The Edge

by Catherine Coulter

  Maitland, always a diplomat, said, “If you can nail Del Cabrizo it would be quite a feather in the DEA’s cap. We can use all the help we can get.”

  “As of right now,” Big Carl said, “this is an interagency operation. All right with you, Atherton?”

  Atherton nodded. He was looking at Laura, oxygen in her nose, an IV in her arm, lying there pale and silent. He walked over to her and lightly touched her shoulder. Maybe he really gave a damn about her.

  Laura, her voice a thread of sound, said, “Please get Molinas. He tried to make us think he was so noble, trying to make his daughter well, but he isn’t. He would have done anything to us. He wouldn’t have cared if we died or just went crazy. He’s as bad as Del Cabrizo.” She blinked, closed her eyes, and turned her cheek into the hospital pillow.

  Maitland stood up. “It’s time for the FBI and the DEA to mount a joint operation. We’ll all go down to this compound to see what’s going on.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Out with it, Mac. What happened?”

  “Molinas is dead,” I said to Laura. “It wasn’t our side who killed him. Del Cabrizo’s people arrived before we did and executed him.”

  “He was afraid of Del Cabrizo.”

  “He was right to be. Unfortunately, we didn’t find Molinas’s daughter. By the time we and the Costa Rican people got to the compound, it was deserted. The police burned it to the ground to prevent any possibility that it could ever be used again as a halfway point. They’re going to patrol the airspace too.”

  “Any word yet from Edgerton?”

  “They searched the Tarcher house from top to bottom, and they’re going through his business records. Nothing yet, no financial records to indicate anything concerning drugs.

  “Paul’s gone, everything in his house including his computer, gone as well. Tarcher says he doesn’t have any idea what all this is about. They can’t hold him, at least not yet. They’re still looking for Jilly too. But as of two hours ago, we’ve got nothing on anybody.”

  I helped Laura move herself higher on the pillow. “There, that’s better. Now, what about Charlie Duck and the traces of the drug the M.E. found?”

  “Tarcher said he hadn’t any idea how Charlie Duck had gotten ahold of Paul’s drug. Maybe Paul killed him, Tarcher said.” I lightly kissed Laura’s hand. Her skin was smooth and soft. Her fingers clasped mine. Her grip was stronger. “As you can imagine, the local sheriff, Maggie Sheffield, isn’t a happy camper. She and Atherton are going at each other like two cocks after the same hen.”

  Laura laughed.

  “Well, two dogs after the same bone. You get the idea. Since I got this from Atherton, he didn’t quite phrase it like that, just complained that this cop in Edgerton was a pain in the butt.”

  “What are we going to do, Mac?”

  I kissed her mouth and the tip of her nose. I got her earlobe on the third kiss. “We’re going to stay right here until you’re well enough to travel. Then”—I drew a deep breath—“I’ve got to go back to Edgerton. I’ve got to find Jilly.”

  “Give me a couple more days, Mac. We’ll go together.”

  Four days later, all four of us landed in Portland, Oregon. Sherlock and Savich wouldn’t let us go alone.

  Savich rented a Toyota Cressida and I rented a Ford Explorer at the airport. They remembered us from last time and gave us a distrustful look, but our original rental cars had been returned to the rental company, the repair bills paid, everything right and tight.

  I laid back behind Savich’s car, bright red and in-your-face, on the road to Edgerton. We pulled into Paul’s driveway on Liverpool Street a little over an hour later. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, a Thursday, in early May. A thick wet fog hung over the coastline. Since Paul and Jilly’s house wasn’t even fifty feet from the ocean, the fog was thick, so thick I could barely see Savich’s red car right in front of me. I ached all over in the dampness, a lingering present from my injuries in Tunisia, I guessed. I wondered if this bone-deep damp made Laura’s shoulder ache and pull.

  There was no one around to see me pop the lock on the front door.

  “It’s not really breaking and entering,” Savich said, providing me some cover as I broke in. “This is your sister’s house, after all.”

  The house felt as cold and hollow as ever.

