Boston Cream

CHAPTER 26

I woke up at five-thirty, my head reasonably clear and free of pain. I had a light breakfast as soon as the hotel coffee shop opened and by six-thirty was on my way back to Brookline with my Beretta snug in its holster on my right hip. I was feeling a sense of excitement that bordered on hope. If David was still at the house on Plum Island, and if he agreed to help, I’d be one step closer to finding Jenn before Daggett could carry out his sick plan.

Shana was standing outside her house in a dark wool coat. She got in and directed me to the I-95; I realized I much preferred her voice to that of the GPS. I felt a twinge of regret that we hadn’t spent the night together. I certainly could have used the release. But it was the right decision and I shook my mind clear of it. “How far is this island?”

“About forty-five minutes to the causeway,” she said. “And another twenty or so from there.”

She fell into silence, looking out the window, twisting a strand of her hair around her fingers. I asked if she was okay.

“I’m just worried about what we’ll find,” she said. “Without heat, power and everything, it will have been hard on him these last two weeks. He’s not the hardiest of men.”

“You said he had plenty of supplies.”

“Still, it’s been cold at night. Colder up there, I imagine. But I suppose he’s also an ascetic kind of character. If anyone can get by on the bare minimum, it’s him.”

“From what I’ve heard of him, he’ll have written a new research paper on toilet paper by candlelight.”

We went past the exits to Lowell, Lawrence and Ipswich and got off on Scotland Road, which bent toward the sea and Newbury. The road went south and east around the wide mouth of the Merrimack River, then took us north on the Plum Island Turnpike, the river basin on our left, the ocean on our right. As the road became narrower. I cracked open my window and smelled salt and brine, only slightly tainted by diesel fumes.

“You should see it here in the spring,” she said. “Between the wildlife refuge and the tidal flats, more than three hundred bird species have been recorded. The spring migration here is one of the biggest in the world. Zillions of hawks, shorebirds, warblers. If you’re into that sort of thing.”

I wasn’t, not now. Not unless one of those birds could tell me where Jenn was, and that she was okay.

I guess Shana picked up on what I was thinking about, because she asked, “How long have you and Jenn been partners?”

“Just a few months. But we’ve known each other much longer-she’s my best friend too, like a sister.”

“You have any?”

“Sisters? No. Just an older brother.”

“That didn’t sound warm and fuzzy.”

“Our relationship has a lot of grit in it. Bit of a sandstorm sometimes.”

“What’s the age difference?”

“He’s three years older chronologically. And twenty more mature.”

“One of those,” she said.

We drove in silence until she said, “You see the house there on the right?”

It was an A-frame made of dark stained wood, with a lot of pine trees around it. “That’s not such a bad campsite. I don’t think I’d call it ascetic.”

“That’s not the Coopers’ house. That’s where their summer help lives.”

The road to the main house was gravel but had been graded so the ruts weren’t deep. The Coopers probably had an Escalade or Navigator anyway, in case a twig fell off a tree and blocked their path. At one point the road narrowed so the branches of laurels leaned in close as if they wanted to pull on our sleeves, whisper something useful, but they just scraped against the side of the car as we eased past at low speed.

“Okay, about a hundred yards ahead-do they use yards in Canada?”

“I watch football. I know what a hundred yards looks like.”

“It’s just past that big spruce. You’ll have to stop at the gate.”

Past the spruce, a towering blue one, I turned into a flagstone drive blocked by an iron gate set into stone posts on either side. Shana got out and used a key to unlock the gate and swung it open. After I passed through, she closed it behind us, locked it and got back in.

“I’m so nervous,” she said.

“About what we’ll find?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll know in a minute.”

The road rose steeply enough that I had to ease the little Dodge into second gear. Then it plateaued in front of a magnificent house with a stone foundation and wood-and-glass front. The wood was richly stained cedar. The windows promised expansive views of the ocean at the rear.

We parked in front of the house. Complete quiet except for the rush of the water. The surrounding homes weren’t close and all seemed unoccupied. I’d seen no cars in the driveways we’d passed. No wood smoke from chimneys, no mail or newspapers outside the houses.

No sounds at all from the Cooper house.

Shana let us in with another key. The foyer was so brightly flooded with natural light, I forgot for a moment that there was no electricity and found myself listening for music, a television or other sign of occupation. We walked over a flagstone floor into a great room that included a kitchen with an island that had four stools lined up, a dining area that looked out at the sea and a living room that faced a large stone fireplace. In front of it was a small mattress and a pillow and three grey wool blankets, neatly folded at one end. There were several candles in glass dishes. A daily prayer book and a coffee-table book on the castles of the Loire. I guess it was the one thing he’d found to challenge his mind in some way. Take him away from the frightening bleakness of the last two weeks.

