“Mr. Daniels. Are you weathered in?” It was Jackie, tactfully giving him room to maneuver. Did Jackie know about Carolyn? Did she suspect? Yes, almost certainly Jackie suspected. She and Kane, his accomplices. Price tag: a hundred fifty thousand for Jackie, seventy-five for Kane. Checkbook loyalty. Was there any other kind?
“No—no,” he answered, “it’s not the weather. But there’s—Bruce says there’s a radio problem on the airplane. A backup radio, nothing serious. But it’ll be two hours, probably, before I can get out of here. You’d better reschedule everything for a two o’clock start, and I’ll keep you updated. Anyone I should call in the meantime?”
“Kent Williams, on his refinancing package?”
“I should, Jackie. But I’m going to ask you to do it. If he can’t stay in New York beyond, say, four o’clock, then tell him I’ll come out to Los Angeles in the next two days. Tell him we’ve only got the last inch to go, assuming the interest rates behave. Charm him.”
“I’ll try—” She made no effort to disguise her disapproval. So it was happening. Beginning with the change in Jackie’s voice, it was already happening. Henceforth, she would be watching. Covertly watching. A hundred fifty thousand, after all, was finite; it only bought so much.
“I’m sorry, Jackie. I’ve—there’s something I’ve got to handle, up here. A family problem.” He considered, then decided to say, “It’s Diane. I just got off the phone with Millie.”
“Ah—” Now her inflection suggested a reprieve, a reservation of judgment.
When was the last time he’d apologized—to anyone?
“Okay?” he asked. It was, essentially, another apology, a muted plea.
“Sure. See you about two.” She hesitated. “Good luck.”
“Yes. Thanks.”
10 A.M., EDT
AS KANE SWITCHED OFF the Buick’s ignition and set the hand brake he saw Steve, the line boy, waving to him through the window of the airport office, then holding his hand to his ear: a telephone call. Without doubt, Daniels.
Pocketing his car keys and checking another pocket for the keys to the airplane, Kane nodded, hurried into the office. As he picked up the telephone Kane turned to look at the flight line. Yes, it was there, parked between a Lear Jet and a Falcon: Daniels’s Beechcraft Super King Air, one of the best, most stable, most trouble-free airplanes he’d ever flown. For Daniels, nothing less was acceptable.
“Hello?”
“You’re back. Any problems?” Daniels asked.
“No. The weather wasn’t the best. But it wasn’t the worst, either.”
“On the tape, you didn’t give the hour you came back.”
“It was almost three o’clock.” He gave it a disapproving sound. The status of pilots, after all, differed from other employees. On the pilot’s skill, everything depended.
“Can we be ready to go at noon?” Daniels was asking.
“I’ll have to check the weather and the notams, but it should be all right. If not, I’ll call you.”
“Is La Guardia possible?”
“Probably not. By the time I got the flight plan cleared, we could’ve already landed at Westboro.”
“You can plan on picking me up here at—” Daniels broke off. Then: “No, I’ll drive out to the airport. I’ll take the Cherokee.”
“Will you and—” Meaningfully, Kane let a beat pass. Which would profit him the most: “Miss Estes,” the approved greeting—or “Carolyn,” the high-risk choice? If he ever caught Carolyn just right, a few drinks downwind, stranded by Daniels in just the right circumstances, he knew he could have her. Once, joking, they’d talked about the mile-high club, he and Carolyn. Get in the Beechcraft, fly out over the ocean, put the goddamn airplane on autopilot. Meaning that he and Preston Daniels would be partners in—
“It’ll be me. Just me.” Abruptly, the line went dead. As Kane cradled the telephone, he heard someone calling his name. Still warmed by the fantasy—he and Carolyn and the Beechcraft over the ocean, naked on Daniels’s own couch—he was smiling as he turned to face Steve, the line boy.
“Here.” Steve extended a plain white envelope. “This is for Mr. Daniels. Can I give it to you?”
“Sure.” He looked down at the flimsy envelope with “Mr. Daniels” printed in adolescent block letters. Inside, he could feel a single sheet of paper. “Who’s it from?”
