The Inn

by James Patterson

  “Gentlemen,” Cline said. “You’ve made a very interesting choice of how to spend your afternoon, coming all the way out here to give me a legal lecture. It’s very kind of you. I haven’t actually had anyone volunteer to give me a talk on the local laws in the four months I’ve been here. Not one police officer has darkened my doorstep with such outrageous accusations.”

  I looked at Nick, knowing he was thinking of Sheriff Spears. If he hadn’t been here already, that meant that his employees could be on Cline’s payroll. Clay was advised of the region’s serious crime leads by his sergeants, and their failure to even come sniffing around Cline was worrying.

  “We’re telling you to pack this shit up,” I said. “Crawl back under whatever rock you came out from. We’re not threatening legal action here, Cline. We’re promising it.”

  “You own the Inn on the north side, don’t you?” he asked me as though he hadn’t heard a word I’d just said. I felt prickles of pain spread out from the center of my chest.

  “I do.”

  “Lovely property. I haven’t been out, but I looked at it online just now.”

  Dr. Raymond Locke. He’d heard me talking to Bess at Addison Gilbert and called ahead. And then there was Craft. He’d probably called to let Cline know someone was roughing up his clients and wanted an appointment with the top brass. Before them, there was Squid, who I spied now sitting on the arm of the wicker couch with the two young girls on it. He watched me closely from behind his leader.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on properties near the woods there,” Cline said. “I like to hunt when I get the chance, and it’s so quiet. I’m sure the gunshots wouldn’t bother anyone. Maybe I’ll come out. Take a look around. Make you an offer.”

  “You come anywhere near my property or the people who live there and I’ll feed you into a meat grinder,” I snarled. The loss of control had been sudden, shocking; I’d been blindsided by thoughts of Siobhan, her house, her people, her dream. My reaction was exactly what Cline wanted. I stepped off the curb, turned away for a moment, rubbed my brow. Nick was by me, his shoulder like a brick wall, reassuring.

  That reassurance was short-lived. One of the girls pointed up the street and started laughing. “Someone called the real boys in blue on your asses.”

  I turned and saw a familiar vehicle heading our way. Sheriff Spears’s friendly beep of the patrol-car siren was made more cheerful by his wave through the windshield as he approached.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CLINE SMILED THE thin-lipped, dead-eyed smile of a snake as he watched Sheriff Spears ease his bulk from the squad car. I noticed Marni in the back of the vehicle, leaning over to look up at the turret at the front of Cline’s house.

  “Someone else call in Cline’s crew?” I asked Clay. “You got backup on the way?”

  “Ah, no.” He looked puzzled, then glanced at Cline and his cronies. “I’m actually here about you. Some quack at Addison Gilbert called in a disturbance in the parking lot, gave us your license plate.”

  “Tell me this fool ain’t the local sheriff.” The big goon with the knuckle tats eyed Clay. “I knew cops liked chillin’ in doughnut shops, but this guy looks like he owns the chain.”

  The punks around us snickered. Clay smoothed the front of his shirt and swallowed hard as he took in the sight of the crushed Escalade windshield. “Is there some kind of trouble here? Can I offer assistance?”

  “You cool, you cool,” one of the girls said. “We ain’t got no leftovers to get rid of.”

  The whole crew laughed, but not Cline, who wasn’t paying much attention to Clay at all. His eyes followed me as I walked Clay back to his car. The sheriff was blushing at the collar of his shirt, sweat spotting his sides.

  “Ignore those idiots,” I told him. “What’s Marn doing in the back of your car? Is she in trouble?”

  “No, no.” Clay wiped his brow. “I got a call about a kid walking the train tracks. She told me she was just taking a shortcut home.”

  I asked Nick to take my car back to the Inn, said I’d ride in the squad car with Marni. Cline watched us roll out, one corner of his mouth turned down regretfully, like he’d been enjoying the banter and wanted to toy with us a little more. I hoped he got what I tried to communicate as I climbed into the back of Clay’s car: I was not done with him yet.

  Marni watched the people at the house through the back window as we turned for home.

