Flight of the Scarlet Tanager

by Bevill, C. L.

  •

  “Federal agent in pursuit of a suspect,” Gower said into the cell phone. “My identification number is as follows.” He gave the number, and waited for affirmation. When the police operator told him to proceed after a minute, he said, “I need local police at Lincoln Memorial Hospital. I need a name and address that goes with this license plate number of this vehicle.” He rattled off the Oregon license plate of the rusted Jeep that Theodora had ridden off in. “And I need it ASAP.”

  The operator said, “There’s a problem with that address, Agent.”

  Gower glanced at Redmond, whose expression remained implacable. He resolved himself to convince the operator by any means necessary that the information was not only essential but of critical importance to them. “The subject is a murder suspect,” said Gower. “Two DOA’s at this location. Federal Agent has firsthand knowledge. The information is priority one. We can’t wait for some judge to pull out a subpoena on this one, Operator. If you can’t give me the name and address, then put me on with someone who can.”

  The operator hesitated, her voice quavered. “It’s not that, Agent. It’s that there’s a block on that address. Get this. National Security Agency’s involved. It’s a family member. I need clearance for that.”

  “Then get it. Time is running out. And you’re responsible.”

  •

  Teddy was biting her lip in mute frustration. “This is Versace,” she declared impatiently.

  Fitch was sitting on the floor behind her. His arms were supporting his head as he leaned against the back of the closet. She’d told him to sit down and he’d done just that, managing to look as if he was imminently comfortable. He tilted his head so he could see what she had her hand on. It was a sparkling green dress. “Yep. That’s what it is. Normally, I wouldn’t have known that, but I ended up replacing one of Edana’s dresses after...well, let’s just say that the price tag of a dress does not necessarily reflect quality of material. So in any case, I had to break open my piggy bank to replace the one I ruined.” He was intently studying her face for a reaction. “Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t wearing it or anything. I was just interested in the properties of a dress that cost a hundred times more than something you could buy at oh, Sears. Edana was pissed. She had worn it to Obama’s inauguration.”

  Teddy didn’t say anything. She let go of the dress and started flipping through a rack of clothing. Most of the dresses were about the same level. “Karan. Gucci. Chanel. Where does she wear it around here? Grunion runs? Walking on the beach?”

  There was a hoarse shout of laughter. Fitch fought to compose himself as he pictured his stepmother actually making contact with something as terrestrial as sand. “Edana? Exercise for her is an escalator at the mall. I think my father has to blackmail her to get her to come to the beach.” He raised his voice in what was obviously an attempt to imitate the unknown woman, “ ‘All that sun. Good God, it’s just not done. It’s unseemly. I might get a tan line.’” He hesitated and added, “She’s my stepmother.”

  “I can see you’re bothered inordinately,” Teddy interjected. “Does she have any jeans? T-shirts. I’m kind of on a time crunch right now.”

  “Maybe you should just hang out here,” he suggested. Then Fitch could have bit his own lip. He had an agreement with his father. One of the main tenets of the agreement was: Thou shall not get into trouble. There had been specifics mentioned by his father: No DUIs. No partying in the beach house. No drunken escapades at Dirty Nellie’s Raw Oyster Club in Lincoln City. No arguing with Jack Macintosh at Macintosh and Associates. No brawls at the beach over buxom beach bunnies. No more doing what he had done to get himself exiled in the first place. And Fitch was pretty sure that aiding and abetting Miss Teddy Smith, even if she was a hottie, was probably an unwritten tenet on the agreement, coming under the you-should-have-known-better-catch-all classification.

  Spying a pile of clothing on the floor, tucked behind a row of shoes costing enough to feed some countries in Africa for a year, Teddy lauded success. Jeans. White button-down shirt. Tennis shoes. Glorioski. “Your stepmother must have been slumming, buddy.”

  “Huh?” Fitch tilted his head the other way. “Oh, that. She probably wore those once. Dad talked her into going out on the Tettinger’s yacht. You know, I can see your butt again.” Her head whipped around, and he deftly added, “Not that I was looking.”

