The Edge (18 page)

“That’s right,” I said, my jaw nearly locked with impatience. “Liz, any friends?”

“Just a couple of older guys still on the force. But I don’t think they’ve spoken to him in years. I can ask around, see if any of the old guys have spoken to him recently.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’d really appreciate that.” I thanked her profusely, gave her my phone number at the cottage, and hung up.

“Interesting,” Laura said. “Too bad she couldn’t give you anything.”

“She’s got to come up with something pretty quick,” Savich said, “or it’ll be too late.”

“Amen to that,” Sherlock said, turning to Savich.

I walked to Laura, lightly lifted her chin in my palm, and said, “Forget Cal Tarcher. Forget all those hundreds of other women.”

She laughed so hard I had to squeeze it out of her. She still thought I was funny.

At two o’clock, Laura and I were seated next to Savich and Sherlock in the League’s Christian Church on Greenwich Street, just off Fifth Avenue. There was a small park opposite the white brick church, and lots of parking space. The building itself looked strangely unchurchlike, I supposed because it was used by so many different religions.

I’d introduced Laura to everyone as a DEA agent I was currently working with, Savich and Sherlock as FBI agents who were here to help us look into things. What things? Who had tried to kill Laura? I’d been as vague as possible as I’d smiled into Alyssum Tarcher’s face with that news. It was an I’ll-get-you-later smile and I’d swear he knew exactly what I was thinking.

Charlie Duck held the place of honor in the nave of the church, his beautifully carved silver urn set in the center of a circular piece of glass balanced on top of a hand-carved rosewood pyramid at least five feet tall. I couldn’t tell how that round piece of smoky glass balanced on that pyramid point.

While we sat waiting for the service to begin, I gave them all a running commentary on the people I’d met.

Paul came in, but he didn’t sit down beside me. In fact, he didn’t even acknowledge me or Laura. He looked tired, his face gray, harsh shadows scored deeply beneath his eyes. More than that, he looked scared.

I looked around to see that every pew was filled. There were at least a hundred folk, a good two dozen more lining the back of the church. Everyone had left work and come here. All of a sudden conversation stopped.

Alyssum Tarcher, dressed in a black suit that quietly announced English bespoke, strode to the pulpit, which really wasn’t a pulpit, but rather a long, thick mahogany board set atop marble pillars. The interior of the church was all like that—a mixture of styles and materials, announcing all sorts of possibilities but nothing specific, like an onion dome or a menorah.

Alyssum Tarcher cleared his throat and raised his head. Sunlight poured through the high windows and flooded over him. The air was perfectly still. There wasn’t a sound.

He gave an almost imperceptible nod. Bagpipes sounded, low and raw and savagely beautiful. No one seemed surprised, evidently used to this. The pipes played a wrenchingly sad set of chords, then grew more distant, softer, leaving only echoes.

“Charles Edward Duck,” Alyssum Tarcher said in a rolling, powerful voice, “was a man who lived a full and rich life.”

I tuned him out, studying Paul’s face in profile. What was going on?

“He was a police detective in Chicago until he retired to Edgerton to live with his aging parents, now deceased, some sixteen years ago. We will miss him. He was one of us.”

I heard the scrape of bagpipes again, minor chords
sliding into one another, then nothing. Alyssum Tarcher, the patriarch, returned to sit in the first row.

Elaine Tarcher rose next. She looked slim and well groomed and rich. Her dark suit was elegant, somber. She wore pearls. When she spoke, her voice was full and deep with emotion. “I first met Charlie Duck at our annual New Year’s Eve party back in the late-eighties. We were having the party that year at The Edwardian. Charlie played his guitar for all of us. Good-bye, Charlie.”

A dozen townsfolk followed, the first representing the Anglican Church. It was Rob Morrison. He spoke briefly of Charlie’s good nature, his acceptance of others, his tolerance.

Miss Geraldine, the leader of the town League, mayor of Edgerton, represented the Jewish religion. She spoke of Charlie’s lack of anger toward anyone, his gentleness.

It appeared that everyone had seen Charlie Duck differently.

