by Thomas Perry
Harry stood in the shadow a few feet from her at the corner of the porch, leaning against the redbrick wall. “Of course you’re dreaming.”
Harry Kemple was the runner she had lost. He was the only one who had been found by his pursuer and killed, and his death had been Jane’s fault. Harry died about ten years ago, and he had visited her in her sleep many times since then. Harry was still wearing the bad gray-green sport coat he wore the first time she’d met him. He had made his living running a floating poker game, and the coat with elbows worn from leaning on a table and the pants with the seat shiny from sitting through the endless games were his work clothes. He had come to her in a hurry from Chicago.
Harry was alive only because at the moment when the shooters had burst in on his game and shot all of the men at the table, he had been in the bathroom. He had heard the gunshots and then the silence, opened the door a crack, and seen them. When they were gone he had come to Jane. She had taken him to the stationery store in Vancouver where Lewis Feng, a highly skilled forger, was selling identities to Chinese nationals who had fled to Canada. Feng had made a new identity for Harry. Years later, Jane had taken John Felker, another runner who needed a new identity, to see Lewis Feng. She had not known that Feng kept a written record of the identities he had sold, and that Harry’s new name and address were on the list.
Within a day Feng had been tortured and killed. A day after that, John Felker had found his way to Santa Barbara, California, and cut Harry’s throat. Whenever Jane saw Harry in her dreams, it was with his throat cut, and sewn back together by the undertaker or the coroner with a stitch that looked like the stitching on a baseball.
“Janie,” he said. “You always look so guilty when you see me.”
“I am guilty.”
“Sorry my being dead makes you uncomfortable. Think how it makes me feel.”
“I’ve never let that happen to anybody again,” said Jane. “He fooled me into taking him to the same person who had made your ID. I was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“What the hell.” Harry shrugged, and the coat seemed to rise and fall by itself. “Love is blind and deaf and ignorant and forgetful.”
“It wasn’t love.”
“You certainly went through all the motions. Does your husband know about John Felker?”
“He was long before Carey’s time. And you know there was no John Felker. That was just a name he made up to fool me and seduce me, and eventually, kill you and me. His name was Martin. James Michael Martin. Why are you here, Harry?”
“Because you need to be reminded.”
“Have I left something undone? Is there something I didn’t see or remember?”
“Is there something? Yes. Think about what happened to me, not what happened to you. Tonight you told Jimmy and Chelsea not to do what you did—jump into the sack with what amounts to a stranger.”
“Is that bad advice, Harry?”
“Not bad, just beside the point. What you should be remembering is what I consider the main event—my untimely death. The men who kicked down the door and killed everybody in my poker game were after Jerry Cappadocia. Mafia. The men who killed everybody, shot them through the head and chest, were hired by other guys in the Mafia.”
“Of course I remember that, Harry. How could I forget?”
“The nuggets of knowledge you should have taken home are the following. They didn’t mind killing six other human beings with Jerry. And it took five years for one of their hired killers, Felker—or Martin, as you prefer—to catch up with the seventh other human being, me. If it had taken five more years, they would have kept looking. If I were alive now, there would still be men out there waiting to cross me off their to-do list. They have what you might call a strong corporate memory.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “What I don’t know is why they’re involved in this at all. I’m almost certain that Daniel Crane killed Nick Bauermeister with the rifle that Walter Slawicky owned. I think he did it because he wanted Bauermeister’s girlfriend.”
“I’ve seen her. Plenty of guys would shoot somebody to get at that.”
“Lovely, Harry. But why would the Mafia care about a crime of passion? Why would they go looking for Jimmy?”
“Janie, Janie, Janie. Think the way they do. What do they spend most of their time doing?”
“Getting money. Extortion. Fixing games and races. Loaning money to people for huge interest. Pumping up the price of fake stocks and then dumping them. Hijacking trucks. Taking over legitimate businesses. Laundering money. Smuggling and selling drugs. Prostitution. Gambling. Murder for hire. Stealing—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of those,” said Harry. “Getting money is what they care about, so that’s got to be what Crane is doing for them. That’s the reason they have a stake in keeping Daniel Crane from getting caught for the murder. And now, for drugging the girl.”
“You can’t say what the stake is?”
“I know what you know. I’m not out there learning things anymore. I’m a leftover image stored in your brain. If I take a guess, it will be the same as yours.”
“Nick Bauermeister worked for Crane. Nick Bauermeister was a burglar. Maybe that’s what Crane does on the side—send out thieves and store the loot in his storage facility.”
“Not bad,” said Harry. “Would the Mafia take an interest in a whole storage place filled with stolen stuff—electronics, furniture, watches, and jewelry? I’m guessing they might.”
“Of course they would. And that means that they still need to blame the murder on someone besides Crane,” said Jane. “They need to get Jimmy.”
