by Walter Marks
“Goodbye, Mr. Healey.” She handed him back the card but he refused it.
“Please, Susannah. You may find you need it. Read what it says.”
She read “Quinn — 917-587-4332. Any time.” She stuck the card in her purse.
“Remember, Sweetie,” he said. “You can count on me.”
She left.
Healey is slick, she thought. He gave no indication that he knew what I was talking about. But if he does have evidence against me, my threats ought to make him think twice before turning me in.
I sure as hell hope so...—“Sweetie!”
The next morning brought another message from Anonymail. It was the same: “YOU DID A BAD THING. CONFESS, OR I’LL MAKE YOU PAY.”
Healey is still e-mailing, she reasoned, because he figures if he stops, I’ll know he’s the sender. He wants to keep me guessing.
Just as she was about to press delete, the house phone rang. It was Healy.
“Sweetie! I was thinking you should came into the city and I can treat you to a nice dinner at Le Bernardin”
Susannah couldn’t believe he was calling her. “Quinn, if you have anything to say to me, you can call my lawyer.”
When he asked, “Why don’t I come out there?” she hung up on him.
CHAPTER 34
Mort set up his wooden French-style easel on a high dune facing the beach. The easel was perfect for working outside, with its slide-out drawer to hold the watercolor paints, and clamp for his water jar.
Painting was Mort’s hobby, and he was delighted with this opportunity to combine business with pleasure.
He was dressed in olive Bermuda shorts and a painter’s smock. He wore black knee socks and sneakers, and a broad-brimmed Panama hat tied under his chin so it wouldn’t blow off.
After unfolding his aluminum and canvas stool, Mort sat down and surveyed the area. Below him, off to the left, was the Cascadden house, a blindingly white concrete structure set into the dunes, its large teakwood deck facing the sea. Mort’s painter’s eye was drawn to the red geraniums planted in half whiskey barrels around the entrance. It would require a precise mixture of cadmium red and scarlet lake to capture their essence.
But this morning he was more fascinated by the sky, a vast luminous expanse of changing blues; cerulean, aquamarine, cobalt. It reminded him of a Childe Hassam painting: Morning on the beach at Wellfleet, Cape Cod.
Mort set his watercolor paper block on the easel and adjusted the holder to a 10-degree angle. It was heavy paper, the 300 lb. Lanaquarelle, because he worked aggressively with washes and layering, and the external sizing took it well.
He began in pencil, lightly sketching in the clouds, trying to capture the rhythms of their patterns as they floated across the sky.
When he was satisfied, he opened his water jar, dipped in a sable brush, and washed the water in broad strokes across the paper. Then he tilted the block up slightly, loaded the brush with cobalt blue, and drew it slowly along the edge of wetness, letting the blue bleed down for a graded sky effect. It was a good start.
That was the thing he loved about watercolor. You couldn’t paint over, you couldn’t erase. You had to know precisely where the paint would go, how the paper would take it, when it would dry, and what your next step would be. That was what his whole life was about: technique, precision, expertise.
After a while, he squeezed a small amount of violet onto his palette. He would need to add the pale purple to the clouds, to give them visual depth. Now in his mind he already saw the whole picture, complete in every detail. It was going to be lovely.
After a sleepless night, Susannah got out of bed and put on a swimsuit and an old men’s button-down shirt. She checked her e-mail and there was nothing from Anonymail. What if the e-mails have stopped?
The fear of impending doom seized her.
No e-mails is worse, she realized. What if Healey’s not worried about my threats? What if he’s decided to turn me over to the police? What do I do now?
She rinsed the dishes, straightened up the kitchen, then filled a watering can. She went to the angled bay window next to the front door and watered the potted coleus plants that sat on the window seat. As she did, she caught sight of the painter up on the dunes. It was surprising, she’d never seen anyone on those dunes before.
She decided to get a closer look while she watered the geraniums. She put on her sunglasses and went outside.