We padded quietly over hardwood floors as if neither of us wanted to be the first to disturb his monastic silence.

On the kitchen island was a loaf of bread, with a few crumbs scattered near it. In the sink was a plate and one knife smeared with peanut butter, and another with jelly. I also saw some over-the-counter cold medication beside the sink and some crumpled tissues in the trash bin beneath it.

“David?” Shana called. “It’s me, Sandy. Are you here?”

Silence.

“David?”

Nothing.

I looked out the glass doors that opened onto a stone path that led out toward a wood-and-wire fence and beyond that the dunes and the water. Near some grassy scrub a white tissue shivered in the breeze.

“Out there,” I said.

Out there was a grey sea under a cloudy sky. The wind whipped the water into brisk whitecaps where gulls dove and smacked against the crests, cawing and slashing the water with their beaks. The roar of the surf was as loud as racketing trains, as the waves pounded in. In both directions the sand dunes sprawled, empty except for fences to keep people away from fragile growths of piney scrub.

I almost didn’t see him because the blanket around his shoulders was the same colour as the sky. He was facing the water, where the sea and sky met in similar shades of iron. I thought the first voice he heard should be Shana’s, to keep him from bolting, so I waited for her to catch up and gave her a hand signal to take over.

“David,” she called. “It’s Sandy.”

He didn’t stir. He kept staring out at the horizon.

“He can’t hear you,” I said, pointing at the waves.

She took five or six more steps and called his name again, and he turned and his face broke into a huge smile when he saw her. Since the case started, I’d pictured him as sober, serious, studious, when I wasn’t thinking of him as dead, dying, hurt or pleading for his life. I realized I’d never pictured him happy, grinning and filling with light from the inside.

Then he saw me. The smile went away. His brows lowered and met in the middle. He stood up, letting the blanket fall to the sand. He held a tissue in his hand and the area around and under his nostrils looked raw and red. He was wearing jeans that were too long and rolled up at the cuffs and a red sweatshirt also meant for a bigger man.

Shana ran across the sand and hugged him. He wasn’t sure what to do at first, just kept looking at me, but finally he balled up the tissue and held her tightly, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds before his shoulders started to shake and he wept. Shana patted his back and murmured things and they rocked together for half a minute longer.

When he pulled away, he came toward me, his hand extended. “Sandy says you’ve been looking for me.”

“Yes. Jonah Geller.” We shook.

“Hired by my parents.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“We got here Thursday.”

“You’re very good then. I commend you.”

He was on the small side, about five-eight and 145 pounds, and his eyes looked red and rheumy. But when he smiled, like he was doing now, he really did seem lit from within. Not an athlete’s glow, and not a saint’s either. Here was a man who had known what he wanted to do from a very young age and had pursued it ardently with every ounce of his considerable gifts. There was a contentment about him I knew I could never achieve, no matter what I did in the future, because of what I’d done in the past. That he had commended my work mattered because I so admired his.

“Have you been sick the whole time?” Shana asked.

“No, just the last few days,” he said. “It gets damp in the house at night. I can’t seem to find enough blankets. I didn’t want any wood smoke so I never lit the fire. I just used the camp stove, like you said.”

“You poor thing,” she said.

He looked at me and said, “So. My parents hired a private investigator.”

“They needed to know what happened.”

“I feel terrible that I haven’t called them. I just couldn’t. I was afraid it would put them in danger. If they didn’t know where I was, Daggett would have no reason to hurt them. I take it you know about Daggett?”

“Yes.”

“After the first few days here, I kind of lost track of time a little. It became easier not to do anything at all, other than subsist and think. There were a few interesting books I could read during daylight hours. Thoughts I jotted down about HOOD and other matters. I mostly tried to sleep and stay warm and ration my supplies.”

“David, there’s more to the case now than you know. Carol-Ann is dead.”

“Carol-Ann Meacham? From-how?”

“I think Daggett murdered her. Or paid someone else to do it.”

“My God.”

“There’s more. Yesterday, Daggett took my partner hostage and threatened to kill her if I didn’t find you.”

“I see,” he said. His eyes shared the colour of the sea behind him. He stooped and picked up the blanket, shook it free of sand and wrapped it around him. Like he would have done with his tallis had he not been forced to leave it behind. “And now you have.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not planning to swap you. But he gave me a deadline of Monday. Why?”

David looked out across the dunes. “It was his next scheduled procedure.”

“On Mrs. McConnell.”

“You’re very well informed.”

“And Daggett wanted you to assist again?”

“Yes. Dr. Reimer’s wrist hadn’t healed yet and Daggett told Stayner not to bring another party in. The fewer people who knew about his enterprise, he said, the better.”

“Why did he send those goons after you? What happened?”

