87
Tolliver groped for the keys. They weren’t on the sun visor, nor in the glove compartment. The guards must have taken them. As he searched frantically, he heard more shots in the beach cottage.
He found the keys on the floor. He fumbled for the ignition key and shoved it into the lock. When the engine caught, he put it in gear and skidded the car in a half circle, the rear end fishtailing as he drove across the grass.
Montrock had said Shelley was in the mausoleum. Ben didn’t turn on his lights, but he could see the building’s dim white shape some distance ahead of him. Squinting into the darkness, he pointed the nose of the car toward it.
When he reached the building, he slammed on his brakes, stopping before the entrance. He left the engine running, got out, and ran in through the heavy bronze doors.
Inside, there was an eerie silence, and no lights. He called Shelley’s name and stood still, listening. No reply. He shouted again, yet the only sound he heard was the echo of his voice bouncing off the marble walls.
He turned and went back out to the car, opening the trunk and rummaging for a flashlight. When he found one, he ran back into the mausoleum, turning on the light and directing its beam around the area. What it revealed was a large, musty room, its high white walls relieved by the bronze doors of tombs.
Some of the doors were inscribed, he saw, while some others were not. He stepped to one at the far end, which seemed to be in a special position, inset at a higher level than the ones near it. Playing the beam over the inscription, he saw it was the tomb of Colonel Clayton Cunningham.
Once more, Ben shouted Shelley’s name. As before, he got no answer.
He swung the flashlight around, casting the beam over the other tombs. The doors to these appeared to be locked, as well. But as the light swept the walls, he noticed another door, in a corner not far from where he was standing. This one was upright and painted white. Stepping over to it, he tried the door and found it opened into a storeroom in which lay a row of caskets.
Apprehension gripped him. Montrock had said Shelley was dead. Was that true, after all—and was this where he’d find her body?
Fearful of what he might see, he raised the lid of the coffin nearest the door. It was empty. He repeated the process with the one next to it: also empty, as was the next one and the next.
But when he opened the one after that, he looked down at a dead body.
Claire Cunningham was lying on the white satin. Her eyes were open, and in the glare of the flashlight Ben could see at a glance that she’d been strangled. There were flecks of blood in the corneas, and petechial hemorrhages on the skin of the upper and lower eyelids. Bruises and scratches were visible on her neck, and there was lividity in the flesh under her jaw.
He touched her face, and found it still warm. She probably hadn’t been dead more than an hour or two. He dropped the lid of the casket and stepped back.
There was one more coffin in the room. He went to it and grabbed the edge of the polished wooden lid. Raising it, he directed the beam of his flashlight down into the interior.
There was nothing inside.
He didn’t know whether to cheer or to curse in frustration. Slamming the casket shut, he ran out the door, going back into the main room of the mausoleum.
Where was Shelley?
As he stood there, he heard a faint tapping sound from behind him. Turning, he listened, wondering whether he’d imagined the noise.
The tapping continued and then stopped.
Ben shouted, “Shel—where are you? Was that you? Can you hear me?”
There was a moment of silence, then the tapping sounded again.
And stopped.
“Shel! Where are you?”
The noise had to have come from one of the tombs—which would mean she was behind one of the doors in this room. But which one?
He ran from one to another, rapping on each slab of bronze with his flashlight before going to the next. When he’d covered several of them, he began to wonder whether his mind had been playing tricks on him.
Tap-tap-tap.
There, by God! He’d heard it that time; he was sure of it. “Shel, keep it up, will you? I’ll find you if you help me. Keep it up!”
Moving as quickly as possible, he covered tomb after tomb, listening before the bronze panels that were inscribed, as well as those that were blank. At a door on one of the side walls, he found the source.
The tapping was more faint now; he could barely hear it. But, like all the others, the door was locked. He clawed at it for a few seconds, then again turned and hurried out to the Taurus. His tools were in the trunk. He opened it and got out a pry bar and a hammer, then slammed the trunk shut. Carrying the tools, he ran back inside.
Placing the flashlight on the floor, he jammed the sharp edge of the pry bar into the crack between the door and the jamb. He gave the bar a mighty whack with the hammer, the metallic clang reverberating from the marble walls.
The door swung open.
Shelley was lying on her back, her head toward him. He dropped the tools and grabbed her, sliding her out of the narrow enclosure. Then he held her in his arms, pressing her body against his.
She was alive; he could feel her breathing. But they had to get out of here fast. The guards would be searching the grounds. If Montrock’s squad spotted them, they’d be dead.
He picked her up and carried her out to the Taurus, depositing her in the passenger seat. Running around to the driver’s side, he jumped in and jammed his foot down on the throttle. The car kicked up a spray of gravel as he swung it onto the driveway that led to the main house.
By the time they reached it, Shelley was showing signs of coming around; the fresh air was reviving her. She put out her hand and gripped his arm, and he felt a flood of relief.
Ben wheeled the car around the mansion and onto the long stretch running toward the main gates. With no headlights, it was hard to see.
As they approached the gates, a security guard moved in front of them, holding up one hand in a signal to stop and raising a submachine gun with the other.
