by Robert Lane
“Correct. We—”
“When was it taken?”
“About two weeks ago.” He handed me another folder. Thicker. Who knew, maybe the whole bloody briefcase was for me. He stood. I did likewise. “Find Paretsky, Erase him.”
I’m telling you, they have a limited vocabulary.
“The cardinal,” I said.
“What about him?”
“Why was he there?”
“Not an exigency for us.”
“Is for me.”
“That’s on your dime.”
“What aren’t you telling me? What are the answers to the questions I’m not asking?” His face remained rigid. “Forget it. Who else is working this? I can’t be tripping over other—”
“It belongs to you and Demarcus. Multiple teams create too much disturbance, too much wake. We obviously underestimated Paretsky’s intelligence capabilities.” He paused a second and then said, “He has connections to your little corner of this swamp. Find him. Finish your job.”
“I was paid to—”
He stepped into me. He smelled of fresh mint. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead like water on the outside of a glass. “I pay you to think, and I suggest you start doing that.”
“I did—”
He stuck his nose within an inch of mine. “You knew. You knew when you pulled the trigger that morning that something wasn’t right. You might not admit it to yourself, and you sure as hell won’t admit it to me, but you knew.” He leaned in even closer. Next stop was Eskimo kissing. “There is no goddamned way that a cardinal went down like a world-class assassin. You want to tell me otherwise, son, make a go of it. Right here. Right now. I’m listening. I don’t hear you. I don’t hear you.”
Prick.
He nodded his head a few beats, backed off a couple inches, and then shut it down. “Don’t screw up this time.” He pivoted and strolled confidently down my dock.
A little over a year ago, the colonel had acted off the grid, pulled a mother lode of favors, and arranged a new identity for Kathleen. The Chicago Outfit, her deceased husband’s business partners, was pursuing her. We staged her death and gave her a new identity: Lauren Cunningham became Kathleen Rowe. At the time I’d thought it a great act of charity. A real pal. I know now that he was acting in his best interest. He owned me for life.
Good thing for him that my love for Kathleen astounded my senses. Otherwise, I’d hide behind ‘stand–your-ground’ and drop him into the salty water that lapped up against my seawall. I had murdered a cardinal. I sure as hell wasn’t going to blame myself.
Good luck with that stiff breeze.
CHAPTER 6
Donald Lambert lived in a single-story ranch house less than a half mile from a public beach access. The house had a fresh coat of yellow and white paint. His lawn and landscaping appeared to have just come from the barber. I rang the doorbell. The Westminster Quarters chimed inside. I couldn’t imagine listening to that every time I wanted a pepperoni and green olives.
I rapped my knuckles on the door. I hiked around the house. It backed up to a canal where a gray dock, put in around the time Thriller was released, hugged the property parallel to the water. No boat or lift, but a half-submerged bait bucket with a yellow line tied to it bobbled in the wind-scrubbed water. A great white egret staked out its claim by the bait bucket. Across the canal, a man worked on his twin-engine Wellcraft, Knotty Girl in script on her side. The sticky, humid air clung to my skin like a wet suit.
I continued following the circumference of the property until I returned to the front porch. The door was open, and a man stood, arms folded, leaning against the doorframe.
“Nice tour?”
“What’s in your bait bucket?”
“Bait,” he said. His hair was buzzed on the sides, nothing on top.
“That would be a fine place to keep it.” I thrust out my hand. “Jake Travis.”
“Lambert, Donald Lambert.” He shook my hand purely out of obligation. “What can I do for you, Travers?”
“Travis. Travers wrote Mary Poppins.” I flashed him my Florida PI license. “I’m looking for your daughter, Renée. Harvey Boswell Chevrolet has retained me. They’re a mega-dealer over on the East Coast—must have a thousand cars on that lot. Nothing your daughter did, Mr. Lambert, but they had some purchases using fake IDs. All cash. Your daughter’s ID was used. I’m guessing her dream’s not a dual-exhaust, cherry-red Silverado 3500. If so, thank you for your time.” I opted for the cover and soft opening, instead of proclaiming that his daughter might be in grave danger, as I didn’t want to alarm him. Nonetheless, I sounded like an actor who knew he was blowing the audition.