“A guy named Jeff Weston left it. He and his mother run the dry cleaners in Carter’s Landing. I don’t know whether it’s from him, or whether he just dropped it off.”
Kane shrugged, and slipped the envelope into the outside pocket of his chart case. Then: “Put some Jet A in the Beechcraft. Fifty gallons in each side.”
“Now?”
“Of course, now.”
10:30 A.M., EDT
IN SUCCESSIVE FOLDS, HE began turning back the Persian rug, working from one edge toward the stone slab table. First the rug, then the pad.
An hour remained. Only an hour before he must close up the house, draw the drapes, lock the door, set the alarm, test it, get in the Cherokee, drive to the airport. The hardware store hadn’t opened until ten minutes after ten o’clock. When the proprietor had finally arrived, ten minutes late, he’d—
Yes, there it was: the polyfoam rug pad, stained with her urine. He gritted his teeth, drew a last long, deep breath, then folded the rug one final time, draping it over the coffee table. Revealing—yes—the bloodstains on the pad, already darkening. He stepped clear, grasped the pad, doubled it back over the rug—
—revealing two corresponding stains, darkening the oak floor beneath the pad: one stain the blood, one the urine.
Quickly, he unwrapped the flimsy plastic drop cloth he’d bought at the hardware store. He folded the drop cloth, refolded it, covered the stains on the floor. A moment later the pad was back in place, and the rug, covering it. He reached for the bottle of 409 Spray Cleaner and began spraying the two stains.
10:40 A.M., EDT
DIANE DROPPED THE KEY on the counter, left the motel office, walked to the BMW. Overhead, the last of the fog was burning off. As the sun grew brighter, the memories of last night’s shadowy menace were fading. The booze, the pills—the shape wrapped in the blanket—how much was real, how much unreal? How much imagined?
During spring break, only a few months ago, she’d thought she was in love with Jeff. Now they were strangers. When he’d left the motel room she’d showered, let the hot water cascade over her for a long, long time. Millions of years ago, life had moved out of the sea to the seashore, freshman zoology. Was that why water could comfort, could heal?
Was that why some returned to the water one last time?
San Francisco, some said, was the last stop for suicides. There was only the ocean left. The ocean, and the bridge. Always the Golden Gate Bridge, one final touch of class, never the Bay Bridge. Sometimes the bodies were never recovered. Sometimes the sharks got to them before the bodies could fill with gas and bloat, rising to the surface.
She opened the BMW’s door, got in behind the wheel, closed her eyes, let her head fall back against the seat.
Preston Daniels, tycoon.
Preston Daniels, murderer.
He’d brought his girlfriend to Carter’s Landing the night before last. And last night he’d killed her.
And only she knew. She and Jeff Weston, the man she’d once thought she loved, a stranger now. Leaving only her. Here. Now. Alone. Once more—still—alone, unaccountably numbed by the incarnation of her boldest fantasies: confronting Preston Daniels, destroying him. How many times had she lain sleepless in the night, imagining herself confronting both Daniels and her mother? She’d sometimes made herself sob, imagining the scene: the tragic adolescent at bay, desperate and yet fearless, vulnerable and yet invincible, herself the creator of herself.
The scenes always began differently—but the ending never varied. She’d found proof of Daniels’s infidelities: pictures, taken with her own telephoto lens, recordings, made with her own
tape recorder. Out of pride, her mother would have no choice. She would call her lawyer. Then she would call her travel agent. She would reserve two tickets, first class, on the next flight to San Francisco.
They’d been married three years, Daniels and her mother. Before that, her mother and father had been married for fifteen years. When they told her they were divorcing, they’d taken her for lunch to the Saint Francis. She’d had her fourteenth birthday only the week before. She’d fantasized that her parents had planned to invite her to lunch and give her a very special present, something that had arrived late.
And then, after the waiter brought the main course, they’d told her. It had been her father, really. Her mother had just sat across the table, expressionless, watching her. They weren’t in love anymore, her father had said. His face had been stricken, his voice choked. Yes, of course, she and her mother would live in San Francisco.
But a year later, they were living in New York. She’d been fifteen and a half. At the thought, she grimaced. She’d still been so young that she counted her age in half-years.
