by Dana Cameron
He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Duncan’s my friend. He made a mistake. I was trying to help him.”
“You were trying to help him cover it up. You’re my friend too, Scott. And now, now…you’re treating me like I did something disgusting, and I didn’t and you’re using the excuse of friendship to blame me for something I didn’t do. You’re overlooking an awful lot here, chum.”
“You have reasons to want to hurt Duncan. He told me. You’d be happy to see him go down.”
“I’m so over him it isn’t even funny.” I stood up. “And he even had the gall to come to me and ask fora…I don’t believe this.” I stood up. “You know, that doesn’t surprise me. What really hurts is that you were so willing to believe whatever he told you, even though you say you’re my friend, and take up his part, just like that. Even when you know how…unreliable he can be. No, not just unreliable. Downright dishonest.”
“Duncan’s done a lot of good for the field, Em. It’s not worth throwing all that away, just over something stupid he did when he was young. It wasn’t like he was falsifying data, or anything.”
“He was cheating, Scott, and then he was trying to cover it up. Don’t talk to me anymore. Don’t ever talk to me again.”
“You don’t mean that, Emma. You can’t.”
“Maybe not forever, but I sure as hell mean it right now.”
“Come on.” He was pleading, groping.
I stood up and winced.
Scott noticed. “What the hell happened to you? What’s wrong with your foot?”
“Got into a scuffle last night.”
“Bullshit.” He tried a half-smile, trying to disbelieve me.
“Not a bit.” I didn’t really want to talk about it, not with him. “You should see the other guy.”
“Damn it, Emma, that’s not funny.” Scott ran his hand through his hair.
Almost at the same time that the heavy white restaurant mug hit the scuffed veneer of the table, the realization struck me. “No, it’s not funny. Scott, I’ve got to go.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”
“I will when I get back.”
“Like I’ll be sitting here waiting for you.” Tough guy, again.
“I’ll find you; we’re not done talking yet. Not by a long shot.”
I headed for the coffee shop, then stopped myself. The coffee shop didn’t make any sense; if the guy bore any marks from our fight, then he wouldn’t be showing his face so readily. Maybe he was even ordering room service, hiding out.
Think, Emma, think.
I couldn’t very well ask who was ordering room service.
But the police could.
I stood a moment, chewing on a hangnail. There was something else, a thought that was still half formed, but not completely half baked. Duncan came out of the elevator, as I stared blankly. As I’d noticed last night, he didn’t have any marks on his face aside from evidence that he still hadn’t gotten out of the habit of shaving too quickly. He’d nicked himself on his neck, an angry red cut showed up just below his chin.
That was it. I nodded. Okay, I know it wasn’t Duncan who’d attacked me, but he had inadvertently pointed me in the right direction. Another memory, nothing to do with him, but a high school episode that I never would have remembered otherwise, when my then-boyfriend’s best friend had appealed to me for help with an illicit hickey. You’ve got to help me, Emma, he’d said. Do you have any makeup I can borrow?
I thought of my own scratch, and what I’d done about it. I turned and went into the sundries shop.
I always case the sundries shop, trying to assess what might be there in case of an emergency—whether they’d have candy bars or water, in case of missed meals, or pantyhose.
The clerk looked bored and tired, but carefully put his paper away when I entered. “Can I help you?”
“My husband,” I said, thinking quickly, “I asked him to pick up some more concealer for me. He’s obviously gotten lost on his way back to the room—”
“There’s a breakfast reception at the Manchester ballroom this morning,” the helpful clerk added. Then he got a closer look at my face, and his features darkened with suspicion. “You okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. I took a header out in the parking lot. My husband probably found a friend and started chin-wagging. Can you tell me whether he actually stopped by, or did he forget?”
“I just got on shift. There’s been no one in here, since I came on. We don’t carry concealer, but we do have a couple of foundations, right over there.” He pointed to the wall.
