Very Bad Men (34 page)

“I'm not talking about the Senate, Al. I'm talking about you. If Lucy's dead, you're done.”

He held himself very still. “Are you threatening me, Mr. Loogan?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes. I thought that was obvious.”

“You're threatening me with violence?”

“I told you she was under my protection. What did you think I meant?”

He crossed his arms over his stomach. We listened to the murmur of the fountain.

“I don't look kindly on threats, Mr. Loogan.”

“I don't care how you look on it. As long as I get Lucy back. You haven't killed her, have you?”

“I've done nothing to Ms. Navarro, as I told you.” He uncrossed his arms and hauled himself to his feet. “I've heard enough. I'm asking you to leave now.” He glanced at the driver and the kid behind the concierge desk. “You can walk out on your own, or those two young men can escort you.”

I got up and fixed my eyes on his, a nice long glowering stare. Then I walked out on my own. Through the glass doors and down the steps. I crossed Liberty Street and looked back to see Beckett leaving the building. The senator's driver stayed behind, presumably to guard against my return.

I pulled out my phone as I watched Beckett retreating through the alley between the building and the restaurant next door. There was a parking lot back there where he would have left his car. I pressed a number and listened to the phone dialing Bridget Shellcross.

“Hi, David.”

“He's coming back now.”

“I see him,” she said.

 

 

I PICKED UP MY CAR at a garage on Washington Street and drove to Bridget's townhouse. Got out and walked up onto her stoop. The sky was full of low gray clouds getting ready to rain.

After a few minutes Bridget rolled up in her sporty little Nissan. Another car trailed after her, something compact and electric. Bridget's girlfriend got out of it: Ariel or Amber. The lute player. They came up the walk and I stepped down to meet them.

“Summit Street,” Bridget said. “Number 315. He drove straight there.”

“He didn't spot you?” I said.

“No way. It was a perfect tail. Amber's a natural.”

Amber, then. Not Ariel. I watched the woman take hold of Bridget's hand. “Tell him about the fence, Bridge,” she said.

“There's a driveway along the side of the house,” Bridget said, “and a tall privacy fence that surrounds the place on three sides. You could back a van in there and get someone into the house without any of the neighbors seeing.”

I nodded at that. “What about the other thing we talked about?”

She let loose Amber's hand and asked her if she wouldn't mind leaving us alone. Amber rolled her eyes and said, “The grown-ups need to talk.” She brushed past me with a wink, and a moment later I heard the door of the townhouse close behind her.

Bridget said, “Are you sure you want it?”

I left the question unanswered and she reached into her handbag—a bigger one than she'd been carrying the last time I saw her. She took out a makeup case, a zippered cloth pouch with a flowery design.

I felt the weight of it when she handed it over.

“It's a revolver,” she said. “I got it last year from an admirer.”

“Is it registered?” I asked. “I don't want to make trouble for you if I have to use it.”

“The gentleman who gave it to me doesn't believe in permits or registrations. . . . I imagine it won't do any good to tell you to be careful.”

“You can try.”

She didn't try. Instead, she stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against my cheek.

R
ain speckled my windshield as I drove along Summit Street. I passed number 315 and saw Alan Beckett's Lexus in the driveway. The tall fence leaned in over it.

I parked half a block away. The house across from 315 had a FOR RENT sign on the lawn. The rental company was Casterbridge Realty.

It didn't take much of a leap to assume that number 315 might also be owned by Casterbridge Realty. It would explain a great deal. I knew Beckett lived in Lansing. But if he wanted to stick close to Callie Spencer, it would help to have a place to stay here in town. I had called the major hotels and he wasn't registered at any of them. An empty Casterbridge property would make a good place to stay.

It might also make a good place to keep Lucy Navarro.

I unzipped Bridget's makeup pouch and drew out the revolver, a silver .38 with black grips. All the chambers were empty when I cracked the cylinder. I loaded them with six rounds from the pouch. There were six left over.

I thought about waiting. If Beckett were to leave, it would make things much easier. I could go in and it would still be breaking and entering, but I wouldn't have to threaten him with the gun. There was something to be said for committing as few crimes as possible.

I sat watching the front of number 315. The seconds ticked by. A minute. Two. Beckett didn't leave.

My phone rang.

The sound startled me. I checked the display. “Hello, Nick.”

“Hey, sport. I heard you got shot.”

Fine flecks of rain gathered on the window beside me. “Where'd you hear that?”

“We got the Internet up here. Is it true?”

“It's true. But it's exaggerated. I only got shot a little.”

“A little?”

“Hardly at all. What are you doing?”

“I've been watching Sam Tillman's house. He slept on the couch again last night. I don't think his wife's happy with him.”

I looked at the front of number 315. “You shouldn't be watching people's houses, Nick.”

“It's down to one house now,” he said. “Used to be three, but I hear Sheriff Delacorte won't be coming back no more.”

“That's right.”

“Can't say I mind. And I hear Paul Rhiner got stomped on pretty hard.”

“Yes.”

“I figure that's a good start. So all that's left is Tillman. How much trouble can I get in, watching one house?”

“This isn't a game, Nick.”

“You sound tired, sport. Did I wake you up? Maybe you should go back to sleep.”

I felt a rush of annoyance. “I wasn't asleep. You need to leave Tillman alone. Stop screwing around.”

“I can barely hear you, sport. You get some sleep. We'll talk again when you're awake.”

He ended the call before I could respond. I snapped the phone shut and slipped it in my pocket. Picked up Bridget's revolver from the passenger seat and opened the driver's door.

My phone rang again as I stood in the rainy street wondering where to conceal the gun. I decided it could go in my right back pocket with my shirt hanging over it. I listened to two more rings before I pulled the phone out. It was Sarah.