  “Squid again,” she said. “Does he live there? Wow. He’s done pretty good for a kid who couldn’t turn up to school on time even once in his whole life.”

  “He’s not done well at all, if you ask me,” I said. “And I’d like it if you didn’t go anywhere near the people at that house, Marn.”

  “Whatever.” She folded her arms.

  “I know, I know.” I put my hands up. “You don’t want lectures. But this is serious. They’re bad news. Your friend Squid is tied up with some very dangerous people and I don’t want you doing the same.”

  Marni chewed her nails, shrugged.

  “Why didn’t you go to work today?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just bored with that place.”

  “I’m not surprised.” I imitated her lazy face from the day before. “‘Thin crust. No anchovies. Double cheese.’” She grinned.

  “You’re better than that and you know it,” I said. “But if you’re going to quit, you should quit right. Line something better up first. Give them notice.”

  “I guess.” She looked out the window, watched the world go by. “I’m supposed to have a shift tonight too.”

  “Call them when you get home and tell them you’re sick,” I said. “Take the night off. We’ll have a nice dinner and then you and me will sit and make a plan for what you’re going to do.”

  “I wouldn’t know what else to do.” Marni sighed. “Wherever I go, it’ll be the same sort of thing. Make pizzas at Dough Brothers. Sell stamps at the post office. Gut fish on the docks. What’s the difference?”

  “Marni, that is not your future,” I said. “I’m telling you. You’re smart, funny, and tough. Better things are waiting for you. You can’t see them, but I can.”

  “Things like what?”

  “Like music,” I said. “You’ve got talent, Marn. Go ahead. Roll your eyes. But you’ve got something there, something special. You tell great stories, and you kick ass on the violin. You know what that sounds like to me? That sounds like a born musician. Someone who plays and writes music for adoring crowds. Who tells interviewers that she dropped out of high school and worked in a crappy pizza joint before she made it big.”

  She looked at me, and I knew she was wondering if I could be right. I tried to look as confident as I could. But she knew, and I knew, that I hadn’t done well predicting my own future over the past couple of years. Siobhan was the plan maker, not me. But even as I sat doubting myself, a smile grew on Marni’s face, and I felt for a moment that I had done my job.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  WHEN WE ARRIVED home, Clay followed me to the front of the house, his head down and his shoulders high, as if he expected to be hit.

  “I’ve got a problem,” he said. We stopped by the corner of the porch. “I actually know those guys back there.”

  “Cline and his crew?” I said.

  “Yeah.” Clay kept smoothing his shirt over his belly like he might be able to flatten his gut with his hands. “The missing guy? Newgate? He was one of them. I’ve got a witness says she saw two of Cline’s guys, Russell Hamdy and Christopher ‘Simbo’ Jackson, dropping Newgate’s kid at his house on the morning he went missing. Newgate leaves with the kid, then later the kid’s dropped home, no one sees Newgate again. A cleaner found his phone and wallet in a garbage can near the beach.”

  “He’s dead,” I said. “Must have pissed off the boss somehow. These guys go through soldiers like tissues.”

  “It gets worse.”

  “How?”

  Clay took a deep bre
ath. “They found a head.”

  “A what? A head? Newgate’s head?”

  “Nope.” Clay massaged his brow. “Local woman named Mary Ann Druly. Her daughter’s an addict. Couch-hopping around Boston, so I heard. Mary Ann Druly confronted Cline in a restaurant last night. Made a big scene. I get a call at five this morning at the station from a couple of hysterical tourists down from Maine. They found a head in front of the memorial.”

  The memorial to fishermen lost at sea was a bronze statue of a man at the helm of a ship positioned right on the waterfront in town. It was a symbol of all that was Gloucester, its pride in its history as America’s oldest fishing port, its tenacity in times of crisis.

  “I’ve never seen a head before. Just a head on its own like that.” Clay looked queasy. “The crime-scene tech picked it up by both ears like it was a soup pot.”

  “Did they find the rest of her?”

  “Mary Ann’s husband followed her cell phone signal out to Dogtown and located the body in the woods. Got there before we could.” Clay looked helplessly at the sky. “I’m out of my depth here, Bill.”

