by John Philpin
“Which way?” Jaworski asked Gilman, his voice echoing through the halls.
“The place is empty,” Gilman muttered, staggering ahead to a large, glass-walled room. “There should be a dozen clerks in there.”
“Where are the executive offices?”
“Up there,” Gilman said absently, pointing to a stairwell.
We climbed the stairs and stepped into another, smaller foyer. Gilman crossed the carpeted area and stared at a door.
“My nameplate is gone.”
“Pry open that end door,” Jaworski instructed. Gilman wandered over. “That’s Melanie Martin’s office.”
The door was not locked. I pushed it open and gazed into the vacant room.
Jaworski checked two more offices with the same results. “Nothing,” he said.
“I was here two days ago,” Gilman said. “It was business as usual. I don’t believe this.”
I stepped into the office and crossed the room to an open wall safe. It was empty except for two small, rectangular pieces of heavy paper jammed into a corner at the back.
“You find something?” Jaworski asked.
“Photographs,” I muttered, staring at the image of a woman in her early twenties, dressed in jeans and a Portland State University sweatshirt.
“Know who she is?”
I shook my head and slipped the photograph into my jacket pocket. “But I know who this is,” I said, handing Jaworski the second photo.
“It’s a mug shot. Where have I seen this?”
“Stanley Markham.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Stu, where does Norton Weatherly live?”
“South Portland, near the water. I can show you.”
“Lucas, we’ve broken a lot of laws here,” Jaworski said. “What the hell is going on?”
“These folks were reaping millions. Their operation was threatened. If we can catch up with Weatherly before he disappears, he’ll answer your question more completely than I can.”
WEATHERLY’S NEIGHBORHOOD RESEMBLED GILMAN’S. Half a dozen modern Cape Cod houses shared the left side of the road. Wind churned the Atlantic Ocean into a black froth opposite the houses.
I climbed from the car and stared at the sea.
“Storm’s coming fast,” Jaworski said. “By suppertime, maybe a little later, we’ll get hit.”
The salt spray stung my face.
“The last northeaster we had, I stood on the breakwater in Ragged Harbor and watched tenfoot waves snap mooring lines and flip motor launches and sailing yachts like they were toys. Rusty Haggard’s forty-foot lobster boat smashed to kindling on the breakwater, fifty yards from where I stood. Some of the old-timers call a storm like that ‘devil’s breath.”’
As Jaworski talked, I remembered sitting in the sand on Nantasket Beach in Massachusetts as a teenager, watching a hurricane race toward land. Towers of black clouds rolled across the sky as ocean swells crested and broke and re-formed, then finally smacked down on the shoreline with a lingering roar. I remembered hearing the clacking of rocks tumbling over rocks as the tons of water retreated.
“I don’t see Nort’s car,” Gilman said.
Jaworski’s knock brought a woman in her forties to the door. She glanced quickly at Jaworski and me, then focused on Gilman. “Oh, hi, Stu,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re looking for Nort, Viv.”
Viv and Nort were in dire need of name modification.
“He’s at the office. Why aren’t you there?”
“He’s not at the office, ma’am,” Jaworski said, and introduced himself.
“What do you want with Nort?”
I wanted to deck the bastard, but bit my tongue.
“I have a few questions to ask him,” the chief continued. “When did you last see him?”
“This morning at breakfast. He took his briefcase and went to MI.”
I watched Viv Weatherly’s eyes and listened to her evenly modulated voice. Her tone lacked alarm, concern, even curiosity.
“Stu and I will wait in the car,” I told Jaworski, grabbing Gilman by the arm and leading him back to the cruiser.
“You ever been in their backyard?” I asked.
“For barbecues. Sure.”
“Could I get to the road through there?”
Gilman thought for a moment. “This street circles around. There’s a hedge in back of their house. If you go through the hedge and cut across the neighbor’s yard, I think you come out on this street at the other end.”
“Stay in the car,” I told him, and jogged down the road.
