Carole Ann cheerfully withstood all the grumbling and complaining because it sounded like vintage Jake. And when he gave Paolo two pages of typed, single-spaced instructions on how to care for his home in his absence, she knew the real Jake was back. “He’s doing you a favor, Jake,” she reminded him as he sat perched on the edge of her desk.
“I didn’t say he wasn’t,” Jake retorted. “I just want to make sure he takes proper care of my house.”
Paolo lived in a tiny Maryland town on the Delaware border because he returned to his Philadelphia hometown as often as possible, and he had a better head start from Delaware, he reasoned, than from D.C. It had been his idea to move into Jake and Grace’s, just so it would continue to have a lived-in look. “Though I don’t guess I’ll be fooling anybody who’s paying attention,” he said wryly. “Tall white guy with a ponytail. I look a lot like Jake, don’t I?”
“You should be so good-looking,” Jake muttered, rubbing his sparsely covered dome, and they all laughed.
Carole Ann’s office was the meeting place of choice because of the sofa and the rocking chair. And because she’d finally given in and bought a coffeepot and a seemingly endless supply of specialty coffees. Since Paolo shared her passion for good coffee, freshly made, he gravitated to her office like migrating birds to warmth in the winter.
“All we have to go on,” she said, “is Jake’s one-second look at whoever was masquerading as John David MacDonald, Grace’s description of the men who held her, and my impressions of them.”
They rehashed the details of their tiny store of actual knowledge until each of them was as familiar with each aspect as its originator: Carole Ann and Paolo could visualize the OnShore COO as easily as Jake and all three had the same picture of the abductors—three black-clad figures bathed in a circle of light against a backdrop of thick, dark forest. That image was retrieved from the hidden camera in the truck. The audio, however, was useless. The howling of the wind that night obliterated any sound.
Looking at the tape, and listening to it, Carole Ann found that she didn’t recall the sound of the wind. She remembered being cold, the feeling of her nose running unchecked and of the frozen mucus on her face. But she had no memory of the howling of the wind.
“What?” Jake asked her, head cocked to the side, a look of quizzical concern on his face as he studied her reaction to the videotape.
She told him and was surprised when Paolo pounced on her. “You don’t remember sound?” His words almost were accusatory.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. I don’t think I remember hearing anything at all.”
“But you did hear the lead guy tell you to get out of the truck?” Paolo was pushing hard, and she felt it. “That’s what you said.”
“I heard that,” she replied, struggling to call up memory of the sound of those words. “I opened the door to the truck . . .” She could feel the wind slice through her clothing as if it were made of summer-weight stuff. And she could feel the fear that was causing her to tremble more than the cold. But she could not hear, had no memory of hearing words. Or the howling wind. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Paolo. I don’t remember hearing.”
He waved off her apology. “We’ll go back out there tomorrow,” he said, as if he were suggesting they take in a film that night. “Sometimes a return to an environment can produce the lost details.”
“And sometimes not,” she replied quickly and with a sense of unease; she had no desire to revisit the site.
“And sometimes it can get your ass locked up,” Jake said with heavy sarcasm, looking from one to the other of them, incredulity filling his face. “Have you two forgotten that we have sworn to the Maryland State Police and the Maryland State Attorney General’s Office that we’re no longer working this case? And, that being true, what reason would we have to be wandering around a crime scene—their crime scene?”
“They’re finished out there,” Paolo said in his off-hand way, again waving away an objection or a concern.
“How do you know?” Jake and Carole Ann asked simultaneously.
“I’ve kept the lines of communication open with Teague,” he answered carefully, no longer nonchalant. “He’s not a bad guy and his back’s against the wall.”
“And ours isn’t?” Jake asked.
“What have you told him?” Carole Ann asked.
“I haven’t told him anything you haven’t told him. And it’s because we’re up against it that I’m talking to this guy.” He sat calmly in the rocking chair and waited for their response.
“All right,” Jake said finally.
