One-Way Ticket (13 page)

He had a good poker face. Hard to read.

The words he read were bland and simple and precise. The absence of contractions made it sound a little stilted and contrived, and it struck me that whoever wrote it was trying hard to preclude misinterpretations.

I guessed it was Paulie who wrote Robert’s speech. In spite of the dese-and-dem language Paulie affected for the benefit of the goons who worked for him, I happened to know that he had graduated from Lawrence Academy and been accepted at Boston College. It was a great disappointment for Vincent Russo when his only son decided to go to work in the family business rather than attend college.

I played the disc again. It occurred to me that Robert might have been Morse-coding us a message with his fingers or eyes, or that he’d tried some other method of secretly communicating with us. If he had, I failed to catch on.

I was ejecting the disc when the phone beside my computer rang.

My heart bloomed in my chest. Evie.

I snatched up the phone and said, “Yes? Hi.”

“Well, hi yourself.” It was Charlie McDevitt.

“Oh,” I said.

“Well, I’m sorry,” he said. “Clearly I am a disappointment. You pissed that I didn’t go fishing with you?”

“You’re never a disappointment,” I said, “and I’m not pissed. I had a grand time today fishing all by myself. Landed five nice rainbows. One went about seventeen inches. Henry came along and didn’t argue politics or baseball with me. When the phone rang, I thought you were Evie.”

“Easy to tell us apart,” said Charlie. “Her hair’s longer than mine.”

“She’s in California,” I said. “I was kind of expecting her to call.”

“It’s only me,” he said. “You called, remember? I just got your message. We were in Connecticut for the week, only got back a few minutes ago.” He hesitated. “Is everything okay? With you and Evie, I mean?”

“Oh, sure. Her father’s sick, so she went out there to stay with him for a while.”

“I’m hearing something else in your voice, old friend.”

“I miss her,” I said. “It’s empty around here without her, that’s all. I’m not sure when she’ll be back.” I hesitated. “I’ve got a peculiar question for you.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” he said. “You’re a peculiar person. What is it?”

Charlie had been my law school roommate back in New Haven. He joined the U.S. Department of Justice when he graduated, and he’d been an attorney in the Boston office for most of his career. We’d been best friends all that time. There had been a couple of occasions when he didn’t mind bending some bureaucratic regulations to dig up information that I needed. I’d done him a few favors, too. That, we told each other, was what friends were for.

“I was just wondering,” I said, “what the FBI’s solve rate is on kidnapping cases.”

“Kidnapping, huh?” he said. “Where’d that come from?”

“Just idle curiosity.”

“Idle? Jesus, Brady. I hope to hell—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

I heard him blow out a breath. “Okay,” he said. “If by solve rate you mean how often do they catch the bad guys, it’s pretty good. I don’t have a statistic for you, but it’s way over fifty percent. Sixty or seventy, I’d say. On the other hand, most of these cases are amateur hour. Mr. Magoo could solve them.”

“Thinking about the, um, nonamateur cases,” I said, “do you have any idea how frequently the hostage is released or rescued unharmed?”

“Listen,” he said, “the Feebs are better at that sort of thing than anybody. They’ve got the technology and the training and the experience. That’s all you need to know. And you should tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I wish I could.”

“Well, shit,” he said. “If I’d gone fishing with you—”

“I wouldn’t even have raised the subject,” I said. “That wasn’t why I called you. I wanted to go fishing, just like I said, and anyway, this afternoon I didn’t know what I know now.”

“I’m still sorry I wasn’t with you,” he said. “It would’ve been fun. You caught five rainbows, huh?”

“Rising fish, all of them,” I said. “They ate a little deerhair beetle imitation. Henry was with me. He was quite impressed with my skill.”

“Your dog’s never seen me in action is why. So, listen. About this kidnapping.”

“I didn’t say anything about any kidnapping,” I said.

“Okay. So you didn’t. Be careful, will you?”

“Always.”

“Tell Evie hi for me when you talk to her.”

“I sure will.”

“You’ve got my cell phone number,” he said. “Don’t hesitate to use it.”

“Next time I want to go fishing,” I said.

“Any time,” he said.

Melville had no problem putting me to sleep that night, and it wasn’t until I woke up Monday morning in an empty bed that I realized Evie had never called.

