“No,” A.C. said again, firmly. “I want to, Ray. God, I want to. I’ll always wish I had. But I can’t. I can’t leave what I’d have to leave.”
“Well, Captain. Sometimes the choices are hard.”
She was gone. Both of them looked to where she had been, but she had vanished, like a fantasy. Black magic.
Lanham muttered something A.C. could not quite hear, rubbing his shoulder. Then the detective put his pistol into his pocket and went over to the fire. It had diminished slightly. He pushed some charred end pieces of wood into the flames with his foot, rekindling them. One of the photographs had fallen out of the fire, most of it unburned. Lanham pushed that back in, too.
He went to the oilskin pouch, picking it up and peering inside. Then he reached and pulled out one final package, removing the rubber band that held the plastic wrap around it in place.
“The videotape,” he said, pulling out the cassette. “Pierre and his friends in Molly Wickham’s apartment.” He held it up for A.C. to see—as if the entwined naked bodies recorded within were visible.
“Trash,” he said, and dropped it into the fire, adding the pouch. There was some sudden crackling, and the smoke turned quickly black.
“Can you believe it?” A.C. said. “All those people dead, just because …”
“I can believe it,” Lanham said. “That’s why I came down here.”
He led the way over the bridge and back up the path. To A.C.’s surprise, when they came to Jacques Delasante’s body, Lanham stepped carefully around it and kept going. A.C. grasped his arm.
“What about him?” A.C. said.
“Jacques Delasante? He’s dead.”
They hadn’t heard the engine start, but Camilla’s car was gone from the village. The inhabitants had come out of their houses and were standing around in little groups. An older man, gray beard and spiky hair bright against his dark skin, came forward.
“It’s all over,” Lanham said. “You have nothing more to worry about.”
“Dey be gone?”
“All gone. All over.”
The old man pointed to where Jacques’s body lay behind them. “’E something for dead.”
Lanham nodded. “He something for dead.”
A.C. nodded also, as though all were explained, all understood. Then he turned and followed Lanham into the woods.
They lingered a moment on the beach, near where the dinghy from Pierre’s boat had been pulled up on the sand. The two powerboats had drifted out into deep water.
“We won’t need to get wet this time,” A.C. said.
“No.”
“Pierre’s boat has a ship-to-shore radio. Do you want to use it?”
“What for?”
“To call New York. The Coast Guard. Those federal agents.”
Lanham shook his head.
“You just want to leave all this?”
The detective went to the dinghy and gave it a shove, moving it several inches closer to the water.
“Someone will come along,” he said. “Today. Tomorrow. There must be a sheriff’s office on the mainland. We’ll let this be their case. I really do think this is a matter for the local authorities. Maybe they’ll get around to talking to that thug you shot in Savannah about it. Our mob crimes unit can put it in the case file with all the others.”
The winds were light but steady from the east, and, once the sails were set, A.C. was able to cast off and get under way without recourse to the engine. He steered toward open water, giving wide berth to the shoals to the south of Tawabaw. Lanham trimmed and cleated the jib for him, then sat down on the seat beside A.C. He looked very tired. A.C. was so weary the ache went to his bones. He let the mainsheet run out a little, holding the tiller loosely in his hand.
Lanham clasped his hands together, looking down at the bright white cockpit floor. “This is my last case,” he said. “I’m turning in my shield as soon as I get back to New York.”
“My God, Ray, why?”
“I’d face disciplinary action anyway. I’m supposed to be working a Central Park sex murder. I wasn’t authorized to come after you, or anyone. Mob crimes has those other cases. Another detective has Bailey Hazeltine. He’s a good man, but he was working the wrong lead. He got all excited about the drug trouble she got into in Philly.”
“But you have that subpoena. Aren’t you supposed to bring me back for the inquest?”
“I lifted that when another guy wasn’t looking. They’ll issue another. Paperwork. I’d show up, if I were you, but I wouldn’t worry about that inquest changing your life any. Unless you want to identify the man in the photograph your wife provided us as Jacques Santee.”
A.C.’s silence answered that question.
“What will you do?” he said, after a moment. “You’ve been a cop all your life.”
“Not quite all my life. I’ve got that law degree. I was thinking I might take some refresher courses and have a try at passing the New York State bar exam. It would be nice to work in the law and be able to call some shots.”
“Cops call shots, don’t they?”
Lanham smiled. “Cops are just cops. They catch cases. They close cases. They bring criminals to the law. But that’s all. The rest is up to the lawyers. What people call justice, it’s all just lawyers. One of them might as well be me. Anyway, it’s about the only way I know I can get straight with my wife again. She quit the cops a long time ago, if you know what I mean.”