“Where are you with Islington?” Carole Ann asked, deftly switching gears and shifting focus.
“He’s cramped my style a little bit. You were right on the money, C.A., he does have somebody watching me. So I have to spend a little extra time covering my tracks. A couple of times I’ve deliberately led them down the wrong path, let them think I was pursuing something I wasn’t, just to spend some of Islington’s money. I think I’m getting close to his wife’s trail—people wanting to disappear should take lessons from this lady—but so far, no trace of the girl. Like mother, like daughter, you know?”
“Have you seen or heard anything that smells like it could connect Islington to OnShore and Seaboard?”
“Nada,” he said with a vigorous shake of his head. “The guy’s an asshole, for sure. Most people dislike him, and more than a few are afraid of him. He’s a bully, and generally just a rude son of a bitch, but not, so far as I can tell, an arsonist. Or a killer. And like the guy in L.A. told you, some people are nervous about him thinking he wants to be a developer, but—get this—everybody I’ve talked to, including those who actively hate the man, comment on how crazy he is about his daughter. From when she was a little kid, he bragged about how pretty she was and how smart, and most of the time he hauled her around with him. And until recently, her friends say she was on good terms with him.”
“So how come she left him?” Jake’s growled question was a demand for an answer.
“He did something . . . or she thinks he did something that was awful enough to alter her entire opinion of him.”
Paolo nodded. “That’s what I think, too, C.A.”
“Then find out what it is!” Jake snapped at him.
Carole Ann felt strangely detached from herself and her mission on the drive to Washington County. On her first journey to this destination—an impossibly short thirteen days ago—she’d been so terrified that she shook uncontrollably the entire way. The second trip, later that same night, she’d been too numb to feel fear or any other emotion; and perhaps the fact that on that return trip she’d been surrounded by state troopers had mitigated the need for fear. And now, in the company of Jake and Paolo, both of whom were armed and grim in the front seat of the truck, she felt like an observer; felt like she was watching an event unfold rather than being a participant in it.
Because they were cops and knew how cops operated, they weren’t really looking for or expecting to find clues; if there were clues to be found in those woods, the Maryland State Police investigators would have found them. What Jake and Paolo were in search of was less tangible: a reason for events. Why, for instance, bring Grace Graham to Washington County, when all the other business of OnShore and Seaboard was conducted well south, in a completely different part of the state? Was that, in and of itself, the reason? Was there any way to tie any of the OnShore or Seaboard principals to Washington County? If so, then, again, surely the police would have discovered that fact. A records check already had revealed that the land where the exchange was made was in a state forest and so close to the Pennsylvania state line that Grace’s abduction smelled like transport across a state line—a major felony if it had occurred.
Carole Ann stiffened. Even though it was full daylight, she knew they were approaching the turnoff: that invisible pathway off the two-lane blacktop indicated by a shadow in the night waving a torch. It looked different in the light,
yet it felt very much the same. It remained isolated and desolate and dangerous even without armed kidnappers hidden within the forest, for the snow still was more than a foot deep and it still was bitterly cold and there still was no house or barn or place of safety within eyesight.
Paolo, who was driving, slowed at her direction, and turned when she said. He bumped and slid forward on the icy ruts until, without the need of direction from her, he stopped in a clearing. “Wonder what’s through those trees?” he said.
“Why don’t we go find out?” Jake replied in a tight voice, opening his door. He turned toward the backseat and Carole Ann. “You coming?”
She shook her head and they exited the truck, the doors slamming shut in unison. She sat there, eyes closed, reliving the experience of that night. Suddenly her eyes flicked open and she squeezed across the center console and into the driver’s seat of the truck. Her hands gripped the steering wheel. She could see everything clearly in her memory. And hear it. “Remain as you are,” he’d said. And “Stand down out of the vehicle.” The language had been precise and clear, clipped, almost; and while it had been unaccented, it was, she realized, spoken by one for whom American English was not his native language. And the way he pronounced “out.” It was the way Tidewater Virginians pronounced the “ou” sound . . . the way Canadians pronounced it. She thought of Peter Jennings, the television news anchor, and how it still was possible to discern his Canadian roots after more than a quarter century on American television when he said the words “out” and “about.” And if the kidnapper was Canadian, that made J. D. MacDonald the most likely suspect, which then made it most unlikely that he had perished in the warehouse blaze—a theory that she’d been trying out.
