Liar's Market

by Taylor Smith

  “I don’t know, Tom, maybe it would be better if I didn’t go in.”

  “Nonsense,” he said firmly. “We want you there, darlin’, Lorraine and her mother as much as me. And the bishop, I happen to know, plans to offer a special, if subtle, prayer for you and Jonah and Althea, and for Drum’s safe return. He won’t mention Drum by name, for obvious reasons, but you’ll know it when you hear it. So come on in and be with folks who love you.”

  Carrie, teary-eyed now, let herself be led into the great limestone cathedral.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Washington, D.C. (Georgetown)

  October 27, 2002—3:11 p.m.

  Huxley was half-drunk on fumes. Since Tengwall had left to drive Carrie and Jonah to the cathedral, he’d worked his way around the two library walls that held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, applying golden brown stain. Over the past couple of weeks, between surveillance stints on mother and son, he’d stripped the shelves down to the original bare oak and sanded them to a soft, smooth sheen. Now, moving from top to bottom of each section, climbing up and down an aluminum stepladder, he brushed stain with the color and texture of liquid honey on each of the thirty-six individual shelves, top-side and underside, as well as on all the upright pillars and decorative moldings adorning the units. It was repetitive work, physically exhausting, but satisfying, too, in its own tortuously painful way. His knees creaked as he rose at last from the final corner. He stepped back to admire his work, the shelves golden and gleaming, the oak’s coarse grain tiger-striping through the stain. Stretching out knotted arms and legs, he looked the place over with frank admiration.

  The tall, French-paned windows were at the front of the house, but vehicle traffic tended to be light. While other Georgetown avenues had long since been resur-faced to make them car-friendlier, the cagey residents of O Street had cleverly resisted all efforts to upgrade their thoroughfare, knowing that improvements would only increase the number of cars running by at all hours of the day and night. Georgetown drivers, Carrie had told him, knew to avoid O Street, with its lumpy cobblestones and wheel-wrecking old streetcar tracks.

  Because the traffic was light, though, the street attracted walkers, including vast numbers of students strolling off the campus of nearby Georgetown University. Across the road now, Huxley spotted a young, jean-clad couple loitering under the spreading branches of a red-hued maple. They carried backpacks and looked like students, but even as the boy pulled the girl toward him in a hormone-fueled embrace, Huxley couldn’t help wondering if they might be an FBI’s surveillance detail, still keeping the house and its occupants under close, albeit subtle, scrutiny. If so, they were good, he thought wryly, watching the girl slip her hands under the young man’s thick sweater. Nothing like making sacrifices for national security.

  He turned back to the room and started gathering up his drop cloth. The refinished oak floors were scattered with richly patterned wool prayer rugs, and he slid one back into its original position in front of the book-shelves. The sprawling wood desk angled across the opposite corner from the shelves looked like it might have seen duty in an old rural post office, its pigeonholed secretary unit and built-in inkwell providing an archaic contrast to the sleek gray computer monitor and keyboard on top. The desk chair was high-backed and tapestry covered, while a couple of deep, comfortable looking green leather armchairs surrounded a brick-lined fireplace mounted with Tiffany-style wall sconces angled just right for long evenings of fireside reading. A low wooden table between the two armchairs held a backgammon board and, oddly, an antique brass mortar and pestle.

  Like the rest of the renovated house, the room was cozy and inviting—and even more appealing, Huxley thought, now that he knew that the owners themselves had spent the past thirty years renovating and refurbishing the place mostly with their own hands. Sweat equity, Carrie had called it. The Overturfs must take great satisfaction in seeing the fruits of their labors.

  A home of one’s own—what would that be like? It wasn’t anything Huxley had experienced, not since leaving his childhood home in North Yorkshire nearly twenty years earlier. The older he got, though, the more appealing the notion became, after living in temporary digs in far-flung locales, some of them primitive in the extreme. Sure, he’d had adventures. That’s what he’d hungered for as a young man. But now, here he was, half his life gone, and what did he have to show for it?

  Generations of his family, by contrast, had lived, worked, raised families, died and been buried in and around Scarborough, on England’s east coast. Huxley’s father had spent his entire life there, working as a finish carpenter from the age of sixteen until his forced retirement that past summer at the age of sixty-eight, when his gnarled hands and battered knees, spine and ankles flatly refused to carry him through any more jobs. Still, idleness wasn’t in his nature. When Huxley had telephoned on his mother’s birthday a few days earlier, she’d reported that the old man was still getting up at five-thirty every morning and heading out to his tool-lined, thatched-roof workshop behind their rural home overlooking the North Sea.

  “What’s he doing out there?” Huxley asked.

  “Making toys,” his mother said.

  “Toys?”

  “Wooden trains and ships and what not. For the grandchildren. Some of it, anyway. The extras he takes over to the children’s ward at the hospital, or gives ’em to charity. Whoever can make use of ’em. And he made a lovely rocking horse for Simon’s birthday.”