  And empty. If Paul had left any notes or journals or equipment, the cops had taken it. I imagined that he’d taken everything.

  “We might as well look,” Laura said beside my elbow. “You never know.”

  Sherlock, humming, went off to the back of the house. I stood there quietly in the living room, wondering just where Paul would have hidden something he hadn’t taken.

  I turned slowly, taking in the modern art, the glass and furnishings, all cold whites and blacks that filled the long room. I still hated it.

  Thirty minutes later I joined Savich upstairs in Paul’s laboratory. Savich was looking through an empty closet, singing a country-and-western song under his breath.

  I smiled as I carefully scanned the long narrow room, looking, I suppose, for anything that might be out of place, or something that wasn’t quite in the right place, like a seam in the wall. Anything that felt even slightly unusual to me.

  Nothing.

  Savich was singing about Tommy breaking out of that hot, dark Mexican jail . . .

  He stuck his head out of the closet. “I even tapped around the walls. Nothing.”

  He rose, wiped his hands on his pants, and said, “Well, I say we go over to the Tarcher house and see how glad they are to see us.”

  I said, “This is probably off the wall, but once Maggie told me that Jilly was sleeping with Rob Morrison. Let’s just go see if he knows anything.”

  Morrison’s cottage was deserted, not even a car parked in front. No fresh tire tracks. The place looked like it had been empty for a good number of days.

  Savich tried the front door. It was locked. Savich looked at me and said, “This is personal, Mac.” He pulled out his small pick set and went to work. He couldn’t get it open. “Interesting,” he said.

  “It is,” Sherlock said, crowding in on him. “Why would you have a Fort Knox lock on a shack?”

  “Good question.”

  I walked around the cottage to the large glass window behind the sink in the kitchen. I whistled as I gently broke the glass. Now this was breaking and entering, for sure.

  I managed not to cut myself as I pulled myself in over the sink and jumped to the linoleum floor. The lock on the front door was elaborate, state of the art. It took a minute to figure out. Finally, I flipped three switches and opened the door for Savich and Sherlock.

  “A guy lives here?” Sherlock said, looking around. “Alone? This place is as neat as ours, Dillon, just after Julie our housekeeper’s been there.”

  “Morrison’s got a housekeeper too, a retired Alaskan fisherman named Mr. Thorne. I’ve never met him, but he sure does good work.”

  We got to it. Twenty minutes later, we gathered in the living room, not a whit wiser than twenty minutes before. We’d found a file drawer that held his insurance papers, medical records, car repairs from three different mechanics, and a few odd letters from relatives, nothing interesting or informative. There were a few framed photos around, but the only one that made me stop cold was one of Jilly, set in a gold frame, facedown on the bedside table. She was standing on a cliff, smiling big, wearing a sundress and big sunglasses.

  “The shed beside the house,” Savich said. “I want to take a look in there.”

  The shed looked as old as the dirt it sat on, the wood rotting and smelling of damp, the door rickety. It was locked. Savich gave it a solid thump with his fist. The door shuddered off its hinges and fell inward. An ungodly odor slammed out at us.

  “What is it, Dillon?” Sherlock was crowding him.

  “Jesus,” Savich said, turning slowly and taking her arms. “Stay back.”

  We hadn’t found Jilly.


  We’d found Rob Morrison.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I looked on as Maggie watched them put her lover into a body bag. Two men heaved the body bag up into the coroner’s van and slammed the doors. She just stood there, watching the van disappear around a curve about half a mile away from Rob Morrison’s cottage.

  She’d looked only once at his body, her hand covering her nose and mouth, then walked away and said nothing to any of us for at least ten minutes. Then we’d waited for nearly an hour before the Salem coroner’s office and forensic guy showed up, Detective Minton Castanga in charge. Until now, he’d said nothing at all to Maggie, done nothing more than greeted us.

  It had started raining just as the coroner’s van pulled away. Castanga motioned all of us into the house.

  “Talk to me,” he said, and sat down on Rob Morrison’s sofa.

  We told him everything, except we told him we broke into the house after finding the body.