She was wondering whether this unearthed memory really held any value when Jake and Paolo emerged from the thicket of snowdrifts, struggling to maintain balance on the icy terrain. She climbed through the middle and to the backseat. She could tell by the look on Jake’s face that he’d clamber in cussing.
“Crafty sons of bitches they are, you have to give them that,” he said, breathing heavily. He still carried significant lung congestion from the flu, not helped by his hasty return to his full workload. “Nothing in there but a trail leading to another trail leading to a rutted road like this one, which leads right back to the main road. They drove in and drove out. You were probably right on their tails and didn’t even know it.” Bitterness was heavy in his voice.
She told them what she’d remembered of the voice of the kidnapper.
“The bastard kidnaps my wife just to avoid having a meeting with me?”
“To avoid having you see him or know anything about him. Without those files, you never met a man calling himself J. D. MacDonald,” she said.
“But if that was MacDonald, C.A., then who’s the crispy critter in the warehouse?” Paolo asked.
She winced. She knew that firefighters and cops and paramedics—even some nurses and doctors—often adopted callous terminology to help shield them from the gruesome and horrible realities they confronted daily. She knew and she understood but still found it jarring. “Who says ‘stand down’?” she asked. “The British and the Canadians”—
“The military,” Paolo interjected quickly. “Soldiers say ‘stand down.’ ”
They all contemplated that possibility in silence for a few long moments, and they were well down the road to the I-70 freeway entrance before Carole Ann spoke. “American soldiers?”
“Yeah,” Paolo replied, “I think all soldiers. I think that’s fairly standard military terminology. So nobody is confused about what’s meant.”
“Oh, lovely,” Jake snarled. “As if this whole thing isn’t a big enough mess, we got some Bruce Willis kind of fool wanting to make sure nobody’s confused about what’s meant.” He cussed some under his breath and both passengers—Carole Ann from experience and Paolo from intuition—knew better than to interrupt. “Well, I’ve got a message I don’t want him to be confused about: he can kiss my black ass! C.A., give me that bag on the floor back there,” and without turning around, he stuck his hand toward the backseat and reached for the Starbucks bag with the handles that contained Jake’s street shoes.
“That ring! He was wearing a woman’s ring!” she exclaimed and Jake whipped his body around so that he was facing her.
“Who was wearing a woman’s ring?”
“The kidnapper. On the baby finger of his . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut and called up the memory of the ungloved hand reaching for her, pulling her up out of the snow. “. . . of his right hand.” She recalled vividly the hurried glimpse she’d gotten of a definitely masculine hand, the baby finger of which was adorned by a decidely feminine ring—a thin platinum or white gold circle of diamonds . . . a ring that could have been a woman’s wedding band and a source of fond memory or grief for the current wearer.
“Or he’s a fuckin’ thief,” Jake snarled, “who robbed a woman and took her wedding ring and wears it like some kind of trophy. This bastard is making me sick to my stomach and the more I know about him, the sicker I get.”
“Jake, we don’t have to pursue this,” she said quietly.
“The hell we don’t! And anyway, you’re the one who told me it was dangerous to let ourselves be victims. Isn’t that what you said?” It was more challenge than question but it required an answer.
She nodded. “That’s what I said and that’s what I believe.”
“Then what do you mean, ‘we don’t have to do this’?” He said it in a simpering tone, designed to irritate her, and snatched the bag that held his street shoes from her grasp.
Deciding not to take the bait, she shifted gears—and tactics. “How are we going to approach Mrs. Childress?”
