Very Bad Men (14 page)

He sipped from his iced tea and held the glass balanced on the arm of his chair.

“I've learned since that some determined souls get by with even less than I've got. If their fingers don't work, they hold the brush in their teeth. But back then, looking over the list we made, it occurred to me that one hand would be enough to hold a gun to my temple. I might have done it if I hadn't had my wife and daughter with me.”

Elizabeth looked up at the portrait. The expression was one of determination: steady eyes, lowered chin, lips together in a firm line.

“I understand your daughter dropped out of school to help with your recovery,” she said.

“Callie moved back to Sault Sainte Marie to be with us. I told her she shouldn't, but she wouldn't listen. We set up a studio in her mother's sewing room, and in the afternoons Callie would sit for hours and I would try to paint her. I knew nothing about mixing color or brushwork. I learned everything by trial and error. We made a deal that if I could paint a portrait that satisfied her, she would go back to law school.”

He nodded toward the painting. “After months of failures I managed one success. So she moved back down here. Eventually her mother and I followed, so we could be close to her.”

Elizabeth spotted a newspaper among the clutter on the table. The story of Henry Kormoran's murder occupied the front page.

“You've been reading up on my case,” she said to Spencer.

“Old habits,” he said.

“The paper didn't mention this, but Kormoran had a small print of Callie's portrait in his apartment.”

“That's interesting.”

“Where could he have gotten it?”

“I had an exhibition a few years ago,” Spencer said. “That painting was part of it, and the gallery made reproductions to sell. The company that printed them did another run this year, after Callie declared her candidacy for the Senate. You can find them in card shops now.”

“Can you think of any reason why Kormoran would have had one?”

Spencer stared up at the painting, considering his reply. “I think in a strange way he felt connected to my daughter. He wrote me a letter once, telling me how sorry he was for his part in the Great Lakes robbery. This was after his release from prison. Kormoran was a sad case. He came from a good family, and when he got into trouble they were ashamed of him. They got him a lawyer who made a plea deal, and after he served his time they didn't want anything to do with him. I think he believed that getting involved in that robbery was the worst thing he had ever done. It wrecked his life and poisoned his relationships. But he saw Callie's success as a sort of silver lining. It was one thing he could point to that his actions hadn't ruined. It's pitiful sometimes, the things we cling to.”

His eyes came back to Elizabeth.

“You feel sorry for him,” she said.

“I feel sorry for all of them. Kormoran, Bell, even Dawtrey. They were kids and they got caught up in something not of their own making.”

“They were twenty-year-olds. Don't you think they should have known better?”

Spencer set his iced tea on the table beside him.

“They were taken in by a con man,” he said. “Floyd Lambeau fooled a lot of people—and some of them didn't have the excuse of being twenty. The man could talk. He gave lectures on Native American history all over the country. I understand the University of Michigan once offered him a tenure-track job. He turned them down. His résumé said he had degrees from Princeton and Berkeley, but when they looked into that—after the Great Lakes Bank, after I shot him—it turned out he'd never been to either one. Never attended any university at all.”

Sunlight from the window gleamed on Spencer's scalp and made shadows on his brow. “Lambeau was forty-eight at the time of the robbery, and he'd been scamming people all his life. College students were his favorite targets: smart, idealistic kids. They'd come to his lectures and stay afterward to talk. He'd collect them and meet with them in little discussion groups. Salons. Most of them were white and privileged, and he'd play on their sense of guilt. In Floyd Lambeau's version of history, Europeans were always the villains. As for the victims, well, he didn't mind changing it up. Sometimes it was the Indians being exploited—Lambeau claimed to be Chippewa. Other times it was endangered species, or the environment.

“But there was always some cause Lambeau claimed to be fighting for, some movement or charity that needed support. It all sounded legitimate to the kids in his salons, and when they put up their money the checks were made out to leagues and foundations. But the money ended up in Lambeau's pocket.”

Spencer paused to worry his thumb over a spot of dried paint on the arm of his chair. Then he resumed his story.

“He could have gone on like that indefinitely, I think. He had a nice racket going, and no one suspected anything. But there were limits to how much he could take in with his fake charities, and he was looking for a bigger payoff. And the money was only part of it. I think Lambeau couldn't help but push things. It must have amused him, manipulating these college kids. How far could he get them to go?

“When he recruited Kormoran, Bell, and Dawtrey for the Great Lakes Bank job, he appealed to their sense of justice. He said he needed the money for a noble cause. There was a case in the news at the time—a pair of Chippewa brothers named Rosebear who had been arrested for murder. They were accused of raping and killing a white woman in Dayton, Ohio. There was a witness who claimed to have seen them leaving the woman's house in a hurry that day, and their fingerprints were all over inside, and one of them had left DNA behind in the victim's bedsheets.

“It looked like a strong case—except for the fact that the Rosebear brothers had a legitimate reason for being in the house. They were working for the victim, refinishing her basement. As for the DNA, one of the brothers said he was having a relationship with the woman, a completely consensual affair. And as for the witness, he was an employee of the woman's husband, who happened to be a prominent businessman with political connections. Some people suspected that he had found out about his wife's affair, killed her in a rage, and paid one of his employees to put the blame on the Rosebear brothers.

“That version of the story was probably true, and it was the version that Kormoran, Bell, and Dawtrey heard from Floyd Lambeau. The Rosebear brothers were facing the death penalty. They couldn't begin to afford a proper legal defense. It would take far more money than Lambeau could hope to raise through donations. Desperate measures were called for. Lambeau promised that every penny from the Great Lakes robbery would go to help those two brothers. It was a lie, of course: He never intended to give the money away. But Kormoran and the others believed him.

