Poison Flower

by Thomas Perry

  Iris leaned over and hugged Jane. "Thank you for everything. Are you leaving right now"

  "No. I need to get some sleep first. Don't worry. I'll be back for you in a week or so. In case I'm late, here's the cash that Sarah gave me before we left."

  "But then-"

  "I'll have what I need." Jane put the money in her hand. "If for some reason you can't be here when I get back, call Sarah at the Lifeboat and let her know where I can find you. All right"

  "All right."

  The two women got out of the car, and walked toward the hotel. "See you," Jane said. She walked to the end of the building, then turned the corner and stopped to look back. She watched Iris hesitate for a few seconds, standing outside the building and looking aimlessly in one direction, then another. She was afraid to go in and pretend to be someone else, afraid to drive away, and afraid she was attracting attention by standing where she was for too long. Finally, she lowered her head and stepped in through the double doors.

  Jane watched the doors close. Good. One foot in front of the other. You'll make it.

  6.

  That morning it was hot in Austin, Texas. Gorman drove the rental car with the air-conditioner fan blowing hard while Wylie sat in the passenger seat beside him looking for the right address. Maloney announced the house numbers from the back seat. "Eighty-nine seventeen. We're close. Eighty-nine twenty-one. There it is. Eighty-nine twenty-nine. The white one up there."

  "I see it," Gorman said. "Want me to go around the block to park"

  "Hell no," Wylie said. "Just park."

  Gorman made the Lincoln Town Car swoop to the curb behind a parked SUV.

  "I'll go get started with one of the neighbors," said Wylie. "You two stay here, but watch the front door."

  He got out of the car and went to the house to the left of 8929. He rang the bell, but nobody appeared. He knocked, but there was still no answer. He walked down the sidewalk and went to 8929. He rang the bell, knocked, looked in the front window. The place appeared to be deserted. He looked back at Gorman and Maloney in the car, and moved his index finger slightly to point to the house on the right, then walked to it. This time, when he rang the bell a woman opened the door a few inches. He could see that she was thin, about fifty years old, with long auburn hair, and that she was wearing blue jeans and flip-flops.

  She looked at him suspiciously, as though she were planning to slam the door if he moved toward her.

  He didn't move. He smiled and said, "Hello, miss. My name is Bobby Simms. I'm an old friend of Sarah Shelby. Actually, I'm more than that, because I'm a distant cousin, too. I just drove here all the way from New Orleans. I called her a few times on the way, but I haven't been able to reach her. I'm a little worried. Have you seen her in the past few days"

  The woman behind the door frowned. "Are you a reporter"

  "A reporter Me Lord, no," Wylie said, and then gave a surprised laugh. "I've never been accused of that before. Why would you ask that"

  The woman's brows knitted, as though she had forgotten her suspicion and was concerned about him. "You know about her brother, right"

  "I haven't kept up. I haven't seen either of them in a few years. What's wrong with Jimmy Is he sick or something"

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I can't really go into their personal business. Sarah left town about a week ago, and I'm not sure when she's coming home. If you'd like to leave a message for her, I can give it to her when she's back."

  "Well, then, what about Jimmy Do you have a number or address for him"

  "No, I'm afraid I don't." She looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, but I've got some things to do." She began to push the door shut.

  "Wait," he said, and she left the door open about half an inch. "Is there anyone else in town who might be able to give me a number or address"

  She pulled the door open a few more inches to answer. "I honestly can't think of anyone. She left without telling me anything, but I'm sure there isn't anything wrong. She just said she was going on vacation for a while, and to keep an eye on her house."

  The woman had a tell, a small mannerism that revealed when she was lying. It was a habit of looking in the upper right corner of her field of vision whenever she was forming the answer to a question, instead of looking into his eyes. He had been watching her do this since he'd first spoken to her. He sighed and turned to look in the direction of his car, as though he were straining to think. He suddenly hurled his body against the front door.

  The heavy wooden door flew inward, struck the woman, and knocked her onto the living room carpet on her back. She was so stunned that she lay still, trying to fathom what had happened. Finally, she took in a deep breath.

  Wylie closed the heavy door and took two swift strides, dropped to his knees beside her, and grabbed her throat, choking off the scream. "You're lying to me," he said. "Lying to me is about the craziest thing you could do."

  The front door opened again to admit Gorman and Maloney. Wylie looked up to acknowledge them. "This lady has decided to lie to me instead of answering my questions."

  "That would really be stupid, ma'am," Gorman said. He pulled his jacket aside to show her the badge he had used in Los Angeles, and made sure the woman could also see the gun he had in a shoulder holster. "Obstructing police officers in a murder investigation is about as serious as it gets."

  Wylie kept his left hand on the woman's throat as he used his right hand to drag her to a sitting position. "I always heard that Texas cops didn't put up with this kind of crap, so you should know better. We came all the way from the city of Los Angeles hunting a dangerous escaped killer, and sure as hell won't go home just because somebody tells us lies. Now tell us where Sarah Shelby is right now."

