into the breeze.

A block down, he suddenly felt as if he was having some kind of neurological incident. He slowed his gait. His fingers came into contact with something hard and he knew for sure. They weren’t numb. They were vibrating. It was the disposable cell phone he’d taken from the man calling himself Gavin Landis. It was vibrat-ing. He held his breath and eased his hand up and out as if the phone were a snake. The vibrating stopped. He took a deep breath. Waited.

The impending rain had cleared the street. Randy had the sidewalk to himself as he hurried on. The Plexiglas bus kiosk had been tagged and vandalized until it was little more than a stall for urban livestock. He sat on the cleanest section of bench available. Waited. The phone began to buzz again. He held his breath. The sound of the killer’s voice bounced around his memory. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the phone, and raised it to his ear. Silence.

“Yeah,” he intoned in as close an approximation to the killer’s voice as he could manage. He held his breath again. Again, nothing. He waited a full minute and then he used his thumb to break the connection. Another minute passed. The vibrating started again.

“Third time’s the chaaam,” he said.

“I had expected to hear,” an electronic voice said.

“Things went a little haywhya.”

“Oh?”

“It’s unda control.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m heea.”

A chuckle. “So you are.”

“What can I do for ya?”

“Another job.”

“I’m retiyad.”

“Five times the going rate.”

Randy swallowed his tongue. Waited. “I’m done,” he said finally.

“Half a million. Nonsequential bills. A little kicker for your re-tirement fund.”

A longer silence ensued.

“Who?”

The voice on the other end mentioned a name.

“That’s a wicked famous name. Access is going to be a problem.”

“I’ll bring him to you,” the voice said.

“Tell me about it.”

The voice held forth in great detail. He finished with, “. . . and, as per usual, I’ll wire your fee to—” “No,” Randy interrupted. “I’ve closed down alla my regula channels.” He felt the tension from the other end of the telephone. “Bring the money with you,” he said.

The voice cleared its throat. “Nothing personal, but I had hoped we would never have occasion to meet again.”

“I undastand. You want the job done, then bring the money when you bring me the subject.”

After a prolonged silence, “I’ll be in touch with the details.”

Randy closed the connection.

THE MESS HAD been cleaned up. The shattered glass panel had been replaced. Took Kirsten a second to figure out why the scene seemed so odd. The glass was blank and shiny. Her name and job title were nowhere to be found. She’d watched the changeover process many times before. The painters usually arrived about five seconds after the glass was replaced. A not-so-subtle message. Kirsten checked her messages. She had returned the phone to its cradle when the shuffle of shoes brought her eyes to the hallway, where Gene Connor was showing off a new suit, something-or-other rose the designer probably would have called it. “He’s at a deposition up at the Federal Building,” Gene said. “He wants to see you at fourthirty.”

“Thanks, Gene,” Kirsten said. “Tell him I’m leaving town for the weekend. If he’d like to chat, we can do it on Monday,” she said, gathering papers from her desktop and stuffing them into her briefcase. When she looked up, Gene was still standing there. Her eyes were telling Kirsten how poorly her message was likely to be received.

Asking, in her reserved way, if things were truly beyond repair. This was as close to schmoozing as Gene Connor got, and although she would never appear to be taking a side contrary to her employer, her face was darkened by clouds of regret.

Kirsten met her gaze. “It’s time, Gene,” she said. “I’m not the person who started out here nine years ago.”

Gene smiled. “You were a bit green in those days.”

“I was fresh from the vine,” Kirsten said. “A lot of water’s flowed under my bridge since then.”

“Perhaps if you—” Gene began.

“No,” Kirsten said quickly. “It’s time.”

Gene looked as if she was going to attempt another reconciliation. Instead, she squared her shoulders and smiled. “You’ll be a success wherever you go and whatever you do,” she said. Kirsten felt her eyes beginning to well up. She tightened her jaw and swallowed. She met Gene’s gaze. “Coming from you, I’m going to take that as high praise indeed.”

“You should,” the older woman said. “I mean every word of it.”

“Thank you.”

Gene Connor turned and walked back up the aisle. Heads disappeared in a heartbeat. The sounds of office work whirred above her measured footsteps.

Kirsten walked over and closed the door.

She pulled her center drawer open and riffled through a stack of business cards.

Finding the card she was looking for, she picked up the phone . . . stopped . . . looked around, and then pulled out her cell phone instead. She dialed, worked her way through three automated phoneservice menus until she finally reached an operator. “This is Kirsten Kane of the Queen Anne County District Attorney’s Office,” she said.

“Could you please connect me to Special Agent in Charge . . .”—she looked down at the card on the desk—“Robert A. Moody,” she read.

51

Apparently, torrential rain didn’t improve the sound of bagpipes. The Highland Heritage Bagpipe Brigade’s heartfelt rendition of “Amazing Grace” sounded vaguely Egyptian as they marched up Seventh Avenue in the driving rain.

