Very Bad Men Page 18

  “That’s right.”

  I looked off toward the cottage and the silver car. “And now that you’ve planted the idea in Callie’s head that her house is bugged, you want to sit here and see if she leaves for a secret rendezvous with the elusive fifth man from the Great Lakes robbery.”

  Lucy slipped out of her shoes and put her feet up on the dash.

  “You make it sound far-fetched,” she said.

  “WE STAYED THERE for an hour,” I told Elizabeth. “Callie didn’t go anywhere, and no one came to see her. When I’d had enough, I drove Lucy to her hotel. She never went inside, just climbed into that yellow Beetle of hers and headed back toward the Spencers’.”

  Elizabeth reached for the remote and clicked off the television. She lay silent for a few minutes, fiddling with the glass beads of her necklace, the way she does when she’s thinking.

  “It’s all talk,” she said after a while. “Dawtrey said this, Kormoran said that. They could have been lying to Lucy. She could be lying to you. I’d settle for one piece of physical evidence. If Callie Spencer and Floyd Lambeau cased the Great Lakes Bank together, there would be videotape from the surveillance cameras. If I had that tape, I’d have something.”

  “I asked Lucy about that,” I said. “There’s no tape of Lambeau casing the bank, alone or with anyone else. She thinks it must have been destroyed—part of a cover-up.”

  “Of course she does. But it might never have been collected. Or if it was, there might have been no reason to keep it. Lambeau died. He never stood trial.” Elizabeth got up and raked her hands through her tangled hair. “It’s all talk,” she said. “Speculation.”

  Later on, after we had gone to bed, I lay awake and listened to night sounds. A moth fluttering against the window screen. The rhythm of Elizabeth’s breathing. I thought she had fallen asleep, but she stirred and reached for the pad she keeps on her nightstand. It’s a habit she picked up from me, a writer’s habit. Ideas need to be caught on paper.

  I heard her pen working, faint as sand shifting in the wind.

  When it stopped I asked her, “What is it?”

  “Probably nothing,” she said. “But if Kormoran believed he had seen Callie Spencer with Lambeau at the Great Lakes Bank, that could explain why he had a copy of her portrait in his apartment. He might have needed it to remind himself of what she looked like back then.”

  THE NEXT MORNING I picked up bagels and orange juice and drove back to Bedford Road. I found Lucy Navarro’s yellow Beetle parked in the same spot where she and I had been the day before. Lucy was sitting in the shade nearby, on a low stone wall that marked the edge of someone’s front yard.

  She waved to me and I walked over and sat down, offering her a bottle of orange juice, putting the sack of bagels between us. She’d changed clothes since the last time I’d seen her.

  “I wondered if you’d stay here all night,” I said.

  “I took a break,” she said. “Got some sleep at the hotel. But I’ve been back here since seven-thirty.”

  It was close to ten now. I looked off at the Spencers’ guest cottage in the distance. Callie Spencer’s silver Ford was in the drive.

  “Anything happening?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Lucy said. “Callie went to the main house last night for dinner, then back to the cottage around nine o’clock. Since then she hasn’t been anywhere, as far as I know. I’m glad I haven’t had to chase after her, though. I’ve been dealing with my own situation here.”

  I started to ask her what she meant, but she gestured at a spot in the grass between the wall and the sidewalk, not far from our feet. There was an oval shape there that I’d mistaken for a stone. It was the brown shell of a turtle. When I looked more carefully I could see its head, the dark points of its eyes. I could see its mouth moving; it was chewing on a leaf of clover.

  “He’s been here all morning,” Lucy said. “He keeps wandering out into the street. I’m afraid he’ll get run over.”

  As if on cue, the turtle made a break toward the curb. He wasn’t big—maybe six inches from head to tail—but he moved pretty fast. He crossed the sidewalk and stopped midway through the strip of grass on the other side.

  Lucy looked on tensely, ready to go after him.

