Without Warning (24 page)

“I understand.”

“And now I have this life, a life that I love. I don’t want to run anymore. But ever since I saw him…”

“You’re positive it was him?”

She nodded. “He looked a little older. He had something on his face, maybe a scar. But I know it was him. Those were his eyes.”

I felt my body tense as I heard what she was saying. The scar completely matched what I knew to be true; Drazen had received the wound while committing the murders in Singapore. I had seen it; the wound had been gushing as he went overboard, to what I thought was his death.

But it triggered another memory, one that might be much more important. And one that I wouldn’t be able to confirm until I got back to my car. But I couldn’t rush it; I had more to learn here, even if it just confirmed what I had come to believe.

“Was the scar on his forehead?” I rubbed my fingers across part of my own forehead. “From here to about here?”

She hesitated for a brief moment, and then said, “Yes.”

She was lying. What I needed to figure out was what it meant and who she was lying for. “Where can I find him?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

“It’s important that I find him. And if I do, you won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t know!” She had raised her voice, and then she looked around to make sure no one was staring at us. Then, more softly, “Don’t you think I would tell you if I did? He was stationed on the base while he was here, and…”

She stopped, as if she had thought of something. “What is it?” I asked, prompting her to follow what I now knew to be a prepared script.

“He used to talk about a cabin he had … he called it his man-cave. He wouldn’t take me there; I never even saw it. I used to say that he must have brought women there, but he would never admit to that. Just said that it was the place he went to when the world was driving him crazy.”

“I need you to think really hard about where it might be. He must have said something, maybe a restaurant he went to when he was there?”

She hesitated for a few moments, as if thinking. “He said once that he wanted to see some football game, but that he couldn’t get cable at his cabin. So it was either drive a half hour back to the base, or a half hour back here to watch it at my house.” She smiled sadly. “He went to the base.”

“Thank you, Gail. You have helped me far more than you know.”

When I left, I noticed there were three cars besides mine in the parking lot. One of them had a baby stroller in the backseat, which made it less likely, but not impossible, that it was Gail Hendricks’s. So hers could have been either of the other two, but based on the license plate, I had a damn good idea which one was hers.

And if I was right, then my meeting with her might have been the most productive I had ever had.

It was the last time that the Predictor would test the plane. Of course, he wouldn’t tell Gerald that. The best thing about Gerald was he never asked any questions. He just had the plane ready and fueled up when needed, took down the information, and smiled.

He didn’t deserve to die, but a lot of things happened to people who didn’t deserve it. The Predictor knew that better than anyone. In Gerald’s case, at least, it would be painless, and he would be unaware that it was going to happen. There were many times that the Predictor had wished for a painless death.

Some of the previous flights were done simply to make sure that Gerald was reliable, and that on the important day the plane would be there and functioning. The only key was to get the name Jake Robbins on the rental documents, which the fake ID and licenses took care of quite nicely.

But this flight was different. The Predictor was going to do things. He would fly over the target area and make sure nothing had changed that would force him to alter the plan. And most importantly, he would be rechecking the plane’s systems, especially the automatic pilot, to make sure it was still functioning perfectly.

And it all went according to plan. The target area remained just as the Predictor had remembered it, and no adjustments would be necessary.

Not surprisingly, Gerald proved to be reliable, in that he serviced the plane impeccably, insuring his own death in the process.

Gerald was there, smiling, when the Predictor returned the plane. He wrote the information in his book, and accepted payment. He was quite pleased to take another reservation, for the next time the man he thought was Jake Robbins would use the plane.

He had no idea it would be the last such reservation.

I drove a mile from where I met Gail Hendricks. I didn’t want to take a chance that she would see what I was doing, so I pulled into a rest area where there was no way I could be seen from the road.

I opened the trunk and took out the picture that Jimmy Osborne had shown me, the one at the capsule ceremony with Richie Drazen in the background. And once I saw it, it confirmed what I had come to realize about why his face looked slightly different to me.

The scar on his face in the photograph was on his left cheek, and I knew with total certainty that the wound had been on his right cheek. There could be no doubt about it: the photograph was doctored.

Jimmy Osborne had denied that it was possible, pointing out that it was hidden away in a dusty attic, and no one could have known it was there, since he hadn’t even realized it himself.

Jimmy Osborne was lying; he had doctored the photograph himself.

And Gail Hendricks was lying as well. I knew that had to be the case, because if Jimmy had faked the photograph to put Drazen in it, then Drazen really was dead, resting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. So Gail could not have seen him in that casino.

But just in case a coincidence had happened, or her mind played tricks on her, and she really believed she had seen him, she gave the truth away when she agreed with my description of the scar as being on Drazen’s forehead.

Somehow she and Jimmy were in on it together, and they were leading me toward a Richie Drazen that did not exist. I had a feeling that they were also leading me to Katie; I just wished they would hurry up and do so.

As if on cue, my cell phone rang; it was Gail Hendricks calling.

“I’m sorry to bother you again,” she said.

“It’s no bother. Did you think of something else?” I asked, knowing that she had.

“I did. It’s probably unimportant, but … you remember I told you that he didn’t know whether to go to the base or my house to watch a football game?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, I remember one time he told me that there was a sports bar about ten minutes from his cabin, but he didn’t want to go there, because it was a packer bar. I didn’t know what that meant.”

I knew exactly what that meant. “Thank you, Gail. That could turn out to be very helpful.”

“Oh, good.”

“Please call me again if you think of anything else. Don’t worry about bothering me.”

I got off the phone as I was pulling into the parking lot for the offices of Bristol Cable, which was the cable company that covered the area. It was a surprisingly small building, and I was concerned that it only represented the administrative offices, and not where the technical work was conducted.

