The Tempest (12 page)

“So you're saying the buyer was a straw man the FBI created?” This seemed a little incredible to Hunter.

“Did I say that?” He grinned into his drink and then downed what was left.

“And so what about
this
deal? The terrorist interests he talked about: Is
that
real?”

“Well,” he said, “that's another point of contention. After what happened before, we thought he was ginning this one up, too. But he's got a CIA liaison involved now, supposedly, so I don't know. Did he mention that?”

Hunter shook her head.

“Might be real, might not be. Either way, I think Kepler
does
have a bead on the painting this time. That's what I hear.”

“The Rembrandt.”

“Yeah. But that's all just between us.”

“Who
is
Scott Randall?” Hunter said. “Do you know him?”

“Not well, no.” He shook his drink glass, tinkling ice. “Career Bureau type, been involved with stolen art for a lot of years. He's one of these obsessive guys you don't
want
to know too well. Or maybe you do—­but it turns out there isn't a lot there to know. You follow? He doesn't have many friends, if any. Long-­suffering wife, not much of a marriage. Second marriage. He takes care of his mother in Virginia, who has advanced Alzheimer's.”

He signaled new drinks for both of them. Hunter was still working on her wine and tried to wave off her order but was too late.

“He's an obsessive mama's boy, is what I think,” Crowe added. “Probably gay.”

Soon Dave Crowe was trying to shift the conversation to her, but Hunter didn't let it go there. So he talked instead about himself, about his daughter, about his wife wanting to get back to work. Things weren't so good at home for him lately, he said; but then he always told her that.

The air had grown misty over the water and it was much cooler by the time they left. They stood for several minutes in the parking lot looking at the moored sailboats. “You want me to drive you?” she asked.

“What?”

“You want me to drive you home?”

“Of course not,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

Hunter drove herself home slowly, her windshield wipers clicking on the slow cycle in the mist, which was thick over the Chesapeake. She felt better traveling through the dark spaces of Tidewater County, seeing stray lights from farmhouse windows and the wavy reflections of the moonlight and open sky on the water. There were two slogans the tourism bureau pushed about Tidewater—­“a land unto itself” and “a land apart.” Pretty trite; but this evening they felt appropriate. There were quieter rhythms to life here, different from anywhere Hunter had lived, and she was growing comfortable with them, even if she didn't particularly fit in the community.

She lay awake in bed for a while that night, communing with Winston, her cat, listening to the breezes rattling the sailboats, the creaking of the docks, going over her conversation with Dave Crowe. There were still a lot of questions to answer; but Hunter didn't know how far Henry Moore, her boss, would want to take this. The more complicated it became, the more the state's attorney would push the idea that Susan's death was accidental, she knew. Tidy solutions were a tradition in Tidewater County. Hunter decided she'd get Pastor Luke's input in the morning.

She was sound asleep that night when her landline woke her. The effect was like an explosion and Hunter instinctively reached for her state police-­issued Glock .22 in the drawer of the nightstand before realizing what it was. It rang once more and she picked up, expecting Crowe. It was 1:12 in the morning.

“Hello?”

“
Huuun
-­ter.”

She listened to the breathing on the other end, the same as before. Her heart suddenly felt as if it had doubled in size.

“Hello,” she said, sitting up. “Who is this?”

“You're lucky,” the caller said. “You still have a chance to step away. You
understand
me?
Huuuun
-­ter?”

He was trying to make his voice gravelly and menacing but there was a slurred, high inflection that sounded familiar—­the way he said “still” and the last syllable of “away.”

“Who is this? What do you want?” she said, trying to draw him out.

“You know who I am.”

Yes,
Hunter thought.
I do
. But he hung up before she had a chance to say anything else.

This time, Hunter called the state police barracks officer and asked him to run a trace on the call. Then Hunter put in her ear plugs and went back to sleep. She slept soundly for another six hours, before Winston woke her up by walking back and forth over her face, ready for his morning tuna ration. “Thanks a
lot
,” she said, finally tossing back the covers. Winston jumped down and ran into the hallway, squawking as if the building were on fire.

She went on a hard run along the marina road to Waterman's Bluff, feeling good, the Beatles blasting on her iPod, then came home, opened a Diet Coke and checked through her e-­mails. Fischer had prepared a file of new material on Joseph Sanders, which Hunter skimmed at the kitchen table. As she was doing so, Henry Moore e-­mailed her to say that he wanted to meet as soon as she could come into the office. Saturday wasn't going to be a day off.