“Are you about to do something reckless?” she asked.

I had to suppress a laugh. “Where'd you get that idea?” I said.

“Mom figured you'd go blundering around today, looking for Lucy Navarro. I thought you might be too tired, and you'd have to wait a day. Which one of us was right?”

“I haven't been blundering around.”

“In that case, could you pick me up?” she said. “I'm at the library. I've got my bike here, but it's raining.”

 

 

THE ANN ARBOR District Library sits on the corner of South Fifth Avenue and William Street. I got there in five minutes and found Sarah waiting in the shelter of the entryway. The front wheel of her bike had a quick-release lever; she already had it off. I popped the trunk and helped her stow the bike.

The rain had tapered off, and it had never been very strong to start with. But I knew Sarah hadn't called me for a ride because of the rain. And I hadn't come here to save her from bad weather. I'd come because her question had hit too close to the mark.

Barging into 315 Summit Street with no plan, with nothing but a loaded gun—that would have to count as reckless.

Sarah got the bike settled and shut the trunk. A few drops of rain sparkled in her hair.

“Are you all right, David?” she said. “You look worn out.”

She wasn't afraid of a little rain. Her mother had probably asked her to keep an eye on me, but that wasn't why she had called me either. Not really. She was sixteen. She wanted what all sixteen-year-olds want.

“You should let me drive,” she said.

 

 

SARAH GOT HER learner's permit in March, right after the last big snow melted. Since then we've practiced once or twice a week. She could pass the test for her license tomorrow, though Elizabeth would rather have her wait until the fall.

I buckled into the passenger seat and had her drive down Fifth to Packard, then east to State Street. I'd hidden the revolver away in the glove compartment.

“I've got an idea,” she said.

I let her go where she wanted. All men by nature desire to know, and the same goes for teenaged girls. She made her way through heavy traffic on State and turned into the lot of the Winston Hotel. We got out and I showed her the spot where Lark had shot me. There was nothing to mark it, not even a strip of crime-scene tape. Lucy Navarro's Beetle had been towed away.

I'd left my pocketknife behind the night before, and I didn't think I'd find it, but there it was in the grass near the picnic tables. I started to bend to pick it up, but Sarah got to it first. She folded the blade and passed it to me.

From the hotel I let her drive on the interstate for a short stretch—seventy miles an hour, seventy-five in the passing lane. We took the north exit onto Route 23 and went as far as Washtenaw Avenue.

From there we drove west toward home. After we passed through downtown, I realized we weren't very far from Summit Street—from Alan Beckett. I made an impulsive decision.

“Turn right up here.”

Our early lessons always went this way, with me telling her where to go. In the very beginning I used to recite every move she should make.
Check your mirrors, put on your turn signal, foot off the gas and onto the brake.

She turned right and we rode north to Summit.

“Left here,” I said.

The rain had stopped falling, but drops of it hung from the tips of the leaves along Beckett's street. We coasted past number 315 and I saw the car in the drive, the privacy fence leaning over it protectively. I glimpsed Beckett opening the driver's door.

I had Sarah make a left at the next intersection and we circled the block. When we passed the house again, Beckett and the car were gone.

“Whose house is that?” she asked me.

“Nobody's,” I said.

“Shall I go around again, to nobody's house?”

I closed my eyes. “I'm tired. Let's go home.”

Five minutes later we were there. No sign of Elizabeth at the house. I helped Sarah wrestle her bike out of the trunk. She did most of the wrestling. I held my hand out for the car keys and told her I'd be back in a little while. “I need to pick some things up at
Gray Streets
.”

She had leaned the bike against the elm tree on the lawn. She held the detached front wheel.

“I thought you were tired,” she said.

“I plan to take a long nap when I get back.”

She let the wheel fall onto the grass. “I'll go with you.”

“I can manage on my own.”

“I'll go with you back to Summit Street. That house—you think Lucy Navarro's there?”

I shook my head. “That's not where I'm going. You've got the wrong idea.”

“I can help, David. What if that man comes back? You need someone to keep watch.”

“I'm not going to Summit Street. And if I were, I wouldn't take you. I'm not that reckless.”

I
went to Summit Street, of course.

Beckett's car was still gone when I got back to number 315. I drove past and went around the corner. Left my car on a street called Fountain and walked back to the house.

I ducked around the privacy fence and up the driveway. Bridget's revolver rested in my back pocket.

Drops of rain fell from the eaves of a porch at the rear of the house. I went up to the door and found it locked. But it had a window, four panes of glass in a square. I found a stone in the backyard, wrapped a handkerchief around it to muffle the sound, and smashed one of the panes.

Reaching through, I turned the dead bolt and the lock on the knob. The door opened into a kitchen that looked unused. I figured Beckett might have gone out for dinner. If he went to a restaurant he could be away for quite a while. If he went to pick up carry-out he could be back any minute.

Off the kitchen I found a small room with a washer and dryer and a set of pantry shelves. Beyond the shelves was a whitewashed door that might have been a closet, but more likely led to a basement. I decided to save the door for later.

The living room spanned the front of the house. It had a bricked-over fireplace and the kind of furniture you find in rental properties: bland, beige. The place was tidy apart from sections of a newspaper scattered over the cushions of a sofa, and a drinking glass abandoned on a side table.

From there I passed into an unfurnished space that might have been intended as a dining room. Smooth wooden floorboards underfoot. A stairway on the right, leading to the second floor.

Upstairs were three bedrooms and a single bathroom. Beckett had an electric razor on the sink, and a toothbrush balanced on the rim of a coffee mug.