The Shut Mouth Society (16 page)

“
Not even with Greg Marston?”

Evarts regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. He glanced over and saw that she seemed disturbed by the reminder of her ex-boyfriend’s demise. But when she spoke, her voice sounded even. “We never talked. Probably the reason we broke up. After the first few dates, he even brought a book to restaurants.”

“
You didn’t complain?”

“
I needed to research my own book, so I fell into the habit with him, but after a while I realized I needed a companion, not a reading mate.”

Evarts frequently took a newspaper to breakfast. He vowed to squelch that habit if this turned into anything serious. He liked women and seldom had trouble making conversation, but just as seldom enjoyed the dialogue. Probably why he seemed to end things after a couple months. But he had been cooped up in a rolling box with Baldwin for two days and enjoyed every waking moment. When they weren’t speculating about the Society and their predicament, she captivated him with her explanations of history. He loved her enthusiasm and the way she tied events together to expand their meaning and consequence. She also enlivened her little talks by revealing the odd or nasty peccadilloes of historic figures. She knew all the dirt about the forefathers and used it to turn history into stories about real people. She had begun to charm him, and he seldom let anyone tug on him emotionally.

During the long hours of driving, they also shared their personal histories. She had evidently been a handful as a teenager and an outright rebel at Berkeley. She grew up in New York City, but insisted on going to college on the West Coast. This devastated her parents, who believed that all schools west of Trenton, New Jersey, were minor tributaries of mainstream education. Which, of course, was why she chose the school with the most radical image in the nation. Despite banging around the radical fringes her first two years, she grew up in her junior year and outgrew Berkeley by her senior year. In graduate school, she fell in love with Stanford, history, and her first academic. She laughed and said she would need to be careful because Evarts was a throwback to her wild days. When she said this, she made it sound as if they already had something more than a flirtation.

He told her he had graduated from California State University at Northridge with a degree in economics. Thankfully, she didn’t ask why he didn’t attend UCSB. High school had too many distractions for him to earn grades good enough for the UC system. He explained that he attended under the ROTC program and joined the army after graduation to fulfill his financial obligation. Economics somehow led the army to believe he had the proper credentials for an intelligence career, and he served most of his four years attached to the Pentagon. When she asked about his East Coast experience, he said that he knew only Washington and the surf beaches along the eastern seaboard.

They had dissimilar upbringings. He grew up middle-class in a rich community; she grew up wealthy and played with poor kids. She rebelled, while he embraced his parents’ values. The irony was that he still clung to a surfing culture that irritated his parents, while she had become a card-carrying member of the establishment. Both sets of parents seemed intent on indoctrinating them with opposing philosophies of life. Baldwin’s parents wanted her to take responsibility for the broader world, and Evarts’s parents constantly warned him against being sucked up into other people’s passions and agendas.

Despite the differences, or perhaps because of them, they enjoyed being together and had grown comfortable with each other. A question had been nagging Evarts, so he decided to ask it. “Why did you want to stay at my house the night of the Douglass murder?”

“
I wanted to see how you lived. Why?”

“
That’s my question.”

“
It’s how I size up someone.”

Evarts wanted to ask how he fared, but she started rummaging in her purse for lipstick, which Evarts had learned was a woman’s way of stifling a conversation. She had said she was attracted to him and wanted to check out how he lived, but other than friendly conversation, she had intimated nothing that went beyond their bond as two unwilling participants in this drama. What was she thinking and why did she not give him a clue?

Baldwin broke his reverie by asking, “How do you propose to gain entry to one of these subterranean garages?”

“
Easy. I consult on building security. Touchpads at these large complexes always have a backdoor code for the hired help and maintenance. I’ll look for a manufacturer I’m familiar with and try the service codes until we get lucky.”

“
What about your own building?”

“
That’s where we’ll stash my car. No one will pay it any notice in our condo’s assigned parking slot.”

In about forty minutes, they pulled into Copper Mountain. Evarts had seen it only in winter with snow, cars, and people scattered everywhere, and for a few minutes he felt disoriented. The parking lots and roads appeared expansive without snow mounded on the periphery. He couldn’t believe how much a change in the dominant color from white to green altered the appearance. The ski runs looked like vertical meadows, and Evarts was surprised to see how many boulders and stumps sat implanted in runs he had skied hundreds of times. Copper Mountain also looked like a scene from one of those disaster movies where only the main characters remained among the living. He soon picked out a condominium complex and pulled down a driveway that descended beneath the huge building.

He tried a code and the gate slowly swung inward. “See. Piece of cake.”

“
Is hot-wiring a car standard police training?” she asked.

“
No need. When I pull up to a car, you slide over to the driver’s seat.”

The garage held more cars than Evarts had expected. A lot of people must fly into the Denver airport and take public transportation up to the resort. He parked directly behind two Ford Explorers sitting side by side. After he leaped out of his Odyssey, he reached under the back bumper of the one on the right and ran his hand along the entire length. Finding nothing, he repeated the procedure with the next Explorer. Eureka. He held up a little magnetic box for Baldwin to see.

“
Hideakey,” he said with a grin. “Pull forward so I can get out and then follow me.”

It took less than fifteen minutes to deposit his Odyssey in his own parking space, transfer their belongings, and get on the interstate leading back toward Denver. The white Explorer seemed in good working order and had less than forty thousand miles registered on the gauge.

They had pulled into Copper Mountain at twilight and had been on the road since six that morning. The night before, they had slept in sleeping bags on the floor of the van at an independent campground. Evarts said, “How about a motel tonight?”

“
Sure. I’m ready to call it a day.”

“
As soon as we get to the Denver suburbs.” He gave her a glance. “We’ll need to stay at a low-end place so they won’t think it odd to pay in cash.”

