He shrugged. “You might be surprised. I understand greed.”
“It wasn’t greed,” she said. “I had to get away from Madrid, Maine. I deserve more than that.”
“There are better ways,” Calhoun said.
“There are plenty of slow ways,” she said, “and there are hard ways, and none of them are dependable.”
“And Robert showed you a fast, easy way.”
Robin chuckled softly. “I thought so.”
“Well,” said Calhoun, “it looks like you’re going to get your wish.”
She laughed softly.
“So what about him?” he said.
“Robert?” Robin hesitated. “He’s like me. He can’t stand it around here. He wants more for himself. He feels like he’s getting sucked into his family business. This was his way out of here.”
“Smuggling illegal drugs?”
She said nothing.
“Working for terrorists, huh?”
“I’m not saying anything else,” said Robin. “I’m just sorry it ended up like this.”
“I bet you are,” he said.
The rest of the slow drive to St. Cecelia passed in silence. As they approached the town, the casinos and cafés alongside the road shone bright neon lights, and their parking lots were crowded. Calhoun remembered that it was Saturday evening. He guessed folks came from all the nearby townships for Saturday night fun in good old St. Cecelia.
He drove through town and pulled into the lot beside the police station, which he expected would be a busy place on a Saturday evening. He told Ralph to stand guard over their two prisoners and went inside.
A female officer was sitting at the front desk inside the door. She had a phone tucked against her shoulder, and she was talking and typing on her computer at the same time. She had black hair, cut short and flecked with gray. Calhoun guessed she was somewhere in her forties. The nameplate on her shirt pocket said SGT. C. BROXTON. She looked up at him, narrowed her eyes at him for a moment as if she were memorizing his face, then returned her attention to her monitor.
After a couple of minutes, Sergeant Broxton said, “Okay, ayuh, thanks,” and hung up the phone. She sighed and frowned at her computer screen, then looked up at Calhoun. “So what can I do for you?” she said.
He fished his deputy’s badge from his pocket and showed it to her. “My name’s Calhoun,” he said. “Cumberland County. I got two prisoners outside I’d like to turn over to you.”
“What’d they do?”
“Killed two people,” he said. “Or one of them did, anyway. You probably heard about what’s been going on up at Loon Lake.”
Sergeant Broxton nodded. “Woman got shot in her bed,” she said. She hesitated. “Oh, and that float plane that exploded, pilot killed. That was a murder, too?”
He nodded.
“Cumberland County, huh? You’re a long ways from home.”
“That’s why I’m turning these people over to you,” he said. “They both might need some medical attention. Oh, and there’s an abandoned vehicle in the middle of the road fifteen or twenty miles north towards Loon Lake. Keys’re in the ignition. It’s blocking the way and needs to be moved. It belongs to the lodge.”
Amusement sparked from her eyes. Calhoun noticed that they were dark brown, almost black. “You got any more instructions for me tonight, Deputy Calhoun?” she said.
“No,” he said, “I guess that’s about it for now.”
“Well,” she said, “I know Chief Baldwin will want to talk with you, so I’d appreciate it if you’d sit tight here while I radio him. Those prisoners of yours. Where are they?”
“In a GMC truck right outside there in your lot,” he said. “They’re trussed up quite thoroughly with duct tape. My dog’s in there with them. I’m going to go let him out now. I’ll stick around for the chief.”
Calhoun went outside and opened the driver’s door to the truck. “Come on,” he said to Ralph, who hopped out and went looking for bushes. “You folks just sit tight,” he said to Robert and Robin. “I wangled you an invitation for a night or two at this establishment. Free room and board.”
He shut the truck door, looked around, and spotted a boulder that he could sit on. Ralph was sniffing around some shrubbery against the side of the building. Calhoun whistled, and when Ralph came over, Calhoun gave him a Milk-Bone.
He watched as two cops came out of the building. They went to the truck and opened both doors, and a few minutes later they were helping Robin and Robert hobble back inside.
Then he fished his cell phone from his pocket. From his wallet he took the card that Mr. Brescia had given him. He dialed one of the phone numbers.