The final speaker was Mother Marco, ninety-three, who owned the Union 76 station. She was small and frail, and her pink scalp showed through soft, sparse white hair. “I don’t represent any religion,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Well, maybe you could say I represent old age and the brink of death. I feel older than the rocks on the shore below Edgerton.” The old lady grinned out at us all, showing big, very white false teeth. “And I’m proud of it. I knew Charlie Duck better than any of you. He was smart, was Charlie. He knew a bit about everything. He liked finding things out. If he didn’t understand something, he dug and dug until he found his answers. Because he was a police detective in Chicago, he didn’t have a high opinion of anybody. He wasn’t blind about people.”

Of all the speakers, I thought that old Mother Marco had hit Charlie right on.

Alyssum Tarcher walked to the wooden pyramid and picked up Charlie’s silver urn and held it over his head. “To Charlie,” he shouted. Everyone cheered, filed in behind Alyssum Tarcher, and marched out of the church.

“My, oh my,” Sherlock said.

“Some show,” Savich said.

I felt Laura’s fingers close around my hand. “I don’t want to go there,” she said. “To the cemetery. I don’t want to go.”

“No, we don’t have to. No one will expect us. After all, we are outsiders.” I saw Rob Morrison beside Maggie Sheffield, and I thought of Detective Castanga.
Margaret was my wife at one time.

“Who the hell are you?”

“This is Cotter Tarcher, guys. He’s Alyssum’s only son.”

Cotter dismissed the two women and eyed Savich, his eyes dark and hot. Savich arched a dark eyebrow.

“Here we have the weakest link,” I whispered to Laura.

“I asked you a question, buddy. What are you doing here? You don’t belong here. Nobody invited you.”

“Actually, I did,” I said. I nodded toward both Sherlock and Savich, and showed Cotter that I was holding Laura’s hand. “They’re friends of mine.”

Cotter said, “None of you should be here.”

Savich smiled, a kick-ass smile that should have alerted Cotter but didn’t. Savich knew exactly what he was doing. He’d taken Cotter’s measure very quickly. “I enjoyed the performances, sport. Everyone who spoke was very talented. Why didn’t you speak? No religion? No talent?”

Cotter’s eyes flamed. He was quickly going beyond anger, to nearly out of control. What had happened to him? Cotter had a hair trigger and Savich had baited him well, but no one was more surprised than I was when Cotter took a swing at Savich. I didn’t move; I even felt a bit sorry for Cotter. As for Sherlock, she said, “Oh, no. You idiot,” but not in time.

Savich smoothly caught Cotter’s wrist and squeezed it back down to his side. Cotter tried a kick but didn’t make it. Savich grabbed Cotter’s leg just behind his knee and flipped him into the air. He released Cotter’s wrist only at the last minute before he landed on his back in a marigold bed, the move smoother than a twelve-year-old scotch.

Sherlock looked down at Cotter, her hands on her hips. “Why are you acting like an adolescent?”

“Get a grip on yourself,” Savich said. “Consider growing up.”

“None of you is worth a piece of shit. Big federal agents, that’s a laugh. You’ll never find out anything.” Cotter dragged himself out of the flower bed and stomped away.

“That man has real problems,” Laura said.

“He’s the local sociopath,” I said. “So he doesn’t think we’re going to find out anything, does he?” I watched him speak to Alyssum Tarcher, and the older man shook his head. “When I first met him I thought he was just an immature hothead. But after seeing him perform today, I wonder if he’s involved in all of this, his daddy’s right hand?”

“His father looks like an aristocrat, a sleek greyhound among a pack of mutts,” Sherlock said. “As for Cotter, he looks like a little bulldog.”

“I think Cal and Cotter are different,” Laura said. “Cal acts weird too, but Mac’s never called her a sociopath.”

“Hey,” I said. “I only calls ’em like I sees ’em. At the very least we know that Cal’s got great taste in men.”

I saw Alyssum Tarcher look back at me. His face was cold but his eyes were suddenly as hot as his son’s.

