Third Strike

CHAPTER 19

“Collingwood’s pissed,” Parker said.

“Tell him to take more water with it,” I said recklessly. Even at the other end of a bad mobile phone line, in a moving vehicle, I heard his sigh. Parker was a pretty cosmopolitan guy and he got British humor better than most, but there were days when he simply didn’t find it funny. Plainly, today was one of them.

“Okay—Collingwood’s pissed off,” he amended heavily. “That any clearer?”

“Crystal,” I said, letting my voice drawl. “What’s he got to be so pissed off about?”

“By the sounds of it, he expected you to keep your father closer to New York, so he’d be available to answer questions about Storax.”

“Well, he’s the one who left us dangling for days,” I said, allowing my irritation to flare. “And he’s the one who told us to get out of town for a while.”

“Yeah,” Parker said dryly, “but I think he hoped you’d go to Long Island, someplace like that. Not Boston.”

“And I hoped that when he said he’d keep that blond bitch on a tight leash, he meant it,” I said, as quietly as I could. Even so, I caught an offended clearing of throats from the rear seat. Across to my left, Sean took his eyes off the road for long enough to flash me an amused smile. It was the most animation he’d shown all day.

“Hey—you can’t always control your people as much as you’d like,” Parker said pointedly. “Don’t push it, Charlie. He’s doing you a favor.”

“It was supposed to be a two-way street,” I said. “But so far, the traffic’s been traveling only in one direction. What’s he been doing all this time?”

Another sigh, longer this time. “Government departments move slowly—you should know that.”

“Yeah, well, this guy makes a glacier look positively speedy.”

We were on I-95 again, heading north. It was a little after 1:30 in the afternoon. We’d spent the last couple of hours searching Miranda Lee’s house for the missing journal of her husband’s last days—without success. Suspicious that this wasn’t merely a case of absentmindedness, Sean and I went over the place thoroughly and it was Sean, naturally, who found the slight scratches around the face of the lock on the back door, showing that it had been recently finessed.

Miranda had been coping fine until the realization really sank in that someone had invaded her home and had picked through her most private belongings. At that point, she spent some time in the downstairs loo, clutching the toilet bowl with both hands while she heaved. My mother stayed with her, gently pulling Miranda’s hair back out of the way and wringing out damp cloths to wipe the clammy sweat from her face.

Meanwhile, my father collared Sean and me in the living room. “She needs protection,” he said, his face almost as pale as Miranda’s. Across the other side of the hallway we heard the muffled sound of renewed retching. “What would have happened if she’d been here when they broke in? It isn’t safe for her to be left alone.”

“She should go and stay with friends or a relative,” Sean said. “There’s only two of us, covering the two of you, twenty-four /seven. We can’t be everywhere at once.”

“So, call in more people,” my father said, his arrogance surfacing again.

Sean just stared. “And who’s going to pay for that?” he demanded in that quiet deadly tone of his. “Charlie and I have stuck with you like bloody glue since this happened, which is costing Parker thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Not to mention the damage your exploits have already done to the business.”

“I might have known it would be the money you cared about,” my father sneered.

“I don’t care about it and wouldn’t have accepted anything, had you offered it,” Sean said coldly. “But that’s just the point. Not once—not once—have you offered to pay the going rate for our services.”

“But … Charlotte’s family,” my father said, sounding scandalized.

“Yeah,” Sean said, his face cold, “but—as you’ve always made so abundantly clear, Richard—I’m not.”

The end result of Sean’s parting shot was that my father grudgingly announced he would personally pay Parker’s fees for someone to come and stay with Miranda. It was the lady herself who turned him down flat.

“I have a friend over in Vermont I haven’t seen since college,” she said. “She just had a baby and I’ve been promising I’ll go visit with her for a few days—a week maybe. Help her out with the older boys, let her get some rest.” She gave a watery smile. “Give me something else to think about, too.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” my father said gravely, in the same tone of voice I imagined him assuring a patient they’d diagnose some mystery illness. “I promise.”

Miranda had no idea who’d taken her late husband’s journal, but, whoever they were, they’d been pretty subtle about it. Despite my father’s concerns over her safety, so far there had been no overt threats made towards her. And she had no idea when the robbery might have taken place. She hadn’t noticed anything amiss and claimed it had been weeks since she’d last looked in the desk drawer where it had been kept. She’d looked sad when she’d said it. Too many painful memories there, I guessed.

