I didn't say good-bye. I just hung up.
Two minutes later Dave Haskins came flying out of the parking ramp in a new blue Oldsmobile. Three minutes after that, I found a nice snug place a quarter mile behind him on the expressway and decided to settle in and find out where he was taking us.
Chapter 22
From bluffs of oak and birch you look down into a deep valley where the river runs wide and green and deep in the springtime. Every few years you see sandbag crews work around the clock to minimize the flood damage. During flood years the river itself becomes a political issue and has defeated at least two candidates in recent memory.
The marina was busy today. People were hammering, painting, scraping, washing boats of all sizes. Music from fifty radios clashed, and shouts loud as boyhood boasts floated on the soft air and then fell away like birds vanishing. Sunlight and water and sails caught the breeze. More than enough to make most reasonable people happy.
I parked up in the bluffs and got out, taking my binoculars with me. Haskins had pulled into the marina's private parking lot. Without a card to open the automatic device, I was never going to get in there.
I brought the 'nocs into focus and began following him from his car, down along the pier, past several clusters of chittering houseboat owners, to a small leg of pier where a splendid white yacht overwhelmed everything within sight.
Two men stood on the prow of the yacht. Ted Forester, tan, trim, silver-haired, wearing the sort of casual Western getup you associate with very rich Texans. And Larry Price, smoking one of those 100-mm cigarettes, blue windbreaker contrasting with his movie-star blond hair and his weary sneer. By age forty-three he had to be tired of hating people as much as he did. He had to.
It happened very quickly.
Dave Haskins had not quite gotten aboard when Larry Price reached out and slapped him. He hit him hard enough that Haskins fell back into Forester's arms. Then Forester grabbed Haskins and shoved him against the cabin. All this was in pantomime. It was not unlike a silent movie. Everything looked very broad and theatrical.
I had no idea what was happening here, but I felt certain it had something to do with a missing suitcase and with an accidental overdose that wasn't accidental at all and with the mysterious mission of a crazed woman on a black Honda motorcycle.
I got back in the Toyota and drove the rest of the way down the hills, swerving once to avoid a squirrel who sat by the roadside looking much cuter than any rodent had a right to, and then easing on into the traffic flow, flanked on one side by a BMW and on the other by a Porsche. These guys probably thought I was here to clean out some houseboat toilets that had gotten plugged up over the years.
I parked just outside the private gate. From the glove compartment I took the Smith & Wesson .38 I'd used back in my days on the force, pushed it down inside my belt, and then set off over the gravel to the yacht a quarter mile away.
The people I passed were as festive as carnival goers, smiling, laughing, saying hi though they didn't know me, standing atop houseboats watching speedboats cutting through the long miles of river lying east. There had been paddle wheelers here as recently as a hundred years ago, and now the smell of fish and the scent of mud and the white flash of birch made you want to be a boy of that era and see one of the big wheelers come sidling into the cove half a mile downriver.
When I got to the leg of the pier where the yacht sat, I touched the .38 as if for luck. They were below deck now, the vast white boat empty up top, its three red mast pennants flapping with the force of gunshots in the wind.
When I got abreast of the yacht, I moved quickly, jumping aboard without pause. Then I stood there, waiting to find out if they'd heard me. If they had, they'd come up through the small oak cabin doors. And they would not be happy.
From what I could see, the yacht had a large aft deck, an upper salon and lounge, and carried decals that designated Twin Cummins main engines. There was a lower dining salon, and it was there I assumed the three of them had gone.
Everything was given over to the wind here, the cold clear force of it, and the scent of water. I heard nothing from below.
Then a voice said, "You planning a party tonight?"
When I turned to him, I saw that he was a dapper elderly man in a Hawaiian shirt and white ducks and baby blue deck shoes. Liver spots like tattoos decorated his hairy white forearms. When he saw who I was he frowned, obviously disappointed.
"Oh, I thought you were one of the Forester party." His tone implied that I owed him an explanation for not being such.
Damn, I thought. My idea had been to get as close to the cabin as possible and hear what was going on. Standing here talking was bound to get them up from below deck. I wouldn't learn anything at all.
But then I got lucky.
A woman of similar age called to the man from down the dock. He waved to her.
"I'm with maintenance," I said quickly.
"Oh," he said, "maintenance." He said it as if he knew exactly what I was talking about. I was glad he did. Then, "My wife. She wants me to help her paint the walls. On our houseboat."
I wished he weren't talking so loudly. I wished he would leave.
She called again and he shrugged, as if embarrassed a woman would have such power over a man, and then he left. I stood there counting minutes on my Timex again, waiting for them to burst through the cabin doors and demand to know what I was doing there.
Another three, four minutes went by. And nothing.
I touched my .38 for luck again, then crept over to the far side of the cabin and knelt down and pressed my ear very hard against the thin white wall.
I hoped the next few minutes would prove I would be well rewarded for all my trouble of the past hour or so.
Chapter 23
I knelt to the left of two windows that looked down into the dining area. A single
glimpse had shown me that Forester and Price stood over a chair in which Dave Haskins sat, hands in lap, head down, miserable.