It rang twice, and then Mr. Brescia’s growly voice said, “Mr. Calhoun.”
“Yes, sir,” said Calhoun. “It’s me.”
“You have a report for me.”
“Haven’t got it all yet,” Calhoun said, “but I’ve got the man who shot McNulty, name of Robert Dunlap, plus one of his accomplices, who may not have committed any actual crimes beyond stupidity. They’re both here in the St. Cecelia jail. Dunlap killed two other people this past week, and he tried to kill me. He’s been smuggling something in from Canada on a float plane. Don’t know what it is for sure. My best guess is botulinum toxin. Turns out botulism’s what killed McNulty. I’ve got a sample of it. Thought I’d hand it over to Dr. Grimshaw. She’s the chief medical examiner for the state of Maine.”
“I know who Grimshaw is,” said Mr. Brescia. He was silent for a minute. Then he said, “No. You hang on to that vial. The fewer locals we involve in any of this, the better.”
“How do I get it to you?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Mr. Brescia. “I’ll take care of it.”
“The chief here, Chief Baldwin, he wants to interrogate me,” Calhoun said. “How do you want me to handle him?”
“Tell him nothing.”
“That might not be so easy,” said Calhoun. “I mean, I’m turning over two murder suspects to him.”
“Use your judgment,” Mr. Brescia said. “Be creative. Improvise. You’re a resourceful man, Mr. Calhoun, and you’ve been well and thoroughly trained. If you needed me to tell you what you should do, you wouldn’t be working for me in the first place.”
“Okay,” Calhoun said.
“You know better than to tell those officers what you are and what you do.”
“That’s easy,” said Calhoun, “inasmuch as I don’t know what the hell I am.”
“Sure you do,” Mr. Brescia said.
Calhoun found himself nodding. “Yes,” he said. “Now that you mention it, I suppose I do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It took Calhoun about three and a half hours to drive the narrow winding roads through the middle of the night from St. Cecelia to the parking area beside Moosehead Lake in Greenville where he’d left his truck the day Curtis Swenson flew him to Loon Lake. He abandoned Robert Dunlap’s truck there, unlocked with the keys on the floor, and he and Ralph climbed into Calhoun’s own Ford pickup and continued on to his house in the woods in Dublin.
It was a few minutes after five in the morning when he turned onto his long rutted driveway. The stars had all winked out, and the black springtime sky was just beginning to fade to silver. Through the open truck windows, the woods smelled of dew and pine pitch, and they rocked with early-morning birdsong.
When he started down the long slope to the clearing in front of his house, he saw the Audi sedan parked there. He shook his head. He’d missed the signs—the bent-over grass, the tire treads in the soft dirt, the leaves knocked off the bushes that grew close to the driveway. He was tired after driving all night and eager to be home, but that was no excuse. He couldn’t afford to get careless.
He parked beside the Man in the Suit’s Audi, and he and Ralph got out and climbed the steps onto his deck.
The Man in the Suit was sitting there in one of the Adirondack chairs. It was the first time Calhoun could remem
ber that the man wasn’t dressed in a suit and tie. Now he was wearing blue jeans and work boots and a green flannel shirt with a gray hooded sweatshirt that looked too big for him, and he was holding a large foam cup in both hands. He looked cold.
“I’m gonna put on some coffee,” Calhoun said. “Get you a refill.”
“Thanks, Stoney.”
“Then I’m gonna kick you to hell off my property. I’ve been driving all night, and I’m tired.”
“What we’ve got to do won’t take long,” said the Man in the Suit.
Calhoun went inside, and when he went to pour the water for the electric coffeepot, he saw that his peace lily in its big clay pot was sitting in the sink, not in its regular place on the floor beside the sliding door that led out to the deck. Kate had given him the plant a couple of years earlier after they’d had an argument—her way of trying to put the issues, which now he couldn’t even remember, into perspective. He’d repotted it twice since she gave it to him. Now it had a root ball the size of a soccer ball, and it put out a flurry of those delicate white flowers every couple of months to remind him how much he cherished a peaceful relationship with Kate.