“Wouldn’t the police be involved?” He wore a washed-out blue T-shirt with a pocket. I like T-shirts with a pocket, but they’re hard to find.
“I assume they are.” I put my license away. “But Boswell hired me to expedite the process, you know, kick it into high gear. With the Patriot Act crawling up everybody’s ass, they’re eager to get this behind them. You don’t have something to drink, do you?” If he checked with Boswell, I was cooked. But I’d have my information by then.
Lambert took a second with that and then surprised me. “Sure, Poppins, come on in.”
We went through a living room of uncluttered furniture. Lambert didn’t strike me as a man who spent a lot of time in a living room, although, as traditional homes go, that room got naming honors. A large picture window occupied the front wall. The blinds were raised tight against the ceiling, and a prominent, trimmed hedge blocked the lower half of the view. I doubted the blinds had been touched in years. We entered the kitchen, where a bucket rested on the tile floor next to the oven. The bucket was filled with water, and a mop leaned out of it like a crooked palm with no fronds.
“Didn’t answer when you knocked; I was in the shower. Up early and done fishing by nine. Water OK?”
“Appreciate it.”
He opened his refrigerator and handed me a bottle. “Just getting ready to do the kitchen. I put that bucket in the shower and use the water it catches to do the floor.”
I unscrewed the lid and took a swig. “That’s certainly an energy ef—”
“Nothing newfangled green about it, either. My wife, she was British, grew up using the bathwater. You always walk around people’s property who you don’t know?”
“No, and I apologize if I offended you. I live on the water, about two miles south of here. I wanted to see your setup.”
Lambert seemed to consider that as he poured himself a mug of coffee. The chipped, stained cup had Dad on it in large letters.
“Pinfish,” he said and took a sip. “In the bait bucket. Couple of blues as well. Nothing this morning, though. Good-size gag grouper yesterday, enough for two dinners. What do you pull out?”
“Little of everything. Flounder, lately. I got sea grass, and they like the edge just where the water turns deep beyond the end of my dock.”
“We don’t get them back here.”
“I’ll bring you some next time I hook one.” I took another drink from the bottle. “Hate to press and all,” I said, “but do you have a number for your daughter? Like I said, whoever is using her identity is using this address, and we’d like to get in contact with her.”
“Follow me.” He strolled out the back door to a covered, concrete patio, where he claimed a metal chair. I settled into a chair next to him and leaned back. It nearly flipped over, but the back of the chair hit the wall of the house.
“You ever go out on Knotty Girl across the canal?” I said.
He stared across the narrow water. “Old Linwood,” he said. “You can’t tell that fat boy nothing.” He looked back at me. “Yeah, we used to go out friends and come back enemies, but that ain’t what fishing’s about. We have a good time now ’cause we recognize that in each other. Nothing more important in a relationship than knowing your counterpart and accepting him for what he is.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I went w
ith, “Do you know how I can reach your daughter?”
“You say you catch flounder.”
“I do.”
“On the edge of the sea grass where it gets shallow.”
“Deeper. They like the deeper edge.”
He nodded. “And this Boswell has thousands of cars on his lot?”
“He’s got a few.”
A man and a woman on separate Jet Skis motored down the canal toward the open end. The woman kept revving her engine and spurting forward. Lambert took another sip and put his Dad mug on a wrought-iron side table. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, steepled his fingers, and said, “Here’s the deal; I believe what you said about the fish, but nothing else. Only reason I invited you in was to find out who the hell you really are.”
Time to jettison my cover. “She might be in danger.” I leaned in and mimicked his position, elbows on knees. “We—and I cannot discuss who we are, but we fly the red, white, and blue—believe that she is associated with a very nasty person. I need—”
“You don’t give a rat’s ass about Renée. You want her because of that fellow she was seeing.”