Forester said, "There's one thing the three of us need to do. And that's keep calm."
"Calm, right," Price said. "With this little bastard thinking of going to the police."
In a voice that was almost a sob, Haskins said, "Larry, honest to God, I didn't say I was going to the police, I only said maybe we should."
"Maybe we should? You little candy-ass. Don't you know that would ruin us? Every goddamn one of us."
"Maybe they wouldn't prosecute," Haskins said. He sounded painfully young and naive.
"Right," Price said. "Maybe that fat-ass mayor of ours would give us a medal."
Forester said, "That's enough, Price."
A sullen silence ensued. There was the sound of wind, the aroma of meat cooking on a grill somewhere nearby, laughter warm as the sunlight.
Forester said, "I got another letter today. Just reminding us to be there tomorrow night at ten at Pierce Point."
Another silence. Once, Haskins moaned. Price swore continuously.
"I'll take care of this son of a bitch," Price said.
"You'll calm down and shut your mouth," Forester said. He had one of those tempers you could push a long way but then suddenly no further.
"Two hundred thousand dollars," Price said. "We can't afford it."
"Do we have any choice?" Forester said.
"Oh yes," Price said. "I forgot all about your political ambitions. It'd be worth two hundred thousand to you to ensure that you got a shot at congress next time, wouldn't it?"
Haskins said, "We could go to the police. Tell them what happened. Tell them—"
Forester said, as if to a child, "Dave, try to understand something, will you?"
"All right, Ted."
"It's not so much a question of legal culpability here. It's a question of what would happen to our reputations once it got out. Think it through, Dave. Think of how your wife would feel, or your children, your friends at the office, the people you know at church. Think of how they'd look at you. In
their eyes, you'd never be the same again. Every time they saw you, they'd think about it. They might not even mean to. But they would."
Another silence.
Dave Haskins said softly, "You're right, Ted. I wasn't thinking clearly."
"If that goddamn Dwyer hadn't come along the other night at the reunion, I would have beaten it out of her," Price said. "Who she was working with, I mean."
"You sure she was involved in this?" Haskins said. "Somehow—"
Price laughed. All his cynicism was in the sound. "Somehow you don't think she was the kind to get involved in shaking somebody down for money?"
"She wasn't cruel," Haskins said.
"No, she was the next thing to a saint."
"Be quiet," Forester said. "We have to decide what we're going to do about tomorrow night." He paused. "Does everybody have his share ready?"
"I do," Haskins said. He seemed like a good little boy doing just what the teacher wanted him to.
"I don't want to pay it," Price said.
"That wasn't what I asked you, Larry," Forester snapped.
"I asked you if you had your share ready."
Price said, "Yes."
"Then please hand it over."
"What? Why to you?"
"Because I'm the one who'll take it tomorrow night."
"Bullshit."
"Then let's take it to a vote. All right?"
"A vote would be fine with me," Haskins said. He seemed to be in shock.
"All in favor of me taking the money, raise their hands."
"You bastard," Price said. "You know you can bully this little pecker around."
"Do you vote for me?" Forester said.
"Of course I do, Ted."
"Thank you, Dave."
"Assholes."
"I'd like your money," Forester said. "I'd like it now."
A pause. Then Price said, "I don't like this. I don't like this at all and I want to go on record as saying I don't like it." The wind had come up and I was starting to lean in closer, maybe dangerously close, to the window when a voice floated over to me on the air currents.
"Say, are you sure you're with maintenance?"
It was my elderly friend. He was down on the pier. I realized quickly enough that I probably appeared, kneeling down as I was, to be burglarizing the boat. He looked suspicious, angry.
He didn't give me time to respond, "'Ted! Ted, are you down there! You'd better get up here!" he called.
I got to my feet, knees cracking and stiff from kneeling, and began hobbling across the deck.
Seeing me move toward him, he took the broom in his hand and held it crosswise, like a martial-arts weapon.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I said. "Just relax, all right?"
I jumped back on the pier, trying to get to my feet as I reached the wood.
Behind me, I heard Larry Price shout, "Hey! Stop!"
The old man put his broom toward me, but I just gently pushed it away. "Just relax and enjoy the day, all right? Don't get mixed up in this."
Price surprised me by doing a dash across the boat and clearing the water and landing on my back. He smelled of sweat and hair spray and heat. He was still strong in the sinewy way of high school days.
"Atta boy!" the old man shouted, as Price threw me to the pier.
Price got his arm around my neck and started to choke me. I hadn't been in this kind of street fight in thirty years. At first I had no idea what to do. He took my hair and slammed my head against the pier once. The old man said, "Kick his butt, Larry! Kick his butt!" And then Price did something foolish, he tried to turn my face toward his so he could hit me dead-on. I surprised him. I got him one clean shot with my elbow in the teeth, and it was enough to make him fall away, and for his open mouth to fill up immediately with thick red blood. I got to my feet and he started to get to his. I kicked him once very hard in the abdomen. He went over backward and sprawled on the pier.