“Thanks.” I examined the wall of toiletries. The supply of condoms was running low, I noticed, and so was aspirin and Tums, but not much else. There were two colors of foundation, one for dark skin and one for fair. There was a space where someone had taken the first off the rack, for fair skin. That didn’t really tell me anything much, though.
I stood there, about to tell the clerk that I’d seek out my fictional husband and his fictional errands elsewhere, when I got my first nice surprise of the morning.
“Looks like he stopped by, though,” the clerk announced, looking at a computer printed sheet. “Inventory. Vic sold one last night. That’s good for you.”
“Huh?”
“I mean, you don’t want to have to buy two things of foundation. Stuff is expensive.”
“Uh, right.”
“I know it drives my girlfriend crazy when I get the wrong kind, or the wrong color. Beige, taupe, warm peach, pleasant peach, plum peachy, I don’t know how the hell you girls can tell the difference. It’s all light brown to me. And what’s with sanitary pads and things? I mean, I swear she asked me to get her a package of half-caff, double-wide, with wings or some damn thing the other day.”
I shrugged unhelpfully. “Can’t help you with that one. But he must have remembered to pick it up for me last night, stuck it in his pocket and promptly forgot about it.” Improv on demand. I was figuring out what to do next.
He’d kept keying through computer screens, however. “Yeah, here you go. Room four-thirty-two. That’s yours, right?”
“What!”
He looked alarmed. “That’s your room number, right? Four-thirty-two?”
I suspected at least three people who had a room on the fourth floor. “Yeah, sorry, I was…spacing out there.”
He nodded sympathetically. “Early, yet.”
“Well, thanks for your help. I’ll, uh, go find him.”
I left the shop, speeding toward the elevators, when I caught myself. This is where we start doing the smart thing, I said, as I redirected myself straight over to the desk. I told the day manager everything, and she immediately called the police. I didn’t have to be told twice to stay where I was, and I settled into one of the overstuffed and poorly designed chairs. Too low to be comfortable, too deep in the seat to be sit-able. Yet another hazard of conference hotels was the price you paid in tormented backs.
I grinned to myself: Already I was in denial about what I’d just done, about what might be happening. I couldn’t quite believe it. I was excited, I was nervous, I was doing things by the rules. Well, the rules as far as I knew them. I sat, barely able to contain my excitement, which was part fear, part thrill, part fatigue.
“Hey, Jay-Bird!” I’d looked up just in time to see my friend heading out for the parking lot with a small bag.
He was out of hearing range, but I couldn’t just sit there, I was too excited, I needed to talk to someone. I trotted out after him and was delighted to see sun and blue sky. “Hey, Jay! Over here!”
The parking lot was mostly cleared by now, but the individual cars still needed digging out. Jay fumbled with his keys at the icy lock and managed to pry the trunk open. He tossed the bag inside, slammed the trunk, dropped his keys, then swore.
I caught up to him as he dug in the snow for his keys. “Hey, you heading out?”
He was still engrossed in trying to find his keys. “Yeah, gotta make an
early start. I said goodbye to everyone else last night.”
“Well, I’m glad I caught you.”
He looked up sharply, and that’s when I saw it. My smile freezing on my face had nothing to do with the cold. Jay looked as though he had a tan on just one side of his face. Not a bit of the usual variation of human skin coloration, and it stopped abruptly at his chin and temple. Unblended, it looked like a mask.
No. Please, God, no.
“I…uh, I mean, I’m glad I got to say goodbye,” I said hastily, swallowing and closing my gaping mouth. I began to rub my arms as if trying to keep warm. Maybe he didn’t realize I knew, now, but I wanted him to get used to my arms moving, get him thinking all my movements would be this innocent. “Got time for a quick cup of joe before you leave?” I said as I backed off a couple of steps, jerking my head as if I was heading back to the hotel and he should follow.
“Not really,” he said, bending over his keys. “I gotta hit the road. Shit.”
He’d dropped his keys again, and got tangled up in his coat as he tried to dig them out. When I saw what he was doing, saw that there was in fact a gun he was fumbling for in his pocket, I screamed as loud as I could and shoved him into the side of the car.
