Fallow Park Today
Page 30
“It’s enough that we’ve placed Ms. St. Claire in my office,” Makepeace instructed. “I see no reason for handcuffs. It’s eight below zero outside and she has no transportation of her own; I am confident she’ll remain our guest until the federal agents get here. This is Fallow Park, after all. There is no escape.”
Once the two were settled in his office—he behind his big desk and she in the guest chair across from him—Makepeace allowed himself a satisfied smile. He was obviously bursting to tell what he knew. Meredith understood it was not enough for him that he had won something, that he had scored a victory over Jack Harbour. No, he seemed to want her to witness his triumph. She suspected he could not fully experience the moment without an audience. Well, she recognized, he would be granted plenty of opportunities to outline just how clever he had been. Undoubtedly, he would be given permission to release a statement. She assumed, as well, that whatever release was issued by the Department of Justice or the Bureau of Parks would mention him by name. This, she expected, was about as much glory and prominence—at least as public recognition was concerned—as someone in his position could ever hope to achieve. For the time being it was her turn to be his captive audience. She would have to postpone her grieving.
“They’re definitely dead?”
“It’s my understanding all five bodies have been recovered. Harbour, that Germaine woman, your hairdresser friend Tyler Travers, his little friend Carl something, and Harbour’s boyfriend—I can’t remember what that guy is called.”
“I assume Alex gave us away?” she finally asked, sick of the cat-and-mouse manner and ready to bring the conversation to a head, if only to get beyond it.
“Alex?” His confusion seemed authentic, and Meredith regretted implicating the intern. Makepeace wrote the name on a legal pad on his desk. “We’ll look into this Alex fellow.”
It appeared the young intern had kept his end of the bargain. Hopefully her transgression—blurting his name out—would not lead to exposing him. She suddenly had a protective feeling for him. It was no more than fleeting, however, as she returned to more immediate issues.
“Let’s hear it,” she finally said.
“The question,” he began without a second’s wait, as he seemed to be going in for the kill, “was whether or not you were involved. Clearly there was mischief afoot. We knew that yesterday morning—Thursday. And, of course, we knew whatever was in the works, some of the visitors—your team—must surely be a part of it.”
“There’s no chance you could start at the beginning?”
“I will start with Thursday—no, this morning, actually, when the morning’s fingerprint list came in. As a means of making sure people are where they’re supposed to be, and that they are who they say they are, we routinely sweep rooms, including the cells in the prison, looking for bugs and randomly checking the finger prints on surfaces—walls, tables, what have you. It isn’t an exhaustive search, we haven’t the time or money for that, and, of course, it’s necessary to be somewhat covert about it, certainly unobtrusive, so that it is not widely known that we do it. Imagine our shock when Jack Harbour’s prints showed up in one of the cells. The very cell recently occupied by a former and very close, um, ‘friend,’ of Mr. Harbour. And just the other day, hadn’t this pathetic character, the prisoner, an odd troublemaker prone to insolence and petty acts of sabotage, recently been the host to two of our out-of-town visitors? Hadn’t the legendary Meredith St. Claire and her assistant, an inconspicuous fellow who was introduced to me as Bill, spent some time in that very cell just the other day?”
Meredith groaned at the oversight. Even Jack, with all his suspicion-based rules, had not anticipated this level of paranoia.
“We pegged your assistant as Harbour at that point, so we watched him pretty closely. We could have snatched him at any time, but we wanted to know what his plan was.”
“If you’d intervened then, those five people would be alive now.”
“They’d be alive if they hadn’t tried to outrace the police. They’d be alive if they hadn’t tried to escape from Fallow Park. They assumed the risk when they decided they could forge their own path. The system is designed to detect and curtail such deviance. The park system only works when the residents come to understand that a uniform, regimented lifestyle is imposed on them.”
The federal agents finally arrived.
Meredith felt the cold metal on her wrists as a new set of handcuffs were closed.
“Meredith St. Clair,” the arresting officer said, “you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”
“I know my rights.”
“Do you have anything to say?”
“No,” she said, making eye contact with the officer for the first time. He was handsome. She couldn’t help but notice the wedding ring on his left hand. Too young to be married, she thought. He appeared to be in his early twenties, still happy in his marriage, she presumed, for there was no other reason for a man to make such a public declaration of his marital status. “No, I don’t.” She stopped, straining at his forceful grip. “Yes, yes I do. How did it ever come to this?”
THE END
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