  “You’re not out of your depth,” I said. “You just need to take this one step at a time. Bring in the witnesses from the restaurant. The ones from outside Newgate’s house. Get the security-camera footage from the waterfront.”

  “That’s the thing,” Clay said. “The witnesses—the ones in the Newgate case and the Druly case—they talked to me on the phone and told me everything they saw. Then I sent my guys out to get it on the record, and suddenly no one knows anything. All the witnesses have clammed up. The cameras on the waterfront seemed to have been working last night but no one can find the tape. It almost makes me think … but no. It’s not possible.”

  I waited. Clay lowered his voice to a whisper. “It makes me think they might be on Cline’s books. My guys. That’s ridiculous, right?”

  “Clay.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Just do what you can. Keep working on it from your end. Don’t accuse anyone of anything.”

  “I gotta stay calm.” He took a deep breath. “But if you get anything, bring it straight to me, okay? I don’t know who I can trust right now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  VINNY ROBETTI WAS just where I expected him to be, on the corner of the porch, soaking up the last remnants of fading sun. Siobhan’s first resident, he’d spent three days alone in the house with my wife before I arrived from Boston, where I’d been packing up the last of our belongings.

  We were both startled by the sight of each other. I knew Vinny Robetti by his birth name, Leonardo Roberri. In his prime, he’d been one of the deadliest gangsters in Boston history. I’d conducted raids on Roberri’s properties a bunch of times as a patrolman and I’d guarded him on his trips in and out of court for murder charges and RICO violations, none of which ever stuck. I’d responded to the scene when some stupid-ass cugine tried to make his bones with a rival family by shooting Roberri; he’d hit him in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down.

  I might have objected to the old wiseguy’s presence in my house if Siobhan hadn’t loved him so much. The two had been like spaghetti and meatballs by the time I arrived. Vinny and I silently decided to leave our prior affiliation unmentioned.

  As I neared the old man on the porch, I saw a bucket by his feet and a glimmering knife in his fingers.

  “What’s all this?”

  Vinny gave that classic Mob-guy shrug. “I’m doing arts and crafts. So what?”

  In his big, knobby hands he held a small piece of wood on its way to becoming some kind of four-legged thing, a pig or a bear on all fours. I took the wicker chair next to Vinny and he handed me the item for examination.

  “Look at this! This is great,” I said.

  “Eh, I do all right.” He took the animal back and started carving it again, catching the little blond shavings in the bucket. “I went to see the doc about my hands. This one’s been broken five times since I was a kid. This one six.” He held up his right hand. “Last guy that got me was Bobby Russo. You know that guy? Smashed both my hands with a club hammer. This thumb nearly came off completely. Guy heard I was stepping out with his gumad.”

  I opened my mouth to respond but Vinny kept on. The man liked to talk.

  “Maybe I was. Who knows? Long time ago; I can’t remember. Anyway, the doc says I need to do something to strengthen my hands. Suggested I start knitting. What does he think, I’m gonna sit here making little doilies and frilly fucking tablecloths?”

  “I think that’s crocheting.”

  “Whatever the fuck.”

  “You’re pretty good at this,” I noted.

  “I know my way around a blade.” He tossed the knife up; it spun three times in the air and landed with a chunk in the arm of his wheelchair. He pulled the knife out and kept whittling like it was no big deal.

  “The kid’s supposed to be at work.” He nodded toward the side of the house where Clay and Marni had just disappeared. It was probably Vinny who told Susan that Dough Brothers had called looking for Marni. When I wasn’t around, Vinny was in charge of answering the phone, because he never strayed far from the house.

  “Yeah, she didn’t go. I’m worried about her.”

  “You and me both,” Vinny said. “Kid told me some fucked-up story yesterday.”

  “What was it?”

  “Get this.” He scratched at the white streak at his temple with the knife. “It was a story about this farm. Barnyard. Man and his wife, they sell these animals, have them taken away in trucks. Only sometimes one of the animals doesn’t go because it’s fucked up or whatever, like a chicken with only one wing or a cow with a broken leg or a pig with some weird skin disease. So it’s like a reject. The farmer guy plans to whack the animal, but the wife always sneaks up and lets it go, and it runs into the forest behind the farm.”