“Lambeau filled their heads with grand ideas. They thought they were going to save the lives of innocent men. But when the robbery went wrong, it was as if his spell had been broken. Henry Kormoran realized it early; he dropped his gun and ran. They found him a couple miles away, trying to hitch a ride. Terry Dawtrey held on to his gun. He was tougher than the others; he came from a working-class background. I think that's one reason Lambeau chose him.

“But I shot Lambeau, and then Dawtrey came out with the bank manager as a hostage. Sutton Bell had a choice to make. He realized, too late, that the whole thing was crazy. He made the right call, shooting Dawtrey in the leg. Things might have gone much worse if he hadn't.”

“Bell seems to have come out of this in good shape,” Elizabeth said. “He's got a wife and a daughter. A respectable job. I've talked to him. He's a likable man.”

Spencer nodded. “I've talked to him too. I think he's created the kind of life he might have had if he'd never met Floyd Lambeau. If things had gone differently, the others might have done the same. Even Dawtrey.”

“That's a very forgiving attitude,” said Elizabeth.

Spencer looked at her from under his lined brow. “I hated Terry Dawtrey for a long time,” he said. “In the beginning it might even have done me some good. I saw a lot of hopeless days, and the hate gave me something to hold on to. But sooner or later you have to let it go.”

He went quiet, looking away at the clutter of tubes and brushes on the table.

“I've spoken to Walter Delacorte,” Elizabeth said. “He told me the warden at Kinross consulted you before letting Dawtrey out for his father's funeral.”

“That's true. I thought it would be petty to object.” He turned his head back to her. “I gather you had a bit of a dustup with Walt.”

“I wouldn't call it that.”

“A professional disagreement, then. You believe the man who murdered Kormoran spent some time in Sault Sainte Marie. You believe he killed Dawtrey's father, and tried to kill Dawtrey too.”

“I have reason to think so.”

“Walter Delacorte was first on the scene after Dawtrey shot me,” Spencer said. “I wouldn't be alive today if not for him. I can tell you his heart's in the right place. He can be stubborn though, and if he starts down a certain road you can have a hell of a time getting him to turn back. But I'd rather not get involved in any differences you may have with him.”

“I understand.”

“That said, I'd like to help you if I can. Kormoran's murder and the attack on Bell—you think they're related to the Great Lakes robbery?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “The killer might have had something to do with what happened back then.” She reached into her bag and brought out two drawings: the pencil sketch Sarah had made, and a computer-generated composite. She laid them down on the table.

“Sutton Bell didn't recognize him,” she said, “but I'm hoping you might.”

Spencer brushed the composite aside. He picked up the pencil sketch and studied it. “This is good work. Police sketch artists are a dying breed. I didn't think Ann Arbor had one.”

“We don't. My daughter drew that.”

“She has talent. But I'm afraid I don't know who he is.”

“Picture him younger. Could he have been one of the college students Floyd Lambeau collected?”

He returned the drawing to the table and said, “I suppose it's possible.”

“Could he have been the fifth robber—the getaway driver?”

The lines on Spencer's brow deepened. “Now that's something that never would have occurred to me, if you hadn't mentioned it.”

“Bell said the same thing.”

“I only got a glimpse of the driver's face that day, and after everything that happened I was never really able to recall him.”

Elizabeth ran her fingers over the margin of the drawing.

“What do you think happened to him?” she asked.

“Who can say?”

“Do you think he was like the others—a good kid steered down the wrong path by Floyd Lambeau?”

“Probably.”

“So maybe he turned out like Bell, with a good job and a family.”

Spencer brought his hand up to rub his chin. “I wonder. It's not so simple, with the driver. You know why, I suppose.”

Elizabeth knew. The driver was the only one to get away from the Great Lakes robbery—but he didn't get away clean. He sped off in the black SUV that morning, tearing south and west through the streets of Sault Sainte Marie toward I-75. But Spencer used the radio in his cruiser to put out a BOLO on the SUV, and when the driver approached the interstate he found the way blocked. A young officer with the Sault police had parked his patrol car at the bottom of the entrance ramp.

The driver of the SUV didn't stop.

He struck the rear fender of the patrol car and barreled past, up the ramp and away. The impact sent the patrol car spinning and tumbling over an embankment. The officer—a recent recruit named Scott White—died before help could reach him. The crash had snapped his neck.

“They found the black SUV the next day,” Spencer said, “abandoned at the side of a lonely road near a town called Dafter, less than ten miles south of Sault Sainte Marie. It'd been wiped down and vacuumed clean. The driver must have had help from someone. He was never seen again. I wonder sometimes if he remembers Scott White. I imagine he does. He'll never be prosecuted for the bank robbery—the statute of limitations ran out years ago. But he still has White's murder hanging over him. There's no statute of limitations on that.”

Spencer rested his hand on the arm of his chair. “Maybe he got back on the right path and made a life for himself. If he did, it seems unlikely he'd have a reason to come after Kormoran and the others at this late date.”

“I think you're right,” said Elizabeth, pointing to the drawing. “This probably isn't him.”

“Who is it, then? And what's his motive?”

“He had words with Sutton Bell, before he assaulted him. He asked if Bell ever thought about you or Callie. Asked if Bell watched Callie on TV, if he had her portrait.”

“You said Henry Kormoran had her portrait in his apartment.”

“Right. I believe Kormoran's killer saw it there. It's interesting that he would mention the portrait to Bell. There's an implied message there:
You have no right to even look at Callie's picture.
The man we're looking for may think of himself as Callie's protector.”

“But Kormoran posed no danger to Callie,” Spencer observed. “Neither does Bell. Do you think this man's delusional?”

“If he is, that gives us something to go on,” Elizabeth said. “If he feels a connection to Callie, he may have tried to contact her at some point.”