  The woman was beyond terror now. "Are you really police officers" She didn't see Wylie's hand move before the slap on her left cheek spun her head to the side. She cringed and tried to look away, but the open hand slapped her again. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean anything."

  She was shocked, but not hurt. She made the assumption that Wylie had finished. She seemed to relax for an instant, but then Wylie slapped her face several times, harder each time, then stopped and moved his face close to hers. She was trembling and a low moan escaped from her throat.

  "I'm helping you get used to your new world. As of now you aren't somebody who can keep the bad things out just by shutting your door. You just gave that up. Sarah Shelby is off aiding and abetting the escape of a murderer. A wife killer. You know that already, because you're obviously a friend of the family. But you don't seem to realize that anybody who helps a murderer get away is going to share his fate."

  "I didn't do anything, and she didn't tell me anything. She just went away."

  He didn't hit her, just clutched her arm. "Here's all the education you'll need, all in one afternoon. If you lie to the police when we come around trying to find a murderer, you're as much a criminal as he is."

  "Are you going to arrest me"

  "What happens to you is up to you. It's a kind of race. If you talk before Jim Shelby kills another innocent person, and before somebody else tells an officer what we need to know and he's captured, you'll do okay. If you don't, things will go hard." His head was behind the woman's, so she didn't see him nod to Gorman.

  Gorman said, "Jesus, chief. She makes me sick. Why don't we just take her out and shoot her now You gave her a chance. Now the offer is expired."

  "Not just yet," Wylie said. He took her head in his hands and turned it so she had to look at him. He studied her for a few seconds, then released her. "Okay. Put the cuffs on her."

  Gorman stepped forward and grabbed the woman's wrists.

  "Wait!"

  It was her voice, drastically different from before. "She did leave an address and phone number, just in case something happened here."

  "What is it"

  "It's written down. I folded the paper and put it inside one of the books in the bookcase. The one over there that says Cats of the W
orld."

  Maloney stepped to the bookcase, pulled out the book, flipped the pages, and found the folded sheet. He opened it and read it. "3592 Dryden Road, Ithaca, New York. And there's a phone number. Seven one six-"

  "Save it," Wylie said. He picked up a pillow from the couch, unzipped the cover, and pulled the pillow out. He put the pillow cover over the woman's head, zipped it tight to her neck, wrapped the pillow around his pistol, and held it up to the woman's head.

  "Please, please," she said. "I helped you."

  He fired one shot. The sound was muffled, but the woman's head jerked to the side. There was a splatter of bright red liquid soaking the pillow cover, and the woman's body followed the head, tilting to the right and falling to the floor.

  "Not bad, eh" he said. "No blood spatter all over, and only one shot in case one of the neighbors came home. They hear one shot and they stop what they're doing for a second, listening. If they don't hear another one, they figure it was nothing-a firecracker, a backfire, a door slam. A squirrel fell on their roof."

  "Yeah, and when he hit the shingles, his gun went off," Gorman said.

  Wylie looked out the front window, craned his neck to see up and down the street. "Let's go. We'd better get started." He opened the door, and the three men walked across the street to their car. "We've got a long drive ahead of us."

  7.

  Shelby was waiting for Jane when she returned to the hotel room. She stepped inside and closed, locked, bolted, and chained the door. She smiled. "There's some good news." "What"

  "Your sister listened to what I told her. She left her house in Texas, and drove to Ithaca, New York, to wait this out."

  "Thank God." His legs seemed to give out and deposit him on the bed. "Is she going to meet us here"

  "I'm afraid not," she said. "If she gets on an airplane, the people who are after you might be able to trace her, and the police certainly will. We'll have to drive up there and get her."

  "When do we leave"

  "I drove here from Las Vegas for most of the night. When I wake up, we'll talk some more."

  She took the spare pillow from the closet shelf, lay on the couch, and slept. When Jim Shelby saw the process, he was intrigued. She seemed to move from a state of hyper-awareness to deep sleep in less than a minute. He had found the couch reasonably comfortable, but she had no blanket, and she didn't undress or make any other preparations. This was something he had noticed about her from the beginning. She had control over herself. Her movements were always economical, never aimless or nervous. When she looked at anything-a person, a building-she seemed to pick out instantly the part that was important. When she had looked at the crowd at the courthouse, she had instantly separated the bystanders from the enemies, and both from the police, and had begun to act before anyone else. Her mind was always focused-looking, thinking, noticing.

  He intuited that part of the reason she allowed herself to sleep at the moment was that he was here to watch over her. He knew that she had no illusion that while he was still recovering from a knife in the back he could protect her from an intruder, but he could delay one, and he would fight hard enough to make a lot of noise. He understood what she was feeling, and he knew that what she wanted was for him to find something to do that wasn't noisy, look out the window occasionally to check for the men who had caught her in Los Angeles, and stay with her.