As she uncoiled the garden hose, she glanced up at the painter. His presence made her nervous. She felt her heart start to pound in her chest. She took a deep breath.
He looks okay, she thought, trying to reassure herself. He’s not on my property. So he has a right to be there.
She looked up at the blue sky and wondered how anyone could capture its full radiance with paint and brush.
She turned the spigot and felt the hose stiffen with water. It was going to be a hot day, so she was careful to water only the soil and not splash the leaves or blossoms. Otherwise they would get scorched under the midday sun.
As she watered, she smelled the characteristically bitter scent of geraniums. Strange, she thought, that such gorgeous flowers give off such an ugly odor.
Strange, too, that on a sunny day like this, her mind was clouded with fear.
“Excuse me, madam.”
She looked up with a start and saw the painter walking up the driveway. He was carrying his water jar.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, in his clipped English/Algerian accent, “but I wonder if you could let me have a bit of your water. This needs freshening.”
“Sure,” she said. “Hang on.”
Susannah bent over the spigot to turn down the water pressure.
Wait a minute, she thought. There’s something familiar about that voice. Now where have I –?
The last thing Susannah heard before she blacked out was a large thump.
Mort watched his victim collapse, like a puppet with severed strings. He had brought his sap sharply down on the back of Susannah’s head, with enough force to knock her out yet not kill her. The cause of death had to be drowning. She’d have to be breathing when he held her under, so her lungs would fill with sea water.
He knew from experience she’d be out for five to six minutes. He put the sap back in his pocket and put the empty water jar in the other. Then he picked up Susannah and carried her through the house and out on the deck. He surveyed the beach. It was empty.
He looked around for a towel and saw one lying on the deck mat. He set Susannah down briefly in a deck chair, grabbed the towel, and put it around her neck. Then he picked her up and descended the stairs to the beach. He walked straight to the water’s edge and lowered Susannah to the sand. He placed the towel and her sunglasses next to her.
He heard a faint moan that told him she’d soon be coming to. He lifted her in his arms and waded in the shallow water. He softly whistled the tune “Oh, Susannah.” He glanced down at her lovely face, the eyelids fluttering and then blinking. The shock of cold water would revive her, but it would be too late. Way too late.
“Police. Freeze.”
Mort turned his head and saw Jericho, who was crouched low on the beach, with his gun in a two-handed grip.
“Put her down,” Jericho shouted. “Gently. Do it. Now!”
Jericho watched the man turn to face him and walk back up to dry land, carrying Susannah. He bent over and deposited her on the beach. Then he angled his body slightly away from the detective, and made a sudden movement. Jericho went on instant alert.
“Glock party!” Mort shouted as he spun and fired.
In the same instant, Jericho dropped to the sand and got off three quick shots. One blew a bloody hole below the man’s sternum, the second punctured a lung, and the third pierced his heart.
Mort’s bullet thudded harmlessly into a sand dune.
Susannah heard the shots as her unconscious haze lifted. She opened her eyes and saw Mort lying beside her, his chest covered with blo
od. His abdomen was rising and falling spasmodically. A sound was coming from his mouth, a kind of “Eh, eh, eh, eh,” which ended in a gurgle. His head flopped to the side and he stopped breathing.
Jericho leaned over her. “You okay?”
“...Yes. I think so.”
“Good.”
“What’s going on?”
“This guy was about to drown you.”
“Oh, my God,” Susannah said. “How did you — ”
“I’ll explain later.”
The detective bent over the body and pulled the crumpled Panama hat away from Mort’s face.
Jericho recognized Mort immediately. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed. His picture had been distributed frequently by the FBI, Secret Service, and Interpol, warning all police officers to be on the lookout for him, especially during visits to the Big Apple by foreign dignitaries, the President, even the Pope.
“Do you know who this guy is?” he asked Susannah.
“No.”