I slowed at the property abutting Weatherly’s and watched the hedge. In seconds, I heard someone battling through the thick vegetation. Weatherly burst into the open, spotted me immediately, and said, “Oh fuck,” then broke into a run directly at me.
I resolved not to get cuffed again, but debated whether to tackle him or step aside and trip him as he went by. My moment of deliberation cost me. Weatherly hammered me in the chest with his forearm, and I crashed down on my ass. He ran into the street, his legs pumping up and down like a lanky teenager who was awkward but fast.
I pushed myself to my feet and trotted after him. He was forty yards ahead of me and increasing the distance. I spotted his Mercedes parked on the right. I knew that I would not catch him before he got to the car, so I slowed to a walk, watching him and promising myself that I would teach this guy a few lessons at the first opportunity.
Weatherly slipped into the Mercedes. In an instant, the car’s front end lifted off the ground. Flames flashed from the engine compartment, followed by black smoke and a roar. Fire engulfed the car. When the gas tank exploded, the Mercedes lifted again, shuddered, and returned to earth a shattered mass of twisted metal, melting in its own inferno.
Jaworski jogged up behind me. “What the hell?”
“Damn. I wanted to punch that prick,” I said. “He should have let me catch him. I wouldn’t have done that to him.”
I WAITED IN THE CRUISER WITH GILMAN WHILE JAWORSKI talked with the Portland police.
“What happened?” Gilman asked, watching police and fire equipment pass.
“Someone planted a bomb in Weatherly’s car.”
“He’s dead?”
I nodded.
“Oh God,” he moaned, covering his face with his hands.
Suddenly he dropped his hands. “Clea and the girls,” he yelled, grabbing my shoulder.
“A Portland detective found them at the Radisson,” I said, prying away Gilman’s hands. “They’re safe, and they have protection.”
“I don’t know what’s happening here.”
The operation that Weatherly ran at MI might bring any crazy out of the woodwork, from a disgruntled client to a street thug. I did not seriously think that either scenario had played out on posh, residential Atlantic Way. I imagined something more sinister, connected to the other killings.
Jaworski stuck his head through the car window. “They’re going to need written statements from everybody,” he said.
I shook my head. “There’s no time, Herb. Have them start with Gilman. You and I can return later.”
“What the hell is the rush?”
“MI disappeared. People are flocking to the cemetery by the busload in body bags. Squires walked in and out of your P.D. This is like Barnum and Bailey, three rings, and all the clowns are making their exit.”
Jaworski relented. “I’ll walk Gilman over. They aren’t going to like this.”
While I waited, I considered what I had and what I did not have. Weatherly was dead. Gilman probably knew more than he had told me, but he was distraught, sleep-deprived, hungover, and unaware of the significance of what he might know.
I studied the crumpled photograph of the young woman that I had found in Melanie Martin’s safe. She stood beneath a tree on what appeared to be a college campus. A stack of books rested on the ground at her feet. There was something familiar about her, but I could
not put my finger on it.
As Jaworski slipped into the cruiser, I asked, “Where’s Portland State University?”
“Ain’t one,” he said. “Not here anyway. There’s one in Portland, Oregon. Why?”
Perhaps collecting Portlands was not a fruitless hobby for a cop. I handed Jaworski the photo.
“This Squires?” he asked.
The hair color was different, but that did not mean much. “I can’t be sure. It’s old, and not a good picture.”
He returned the photograph. “Where are you in such a hurry to get to?”
I gave him directions to Julia Westlake’s office.
WESTLAKE WAS WITH A PATIENT, SO I SAT IN THE waiting room, thumbed through a New Yorker to catch up on the cartoons, and endured stares from the psychiatrist’s secretary, Jordan.
“I just figured out who you look like,” Jordan said.
I gazed up from my magazine. I was alone in the waiting area, so it seemed safe to assume that she was addressing me. I was less than eager to hear what media-enhanced person she thought I resembled.