We’d left her organizing her trip and were headed back up towards Boston when Parker called to inform us of Collingwood’s displeasure.

Now I asked, “And how did he know we aren’t on Long Island, anyway?”

This time, I heard the smile in Parker’s voice at my naïveté. “He’s with the government, Charlie,” he said. “They have access to just about anything that’s logged-on to a computer—credit cards, cell phones, flight manifests, carrental companies, hotel registers. You name it.”

“Shit,” I muttered, earning me another clearly audible intake of breath from the rear.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Parker said dryly. “One last thing,” he added. “Collingwood knows that you’re carrying—must have pulled the flight details and picked up that you checked firearms—and he knows you don’t have the permits for Massachusetts. He’s hinted that he could have you both picked up just for that. If things get hairy up there, they’re going to go bad pretty fast. Just remember. And watch your backs, both of you.”

“We will,” I said gravely. “Thanks, Parker.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, matching his tone to mine. “Keep in touch.”

As soon as I’d hit the button to end the call, Sean said brusquely, “It’s obviously not good news. So, what gives?”

Briefly, concisely, I told him Parker’s latest information about Collingwood, aware as I spoke of the solid weight of the SIG at my waist. Already, I’d feel lost without it, especially in light of this morning’s discovery.

“So, what do we do now?” I said when I was done, twisting in my seat so I could take in my parents’ anxious faces. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“We go to the hospital,” my father said slowly. He glanced up, mouth thinning as the decision firmed. “We go and look at Jeremy’s records at the source, so to speak.”

“Don’t you think,” Sean put in, “that whoever took the journal from Miranda’s house will also have covered that angle? And be expecting us?”

“Probably,” my father said, frowning, “but they may well have assumed that the records were secure where they were, and best left alone.”

“Interesting you should use the word secure there,” Sean said, flicking his eyes to my father in the rearview mirror. “How difficult is it going to be to gain access to them?”

My father gave a tight little smile. “Well,” he murmured, “let’s go and find out, shall we?”

But first he leaned forwards in his seat and directed Sean through the suburbs to one of the numerous small shopping malls, and then to a particular store that seemed to sell brightly colored pajamas, if its window display was anything to go by. It was only when we got inside that I discovered the place sold surgical scrubs.

“If one wants to blend in with a forest,” my father murmured, “it’s best to dress like a tree, don’t you think?”

The question that formed in my head—how my father knew the place was even here—was answered as soon as we walked through the door. The elderly man behind the counter greeted him by name like an old friend, and asked how the bone work was going. He greeted the next customer with the same easy geniality.

We moved deeper into the store and Sean nudged my father’s arm as soon as we were out of earshot. “Is this the only surgical-garb shop in the area?”

“Of course not,” my father said, nonplussed by the question. “But this is the place Jeremy recommended. He used to use it all the time, and they should have everything we need here.”

Sean suppressed an annoyed sigh. “Yeah, including an owner with photographic recall,” he said, “who will no doubt remember us six months after we’ve gone—and be able to describe us very nicely to the police. Did it not occur to you that picking somewhere you’re not known might have been a better idea?”

“I’m not planning on engaging in any activity that would interest the police,” my father shot back in a savage whisper, trying to hide the pink stain that had risen from his shirt collar. He had, after all, engaged in plenty so far. “Besides, all we’re going to do is look at some records, not burn the place to the ground.”

“Well, just supposing things get a little more involved than that?” Sean said.

My father looked him up and down with insulting calculation. “Well, I’m sure I can rely on you to start a fire, if need be.”

He stalked along the shelves and quickly outfitted the pair of us in dull hospital garb. It was not, I concluded quickly, designed to flatter. My father was annoyed that Sean wouldn’t carry his selections to the cash register for him.

“If you want to shop, carry it yourself,” Sean said flatly.

There was a very good tactical reason for Sean needing to keep his hands free, but by not explaining it, he just came across as rude and argumentative. I scowled at him behind my father’s back. Sean gave me a bland stare in return.

I had to give my father a swift nudge in the ribs when he would have dragged out his platinum AmEx to pay for the gear. We were already leaving a trail that a bloodhound with a heavy cold could have followed through a nest of skunks. There was no point, I reasoned, as I avoided eye contact with the security camera on the way out, in making things worse.