  Simon was one of Huxley’s nephews, the youngest of his sister’s three kids. She and her husband lived in the heart of Scarborough, just a couple of miles from their folks, as did his brother and his brood of five. Simon would have just turned three, Huxley calculated, feeling a tug of melancholy. He hadn’t seen any of them since Christmas at a gathering of the entire close-knit clan, which included an extended network of aunts and uncles and cousins. He himself was one of the few who’d ever left Yorkshire, joining the military right out of school, his work in the Special Air Services, then MI-6 taking him far afield. If he’d once thought of returning to live among the relations, he no longer allowed himself that fantasy. Being around them, pleasant as it was, brought too many reminders of what he himself had almost had, then brutally lost.

  Shaking off the thought, Huxley gathered up his brushes and cans and drop cloth and headed for the back of the house. He left the tins and cloth next to the pantry and went out the back door. In the small garden, he rinsed the brushes in mineral spirits and spun them dry as his lungs took in the fresh air.

  The temperature had dropped precipitously in the past couple of hours and the wind had picked up, whipping fallen leaves into a red-orange frenzy. A bank of ominous-looking clouds was moving in from the west, probably bringing rain, as predicted. He’d finished not a moment too soon. He’d have to keep an eye on the sky, he thought, maybe walk around the house and close up the windows if the rain moved in before Carrie and Jonah got back.

  Back in the kitchen, he gathered up the tins and drop cloth once more and headed down to the cellar via a door next to the pantry. The staircase was narrow and steep, without a handrail, forcing him to balance the supplies precariously as his boots negotiated each squeaky, unforgiving step. Hewing close to the wall lest he lose his balance and tumble off the side, his bare arm scraped against the rough stone foundation, but he made it safely to the bottom.

  It was as much crawl space as cellar, really. The packed dirt floor had an uneven cant, and the low ceiling joists and steel ductwork of the central heating system seemed sadistically designed to thwack any unsuspecting skull that made the mistake of turning too quickly in the cramped space. Most of the foundation had been retrofitted with a thick layer of plastic-wrapped insulation to keep out the damp and cold, but the dank space held the must and dust of two hundred years.

  The ductwork system must have been fairly revolutionary when the house was built two hundred years earlier, Huxley thought. He had to crouch a little to avoid the fat, snaking metal t
ubes that carried warm air from a compact gas furnace nestled against the street-side wall. The gas unit was a new addition, obviously installed well after the original, massive coal furnace, which stood uselessly alongside. The big old monstrosity gave off a faint creosote smell and loomed over the dreary space like a giant, cast iron spider. Next to it, a wooden bin held a few dusty leftover coal nuggets—probably delivered decades earlier by way of the coal chute that was padlocked but still accessible to the cobblestoned street.

  The refurbished upper floors had given a glamorous facelift to this grand dame of a residence, Huxley thought, but this creaky, dusty cellar was a potent reminder of how much work had gone into tarting the old girl up.

  He stored what was left of the wood stain on metal canning shelves under the staircase, then packed away the brushes and other tools he’d been using. He was just rolling the drop cloth into a tight wad when he heard a floor joist squeak overhead. He paused, listening. The floor squeaked again. Tucking the cloth quietly away, he crept to the bottom of the narrow staircase, dodging a hanging strip of ancient, cloth-wrapped conduit—another orphaned fixture, this one left over from the building’s first electrification at least a century earlier, long since replaced by modern copper wiring.

  Peering up the stairs, Huxley saw only the blue patterned wallpaper of the kitchen wall opposite the pantry. “Carrie?” he called. “Tengwall?”

  No answer.

  “Jonah?”

  Silence.

  He started up, taking care to step at the inside of each tread, close to the wall, where there was less likelihood of audible protest. He paused briefly at each step, listening to the rustle of someone moving through the upstairs hall. The front door was self-locking, Huxley recalled. And the back door to the garden? He’d closed and re-locked it after cleaning the brushes out back—hadn’t he?

  He was just lifting his foot to the top step when a dark shadow tumbled across the cellar opening. Even though he’d been expecting someone, Huxley was startled by the suddenness of the looming black shape. He regained his footing only at the last second, then let out a gasp of exasperation.

  “Bloody hell, Tucker! Did you not hear me call?”

  “Sorry,” Tucker said, stepping back to let him up into the narrow passageway outside the door. “I wasn’t sure anyone was here. I let myself in,” he added, holding up a key.

  It was one of the conditions that Carrie and her friend, Tracy, had agreed to when Carrie had moved over to Georgetown—that the watchers would have a key to the house. Tracy had given them one, which they’d promptly copied.

  “What are you doing down there?” Tucker asked.

  “Cleaning up. I was finishing the library shelves this morning while Carrie and the boy were out.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “National Cathedral. Tengwall drove them over. They should be back soon.”

  Even as he said it, Huxley realized he’d been keeping an eager eye on his watch all afternoon, anticipating their return. He told himself it was because he wanted to have the stain as dry as possible before the little boy got back so as not to stir up his allergies. He reminded himself that he’d promised Jonah they might kick the soccer ball out back for a while if there was time before the sun set. He admitted to himself, as well, that he genuinely liked the little guy and was quite happy to give the kid a bit of much-needed male companionship as long as he was on the job here anyway.