He wasn’t expecting it, though he should have known by now that I would fight back. Jay didn’t drop the pistol, however, and I knew that my first goal was to keep him from pointing it at me. I couldn’t believe that I was doing what I was doing, but I stepped in closer to Jay, to his side, stumbling in the compacted snow. At the same time, I grabbed his wrist and the gun by the barrel and jerked both toward him with a sharp movement. He had no choice but to let go. Suddenly I had the pistol.
I backed away, a careful step at a time, trying not to get tripped up by the snowplowed berms, and tried to put some distance between us, so that if he tried anything, I’d have time to react. Despite the fact that I’d followed Jay out of the hotel with no coat, I was sweating. Again came the delayed response of an adrenaline flood, and I began to tremble.
Jay saw this and made as if to get to his feet.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said. I swallowed again, trying to moisten the inside of my mouth, which was suddenly and desperately dry. I hate guns, I’ve always hated the damned things, but if it came to a choice, I knew what end I wanted to be on. It was heavy in my hand, and I could see that the point was wobbling crazily. I still had it trained on Jay, and he could see how badly it was jumping around; maybe that would keep him scared enough to stay put, until some kind of help came for me or we both froze to death or I decided what to do next.
I guess the wildly shaking pistol didn’t intimidate Jay as much as I’d hoped. “You don’t know how to use that, Emma. You’re far more likely to blow your own head off. Why don’t we talk about this?”
“I know enough to keep from blowing my own head off. I know that this is the trigger, this is the safety, and this”—I pulled back the slide and did a press check—“means there’s a round in the chamber.” Thank you, Meg, thank you, thank you…
The metallic noise was wrong out there, under that broad blue sky filled with strong winter sun, where there should have been nothing but the sound of bright, biting wind through snow-laden boughs and birds whistling in flight. Jay got that too.
“I don’t know what you think is going on, Emma,” he was pleading, “but I just want to leave. I don’t want to hurt you—”
“Shut up, shut up!” I said, my voice sounding shrill even to me. “Stop talking. I know what’s going on, I know it was you, you attacked me in my room.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said, and it worried me that he was so calm about this. I didn’t want him to be calm, I wanted him to be worried what I would do. What I was capable of. He sounded too confident and I didn’t like it.
I was unable to suppress a nervous laugh. “Why else would you—?”
“I saw you talking to Widmark. I just…wanted to distract you from him. From me.”
“You were the one in the woods,” I said, not wanting to believe it.
“No!” He shook his head vehemently, raised his hands in denial. I watched him carefully. “This has nothing to do with you, Emma. I just want to get out of here.”
“No,” I said.
“After all these years?” he asked sadly. “You can’t do this one little thing for me?”
“What? Give you back the gun?” I felt so sick now…
He shook his head vigorously; he thought he was making inroads. “Keep it. A girl can always use a little protection, am I right? It’s not mine, it’s not registered. I got it from…friends. My friends in the woods. Just let me get in the car and go.”
I stared at him, marveling. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
“I don’t!” He backpedaled rapidly. “These friends can get you whatever you want! Name it, name anything!”
“These are the same friends you got the gun from?” I asked slowly.
“Yes! They’re very powerful people.”
“Powerful enough to be willing to shoot an FBI agent. Powerful enough to get you to attack me, and you still have the balls to call me on our friendship? You son of a bitch.”
At that moment, I heard a disembodied voice booming toward us. “You are surrounded. Put the gun down!”
It was Church.
“No, you have to cuff him first!” I surprised myself, but there was no way I was doing anything until I knew that Jay was no longer a threat.
“We’ve got it under control, Emma.” But Church sounded a little nervous. “I have my officers in place. They’re very close to you, and they’re going to show themselves now. Put the gun down.”
Suddenly I saw the heads of three very burly New Hampshire State Police officers emerge from behind various cars nearby. I lowered the pistol a mite; the more I lowered it, the closer they edged to Jay. My hand was still shaking hard. I took a couple of deep breaths, focusing on relaxing, not even on opening, my hand. Finally, my fingers relaxed enough, and I was able to put the weapon down, carefully as I could. They cuffed Jay the instant the pistol hit the snowbank and skidded to the plowed asphalt.