  Castanga scratched his chin with his pen and said, “Now, let me get this exactly straight. You federal people have been all over this town for nearly a week now, then you four came here expecting to find Mac’s sister, Jilly. Or because Morrison might know where she is?”

  “That’s right,” I said. Laura sat beside me, listing slightly to the left, against my shoulder.

  “Do you have any idea who killed Rob Morrison?” He lifted a beautifully polished red apple from the full bowl on top of the coffee table, rubbed it on his jacket arm, and took a big bite.

  “None of us know who killed Rob Morrison,” I said. “None of us know anything about this. His murder must somehow be connected to the drug operation that’s being investigated, but we have no direct knowledge of that. We were just looking around, saw the shed door hanging open, and checked it out. There was Morrison, dead.” So the door hadn’t been exactly open. I didn’t think Castanga needed to know we were searching Morrison’s property.

  “Two gunshots in the middle of the back,” Castanga said. “Someone wanted him gone and took care of it efficiently. It appears he’s been dead for at least four days.” Castanga put down the apple core on the polished coffee table, frowned, then gently set it atop the other apples. “Don’t want to stain the wood,” he said.

  “You never cared about staining wood when we were married,” Maggie Sheffield said.

  “I was young and foolish then.”

  “Yeah, no more than thirty-five.” Maggie stood.

  Castanga said gently, “Maggie, I understand that you were seeing Rob Morrison. Hadn’t you wondered where he was?”

  She shrugged. The pain in her eyes was there for all to see. “He’s not known for fidelity. When he didn’t call me, I tried to get him a couple of times. Then I just stopped.”

  “We’re really sorry, Maggie,” Sherlock said.

  “I am too,” I said. “He saved Jilly’s life.”

  Maggie’s chin went up. “Thanks. Now, I’m going to start interviewing to see what I can find out.”

  Castanga looked as if he’d object, then he just shrugged. “Go easy, Maggie, and be careful. I’m not being overprotective. People are in the habit of dying around here.”

  Maggie said, “Shit, I should have stayed in Eugene.”

  Castanga turned to Laura, who was still leaning against my shoulder. “Take care of her,” he said to all of us. “She should be in bed.”

  Castanga closed his small notebook and shoved it inside his jacket. He rose, wiping his hands on his slacks. “Oh, yeah, not a clue as to who drugged you two. As you probably know, the DEA also slammed the lid down on our investigation. It wasn’t going anywhere, anyway.”

  We had lunch at Grace’s Deli on Fifth Avenue. I think Grace was the only person in Edgerton who was actually pleased to see us. She took one look at Laura, started patting her, and led her to a chair.

  While she made us sandwiches, she talked nonstop about all the trouble. “Must have been thirty federal officers. They blanketed Edgerton, even tucked in the corners. No one could get in or out. They were everywhere, talking to everyone. You know what?”

  She handed Laura her tuna salad sandwich and answered her own question.

  “No, of course you don’t know anything. You poor people were down in a drug dealer’s camp, being tortured.”

  “How did you know about that?” I asked and, unable to wait, took a big bite of my corned beef sandwich on rye.

  “Everybody knows everything. There was a meeting of the BITEASS and we all talked about it. Isn’t it something about that drug that Dr. Bartlett invented? And Rob Morrison, murdered because he knew about it and was going to turn those dealers in, whoever they are. Poor boy. Of course, Cotter Tarcher was telling everybody it was all ridiculous, that the drug just gave you great sex, and what was wrong with that?”

  “Great sex,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I wonder,” Laura said, “if there has been an increase in rape reports around here lately.”

  When we pulled into the Tarcher driveway, it was like an alarm went off. Laura straightened up, blinked, and insisted she felt wonderful and renewed after her tuna sandwich and nap.

  “A five-minute nap.”

  “I’m a woman. I can do more on less.”

  Sherlock and Savich pulled up behind us in the driveway.

  My knock brought an immediate response.

  “Jesus, not you clowns again. What do you want?”

  I smiled at Cotter Tarcher, who was blocking the front door, dressed like a thug in black jeans and a white T-shirt. He was even wearing black boots. He looked as dark as a night in hell, spoiling for a fight.