  “I’ve pulled him out of the street seven or eight times already,” she said. “I don’t know what he’ll do if I have to leave.”

  I watched him skitter through the grass and over the curb. Lucy jumped up to retrieve him.

  “Maybe you should carry him to the other side,” I said, “if that’s where he wants to go.”

  “I tried that,” she said, holding the turtle two-handed. “If you take him over there, he wants to come back this way. There’s no pleasing him.”

  A car rolled by in the street. Lucy deposited the turtle in the grass close to the stone wall and sat down again.

  “And before you ask, I tried putting him on the other side of the wall,” she said. “He wouldn’t stay.” She pointed past me toward a break in the wall where a driveway ran between two small pillars of stone. “He went all the way around and came back out. He’s determined. I’m worried about him.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I twisted the cap off my orange juice and took a drink. The day was getting warm, but it felt nice there in the shade. The turtle stayed put in the grass. He had withdrawn into his shell.

  A boy rode by on a bicycle on the other side of the street. Lucy opened the bag between us and picked at a bagel. After a while she said, “You think I’m nutty.”

  “No,” I said.

  “You do. Because of the turtle. I’m not nutty, Loogan. I’m not one of those people who can’t bring themselves to swat a fly, or who feel guilty if they step on a worm. I don’t even mind much if something happens to a frog. But a turtle deserves some consideration.”

  I twisted the cap back onto my orange juice. “I’m not denying it,” I said.

  “You think I’m nutty.”

  I set the bottle on the wall between us. “Let me ask you this. What’s your policy on spiders? You find a spider in the house, what do you do?”

  “I hate spiders,” she said, a little too quickly. “If I see a spider, I crush him with a rolled-up newspaper.”

  I watched the pale green of her eyes and waited. She didn’t blink.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  She looked away and popped a bit of bagel in her mouth, chewing it slowly. She rolled another bit between her fingers. “All right,” she said. “It depends. If he looks nasty I might crush him. But if he looks nice enough I’ll try to coax him onto a scrap of paper, take him outside. Let him loose in the garden.”

  She was grinning, and I felt myself doing the same. I didn’t say anything. She reached over and punched my arm.

  Before long, the turtle poked his head out of his shell and stirred himself into motion. He made it across the sidewalk, but Lucy got ahead of him and intercepted him at the curb. I got to my feet as she brought him back. “Let me try,” I said.

  She passed him to me and I carried him one-handed over the fence and across a well-tended lawn. There were shrubs and hedges planted around a white Victorian house, and none of it looked very inviting. But when I walked farther back I found a small artificial pond surrounded by fieldstones and flat pieces of slate. Lily pads floated on the surface of the water. A small frog hid in the shadow of a hyacinth.

  I saw a patch of clover growing by the stone border of the pond and set the turtle down there. After a minute his head came out of his shell and his dark eyes looked up at me.

  “Stay,” I told him.

  I backed off ten feet or so and waited there to see if he would follow. Over by the house a landscaper was pruning an ornamental pear tree. He stopped to watch me and I offered him a friendly nod. When I looked back, the turtle had climbed onto a piece of slate. I took that as a victory.

  I walked back across the lawn and joined Lucy by the wall. When I told her about th
e pond, she was happy but skeptical.

  “He still might come back,” she said.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “We came to an understanding.”

  I LEFT HER THERE and headed downtown, and by the time I got to the office it was close to eleven. The elevator took me up to the sixth-floor hallway, and as I approached the door to Gray Streets, I noticed a package there, on the floor beside the door frame. Not an envelope this time. It was a long, thin paper bag with the end twisted tight.

  My mind works in funny ways, and the first thought that came to me was pipe bomb. It had roughly the right shape. But the bag was the kind they give you at a liquor store and the diameter tapered off at the twisted end like the neck of a bottle. I took a chance and opened it and found a bottle of Scotch—Macallan, single malt.

