Power Play (28 page)

“I’m not hungry,” she said when he suggested they stop at an IHOP on the interstate.

“Neither am I,” he admitted. Too nervous to be hungry, he realized. Too scared. Too …

Without taking his attention off the eighteen-wheelers whooshing past them, Jake raised his voice above the noise of the wind and asked, “How serious are you and Tim?”

Out of the corner of his eye Jake saw her blink with surprise.

“I know it’s none of my business, but—”

“We’re friends, Jake. A woman can have male friends without having a romance, you know.”

He had to struggle to keep from smiling. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Tim’s already married.”

“He is?”

“To that machine of his. The generator.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, he’s not my type.”

Jake started to ask what her type might be, but stopped himself. You might not like the answer, he told himself.

They drove in silence for miles. The traffic thinned out and Jake put the Mustang on cruise control.

Turning toward him, Glynis said, “Jake … that night … when Arlan was killed and I was so upset…”

The night I stayed over at your place, Jake remembered.

“You said you knew what it was like to lose someone you love.”

“My wife,” Jake said, feeling that old hollow void inside. “She was killed in an auto accident. About a year ago, little more. Nearly two years, come to think of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“I shouldn’t have pried.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I met Louise in high school. She was the most popular girl in the school—and she fell for me!”

“Why not?”

Shaking his head at the memories, Jake said, “I was the luckiest guy in the world. And then … and then, all of a sudden, she was gone.”

“It’s so … final,” Glynis said.

After several miles of silence, he glanced at her and saw that Glynis was lost in her own memories, her own sorrow.

Then Jake heard himself say, “That’s why I’m so worried about this business with Perez, Glyn. I don’t want to lose you.”

She stared at him in wide-eyed silence. Jake felt just as surprised as she looked.

VERNON

As Jake swung the Mustang off the interstate and headed toward Vernon he asked Glynis, “How did you find Perez?”

“I phoned the hotel downtown, the motel at the casino, and every boarding house and B and B in the area and asked for him. I said I was with Senator Leeds’s office and it was urgent that I find him.”

It was almost noon and the sun was baking hot. Jake had pulled his old baseball cap out of the car’s utility console but Glynis remained bareheaded. Her sleeveless blouse and short skirt exposed plenty of skin, too. He wondered if she would get sunburned despite her slightly olive complexion.

“So you tracked him down,” Jake said.

“People were very kind, especially after I told them I was from Senator Leeds’s office. Most of them had never heard of Perez, but the room clerk at the casino’s motel said she thought he was staying in town at a bed-and-breakfast. The third one I called told me he was staying there. Or was it the fourth one?”

“You found him.”

“I didn’t talk with him. He wasn’t in when I called. But they admitted that he was staying there. Had been for several weeks.”

Jake felt puzzled. “What’s he doing in Vernon?”

With a shrug of her bare shoulders, Glynis replied, “Hiding out. In Vernon he’s protected from snoops like us.”

Thinking of the massive Captain Harraway, Jake muttered, “And we’re walking right into the lion’s den.”

His GPS box faithfully guided them to the address Glynis had given him. It was a beautifully maintained old three-story Victorian house, with a veranda stretching across its front and little balconies at both the upstairs windows.

“How quaint!” Glynis said.

Looks like a good place for a murder, Jake thought as he parked the Mustang across the street and pulled up its top.

When he started to get out, Glynis grabbed his sleeve. “Wait. Let’s see if he’s in first.”

She fished her cell phone out of her purse and pecked out a number.

“Yes. Hello. It’s Glynis Colwyn again.… Yes, that’s right, from Senator Leeds’s office. Is Mr. Perez in? No? Do you expect—oh, yes, I see. Thank you.”

Clicking the phone shut, she told Jake, “He’s out for the day. They expect him back this evening.”

“Might be at the casino,” Jake mused.

Glynis arched a brow. “Do you feel like gambling?”

“No,” he said firmly. “It’s bad enough being here, where Harraway or one of his cops can spot us. Going to the casino is just asking for trouble.”

With a slightly mischievous smile, Glynis said, “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

So they spent the day in Vernon, ate lunch in one of the town’s three restaurants, strolled up and down its main streets, window-shopping like an old married couple while Jake expected Harraway or one of his officers to come roaring down the street and cart them off to the lockup.