"Hey, that's not fair!" the old man said. To him I was the Mad Russian in some goofy pro wrestling match.
Forester and Haskins were on the deck now and running toward me.
I took off down the pier, running as best I could given knees that were none too good to begin with.
The pier was still packed and it was easy to lose myself among the crowd and find my car and get out of there.
Chapter 24
At the time we'd agreed to meet, Dr. Glendon Evans opened the door of his condo. I started across the threshold, the pines surrounding his aerie sweet on the dying day. Then I stopped. He had a gun, some kind of Mauser, and he wanted to make sure I saw it.
"Not exactly your style, is it?"
He wore an open white shirt and blue trousers with a brown leather belt and penny loafers without socks. He looked angry and he smelled faintly of bourbon. "I'm not going to take any of your shit, Mr. Dwyer. I'm warning you."
"You really think that's going to help?"
"I've done a little checking on you."
"I'm impressed."
"You used to be a cop."
"I would have been more than happy to tell you that myself."
"Cops have ways of getting people to confess to things they didn't do."
"And you're saying you didn't kill her."
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"Then there's no reason for the gun."
"Does it make you nervous, Mr. Dwyer?"
"Of course it makes me nervous, Dr. Evans. You're an amateur. Amateurs terrify me."
He glanced down at the weapon in his hand as if it were a growth slowly eating its way up his arm. "I don't suppose I am very good at this sort of thing."
"No," I said, reaching out and gently taking the gun from his hand, "I don't suppose you are."
"I violated half the ethics I'm supposed to believe in."
"You want me to call you names?"
"Maybe I'd feel better if you did, Mr. Dwyer."
This was half an hour later. We sat in the breakfast nook. We were sipping some of his Wild Turkey again. The night sky was purple and starry. Jets rumbled in the gloom above like gods displeased.
"Tell me what happened."
"Drugs," he said. "I gave her drugs."
"How many times?"
"Twice."
I had some more whiskey and just stared at my fists.
"I—I thought it was the only way I could keep her." He shook his head as if it hurt to do so. "I'd never had to deal with anything like it before." He had some whiskey himself. "You know how I told you I rode around in Lincolns growing up?"
I nodded.
"Well, it was the same with women. Never any problem. My color rarely seemed to matter. I just naturally seemed to be attractive to women and I always took that for granted." More whiskey. A sigh half anger, half remorse. "I was a good lover. I know I was. I don't mean in bed necessarily, though even there I always tried to make sure that they had their satisfaction before I took mine." He waved a hand. "I mean I was a good lover in the sense that I tried to be as attentive and sensitive as possible. When things ended, it was always me who ended them, but even then I tried to make it as easy as possible. And it wasn't because I was bored, it was just—I knew there were more things I needed to learn from women. They're the great teachers, you know, women; the best ones are, at any rate."
I laughed. "It's true. But let's not let them know that."
He smiled. "I'm afraid some of them do." Then he went back to frowning. "I'd never had anybody treat me the way Karen did."
"As good and as bad."
"Exactly."
"But it's the bad things you remember, isn't it?"
"That's what's so odd. I know we must have had hundreds of good times—but now I can barely remember any of them."
I was just letting him talk, easing him into his confession. He was eager to give it and I was eager to hear it. We both just kind of had to be in the right emotional spot. I poured him more whiskey.
He said, "For two decades I've been tellin
g men and women alike that the idea of sexual enslavement is largely a myth. Now I know better."
I said, "You must have been getting pretty desperate when you started with the Pentothal."
He surprised me by laughing. "In other words, you want me to tell you what I found out."
I shrugged. "There's no easy way to say this, Doctor, but it's not a case of you violating your ethics because you didn't have any ethics to begin with."
"I wish I could get indignant and argue with you."
"So what did you learn?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"Contrary to popular belief, drugs don't always dislodge memories, at least not the kind I could give Karen without her being aware of them. If I could have strapped her down to an electro-shock table and given her Pentothal . . . but I had to do this on the sly, of course, over the course of long weekends up here."
"And you didn't find out anything at all?"
"I found out only one thing for sure." He hesitated.
"Yes?"
"The odd thing is, I still feel very protective of her. Even after all she put me through."
I poured more whiskey.
"Go ahead," I said.
"She may have killed somebody."
I did a double take Jackie Gleason would have been proud of.
He nodded. "The boy's name was Sonny Howard."
"Christ."
"Something happened the summer of her senior year. She had repressed it to the point that she couldn't talk about it even under the influence of the drugs. But she did begin talking about this Sonny Howard, and then she just broke down, sobbing and saying 'I killed Sonny, I killed Sonny' over and over again. I had to use a different drug to calm her down."
"You mind if I open this?" '
"What's wrong?"
"I'm getting claustrophobic."
So I leaned over and opened the window and smelled the fresh pine and listened to birds and crickets and dogs. Evans started to say something, but I waved off his words.
"It getting to you?" he said after a time.
The Autumn Dead Page 12