  “I don’t suppose you know where the Tettinger’s yacht is right now?” Teddy asked hopefully.

  “Yeah, sure,” Fitch nodded firmly up and down. She waited. “The French Med. Old man Tettinger had it taken over there by a crew this summer. They went down to the Panama Canal, through the Gulf, and then went across the Atlantic. He talked to me about crewing for him, taking it across, that is, until Dad mentioned some unfortunate incidents in my past that changed his mind. He and the missus are staying near Monaco for the winter. What do you need a boat for, anyway?”

  “You know those men? The ones who are interested in me...to extremes.”

  “I saw one.”

  “Well, he and his bud want to catch up to me.” Teddy turned around and shucked her legs into the jeans without dropping the Glock or lifting the hospital gown. Fitch was disappointed, although it did cross his mind that he was thinking like a fifteen year old with an eternal hard-on.

  “Any particular reason?”

  Teddy bared her teeth in an emotionless smile. “Does it make a difference?”

  Suddenly, Fitch got it. Sure she’d saved the little boy, but she was mental. Mental. Mental. Mental. Imagining people chasing her, when it was just hospital staff trying to keep her from hurting herself. That was it. He could just stall her for a while, until they got to an area where one of the panic buttons were, and he could surreptitiously engage that alarm. Then the security people would come, they could delay her for a time. She’d go back to the hospital where they would give her lots and lots of psychoactive drugs.

  He stilled for a moment. But what about the silencer? What about her knowledge about guns and security systems? What about that, buddy-boy? What kind of psycho-super-militant-bitch jumps off a four-story bridge to save anyone’s life at the risk of her own? There’s more to it. And the guy at the hospital was wearing a suit, what kind of security dude wears a freaking suit? What kind of psycho-super-militant-bitch knows about Versace, Donna Karan, Chanel?

  “He was standing in the road,” Teddy muttered, unbidden thoughts coming to her. Her eyes met Fitch’s. Hers were clear and gray. No disarray there, only intelligence, adeptness, self-confidence. It only confused Fitch more. She went on, talking to herself, reasoning something out. Suddenly, the conclusion she had come to popped out of her mouth, “God, he got your license number!” She grabbed the white shirt and said urgently to Fitch, “Turn around.”

  He sighed to himself and did as she requested, moving around as he sat on the thick carpet in the closet. While he listened to clothing rustle and her body moving to shed the unwanted hospital gown, he stated, “They won’t get here because of that.”

  Teddy went still. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, the Jeep’s registered to me. The address on it is for Salem. And well, there’s some other stuff about that...”

  “That will hardly slow them down.”

  “They’re not freaking supermen, Teddy,” said Fitch. “Besides you’re a hero. Whatever it is that’s going on, you can come out on top. This is bullshit. Let me call the family lawyer. His name is Macintosh. He’s got no sense of humor, but he’s a hell of a lawyer. If you knew what he’d gotten me out of, then you would...”

  “This isn’t some cheap, little, crappy game,” she said slowly and carefully. “These people won’t play with you. I know you’re not taking this seriously. You think I’m nuts, maybe. Sure, maybe I am, but these people. They’re coming. They’re coming here. And I have to be gone.” Teddy’s face dropped. Up to this point it had all been about her. She had only been thinking about herself. The cut a
bove her eyebrow throbbed. Her side felt like a cow had kicked her. She still had a scratchy throat that felt like it was filled with cotton balls. And she was desperate to get away from the blonde-haired man, the one with the handsome face and the heart like a piece of obsidian. The same man who had ruthlessly killed two other men right in front of her. She thought he would kill this young man. The same young man who sat on the floor of a walk-in closet in an exclusive and valuable beach house cracking jokes because he was amused that he had been kidnapped by Teddley-do-right. He didn’t know that she had made a dreadful mistake by forcing him to drive her away from the hospital.

