Whistler's Angel (19 page)

As far-fetched as this example might seem, said the editors, it had actually happened to a family in Iowa. The town in which they lived had hired prosecutors to review old arrests and convictions. Many towns had done likewise once it came to their attention that “relation-back’ was a gold mine.

The job of these attorneys was to find seizure prospects, and these were not limited to drug crimes. Say your daughter once pled guilty to a shoplifting charge. She’s contrite and has stayed out of trouble. A review of her record has shown, however, that she used your car to get to the mall, intending to shoplift when she got there. Your car, if you still own it, may be forfeit to the town. You may buy it back if you wish.

What the paper didn’t know was that these scatter-shot events had since become institutionalized. Felix Aubrey, maybe Poole, saw real money to be made by supplying such towns with more lucrative targets and keeping a percentage of the spoils. Aubrey, as Claudia and her mother had seen, was not above planting evidence.

In her mother’s case, though, there were public apologies. The Police Chief and Mayor, perhaps mindful of those “snipers,” had decried what they called a tragic mistake. Those responsible, they said, had been fired from their jobs and had left Colorado in disgrace. That reference, said Kate, was to those two policemen who hadn’t been seen since the day after the raid.

She said, however, that dark rumors persisted. It had been whispered that the two missing cops were nourishing some of the fruit trees she grew.

She emailed him, “Adam…tell me they aren’t.”

He answered, “Not the fruit trees. Just the beeches.”

She responded, “Adam…please say that you’re kidding.”

“I am. Copper Beeches. Sorry, Kate. Bad joke.”

“Adam…this is serious. And since when do you joke?”

He assured Kate Geller that he was just being silly and that no one was buried on her property. Truth be told, he really didn’t know where they were. Using those two to fertilize Kate Geller’s soil did have a certain poetic appeal, but he knew that his father would not have allowed it. Those two cops were most likely in the trunk of a car that was sitting at the bottom of a lake. Even so, with those rumors, Kate’s garden center was becoming a tourist attraction. The resulting new business was all well and good, but as Kate had said, “I’m not running a waxworks.” The relentless attention was beginning to wear thin. Whistler thought that she’d probably take one of those offers. However, if a quieter life were her goal, she was not yet convinced that moving to Geneva would be that great an improvement.

Kate Geller had asked, “
Since when do you joke
?” Whistler was a little taken aback. He knew that he’d never been the life of the party, but he didn’t think he’d been some humorless plodder who couldn’t loosen up if he tried. He supposed, however, that he’d always been a bit distant, never quite comfortable with people he’d met who came from more conventional backgrounds. Especially after he was sent off to school. He never felt superior. It was not that at all. The truth is that sometimes he envied them. He had more in common with a…well, a Carla Benedict than he had with his fellow students and professors. His view of the world had already been formed. Their opinions, their ideals, had seemed hopelessly naïve. His father had said, “Keep your own thoughts to yourself. You’re there to absorb, not to teach.” So he never got over feeling like an outsider. He had never really made any friends.

But Kate’s question made him realize how much he had thawed since
he had been living with Claudia. Okay, he still wasn’t a barrel of laughs. But he was much more congenial, less guarded with people. He smiled more readily and people responded. He found himself able to make small talk with strangers without needing Claudia to first break the ice. And yes, he even made a joke now and then. But yes, copper beech was pretty lame.

As for their daily lives, they were active and full. The boat was their home, but it was often in port. They would keep in shape by running, biking and swimming, all of which were Claudia’s triathlon events, but she tried not to show him up too badly. Most evenings while in port they would dress and go out, often with other couples they’d met. They would try different restaurants, catch up on new movies, or Whistler would take Claudia shopping. He would have to take her shopping because if he didn’t, she would seldom buy anything for herself. He would have to watch her browse, memorize what made her smile, then go back later and buy it.

And yet Claudia loved to dress up and look good. She loved going out, she liked being with people, and people liked being with her. She just didn’t like to spend money.

“Claudia…I’ve told you. You’re a long way from broke.”

“I know, but we need it to last.”

“If you’re worrying about me, I’m not exactly broke either. What else is
bothering you?”

“If we did run short, how would you earn more money?”

“Not with a gun, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ll never go back to that life.”

“But it’s all you’ve ever done…and it’s all that you’re good at.”

Whistler grumbled. “Thanks for the compliment.”

“You’ve never missed the excitement, the danger?”

Now and then. But he answered, “Not in the slightest.”

“Then we need to decide what we’ll do with your new life. Maybe we should think about planting some roots. We’ll need to if we’re going to start a family someday.”

“A family?”

“We’re supposed to. I told you.”

“Oh, of course. The white light.”