I called Julie at the office a little after nine. She reluctantly confirmed what I thought I remembered—that my first appointment of the day wasn’t until eleven. I told her that’s when I’d be there, and before she could launch her predictable speech about my responsibilities to my clients and the necessity of accruing billable hours and all the paperwork we had to do, I said, “I’ve got something important that can’t wait. Gotta go right now. Thanks.” And I hung up.

Henry was sitting there watching me. “You stay here and guard the house,” I told him. “Don’t forget to bark at that shifty UPS guy if he tries to leave a parcel on the front porch.”

Henry lay down and dropped his chin onto his paws.

I squatted beside him and scratched that magic place on his forehead. “I know you miss Evie,” I said to him. “I do, too. Looks like it’s going to be just us two bachelors for a while, so we’ll have to make the best of it. Okay?”

He rolled his eyes and looked up at me without lifting his head. Then he sighed and closed them. Henry would handle the situation in his own way. He’d sleep through it.

I put the kidnappers’ CD in one jacket pocket and their cell phone in another one, made sure Henry’s water dish was full, gave him a new rawhide bone for company, and left the house.

I picked up a dozen donuts at the bakery on Newbury Street—six glazed, six jelly-filled—and walked into Gordon Cahill’s PI office on Exeter Street around quarter of ten.

His wife had designed the space. It was open and airy, with bright abstract paintings and big potted plants and modern furniture. The areas were defined with movable partitions rather than walls, so I could see Gordie’s office space from the doorway.

When I stepped inside, he looked up and frowned. He was on the phone. Then he noticed the donut box in my hand, and he smiled and pointed to the chair across from his desk.

I put the donuts on his desk. Then I went over to the coffee urn in the corner, poured myself a mugful, and arched my eyebrows at him. He waved his hand over the mug on his desk and shook his head, still talking on the telephone.

I went over and sat across from him.

After a minute, he hung up. “Hey,” he said. He reached his hand across his desk.

I shook it. “Hey.”

He tapped the donut box. “Jelly? Glazed?”

“Both,” I said.

“Oh-oh,” he said. “Whaddya want?”

I took a twenty-dollar bill out of my wallet and put it on his desk blotter.

He pushed it back at me. “You can’t pay me,” he said. “I owe you my life. I’m not taking your money.”

A couple of years earlier I’d hired Gordie, who was the best private investigator in Boston, to do some snooping for a case I was working on. The situation exploded on us in ways I never expected, and Gordie nearly died. I managed to rescue him and get him to a hospital, but his leg was permanently damaged.

Before that, he’d loved the field work. Tailing people. Staking them out. Skulking around taking pictures through a telephoto lens.

Now he hobbled around on a crutch and did all his detecting from his desk.

He kept focusing on the fact that I’d saved his life.

I kept reminding him that if it hadn’t been for me, his life wouldn’t have been jeopardized in the first place.

“Let’s not argue about that again,” I said. “I am hiring you to ensure your confidentiality.”

“You don’t need to pay me for that. My word is my bond. Not to mention, you can always bribe me with donuts.” He opened the box, leaned over, took a sniff, then plucked out a glazed donut. He took a big bite. “Mmm,” he said with his mouth full. “Take one.”

I reached into the box and picked a jelly-filled. “Keep the token money, Gordie,” I said. “Let’s make it legal this time.”

“Legal, huh? Cops involved in this?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.” I took the CD and the cell phone from my pockets and put them on his desk. “Take a look at the disc. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”

He opened the plastic case and popped out the CD. He looked at both sides of it, then slid it into his desktop computer. I went around, stood behind him, and watched over his shoulder.

When it ended, we watched it again.

I went back and sat in the chair across from him.

We both ate another donut.

“Judge Adrienne Lancaster, huh?” he said.

I nodded.

“Okay. Now I understand the twenty bucks. My lips are sealed. So who’s the kid with the beat-up face doing the talking?”

“His name’s Robert Lancaster,” I said. “The judge’s grandson. His father and mother—and now, by extension, Judge Lancaster herself—are my clients.”

“And you’re sharing this with me… why?”

“Because you’re the best investigator I know, and you’re a technical wizard, and you’ve got state-of-the-art detecting equipment. Not to mention, I trust you. Since the cops aren’t involved, that leaves me. So I’m wondering if you can figure out where this video was made. And anything else you might notice.”

