Mercy

CHAPTER 21

Lincoln Cole had been sitting for hours in the white cargo van parked across the street from Julie’s apartment. Tell someone you work as a private investigator, and they’d probably conjure up an image of a wisecracking gumshoe with a thirst for adventure. The reality was much less glamorous, but Lincoln had had no delusions about the work when he left law enforcement for self-employment. He’d expected the hours of waiting for something to happen, and that was what he got: lots of waiting, lots of spying on cheating spouses, lots of surveillance work, lots of background checks, and lots of boredom.

Lincoln had skills, though. He was an ex-cop, after all-albeit one with an anger management issue, according to the brass who shit-canned him ten years back. The closest thing to a criminal is a cop, so yeah, Lincoln had all sorts of skills that he applied to his new trade.

As a general practice, private investigators did not operate above the law, but Lincoln was adept at circumventing it. The straight-up corporate gigs paid well enough, but the ones that required him to cross some legal lines always paid the best. The question Lincoln had been asking himself of late was where to draw that line. He was fifty, and this was really a younger man’s game. His savings were respectable, but Lincoln had no desire to live a respectable life. He wanted to be down in St. John’s, sipping piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. He had no commitments here in Boston, no wife, no kids, and he still had his looks, thank God for that, but it would help to have the cash to attract the kind of women who appealed to his sensibilities: long on legs and short on needs.

To offset damage to his body from hours sitting in his van, Lincoln worked out religiously. For a man half a century old, he kept in fantastic shape. He weighed 180 on the nose and stood five feet eight inches tall, perfectly average all around, which was good for a business that often required him to blend into his environment. Despite having a slender frame, Lincoln could still bench 225 with ease, knock out 120 sit-ups in two minutes, and he moved athletically for a guy who never went beyond high school sports. He suffered from male pattern baldness, but thanks to a nicely round head could rock a buzz cut like Bruce Willis. He kept his face clean-shaven so he could apply various facial hair disguises, which went with the large collection of wigs he owned. Lincoln put on personas the way others did pants. It was a part of the job he loved.

The job tonight was Julie Devereux. She had been his sole source of income for the better part of a week. He had no idea why she was on his employer’s radar. It was not his business to ask. He was paid to get information, which in this case required him to keep tabs on everything Dr. Devereux did and said, and to track everywhere she went.

Lincoln had been with the van the whole time, feeding the meter frequently because Dr. Julie had been out of his sight for hours. Even without visual contact, Lincoln knew exactly where she had gone. She had driven to Shrewsbury and back, which matched the plan Lincoln had heard Julie make on a phone call to a woman named Michelle.

Lincoln liked the new software from TrueSpy. It gave him total control over Julie’s Android phone. Without her knowing, he could, among other things, listen in on her calls, read her messages, and track her location via the phone’s built-in GPS. None of this was legal, of course. None of these tactics were sanctioned by the USAPI, the governing body of private investigators. But that organization could care less about Lincoln’s modest savings account, or his plan to sip cocktails on some faraway beach with leggy blondes. So screw them.

From the shadows of the van, Lincoln watched Julie turn her car into the garage adjacent to her Cambridge apartment building. Evidently the good doctor could afford a deeded parking space in the lower levels.

Lincoln retreated to the back of the van, where he turned on all six fifteen-inch video monitors. The monitors were secured to a custom-made metal rig and stacked in two rows of three. Soon enough Julie would be back in Lincoln’s sight.

In one of the center consoles, Lincoln watched Julie enter her condominium and hang her coat in the front hall closet. The camera recording her every moment was hidden inside a hollow plant holder that held a nice assortment of fake flowers. A few days back, while Julie was at work, Lincoln had entered her home and cut a small hole into that plant holder. He’d pushed the lens completely flush against the hole so there was no noticeable gap, and affixed the unit with duct tape to secure it.

Getting inside was easy. He could have picked the locks, but instead put on a janitor disguise and gained access to Julie’s office at work. He snatched her keys and phone from her purse during a long hospital shift. He installed the TrueSpy software on her phone and had copies of the keys made at a place he knew did not bother to check ID. Lincoln returned the items, and Julie never knew they had gone missing.

The feeds from inside the condo were being broadcast wirelessly, through an encrypted channel. Lincoln could access them from his home computer if he wanted. But he’d told his employer he would be outside when she got home, and he’d keep watch until she fell asleep. It was their dime, after all. Lincoln had no idea where this job was headed, but his gut told him it would involve a lot more than illegal spying.

Again Lincoln thought about his imaginary line dividing legal activities from the other kind. How far was he willing to step across? He guessed the answer depended on how much his employer was willing to pay.

On a different monitor, Lincoln watched Julie wash her hands in the kitchen sink, then rummage through her fridge, ultimately electing to eat nothing. He had hidden this camera inside a wall socket near the toaster oven, which gave him a good view of the cooking area and the kitchen island where Julie and Trevor ate most of their meals. He had used wall sockets for a few other hidden cameras, including the ones in Julie’s bedroom and the bathroom.

Lincoln thought this was a fine-looking home, much nicer than his apartment in East Boston. The kitchen was large and spacious, with stainless steel appliances, granite counters, cherry cabinets, and hardwood floors throughout. The other rooms were just as nice. Not that Lincoln lived in a hovel, but nothing about his apartment was upscale or inviting. He never entertained, and when he did sleep with women, it was always at their places, not his. Except for a few drinking buddies from his policing days, Lincoln kept few close ties. Most people pissed him off eventually.

Julie left the kitchen. The next time she showed up it was on the monitor in the bottom row, far left. She had entered the boy’s bedroom. Lincoln knew her son was with Paul, but Winston, the guinea pig, had stayed behind. Julie checked the pet’s water and food, then left that room as well.

In a different monitor, Lincoln watched Julie pee. It did not turn him on or anything-he was not sick like that-but when she changed into a nightshirt and underwear, he got a good look at her body and felt a little stir down there. For a woman in her forties, Julie Devereux was quite the looker. She was not the kind of taut twenty-five-year-old he fantasized about having his way with on the beach, but she had a respectable physique. He would have no qualms inviting her into the sack.

Anything he did to Julie, though, would require a cash payment from his employer. He could not think of one reason they would want him to do the horizontal bop, but he could conceive of other things they might ask.

How far over that imaginary line are you willing to go, Lincoln Cole?

He thought about those white-sand beaches and doing a whole lot of nothing all day long. Depending on the payday, he could cross that line as far as this job took him.