“That’s the plan, but don’t sweat it. You’re not ready yet. Don’t get me wrong, Adam. I love our life together. But if there doesn’t seem to be much need to protect you, I need to figure out what else the light had in mind.”

“The light never spelled it out in detail?”

“No, just the big picture. Let me think about this.”

“
Let me think
” often meant that she would have a discussion with either

a bird or the wind. He was never really clear on what role she thought they played. He didn’t think she saw them as surrogate white lights or as actual messengers from the world beyond this one. They were more like good listeners, non-judgmental and unbiased. He supposed that it was better than talking to herself.

Whatever the case, it was during one such session that Claudia decided it was time to head north. Her consultant, however, wasn’t much more specific than the white light apparently had been. The bird or the wind didn’t lay out a strategy. It just told her, or agreed, that it was time to move on and start looking for a place of their own.

This was after their uneventful stay in Antigua, during which he had used his real name. Other boaters had offered suggestions. They told her that springtime was especially pretty all along the Sea Islands of the Georgia coast and in South Carolina’s inland waterways. They suggested exploring them until early May, and then sailing up to Maine for the summer. To Claudia, this began to sound like a plan. They could also decide on a place enroute where her mother could fly in for a visit. Perhaps his father could join them as well. She hoped so. She’d often spoken to him via satellite phone, but she hadn’t seen him for almost a year.

Whistler knew that his father wouldn’t go for that idea. His father would be pleased to have a family reunion but he’d want to host it in Europe, on his turf. Put another way, he wouldn’t like the idea of the two of them being in the same place at once. At least not in the states. Too tempting a target.

Whistler knew that even going back by themselves might not be the smartest thing either. But Claudia had gone to a library in Antigua and had spent a day poring through cruising guides to the whole of the eastern seaboard. She had already plotted the course they would take. To ease his misgivings, they would swing wide of Florida. Too many spotters. Too much Coast Guard activity. Too many random searches for drugs and for Haitians. The Coast Guard would find no contraband on board, but they’d wonder why he carried so many weapons and would surely check him out on their computer. They wouldn’t find
much there either; his records were sealed, but that would make them all the more curious. It was better, he decided, to avoid such encounters. They would stay a hundred miles off shore.

“Maybe we can send some birds on ahead.” He had said this, or muttered it, while marking a chart.

She looked at him, oddly. “Beg pardon?”

“Your friends. Your birds. Let them scout and report. Better yet, do you know any porpoises?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder about you.”

She wonders about
him
. “Never mind.”

Spending a summer in Maine did sound nice. Claudia read aloud from her cruising guide about all the quaint little seaside towns, all the romantic rocky inlets in between, and the dozens of pine-covered islands off shore. They could pick one, drop anchor and dig for clams in the shallows. They could buy a trap, she said, and catch their own lobsters. They could pick wild mushrooms, blueberries and onions. She said, think of the money they’d save.

However, if they did elect to push on to Maine, they’d give the Washington area a wide berth as well. Nothing much nears that city without being monitored. No use rubbing their noses. Stay well out to sea. Especially don’t cruise up the Potomac on the former “Me & My Gal.” All they’d need was Felix Aubrey to get wind of it and be tempted to drop a few mortar rounds on them.

He wondered if Aubrey could walk yet.

Vernon Lockwood had never liked Adam Whistler. He hadn’t liked him, sight unseen, from the day he learned that Whistler would be joining their unit. Some Special Ops hotshot, was all that he’d heard. He and Briggs had gone in to ask Aubrey why. They could not understand why they needed him.

“This new guy,” he said to Aubrey, “they call him ‘The Whistler?’ What is he? A spook? What’s going on?”

Aubrey gave him that faggy little curl of his lip without looking up from his desk. “He is not ‘The Whistler.’ It’s his name. Adam Whistler. His credentials have impressed our Mr. Poole.”

“So that’s his real name?”

“As I think I’ve just told you.”

“Sounds more like a code name. Like some CIA bullshit.”

“Unlike ‘Vern the Burn’ it is not a sobriquet. Unlike you, he must not feel that he needs a nom de guerre in order to intimidate the stupid.”

Little turd, thought Lockwood. He said, “What I hear, this guy can kill at long distance. So what? Any pussy can work at long distance.”

“He’s considerably more gifted than that, by all accounts.”

“The other thing I hear, this guy’s mostly a loner. What makes you think he’ll play ball?”

“He will not ‘play ball.’ He won’t even know the game. And you two are not to enlighten him. Avoid him.”

It was Briggs who asked Aubrey, “So then why is he coming?”

“Because this was done before I could object. Mr. Poole, as you know, can see into men’s souls. Or rather he can see that some men don’t have one. You two, for example. Now excuse me.”