Then one of them turned to me, grabbing me by the upper arm and walking me well away from the other officers.
“I hate guns,” I was saying. “I just hate them.”
“You seem pretty comfortable with them, for hating them so much.”
“A friend of mine was trying to help me understand them. She thought I’d be less nervous around them.” I thought back about Meg’s carefully reasoned instruction—carefully reasoned and utterly specious, if you ask me—and shuddered. “Now I just understand in detail why I hate them so much. I don’t think understanding the mechanics of how something kills makes it any less deadly, though I suppose that knowing how they work can help you out in a pinch, you know, if you know what’s going on, you’re that much better prepared, and I guess, safer…”
I trailed off, realizing that I was babbling. The state trooper just stood there, just as impassive as one of those guards outside Buckingham Palace.
“Let me guess,” he said after a minute. “You’re from Massachusetts, aren’t you?”
Before I could say anything, Church came over. “I’d like to have a word with Dr. Fielding, if that’s okay, Hill.” He turned to me. “So why are you out here anyway?”
“I was saying goodbye to a friend of mine.” I sighed. You will not cry now, you will not. Not now. “That’s all I was going to do.”
He nodded, eliciting again. “And things just got bad from there?”
“It was just that I saw the makeup on his face.” I was almost pleading now. “I’d tried to pretend that I didn’t notice, but I guess he saw. He tried to pull the gun on me.”
“And how did you end up with it?”
“I took it away from him.”
Church laughed nervously. “Mother of—are you out of your mind?”
“No. I saw a chance and I took it. It was dangerous
, I know—”
“Dangerous? Dangerous?”
“—but it would have been so much worse if I hadn’t. I did what I had to do to protect myself. If I’d thought I was going to get into any trouble, I would have told you, just like I did all the other times.”
“All the other times you got into trouble? All those times—”
“Were purely accidental. I was always on my way to do something else. It just happened…it was just…that I knew what else was going on. I had a few more pieces of the puzzle, that’s all.” It’s not my fault, I thought fiercely. I’ve done everything right this time, as far as I could. “Like I told you about the room service and how whoever attacked me last night probably would be trying to hide his injuries. You were tracking that down, when I found Jay. I was just saying goodbye to a friend.”
Chapter 17
THERE WAS THE USUAL HULLABALOO AFTER THAT, statements and all, but I didn’t even need the information I weaseled out of Church about the autopsy to get most of the story: Jay started singing right away. He’d already given away too much to me to claim that his murder of Garrison was purely a personal matter, because of Garrison’s review of Jay’s site reports. Jay’s gambling debts had become an issue, it seemed, and he got involved with people who were all too happy to make the most of that. As odd as it sounded, an archaeologist in one’s back pocket for the right contractor is a useful thing; he has the power to move ahead with large civic and urban projects, as long as the state signs off on it. As long as no one was paying too close attention to what Jay was finding and what he was actually reporting, he had the power to greenlight any number of projects that might have been held up by archaeological reconnaissance. I’m sure that was the least of the debt he owed his “friends.”
He confessed that he’d followed Garrison out of the hotel and walked with him down the access road to the lake, trying to talk him out of what he knew Garrison would inevitably do: Expose Jay’s falsification of data to the state. I was left with an image of Jay half-dragging Garrison as far from the hotel as he could, then knocking him over, smashing the back of his head against the ice that had formed over the shallows of the lake. The anticoagulants that Garrison was taking probably contributed to the speed with which a subdural hematoma formed, keeping Garrison unconscious while he froze to death. Realizing that the chances of Garrison recovering, or making it back to the hotel, where he was imagined to be in bed, were slim, Jay had simply walked away, leaving it to look like an accident. It was one of the few good bets that Jay had made, apparently. I’d even seen him on his way back, I remembered later, hoping he hadn’t seen me with Duncan in the slide room.
