The Last Family

23

Stephanie thought that time was against the mail search’s success. After the first night Andy Lustiv started delivering Eve’s mail to the van so they wouldn’t have to show up at the post office during office hours. She placed Eve’s mail on the table and began by opening a gas bill and running the scanner over it. A few partials, no matches. She looked at Larry Burrows, who was yawning, a midafternoon slump. She took the next piece, an envelope with a condominium-development return address, and placed it onto the scanner plate. There were several prints, but none of them Martin’s. She opened the envelope, and on the cover of the enclosed brochure she isolated three good prints. As she rubbed her eyes, the computer beeped, and when she looked up, there was a message on the screen. Her heart felt as if it had stopped beating, her throat closed.

Martin Fletcher… Left index… Left middle… Left thumb.

“Bingo!” she shouted.

Larry straightened up and turned his gaze onto the screen.

“I’ll get McLean,” he said.

“No, I’ll tell Joe McLean,” she said. “This is one announcement I want to make personally.”

So what does this say? Where’s the message?” Joe checked each of the faces in the van’s radio-control room. He was holding a photocopy of the condo brochure and asking a rhetorical question for the tenth time. “We need to figure this out, people. We have to make sure we don’t miss anything. Anything.” He had just got off the telephone, having told Paul they had struck pay dirt on the prints.

Sierra was keeping an eye on the screen, which showed Eve sitting in her chair, clipping her toenails, and watching television. “Maybe he’s going to meet her in Colorado?” she said. “I mean, really meet her there.”

“Too obvious,” Joe said.

“It’s a code for another destination,” Stephanie said. “Given the level of paranoia Martin Fletcher exhibits, I’d imagine there’s a system of messages they worked out in advance.”

Joe nodded. He seemed to be really listening to Stephanie for a change. “That’s a fair assumption. Whatever the message, we have to stay with her from the second she leaves the house. She’s lost every tail she’s ever had on her. Maybe they weren’t trying very hard, but if we lose her, it won’t be due to lack of effort or manpower. Look at her, for Christ’s sake, she can’t be that smart. He plans all her moves. The lost tails were flawless. I imagine he set down the location last time they met. I’m sure the brochure just means it’s a go.”

Stephanie hated the way he had taken her thoughts as his own. Or maybe he had thought it all out before. It made sense. “We keep watching the Eve Fletcher show. And if it looks like she’s going to get away from us, we grab her and hope Martin moves to take her back from us. He’ll be close by, watching when she gets to her destination.”

Walter said, “This surveillance is like bad BBC in freeze-frame. The most exciting thing that happens is when she gets her bowels to turn over.”

Joe spoke without turning his head. “Stephanie, check all the travel agencies and airlines on the off chance that she’s already made reservations or he’s made some for her.”

“Sure,” she said, her voice barely over a whisper.

“When she moves, we have to be ahead of her,” Joe said. “And, Stephanie, run any tickets in names that might be obvious aliases,” Joe said.

Stephanie did a slow burn. Stephanie, please do some shit work far me while Larry and Walter sit on their asses.

“Eve hasn’t seen Stephanie or Larry yet. They’ll provide close cover. She’s seen you other two, but if we alter you enough, we should be okay. She’s almost blind. Martin would recognize me. We’re closing in on E day, kids-let’s stay alert,” Joe said.

An hour later Stephanie came into the room and held up the pad she had been writing on. “I have it. In two days.” Stephanie put her notes down on the table. “She’s flying to Dallas/Fort Worth with a change for Denver.”

“That was too easy,” Joe said, frowning.

“That’s what I thought, so I looked closer. There’s a suspicious reservation on a flight to Miami on a different airline one concourse over, a few minutes later. And I called the charter services, and there’s a private charter booked under that same name from Miami to Orlando. To be paid for in cash. And there’s a reservation at one of the hotels at Disney World for two days and three nights.”

“Too close for coincidence?” Joe said.

“Well, I didn’t give up there. Seems the Evelyn St. Martin return is back here, Charlotte,” Stephanie said proudly. “Also, while I was checking, I discovered mirror reservations exist in remarkably similar names over the three days following.” She looked at the paper in her hand. “E. Martindale, Milton Martin, and Eve Farmingdale. The others have charters scheduled at different services at Miami International. Haven’t checked the hotel reservations on those yet.”

“All right!” Joe slapped his hands together. “She’s planning to ditch the tail at Dallas/Fort Worth and double back to Miami. Figures we can’t follow the charter. And she could change the destination in the air, I imagine. God, we’re good,” Joe said. “Do the hotels, but once she’s on the ground, she may change all that. Besides, she’ll be transmitting.”

Aren’t we good, Stephanie thought to herself. You’re welcome, asshole.

Then Joe did something out of character: he hugged her and spun her around in the small room. “You are brilliant, Stephanie,” he said. “With minds like yours on our side, the bad guys don’t have a fuckin’ chance.”

Until that moment Stephanie had felt as though she had been doing the lion’s share of the work on the team and that he’d take the credit as most of the superiors in the agency did. It was part of paying dues, she’d been told. Now she knew he was using her so much for the detail work because he thought she was the one who’d get results. His motives were simple-he just wanted Martin Fletcher’s blood on the floor, and he loved anyone who could help him draw it.