  “Hi, Cotter,” I said. “You remember Savich and Sherlock, don’t you? And Ms. Scott? Sure you do. Savich and you caused a little ruckus.”

  He stepped back to slam the front door in my face. “I don’t think so,” I said. I slammed the door open, sending him onto his back, skidding across the black-and-white Italian marble floor.

  “Control yourself, Cotter. We’re here to speak to your parents. It’s time for you to show some manners.” I walked into the house, with Laura, Savich, and Sherlock right behind me. “You’ve really got to change that bad-boy image.”

  He started to get to his feet so he could come at me, but a woman’s voice stopped him.

  “No, Cotter, don’t waste your energy on the federal agents. There are four of them and just one of you, although the women probably aren’t that tough. I’m sure you could deal with the one wearing the sling. Don’t forget too, that they can always arrest you.”

  She turned to us. “I see you’ve come into my house without invitation. Since I do have some manners, quite good manners, you may stay for a while. You said that you wanted to speak to me?” At my nod, she waved her hand. “I suppose you will come into the living room. Goodness knows, we’ve had more federal agents trooping through the house, tearing everything apart, making huge messes and not bothering to clean them up.”

  Elaine Tarcher looked elegant in a pair of tight white jeans and a loose pale peach cashmere sweater. Her rich brown hair was tousled around her face, and she wore cream-colored ballet slippers on her feet. She led the way, not looking back to see whether or not we followed her.

  “Poor Maggie,” she said as she gracefully displayed herself on an elegant wing chair that looked at least two hundred years old. “Is she dreadfully distraught over Rob’s death?”

  “How did you find out so fast?” Sherlock asked, uncrossing her legs and sitting forward.

  Elaine shrugged elegantly. “One hears things so quickly in Edgerton. Perhaps it was our postman who told our housekeeper who told me, just minutes ago. I can’t be expected to remember everything.”

  “He didn’t just die,” I said. “Someone murdered him. Two shots in the back. They threw him in the shed and left him there. We found him by accident.”

  “Yes, I know. Rob wasn’t at all faithful to Maggie, you know. It wasn’t Maggie’s fault. Actually, I’ve never known Rob to be faithful t
o any woman for longer than perhaps two and a half weeks, maximum.”

  I leaned back in my chair, a match to hers, my elbows resting on my thighs, hands clasped between my knees. “He was only faithful to you that long, Elaine?”

  “I suppose there’ll be an investigation,” she said, giving me a sad smile. “It was two and a half weeks exactly. I’ll tell you, I was very surprised when he patted my cheek one evening after we’d made love and told me he was moving on. He was speaking metaphorically, of course, since we were at his cottage and so I was the one who had to leave. It was always so clean, that precious little house, what with Mr. Thorne taking such good care of it. I never even questioned if the sheets were fresh. I knew they were.” She sighed and dabbed a very pretty swatch of white handkerchief to her eyes. “Rob was such a lovely young man. I could be with him for hours, not saying anything, content to touch his beautiful body.” She actually sighed again. “Such endurance he had. And he just got more and more devoted as time went on.” She looked over at me through her lashes. “In matters of the flesh, I mean.”

  “Who did he move on to?” Savich asked. He’d remained standing behind Sherlock, who was sitting on a low blue brocade love seat, his hand lightly resting on her shoulder.

  “To Maggie. I tried to tell her that he was a Teflon kind of guy, but she just laughed and said just because I was rich didn’t mean Rob would stay with me.”

  “Mother, get rid of these creeps. Tell them to get out. They don’t have a warrant. They have no power to make us do anything.”

  “Now, Cotter, there’s no call to be rude,” Elaine said. She looked at him like she really loved him, but she also let him see her parental disappointment. “You did learn manners and good breeding when you were growing up, remember? I don’t know what happened to them though.”

  “You can take the boy out of the loony bin,” Sherlock said, giving Cotter a small salute, “but you can’t take—well, you know the rest of it.”

  I thought Cotter would leap on Sherlock, but then he saw Savich’s face.

  “I’m not crazy.”