She called Pastor Luke after showering, wanting to share with him some of what Crowe had told her, and to feel the anchor of his thoughts. He sounded unusually upbeat this morning. “I just wanted to run a few things by you,” she said. “Maybe later today? Or tomorrow after your ser­vice? Whatever works for you.”

“How about if we make it tomorrow evening,” Luke said. “We'd like to invite you to dinner.”

“Oh,” she said. “You don't have to do that.”

“No, we'd like to. Nothing fancy. Just crab cakes and a salad. Say, six o'clock?”

Hunter looked at her posture in the kitchen window and didn't like what she saw. She sat up straighter. For some reason, the invitation made Hunter uncomfortable. She'd never really talked with Charlotte, who occasionally seemed to have a little attitude toward her. Maybe this would be a chance to get to know her better. Still, she kind of regretted that she had to wait another day to get Luke's input.

“Sure,” she said. “That'll be nice.”

“Great,” Luke said.

Hunter printed out the file on Joseph Sanders and read it as she drove in to work, holding the sheets of paper up on the steering wheel. Dave Crowe called her cell as she pulled into the parking lot.

“Interesting conversation last night.”

“It was,” she said, glad that he was all right. “Thanks for talking with me.”

“Have you said anything to Randall?”

“I haven't talked with him.”

“Don't,” Crowe said. “Well, it's Saturday, he's probably with his mother, anyway. She has advanced-­stage Alzheimer's.”

“Yes, I know.”

His voice sounded normal, maybe a little thicker than usual. Crowe never seemed to suffer hangovers in the traditional sense. “Anyway,” he said, “reason I'm calling: I just talked with this woman. She's got someone visiting for the weekend, but she'll see you first thing Monday, okay? Her name's Helen Bradbury. She's no longer with the Bureau, but she knows a lot and stays connected. She's full of piss and vinegar. She can tell you more than I can.”

“About Kepler and Randall.”

“Yeah, all that,” he said vaguely, and then he gave her Helen Bradbury's address. “She'll see you at eight thirty Monday. I've already set it up with her.”

“Does she have a phone number?”

“She doesn't give it out. Just show up, she's expecting you.”

 

Chapter Nineteen

H
enry Moore was in the little conference room in Homicide working, papers spread out across the table, his transistor radio playing easy listening music as Hunter came in. Until she'd met Moore, Hunter hadn't realized that transistor radios still existed.

“Morning,” she said. Moore waited before acknowledging her. He was a ruddy, outdoorsy-­looking man, with squinty eyes and a sly, lopsided smile. Hunter liked him a lot, although he could be a taskmaster. She wondered if he was going to scold her now for talking with Crowe.

“Hunter,” he said, his usual greeting. He turned off the radio, pushed the papers aside and pointed at the chair across from him. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

He breathed in heavily. “I thought you should know,” he said. “Joseph Sanders has been reported as a missing person.”

“Really.”

“Supposed to be home last night, didn't show up. His wife reported him this morning. He left here yesterday afternoon, evidently, hasn't been heard from since. Police say his truck was spotted on surveillance camera about twenty miles north of the Virginia line. Which doesn't fit with any route he would have taken.”

“Wrong direction.”

“That's right, wrong direction.” Moore leaned forward, shifting his weight to his left side, tapping his left hand over the table as he often did, as if the transistor radio was still playing. This wasn't what she'd thought he wanted to talk about.

“Was he alone?”

“Don't know. The picture doesn't show much.” He pulled out a printout and pushed it toward her. “Maybe we'll get something better. It's still early.” He took another deep breath, his favorite punctuation. “Thoughts?”

“Well. It may complicate things,” she said.

“Yep. May.” Moore started to smile, his eyes receding.

“Fisher's been running data,” she said. “I just got some new information from him this morning. Sanders worked for Nick Champlain off and on for the past year or year and a half. He also worked construction in Pennsylvania.”

“Is it possible this was something he might've done
for
Champlain?”

Hunter frowned. Tanner had suggested the same thing. “Killed Susan while Champlain was out of town, you mean?” she said. “I guess it's possible.”

“But you don't think so?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don't see motive. I don't know why Champlain would want her killed. It doesn't seem consistent with what we know.” She added, “Of course, there's still a lot we don't know.”

“I understand Sanders may've had a gambling problem? Spent some time in the casinos up in Atlantic City?”

“In the past.”

“Problems come back. Maybe he needed the money?”

“Maybe. But I don't think so,” she said. “Nick Champlain is a careful man. It doesn't make sense that he would have paid someone like Sanders, who supposedly has a drinking problem, to do that.”