  I brought it in and stood it on the corner of my desk. There was no note to indicate where it came from. I sat and pondered it for a while, then found my cell phone and called Bridget Shellcross.

  She sounded sleepy when she answered. “Hello, David.”

  “Hi, Bridget. Did you leave a bottle of Scotch outside my door?”

  I heard whispering on the other end of the line, and a soft, airy giggle—the kind that might have come from an ethereal woman who played the lute.

  Bridget made a shushing noise and said, “Lord knows I’ve thought of it, David. It would be more economical than buying it for you one glass at a time. Are you at the office?”

  “Yes. I found the bottle when I came in.”

  “Well, as long as they didn’t throw it through the window you’re ahead of the game.”

  I nudged the bottle with my fingertip. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “No bother. Should I be worried?”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “Maybe you’ve got an admirer.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  I closed the phone. The bottle might have come from the senator, I thought. Or from Callie Spencer, though I suspected her feelings for me didn’t run toward admiration.

  I reached for a manuscript I’d been editing, a story about a corrupt detective searching for an heiress. I went through seven pages, jotting notes in the margins, before my phone began to buzz along the desktop.

  I glanced at the screen and flipped it open. “Hello, Nick.”

  “Hey, sport. Remember how you told me to stop spying on the cops in Sault Sainte Marie?” When he said told, it came out toll.

  “I remember.”

  “I didn’t stop,” he said. “Want to hear the latest?”

  I put my feet up on the desk. “Sure.”

  “You know how Paul Rhiner’s been holed up in his house? I figured out who’s been bringing him food and booze. The sheriff. Delacorte. What does that tell you?”

  He didn’t need me to answer. It was obvious: Walter Delacorte wanted Rhiner to stay put, and didn’t mind if he stayed drunk.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “The other deputy, Sam Tillman? He’s been fighting with his wife. Last two nights, he’s been sleeping on the couch.”

  “Nick, listen to me. You shouldn’t be looking through Tillman’s windows at night. You’ll get yourself shot.”

  He dismissed my concern with a click of his tongue against his teeth. “I haven’t told you the best part,” he said. “Rhiner’s been staying in, right? But that changed this morning. This morning he came out, hauled a bunch of trash to the curb. Lots of empty liquor bottles. Then half an hour ago I saw him again. He locked up the house and got in his car. He was carrying something in a folded newspaper. Don’t know what. He’s gone now. What about that?”

  He didn’t give me time to answer. “I think the sheriff’s gone too,” he said. “His car’s not at home, or at his office either.”

  I shifted the phone from one ear to the other. “All right, Nick. I’m glad you told me. But you need to let it rest now—”

  “It’s always the same with you, sport. Is that the only song you know?” His impatience crackled over the line. “How’s your wife? Is she the one who sprung Kyle Scudder?”

  I brought my feet down off the desk. “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t know anything, do you?” Nick said. “They let Kyle go. Guess they figured out he didn’t kill my father. They cut him loose last night. All charges dropped. I thought maybe your wife had something to do with it.”

  Elizabeth had said nothing about it.

  “Maybe it was the protest your mother organized,” I said.

  “No. That never happened.”

  “Either way, it’s over. You can lay off. Leave the cops alone.”

  “My father’s still dead, sport. So’s Terry. And nobody seems to care much. You and me, we got different ideas of ‘over.’”

  I started to tell him again that he needed to let it rest, but the line was empty. Dialing him back, I got his voice mail: Leave a message and maybe I call you. I figured I could try to argue with him, but it would be like talking to a wall, or a fifteen-year-old. I told him to be careful.

  I went back to the manuscript, but before long I got another call, this time on my office phone.

  “Gray Streets.”

  “May I speak to Mr. David Loogan, please?” A woman’s voice.

  “This is,” I said.

  “Ah, Mr. Loogan. I’ve been reading your magazine and I have to tell you I find it enchanting.”