He felt a pang of guilt. When he was preparing to go to Loon Lake, it had never occurred to him that the lily surely would die if he left it unwatered for six weeks.
Kate had come while he was gone and watered the plant. It couldn’t have been anybody else. Maybe she wasn’t speaking to him, but she’d kept the symbol of peace between them alive, and that made him happy.
He went into the bathroom, peed, washed his hands, splashed water on his face, combed his fingers through his hair. He hoped the Man in the Suit didn’t intend to debrief him. If he did, Calhoun decided, he just wouldn’t cooperate. Not tonight. He was too tired, and his mind was still too jumbled. Before he said anything, he had to decide what he was willing to share, and that would require some clear, careful thought.
When he got back to the kitchen, the coffee was ready. He poured two mugs full and took them out to the deck. He put one on the arm of the Man in the Suit’s chair, then sat down and sipped from his own mug.
“Mr. Brescia sent you, huh?” said Calhoun.
“I came to retrieve what you brought with you,” the Man in the Suit said. “I’ve been sitting out here for over an hour.”
Calhoun nodded. “Good thing it wasn’t raining.”
“Well,” the Man in the Suit said, “I got to see the sky grow light, and I heard the birds wake up, so it wasn’t a total waste. Kind of chilly, though.” He looked at Calhoun. “Let’s have it, Stoney. I’m overdue for a hot shower and some sleep.”
Calhoun unzipped the pocket of his windbreaker, took out the vial wrapped in his handkerchief, and handed it, including the handkerchief, to the Man in the Suit.
The man unfolded the handkerchief. He held the vial up to the brightening sky. “What’s in it?” he said.
“It needs to be tested,” said Calhoun, “but I’m going to suggest you keep it corked up tight. My guess is McNulty, or maybe the girl who was with him, got careless with this stuff.”
The Man in the Suit turned and looked at Calhoun. “They died from botulism poisoning. You think this is botulinum toxin?”
Calhoun shrugged.
“That is absolutely lethal stuff,” said the man. “The most poisonous substance on earth.”
“So I understand.”
“Jesus.” The man was shaking his head. “And you were carrying this little glass vial around in your pocket?”
“I didn’t seem to have too many other options,” Calhoun said. “Now you’ve got it, and that’s a relief.”
“Where’d it come from?”
Calhoun shook his head. “I don’t feel like talking about any of that. Not now.”
“You’re going to have to talk about it,” the Man in the Suit said.
“Not tonight.”
The Man in the Suit shrugged. “I’m not going to push you.” He drained his coffee mug, then stood up. He held the vial in his hand. “This is what I came for. Now I’ll let you go to bed.” He wrapped the vial up again in Calhoun’s handkerchief and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Then he held out his hand. “This was good work, Stoney. Thanks for doing it.”
Calhoun shook the man’s hand. “It’s not like I had much of a choice,” he said.
The Man in the Suit started down the steps. He stopped halfway down and turned back to look at Calhoun. “I almost forgot,” he said. “I’ve got a message for you.”
“A message,” said Calhoun.
“A message from Mr. Brescia,” said the man. “He asked me to remind you of the importance of absolute secrecy. You must tell no one anything about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing, and what you’ve learned.” He hesitated. “The consequences of disobedience would be dire, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind you.”
“I get it,” Calhoun said.
When he woke up, the sun was streaming in through his windows, and Ralph was sitting on the floor looking at him.
“What?” said Calhoun.
Ralph just kept staring at him.
“Oh,” said Calhoun. “Breakfast.”
He got up, dumped some dog food into Ralph’s bowl, and put the bowl on the floor. Then he dropped a handful of raisins on a bowl of Wheaties, poured a glass of orange juice, and took them out onto the deck. He sat in a chair with the late-spring midday sun blasting down on him and ate his breakfast.