“That’s correct.” I wanted to respond quickly to his accusation so as not to alienate myself any further.
Lambert leaned back. The great white egret on his dock took a slow-motion bird step in our direction. Lambert paid it no attention. “You working with that other guy?”
“No clue who you’re referring to.”
“Came round yesterday?”
“Tell me about him.” I couldn’t imagine that the colonel would send me in twenty-four hours after someone else.
Lambert got out of his chair and lumbered out to his dock. I followed. The great white egret, not intimidated by him, took a single step back as he passed. My bet was that they were fishing buddies, and he fed the bird. Lambert turned his back to me, raised his bait bucket, poked around, hesitated, and lowered it back into the water. He gazed out toward the open water where the Jet Skis had just taken a corner. Their engines shattered the morning. He spoke with his back to me.
“How do I know,” he said, “which one of you to trust?”
“You go to Sea Breeze for breakfast?” He faced me and nodded. “Ask Peggy. She’ll tell you everything about me, and when she’s done, you’ll no doubt have higher aspirations for your daughter than me, but you’ll trust me.”
Peggy, who works the counter at the breakfast joint, doesn’t know that much about me. Few people do. But that wasn’t what he was really fishing for.
“I might just do that,” he said. “This other guy, he was like you, all muscles, but not as tall, and a shaved head. No twinkle in his eye, either. Said he was a friend of her boyfriend, and her boyfriend hadn’t seen her for a few days. Said they were both concerned.”
“He here?” I ignored his twinkle remark.
“Who?”
“Her boyfriend.”
He snorted. “Never met him.”
He tossed a pinfish to the egret. The bird took a step forward and caught it in its mouth. “I keep hoping that she’s just waiting for the right one to bring home. You got kids?”
“No.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know. All you ever really want for them is to be happy and maybe bring someone good back to the nest. Just someone who cares the world for them.”
“She’s in with the wrong people,” I said, returning to the reason of my visit and sounding rude in the process.
Lambert kept his eyes on the bird and then glanced up at me. “I believe you’re right. Let’s go back in the shade. I need a refill.” He motioned with his empty cup.
Lambert disappeared into his house while I reclaimed my seat. The egret tracked his movement. I picked my water up off a fish magazine on the wicker side table where I’d left it. It was the same sportfishing rag I get, three issues back.
He stepped out from the kitchen and settled back into his chair. He kept his mug in his hand. “Renée, she doesn’t come around much. Last couple years she calmed down a bit, took life more seriously. She was close to her mom—my wife committed suicide six months back—and settled in London. Elizabeth, my wife, was originally from around there, little place called Harlow. Visited the place couple years back. Me? I like this part just fine. But Renée, she’s young and good-looking. Got a personality that can light up a room.”
“My condolences regarding your wife.” I recalled reading that Giovanni Antinori was also from around Harlow. As a young priest in that area, he had started an annual carnival. I dropped it in a mental file. Problem is, that file has a hole in the bottom.
“She’s finally at peace. Her mind was a rough place to live. Anyways, one day Renée calls me and says she’s been spending time with some fella in Europe. Told her to bring him by next time she was home.”
“And did she?”
“Said she would, but no, never got around to it.”
“Talk much about her new friend—what he did?”
“No, sir.”
“Name?”
“No.”
I brought up the picture on my phone—I’d taken a picture of all the pictures the colonel had given me—of Renée Lambert at the Valencia with the indistinguishable mystery man. I handed it to Lambert.
He asked, “When was this taken?”
“We believe around two weeks ago. The Valencia.” The colonel hadn’t told me how he came into possession of the photo. I wouldn’t be surprised if NSA had tapped into Facebook and done a portrait search. I scrolled to a picture of Renée with Paretsky. “This man your visitor?”