“He’s an internationally known assassin who goes by the name of Mort. You have any idea why he was after you?”
“No. None at all.”
But even as Susannah answered, she realized who had probably hired the hitman — Quinn Healey. I bet he knows Mort through Burt. And he pockets at least three million if I’m dead. Maybe more if he knows how to access Burt’s off-shore bank account.
Jericho examined Mort’s pistol without touching it. He noted it was a Glock 50 caliber semiautomatic with a Scorpion silencer.
“Gee, my head hurts,” Susannah moaned.
Jericho felt the pocket of the dead man’s smock. Then, using a handkerchief to avoid leaving fingerprints, he reached into the pocket. “Yeah. Here’s why.”
He held up the sap. Susannah touched the back of her head and grimaced. “Ow. It’s really swelling up.”
“We should get some ice on it. Wait a minute, what’s this?”
With his hanky-covered hand he pulled the water jar out of Mort’s other pocket.
“Oh, he was pretending to be a watercolor artist,” Susannah said. “He set up an easel on the hill next to my house.”
“I’ll check it out when the support crew gets here. Let me just call in.”
He phoned the precinct house on his cell and reported the incident to Chief Manos.
“I’m not kiddin’ you, Dominick,” Jericho said. ”It’s Mr. Mort himself. He was about to drown Mrs. Cascadden... Yeah, it might be related to her husband’s disappearance, but I don’t know anything yet. I just got here.”
The Chief said he’d come out personally.
“Fine. Oh, and you better notify Alvarez at the ME’s office. He’ll get out here right away, I’m sure.”
As Jericho gave his boss the address and directions to the Cascadden house, Susannah took advantage of the detective’s distraction. Furtively, she slipped something into the corpse’s Bermuda shorts pocket.
CHAPTER 35
Up at the house, Jericho waited on the sun deck while Susannah went into the kitchen and got some ice. “I’d get it for you,” he’d said, “But I’m required to keep the body in sight till support arrives.”
Susannah came out pressing an ice pack to the back of her head. She settled into a deck chair while Jericho sat on the end of a lounger.
“Mrs. Cascadden...” Jericho said.
“Please call me Susannah,” she said. “After all, you did save my life... Oh gosh, I’m sorry — I haven’t even thanked you.”
“Hey, I’m just glad I got here in time.”
“What’s your first name?”
“Actually, department regulations don’t allow us to use our given names. They like us to be formal with the public.”
“I’m not the public. I’m the victim of a crime.”
“Doesn’t matter. Besides, I’m not too crazy about my given name.”
“I understand. Thank you, Jericho,” Susannah said with sincerity.
After a moment, she spoke again. “I guess...there’s no news on my husband.”
“No, but actually, that’s why I came out here. We’re putting him in the FBI’s missing person’s database, which requires a photograph whenever possible. Do you have one?”
“Um, no.”
“None at all?”
“No. He...we weren’t sentimental that way.”
“Well, we can use his driver’s license. I saw it in his wallet when I was here before.”
“Oh. Oh yes. I’ll get it for you.”
Susannah got up and went inside to get it.
When she returned, she handed the license to Jericho. He looked at the photo of Burt with interest.
What’s with those lips? he thought.
“This’ll do.” he said. He put the license in his jacket pocket.
“Now we have to figure out who wants you dead.” Jericho said. “You have no idea who’d put a contract on your life?”
“No. It must’ve been a mistake.”
“Mort is the best in the business. He doesn’t make mistakes.”
“Except today,” Susannah said, “When he was just a tad slow on the draw.”
Jericho’s warm, self-effacing smile made her understand why damsels in distress cry out, “My hero!”
Their eyes locked, and for a moment an electric spark seemed to crackle between them.
Susannah averted her eyes, then stood up. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I just had a thought.”
She went back into the house and returned with two documents.
“This is a copy of my husband’s will,” she said. “You can see in paragraph 4 that if I die, Burt’s entire estate goes to his lawyer, Quinn Healey.”
