The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) (13 page)
Read The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) Online
Authors: John R. Maxim
Bannerman frowned. Twice now, Urs Brugg had stopped short of unequivocally condemning a man he clearly despised. “What would you like me to do?”
”I do not presume to tell Mama's Boy his business.”
“And yet you've as much as told me that Palmer Reid is behind all this.”
”I have told you,” Urs Brugg corrected him, “what my niece thought you should know, and what she believes to be the truth. I do not doubt it. Neither do I rush to accept it. When a truth comes so easily, Mr. Bannerman, I have learned to examine it all the more closely.”
“One does not,” Bannerman replied slowly, “always have that luxury.”
For what seemed a long time, although it might have been measured in seconds, Bannerman stood silently at Susan's bedside. She was breathing easily without the need for oxygen. The tube that had been taped to her nostrils had been taken away and someone, perhaps her father, had arranged her hair so that the damage to her face was less apparent. A part of him wished that she would not waken. That he would have an excuse to back quietly out of the room and out of her life.
“Two minutes, Bannerman,” Lesko had said to him. “That's enough to say good-bye. After today, I don't want you near her.”
There could have been another brawl. Lesko had raised a hand against his chest as he approached. Billy stepped in close, his body crowding Lesko's, his mouth almost at
Les-
ko's ear. “You don't want to do that,” he said, his tone more reasoning than threatening. Bannerman knew that tone. Lesko was within a heartbeat of having his fingers crushed or worse. He had never seen anyone last more than a few seconds against Billy. Not that close. On the other hand, looking into Lesko's eyes, he understood that the same could probably be said of him. Bannerman placed a staying hand on Billy's shoulder. “Two minutes is fine,” he said. He stepped past Lesko.
“Helping you, we lost the Doc. He's dead now, too.’*
Funny, he didn't look that badly hurt.
But Lesko would never forget what he'd seen Bannerman do. Never hesitated. Never even blinked. Just walked up close and blasted, using his own guy's armpit to muffle the shots. Himself, he couldn't have done that. Not that last part.
The thing with Elena bothered him as well. Maybe he shouldn't have talked to her the way he did. She tried to help. She did help. He wasn't mad anymore about her whacking him. It was just that he didn't want any of this shit, none of it, near Susan anymore. Maybe she'll come back down, he'll apologize. Maybe he'll write her a letter.
“Helping you,” Billy turned, poking him as Lesko had poked Bannerman, “even your own friends got shot. You don't care about that either?”
“The lady who drove you. When she drove back.”
Susan Lesko knew that he was there. And that he was saying good-bye. Very softly. Telling her how sorry he is.
“Your father,” Paul was saying, “will stay with you. You're going to be okay. He'll explain why I have to . . .”
Will he tell me who you are?
No answer. Not to that. He must not have heard. Now he's saying how he never meant to hurt her. That he did love her. But that it was wrong. A mistake. And it was selfish. He was stepping out of her life. He would never expose her to anything like this again.
Schmucky lines like those.
She wanted to tell him to shut up, give her a minute, let her head clear, but the fog was coming back in waves.
She wanted to say, “Look Bannerman, I'm not stupid. I knew from the start that there was something about you. All those funny looks you get, and I get, from so many people in Westport, as if everybody there knows something I don't. Like, for example, that you're two different people. That's right, isn't it? Like my father, all the time he was a cop. One person while he was working, someone else when he was home. You're that way too.
“And the way you got close to me. Patient. Taking your time. No wrong moves. Me wondering what a guy like you, sophisticated, world traveler, would see in a twenty-four-year-old cop's daughter from Queens.
“What is it about you, Bannerman? What is it about Westport?”
Paul?
This isn't over,
she called.
Damn it. You're going to talk to
me. Bannerman?
But he was gone.
“Hold it.” Lesko fell in step with him as he hurried down the corridor. “What about Elena?”
“She's been shot. She's in surgery now.” He kept walking. Billy had gone ahead for their car.
“Will you wait?” He grabbed Bannerman's arm. “Where is she? How bad?”
“You going to her? I'm going with you.”
“You're staying with Susan. The killing isn't finished.” He pulled an automatic pistol from his hip and jammed it into Lesko's belt. “I'm sending Molly Farrell down here to help you.”
”I don't need any of your goddamned women. And don't you tell me what I'm going to—” He didn't finish. Paul seized his lapels and slammed him backward against the wall. Bannerman stepped away, eyes burning, and waited.