I
t was just after five-thirty in the afternoon when Savich and I pulled into the driveway of 12 Liverpool Street. Paul was indeed at home. Actually, both his car and Maggie Sheffield’s sheriff’s car were side by side in the driveway. We heard them yelling at each other from the front porch and stopped a moment beside a hanging plant that looked a lot happier than I did. We stood quietly outside the front door, listening.

“You damned little worm,” we heard Maggie scream at the top of her lungs. “Don’t say or do anything like that again, Paul, or I’ll take your head off. Are you nuts? How long has Jilly been gone?”

“What do you know? You don’t know anything. You like to play at doing a man’s job, but you don’t do it well. But as a woman, Maggie, you really suck. Maybe this is the ideal job for you. What are you, a dyke?”

We heard a crash. I sighed, opened the door, walked into the small foyer, and looked to the right, into the living room. There I saw Maggie straddling Paul, who was lying flat on his back in his black-and-white living room.
She had him by the neck, his head pressed against the floor.

Savich calmly walked over to her, grabbed her under her arms, and pulled her straight up. She turned on him, fists raised. He held her up by her armpits and said in that deep, smooth voice of his, “Not smart. Don’t do it.”

“Enough, both of you,” I said, and gave Paul a hand up. “Now, what’s this all about? We could hear you screaming at each other from the front porch.”

“He’s a stupid prick,” Maggie said. “Let me down, you jock. I’m the sheriff. I’ll arrest you.”

“I’m not a jock, ma’am. I’m a Special Agent, Dillon Savich, FBI.”

“Oh,” she said, and immediately went still. “I’m sorry. You’re here for Mac, aren’t you? I saw you at Charlie Duck’s funeral but I was late and didn’t have a chance to meet you.”

“That’s right. Can I put you down now?”

“Please do. I won’t hurt that little wimp.” She looked over at Paul like she wanted to spit on him.

“Paul,” I said, “go sit down. We need to talk. Maggie, you sit over in that chair. Either of you makes a move toward the other and Savich or I will flatten you. Well, Savich will for sure. My ribs are a bit on the sore side. Got it?”

“I’m the sheriff,” Maggie said, tucking her blouse back in. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want to.”

“Fine,” Savich said. “That’s the spirit. What we’d really like is for you to sit down and tell us if you’ve heard anything about Mac’s sister.”

“Not a blessed thing,” Maggie said, looking over at Paul. “I even spoke to Minton this morning, not something I was crazy about doing, but he didn’t have anything new, just sputtered and whined about not knowing
what you and Ms. Scott are up to. I told him that if it had been any of his business, you would have told him.” She smiled. “He called me a bitch. Made my day. I’m leaving now. If I stay in the room any longer with this jackass, I’ll lose it. Call me if you find out anything, Mac.” She nodded. “Agent Savich, thank you for your generous help. I’m sure you’ll let me know if you need anything.”

“Wait a minute, Maggie, I’ll walk you out,” I said.

“He’s a pathetic jerk,” Maggie said in my direction as we walked out of the house.

“What did he say this time to make you blow up?”

“You won’t believe it, Mac. He tried to get in my pants. Well, to get under my uniform so he could find my pants. The little jerk. It took me a while to get him off me, so I could beat the crap out of him.”

“Why would he do that?”

“God knows. I’ve always thought he was weird.”

“Okay, Maggie. We’ll keep in touch.”

I waited until she drove off, waving at me. When I came back into the living room, Savich was waiting. “All right, Paul,” he said as I came in, “tell us about the drug you’ve developed.”

“Yes. We’re real interested in that, Paul.”

Paul just sat there, staring down at his hands that were clasped between his legs. “I don’t have a damned thing to tell either of you. Go away.”

“No, we’re not going anywhere until you tell us about it.”

Paul looked as if he wanted to fold in on himself. Again, I thought he looked scared. “Talk,” I said.

He walked around the room a couple of times, pausing in front of one of the stark modern paintings. We waited until finally he turned back to us and said, “It’s all experimental, Mac. It’s doubtful anything will come of it, truth
be told. You know the odds against developing successful drugs these days. The business of pharmaceutical research is astronomically expensive, demands incredible numbers of man-hours and highly specialized computer programs. And then there’s the FDA to contend with.”

