The Cypress House
Page 28
He scowled and put a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it. “Go on.”
She went on. Up through Owen’s return and Paul’s last-minute disclosure. Then she showed him the bag with the five thousand dollars. Barrett accepted the money in the way Paul had—as if too harsh a touch would cause it to vanish. He studied the bills, and then he put them back into the bag and returned them to her.
“Stealing from Wade isn’t a real bright idea,” he said. “You been around here long enough to know that.”
“Well,” Arlen said, “you see, I intended to kill him. Today.”
Barrett stared at him.
“Yes,” Arlen said. “Believe it. We didn’t see any other way to get out of this. Now we’re hoping you’re the way.”
Barrett took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and blew out a long breath, then rubbed a hand over his face.
“There are fifteen agents coming in tonight,” he said. “Two boats on the water, five cars on the roads. We had it set.”
“What you’d have gotten,” Arlen said, “was Owen for money-handling, and the McGraths for dope-handling. Maybe you could have thrown something at Rebecca. I’m sure you would have. And, if your boys had been paying enough attention, you’d have had me for murder.”
Barrett looked at him in silence.
“You could run the operation tonight,” Arlen said, “and get the same things. Except don’t count on me to kill Wade now. It wouldn’t seem prudent.”
That actually raised a smile, however faint.
“We could still get the McGraths,” Barrett said. “If I can convince the boys from Tampa to trust you, then we’ll still come away with the McGraths.”
“Is that enough?” Arlen said.
“They’re damned dangerous men. And important to Wade.”
“But will they help you? Will they tell you anything that can help? I don’t see Tate McGrath rolling on Wade.”
Barrett’s silence confirmed that he didn’t see it either.
“You can help, though,” he said eventually. “Rebecca can help. You’ve got plenty to tell. And are Sorenson’s hands still around?”
“They are,” Rebecca said.
“Well, that’s something.”
“Is it?” Arlen said. “Seems to me he could lawyer his way out. You got two witnesses who say he brought them in. He’ll find at least one, McGrath, who will say that box was filled with chocolates when he dropped it off for Rebecca.”
“Yeah,” Barrett said softly.
“You’ve got to get him with something solid,” Arlen said. “Get him with his hand actually in the jar. And it doesn’t sound like he reaches in too often. Not with his own hand.”
“You’re saying we let it go off without a hitch?” Barrett said. “Let them bring in their dope and take it out in trucks, without saying a word? It ain’t going to happen. Trust me on that. The badges in Tampa aren’t going to let it happen.”
“Look,” Arlen said, “what it boils down to is this: without us, nothing happens tonight. You don’t get a damned thing, except for maybe the Cubans. Maybe. You don’t get anybody in Corridor County, that’s for sure. With us, you can get the McGraths. That leaves Wade, though, and it also leaves him knowing damn well who set him up. So what do we do then? Shake your hand and go on our way and wait for him to cut our throats?”
Barrett sighed and got to his feet, setting the cigarette down carefully on the edge of the tire.
“Let me call Tampa,” he said. “I’m not authorized to decide such a thing.”
He went back inside the shop, and they could hear him speaking in low tones to his wife. Then it went quiet. Arlen put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. She touched it briefly with her own but didn’t look at him.
They’d been in the garage with Barrett for maybe an hour, and already the morning sun had faded beneath gray clouds. It would rain again today. Barrett was gone for about twenty minutes before he stepped back inside. He closed the door and leaned against it and studied them.
“Tampa’s ready to grant you immunity,” he said, “provided you keep the exchange in motion tonight. If you derail it—if anything derails it—they’ll come at you with charges.”
“That’s a hell of a fair thing,” Arlen said. “More of tonight is out of our control than is in it.”
Barrett shrugged. “They aren’t impressed with your story.”
“Aren’t impressed with it?” Rebecca said. “They aren’t impressed with the idea that this man, this judge, murdered my father, murdered Walter Sorenson, threatened my brother, threatened me? They aren’t—”
Arlen put his hand on her shoulder again, and she stopped and shook her head, her mouth tight with anger.
“Look,” Barrett said, “I think it’s a square deal. All you’ve got to do is make sure things get off as they’re supposed to. That’s on your brother more than you. He’s the one running the show, right?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Well, make sure he runs it right,” Barrett said, “and then you’re good. You can watch in shock and surprise when the McGraths are arrested.”
“That’ll be awfully convincing,” Arlen said, “when they’re arrested and we’re not.”
“Oh, you will be.”
Rebecca said, “What?” but Arlen finally began to get it, and he nodded.
“This is how you remove us from Wade,” he said. “Anything else, and he smells the truth. If we all go down, he can’t be sure who the leak is.”
“That’s right. And you’ll be jailed out of county. You and the McGraths.”
“We’ll be jailed?” Rebecca said.
“Only on paper,” Barrett said. “It all works right, we’ll get you out of here and to someplace safe. But you’ve got to testify against him when it comes time.”
She looked at Arlen, and he turned his palms up. “I don’t like it either,” he said. “But I don’t see another way.”
Barrett nodded. “Your man’s right. There ain’t no other way. Not at this point.”