  Vinny shook his head. I waited for more, but he was concentrating on his work.

  “So what happens?” I asked.

  “Nothin’.” He shrugged again. “The fucked-up animals all live in the forest and they have adventures and shit. They’re all sad about how they never got to go on the trucks but they’re kinda happy that they’re together.”

  “I assume the trucks were taking them off to be slaughtered?” I asked.

  “Maybe. I guess so. Probably supposed to be irony that they don’t know about it. I don’t know. I’m not a poet. What do you want from me? She was just telling me because she said that’s us.”

  “What’s us?”

  “The fucked-up animals.” He jerked a thumb toward the house. “You, me, Marn, the sheriff. Everybody who lives here. We’re them. The reject animals who don’t know how lucky they are.”

  I thought for a moment, watching the trees.

  “Kid’s cuckoo, you ask me.” He tapped his forehead with the tip of the knife.

  “While you’re doling out advice,” I said, “can I get some on a different subject?”

  “Shoot.”

  “What do you do when you’ve got a dangerous new guy on your turf, and you’re not willing to stand by and let him destroy your neighborhood?” I asked. “You probably had stuff like that happen when you were in the …”

  “The waste-management business?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, way I always saw it, you got three options,” he said. “And those options get steadily less friendly. First, you can divide up the turf. Make sure he stays on his patch and you stay on yours. Charge him something for the privilege.”

  “Right.”

  “That doesn’t work, you convince him to go somewhere else. Send a guy in talking about how sweet the pussy down in Florida is or something. Grab his gumad and give her a squeeze and tell her if she don’t get her guy to go down there, they’re gonna have problems.”

  “What’s the last option?” I asked.

  “The last option?” He pointed the knife at me. I watched his lips form the very same snake-like grin I’d seen on
Cline. “You blast him and his crew full of holes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  IT WAS FAST work, but if you had the funds, Cline knew, you could get the job done. The previous night’s fun and games with the Druly woman had filled him with a violent energy, and he’d used that energy all afternoon making phone calls, reading out credit card numbers, watching Squid, Turner, and Bones making their own calls. As the sun set, they started arriving. The caterer came first and took over the bottom floor with six waitstaff. Then there was the DJ, the sound guy, the lighting guy, a team of college kids setting up portable heaters on the patio and cabanas around the heated pool, the firepits. Cline felt like Jay Gatsby watching the lights across the water for Daisy. He kept Squid close at hand. Didn’t want the young idiot to mess this up.

  “Is she coming?” Cline asked at six.

  “Of course she’s comin’.” Squid held up his phone.

  She arrived in the initial rush, a youthful face among a hundred other youthful faces, the desperate and bored of Gloucester, Rockport, Hamilton, all pouring through his doors and flooding into his yard. The big house rattled with bass; the body heat of already too-drunk guests made condensation bead on the windows. Beer pong in the kitchen. Strippers in the pool area. Morons doing backflips off the second-floor balcony into the pool to screams and cheers. Cline watched her picking her way through the crowd, narrow shoulders slicing between big bodies, her tongue nervously worrying that piercing in her lip. The girl called Marni had talked to Squid first, a quick, awkward conversation by one of the bars. And then she was off into the safety of a crew of girls she must have known from high school.

  Cline watched her, waited for her to come into his orbit. She was strangely beautiful in a haphazard kind of way, like she had been assembled from pristine but mismatched parts. Her lips were a little too red for her white skin, her arms slightly too long for her body, the eyes a little up-turned at the corners. Dark mutant girl transforming, only now realizing that she was different from those around her, powerful. The things he could do to her with a little time. Show her how to dress, how to walk. Take the stupid piercings out, fix the crooked nose, dazzle her with big money, big cars, big guns. She had no idea, this little coastal urchin from nowhere, just how far she could go. She could have men with their balls in a twist at the sight of her. Empires at her feet. Cline leaned on the rail and watched her and swam in his fantasies.