Home Body, page 57
We took the Suburban with the blacked-out windows. Clair rode in the back.
At eleven we were back at the house. Katie, the au pair, took Maeve to story hour at the Blue Harbor Library, and from there they were going to lunch. We gathered in the study like we were waiting for the numbers to be called in a weird sort of lottery. David had the computer up and running. He signed on as Maddie 666, wincing as he typed his wife’s name and the devil’s number.
There was no one there.
We waited ten minutes. Still nothing. Fifteen and nothing. After twenty minutes I could see Maddie becoming more agitated as she speculated what this might mean.
“They’ve changed their minds,” she said. “They’ve sent the stuff around. . . . How long do you think it will be, Jack, before the press starts calling. . . . This number is unlisted, David; but they’ll call the foundation. What will they say to the receptionist? A reporter would have to say something, don’t you think? What about when the receptionist says, ‘And what is this regarding?’ ”
After a half-hour, David asked Clair what he thought. Clair said he didn’t know, but he wouldn’t walk away yet. David said he didn’t plan to, but how long should we wait? We couldn’t sit in front of this goddamn computer all—
And there it was.
Fat Cat 33.
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—Hello, famous connellys. you still there?
Yes.
—good. wanted to make sure you were serious.
if not, i think we’ll start with the globe and work our way down to the real bottom feeders. or do you still want to do business?
Yes.
—then get in the car . . . maddie and david,
in the bmw. bring the package. drive to the mobil station in the village and call this
number. don’t use your phone for anything else.
A number appeared and Fat Cat 33 signed off.
“They’re going to lead you around for a while,” Clair said. “Make sure you don’t have police tailing you.”
“We don’t,” Maddie said.
“You’ll have us,” I said.
“How?” David said.
“We’ll need other cars,” I said. “Clair’s truck and—whose Toyota is that at the end of the drive?”
It was the au pair’s, Maddie said. She’d taken the Suburban because Maddie didn’t think the Toyota was safe. I asked if they had keys and they said yes. Clair said we’d better go.
Maddie said, “Does this mean they’re actually here?”
Maddie and David left first, and then, after a minute, Clair followed. Roxanne and I waited another minute and headed out in the Toyota. When we reached the village, the BMW was parked at the Mobil station. Clair was parked in front of an art gallery across the street, the big pickup sidled in between a Mercedes convertible and a Lexus, a mastiff between poodles. I drove by and pulled into a restaurant lot just up the street. I adjusted the mirror to watch the Connellys while Roxanne went up to the door and read the menu. When she got back in the car, the BMW was pulling away. I backed out and we followed.
Clair brought up the rear, three cars back.
We drove under the elms, past the library where the Suburban was parked. I could see Maddie turn as though she wanted to go back and get Maeve and run. But David kept driving, out of the village and south down the peninsula. A mile outside of town, he turned right. I turned, too, hanging back.
I watched the mirror to see if anyone else had turned and there was one car, a Volvo wagon, and then Clair. I looked up to see that Maddie and David had pulled into a driveway. I continued past and the Volvo stayed with me. Clair was gone.
I drove a half-mile and stopped at a roadside vegetable stand. Roxanne looked out at the produce, then shook her head, as though the lettuce were wilted. I pulled out and headed back. In the distance I could see Clair’s truck. When we reached the intersection, the BMW was three cars ahead.
And so it went for more than two hours. Through Brookline and Sedgwick and over the Deer Isle Bridge. I called Clair in the truck and he told me he’d passed them, they were doubling back onto the mainland. I pulled into a camp road and turned around and waited. When Maddie and David drove by, they were looking straight ahead, their faces drawn, jaws set.
Back to Blue Harbor and over toward Castine. In Cape Rosier we came to the entrance to a wildlife preserve where we would be the only cars in sight. I figured this had to be it, this deserted place of deep woods and meandering paths. Roxanne dug a map from the glove box of the Toyota and found two places where the road through the preserve came out, and we skirted it and waited on the far side in the driveway of a farmhouse. After forty-five minutes, a woman came out of the house and started toward us.
The phone rang. It was Clair. They’d popped out on the other side of the preserve and were headed back toward Blue Harbor. We left the woman standing on the lawn.
Ten miles from Blue Harbor we passed Clair, pulled over on the side of the road. On the phone he said they were just ahead, and a mile beyond we spotted the BMW driving slowly on the twisting, climbing road. At a scenic turnoff atop a ridge, they pulled over and parked. We continued past and pulled into a yard outside a trailer. Clair called and said he was below them.
“Should we call them?” Roxanne said.
“They said no.”
“What are they doing?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Where the hell are these people?”
“I don’t know that, either,” I said.
We sat. Clair called every half-hour or so, said the BMW was just parked. And after two hours and twenty minutes, four hours since we’d left the Connelly house, David and Maddie suddenly started the car and pulled away.