There’d been another way, and it was the way Arlen had been planning on until Paul’s disclosure. He wasn’t convinced yet that it hadn’t been a better plan either. A man like Wade was easier to kill than he was to convict.
“So we just go home now?” Rebecca said. “That’s the plan?”
“Not just yet,” Barrett said. “First we wait on Tampa. There are a few men coming up who’d like to meet you. I think they’ll have some paperwork.”
“And what will that say?”
“That you’re protected,” Barrett said, “provided tonight’s little game plays out like it was supposed to.”
46
THEY SAT AROUND THE GARAGE as the heat seared in and choked the air and Barrett continued to ask questions. The longer he went at it, the more Arlen thought that he would probably make a damned fine lawman. He played all the right notes. The harder his edge, the more he was bluffing you; the more casual he got, the more focused his interest. Rebecca answered everything he had for her. Told him details of her time at the Cypress House down to the last ounce of morphine. She hid nothing.
“Let me ask you something, Barrett,” Arlen said after nearly an hour had passed. “You didn’t so much as blink when Rebecca told you that she had Walt Sorenson’s hands in a cigar box.”
“Didn’t surprise me at all. Wade’s men have done worse than that.”
“Surely they have. But it doesn’t seem like you believed Sorenson died in that Auburn of his.”
Barrett didn’t answer.
“There was a body inside that car,” Arlen said. “Whose was it?”
Barrett studied him for a long moment, then said, “George McGrath. Tate’s oldest son.”
Arlen looked at Rebecca and saw dim recognition on her face.
“You knew him?” he said to her.
“I’ve seen him. He used to come around with Tate. Most of the time, in fact. Lately, it was just Tate. Except for the night…”
“Wh
en he brought the whole family,” Arlen said, thinking of the girl from Cassadaga who’d waited in Tolliver’s car with handcuffs around her wrists. “That’s why they all came, even the young ones. It was a family matter.”
He turned to Barrett. “Who killed George McGrath? Sorenson or David Franklin?”
“I couldn’t say, Wagner.”
“Bullshit.”
Barrett sighed. “Look, I don’t know. George McGrath was, like his daddy, muscle for Solomon Wade. A thug, a killer. When someone steals from Wade, the McGraths make them accountable. Walt Sorenson had been stealing from Wade. Skimming. We know that. The rest… we’re fairly certain of the rest.”
“Wade sent the McGrath boy,” Arlen said, “and Sorenson got the best of him. That’s how you see it.”
“That’s how I’m guessing it, yes. George McGrath disappeared a full day ahead of Sorenson. A body burned in Sorenson’s car, but it wasn’t Sorenson’s.”
“So Franklin hauled the body down there,” Arlen said. “And Rebecca, Paul, and I were all supposed to tell them it was Sorenson inside. That was his escape plan. Make them think he was dead, and make them uncertain of what had happened to the McGrath boy.”
“That’s how we figure it, yes. Problem was, they knew who they’d sent George to kill. That kept them from believing it was Sorenson inside the car. And Sorenson…” Barrett’s face went grim. “He needed them to believe that was him inside the car.”
Arlen sat in silence for a minute, trying to piece it together.
“He was out driving the countryside after he’d killed the boy?” he said. “Why in the hell would he have done that? Why’d he keep making his rounds?”
“Cash,” Barrett said simply. “When they went for him, he knew he’d have to run mighty far. He needed the money to do it. That last round of collections was to go right into his pockets. His, and Franklin’s.”
“You know all of this,” Arlen said, “and yet nobody’s been arrested. Nobody’s been—”
“There’s a powerful difference between what we know happened and what we can prove happened!” Barrett snapped. “Corridor County’s full of whispers and bare of witnesses.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to fix,” Rebecca said. “Isn’t it? They need a local man’s help.”
Barrett nodded. “They came to me almost a year ago. I was more than happy to help. Somebody round here has to.”
“Many people would,” Rebecca said, “if they weren’t so scared of the results. And I don’t know if they picked the right man for the job—you told them I was working with Wade, doing it happily. Some judge of character.”
“I didn’t know much about you,” he said evenly, “but I knew plenty about your daddy, Rebecca, and every bone in that man’s body ran crooked.”
She stared at him in furious silence. Arlen watched her eyes and thought, He’s right, and she knows it. It was her old man got them into this, and he did it with a grin on his face until he saw his son arrested. By then it was too late.
“It is not,” she said, “an inherent family trait.”
“I hope you’re right,” Barrett said.
The phone rang then, and a moment later Barrett’s wife called for him. He rose and went inside to take the call. He wasn’t gone long.
“That was Tampa,” he said. “It’s been decided that you’re to go back.”
“Go back?” Rebecca echoed. “I thought they wanted to see us.”
“That’s what they said. But the man in charge is down in Miami, a fella named Cooper, and he says it’s not worth the risk of having strangers up here until the show starts. He figures the longer you’re gone from your place, the more likely Wade gets edgy and calls it off. He doesn’t want it called off.”
It made a bit of sense, but it also left the group at the Cypress House operating on the promise of immunity granted by a shopkeep turned undercover agent. Barrett seemed to be a good man and a sharp operator, but his clout with the agency that had brought him in was minimal at best. Arlen said, “What about the papers, Barrett? The immunity?”