He looked down at the sand and swept a pattern back and forth with the toe of his shoe. “Mr. Patel’s death was so unnecessary. Malignant hyperthermia. A standard exam would have discovered his allergy. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The others had been doing this a while-maybe they were more inured to the possibility something could go wrong. At first I thought I could keep quiet. Dr. Stayner begged me to because Daggett had threatened his son. Then he called me in and told me I had to do it again, and I refused. And I guess I made some comments about going to the police.”

“To Stayner.”

“Yes.”

“How long between your talk with Stayner and the night they tried to grab you?”

“Two days.”

“He sold you out.”

“I know. But don’t think badly of him,” David said.

Shana said, “What? How can you say that?”

“Because I can imagine doing the same in his position.”

I said, “David, if you can come back down among us mortals a minute, I need you to help me find Jenn.”

“If you want mortal, I can tell you how afraid I am personally of Sean Daggett. Even if he needs me to perform that surgery Monday, he’ll kill me after.”

“I won’t let him.”

“You think you can protect me from him?”

“I can do a better job than you can. And I have help.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Tell me what you know about Halladay’s Funeral Home.”

“You think he’s holding your friend there?”

“He threatened to harvest her organs if I didn’t come through.”

“Then that’s where he’d have her. Or have to bring her by Monday evening. Okay. Let’s go back in the house and I’ll fill you in.”

As I was turning to go back across the sand, a flash of movement caught my eye: I whirled back to see David lunge at Shana and shove her roughly to the ground. Then he turned toward me and the top of his head came off in a bloody burst. The crack of a shot came a split second later. As he staggered clumsily back his throat blew open and the second shot and Shana’s scream together split the roar of the ocean’s rage. He fell back on the sand and didn’t stir.

I dove on top of Shana and pinned her beneath me as she screamed again. A bullet whined past us and I pressed harder against her, trying to shield every part of her. I reached out and grabbed David’s belt and pulled his body closer to us and turned him onto one side. He was dead, nothing more could hurt him. Another round smacked the meat of his body and Shana cried, “No!” I reached across my waist to the stiff new holster on my hip, unsnapped it and drew the Beretta. Thumbed off the safety.

The gunman had been firing single rounds at us so far. As soon as the next one came, passing over us, hitting nothing, I jumped up and ran forward screaming, firing at where the shots had come from. I kept my finger on the trigger and the rounds kept blasting out. As I ran, my eyes scanned everything in front of me and I finally saw him standing with a long gun with a scope on it, caught deciding whether to run or shoulder the weapon for another shot at me. He saw me spot him and ran for it, the gun at port arms. I fired a few more rounds but I wasn’t a good enough shot to hit a moving target while running. I stopped and dropped to the ground and fired three more as he disappeared around the side of the house. I lay there, panting, waiting, in case he was planning a sneaky buttonhook move. No one came. A minute later I heard an engine rev, and a car bolted down the road beyond the Coopers’ gate.

He was gone. Him and David both.

Shana was still face down when I got back, sobbing into her arms. I knelt beside her and put my hand on her shoulders, felt the knot of tension at the base of her neck. When she sat up, tears mixed with sand in dark muddy lines down her cheeks. “You used him as a shield, you bastard. You used him to protect us.”

“He was already dead.”

“How could you be sure?”

“There was nothing left after the first shot, never mind the second.”

“That is so fucking cold.”

“It’s what had to be done.”

“I still don’t-I can’t …”

“You don’t like it? Fine. At least you’re still here to not like it and I’m still here to deal with that.”

“Did that man follow us here?”

“He must have. I kept a pretty close watch this morning as we left town, and didn’t spot anyone. But they could have used multiple cars phoning back and forth, falling away and replacing each other.”

“I feel sick.”

“Do what you have to do and let’s get out of here.”

“Aren’t you going to call the police?”

“No.”

“But we have to.”

“If we do, I’ll spend the next twelve hours at some police station, trying to explain this to a county sheriff or state trooper. Now that David is-gone, I have to think of another way to get Jenn. I need to stay out and moving.”

“We can’t just leave him here.”

“We have to.”

Her eyes filled with tears and the muddy streaks grew darker. “It’s his body, Jonah. It has to be prepared the proper way.”

“We’ll call from the road, okay? First pay phone we see.”

“I have my cell.”

“They can trace that. We’ll call from the road and the authorities will find him and contact his parents. He will have a proper burial, the Orthodox way. They’ll wash him and wrap him and they’ll sit over him until his father gets here. Now you have to stand up and walk with me to the car. Drive back to Boston and help me with one more thing.”

“What help have I been so far? Other than leading that man right to David?”

“I need to get close to Marc McConnell.”

“The congressman? Why?”

“To show him a picture.”

“Of what?”

I didn’t say. She’d only hate me more. I walked her back through the house and into the car and then hurried back to the dunes with my camera.