“Nice catch, boys,” said Tatem, which he truly meant. A life jacket floating in the ocean was the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Now came the key question he had to ask them. This was the gutwhacker.
“How far from the original EPIRB coordinates are you?”
“That’s the thing,” answered Hawkins, the SAR pilot, his voice echoing through the radio. “We’re a whole lot farther away than any current or drift pattern could’ve taken them. Lieutenant, you know what that means.”
Tatem fell silent. On the one hand, this explained why the search teams hadn’t found anything sooner. The Family Dunne had never been at those original coordinates.
On the other hand, it made the situation clear to him—from a Coast Guard perspective, anyway.
It was hopeless out there.
“Sir?” asked Millcrest.
Tatem’s mind returned to the room. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Would you like Hawkins to fan the area one more time?”
Tatem took a moment, squeezing his temples as if to force out the answer he didn’t want to give. But had to.
“No,” he finally said. “Bring ’em home . . . bring ’em all home. The search is over. The area’s too large. The Family Dunne went down.”
Chapter 70
PETER WAS ALONE and enjoying his morning cup of coffee in Katherine’s five-bedroom, six-thousand-square-foot apartment on Park Avenue, but not for long. With the buzz of the building’s intercom he was told that Mona Elien had just arrived. Fuckin’ great. Wonderful.
Peter’s first condolence call was from probably the last person he wanted to see right now. Especially one-on-one in Katherine’s apartment.
Despite their socializing together on numerous occasions, Peter didn’t truly know Katherine’s best friend all that well, nor did he want to. It was nothing personal. Rather, it was professional.
Mona was a New York shrink. Peter hated shrinks, from any city. He had ever since he was a kid.
When Peter was twelve and growing up in Larchmont, his parents had caught him stealing from their wallets. His excuse was that his allowance wasn’t big enough. They grounded him. At the same time they doubled his allowance, their loopy thought being that he would no longer be tempted to steal. A few months later, though, they caught Peter at their wallets again. That’s when they realized it didn’t matter how much money they gave him. Enough would never be enough for their troubled son.
He had to have more.
So they took Peter to see a psychiatrist. When that shrink couldn’t get through to him, they dragged him to another. And another.
By then Peter loathed psychiatrists. He thought they were nothing more than smooth-talking, note-taking phonies asking bullshit questions like “How does that make you feel?”
He couldn’t stand being in the same room with them anymore. There was only one way out, he decided.
Lie to them.
Peter told his next shrink exactly what he figured she wanted to hear. He said he had stolen the money to get attention from his parents, but now he was sorry he had caused them so much pain and worry.
It worked. What’s more, it changed his life. Peter realized for the first time that he could lie with the best of them, and that he was born to be a lawyer.
A damn successful one, too. In fact, before meeting Katherine Dunne, he had been taking down over $2 million a year. That was enough for anyone to live on comfortably.
Unfortunately for Katherine and her kids, it wasn’t enough for Peter.
He had to have more.
He was well on his way to getting it, too. All he had to do was stick to his game plan. Next up? Conning Katherine’s friends and relatives as he had that psychiatrist when he was just a kid.
How fitting that Mona Elien would be first.
A shrink.
Let the session begin.
Chapter 71
THE APARTMENT’S DOORBELL sounded with an elegant chime, which he despised and would change within the week. He’d do the same to the chimes at Katherine’s country house up in Chappaqua.
As Peter went to greet Mona, he stopped first in front of a gold-leaf mirror in the marble foyer. He wanted to make sure he looked sufficiently bereaved.
Not quite convinced by what he saw in the mirror, Peter furiously rubbed his eyes for a few seconds to make them good and red, as if he’d been crying half the night.
There. Much better.
“Thank you for coming, Mona,” he said, opening the door.
She didn’t respond. All she did was stare at him for what seemed like an eternity. There were no tears from her, no consoling hugs. Finally she spoke.
“I know what you’ve done,” she said.
“Excuse me?” asked Peter.
It was pure reflex. He had heard her perfectly. He just couldn’t believe she’d actually said it.
Relax, there’s no way she could know . . . Right?
Mona held his gaze as she entered the apartment. She put her handbag down on the silk-tufted bench below the mirror in the foyer. “I can see it in your eyes,” she said. “The guilt.”
“Guilt?”
“Yes. You’ve been blaming yourself ever since Katherine and the kids disappeared. As if somehow things would’ve been different if you had gone with them.”
“Oh,” said Peter, barely able to contain his relief. Silly rabbit. The shrink is just being a shrink.
“It’s a very common reaction, Peter,” Mona continued. “But you have to know that you’re not to blame for this tragedy. It’s not your fault, not at all.”
Peter didn’t skip a beat. If he had, he might have actually laughed out loud. “I know, I know,” he said with a slow, gloomy nod. “But it’s been so damn hard.”
With that, he shot Mona a helpless look, and she promptly responded by giving him a hug. It was like Pavlov’s dog. Or was that Peter’s dog?
For good measure, he was about to turn on the waterworks when he realized that she’d beat him to it. Her crying just happened to be genuine.
