Elizabeth strained to hear Seraphin’s reply, but her words were lost in the clatter of silverware hitting metal trays and the clunk of crockery on the counter. Hillman Randolph, sipping his coffee, was watching her with interest. “Where was I?” she said. “Oh. The question. You wanted me to explain about Cameron being missing. He went off by himself on that stupid little boat of his, to do a bit of observation out in the open sea. I can’t remember what. Measure the water temperature, check the currents, watch for seals? It doesn’t matter, I suppose.”
“He went out in a rowboat?” Seeing Elizabeth’s mutinous look, Hillman Randolph added quickly, “I’m not throwing in more questions. In your words, I am clarifying an answer.”
“Oh, all right,” she muttered. “It doesn’t matter anyhow. If I have to talk about it, you might as well understand what I’m trying to tell you. A rowboat? No, of course not. It was a … well, in Georgia we’d call it a cabin cruiser, though that’s not quite it. It looked big enough at the dock on a bright summer day with a calm sea, but given the size of the ocean, and the unpredictable harshness of the Scottish weather, it was not big enough.”
“Scottish weather?”
“Yes. I’m sure I mentioned that. We were living in Edinburgh, and that’s where he sailed from. Well, not sailed. The boat had an engine. I think one says sailed anyhow, though. So he went off by himself that morning, and by midmorning it was turning out to be a gray day, but nothing unusual. A couple of hours later, though, a storm hit with a vengeance. And I waited, but I hadn’t really begun to worry yet. Do you know what expression they use over there when they mean to be worried? They say to get the wind up. The wind was up, all right, and I should have been worried. Well, he didn’t come back, and I thought he was going to be late, of course, but I supposed he had put in at the nearest port, somewhere up the coast, perhaps. I was sure that soon he’d be calling me to come and fetch him in the car.” Her voiced trailed away, becalmed on despair. “But … the call never came … and the boat wasn’t found. And since that day he’s just … gone.”
“In the North Atlantic,” said Hillman Randolph in a flat voice. “Off the coast of Scotland.”
“Yes. They searched, of course. But with the wind and the currents, there’s no telling where he could have ended up. I’ve thought of chartering a boat and conducting the search myself, but everyone says … Anyhow, there are so many places to look. There are islands. There’s Norway …” She heard the rising note of panic in her voice, and for distraction she glanced up at the clock. Ten past nine. Old Mrs. Nicholson was tottering out of the cafeteria, and she was always the last to leave. Focus, Elizabeth thought. “All right, Mr. Randolph. I believe I’ve answered your question, and time is short. Now I want to know what happened on the night Jack Dolan died and you were so badly injured.”
“You will have to trust me to tell you later,” said Hillman Randolph, setting her empty coffee cup on his tray as he stood up. “I have music therapy this morning. But I don’t go back on my word. When there’s time today to tell you, I will. Meanwhile, I have one last question for you. It may sound irrelevant. I hope you’ll indulge an old man.”
Elizabeth scowled at him. “Well? What is it?”
He was watching her carefully. “Did you see the movie Titanic?”
Her jaw dropped. The question was miles away from anything she had expected. “Titanic? Yes, of course. But what on earth does that have to do with anything?”
When he did not answer, Elizabeth searched her memory for some connection between the film and the topics covered in their previous conversation. Shipwreck, she thought. Missing loved one. Of course. “Titanic—I see. You are referring to the heroine’s dreadful fiancé thinking she is dead when he cannot locate her after the ship goes down. He thinks she’s dead, but really she has changed her name and started a new life to escape from him.” Elizabeth gave the old man a pitying smile. “No, Mr. Randolph. It’s a romantic theory, but I don’t think my husband was anxious to get away from me, and even if he were, he would never change his identity because that would force him to abandon his life’s work. He loved marine biology, and his name was becoming very well known in scholarly circles. He had too much to lose to disappear and try to start over. And if he did try to turn up in, say, Hawaii or Sweden, he would be recognized sooner or later. A scientific discipline is like a small town—everybody either knows you or knows of you. You can’t stay in the field and pretend to be someone else. So your theory is just not on, Mr. Randolph, but I’m sure it would make an exciting premise for a movie. You ought to write it as a screenplay. As for my question about Jack Dolan, we’re out of time. I’ll see you later, so don’t you try to disappear.”