Glynis actually bought a ridiculously garish oven mitt, decorated to look like a bright orange dragon. Jake shook his head when she picked it up off the shop’s counter, but Glynis wormed it onto her hand and made its mouth open and shut.

“I could do a puppet show with this,” she said, laughing.

Jake wished he could laugh, too, but he kept looking over his shoulder for one of Harraway’s police cars.

As dinnertime approached, Glynis phoned the B and B again. Perez hadn’t shown up. They ate dinner in the restaurant across the street from where they’d had lunch, Jake too nervous to eat much, Glynis apparently blithely unconcerned about anything except the steak on her plate.

As the sun was setting they walked back to the bed-and-breakfast. The Mustang was still sitting at the curb across the street.

They slid into the car.

“Now we wait for him to show up,” Glynis said.

“Like a police stakeout,” said Jake.

“Yes.”

They chatted about inconsequential things as the shadows of evening engulfed them. Jake found himself telling Glynis about his hopes to be on the team building the next NASA probe of Mars.

“Does that mean you’ll have to leave the university?”

Nodding in growing darkness, Jake said, “I’ll take a sabbatical. I’ll probably have to go to the Goddard center, in Maryland.”

“I see.” She sounded disappointed.

“That’s close to West Virginia. Your family lives there, don’t they?”

“Yes, but I seldom get back there.”

“You could come and visit.”

“I suppose I could,” Glynis said, sounding a little brighter.

Jake reached for her and she leaned toward him.

Her cell phone broke into “Flight of the Valkyries.”

Jake straightened up as Glynis fumbled in her purse for the phone.

“Yes? Yes! Oh! I see. Yes, we’ll be right up.”

Before Jake could ask she said, “It’s Perez. He’s in his room and he’s waiting to see us.”

“Glynis, are you sure you want to do this? If you’re right, the guy’s pretty dangerous.”

“I’m right, Jake,” she said, with utter certainty. “That’s why I have to face him.”

IGNACIO PEREZ

“So what’s this all about?” Nacho Perez asked, as soon as Glynis and Jake stepped into his room.

It was a fairly sizable bedroom, clean and neat, with a canopied bed and white-painted furniture. It looked to Jake like the kind of room a family would have for a couple of daughters. Two windows flanked a glass door that led out onto one of the house’s upper balconies.

Perez was in his shirtsleeves and suspenders; his trousers looked baggy, overdue for a pressing. His jaw was stubbled, his thinning hair slightly awry. He was smiling, but Jake thought his eyes looked guarded, tired, dark with baggy sleepless rings beneath them.

“We want to ask you a few questions,” Jake began.

Glynis snapped, “We know that you murdered Professor Sinclair and his wife, and also Dr. McGruder.”

Perez stared at her for a wordless moment, then broke into a harsh, barking laugh.

Shaking his head, Perez said, “You kids been watchin’ too much TV.”

“We can prove that Sinclair didn’t commit suicide,” Jake said.

“So what?” Perez countered.

“You killed him,” said Glynis.

“In your dreams, kid.” Perez gestured to the sofa on the other side of the room. “Siddown. Take it easy and let me explain a couple things to ya.”

Jake led Glynis to the sofa, keeping a wary eye on Perez, who pulled a wooden chair from the corner by the windows, turned it around backwards and straddled it, arms on its straight back, facing them.

“You kids got a lot to learn,” he said. “You’re stickin’ your noses in places that could get you hurt.”

“You’re the one in trouble,” Jake retorted.

Shaking his head more in sorrow than in anger, Perez said, “I oughtta be sore at you two. I gotta sit here in this hick town ’cause you’re playin’ detective.”

“Senator Leeds sent you up here?” Glynis asked.

“Leeds?” Perez snorted disdainfully. “He’s just a front. He works for the big boys, same as me.”

“What big boys?” Jake asked. “Who are they?”

“Guess.”

“Las Vegas,” said Jake.

Perez grinned at him. “And L.A. And Chicago. They got their hooks in a lotta places.”

“Why did you kill Professor Sinclair?” Glynis demanded. “What did—”

“I didn’t kill nobody!” Perez snapped. “When they want somebody offed they bring in professionals.”