  What Huxley would barely concede, even to himself, was that Carrie, too, was beginning to get under his skin. He’d been watching her for months now, and much as he’d wanted to write her off as that traitor MacNeil’s equally feckless trophy wife, the more he saw of her, the less fault he could find. True, her taste in husbands was abysmal, and that went for her choice of mothers-in-law, too—although admittedly, it was a package deal so she couldn’t really be blamed for that one. But back before her husband had gone on the lam, Huxley had also hated the way Carrie tiptoed around MacNeil, carefully groomed, polished and deferential, as if terrified of putting a foot wrong around the bastard.

  Ever since MacNeil had disappeared and Carrie had moved away from that museum of a house on the Potomac, though, a subtle transformation had been taking place. The shyness that Huxley had once put down to snobbery seemed to have melted away. That morning, when he’d come in and found her dusting the library, was a case in point. Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair tumbling around her shoulders, wearing no makeup, humming under her breath as she worked, she’d looked so relaxed and cheerful it had taken his breath away. When she’d settled on the edge of the desk, dangling her foot casually, watching him with those stunning gray-green eyes, he’d hardly dared look at her, so tongue-tied and flustered did he suddenly find himself. He’d covered his discomfort with grumbling until she’d finally gotten the hint and left him in blessed peace.

  Later, when she’d poked her head in to tell him they were leaving, she’d been dressed to the nines again, the way she so often was for MacNeil—polished, primped and utterly unapproachable. Thank God, Huxley had thought. Looking like that, she made it so much easier for him to remember what he was there for.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked Tucker now, shaking off thoughts he had no business thinking. “I thought you had another engagement today.”

  “Not till this evening. I spent the day catching up on paperwork.”

  “So, got a hot date tonight, do we?” Tucker had mentioned once that he was a widower—something else the two of them had in common.

  “In my dreams,” the older man said. “No, it’s a family thing at my daughter’s. I could get out of it, though, if you need me here.”

  “No, I’m footloose and fancy-free. I can do the night watch. I think Tengwall said she had a date later.”

  “She can cover here if you want the night off.”

  “No, let the kid have some fun. She’s been hanging around old codgers for months, now. I’m sure she needs a break. Can I get you—” From down the hall came a faint buzzing sound.

  “What’s that?” Tucker asked.

  “My mobile,” Huxley said. “I left it in the library. ’Scuse me.”

  He sprinted up the hall and got to the library on the third ring, though it took one more before he remembered where he’d left the cell phone—propped inside the brass mortar on the coffee table near the fireplace. He grabbed it up and flipped it open before the call could bounce to the voicemail system. “Huxley.”

  “Mr. Huxley, this is Mr. Greenwood’s office,” a male voice announced. The accent was British, not surprising. Greenwood was the cover name of the MI-6 liaison officer at the British Embassy over on Massachusetts Avenue.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Mr. Greenwood was hoping you could drop by for a short visit. In thirty minutes, to be precise. Three p.m.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “No, sir, but he was most anxious to see you.”

  Huxley sighed. “All right. I’m on my way.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll tell him to expect you at three.”

  Huxley ended the call and looked up to see Tucker’s black eyes watching him closely. “Problem?”

  Huxley frowned. “No, not really. I’m not sure. I have to run over to the embassy.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Don’t know. Liaison man’s probably just catching up on his own paperwork, looking for a debriefing for his overnight cable to the mother house. I don’t imagine I’ll be long.”

  “No problem. I can hold the fort here till Tengwall gets back. If you get hung up, don’t worry. Between the two of us, we can cover off the night watch. She’ll just have to take a rain check on that date of hers.”

  They’d been taking turns camping out on the living room couch. Tonight was Huxley’s turn on the rotation.

  “Tell her I’ll try to be back in time.” Huxley headed for the door.

  He was on his way out when Tucker called after him. “Hey, Huxley?”
<
br />   “What?”

  “You think maybe they’re going to call you back to London? Surely they’ve got better things for you to be doing than carpentry work.”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. Bound to happen sooner or later.”

  “We’ll be sorry to lose you. Been a good team.”

  “Yeah, it has. Wish we’d accomplished a little more, but there it is. Win some, lose some. Maybe next time.”

  “Right, next time. Well, catch you later?”

  “Cheers.”

  National Cathedral

  2:55 p.m.

  Carrie sat at the end of a long luncheon table. The table had already been cleared, only a few scattered china cups and dessert plates remaining on the food-spotted white linen cloth. A few guests were still milling around in the cathedral meeting hall, although most of the attendees at the luncheon following Bishop Merriam’s jubilee service had left. The bishop and his family, including Tom and Lorraine, were at the door, saying goodbye to the stragglers.

  Carrie glanced at her watch, hoping to make her own escape, but Jonah was off with Tengwall, showing her a few more of his favorite “garglers.” If they didn’t show up in the next two minutes, Carrie decided, she was going to track them down so they could say their own farewells. She felt a sharp pressure building at her temples from the tension headache that had been creeping up on her since the moment they’d pulled into the parking lot. She wanted to go home, get Jonah organized for the evening and for his next week of school, then maybe take a long, hot bubble bath. Through the window, she could also see black clouds moving in. Huxley had been right. It was going to rain.