Elizabeth swept away without a backward glance, and Hillman Randolph watched her go with an uncharacteristic expression of sadness on his ravaged face. As he shambled off to turn his tray in, he reflected on the fact that he was relieved that he had not had to explain his question to her. Her interpretation of it was not what he had meant at all.
A. P. Hill had turned the living area of her hotel suite into a war room. On the wall a map of the United States, scored with felt-tip marker lines, traced the route of the PMS Outlaws from their initial escape up to the last reported sighting in west Tennessee. On the desk were stacks of newspaper clippings, mostly from the less-reputable tabloids, who were enamored of the story. A grainy photocopied enlargement of a recent shot of Purdue was taped over the insipid framed print on the wall above the desk.
“Why don’t you go home?” Lewis Paine sat on the sofa, hunched over a soda machine can of iced tea and staring into it as if he were planning to read her fortune in its nonexistent tea leaves.
“I can’t,” said A. P. Hill as she paced.
Paine squinted at the rate chart posted on the back of the door. “This place has to be costing you over a hundred a day.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, they gave me a weekly rate.”
He shook his head. “Great. And you are accomplishing—what? Do you think fugitives make special trips to the Embassy Suites to turn themselves in? Do you think you can find her sitting around here when a computer-linked network of law enforcement units has failed? I told you: I’m monitoring everything we get on the case. I’ll fax you if I hear anything. Go home and practice law. Stop sitting around here.”
“I’m not sitting around here, Lewis. Every day I go out and talk to people, or check the archives in Williamsburg, or make calls to mutual acquaintances to see if I can uncover anything that will help us find her. I know I can’t do the phone traces, or the credit card checks, or any of the other high-tech stuff you people do to find fugitives, but sometimes talking to the suspect’s circle of friends gives you some insight into what stops the fugitive might make, who might help them along the way, and ultimately where they might be headed.”
Paine shook his head, wondering what had happened to A. P. Hill’s usually flawless logic. “And you couldn’t do all that from Danville?”
“No!” She sank down beside him on the sofa and put her head in her hands. “Most of Purdue’s acquaintances are within an hour of Richmond. Danville is too far away, and I think I’ll learn more in face-to-face interviews than I would over the phone. Besides, I don’t want Purdue to go to Danville looking for me.”
“Why? The only weapon the ladies have used so far is a stun gun, which packed a temporary wallop, but the guy didn’t even have to go to the hospital afterward. The worst injury has been from too-tight handcuffs. Purdue and Larkin have made no threats that I have any reports on. And going after a young woman attorney does not fit their current M.O. So I ask you again—what’s the deal here, Powell?”
Paine studied A. P. Hill as if she were a reluctant witness. She looked tired. There was none of the buoyant enthusiasm of people who like to play cop and to second-guess the real detectives on a case. In his experience only friends of the suspect and relatives of the victim displayed this weary tenacity in an investigation, a dogged
intensity that you could almost describe as obsession without interest. What Paine could not see in Powell Hill was where the interest lay. Surely she was overreacting to the troubles of an old school friend.
“Look,” he said, “You’re a trial lawyer. You consort with criminals for a living. And while I’ll deny this if you ever put me on the stand, this Outlaws case is not that big a deal with us. It’s not even in Virginia’s jurisdiction. Purdue and Larkin haven’t killed anybody. In the department it’s a running joke. So, I have to ask myself why it’s bothering the hell out of you.”
She shrugged, turning away from him so that he could read nothing in her expression.