“Bannerman,” Lesko said huskily. “Wait. Wait a second.”
“Now what?” Paul slowed.
“Okay. Sometimes I can be a prick where my daughter is concerned. Not just with you. Anyone.”
Paul listened.
“On top of that, I was a shit to Elena. I don't even know why, because she was never anything but straight with me. One minute I'm ready to break your back for putting Susan in danger and the next I'm ready to leave her alone here while I run off to Elena. I don't know. I . . .”
Bannerman's expression softened a shade. Still, he waited.
“It's okay to send Molly. I appreciate the thought. I'd also appreciate it if you call me when you know something.”
“You have a place to stay?”
Lesko shook his head.
“Use my place. Molly will bring you the key and she'll get you a car.”
”
“Tell her yourself, Lesko.” He walked briskly toward the street at the sound of Billy's horn.
—
11—
Snow had begun to fall as they drove back to Klosters. The road was becoming slick. But the BMW, its traction improved by the weight of Harold Carmody above its rear wheels, pressed on confidently. Bannerman said little. Billy left him to his thoughts and to his private sorrow. In Klosters, they stopped at a hardware store where Bannerman purchased a hatchet and saw.
Arriving at his apartment, he found the body of Lurene Carmody bound in a dark blanket and readied for removal. Another blanket, this one for Harold, sat on a chair by the door along with some towels and a bottle of household cleanser for later washing the vinyl floor of the BMW's trunk. Bannerman gathered these and Billy hoisted Lurene Carmody under one arm. Carla Benedict went ahead to see that the way was clear. They proceeded to the garage. Bannerman, with Billy, would dispose of the bodies on their way to the Zurich airport.
The BMW, Billy driving, continued northward through thickening snow. They reached Landquart and the autobahn as the sun went down. Twenty kilometers farther, the sky nearly dark, they saw slowed traffic and flashing lights at the place where Elena's car had been overtaken. Billy slowed, staying to the right. The Mercedes was still there, on its side, illuminated by spotlights and by the glow of flares that funneled all traffic into a single lane. Several cars marked
Polizei
lined the shoulder of the road, their blue lights strobing. Two uniformed policemen paced the shoulder, heads down, searching for shell casings with the aid of a metal detector. But for that, it seemed the scene of an ordinary wet-road accident. Cars crawling past, children pointing, windows being rolled down to ask hushed questions. A silent policeman, shaking his head, not answering, waved them forward.
”A cowboy job,” Billy muttered contemptuously.
”Uh-huh,” Bannerman nodded, agreeing. It had been hastily conceived. Messy. Too many ways for it to go wrong. Whoever hired them, apparently this Ortirez, either didn't know how to pick the right men or was desperate to see that Elena never lived to make good her threat. Probably both.
Billy glanced at him. “You okay? You want to talk?”
”I need to think. But thank you, Billy.”
The BMW sped on. In another fifteen minutes, darkness was total. Their headlights picked up signs leading to the Wallensee, a deep freshwater lake that had frozen over during this unusually cold January. Billy flicked his tum signal and climbed the exit ramp.
The shore of the Walensee was less than two kilometers to the east. A single lane road led to a cluster of boarded-up summer cottages. He backed the BMW between two of them, its rear end a few feet from the shore. There they waited for thirty minutes as their eyes adjusted to the night. Billy nodded that he was ready. Taking the hatchet and saw, he walked out onto the ice where he cut two holes fifty yards from shore and as far apart. Returning to the car and satisfied that they were unobserved, Billy hoisted Harold Carmody over his shoulder and made his way to the larger of the two holes. He slid Harold through the ice, then returned for Lurene. Bannerman, meanwhile, made a bundle of the Carmodys' legitimate travel documents, weighted by their weapons and Billy's as well, and dropped these through the smaller hole. Their false papers, identifying them as Ray and Caroline Bass of Mississippi, had been left in their pockets and purse. Bannerman replaced the disk of sawed ice, then returned to the larger hole, dropped in the tools, and did the same there. He could feel, through his feet, the two bodies gently bumping against the underside of the ice. They would sink within the hour. The holes would freeze solid by morning. Fresh snow would probably cover all traces. If not, any visible signs that remained would look like the work of ice fisherman. The bodies would surface sometime in April. They might never be correctly identified by the police. But the people who lived in his world would know who they were and who put them there. He would see to that. Satisfied, Bannerman returned to the car.