“But they did have Sinclair murdered,” Jake said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Why?” Glynis asked. “Why murder a university professor. And his wife?”

“And her physician,” Jake added.

Perez heaved a patient sigh. “Look. You two are nice enough kids. Don’t get yourselves in this any deeper. Lemme give you some good advice. Go back home and forget about this. Leave the dead dead. You ain’t gonna bring ’em back.”

“But we can bring their murderers to justice,” Glynis said.

His expression hardening, Perez jabbed a finger at Glynis as he said, “All you’re gonna do is get yourself hurt, kid. You could wind up dead. Or maybe get shipped to Mexico, Honduras, someplace like that. They’d have a good time with you.”

Jake jumped to his feet. “If anybody tries to hurt her I’ll—”

“You’ll do what, college boy? Nuthin’, that’s what you’ll do. Because you’ll be dead. Siddown and take it easy.”

Jake plopped back onto the sofa.

“You realize that you’ve just admitted that Professor Sinclair and his wife were murdered,” said Glynis.

“So what?”

“So I can get the state’s attorney to arrest you.”

Jake added, “Harraway can’t protect you from the state police.”

Perez shrugged. “So I’ll be in Las Vegas. I’d like that better than this hick town anyway. Or maybe I’ll take a vacation in Mexico. We got good connections down there.”

“You’re not above the law,” Glynis said.

“Lady, we
are
the law. Why do you think we keep guys like Leeds in our pocket? We don’t just run little towns like Vernon. We got whole states organized. And there’s nuthin’ you can do about it.”

“But if Tomlinson gets elected—” Jake began.

“We’ll buy him out, just like we bought out Leeds and a lotta others.”

Glynis said, “Tomlinson doesn’t need your money.”

“Maybe not,” Perez admitted. “But there’s other ways of buyin’ people. Women. Drugs. Power. If Tomlinson beats Leeds and goes to the Senate, we might help him move up and become president. That’d be neat, huh?”

Before Glynis could reply, Jake gripped her wrist tightly and said to Perez, “I see what you’re telling us. I understand how the game is stacked.” Turning to her, he said, “Come on, Glyn. It’s time for us to leave.”

“But—”

“Time to go home,” Jake said firmly. He got to his feet and pulled Glynis up beside him.

“Thanks for the education, Nacho,” Jake said. “I appreciate it.”

“Just go home and forget this business,” Perez said, rising from his chair. “You’re a couple of nice kids. I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I understand. Come on, Glyn. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

Glynis looked from Jake to Perez and back to Jake again. The expression on her face was halfway between puzzlement and frustrated fury.

ON THE INTERSTATE

Jake could feel Glynis’s cold rage as he drove out of Vernon. She sat in the darkness beside him like a statue of ice, unmoving, silent as death. Neither of them said a word until he got onto the interstate and set the cruise control at seventy.

“You let him bully you,” Glynis said, her voice hard and low.

Feeling more than a little angry himself, Jake shot back, “You don’t realize what he told us, do you?”

“He told us to stop bothering him and you walked away.”

“Before we got ourselves killed,” Jake muttered.

“You don’t believe—”

“Do you want to end up in some whorehouse in Mexico?” Jake snapped. “Bombed out on cocaine or heroin or whatever they pump into you?”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Well, you should be. You don’t understand what he was telling us.”

An eighteen-wheeler roared past them, well above the speed limit, making the Mustang shudder in its slipstream.

“He told us that the Mafia would kill us,” Glynis said, sounding sullen about it, reluctant to admit it.

Jake shook his head. “He told us that this is all about drugs. Narcotics. Those big boys he talked about aren’t just into gambling. They’re bringing narcotics into the state and Leeds and god knows who else in the state government is in with them.”

Glynis was silent for several minutes. Another semi rig whooshed past them. On the median between the sections of the divided highway Jake saw the lighted sign of a gas station. He glanced at his fuel gauge and decided they could get back to the city without filling up.

“Do you think Mrs. Sinclair was hooked on drugs?” Glynis asked.

“Maybe. I don’t think they’d kill her because she was a gambling addict.”

“And the state police, the district attorney’s office, the whole government…” Glynis sounded lost, bewildered as she began to recognize the size of the problem.