Lewis Paine tried again. “Look, Powell, I know that people aren’t exactly eager to confide in somebody who carries a badge in his jacket, but—”
The telephone rang, and A. P. Hill lunged for it. “Yes? … Oh, hello, Edith. Fine. I’m fine. How’s the house going? … Good. Bill’s okay?” There was a long pause here while A. P. Hill held the phone in silence, her face settling into a worried frown as she listened. At last she said, “Okay, when? Just now. Okay, did you happen to look at the Caller I.D. box? Oh. Out of area. I see. And she said what? … Are you sure? … No, Edith, it’s all right. It’s okay that you gave her my cell phone number. No, it isn’t anything important. Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. Of course I’m eating!” She cast a guilty look at the cellophane wrappings of peanut-butter crackers on the end of the coffee table. At least she remembered to take vitamin supplements. Well, most of the time. “Soon, Edith. I’ll be back soon. Tell Bill not to worry. Tell him … tell him hello.”
She hung up and sank back down on the sofa next to Paine.
“That was your office, right?”
Her fingers ruffled her hair. She nodded. “Yes. That was Edith. Someone just called the office asking for me. Edith thinks it was Purdue.”
“But the Caller I.D. showed no traceable number. Probably a pay phone somewhere,” said Paine. “Patricia Purdue isn’t stupid. Crazy, maybe, but not stupid. Did she leave a message?”
A. P. Hill hesitated. “No.”
“Look, Powell, why you? Maybe you were pals in college and law school, but you certainly haven’t kept up with each other in the years since you graduated. Now all of a sudden, Patricia Purdue is a wanted fugitive, and after all this time, she’s started making phone calls to you. Why?”
A. P. Hill’s hands covered her face, muffling her voice. “I think she wants me to join them. Because originally it was my idea.”
The main public library in Danville, Virginia, is a large, multistoried modern building on a hill in the downtown area. Geoffrey took its imposing size as a sign that it might contain enough information to help him with his investigation of Jack Dolan. He resolved not to be tempted by the shelves devoted to art and interior design.
He had spent most of the day in decorator mode, making phone calls to various friends in Atlanta who were purveyors of upholstery fabric, lighting fixtures, and other items necessary for the refurbishment of an old house. He had faxed them sketches and solicited second and third opinions about wallpaper and crown molding. He was enjoying himself hugely.
Now that the really important tasks had been taken care of, he felt that he could in good conscience spare an hour or so in pursuit of Elizabeth’s wild goose. So far today, Mr. Dolan had not made an appearance, but Geoffrey planned to be back by four-thirty, bearing gifts from the bakery, in hopes of learning more from the old man himself. First, though, he would pay a visit to the library so that he could collect some background material. Then, when he did get a chance to talk to Jack Dolan, he might know what sorts of things to ask about.
Where does one look for a man who is reputed to be dead? The obituary pages?
“Excuse me,” Geoffrey said to the young woman at the information desk. “I wonder if you could help me? I’m looking for back issues of local newspapers.”
“Well, it depends on how far back you need to go,” the librarian told him. “We have actual copies of the newspapers for the last couple of weeks, or so, but since they deteriorate very badly with age, older issues are stored on microfilm, and that would be in the special collections section.”
Armed with directions, Geoffrey went to the special collections room, where he repeated his request to yet another earnest librarian, this time a personable but harassed-looking young man whose name tag said Rob. “Old newspapers?” he said. “What year?”
“Nineteen fifties, I think.”
“Ah, ‘return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear’ ” Rob the librarian waited for Geoffrey to recognize the Lone Ranger quote, and when no reaction from him was forthcoming, he sighed at yet another instance of inappreciation. His wit and charm were quite wasted in Special Collections—pearls before swine, really. Wearily he motioned Geoffrey toward a large gray filing cabinet. He slid out the top drawer to reveal half a dozen rows of small white cardboard boxes, each labeled with the name of a newspaper and the dates of the issues contained on that particular roll of microfilm. “The whole cabinet is filled with rolls of microfilm. We have documents going back more than a hundred years. Census records all the way back to the very first one, which was in 1800. What’ll it be?”