They passed us and we could see Maddie, weary and grim-faced. Clair passed and we counted to fifty and pulled out. In fifteen minutes we were back in Blue Harbor village. Maddie and David were on the road home. Clair called and said he figured there hadn’t been anybody watching us for some time, but there would be when we reached the area of the house. He said he’d pull into another driveway and walk the shoreline until he had the Connellys’ house in sight. He said to drive past their entrance and wait.
We did, sitting under a bank of cedars that lined the drive to someone’s estate. The bay glistened in the distance, a field of diamonds, but who cared? We were hungry, thirsty, and tired. And then Clair again, saying Maddie and David were getting into the dinghy. They had the bag with the money. They were going out to one of the boats. The smaller one, the Boston Whaler.
“We’ve lost them,” I said to Roxanne.
And then a car passed, a nondescript blue Chevy or something, two people in front.
“Oh, my God,” Roxanne said. “Driving that car—”
“What?” I said.
“That was Monica.”
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We pulled out and followed, and in moments the possibilities were clicking into place. Monica and Angel in it together. Monica killing Angel for her share of the extorted money. Somebody else killing Angel, and Monica deciding to finish the job on the Connellys herself.
“Who else was in the car?” I said.
“I couldn’t see,” Roxanne said.
I sped along under the trees while Roxanne called Clair. He answered and she told him what we’d seen, where we were going. He said he’d be behind us. I sped up to try to catch the car, winding the Toyota through the curves as the road followed the shoreline.
We drove one mile. Two. The car wasn’t in sight. I sped up and Roxanne said, “Slow down. There.”
She pointed to our left, turned in her seat as we passed the entrance to a drive to an estate.
“They’re in there. I could just see them.”
“Turned around?”
“Driving in.”
I stopped and turned around and Roxanne told Clair. We drove back to the entrance, and as we passed it, we peered in. The gates were stone. The brush was cut between the spruce trees along the road and there was lawn stretching to a big stone and stucco house, the water beyond it. You could drive over the lawn and between the trees, if you had to. There was no way to seal off the driveway.
We parked along the side of the road. Clair rolled up moments later and backed the truck into the trees. He got out and walked to the car and climbed in the back.
“So it’s her friend,” he said.
“Or someone else killed her and Angel left this thing behind,” Roxanne said.
“I don’t see Monica as a killer,” I said. “I see her as a scavenger.”
“Objective’s still the same, right?” Clair said. “Get this book back? Hold on to these people?”
“And keep people from getting hurt,” I said.
“On our side, you mean,” Clair said.
“Whoever that is,” Roxanne said, and she looked grim.
“You’re having doubts?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Because what if none of these people are what they seem?”
I didn’t have an answer.
We needed somebody at the road, in case Monica drove back out.
Roxanne said she’d stay. We’d walk in and see where Monica was, who she was with, if the Connelly boat was in sight. I asked Roxanne if she’d be okay, and she said she would. I told Roxanne that if Monica came back to just drive off, fast, and go to the village. If there was an emergency, she should lean on the horn.
She squeezed my hand and I squeezed back and then we were out of the car. Clair walked back to the truck and opened the cab door and took binoculars from the glove box. He handed the binoculars to me and reached behind the seat. There were leather rifle scabbards hung from te seat back and he slid a shotgun out of one and closed the door and quickly walked into the trees.
I gave Roxanne a last look and followed.
We moved along the line of spruce and hemlock that marked the boundary with the next property. The sun was behind us, dropping lower behind the ridgetop tree line, and we were in shadow. I stayed in Clair’s track, and when we neared the buildings—the house and garages and a small barn—he moved deeper into the trees and I followed. We stepped between the bare inner limbs, staying behind the dense outer boughs. When we drew even with the first outbuildings, we eased to the edge of the trees and watched.
The house was vacant, gray-painted plywood still screwed over the first-floor windows. There was a long private pier, the railings of a ramp barely showing, orange mooring buoys, but no boats. Monica’s car wasn’t in sight, but then it appeared, backed in alongside one of the garages. The brake lights flashed and the motor turned off. We could see two figures in the front seats. The heads turned as they talked. I focused the binoculars and saw the two silhouettes but couldn’t tell who the passenger was.
We needed to get closer before it got dark.
Mosquitoes stirred from the trees as the sun dropped. They buzzed around our heads while the figures in the car bobbed. On the water, a lobster boat passed well offshore, the white hull glowing with the last light of the sunset. A big sailboat motored toward the harbor, a tiny yellow figure at the helm, a dinghy trailing behind like a little dog on a leash. No Boston Whaler in sight. In the car, Monica and her passenger momentarily were still.
“We need to see them,” I said.
Clair said he’d circle along the shoreline and come up through the trees on the other side of the house, see if he could get a look at their faces. He began to move away and in a minute had faded into the trees.
I waited. Watched. Tried not to wave at the mosquitoes. I wondered if Roxanne was okay. I smelled smoke and saw a cigarette glow from Monica’s side of the car. I looked at my watch. Clair had been gone for nine minutes, but it seemed like an hour.