  “Enchanting?”

  “I’m particularly enamored of a story called—what was it now? Oh yes—‘Killer in the Sun.’ Delightful. Simply the tops.”

  She sounded slightly manic, and there seemed to be a rush of wind in the background. I envisioned her racing along in a convertible, with one hand on the wheel and the other holding a phone to her ear.

  “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘the tops’?”

  She carried on as if she hadn’t heard me. “I have to say I’ve become smitten with Gray Streets, and I simply must find a way to lend it my support.”

  “I’d be happy to sell you a subscription, ma’am.”

  Her laugh was high and delicate like crystal. “A subscription? Oh, Mr. Loogan, I believe I can do better than that.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” I said. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “I suppose I didn’t offer it. This is Amelia Copeland.”

  Amelia Copeland, from the party Sunday night. The woman who told Callie Spencer she was too young to run for the Senate. The one who headed a foundation that supported the arts.

  She gets melancholy when she drinks too much wine, Callie had said. I could only assume she had sobered up. The transformation was remarkable.

  “Now, Mr. Loogan,” she said, “we simply must get together and discuss things. I’m in a rush at the moment, but why don’t you call my assistant and set up a luncheon appointment for next week.” She rattled off a number. “You will, won’t you?”

  “I will.”

  “Delightful. Ta-ta.”

  Before I could ask her if she had really said Ta-ta, she rang off. I dropped the handset into the cradle and tried to go back to my editing, but I had a hard time concentrating. I assumed Callie had brought Gray Streets to Amelia Copeland’s attention. I wondered if she had done it before or after the visit Lucy and I had paid her. I wondered what her motive might be. I wondered if I should call her and ask. Then I took a break from wondering, locked the office, and went across the street for a sandwich at Café Felix.

  I was back at my desk half an hour later. I hunkered down and made it through eight more pages. By then the detective had found the heiress at a hotel in Los Angeles and let her know that he was professionally obliged to take her back to her father in Chicago—but also that he wasn’t a stickler about his professional obligations and maybe they could work something out. They were in the middle of some rather steamy negotiations when my desk phone rang again.

  “Gray Streets.”

  “Mr. Loogan, this is Alan Beckett.”

  I almost di
dn’t believe him. His voice seemed light, cheery. I’d only ever heard him sound sarcastic or annoyed.

  “What can I do for you?” I said.

  “There’s something I’d like to discuss.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Better if we talk in person. I can be at your office in five minutes.”

  “All right. Sure.”

  I hung up the phone and retrieved my pencil. Scratched out a couple of unnecessary adjectives. Then I reached for my cell and dialed Lucy Navarro.

  She answered on the second ring. “Hey, Loogan.”

  “Are you still on Bedford Road?” I said.

  “Still here.”

  “Has the turtle come round again?”

  “I haven’t seen him. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure. Have you heard of Alan Beckett? He’s Callie Spencer’s adviser.”

  Her laugh had an odd, sharp quality. “I’m familiar with him,” she said.

  “He’s on his way to see me. He sounds pleasant. Personable. Makes me think I’m going to wind up in a ditch somewhere.”

  I listened as she let out a long breath. “I thought this might happen,” she said. “I talked to him earlier, after you left here. I think I disappointed him. Now he’ll go to work on you.”

  “What does he want?”

  “You’ll see. Try to resist if you can. And keep a tight grip on your soul.”

  CHAPTER 26

  I met Alan Beckett at the hallway door, and he bounced in with an exaggerated vigor. He had forgone his usual decade-old suit in favor of blue jeans, a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, and a shapeless white sports coat. He wore tennis shoes. As he went past the receptionist’s desk in the outer office he turned in a surprisingly graceful circle, taking in the space.

  “Memories,” he said. “I had an office like this once, years ago, Mr. Loogan. I wonder if you can guess what my business was back then.”

  “I’m not going to guess.”