Geoffrey considered his next move. He was pretty sure what he wasn’t going to say, which was something along the lines of: “My cousin, who is a charming girl, but currently in a mental institution, seems to think that the ninety-some-year-old man in her brother’s new house is an imposter. How would you suggest I go about verifying that?” No, that definitely would not do. Geoffrey’s motto, insofar as he had one, was Emily Dickinson’s maxim: “Tell the truth, but tell it slant.” He decided to try another variant of the facts.
“Actually,” he said, “I’m really not sure what year I need, or even what source. My cousin Bill has bought a grand old house on the outskirts of town, and I’m helping him restore it, so we thought it might be helpful to do a bit of research about who built the house, and so on.”
“House research.” The librarian looked thoughtful. “Shouldn’t you go to the courthouse for that? The Registrar of Deeds has records about property and ownership, and tax bills. Probate records. Wouldn’t that be faster than reading old newspapers?”
Yes, thought Geoffrey, but the courthouse won’t have any of the gossip, and the newspapers might. “It’s a wonderful suggestion,” he admitted with an apologetic smile. “Silly of me not to have thought of it. But, you know, as long as I’m here, perhaps I’ll just take a look at a few of these films. The early nineteen fifties, I think. You never know what may turn up.”
“All right,” said the librarian. “You’re welcome to look. I do think research is fascinating. You never know what you’ll find. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself led astray by topics that have nothing to do with your original search.”
Geoffrey touched his well-chosen silk tie. “I should be astonished to learn that Yves St. Laurent had visited Danville.”
The young man laughed. “So would I! Well, let’s get you started. Do you know how to use the microfilm reader?”
“No, of course not,” said Geoffrey. “I am determined to be the major nuisance of your afternoon.”
“You’d have to take a number,” said Rob. “At least you look like you can be taught to use the machine. That will make a nice change from the blue-haired old dears who are trying to trace their ancestors back to King Arthur—or, as one of them spells it, King Author.” He smirked. “I told her to check the census records for Maine. Come on then. I’ll show you how it works, but do pay attention so that you can do it yourself, because I’m on my own today, and I have hours of paperwork left to do before we close.”
After a few minutes of brisk instruction, in which Geoffrey endeavored to give the machine his complete attention, the reel for 1950 was loaded, and he was ready to begin. Sitting in front of the microfilm reader and peering at the dark screen, he attempted to read the fine print of a newspaper page g
reatly reduced in size. This would take some getting used to, but at least he wasn’t going to get his hands dirty with old newsprint. He scanned the headlines of the first newspaper, found nothing of interest, and turned the knob to view the next page. Read, scroll, read, scroll. The exercise was tedious and time-consuming, but not difficult.
Occasionally, as the librarian had predicted, he would become sidetracked by an interesting bit of half-a-century-old news. When Geoffrey read the article about Britain’s young toddler Prince Charles and his new baby sister, Anne, he had the smug feeling of superiority over the original readers of the 1950 story: after all, he knew how it would all turn out. He did not allow his attention to wander too much, however, because his time was limited, and he was by no means sure that he was in the correct year to begin with. It might be necessary to scroll through many more reels of microfilm before he found anything useful.
An hour later, Geoffrey had skimmed through two years’ worth of news, and all he had to show for his efforts was a certain proficiency in loading microfilm machines. This new skill had proved useful when a well-dressed elderly woman came in and, perhaps mistaking him for a library employee, asked him to help her load a reel of census records into one of the other machines. She knew how to thread the microfilm, she explained with an apologetic smile, but her arthritis prevented her from doing so. Geoffrey managed to set up the film for her on the second try, but aside from doing good deeds and gaining technological competence, he had not made any progress in his own investigation—or rather, in his cousin Elizabeth’s investigation, blast her.
“This could take forever,” he said aloud, after a particularly dull succession of newspapers. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, probably the result of having years of Danville trivia seeping into his brain.
When he spoke, the silver-haired woman looked up from the next machine with a smile of commiseration. “It is tedious at times, isn’t it?” she said. “It makes my eyes water. You ought to get up and stretch every now and then, too. Otherwise your back will be quite stiff by tomorrow morning.”
The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel Page 18