  The nurses and doctors at the hospital. Sailor Jack and Big Bridget. The paramedics. They were collateral damage. They couldn’t be helped. And most likely people who wouldn’t make the right connections. But she’d spent almost an hour with this man. This man, right in front of her. This young man, whose name she didn’t even know. A rich young man with ties to good lawyers, a wealthy family, who resided in Washington, D.C. A politician’s son? Someone whose stepmother had attended a Presidential inauguration. Some family of a senator, a governor, member of the Presidential cabinet?

  Him. He was different. In the night time hour, when she was petrified, and running from two men who had automatic weapons and their own ties to prestigious people and agencies that could make her disappear without a trace, she might have told him something that she wouldn’t have told anyone else. That’s what they’ll think.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered woodenly. “Oh, no. No. No.”

  Fitch murmured, “What? What is it?”

  “Out,” she motioned with the Glock, adjusting the borrowed clothing with the other hand. His stepmother, Edana, was perhaps a size larger than Teddy, and the jeans a half-foot longer. She carried the tennis shoes with her and judged them to be close to the correct size. There wasn’t time to waste. Fitch climbed to his feet and she directed him to stand on the other side of the room while she sat on the edge of a king-sized bed with an earth-toned, patchwork comforter that didn’t seem to fit into the general decor. It looked like a family heirloom thing. Immediately she knew that Fitch was sleeping in this room. He liked the older things. He liked the family history of it. If she looked around she would see things that he found valuable, not the things that would be found in the other parts of the house, but things that he treasured, that reminded him of people and things he loved. She didn’t want to know this about him. She didn’t want to care.

  She pulled on the tennies, not even bothering to untie the laces. These were also too big, but not so big that she couldn’t wear them, and she knew she could run in them. That was important.

  The bedroom was one big open window on one side, it looked away from the ocean, but Teddy was willing to bet that it had some equally lovely view of the dunes and the private property that went with the house. She grabbed the Glock from her side and Fitch moved toward the window, looking out and downward. He said, “I think, maybe, it’s too late.” He turned toward her and put his hands out in some sort of conciliatory fashion, as if he were showing her that he was unarmed. “I didn’t call them, Teddy. I was going to, later. But I thought that maybe after you’d calmed down, you’d see that...”

  Fitch trailed off. Teddy was up. Both of her hands were on the Glock. She had the gun pointed at him and there was a sad look in her face. She said, “I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry.”

  Chapter Nine

  August 15th

  From Big Daddy’s Book on Birding, written by Dan ‘Big Daddy’ Sully, Roget Press, 2005, pg. 57: The identifying characteristics of the American Kestrel, known in scientific terms as the Falco sparverius, are a dark eye, notched beak, unfeathered legs, rusty back, blue wings, and a rusty-colored tail, with both sexes having two black stripes on the face. It done ranges from the wildest woolliest Alaska straights to them emerald-green South American jungles. A raptor who needs a cavity to nest, the feller uses holes in trees, small boxes, old woodpecker holes, crevices in buildings, and, rarely, old nests of other birds. This bird is often called a ‘Sparrow Hawk’ because its diet consists of small mammals, to include mice and sparrow-sized birds, but it also eats large insects, such as grasshoppers, sandpiper chicks, lizards, scorpions, and amphibians. A common hawk, this guy remains one of my favorites, colorful and aggressive, not willing to let a little sparrow go because it’s a cute feller...

  Gower retrieved his back-up weapon from the trunk of the rental vehicle. It had been no trouble to carry concealed guns on board the Learjet they’d chartered. There had been no metal detectors there. Only an unguarded entrance to the special hanger with the privately owned planes taxing up and leaving at the same time. No guards to pat him down. No unnecessary questions. It was one of the advantages of using chartered airplanes.

  It had taken some minutes to convince the police operator of his sincerity. She had checked his credentials not once but twice in the process and he had spoken to a Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy as well as the female controller. In the end it was for nothing. The address of the aging Jeep was in Salem, Oregon. “Near the University, I think,” added the operator. From the added on letter to the address, it was clearly an apartment, and at least a three-hour drive away. Gower saw no feasible reason why Teddy would have the driver take her there. It stood to reason that she would follow her former pattern of escape: putting as much distance in between herself and her pursuers as she could, and in a manner that would be the least predictable.