And now she was eighteen. Incredibly, the fantasies were materializing. One word from her—one call to the police—and they would pay.
11:50 A.M., EDT
DANIELS HANDED HIS ATTACHé case and his jacket to Kane, then climbed the air stairs to the Beechcraft’s cabin.
“All set?” He was satisfied with his voice: calm and crisp, in control. In part, he knew, it was the clothes: pinstripes, white shirt, a club tie, shoes from Savile Row. The uniform. As he’d taken off his jeans and sweatshirt and running shoes and began dressing for New York, he’d felt confidence returning.
“All set.” Kane pulled up the air stairs, latched the door closed, carefully tested the closure. “Are you going to sit up front?”
Daniels shook his head. “No, thanks. Things to do.” He put his attaché case on the floor beside the small conference table, sank into the forward-facing chair beside the table, and fastened his seat belt. An envelope addressed to him in crude block letters lay on the table. He gestured to the letter. “What’s that?”
“A kid from town left it at the airport office for you, apparently. His mother runs the dry-cleaning shop. Or so I understand.” Then: “Ready to go?”
Daniels nodded. “Ready.” He watched Kane go forward and slip into the pilot’s seat. Kane settled himself, buckled up, propped the preflight checklist on the glare shield; began flicking switches, adjusting dials, testing controls, methodically bringing the twin turboprop to life. As the energizer began to whine and the starboard propeller began to rotate, Daniels slit open the envelope. It was a dime-store envelope and contained a single sheet of cheap paper:
Mr. Daniels:
I saw you at your house last night about midnight. I saw what you did. I also saw where you went in your Cherokee, if you know what I mean. I will wait and talk to you before I talk to the police, but I cannot wait long. There was someone with me who saw the whole thing too. So don’t do anything foolish.
Sincerely yours
Jeff Weston
(508) 645-1862
P.S. I know how famous you are, so you could call yourself Mr. Davis, when you telephone me.
As he finished the letter the whine of the engines rose, the airplane began to move. Daniels returned the letter to its envelope. He reached for his attaché case. It contained documents that, if compromised, could cost a fortune.
The letter, revealed, could cost him everything.
12:10 P.M., EDT
IT WAS AS IF the car were responding to some surreal internal guidance, as if it were carrying her along Route 195 independent of her own volition. They were going to New York, she and the BMW. They were going home. No, not home. They were going to 720 Park Avenue, where her mother and Preston Daniels and two servants lived—and where she, too, had a room.
But home was San Francisco. Home was the house on Sacramento Street, and her room that overlooked the rear garden.
Except that the house on Sacramento had been sold soon after she and her mother moved to New York. He’d had to sell the house, her father had tried to explain, because her mother’s father had loaned them the money for the down payment. And he wanted his money back.
Always, it came down to her mother. Her mother had wanted a divorce so she could marry Daniels. Because of her mother, strangers now lived in the house on Sacramento Street.
And because of her mother, she and the BMW were traveling west on Route 195, bound for New York.
A few words from an emperor, she’d once read, could change the fate of the world.
A few words from her, and the emperor would topple from his throne, all fall down.
The emperor and his wife. All fall down.
12:30 P.M., EDT
DANIELS OPENED HIS WALLET, withdrew a small slip of folded paper that occupied its own pocket in the wallet. Half of one side of the paper was covered with a handwritten series of letters and numbers, meaningless to anyone but him. Ballpoint pen in hand, he unfolded the slip of paper, spread it on the table beside Jeff Weston’s letter. Adjusting the pen, he considered for a moment, then carefully printed JW 645-1862 BM.
BM, designating blackmail.
He folded the slip of paper, put it in the wallet. Now he began tearing the letter into very small pieces, which he put in a compartment of the attaché case. He closed the case, locked it, placed it on the floor of the airplane. Soon, they would land at Westboro. Even if he could concentrate, there was no time now to work. Instead, he must focus on controlling his consciousness, preparing himself to make the next decision—and the next.