They had decided to pay a courtesy visit to the widow of Harry Childress. A condolence call to the wife of a client, they would say by way of explanation should they be required to explain their visit to the Maryland police or AG investigators. But they needed to know what, if anything, Beth Childress knew of her husband’s last days; whether she knew of the Monday meeting with Jake and what his reaction to it was; what she knew of John David MacDonald.
OnShore, according to its financial statements, had been a reasonably successful manufacturer of paper and plastic containers for shipping. It had been a small company, noted for its aggressive efforts to modernize its plant while remaining competitive in the field—a major reason the larger Seaboard would want to absorb the smaller company. Harry Childress had started OnShore more than twenty years ago, and had taken on MacDonald as a partner two years ago, after his original partner died after being struck by lightning on the golf course. The Childress home, on a quarter acre of well-manicured and carefully landscaped turf in Montgomery County’s Kensington community, was impressive though not palatial; a home reflective of success, not rampant wealth. If Harry Childress had been engaged in any kind of fraudulent activity that netted him extra income, it wasn’t evidenced by his living quarters.
There was nothing fraudulent about Beth Childress’s distress, of that Carole Ann was certain. As a woman who’d lost her own husband suddenly and violently, she knew that what she saw and felt in the older woman was the real thing. She was in her mid-fifties and had her eyes not been red-rimmed and puffy, and had she had the slightest desire to maintain her normal ritual of self-care, she would have epitomized the attractive middle-aged wife of a successful businessman: she was about five-and-a-half-feet tall and of average weight for a woman her age. That meant she didn’t appear to be anorexic or the recipient of annual liposuction, nor had she succumbed helplessly to the natural weight gain that was the bane of the fifty-plus woman. She looked as if she exercised regularly, and out of doors—when, that is, she wasn’t overcome with grief. Her hair was obviously lightened and pulled back into a short ponytail. She wore red University of Maryland sweatpants and a zippered jacket.
Her eyes registered recognition when they introduced themselves, and she invited them i
n. They followed her down a long, carpeted hallway, past well-appointed living and dining rooms, through a state-of-the-art kitchen, and into a comfortable sitting room that obviously hadn’t been cleaned in several days, though the blazing gas fire gave the room a cozy glow. The blanket and pillows on the couch spoke poignantly and dramatically of the woman’s inability to sleep in the bed she’d shared with her husband of, Carole Ann imagined, probably more than a quarter of a century.
Beth Childress dropped down onto the sofa and invited Carole Ann and Jake to take the wing chairs on either side of the fireplace. Instead of sitting immediately, Carole Ann knelt down before the new widow, took her hands, and spoke quietly to her for several moments while Jake observed, astounded at the change that took place almost immediately in the other woman. Tears filled her eyes but she did not weep; instead she smiled, a real smile, and embraced Carole Ann. Then she pulled several tissues from a box on the floor at her feet, blew her nose and wiped her eyes, and faced them squarely.
“It was very generous of you to come, Mr. Graham, Miss Gibson, and I appreciate it. I know you’re busy people.”
“I barely knew your husband, Mrs. Childress, as I’m sure you’re aware. But what I saw, and what I knew, I respected, and I am appalled at what has happened,” Jake said.
“I don’t know what help we could be,” Carole Ann said, “but if there’s anything you think we can do, we’ll be happy to be of assistance.”
“You already have helped,” the woman said. “It is amazing how many people in our society don’t know what to say in the face of death. You two strangers have helped me feel better than all my friends and family just by treating me like I’m still alive and not likely to die anytime soon. And maybe you can do that because you both understand death,” she said pensively, then added, “as much as any living human being can understand death.” She got very quiet and seemed to go within, and so they sat quietly, unwilling to disturb her. She took a deep breath, wiped at her eyes, then looked from one to the other of them. “I suppose you want to know all about Harry’s battles with J.D.,” she said resignedly.
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