“But he paid him to be his bodyguard.”

“That's different.”

“So, what
do
you think?”

Hunter shrugged. “I think it's something we don't know yet,” she said. “Give us some more time. I'll have a better answer in another day or two.”

He nodded, straightening his papers.

“What does the state's attorney think?” Hunter asked.

“About Sanders? He's not concerned. He's going to consider her death an accident until someone tells him otherwise.”

“And he's still unaware of Susan's photo, I take it.”

“Yep. We'll just keep it that way for the time being.” He showed his sly smile, just the right side of his mouth. Moore was an adept navigator through the politics of local law enforcement. He was acting as if the photos were unrelated to Susan's death, even if he didn't believe it. Moore liked to keep information in a tight circle for as long as possible, which was why he wasn't quite ready to bring Fischer and Tanner in, she suspected.

“Oh, and I talked with Scott Randall yesterday,” he added, almost an afterthought. “He stopped in to see me.”

This
was what Hunter had been expecting.

“Yes. And?”

He made a face and rolled his eyes. “He tried to push an agenda on me and I told him we couldn't really help him. Although I don't have any problem with you talking with him.”

“He said you were on board with what he wanted to do.”

His nose scrunched. “I'm not on board with him at all. I said I didn't
mind
if he listened in on your conversation with Champlain. If
you
didn't mind. He left the electronic device, if we want to do it. But that's up to you.

“Our case and his case are two separate things,” he added. “I told him that. I made that clear.”

“Good.”

“Just use your own best judgment.”

“I will.”

“And you want my honest assessment? The guy's kind of a bozo. Something about the man just rubbed me the wrong way.”

Hunter nodded. Further warning about Scott Randall.

She told him then about the two threatening phone calls she'd received. Moore breathed heavily, showing mild interest.

“Any idea who it might be?”

“Not really.” For some reason, she was thinking about Barry Stilfork, the deputy sheriff who patrolled overnight. But she also mentioned Marc Devlin.

“You know what I think?” he said, giving her his inscrutable, squint-­eyed stare. “You're interviewing Champlain in Philly on Monday, right?”

“One o'clock,” Hunter said.

“I think it might do you good to get out of town for a day or two. Doesn't your mom live up there?”

Hunter just looked at him. She often couldn't tell what he was thinking until he told her.

“Stay a ­couple days if you want,” he said. “It wouldn't hurt you to get away from here. Recharge the batteries a little. We'll carry the slack.”

The conference room phone buzzed before Hunter could respond. Moore answered it. He said, “Yep.” Then again, twice: “Yep. Yep.” He hung up. “Anyway, you got two visitors up front,” he said, and winked.

N
ANCY
W
ILKINS
A
DAMS
looked like a stockier, more subdued version of her dead sister, Susan Champlain, with the same rounded cheekbones and lively blue eyes. Susan's brother Brian had even more of her in his face—­the nicely shaped nose, the compelling downward smile—­although he, too, was heavier than she'd been.

“We just had a drive around the town. Nice place,” he said, sounding like a tourist, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

“Yes, it's very charming,” Nancy added, not so upbeat.

“It is.” Hunter welcomed them into her office. They'd been to Baltimore first to see their sister's body, then to the Champlains' home in Philadelphia to collect some of her possessions. They came back through Tidewater to get the rest of her personal effects from the rental house at Cooper's Point. But Hunter sensed that they were also here because they wanted to see where she had lived out her final days, and where she had died.

Nancy said, “Nicholas has already left, we hear.”

“He wasn't at the house in Philadelphia?”

“No.” Nancy Adams had a slightly startled expression, which it took Hunter a minute to recognize was built into her eyes, as if life itself caused it.

“But he did talk with you—­?”

“With me,” Brian said, raising his hand. “We had a decent talk.”

“I won't speak with the man.” Nancy turned her head to the side, gripping the chair arms.

Brian exhaled, puffing out his cheeks, slumped in the other guest chair. “We disagree on this a little,” he said. “For whatever reason, I always got on with him. Not that we had a lot in common.”

“Football,” Nancy said.

“Well, that's right, although we disagreed a little there, too,” he said, trying to keep things light. “I'm a Chicago Bears fan. He's Eagles. Of course, we don't actually have a home team in Iowa. We have some folks who are diehard Packers fans. What's the home team here? I was trying to figure that out—­Ravens or Redskins?”

“Either one,” Hunter said. “Although I'm partial to the Eagles.”

“He offered to pay for the funeral,” Nancy said, crossing her legs, uncomfortable with the football talk.