I went to the reception desk and immediately showed the young woman behind it my badge. If she was impressed, she hid it well, but she did ask how she could help me.

“I want to talk to someone who knows exactly what areas have access to cable.”

“Okay. I’ll see if Billy Porcello is available.”

“Was he here eight years ago?”

She laughed. “No, Billy was probably in high school eight years ago.”

“Then he won’t do.”

“Oh.” She thought for a moment. “I know who can help you.” She picked up the phone, dialed a number, and a few moments later said, “Sharon, there’s a police officer here that wants to talk to you.”

A woman came out through a side door so quickly that she must have been poised and waiting for the call. She could have been at the company eight years ago, but not much longer than that. This was no grizzled veteran.

“Sharon Arroyo,” she said, holding out her hand.

I introduced myself and asked her if there was some place we could talk in private. She nodded and led me into a small office adjacent to the reception area. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

“Definitely not. I want information on the specific areas that your company services.”

“Oh. Then we’re in the wrong room.” She took me into another room, down the hall, in which every square inch of wall space was covered with maps. On the tables were consoles with flashing lights on them, and three people were sitting over those consoles, doing whatever it is that console people do.

“Is it okay if they stay?” she asked.

“Should be fine. What I want to know are the places in this area that someone could have been living eight years ago, without having access to cable television service.” I pointed on the nearest map to the general area I was talking about, which was generally equidistant to Bangor and Gail Hendricks’s house. She had said that Drazen’s cabin was a half hour from each.

I have found that people in rural areas like this are more accurate estimating travel time than city people. That’s because there is no traffic; if a ride takes a half hour, then it takes a half hour pretty much every day.

“That’s not a problem,” she said. “I’ll check to make sure, but it shouldn’t be any different than it is now.”

That surprised me. “You haven’t expanded your coverage in eight years?”

“No. It’s expensive to lay cable, so we only do it in areas well-populated enough to justify the expense. People haven’t been flooding into this area, you know?”

“Okay, good. So show me … I’m looking for an area that is a half hour from Bangor and a half hour from Ambler, that did not have cable eight years ago.”

She looked at the map for a while, considering her answer, and finally she pointed. “This region here … from here … to here. Very rural. If any of them have more than six channels, they’re using a dish.”

“And back then?”

“Same thing, but probably less dishes.”

“Are you a football fan?”

“No, my ex-husband was. It’s one of the reasons he’s an ex.”

I turned to the three people in the room, two of whom were men. They hadn’t appeared to be listening, but human nature said they were. “Any of you know a sports bar around here that caters to Green Bay Packer fans?”

All three either shook their heads or shrugged. This was not a football crowd.

“You asked me the wrong question,” Sharon said.

“How’s that?”

“You asked if I like football. You should have asked if I like beer. I know where the Packer bar is. I just keep away from it on Sundays in the fall.”

“Where is it?”

She pointed. “Here. Gearhart.”

I looked at Gearhart on the map. “This is not in the area without cable.”

“That’s because it has coverage. Gearhart has three thousand people within ten square miles. For this area that’s like midtown Manhattan.”

“Okay, now show me locations ten to fifteen miles from Gearhart, still equidistant from Bangor and Bremington, that did not have cable.”

“Hmm … there isn’t much,” she said, which I tentatively took as good news. If “isn’t much” turned into “nothing,” then it would be a disaster.

“I would say only here, in the lake area of Monroe.”

Monroe is a very small town, even by Maine standards, and I didn’t know anything about it. “Are you familiar with it?” I asked.

She nodded. “I should be. My sister Lucy lives there; she’s the only real estate agent in town.”

I told Sharon that I wanted to meet her sister, and she set it up with one quick phone call. Apparently, at the moment there wasn’t a run on real estate in Monroe.

I left for Monroe, feeling better than I had in a while. There was suddenly a decent chance that I was getting closer to the truth, which I believed meant that I was getting closer to Katie.

“Jake, do you know what’s going on?” I had called Hank Mickelson at the precinct; for the time being I felt more comfortable not dealing with Bennett. Mary had answered, and seemed surprised that it was me, but she put me right through to Hank.

I needed Hank’s help, but his question, and the tone with which he asked it, stopped me for the moment in my tracks. “No, I’ve been out of touch, and—”

“Jake, the mayor is dead. He was shot.”

“Damn, I warned Bennett. Did the shooter get away?”

“Yes. But an arrest warrant has been issued.”

That came as a complete shock. “Who’s the suspect?”

“You.”

“Is that a bad joke?” I asked, but I could tell from the sound of his voice that it wasn’t.

“The warrant is real, Jake.”

“And it’s based on what?”

“A number of things, but for one, the gun used to shoot Harrick was yours.”

“Tell me everything that’s happened,” I said.

So Hank proceeded to describe the events that he said spiraled quickly out of control. Harrick was killed in his own living room, by a shooter who was outside the house. He wasn’t found until six hours later after he had failed to show up for scheduled meetings.

Matt quickly went online with a devastating piece, revealing that he had a meeting with the mayor, at his house, shortly before the murder apparently took place. In that meeting, Harrick revealed that I had threatened him openly, referring to him as the likely next victim.

But this time Matt went further. He recited the litany of events that connected me to the various crimes, and when put together they appeared devastating. Other media outlets jumped on it, and pressure began to build.

The governor jumped into the fray, and there was going to be a council meeting that night to rubber-stamp my dismissal. But far more significant was Agent Bennett announcing that a warrant had been issued for my arrest.

Hank spoke to Bennett, and his feeling was that Bennett was not on board with the arrest warrant, but that he was reacting to demands from his bosses. That didn’t affect the bottom line, though, which was that I was being hunted by the United States of America.