It was two minutes after seven.
I looked back at the road. Heard a clattering sound.
It was a car moving fast down the drive toward the house, no lights, just a dark shape beyond the trees. And then it was in the open, a minivan, and it slowed in the place where the drive widened before the house. The brake lights went on in Monica’s car and the motor started with a roar but the van swerved left, slinging gravel as it slid to a stop in front of the car. The van door whipped open.
A man leapt from the van, a black ski mask covering his face, a gun in his hand. He ran to the car as it started to back up, yanked open the driver’s door, and pointed the gun in.
There were two pops, softer than firecrackers, then two more, two more after that. I remembered the binoculars and used them and looked. The guy drew the gun back out, reached in with his left hand, and turned off the motor. Then he shut the front door, opened the back. He leaned in again and I could see his arm moving, as he rummaged. After a moment he backed out of the car, a dark case in his hand. He closed the car door, opened the front door again, and leaned in and seemed to shove.
The bodies. He was pushing them over onto the seat.
And then he closed the door and trotted to the van, leapt in, and yanked the door closed. The driver, also masked, backed the van up, then circled into the drive and backed out, in the direction of the road.
I lurched to my feet, still in a crouch, and started through the trees. Branches slashed at my face and the binoculars swung on their strap. I dodged left and right between the limbs and trunks, and then I heard something.
Someone coming toward me. I eased behind a tree and waited, peering into the shadows. There was a snap, a branch cracked, and I saw a figure moving, the head weaving between the branches. I leaned down and groped for a limb and found one. Held it low along my leg and waited.
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It was Roxanne. She was panting and there was blood running down her cheek from a long scratch on her temple. She saw me and said, “Oh, thank God,” and crouched beside me.
“They killed them,” I said softly.
“The men in the van? They killed Monica?”
I nodded
“Did they see you?” I said.
“Yes, as the van turned in, into the gates, the driver looked back and saw me in the car. He put on the brakes like he was going to stop, but I pulled out and drove the other way. And then I thought of you and I came back.”
“What did he look like?”
“Big. It looked like his hair was reddish, but he was wearing a black hat, the knitted kind. It was hard to tell.”
“Mick Egan,” I said.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see anybody else?”
“There was somebody in the back but it had those dark windows. I couldn’t see anything else, just that there was another person.”
“Vincent,” I said. “He must’ve been the shooter.”
“Where’s Clair?” Roxanne said.
“Right here,” came a voice from the trees.
Clair came toward us, the shotgun pointed at the ground.
“Did you see it?” I said.
He nodded.
“A real pro,” he said.
“We need police. Did you look?”
“Yes. For a second.”
“Who was the other person?”
“A blonde woman. Maybe fifty. Hair short, dark-rimmed glasses.”
“Kathleen Kind?” I said.
“Why would she be here?” Roxanne said.
“They must have cooked this up together.”
“Why would somebody kill them and leave?” Roxanne said.
“He took something from the car. Must have been the journal,” I said.
“They jumped Monica and whoever else is in that car.”
“Did you call the police?” I said.
“I tried,” Clair said, “It didn’t connect.”
“Where’s your phone?” I asked Roxanne.
“In the car,” she said. “I can go get it.”
“No, don’t,” Clair said. “I don’t think they’re gone. I think they went to check the road, see if you’re still around. Where’s your car?”
“In the next driveway.”
“They’ll see your truck, Clair,” I said.
“That won’t mean anything to them,” Roxanne said.
“Prosperity, Maine, will,” I said.
“The dump sticker,” Clair said.
And then the muffled rattle of a car rolling, coasting, no sound of the motor. The van came rolling back down the drive, lights off, heading for the house. It made the circle then swung around on the far edge of the property, opposite Monica’s car. We saw brake lights flash once, then nothing. They were sitting in the growing dusk, watching the water.
“They’re waiting for David and Maddie and the money,” I said.
“And if they killed these other two . . . ,” Clair said.
“They’ve got to get off this peninsula and out of Maine,” I said. “They’re going to need time.”
“Killing the Connellys buys them some,” Clair said.
“Killing us,” I said, “buys them more.”
“But we can’t just leave Maddie and David to be executed,” Roxanne said.
“No,” I said. “And we don’t know if Vincent was dropped off at the road.”
“I don’t think so,” Clair said. “But you never know.”
We moved through the woods, very slowly, Clair in front, picking the path. When we were abreast of Monica’s car, Roxanne stayed behind, tucked in a hollow beneath the draped boughs of a spruce like a fawn left by its mother. Roxanne was our backup, the one who would run for help. Clair and I wanted to get behind the van, which meant crossing the front of the property at the waterline, just below the rocky embankment at the shoreline. There was thirty feet of open lawn between the woods and shoreline, and we waited at the edge of the woods for a moment, then Clair went first.