She pulled back finally. “Oh, God, look at me, I’m a sobbing mess,” she said, wiping away a tear. What little mascara she was wearing had smudged beneath her eyes. She could feel it. “Let me go check on the damage.”
Mona knew every room of Katherine’s apartment, including the half-bath off the foyer. She closed the door behind her.
For a second Peter simply stood there, twiddling his thumbs. The next second he was eyeing her handbag on the table. Insane, but he couldn’t help himself.
Quickly he approached the bag, intent on finding her wallet. Whatever cash she had, he’d take only what she wouldn’t miss.
What a rush! She could come out at any second! She could catch him in the act!
Suddenly his hand froze. He saw something next to her wallet.
It was turned on.
Chapter 72
AN HOUR LATER Peter was walking south along Park Avenue. His mind was elsewhere, though.
A tape recorder? Why would Mona Elien be taping our conversation? What is the bitch up to?
He didn’t know anything beyond the obvious—that she indeed must suspect him of something. Or, at the very least, she didn’t trust him.
All the more reason to be doing what he was about to do next, just to be safe.
Peter cut over to Fifth Avenue and continued south for ten blocks, until straight ahead was the fountain outside the famous Plaza Hotel. Hordes of tourists and other people on their lunch breaks were using the perimeter of the fountain as a giant circular bench. Today was no different from any other.
Good. Perfect for his purposes. Lots and lots of witnesses!
Peter was wearing a red jacket and a baseball cap featuring the near ubiquitous half Lab, half boxer logo of the Black Dog Tavern on Martha’s Vineyard. He and Katherine had visited the pub—but hell, so had he and Bailey.
A mere block away from the fountain now, he gave a quick tug on the cap, pulling it down tight above his
eyes—so tight, in fact, that he almost didn’t see the two cops standing on the far corner chatting to a hot dog vendor.
But he was glad he did spot them. Very glad. He wrote them right into the script.
How lucky can one guy get? I guess the good Lord must be looking down fondly on me.
With a few quick glances, Peter scanned the sidewalk in front of the fountain, checking to see who was walking toward him. His eyes breezed over the women and children, as well as anyone who looked older than him. It had to be a guy, and a younger male at that.
Bingo! There you are.
Peter spotted him about thirty yards away. Baggy jeans, T-shirt, Timberland boots, scowl.
Mr. Timberland was maybe in his late twenties—lean and fit, but definitely not a gym rat by any means. More important, he had that look on his face—the expressionless, dead stare that suggested he was a little annoyed with the world, if not outright pissed at it.
In short, Mr. Timberland wasn’t about to take any shit from anybody on the street. Peter included.
Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, Peter removed a small sterling silver flask filled with Jack Daniel’s. Without breaking stride, he gave the cap a twist and promptly swigged about four or five ounces of pure liquid courage.
It was showtime!
Chapter 73
PETER IMMEDIATELY CUT a hard angle across the sidewalk, lining himself up directly in Mr. Timberland’s path. The distance between them quickly diminished until they were just steps apart. At the last second Peter steeled himself, and then he walked right into the guy.
Smack!
The two men collided hard, shoulder to shoulder. Before the guy even knew what—or who—hit him, Peter added insult to injury.
“Watch where you’re going, asshole!” he barked.
“Excuse me?” the guy called out. The words were polite, but not the tone. Far from it. Mr. Timberland was ticked off good already.
Peter stopped and turned around to face him. “You heard me!” he shot back.
“That’s right, I did. What the hell’s your problem?”
Peter jabbed his finger close to the man’s face. “Right now it’s you!”
Peter could feel the eyes of several people around the fountain staring out over their stale tuna-fish sandwiches. They were beginning to take notice of this little altercation.
Peter didn’t look at any of them. He kept his eyes squarely on Timberland, who was beginning to edge toward him. Within seconds they were toe to toe.
“Why don’t you chill out, man?” said the guy.
Fat chance.
The only thing Peter had to make sure of now was whether he’d truly picked the right mark. It wasn’t just whether the guy could take a punch, but whether he could throw one in return. Hopefully, a lot more than one.
It was time to press some buttons with this guy.
More important, it was time to press some buttons with the press.
“What are you, some kind of tough guy?” said Peter. “ ’Cause you look more like a pussy to me.”
“What the hell did you call me?”
“You deaf or something? I called you a pussy, you pussy.”
Peter watched as the guy’s face flushed bright red. His nostrils flared; the veins in his neck were bulging against his skin.
Yeah, he’d picked the right guy, all right. Just as with jury selection, his instincts were golden.
Peter, a southpaw, reared back, his left hand balled into a tight fist. As he let it fly, he could hear the collective gasps of all the witnesses gathered around the fountain. When the cops asked who threw the first punch, there would be no doubt. A unanimous verdict for sure.
Crack!
Peter’s knuckles connected with Timberland’s jaw, sending him staggering back in his boots across the sidewalk. The guy was dazed and wobbly, but he didn’t go down.
Not yet.
Peter lunged forward and followed up his first punch with a couple more. “Stop!” a few good citizens pleaded. “For God’s sake, stop!”
Peter ignored the looky-loos. If anything, the voices just egged him on. He did love an audience.