“Get down,” Ben shouted to Shelley. He kicked the accelerator to the floor and headed straight for the guard.
At the last possible second, the guy dived out of the way. An instant after that, the Taurus slammed into the heavy gates.
There was a violent shock as the car hit the iron grillwork, but the gates burst open, raking the sides of the Taurus and sending up a shower of sparks as it roared through. Behind them, Ben heard the sound of shots, but whether any of them had hit the car, he didn’t know. Seconds later, they rounded a curve. The estate was no longer in sight.
88
Jack Mulloy staggered to his feet. He was dizzy and there was a burning pain in his side, as if he’d been stabbed with a red-hot knife. He put a hand on the wall to steady himself until his head cleared.
In the darkness, he could hear groans. It’s a wonder anybody is still alive in here, he thought. The guards had gone berserk after he shot Montrock—firing wildly, spraying bullets in all directions.
He’d shot back, and he was pretty sure Kramer had, too. Who’d been hit and how badly, he didn’t know. Nor did he give a shit.
Ingrid was lying on the floor. He couldn’t tell what shape she was in, either. After all the crap he’d taken from that bitch, with her high-handed orders and her snotty attitude toward him, he hoped she was out of it for good. In the end, when the crunch was on, she’d flopped on her face and whimpered.
He touched his side, feeling a sticky wetness. He’d been shot through himself; that was where the pain was coming from. The cut on his face was throbbing as well, but not as much as when the knife had first sliced his flesh open.
Nevertheless, he could move, and that was what counted. There had to be a way to salvage at least some of his plan, even though it had been blown apart.
He didn’t know what had happened to his pistol. But as he moved toward the door, his foot touched an
object. He knelt, and found it was a submachine gun—one of the Uzis the guards had been carrying. Taking the weapon with him, he went out onto the veranda.
There was enough light there for him to make out Clay Cunningham sprawled dead with his back against the wall, his eyes open, his shirtfront covered in blood. Mulloy looked at the body with contempt, then stepped over it.
Much of what had gone wrong was Cunningham’s fault, he thought. The fool had gone crazy when the senator’s widow demanded more money from the estate, and then when she threatened to expose him, he had choked her. How in hell had he thought they could cover that one up?
Cunningham had also dragged his feet after the guards caught Tolliver, giving the bastard an opportunity to run his mouth, instead of ordering him killed at once. And that was when everything exploded.
At the thought of Tolliver, Mulloy was again enraged. He should’ve taken him out long ago—blown his fucking head off. Then things would have gone the way they were intended to go.
Walking was hard, yet Mulloy managed. The bullet had hit him on the same side his bad leg was on, but the leg was something else he hadn’t let bother him. Gambling for the big score? That’s what he’d done all the way, and he wasn’t about to quit now.
The station wagon was behind the cottage. When he reached it, he got in and started the engine, then wheeled the vehicle down the drive toward the mansion.
There was a telephone in the car. He picked it up and punched the buttons.
This thing wasn’t over yet—somebody else had a stake in it, besides himself.
89
A short way down the road, Tolliver turned off onto the shoulder and stopped. He drew Shelley close once more and held her in his arms. Her breath was coming in sharp gasps and he could feel her trembling under the black windbreaker.
“Just take it easy,” he said. “I’m right here with you.”
She nodded, shuddering.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” She began crying and laughing at the same time, and he knew she was on the edge of hysteria. He tightened his hold on her and she buried her face against his chest.
After a moment he said, “Try to put up with this a little longer. I have to keep going, get us out of here. The village is only a few miles farther. When we reach it, we can get help. All right?”
“Yes.”
She tucked her legs up under her and he kept one arm around her as he pulled the Taurus back onto the road.
“What happened back there?” she asked.
He recounted all of it, starting with what he’d learned about how the senator had died, what had happened afterward to Jessica Silk, and on through the series of events at the estate. He left nothing out, including the Cunninghams’ financial maneuverings and the murders of Jan Demarest and the senator’s widow.
“That poor girl,” Shelley said. “And the old lady—I’ll bet that wasn’t planned.”
“No. When I went to see her, she told me Clay and Ingrid were trying to screw her out of her share of the senator’s estate. She must have forced the issue, and they killed her.”
“How awful. That family was completely amoral. They dirtied everything they touched and destroyed anybody who got in their way.”
“Exactly. You know, I always had the idea that in politics you could trust people who were as rich as they were. I figured that with all their money, they were incorruptible. What didn’t occur to me was that they’d use the money to corrupt other people. They bribed some, bought others. And the ones they couldn’t touch, or who wouldn’t bend, they got rid of. Goes to show you how naïve I was.”
“Believing in honesty isn’t naïve.”
“Maybe not. But if I’ve learned anything on the job, it’s this. Trust nobody. Give people a fair chance, but only one.”
“Is that the Gospel according to Tolliver?”
“It’ll have to do.”
“The detective, the one who was Orcus. What was his name?”
“Jack Mulloy. He was another one who fooled me. But in the end, it turned out he sold his soul, too.”