“He can pay half,” Brian said.

“We were pleased to learn that you're investigating this,” Nancy said.

Hunter shrugged. “It's a routine investigation at this point.”

“But you're Homicide.” Nancy glanced at the door as if for some kind of confirmation.

“Yes. Do you think it was homicide?”

“I'm sure it was,” Nancy said.

Brian's nose twitched. Hunter had already looked them up. Brian was the middle child, Nancy the oldest.

“When was the last time you talked with your sister?” Hunter asked.

“It was intermittent,” Brian said.

“
Really
talked with her?” Nancy said, her voice rising to a dominant level. “Was about two weeks ago. She was quite upset. She didn't let on what was happening, but I could kind of read between the lines.” Her eyes moistened, went somewhere else. “She told me about this thing that she was afraid of that was going to happen. That's what she called it. This
thing
.”

“She didn't say anything about it to me,” Brian said factually.

“What do you think it was?” Hunter asked.

“I don't know, I wish I did. She wouldn't—­Susie just always had this—­it was like a heightened awareness, really, almost a sixth sense, from when she was a little girl. I'm not saying it was supernatural or para
normal
or anything, but it was a gift. Even when she was little.” Hunter glanced at Brian, who was pulling lint from his shirt. “She just had this, I don't know, sensitivity, this greater
aware
ness than most ­people have.”

“But you don't know what specifically it was that was bothering her?”

“No. I don't.”

“Susie was always kind of a dreamer,” Brian said, picking it up. “From when we were kids. She was the youngest and I guess she just felt she needed to be a little different. To stand out, maybe.”

“Our parents are devastated, naturally,” Nancy said, as if he hadn't spoken. “They were sort of waiting for her to make her mark. We all were. Which she would have done. They didn't expect she'd want to be an artist, of course, but they always supported her. Although they were never real comfortable with Susan marrying
him
.”

“She was actually quite shy,” Brian said. “But she had this great imagination. And she really wanted to be an artist. She had that idea all her life. Be an artist and live in New York City, Greenwich Village. She romanticized it in her mind.”

“Bright lights, big city,” Nancy said.

“To the point that, when she finally got there, I think it was kind of a letdown.”

“She had some troubles there,” Nancy said. “She went broke. My father wired her money once and it seemed to disappear in a few days. She did fall in love, though.” Nancy's eyes became teary and she glanced toward the Bay. “I was sure she was going to marry him.”

“John,” Brian said.

“Yes, John Linden. But then Nicholas came along. And I guess she was more drawn to the
allure
. Not that I have any right to stand in judgment of anyone, least of all my sister.”

Brian said, “I think she saw Nick as someone who was very worldly and maybe could fix her problems.”

“She believed that life was supposed to be that perfect summer,” Nancy said.

“How'd they meet?” Hunter asked Brian.

“She just answered an ad, and went to work,” Nancy said. “That was the kind of deal he was running: He hired secretaries. Probably still does. He had a business on the Jersey Shore and ran ads for secretaries. I think it was a racket.”

Brian's face contorted as she said this. Every time she became emotional, he looked as if he was suffering mild chest pains.

“Will you tell us honestly what you have?” Nancy narrowed her eyes at Hunter. “As far as an investigation goes? Is there anything implicating him? Any evidence yet?”

“I can't say,” Hunter said. “It's an active investigation. Although I can tell you, Nicholas Champlain has an alibi. He was out of town when it happened.”

“Well, I don't believe it,” Nancy said, crossing her arms.

Brian sighed.

“I'd like to hear more about this boyfriend. John Linden,” Hunter said.

“John? He lives in Delaware now,” Nancy said. “I just received an e-­mail from him, actually.”

“So you've stayed in touch.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” she said.

Brian said, “I think he just heard Susan had passed and sent condolences.”

“Had
he
stayed in touch with Susan, do you know?”

“I think he may have,” he said.

“Do you know how I might reach him?”

“John Linden?” Nancy said. “Why would you want to do that?”

She looked at her brother, who nodded. “Go ahead.”

“He's an attorney in Delaware now,” she said. “Near New Castle. I'm sure he's listed.”

“Is he married, too?”

Brian coughed and looked at his sister.

“I understand he did finally marry, yes,” Nancy said. “My feeling is that Susie probably regretted it in a way that she didn't stay with him.”

“So did
she
break things off?”

“Well—­”

“She was always a little vague about that,” Brian said. “They both said it was ‘mutual.' ”

“Which is another way of saying they don't want to talk about it.”