As Jericho read the paragraph, she sat down beside him on the lounger.
“So,” he said. “You think it’s possible the lawyer ordered this hit on you?”
“It does give him a motive. My husband had financial difficulties, but there’s still this house, the cars, and probably an off-shore bank account.”
“That would be, what, in the millions?”
Susannah nodded. “And here’s something I found on the Internet.”
He read the second document.
“Well,” he said, “previous public censure probably wouldn’t be allowed in court, but it shows he ain’t no angel.”
“So, you think he could be a suspect?”
“Could be,” Jericho said. “But this’ll be a tough case. See, a professional like Mort is super careful about being linked to anybody. Every aspect of his identity is covert. He’ll have a false passport, all kinds of phony ID. I saw a car outside your house, but I’m sure it’s rented with a fake driver’s license and paid for in cash. He’s constantly on the move and I doubt we’ll ever find out where he’s been living. And he certainly would keep no written records. So we’ll have to investigate the lawyer himself to link him to the killer.”
“But — you’ll do that.”
“Of course,” Jericho said. “Can I keep this copy of your husband’s will?”
“Sure,” Susannah said. “I have my own lawyer now and he can send me another copy.”
They were sitting close enough now that she could look into her rescuer’s eyes. There was a sadness in them; somehow they looked older than he was.
“Jericho,” she said. “I just keep thinking that I wouldn’t exist any more if it weren’t for you.”
“Well, I’m glad you still exist.” He reached over and touched the top of her hand.
Susannah felt his warm palm, pressing gently. She slowly turned her hand over, till her palm faced his. Suddenly they were aware of being skin to skin, hotness to hotness.
The doorbell rang. They pulled apart.
“That must be your support team,” she said breathlessly.
“Yes,” Jericho replied. He could feel his face flushing. “I’ll get it.”
He rose to his feet and went to answer the door.
Soon the place was crawling with cops. Susannah watched from the deck as t
hey pounded stakes into the sand and surrounded the area with bright yellow crime scene tape.
Some obvious bigwig was strutting around like General Patton, giving orders. He shooed away a couple of beach joggers who stopped to gawk. Jericho was kneeling beside the hitman’s corpse, searching through his clothing and dictating to a patrolman with a notebook.
A cop with a rake was systematically dragging it through the sand, looking for evidence.
The bigwig appeared on Susannah’s deck and said he’d like to get a statement.
“Detective Jericho knows what happened,” she said.
“He’s the shooter, that’s why it’s better if I do it. I’m Dominick Manos, Chief of Police.”
Susannah looked at the rosacea on his nose and wondered if it was from drinking or a Bill Clinton kind of thing.
“How do you do, Chief. I’m Susannah Cascadden.”
“Cascadden? Like the guy who used to play for the Jets?”
“Who?”
“Chad Cascadden. Number 51. Outside linebacker.”
Susannah shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me what went down this morning.”
He took out an investigation notebook. She spoke quickly and he wrote furiously. Occasionally he had to hold up his hand and stop her until he caught up. As they were finishing, Jericho joined them on the deck.
“Excuse me, Chief,” he said. “I found something interesting.”
He held up a business card. “This was in Mort’s pocket — H. Quinn Healey, Esquire. It’s got a handwritten phone number on the back, and it’s signed with Healey’s first name.”
Susannah noticed Jericho was wearing latex gloves.
My fingerprints on the card! she thought.
“Quinn Healey?” she said with surprise. “Let me see that.” She snatched the card from the detective and looked at it.
“Mrs. Cascadden,” Jericho shouted. “That’s evidence. You’re contaminating it with your fingerprints.”
“Oh, gee. I’m so sorry,” she said. “I just wasn’t thinking.”
She handed Healey’s business card back. She was definitely thinking.
“Healey?” the Chief said. “You know who that is?”