Harry pursed his lips and squinted up at the dark sky. “I imagine they’d like to. The official story would be that the fugitive killer of Nicky B. came to a fitting end. But right this minute I think the one who’s in the most danger is Chelsea Schnell.” Harry turned his eyes to Jane. “Her and the one who shot one of their boys with a shotgun. But getting revenge for him would be their second choice. Take it from me, the dead are soon forgotten.”
“The hell they are.”
But Harry was gone. Only the plain brick wall remained.
27
In the morning Jane went for her run while it was still dark. She thought about John Felker, about her husband, and about decisions she had made years ago—some shrewd guesses and some mistakes that she regretted as much this morning as she had at the time. And then she showered and made breakfast for Mattie, Jimmy, and Chelsea. They talked about how beautiful the day was going to be.
Mattie mentioned that she had gone out alone a week ago and driven into the country for an afternoon. She had found roadside sales and swap meets along her route, where she had bought maple syrup and homemade baked goods, and seen lots of antiques and hand-sewn quilts.
Jane said, “Maybe I’ll take a look around one of these days. Which way would you recommend?”
Mattie said, “I drove out on Route Four. There was a sale at Canaan, and a big antique mall place out near Grafton. And there were a few places having garage sales and things. It was fun. There were people selling just about anything you can imagine.”
The talk turned to other subjects. Afterward Jane walked into the downtown section of Hanover. She was still looking around town for the kind of people who might be here to find Jimmy Sanders, but today she saw no likely suspects.
Jane returned to the apartment, turned on the laptop computer she’d left with Jimmy, and began to scan the articles in the Western New York newspapers. She checked the Buffalo News, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Niagara Gazette, and the Livingston County News. Then she found the websites of the four Buffalo local news stations and a site that reported on the city of Akron, New York.
Jimmy watched her reading for a few minutes, and then said, “What are you looking at?”
“When I was back home, I tried to get the police moving in the right direction, and looking at the right things. If something changes, I want to know.”
“Couldn’t you check with your BFFs, the clan mothers?”
“Not a good idea,” she said. “No more phone calls until this is over.”
Jimmy studied her for a moment. “You brought what sounded like good news when you came, but you seem just as worried.”
She looked up from her reading. “It’s not over yet.”
He nodded. “You said last night that you knew more. I didn’t want to ask in front of my mother and Chelsea, but did you find out who those guys in Cleveland were?”
“I have theories. When I went to watch Daniel Crane’s storage facility, I saw two men there and took their pictures while I pretended to talk on my phone. Ike Lloyd told me one was named Lorenzo Malconi. He’s the boss of the Buffalo family of the Mafia. The other man works for him.”
“What would they have to do with Daniel Crane?”
“I don’t know. They had some men with them, and they brought a big box to store in one of the storage bays. It could mean nothing. Criminals probably have things to store too. But the box could be something they don’t want to store on their own property, or even close to home. They had driven pretty far out in the country to store their box at Box Farm Personal Storage. As you know, that’s the place where Nick Bauermeister worked, and its owner is Daniel Crane, the man who raped Chelsea. I think Daniel Crane is the one who killed Nick Bauermeister, and that they’re trying to protect him.”
Jimmy stared at her for a second, and then looked across the room, his eyes unfocused. “That means—”
“All it means is what we already know—that we’ve got to stay out of sight for a while.”
“How long?”
“I’ve been careful to stay out of the Mafia’s way in the past, and I’ve managed to keep them from noticing me, so far. I think they’ll sniff around for a while, trying to find us. But at some point they’ll reach the conclusion that it’s a waste of time because it doesn’t bring them more money or power, and leaving us alone won’t hurt them.”
“It all sounds very logical,” said Jimmy. “Are they logical?”
“It’s another dog and rabbit story,” said Jane. “They’re dogs, and we’re rabbits. The dog chases the rabbit for fun. The rabbit runs just for the chance to be a rabbit again tomorrow. The rabbit almost always wins.”
“Almost always.”
“It’s the best we can do.” She went back to scrolling down through the articles posted on the Western New York websites.
The next day was Saturday. When Jane returned from her early morning run, showered, and dressed, she picked up the laptop and looked at a map of New Hampshire. She had never been on Route 4, but she could see it intersected with Interstate 89, the major roadway that she’d driven to get here.
After breakfast she said, “I’m going out for a while.”
“Anywhere interesting?” asked Mattie.
“I’m just going to explore the area a little.”
“I can show you some of it,” Mattie said.
Jane glanced in her direction, and in the corner of her eye she saw Chelsea look up at Jimmy, and Jimmy meet her gaze. “Okay. Glad to have you.”
Jane waited while Mattie went to her room and returned with her purse. “Bye, you two.”
Jimmy and Chelsea said bye in chorus, as though they had practiced.
Jane and Mattie went out to the sidewalk, and Mattie sighed. “I’m so glad to get out of there for a while. Those two are so eager to be alone I can’t stand it.”
Jane glanced at her. “Besides being in the middle, are you okay with that?”
“It doesn’t matter if I am or not. They’re adults, and the universe works the way it works. I don’t get a vote.”
“Do you like Chelsea?”