As blood leaked from Timberland’s nose, Peter kept pummeling away until finally the guy went down.
Peter yelled at him. “C’MON, YOU ASSHOLE, GET THE FUCK UP! FIGHT, YOU BASTARD!”
That’s exactly what the guy did.
He pushed up and charged Peter like a bull, wrapping both arms around his red jacket and taking him down in a flash. Faster still were the guy’s fists as they connected one after the other with Peter’s head as he lay flat on his back.
Peter could easily have lifted his arms to cover himself, but he didn’t. At least not immediately. Not until he swirled his tongue and tasted the blood oozing from the side of his mouth.
That’s when he knew. He’d gotten what he had come here for.
The two cops by the hot dog vendor were coming over to break things up.
“Did anyone see what happened?” one of them asked the crowd. The jury.
Two minutes later Peter Carlyle was in handcuffs.
Chapter 74
THE REAR HOLDING CELL at the Midtown North Precinct absolutely reeked of urine and vomit, but all Peter could smell was sweet success. His head was throbbing, his vision was still blurred, and the butterfly bandages he’d been given while being booked and fingerprinted were barely holding his face together.
But it didn’t matter. He knew it would all be worth it.
To the tune of over $100 million.
“Holy shit,” came a voice from the other side of the bars. “You’re a mess, my man.”
Peter turned to see his “one phone call” staring back at him in total disbelief.
“Nice to see you, too,” said Peter. “What took you so long?”
Gordon Knowles stood clutching his custom-made Louis Vuitton attaché as a cop opened the cell for him. After a brief nod of thanks, he and Peter were left alone.
“Holy shit,” Gordon muttered again. “I’m impressed.”
“You oughta see the other guy.” Peter shrugged. “I know, bad joke.”
Every lawyer, no matter how good he was, still needed his own lawyer. In Gordon Knowles, Peter had one of the best in New York. Whereas Peter always excelled inside the courtroom, Gordon specialized in making sure his clients never had to set foot in one.
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” he began. “The good news is the guy’s not going to press charges. Once I explained who you were and that your family had just been declared dead, he backed off—provided, of course, that you pay any and all medical bills, plus maybe a little sweetener.”
Peter shrugged his indifference. “So what’s the bad news?”
“About a half-dozen TV camera crews are presently camped outside the precinct.”
“Word travels fast, huh?”
“Pictures even faster. On the way here I heard that some tourist had a video camera at ringside. Your brawl should be up on YouTube in no time.”
Peter groaned convincingly. “Oh, great.”
“My sentiments exactly. All the more reason why I’ve arranged to sneak you out of here through the garage exit.”
“No, I don’t want to sneak anywhere,” said Peter.
Gordon raised one of his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows. He had been expecting a thank-you. “But —”
Peter cut him off. “My public image isn’t exactly of high concern to me right now,” he said before dropping his head into his hands. But between his fingers, Peter was keeping a watchful eye on his attorney.
Gordon represented the first, and perhaps hardest, test of Peter’s added insurance plan. Gordon was a right smart fellow; Harvard Law grads usually were. He was also one hell of a poker player, and that meant he was awfully good at reading bluffs.
Could he read this one?
If Peter was anything, he was thorough, and he wasn’t about to take any chances with inheriting all of Katherine’s money.
Getting away with murder meant getting everyone feeling as sorry for him as possible. The sorrier they felt, the less they could ever suspect him.
So if that meant randomly picking a fight with a bruiser in the middle of Manhattan, so be it.
Because only a guy distraught over losing his family could ever do something like that.
Gordon Knowles nodded slowly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Here I am thinking like a lawyer when I should really be thinking like your friend. I’m forgetting how much you’ve been suffering. Katherine, the kids.”
Indeed. Peter’s pain was now literally etched on his face. The blood and bruises were a very public reminder of his sorrow and his loss.
“You shouldn’t have to sneak anywhere,” said Gordon. “We’ll walk right out that front door together. I’m with you, kiddo.”
“Thank you,” said Peter. “Thank you for everything. I couldn’t do this without you.” Kiddo.
Gordon called over his shoulder for an officer to open the cell.
“Oh, there’s one more thing,” he said, turning back to Peter. “While I know this is the furthest thing from your mind right now, I received a call from Katherine’s attorney. Did you know that your three stepchildren were the only beneficiaries named in her will?”
“No, I didn’t,” lied Peter, who then shut his eyes briefly and shook his head.
“Well, that means —”
“I don’t want the money,” said Peter softly. “I just want them all back.”
“I know you do. In this case, though, I have to be your lawyer and look out for you.” Gordon folded his arms. “What you do with that money is your business. Give it to charity. What’s my business is making sure that it’s you who gets to make that decision, not someone else. Okay?”
Peter nodded slowly.
If you insist, Gordon.
Chapter 75
THE KIDS DON’T HAVE TO SAY anything to me, I can see it in their eyes. I look as horrible as I feel.
And I’m getting worse.
The aspirin in the first-aid kit is long gone. The infection has definitely spread, and my body’s literally burning up trying to fight the poison on its own.
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