He paused a moment and pulled at a loose thread on his tweed jacket. “I wanted to continue along a certain line of research. The people at VioTech deemed it too expensive to continue the research, not enough projected payback even if the drug could be perfected, and so they canceled it. They wanted Jilly and me to go into AIDS research. Our interests just don’t lie there. When Alyssum Tarcher offered to finance us, we took him up on it.”

“What exactly is the drug, Paul?” I asked.

“It’s a memory drug, nothing more than that.”

“I don’t know what you mean by a memory drug,” Savich said. “We know so little about the mind, about how memory even works. What does it do to the memory?”

“It’s meant to take away the physical responses to bad memories when they surface. You see, the drug seems to be activated when there are sudden physical manifestations of distress—heightened adrenaline levels, rapid heartbeat, dilated pupils—things like that. Its purpose is to shut down the power of the memory by reducing the physical distress and substituting a sense of well-being.

“The benefits might be enormous in treating someone who has lived through something terrible, for example, soldiers surviving battles, or physical or sexual abuse as a child. Once the emotional baggage of the memory is dissipated, so is its physiological power.”

I sat forward on the sofa, my hands clasped between my knees. Finally he was talking. I had to keep him
going. “The physical reactions you’re describing, Paul, aren’t just prompted by a bad memory. They can happen with a whole lot of things, like fear, excitement, tension.”

“True enough, but you see, the drug is meant to be given in a controlled setting in which the memory is repeatedly triggered. So the drug is focused.”

“It sounds incredible,” Savich said slowly. “But how can you continue research by yourself, in a home laboratory?”

“I was very close to success when I left VioTech, although none of the decision makers at VioTech agreed. It’s just a matter of fine-tuning some of the drug’s side chains.”

“Would the drug be addictive?” I asked.

“Oh no,” Paul said, shaking his head. “Oh no.”

“What about military uses?” Savich asked. “After all, if you can lessen all the physical manifestations of distress, why, then you could give your soldiers a shot and produce a battalion of heroes.”

“No, I won’t ever have anything to do with the military.”

Paul looked incredibly tired, his voice flat, as if he simply didn’t care about anything anymore.

“When I asked you about this before,” I said, “you just laughed it off as a fountain of youth drug. This is something else entirely.”

“It doesn’t matter. None of this has anything to do with Jilly’s disappearance. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything at all. Go away, Mac. I don’t want to talk to either of you anymore. Please leave now.”

“Oh?” I asked, an eyebrow up. “You just want to attack women who happen to wander into your house?”

“Maggie told you about it all wrong. She was coming on to me and when I decided to do something about it,
she turned on me. A man gets horny, you know that. Maggie’s nothing but a tease, Mac.”

“Tell me where Jilly is, Paul.”

“I don’t know. If I did, I’d be with her.”

“Look, Paul,” I continued after a moment, “it’s time to drop the pretense. Laura told me she’s DEA, that she was undercover. They know about this drug. They know about Molinas. There were then two attempts on Laura’s life after Jilly disappeared. Who ordered them, Paul? You? Tarcher? This arch criminal, Del Cabrizo? Tell us how Tarcher’s involved. Tell us about John Molinas.”

“I don’t have to talk to you, and I want you to go away, both of you.” With those words, Paul got up and walked out of the living room.

I went after him. When he heard me coming, he broke into a run, took the stairs three at a time. By the time I caught up to him, he was locked in his laboratory. Jesus, I thought, this was nuts. It was a steel-reinforced door. I didn’t have a prayer of breaking it open. I told him to let me in, pleaded with him to tell me what was going on before they came in with a search warrant, but he remained completely silent.

After ten minutes, I felt Savich touch my arm. “Let’s go,” he said. “We need to regroup. Maybe it’s time for Laura to call her boss at the DEA and let them take over. A search warrant doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. They can haul both him and Tarcher in and interrogate them big time. Jesus, I’m tired. That late flight is catching up with me.”

“Maybe you and Sherlock can rest a little when we get back to the cottage.”