Loon Lake seemed far away. Robin and Robert and all the others—Marty and June Dunlap, Harry and Jack Vandercamp, Franklin Redbird and the other guides, Kim and Mush, Ben and Peter, old Leon, and the dead people, Elaine Hoffman and Curtis Swenson—they were abstractions to him now, realistic but not quite real, like characters in a novel he’d been reading.
He’d done his job. Now it was all behind him.
When they finished their breakfasts, Calhoun and Ralph climbed into his truck and headed for Portland.
He pulled into the lot beside the shop a little after one o’clock on this pretty Sunday afternoon in the first week of June. Kate’s old Toyota truck sat in its usual spot in the far corner, and there were half a dozen other vehicles parked there.
The bell dinged over the door when he pushed it open. Ralph squeezed in ahead of Calhoun and trotted over to where Kate had her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hands, listening to two white-haired guys who appeared to be telling her a long fish story by way of flirting with her. When she saw Ralph coming toward her, she smiled and knelt down so he could lick her face.
Then she looked over toward the door, where Calhoun was standing. She gave him a quick half-smile that he didn’t know how to interpret, rubbed Ralph’s ears, stood up, and returned her attention to the two white-haired guys.
Calhoun wandered toward the back of the shop. Adrian was at the fly bins talking with a bald man and a young blond woman who might have been father and daughter. When he saw Calhoun, Adrian jerked his chin at him.
He nodded to Adrian and went into his office. His desktop had been cleaned off. He supposed Adrian had been using his phone and computer while he was gone.
He sat in his chair and checked the phone for messages.
There were none.
Ralph came wandering in. He went over to his dog bed in the corner, turned around three or four times, lay down on it, sighed, and closed his eyes.
A minute later Kate came in. She sat on the wooden armchair across from his desk and looked at him. She was neither smiling nor frowning. Calhoun couldn’t read her expression.
“You’re back?” she said. She was, if anything, even prettier than he’d remembered.
“Ayup.”
“For good, I mean?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nodded. “I’m glad.”
“Thanks for taking care of my plant,” Calhoun said. “I guess it would’ve died of thirst otherwise.”
“Your peace lily,” she said. “I didn’t want it to die.”
<
br /> Calhoun smiled. “You’re talking to me. Did you notice?”
“I know,” she said. “I hadn’t decided whether I would or not. Then you showed up, and not talking to you didn’t make sense anymore.”
“Did it ever make sense?”
“When I figured you might never be coming back?” She nodded. “When I guessed you were off doing something dangerous that could get you killed?” She nodded again. “Bet your ass it made sense.”
“Well,” he said, “here I am. I didn’t get killed.”
“You gonna tell me about it?”
He shook his head.
She blew out a quick, exasperated breath. “Well, Jesus Christ, anyway.”
“I can’t, honey.”
“You can’t tell me where you’ve been, even?”
“No. I can’t tell you anything.”
“I don’t get it. How come?”
“Well,” he said, “I can’t tell you that, either.”
“But I’m supposed to smile and welcome you home, right?”
“Sure,” he said.
Kate rolled her eyes.
“Come on, honey,” said Calhoun. “Don’t do this. Let’s not do this anymore.”
She glared at him for a long moment. Then she shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. If it’s something you can’t talk about, the hell with it.” She smiled. “I’m happy to see you, Stoney. I am. I’m glad you’re back. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
She stood up, went around the desk, pushed his chair back on its rollers, and sat sideways on Calhoun’s lap. She draped her left arm around his neck and slid her right hand under his shirt. She rubbed his chest and kissed the side of his throat and pressed her breast against his arm. “We’ve got to get caught up,” she murmured. “Tonight, steaks and bourbon, your place?”
“I’ll have to check my schedule,” Calhoun said, “but I think I can squeeze you in.”
Calhoun met Mr. Brescia at the coffee shop near the Stroudwater Inn on a Saturday morning three weeks after he’d come home from Loon Lake. Mr. Brescia was sitting at an outside table sipping from a mug of coffee and reading a newspaper. An attaché case sat on the brick patio floor beside his chair.
Dark Tiger Page 22