“Find where it was made, find your hostage, huh?”

I shrugged. “I just figure knowledge is power, and right now I’m feeling pretty powerless.”

“Ignorance being weakness,” he said.

I nodded.

“How much time do you have this morning?”

“I’ve got to be at the office by eleven.”

Gordie looked at his wristwatch. “I’ll have to get back to you, then,” he said. “You want me to do this right, it’ll take a little while.”

“Today?”

“Oh, sure. I’ll call you sometime this afternoon.”

I stuffed the rest of my donut into my mouth, took a sip of coffee, and stood up. “I’ll make sure Julie puts you through regardless of what’s going on.” I reached my hand across his desk. “Thanks.”

Gordie grabbed my hand. Instead of letting go, he said, “You know Arnie Coblitz?”

“Coblitz?” I shook my head. “Don’t think so.”

“Arnie’s a lawyer like you,” he said. “Partner with a firm on State Street. Month or so ago, his cousin from Czechoslovakia, a young woman named Sofia, came to Boston, visiting the states for the first time. She yearned to see the West—she used to watch old American westerns on Czech TV—so Arnie took her out to Yellowstone Park. You’ve been there.”

“I have,” I said. “Wonderful trout fishing. But—”

Gordie kept his grip on my hand. “So Arnie and Sofia are in the park hiking through the woods, and they get attacked by a pair of grizzly bears, a big male and a medium-sized female. The female goes after Arnie, who runs like hell and manages to climb a tree. When he looks down, to his horror, he sees the male bear devouring his Czechoslovakian cousin. Pretty soon, there’s nothing left of Sofia but one of her shoes, and the two bears go wandering away. So—”

I tugged at my hand until Gordie let go. “I know what you’re doing,” I said, “and I don’t have time for it.”

Gordie placed his hand on his chest. “You wound me deeply,” he said. “This is something Arnie Coblitz, your fellow barrister, told me just the other day. I assumed you’d be interested, inasmuch as you’re a lawyer, too, and you’ve also been to Yellowstone.”

“Fine,” I said. “Go ahead. Speed it up, though, will you?”

“So, okay,” Gordie said. “After the bears go away, Arnie climbs down the tree, hikes back to his rental car, and drives to the nearest ranger station. He tells the two rangers that his Czechoslovakian cousin just got eaten by this enormous male grizzly. So the rangers grab their high-power bear rifles, and they tell Arnie to get into the truck with them, and Arnie shows them where it happened. Poor Sofia’s shoe is still there. So the rangers start creeping through the woods, with Arnie right behind them, and pretty soon one of the rangers stops and whispers, ‘There they are,’ and he raises his rifle and shoots the female bear. ‘Hey,’ says the other ranger, ‘you shot the wrong bear. This guy said it was the big male who ate his cousin.’ And the first ranger looks at his partner and shakes his head and says, ‘And you believe some lawyer when he tells you the Czech is in the male?’”

I tried not to smile. “Damn you, Cahill,” I said. “You did it again.”

“Bad, huh?”

“Awful,” I said.

He grinned. “Thank you.”

I got the hell out of there.

I
T WAS A LITTLE
after three that afternoon, and I had just ushered my last scheduled appointment of the day out of my office when Julie buzzed me. “Mr. Cahill on line two,” she said. “You want to tell me why a private investigator is calling you?”

“Nope,” I said.

I pressed the blinking light on my telephone console and said, “What’ve you got for me?”

“You still mad?” said Gordie.

“Why, because you inflicted another one of your horrible puns on me?”

“I didn’t think that one was so bad.”

“Only in comparison to all your others,” I said. “So tell me what you learned.”

“Come on over and I’ll show you.”

“No more donuts for you today.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “I still got a couple left from this morning.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair and went out to our reception area.

Julie was frowning at her computer monitor. She looked up, glanced meaningfully at her watch, and frowned at me. “Are we leaving already?”

“I am. You may, too.”

She waved at her computer. “I, for one, have not finished my day’s work yet.”

I put both hands on the edge of her desk and leaned toward her. “I can’t talk about it yet,” I said. “All I can say right now is, it concerns one of our clients. You know I’ll fill you in when I can. Okay?”