“Blackbeard,” she said. “You know, the pirate. He’s all hairy and grizzled like you. Same eyes, too.”
“His name was Edward Teach,” I said. “He was an English buccaneer best known for his savagery.”
“Isn’t that neat?” she chirped. “Someone else must have told you, too. How else would you know so much about him?”
Westlake emerged from her office and rescued me. “It’s good to see you again, Lucas, but I have only about ten minutes.”
“This won’t take any longer than that,” I assured her, following her into her office.
The room’s informal decor reminded me of my Boston office, a space that I occupied for twenty years. Westlake’s desk was a solid-core oak door sitting on two filing cabinets. Rough-hewn maple planks rested on bricks for bookcases. The shelves were filled with familiar titles, including several issues of the Journal of Psychiatry and the Law.
“You’ve done forensic work,” I observed.
“Custody cases, mostly. I don’t do them anymore. Nobody wins, but the children always lose.”
I handed her the photograph that I had found in Melanie Martin’s safe.
“That’s Lily Dorman,” Westlake said. “God. I don’t believe it.”
“You said she left the hospital with a friend.”
Westlake tapped the photo and looked at the ceiling. “Who was her friend on the ward?”
I waited, knowing that many facts float in the air above our heads until we remember them.
Westlake lowered her gaze. “Janine Baker,” she said. “She was from up north somewhere. One of the border towns, I think. The main thing I remember about her is how angry she was. The ward staff had a horrible time with her. If she wasn’t seducing the males, she was attacking the females. It had to be her idea to run. Lily would have followed along.”
I thanked Westlake and went hunting for Jaworski. I found him double-parked on the next block, and ducked into the cruiser.
“Lily Dorman is all grins in the photograph,” I told him.
“Why would Melanie Martin have pictures of this kid and a killer in her safe?”
“They were left for us,” I said. “Let’s make a quick run out to Bayberry Trailer Park. Then I may want to go sailing.”
“You crazy? Couple more hours and we’re gonna get whacked by that storm. The wind’s already blowing like a sonofabitch.”
“Any other way to get to Monhegan?”
“Lucas, why do I always feel like I’m a step or two behind you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, grinning. “There’s a good shrink down the street if you want to check it out.”
Jaworski glared at me, then pulled into traffic.
WIND WHIRLED THROUGH BAYBERRY’S COURTYARD. A rolling black sky gave the place an Alfred Hitchcock feel. All the set needed was a hill, a Victorian manse, and the silhouette of an old woman rocking in her chair.
“Which one?” Jaworski asked.
“Three. I think it’s best if you wait here.”
He nodded and pulled out his pack of gum.
“Here’s something to keep you busy,” I said, handing him the scrap of paper with the phone number Lily Dorman had given her mother. “Find out who that is, and where it is.”
“I’m also going to call a friend of mine, a detective in Portland, Orgeon. I met him on a trip out there.”
“Dorman, Baker, Squires,” I said.
“Got ’em.”
“Excellent.”
“Lucas, you know how city cops do that debriefing stuff after a big case?”
“My daughter’s a New York City detective. She’s mentioned it.”
“When this is over, you and I are gonna do some serious debriefing.”
“Whatever you like, Herb,” I said, “provided that you’re still chief and I’m not in jail.”
It was shortly after one P.M., prime time for soaps, but this was one afternoon that Katrina Martin would have to tolerate an interruption. I knocked on the door, then glanced at the louvered window. The blue TV glow was absent. I raised my fist to knock a second time, and the door opened.
“I asked you not to come back,” Katrina said.
“Lily thinks I’m her father.”
She hesitated, then sighed deeply. “Of course,” she said, backing away from the door. “Come in.”
She stared at the floor like a child caught in a misdeed. “We needed a dream. I shared mine with Lily.”
Katrina slowly met my gaze. “What harm did it do?”
I ignored the question and gave her the photographs.
“That’s Lily. Where did you get this?”
“At Martin International.”