A.C.’s eyes drifted to the water, now all aglitter in the hazy sun. Distracted, he let the helm slip in his hand, inadvertently pointing the bow up into the wind, the sails pinching, beginning to flutter and flap, as though the wind and the boat were trying to attract his attention to something. He pulled back on the tiller, returning to his heading. The sails filled and went silent.
“I’ve no idea whether Kitty will want to have anything to do with me again,” he said.
“I think you’ve got a leg up on it. She sure seemed worried about you when we talked to her. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were back writing ‘A.C.’s New York’ in a few weeks.”
“No. I’m not going back to that. I can’t be married to Kitty and work for her, too.”
“You going to take a job with the competition?”
“That would be even worse. There’s a magazine looking for someone like me, but I’ve been thinking about something else, that I might go into art.”
“You mean become a painter?”
“No, I’m no painter. I thought I might become an art dealer. I have a little money coming, enough to make a start, and I know a lot of rich people who collect art. I’ve been giving them advice for years. I might as well start getting paid for it.”
“You could become rich yourself.”
“That’s not the part that interests me.”
The art world includes Paris. Lanham started to say that before he had left New York, Interpol had come through with a French ID on Camilla. She’d been married to a French nobleman. She was some kind of countess—if she was still married to the man.
“What did you say, Ray?”
“Nothing.”
“You said ‘Camilla.’”
“I was just thinking about her.”
“She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, or ever will.”
“Camilla Santee,” said Lanham, “was the wrath of God.”
They sailed along in silence a moment, the small waves slapping rhythmically against the side of the bow.
A.C. reached across the helm to where the shotgun lay on the floor of the cockpit and placed it on his lap.
“We must be in fifty feet of water,” he said. “Is there any way they’d be able to drag this sound?”
“Not in a million years.”
A.C. dropped the weapon over the side. The few bubbles it made quickly dissipated.
A.C. looked aft across the widening breadth of blue to the receding green of Tawabaw Island. A few seagulls were circling behind them, calling.
A.C. nodded.
Lanham put his hand on A.C.’s shoulder. “That, Captain, is something you’re going to be doing the rest of your life.”
Acknowledgments
I am extremely grateful for the assistance provided me by two beautiful, kind, and generous ladies, Dianne deWitt and Jan Strimple, who must rank among the greatest international fashion models of all time. While their view of the fashion world is far from as grim as that depicted in this novel, I would not have understood the model’s life at all were it not for them, and it’s enormously appreciated.
I owe a similarly large debt for the help given me by one of New York’s most illustrious homicide detectives, Randy Jurgenson, who is now engaged in an equally illustrious career as a movie-maker.
My friends and newspaper colleagues Lisa Anderson and Jim Coates were, as always, absolute founts of information. I am also grateful to fashion’s finest photographer, Victor Skrebneski; actress and author Betsy von Furstenberg; and my dear friends Cleveland Amory and Marian Probst for their advice and support.
This book would not have been possible had it not been for Ruth Cavin and Tom Dunne at St. Martin’s, and my wise and faithful agent, Dominick Abel.
I am grateful to my wife, Pamela, and my sons, Eric and Colin, as only they can know.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1991 by Michael Kilian
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1924-8
This 2015 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.mysteriouspress.com
www.openroadmedia.com
MICHAEL KILIAN
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.
Now the Mysterious Press has gone digital, publishing ebooks through MysteriousPress.com.
MysteriousPress.com. offers readers essential noir and suspense fiction, hard-boiled crime novels, and the latest thrillers from both debut authors and mystery masters. Discover classics and new voices, all from one legendary source.
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FOLLOW US:
@emysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom
MysteriousPress.com is one of a select group of publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
The Mysterious Bookshop, founded in 1979, is located in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. It is the oldest and largest mystery-specialty bookstore in America.
The shop stocks the finest selection of new mystery hardcovers, paperbacks, and periodicals. It also features a superb collection of signed modern first editions, rare and collectable works, and Sherlock Holmes titles. The bookshop issues a free monthly newsletter highlighting its book clubs, new releases, events, and recently acquired books.
58 Warren Street
[email protected]
(212) 587-1011
Monday through Saturday
11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
FIND OUT MORE AT:
www.mysteriousbookshop.com
FOLLOW US:
@TheMysterious and Facebook.com/MysteriousBookshop
SUBSCRIBE:
The Mysterious Newsletter
Find a full list of our authors and
titles at www.openroadmedia.com
FOLLOW US
@OpenRoadMedia
Looker Page 43