  He lay on the bed reading the magazines the hotel had left on the coffee table. They were almost entirely ads for women's clothes and jewelry, and for the restaurants where women could wear them. He still couldn't quite imagine ever again having money to spend on a woman, but for now being out of prison was enough. Every surface in the prison was designed to be harder and rougher than a man's bones and skin. It was as though the authorities wanted prisoners to see how small and weak they really were. It was as ugly as they could make it without letting on that they were trying-light green paint over uneven, chipped surfaces of walls and barred windows. Ugly brushed concrete floors.

  He dozed at some point. He didn't remember a last impression. The magazine was at his side, his fingers still on it. The woman was across the room, sitting in one of the chairs from the small, round table and staring out the window. He sat up. "How long have you been awake"

  "A half hour or so."

  "I'm sorry to make you wait. I didn't expect to fall asleep."

  "It's fine. Now that I've rested a little, I've been able to think."

  "There's something I've been wondering about," he said. "When you came to the prison, and even at the courthouse, you were Kristen Alvarez. I assume that isn't who you are."

  "No, I'm not Kristen Alvarez. I just borrowed the name of a real lawyer."

  "Now that we're out of the courthouse, do you mind telling me your name"

  "That depends," she said. "Whenever I take on a runner, I've got to know certain things that are dangerous to you-your new name, your address. But I will die before I reveal them. If I tell you my secrets, will you do the same for me Will you die before you'll tell anyone else what I tell you"

  He looked at her for a moment. She was leaning back on two legs of the chair, both feet resting on the sill.

  He said, "The knife I got in my back was just the first attempt. I would be dead by now if you hadn't taken me out. I owe you a life already."

  She met his eyes and nodded. "Jane Whitefield."

  "Pleased to meet you."

  "I'm glad you're pleased, because we'll be spending some time together."

  "We will"

  "There are tricks to changing who you are and living as a new person. I've got to start getting you ready to live a nice, quiet life somewhere as John Robert Leland. It takes preparation to do it well, but we didn't have time for that."

  "Are you warning me that I'll get caught if I try to do this myself"

  She looked at him thoughtfully. "Not getting caught is partly luck, partly attitude, and partly premeditation. But it depends mostly on who's looking and how hard. There are something like twelve million illegal aliens in this country right now. Nobody finds them because nobody's looking. Men convicted of murders are on the other end of the spectrum. Lots of people are searching, and they tend to be the last people you'd want after you-experienced homicide detectives, federal and state agencies, and all the miscellaneous invisible security companies that protect credit cards, give people ratings, make sure nobody runs out on debts."

  "What do I do-stay in this room"

  "We'll try to stay invisible as long as we can, but not here. Most people called escapees have walked away from work-release programs. The ones who actually break out are usually caught within hours a few miles from the prison. You've already lasted longer than most. But if you stay in a hotel too long, the staff people get curious about you because you're not behaving like an ordinary customer. You have to either give them an explanation that satisfies them and doesn't raise other questions, or go. We need to pick up your sister, so we'll leave as soon as we're ready to travel."

  "What do we do"

  "First we work on our appearance."

  "You mean change"

  "There are lots of things that help. The clothes I left in the car for you at the courthouse were all expensive and neat-tailored pants, dress shirts, sport coats, a couple of good ties in subdued patterns. When people picture an escaped convict, they think of a guy with a three-day growth of beard, dirty, torn clothes, and a haunted expression. So we play against that expectation. You have short hair, and we can't lengthen it, but we can dye it. Your hair is blond, and most of the men in the country have brown hair. You can't shave it, because a shaved head practically screams prison. We want the observer's mind to see you and automatically think, `Respectable, prosperous.'"

  "What if somebody has seen my picture"

  "People are far more likely to see someone who looks a bit like you, but isn't, and turn him in. Whenever there's a famous fugitive, the police get thousands of calls. What we want to do is make sure none of them is
about you. We make people's expectations censor their vision."

  "That works"

  "More often than not. The first part of the game is adding one layer after another of changes, all designed to make you less like you and less like a convict. The second is making a plan for the day when something goes wrong."

  "If the police find me, then they'll come for me in a way that won't let me just talk my way out of it."

  Jane said, "If the police who find you know you've been convicted of murder and you've escaped from a courthouse, give up and go quietly. If you're just stopped by a cop, don't assume he knows anything. Lie. Show him the John Leland identification I left in the car for you. Try to fool him to the end. Don't worry. We'll work on all of it. Where are the keys to your car"

  He got up, took them out of a sport coat he had hung in the closet, and handed them to her. "Are you going somewhere"

  "Shopping. I'll get us some dinner and a few things we'll need for the next phase. Anything in particular you'd like"

  "I've been in prison for three years. I'm not too picky. Should I come with you I'm good at carrying heavy bags."

  "Thanks, but not yet," she said. "For now, I'll be the one to show my face. I'll be back in less than two hours. When I knock, look in the peephole before you open the door. Don't open it and look. Oh, and I seem to be out of money. Can you give me a few hundred from the money I left in the car for you" He pulled a wad of money out of his pocket and handed it to her. She walked to the door, and then she was gone.