“I think she’s nice,” Mattie said. “I like having her around. She’s cheerful and helps with the chores, and she seems to be keeping Jimmy from getting too claustrophobic.”
“Do you like her as a daughter-in-law?”
Mattie’s head swiveled to look at Jane. “That’s a little sudden. Especially sudden when you’re talking about a girl who’s been hurt so much. I’d like to get to know her better before that. Forget me. I’d like time for Jimmy to get to know her first. But I like everything I’ve seen so far.”
“It wouldn’t bother you that she’s not Onondawaga?”
“She certainly isn’t.” Mattie walked along for a few steps. “I guess my thoughts on that subject have changed over the years. Your mother was as white and blond as Chelsea. But then I saw you come along, and watched you grow up. Is there anybody who’s more Seneca than you are? You look like my great-grandmother. And you think like my great-grandfather.”
“Thank you.”
Mattie laughed. “It wasn’t meant as a compliment. But the fact that you think it is proves what I said.”
“So you think she’s helping Jimmy get through this?”
“So far. Jimmy’s lonely. He’s dated plenty of girls, but the relationships went only so long. He’s never married, and it seems to me that at his age he’s running out of chances. If it turns out he was just waiting for this one to come along, I’ll be delighted. If not, she’s still a nice person, and he could do worse than ending up with a nice friend.”
Jane and Mattie got into the Passat, and Jane drove south out of Hanover. Jane said, “Mattie, I’ve got some other things we should talk over.”
“All right,” said Mattie.
“I no longer think that the worst thing we need to worry about is police officers coming to hold Jimmy for extradition to New York State.”
“What, then?”
“I think that the men who are searching for us, and who broke into your house to kidnap you, are Mafia soldiers.”
“You do?” asked Mattie. “Why? What would people like that want with us?”
“They seem to be trying to protect the man who drugged Chelsea. I think he was the one who killed her boyfriend and tried to get it blamed on Jimmy.”
“So the way they’d help this man would be what?”
“First, making sure she’s not around to charge him with rape and testify at his trial.”
“Oh, that poor girl.”
“Yes. And they still need to have someone blamed for the murder, and that means they want to find Jimmy, too.”
“I guess we aren’t going home anytime soon.”
“I hope I’m wrong. The reason I’m telling you this is partly to get you to think differently. Trouble is not going to be police cars or police officers. And these men don’t look like the gangsters on television. They could be any two or more males between twenty and fifty.”
“You’re not exactly narrowing it down.”
“I know.”
They drove onto Interstate 89 and then got off on the Route 4 exit. They rode along the curving route to Canaan and stopped at a small park across from the local market and restaurant. In the park was a gathering of tables and booths. Local artisans sold goat cheese, maple syrup and candy, handmade jewelry, herbal soaps, embroidered hangings, and knitted scarves. Jane and Mattie browsed, and then went back to the restaurant where Jane had parked the Passat, and drove on.
Their next stop was a giant parking lot that ran along in front of a row of barn-like buildings. Several of them were stores that sold antique furniture, dishes, and other household goods. Some had souvenirs and clothing. Jane moved through them with a restless, impatient eye, scanning the cases and the walls, but not seeing what she was looking for.
Outside in the lot there were rows of canvas awnings, open vans, tables and booths where peop
le were offering all sorts of items for sale. “They’ve got a little of everything,” Mattie said.
They went to the car, and Jane drove to the end of the lot near the open-air bazaar. She and Mattie walked from table to table, but as they went on they were attracted to separate tables. Mattie looked at milk glass vessels, but Jane was always scanning the tables and cases, studying the sellers and their vehicles for something that wasn’t there.
Finally Jane gravitated to a man in his sixties with white hair and a white three-day stubble of beard who sat at a set of tables before an oversize van. On the table were duck decoys, a few knives with antler handles, some new and some used and resharpened. On one of his tables Jane spotted a worn reloading kit with a turret press, cramp dies, and decapper. On the table nearby was an old Ithaca pump shotgun. Jane pointed to it. “Okay if I look it over?”
The man gestured and nodded, so Jane lifted it and examined the barrel and receiver for corrosion and wear. “How much?”
“A hundred.”
Jane set the shotgun down again, but she didn’t leave. Instead she scanned his other wares.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jane. “I wasn’t really in the market for another shotgun. I was mostly looking for handguns.”
The man looked at her with new interest. “What kind?”
“What have you got?”
The man got up from his folding lawn chair and stepped to his van, then rummaged around for a minute and came back with what looked like the center drawer of an old oak desk with the handles removed, and set it on the table in front of Jane. He had an oilcloth on it, and now he pulled the cloth aside to reveal six handguns in two rows. “I’ve got a few things right now, but I don’t like to leave them out on the table.”
He picked up a big revolver. “This one here is nice, but it might be a bit heavy for you. It’s one of the last revolvers to be standard issue for the police. A Smith and Wesson L-frame .357 magnum. This one’s got some wear on the finish and a couple of dings on the grips, but it’s reliable and simple.”