Three years ago, he’d printed BM on another slip of paper. It had happened less than a month before his marriage to Millicent. The man—Gordon Betts—had once driven for him, and had been fired for drinking. A college dropout with a high IQ, Betts had been knowledgeable about investments. He’d also been a talented, resourceful eavesdropper who’d remembered snatches of overheard conversations, and played the market accordingly.
Betts was also knowledgeable about the penalties for insider trading. Since he was being fired, he’d said, with nothing to lose, why shouldn’t he tell the authorities what he knew about Daniels’s “little shortcuts”? And he’d smiled: that fresh-faced, all-American smile.
At about that time Daniels had learned that Bruce Kane had once been arrested for flying drugs into the country. There’d been juvenile offenses, too, and one arrest for aggravated assault, part of a consistent pattern of violence. But Kane had never been convicted, and he’d been allowed to volunteer for Vietnam, where he’d learned to fly. He was a natural pilot. And a natural soldier, too: a born killer.
At first Daniels had considered firing Kane: there were, after all, scores of corporate pilots available. Then he’d realized that one problem could cancel out the other. The conversation with Kane had taken almost two hours out of a busy day. But never had he concluded a more effective, more subtle negotiation. He’d begun by expressing a desire to help in Kane’s “rehabilitation.” Two hours later, they’d had a straight business deal: for a five-thousand-dollar cash bonus, Kane would work Betts over, threatening to kill him if he tried blackmail again.
Three days later, Kane called him on his private line to say that “the problem” was taken care of. Later he’d learned that Betts had been in intensive care for three days.
He heard the note of the engines change, felt the angle of the floor shift. They were letting down for the landing at Westboro. He locked his chair to face backward and fastened his seat belt securely. Then he reached for the air-to-ground telephone, touch-toned Jackie’s private number.
“This is Jackie Miller.” As always, she spoke crisply, concisely. Without Jackie—someone like Jackie—he would never have done it: gone so far, so fast.
“Yes. Jackie. How’re we doing?”
“Chester should be arriving at the airport just about now. Are you down yet?”
“We’re on the approach, shou
ld be down in ten minutes. I want you to contact Chester. Tell him I’ll meet him outside the terminal, at the curb. I don’t want him to drive out on the ramp.”
“Right.” In her voice he caught a hint of puzzlement. A limo on the ramp to meet an arriving CEO was, after all, de rigueur.
“What’s my day look like?”
“I’ve got Kent Williams scheduled for two-thirty.” She let a delicately timed beat pass. Then: “He’s coming here.”
Appreciatively, he smiled. Originally, the meeting had been planned for Williams’s hotel. As always, Jackie had anticipated, taken the initiative, given him the gift of time. God, how it steadied him, hearing her calm, measured voice. He tried to express his appreciation in the warmth of his own voice as he said, “You charmed him, Jackie.” She made no reply. It was a complacent, self-confident silence. Yes, Jackie had it. And, yes, Jackie knew it. “I was going to offer Mr. Williams a ride out to Los Angeles in the Beechcraft,” she said. “Shall I? You won’t need it for four days. At least—” A delicate pause.
Delicate? Why?
“At least,” she continued, “not for business. Not that I can see.”
Had her inflection changed?
Did the change signify some secret agenda, some preliminary positioning, perhaps to distance herself from him—from what could happen? Had Jeff Weston called the police? Was it possible that the police had called from the Cape? Was there a message waiting for him? A slip of paper instructing him to call Joe Farnsworth, the overweight, ineffectual chief of Carter’s Landing’s police department?
If it happened, that’s how it would begin: with a telephone message. Good or bad, it all began with a telephone message.
“I’ll have to talk to Bruce. Don’t mention a ride to Kent.”
“Yes sir.”
He said good-bye, cradled the telephone. He was aware that Kane was gradually reducing power, beginning the approach. Off to the port side, Long Island Sound was materializing through a thin layer of haze. It was a perfect day for flying. In the cockpit, Kane was busy at the controls, bringing the plane steadily down. In New York, midtown, Jackie was coping with the unexpected change in scheduling. Uptown, Millicent would be with her hairdresser or dress designer, girding for her role in the museum banquet, a milestone that would surely lead to the chairmanship of the museum board, her most coveted prize.
Except for the Bones Page 4