Both sides of the street were six deep with people, perhaps a few less than could have been expected in more hospitable weather, but an eager and enthusiastic crowd nonetheless. St. Patrick’s Day was seemingly impervious to the weather. Didn’t matter that they could have gotten just as hammered yesterday or tomorrow, this was St. Patty’s Day and by God they were going to party, come rain or come shine.

Standing beneath Scofield’s Furniture’s faded red awning, the gentleman in the trench coat was not among the revelers. A pair of drunken college boys sloshed his way and offered him a cup of green beer. He smiled and waved them off. He watched as the pair disappeared back into the crowd. His face spoke of podiatry and indigestion.

When the garishly costumed leprechaun stopped at his side, he looked the other way, hoping to convey his disinterest in the proceedings and thus avoid any give-and-take. He kept his eyes glued on the Cleveland High School Marching Band as they pranced and postured their way up the street. The leprechaun didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move along. The guy took a step to his right. The oversize plastic leprechaun head bounced off his shoulder. He turned that way. The character had closed the distance between them. Whoever was inside was looking out through the smiling mouth. The jaunty green hat dripped water. The leprechaun carried a rough bag looped across his shoulders from which he suddenly pulled a white kitchen trash bag.

“Here,” he said, offering the bag to the guy in the trench coat. The agent hesitated and then took possession of the bag. “What’s this?”

“It’s her diary,” the leprechaun said. “I found it in the bomb shelter.”

“And how did you know about the bomb shelter?”

He told him of spying on Isobel Howard.

“You know where she is now?”

“No idea.”

“Lady at the travel agency where Mrs. Howard worked said she thought maybe Mrs. Howard had some kind of love interest going on the side.”

Randy told him what Wesley Number Two had said about not believing her stories about working late at the agency. FBI shook the diary. “How do I know this is legit?”

“Because I’m telling you so.”

The agent shook the bag. “This going to clear up all my questions?”

“No,” the leprechaun said. “She didn’t know what was going on either.” He nodded his huge head at the bag. “That’s the story of the seven years she spent in the dark, living with some guy she didn’t know.”

The agent sneered and started to speak. The leprechaun beat him to the punch. He related the story of the real Wesley Howard, of his disappearance and the subsequent substitution of a new Wesley Howard.

“Why would somebody want to do something like that?”

“I think maybe whoever it was had something else big going down and felt like they couldn’t stand the spotlight right then.”

“Seven years is a long time.”

The leprechaun shrugged. “Whatever the reason, I didn’t have anything to do with whatever came down there.”

“Just a tourist, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“We found substantial amounts of Wesley Howard’s blood on the floor of the Water Street house.”

“I don’t think so.”

FBI raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

The leprechaun removed one of his enormous white gloves, fished a photograph from one of the pockets on the front of his plaid vest, and handed it over. “Unless I’m mistaken, that’s Wesley Allen Howard.”

“Our lab tells me the blood on the bedroom floor matches the security sample.”

“That’s because the people responsible were in a position to see to it that the samples matched.”

“Can’t be that many people with that kind of clout,” the agent commented.

“I’d bet money one of them was this guy Walter Hybridge I’ve been reading about in the papers.”

The fed’s eyes betrayed him.

The leprechaun went on. “I’d also be willing to bet that Hybridge is being set up as the fall guy.”

The fed remained silent.

“Interesting timing,” the leprechaun added.

A pair of beautifully appointed palomino horses preceded the FFA float down the street. “Where do you come into this?” trench coat wanted to know.

“I told you. I don’t.”

“Adrian Hope sure as hell does.”

“Howard’s wife says he went to work and never came home. At first I thought he’d confided whatever he’d heard to someone else in the program. For a while, I thought it was Adrian Hope. But now I don’t think so.”

“What do you think now?”

He related what the killer had told him. “He said he was there making arrangements to kill some guy named Barber when Howard walked in on it.”

The other man’s eyes told the leprechaun that the agent was familiar with the name.

“He said Howard was supposed to have left for the day. Once he got a look at Mr. Mystery, he had to go. Said ‘I just blundered in’ while he was taking care of Mr. Howard.”

The agent abruptly changed the subject. “Speaking of the unfortunate gentleman with the hole in his head . . .”

“I already told you everything I know.”

“He doesn’t exist. His fingerprints are on file nowhere in the world. His DNA profile likewise. Amazing . . . huh? A guy could live that long and not leave so much as a footprint.” He pinned the leprechaun with his gaze. “Nothing on his body but a shiny nine-millimeter automatic.”

“Really?” Randy felt the blood rising to his cheeks inside the plastic head.

“You know what’s interesting about the automatic?”

“What’s that?”

“Lab says it was the murder weapon in the shooting of a Wisconsin Teamster official way back in ’73.”

“No kidding.”

“And also the murder weapon in the death of a captain in the U.S. Border Patrol. Happened in Corpus Christi just last year. Aaaand . . .”—he stretched it out—“also the possible murder weapon in a double murder in Cleveland back in ’95.”