  “Road blocks,” said Redmond. “There are limited highways out of this area.”

  Gower shook his head. “She’s probably got some kind of backup plan. I think we should check the whale watching vendor again. She has access there. The owner has no reason not to allow that to her. In fact, the woman was more than sympathetic to the girl and antipathetic to law enforcement. See if any of his boats are missing.”

  Redmond nodded. “What about the stiffs inside?”

  The sirens had continued to the front of the hospital and there they had halted, but so far no local police had appeared. “I cleaned up the brass and took the video tape from the reporter’s camcorder. Let the local cops put it together. We can embellish later.”

  “So where’s our girl going?”

  “Away from us, as fast as she can, and in the most expedient fashion. If we can’t track her down then we’re back to checking transient homes with her photo, putting out posters with the new improved look she’s got, talking to underworld connections about the rewards offered.”

  “No local address for the driver?”

  “The operator is having a problem with that,” said Gower. “Seems the driver is related to an official in the government with a protection order on his address.” He didn’t need to say that she was obviously holding something back. The name she’d mentioned didn’t ring a bell with him as to its connections in the D.C. community. If the police operator knew something about the driver of the Jeep, it stood to reason that the local police would also be privy to that information.

  Redmond’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds remarkably coincidental. Do you believe our friend in Washington is playing us for fools?”

  “He’s a bit of fool himself,” observed Gower. “No, this is Theodora’s doing. She’s the one with the acuity to play this game. She’s the one who’s made herself the queen of the chess pieces. And our mystery player, the one the police operator didn’t want to give us the name on, just an address in Salem, which doesn’t do us any good, what is he? A rook? Perhaps a knight?”

  The police started to show up. The hospital was situated outside Lincoln City and fell into the range of the local county sheriff’s department. They addressed the two men in suits briefly and ascertained their identities, then secured the area and kept apart from the two agents while they conferred about how to proceed. One of the younger men finally approached the pair carefully. “You’re the Feds, right?”

  Gower inclined his head fractionally. He said deliberately to
Redmond, “Perhaps we can use the local authorities to our advantage.”

  The young deputy wrinkled his forehead. Moderately tall, with a shock of brown hair falling over one eye, and blue eyes that looked like holes punched out of a morning sky, he appeared innocent, no more than in his mid-twenties. His nametag declared him to be R. Jacy, Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.

  Gower looked up and found that the flashing lights of the police cars had captured the undesired attention of the journalists still waiting at the hospital for the girl to come and make a statement to the press. In their ranks were the nurse, Tou, and the hospital administrator, Shawn, staring at Gower and Redmond. Tou chewed on her lip and muttered vehemently to Shawn. Shawn spread his hands apart as if trying to appease the much smaller, but fiercer woman, but his eye was still centered on the agents who he’d escorted to the third floor to speak with Miss Smith.

  Unwittingly, Theodora had done Gower a favor. By disappearing first from the hospital, she had put herself into a position where they could blame her. Of course, the authorities would be asking uncomfortable questions, but they would also be blaming her. And the young man named by the operator, Fitch Lee. Possibly an unknowing victim of Teddy. Possibly an accomplice. A boyfriend? Two people who were involved in a murder, for reasons unknown.

  He smiled to himself. Federal Agents don’t murder anyone. We’re the good guys. He made his decision. He would go to the place he thought it most likely where Theodora would surface. “I’ll go to Sailor Jack’s. You go with the officer here. I’m sure he knows something about the Lee family.”

  “Sure,” said Jacy obediently, brightening at the thought of assisting the FBI. As a matter of fact, he’d never even seen a Fed before. Furthermore, the last murder in Lincoln County had been four years before he’d joined up, and it had been a domestic dispute where a woman had stabbed her husband in the leg, hitting a major artery and causing him to bleed to death before an ambulance could arrive at their location. Really manslaughter, and that was what the woman had pled before the judge. She’d wanted the man to stop beating on her while he was drunk, not to kill him. “That’s a nightly check. They’ve got their own security company, of course. But we drive by there at least a couple times a day.”