She continued to stare at the picture. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Did Lily tell you where she worked?”
Katrina shook her head. “She’s so young. I missed all those years. Where was this picture taken?”
“Possibly Portland, Oregon.”
She shook her head and glanced at the second photo. “I don’t know who this man is.”
“Katrina, did Lily tell you anything about where she had been, or people she had met… anything at all?”
“Lucas, talk to her. She was just here. I told her you wanted to see her. She said that was fine, that she’d wait for your call.”
I examined Katrina’s eyes, wondering if I had lost her to one of the many worlds that occupied her mind. “Lily was here?”
“We had coffee,” she said, pointing at two cups on the table. “She didn’t stay long. She apologized, said she was going to be busy for a while, but would keep in touch.”
Dazed, I nodded and backed out of the trailer.
“That’s a cop,” Katrina said, staring from the doorway at Jaworski’s cruiser. “Is Lily in some kind of trouble?”
“We need to find her,” I said, and could not say anything more.
“WE HAVE TO WAIT ON THAT PHONE NUMBER YOU GAVE me,” Jaworski said as I slipped into the cruiser. “It’s a cell phone. They take a little longer.”
“You got one?”
“What? A cell phone? I just used it to call Reifer, my friend in Oregon.”
Jaworski reached into his jacket pocket and gave me the small plastic device. “They’re standard equipment these days, but I can’t say that I use it much. The radio’s usually all I need.”
When I stared at the phone, Jaworski instructed me in its operation.
“What’s the number on that slip of paper?” I asked, and punched the digits as he recited them.
I heard a click, then a woman’s voice. “I expected to hear from you before now,” she said. “You’re slipping.”
“Where are you?”
“You will find me. It’s taking you longer than I expected, but I’ll wait. I’ve waited for years.”
She broke the connection.
I redialed the number and reached a recorded message. The par
ty I was calling was out of area or had switched off their phone.
“So?” Jaworski asked.
The voice did not belong to the woman who had called my house, the same woman I had heard on the police tape log. The voice was familiar, but I could not place it.
“I don’t know who that was,” I told Jaworski. “Lily Dorman, but who the hell is she?”
She was confident that I would find her. I had only to follow my instincts, which told me that, whoever she was, she was familiar with my intuitive leaps.
“Lucas, I hate to tell you this, but Jasper and the feds have lost their patience. Jasper ordered the Markham patrols to continue, but now they’re looking for you. We’ve got to go in.”
“What the hell is she thinking?”
Jaworski stared at me. “I don’t know what Jasper thinks. I do know that she’s going by the book.”
I shook my head. “We’re close, Herb. We can’t back off now. We’ve been playing parts in a theatrical production, surrounded by actors and props. Gilman said, ‘Nothing is as it appears.’ Eloquent.”
“Are you talking about the murders or this MI business?”
“It’s a play within a play. Think about it. Why kill Weatherly?”
“He couldn’t be trusted to keep his mouth shut. MI is cleaning house. They’re liquidating, turning everything into cash, and vanishing.”
“So, who killed him?”
“Who’s left? It wasn’t Gilman. One of Gilman’s foreign contacts? The driver, Edgar Heath, sounds like muscle. Squires shot up Portland. Melanie Martin would be another guess.”
“My benefactor,” I muttered as Jaworski guided the car from Bayberry Park and drove to the interstate.
“MI supported Amanda Squires,” I said. “Weatherly set up the arrangement. Gilman handled the money. Lily wanted to kill Harper Dorman. Jaycie Waylon was the target on Crescent Street. She was probably Norma Jacobs’s money-laundering contact, but that isn’t what got her killed. I had time for her but not for Lily. Her roommates had the misfortune of sleeping in the wrong place at the wrong time. Steve Weld brought heat to MI’s operation. He must have been getting close to pay dirt.”
“Luther Peterson saw a young guy walking on Crescent. You saw him tear out of there after killing Weld, and you said he’d been on your road.”