“
Anything, as long as it has a private bath.”

Evarts had hoped to share a bath, but he kept this to himself. In another half hour, they saw the Denver skyline, and he pulled off at a sign for a Motel 6. As he threw the Explorer in park, he asked, “One room or two?”

“
One,” she said flatly. “We need to conserve our cash, don’t we?” He fumbled his next question, and she laughed. “A single king bed will do just fine, Mr. Evarts.”

After he checked in, Evarts reminded himself not to run to the car. He wanted to be cool, but his heart and other organs wouldn’t cooperate. When he restarted the car and gave her a glance, she gave him the fetching smile he had first seen in the Westwood restaurant.

When he dropped the room key and then mishandled the lock, she waited patiently but looked amused. After they entered the room and dropped their bags, Evarts said, “I don’t know how to—”

Patricia Baldwin interrupted him by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him with a passionate urgency he never expected. The rest came naturally.

Chapter 16

The next morning, Evarts bounced out of bed. Last night hadn’t been an unusual experience for him, but it sure beat all his previous first encounters. Nothing was more exciting than an excited woman. A professor? With a doctorate, yet. As a lifelong surfer, he knew adrenaline as an addictive drug. The danger of their situation probably had something to do with it, but Evarts thought he might like this to last beyond their current predicament. Surprisingly, he really enjoyed being in the company of this woman when they weren’t in bed.

He used the bathroom and then admired the form of her back as he pulled on a pair of shorts. He stumbled getting one leg in and woke her.

“
Where are you going?” she asked.

“
To the front office to get a newspaper. Back in a jiff.” He waved at the bathroom door. “I’ve used the bathroom, so it’s all yours.”

She laughed. “Okay, I get the hint. Brush my teeth.”

Yes, he enjoyed being around this woman.

When he returned with two black coffees and several newspapers, he found her sitting up in bed with her hair arranged, a smile, and the blanket tucked below her bare breasts.

“
Adequate?” she asked.

“
Patricia, that’s not only a great understatement but too self-effacing. You look delicious.”

She gave him a wicked smile. “Thank you … and call me Trish.”

“
I will.” He jumped into bed beside her and laid one of the newspapers in her lap. “Scan for articles on Douglass.” Evarts stopped, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I warned you I get obsessed about a case. Do you want to talk?”

“
No. I want to see if we made the newspapers.”

Evarts looked to see if she was serious. She smiled again, but this time it was friendly and, in a much different way, more intimate.

As she pulled the sheet up, she said, “So there’s no distractions.”

The news stories played up the race issue and portrayed the killing as a hate crime. He could guess from the disparaging remarks about Santa Barbara that the city fathers had their hands full. Also, because no one in his department would slant the story to make the town look like a hotbed of bigotry, he assumed that the FBI had fed the story line to the press. He found no reference to himself, Baldwin, or the Rock Burglaries.

Evarts threw his newspaper on the floor. “Anything about us in your paper?”

“
Nothing.” She shook her head. “Whoever did this sure knew how to divert attention away from the real motive.”

“
Yeah, we’re dealing with smart people.”

She looked worried. “How powerful do you think they are?”

Evarts decided not to equivocate. “Their intelligence is first-rate. They discovered what Douglass was doing before he got very far, they found us, and they even connected Marston to you. They’ve got some heavyweight professionals doing their dirty work, and those kinds of people are expensive, so we have to assume they have strong financial backing. My bet is that they also have substantial political clout. Hell, they even got someone in my own department to help frame me.” He watched her face to see how she took this news, but he could see she had already figured out most of this for herself. “Trish, I’d say we’re up against a pretty tough bunch. Our biggest problem is that they know who we are, but we don’t know who they are. That makes breaking the encrypted code imperative. We need to discover who we’re fighting.”

“
Maybe my parents can help.”

“
I hope so, but we’re still a hard three-day drive away from New York.”

She threw her paper on the floor as well. “Then I guess we better get at it.”

“
Agreed.” Evarts threw back the blanket and then paused. “Were you referring to a shower, sex, or breakfast?”

“
All the above, in that order, if you please.”

Chapter 17

Evarts reached into his pocket to pay the toll at the George Washington Bridge. They had made it from Denver to New York City in three days by driving fourteen to sixteen hours a day. When they stopped, Evarts had insisted that they stay at independently owned campgrounds. They used the showers, sat outside and talked while Evarts cooked on a hibachi, and slept together in the back of the SUV.

They had discussed the danger of meeting her parents. Evarts assumed their New York apartment would be watched, especially if they had some knowledge of the Shut Mouth Society. The Mexico gambit might have worked, but they couldn’t count on it. The people chasing them would assume that contacting her parents might be the first thing she would do.

As they turned onto the Hudson Parkway, Evarts said, “Remember everything?”

“
Yes, but I’m nervous again.”

“
It’ll be okay if we follow our plan.”

They had tried to think of a place they could meet undetected away from her parents’ apartment, but decided that if someone followed her parents, the two of them could be spotted leaving the rendezvous. Baldwin said her parents’ apartment had excellent security, but it was a large building, and hundreds of people wandered in and out all day long. All they had to do was figure out a way to enter the building without being recognized. He suggested some disguises, but she came up with a better idea. They stopped in a mall in New Jersey and went into a maternity shop. Just as she predicted, each dressing room had a pregnancy apparatus that fit around a woman’s middle so shoppers could see how things would fit after they became larger. Baldwin wore one out of the store under her clothes, but it wasn’t for her. He tried it on and discovered how a beer belly altered his appearance and even the way he walked. His disguise included calf-length shorts and an NYU tee shirt, finished with a bright red baseball cap. When he tried on the whole outfit, he laughed at his appearance. No one trying to remain incognito would dress in that garb.