Ben drove the Taurus at a snail’s pace, wheeling along the narrow blacktop through the forest of pines. He couldn’t help thinking how good a cup of coffee would taste—hot, rich, and black, with a good shot of rum in it.
From behind the slow-moving Taurus, the glare of headlights appeared. The distance between the vehicles closed rapidly, until the lights were only a few yards back.
Shelley sat up, turning in her seat and looking out through the rear window. “What is it? Is somebody following us?”
Before Ben could answer, a burst of machine-gun fire rang out, the slugs bouncing off the rear deck. He slammed the accelerator to the floor and the car leapt ahead.
“Oh God,” Shelley yelled. “It’s a big station wagon, but I can’t see the driver because of the lights.”
Ben whipped the Taurus around a curve, fighting to hold the rear end on the road as he revved the engine. “There’s a shotgun there under the dash,” he shouted. “Give it to me.”
“No, you drive—I’ll handle it.” She snatched up the gun and pointed it rearward, working the pump slide.
More bullets hit the rear of the car, whining through the air as they ricocheted off the armor plating of the trunk.
Shelley leaned out her window and rapidly fired three shots. Then she pulled her head back in and yelled, “The gun’s empty!”
“There are more shells in the glove compartment!”
She got the door open and fumbled for the box.
Ben cursed, whipping the Taurus along the winding road as fast as he could drive it. The station wagon was almost touching their rear bumper. He knew that as soon as they were on a straight stretch of road, the bastard would have a clear shot at the passenger compartment.
Tires screeching, he roared around another curve, reaching out with one hand to hold on to Shelley, who was still trying to load the shotgun. The village was just ahead, he knew. If he could make it that far—
Suddenly, another car appeared directly in front of them, parked across the road and blocking it completely.
The car was a gray sedan. Standing before it was a woman wearing a heavy coat, a scarf wrapped around her head. She was holding a pistol in both hands and aiming it at the Taurus.
Ben slammed on his brakes and wrenched the wheel, sending the car into a sickening skid. They missed the other car by inches, sliding off the road and smashing into a pine tree, snapping it off at the base as if it were a matchstick. The Taurus flipped over, landing on its roof.
The station wagon had been only a few feet behind them and there was no way for it to stop. It crashed into the sedan and rode up onto it, and both vehicles’ gas tanks exploded.
Ben was stunned. He was lying upside down in the Ford, Shelley slumped against him. His left shoulder felt as if it was paralyzed and the salt-sweet taste of blood filled his mouth. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and looked out at the blazing wreckage of the other cars.
The station wagon had become a crematorium. Inside, Tolliver could see Jack Mulloy writhe and twist as the flames ate at him, his skin blackening, his hair on fire. Then the man who had been Orcus grew still, his incinerated body stiffening into the boxer’s stance of a burned corpse.
Ben became aware of a new danger as the smell of raw gasoline stung his nostrils. He crawled through the hole where the windshield had been and with his good hand reached back to drag out Shelley, who was still clutching the shotgun.
Supporting each other, they hobbled to a place some distance from the burning cars and flopped down onto the forest floor, resting their backs against a tree.
Shelley looked back at where flames and oily smoke were billowing up from the wrecked vehicles. “Jesus,” she whispered. “That’s hideous.”
Ben followed her gaze. “Saved the world a lot of trouble.”
A voice said, “Not quite.”
He turned his head. The woman who’d been stan
ding in the road was less than a dozen paces away. The pistol was in her hand and she was pointing it at him.
She reached up and pulled away the scarf. Ben found himself staring at Ardis Merritt.
Shelley shook her head. “You! You were as rotten as the rest of them.”
Merritt swung the pistol toward her. “Shut up, bitch.”
“You had your own plans, didn’t you?” Ben said to her. “You and Mulloy. You must have figured out what he was up to and demanded a cut. What else were you planning, more extortion? Doesn’t matter now. It’s too late for both of you.”
“The hell it is.” Merritt thumbed back the hammer of the revolver. “I’ll still make it, but you won’t.”
The Winchester was lying on the ground somewhere. Had Shelley managed to reload it? Ben wasn’t sure. And if she had, was there a shell in the chamber now? He didn’t know that, either.
He’d get only one chance. His good hand, his right, felt for the shotgun.
And couldn’t find it.
Merritt must have sensed what he was doing. Holding the big pistol in both hands, she aimed it at his face.
Shelley raised the shotgun and fired. The charge tore into Merritt’s body with the force of a sledgehammer.
At that instant, the pistol discharged as well, driving a copper-jacketed slug into the tree a quarter of an inch from Tolliver’s head. Merritt landed on her back, a lifeless, bloody heap.
For what seemed like a long time, there was no sound in the forest, only the echoes of the shots and the crackle of flames that were consuming the wrecked cars.
Shelley looked at the body of Ardis Merritt, the smoking pistol still clutched in her fist. She turned away. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
In the distance, Ben could hear the wail of approaching sirens. Ben put his arm around her once more. “It’s all right,” he said. “This time, it’s really over.”
She shuddered. “Merritt was corrupted, too, by being around them. Just like all the others. I thought the senator was a totally evil man. But his offspring were worse.”
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