He took my phone and studied it. “No. He was bigger, more like that first one you showed me, but no way of telling from that shot.” He handed my phone back. “She was to come by, but she called that night—late—and said she couldn’t make it. I haven’t heard from her since.”
“Since when?”
“Pardon?”
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
“That night. Little less than two weeks back.”
“And the last time you saw her?”
He shrugged and gazed out toward the water. “Half a year, maybe? When her mother—”
“Is that unusual?”
“What?”
“Being in town and then begging off and not dropping by.”
“Why do you think I’m yakking to you? You think I normally let lying strangers walk around my property and then invite them in?”
“How did she sound on the phone—when she called you at the last minute and begged off?”
He brought his left hand up and rubbed his cheek as if conducting a shaving test. “Like she didn’t want me to worry.” He switched hands. His left went down by his side, and his right hand came up to his right temple. “I almost asked her if everything was all right. I should have. It was late, I was tired, but I should have.”
“You had no way—”
He waved his hand at me. “Save it.”
I shifted my weight and stuffed my phone back into the front pocket of my cargo shorts. Music played in the house; it was soft, and I couldn’t make out the tune. I hadn’t heard anything when I walked through. He must have flipped it on when he got a refill.
“Have you called her?” I said.
“Her phone’s off. Or she doesn’t answer it. I don’t know one from the other.” He leaned in again, elbows on his knees. He had a pen in his T-shirt pocket that hadn’t been there when he answered the door. Above his right shoulder hung a slightly crooked picture of a beaming Donald Lambert with his arm draped around a woman I assumed was his late wife. I wondered why he kept it outside, but then I knew. This was where he lived. His living room.
“Nice picture.” I nodded toward the wall and momentarily thought I’d seen the picture before.
“That was us a couple years back,” Lambert said. “I tracked down a few of Renée’s old friends, but they haven’t heard from her. Told them to
call me if they did.”
Although I enjoyed Lambert’s company, I hadn’t learned much. I was eager to see if Mary Evelyn had found anything more on Cardinal Antinori. “Tell me about your other visitor.”
Lambert leaned back into his seat and took a sip of coffee. He considered my request like we were in a play, and he had momentarily forgotten his lines. “He walked into my house…” He paused and gazed out toward his dock. “Didn’t give two shits ’bout me.” He gazed back at me. “Never looked me in the eye like you do. Jake, you’re one of the worst liars I’ve ever met.”
I’d been told that before and never took it as a compliment.
“Said she was in danger. Kept moving. Touching things. Opened my cupboards, took my phone, and ran through it. Threatened—”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“You ever watch old Western movies?”
“The Searchers.”
“Those big long pistols? He drew one from under his coat the second he stepped through my door. Kept it on me the whole time. Said if I went to the police, he’d find out, and I’d never see her again.”
“Yet you let me in.”
“Bad guys don’t wear shorts.”
I didn’t know what to do with that other than that I needed to start wearing black jeans in order to be taken more seriously in this world. And practice lying. About the only person I do that well with is Kathleen.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “Every detail.”
He didn’t have much. Cropped hair, solid build. Dark clothes. Lambert stated that his visitor claimed that he and Renée’s boyfriend were concerned that she had dropped off the grid. That their concern manifested itself with a six-shooter didn’t escape Lambert. If Lambert knew where his daughter was, he wouldn’t tell them, nor, I decided, would he indulge me, shorts or no shorts. No way. Two guys, back to back, looking for his daughter, and Lambert did what any dad would do: battened down the hatches.
I’d be walking out with not much more information than I’d walked in with. We both stood, shook hands, and I gave him my card. I told him to call if he remembered anything or heard from his daughter. I reminded him to have breakfast at the Sea Breeze. At the door I turned and faced him. Behind him, outside the sliding glass doors that led to his patio, the great white egret stood, no more than three feet from the glass. He might have lost his wife and was missing a daughter, but he had a bird for a friend. Whatever that was worth.