“You’ll have to take my word.”
Arlen shook his head. “I’d like some writing with that. No offense.”
Barrett said, “Ain’t going to be any writing, Wagner. So you’ll have to make a decision. Take my word, or don’t.”
Arlen looked at Rebecca, who gave him a nod, deferring to him. He didn’t like the situation, but he also didn’t know what else he could say.
“It better be worth something,” he said. “Your word.”
“It always has been, and always will be.”
Arlen nodded and got to his feet, and Rebecca followed. They stepped outside the store and into a thick breeze fragrant with the smell of coming rain.
“Just see that it goes off as planned,” Barrett said. “All you got to do is see that…”
His voice trailed off, and when Arlen looked up, he saw that Barrett was staring up the road. Tolliver’s sheriff’s car was approaching from the north. It went by slow, and Barrett lifted a hand, gave a friendly wave that wasn’t returned. The car carried on down the road and then turned left. Away from the jail. Toward Solomon Wade’s house.
“Just see that it goes off as planned,” Barrett said again, but his voice was softer now. “And watch your asses, hear?”
He went back inside without waiting for a response.
47
I DON’T LIKE IT,” Rebecca said as soon as they were in the truck again. “I don’t feel good about this, Arlen. Owen and Paul out on that boat… what if there’s trouble? What if people start shooting?”
“The way it was told, they’re going to wait until the orange crates have been unloaded before they move,” he said. “Owen and Paul should be back inside the inn by then, and we’ll all stick together and out of the way until whatever trouble there is dies down.”
She shook her head, unconvinced. The bagful of money was on the seat between them. Five thousand damn dollars, just sitting there. Arlen wondered how much it really meant to those nameless, faceless men in New Orleans who ran this whole show. He knew how much it would mean to most people in the world, but men like those? He really couldn’t figure.
“Look,” he said, “I don’t like it either. But what else can we do?”
She was quiet for a mile or two, then said, “He was right, you know.”
“Barrett? About what?”
“My father,” she said. “I don’t blame Barrett for looking at Owen and me the way he does. My father would have done anything for the right amount of money. He would have done just about anything.”
“Well, you’ve kept your brother from being the same,” Arlen said. “You see that, don’t you? You’ve shown him the truth, and he’s changed.”
“I hope so,” she said.
They drove west under a strange sky, dark clouds massed to the south and then split on an almost perfectly even line with clearer skies showing to the north. It was the way fronts often developed here, blowing in fast and shifting in ways that were tough for a native of the mountains like Arlen to follow. A few stray raindrops speckled the windshield, but the wind was puffing in unenthusiastic gusts, the storm front sliding away to the south this time, leaving them clear.
It seemed that way until they were a mile from the inn at least, and then the wind swung around fast and sudden and drove the clouds up over them, and the sun was hidden again and the path to the Cypress House was bathed in shadow. An armadillo waddled along the dirt road, indifferent to the truck that nearly ended its life. They broke out of the trees and the inn came into view, the sea beyond it caught between light and dark beneath the shifting cloud front. Owen’s convertible was parked where it had been when they left, and there was no sign of visitors. Everything looked calm.
“What time is it?” Rebecca asked.
“Nearly noon.”
“And the boat’s supposed to come in after dark. Around nine is what Owen said.”
“Right.”
She stood on the hill and looked down at the inn as the sky continued to darken and the wind pushed the Cypress House sign back and forth on creaking hinges. A pair of gulls shrieked as they flew over the roof and then vanished down toward the beach, where a large wave blew in with a cloud of spray and an angry snarl.
“I won’t miss it,” she said. “Not one bit.”
“We’ll get you to Maine,” Arlen said. “I promise.”
She smiled faintly and took his hand and squeezed it, and then they walked down to the inn together. Up the front steps as the sign continued its rhythmic creaking, like a porch swing on a hazy summer afternoon in some sleepy, happy town, and then they were through the door and into the barroom. Arlen was carrying the money bag. The lights were off and it was dark with the sudden cloud cover, and Rebecca called, “Owen? Paul?” as they came in. Arlen closed the door behind them. The latch had just clicked when she screamed.
He’d had his eyes down, but now he raised them. Looked across the room and through the windows to the back porch. Saw Owen Cady’s body dangling in the wind, upside down, a wide dark gash torn through the center of his throat.
48
THERE WAS A ROPE knotted around his ankles, holding his feet together, secured to someplace on the roof. Probably the widow’s walk. His hair hung straight down, matted here and there with blood. There were also streaks of blood tracing his jaw and lining his face. Either the wound had been very fresh when they’d hung him up or they’d cut his throat with him in that position.
Rebecca screamed again, calling out his name this time in an anguished howl, and then she ran for the porch. Arlen grabbed at her arm and missed, and then he dropped the bag of cash and followed as she burst through the back door. The wind pushed her brother’s corpse closer to her before his weight swung it away again, a gentle pendulum motion. She said Owen, this time so soft it could scarcely be heard, and then dropped to her knees on the porch.