Unauthorized Access

by Andrew McAllister

  Eldon lit a cigarette, took a long first drag, blew smoke up into the haze that lingered near the ceiling and flicked the cigarette needlessly over the well-populated ashtray.

  “You and Tim supposed to go somewhere are you?” Eldon said.

  “No, I just need to talk to him.”

  “Well, like I said, I don’t know where he’s at.”

  Rob had a little more orange juice, trying in vain to dispel a raging case of dry mouth.

  Eldon picked up the remote, turned on the TV and started surfing channels. He settled on a workout program, three young women gyrating on some tropical beach.

  “Tim and I chatted quite a bit while we were out biking yesterday,” Rob said. “Some of the things he said kind of bothered me. He talked a lot about my girlfriend, Lesley. Made me wonder, you know? I mean, they went together for a while in high school. He ever talk to you about her?”

  That got Eldon to turn his attention away from Tushes ’R Us. He gave Rob an appraising look.

  “You think he’s trying to take your girl?” Eldon said.

  Rob nodded slightly. “I’m starting to think maybe, yeah.”

  “That’s quite a question to ask a father.”

  Rob took a deep breath. “Mr. Whitlock, I’m in a wicked bad jam here and most of it through no fault of my own. Some of it’s got to do with Lesley, some with the bank. And every time I turn around someone’s telling me something about Tim that isn’t what I expected.”

  Rob had Eldon’s full attention now.

  “I sure could use some help,” Rob continued. “If there’s anything you can tell me … well, I’d really appreciate it.”

  Eldon looked at the floor and was quiet for a time. The cigarette smoldered in his fingers. Rob barely breathed while he waited. At last Eldon raised his head and looked Rob full in the eyes.

  “Sorry,” Eldon said. “Can’t help you, son.”

  * * *

  Lesley tossed the tennis ball high and cocked the racket back. Her right foot joined the left near the baseline as she shifted to put her full weight behind the serve. The internal computer born from years of practice told her the toss was a bit forward of perfect—and that it was too late to stop. She grunted with effort as she caught the ball at the top of her swing, sending it hard into the net.

  “Damn,” she said with frustration. No way was she going to double fault at forty-love. Her second serve was high and loopy with plenty of spin. Shayna swung at the ball with a weak stab. It bounced twice on its way back to the net.

  “That’s game,” Lesley called out and jogged to the net to retrieve the ball from her errant first serve.

  Shayna came in to the net on the other side. “You through whupping on me yet?”

  “You tired?”

  “Tired of watching balls whip past me.”

  “Sorry about that,” Lesley said with a wry grin. “I have to admit, though, it feels good to bash something.”

  “Your day be complete without some more bashing?”

  “Let’s see. I pretended for a while that the ball was Rob’s head. Then I whacked Arthur Pearce a bunch of times.”

  Lesley didn’t bother mentioning that a few of her more vicious smashes had sent Kirsten hurtling into the net.

  “Bosses need that once in a while,” Shayna said. “Keep ’em in line.”

  “And just lately the ball has taken on an amazing resemblance to my father.”

  “Freud would be proud.”

  “But he’d want me to take a few swipes at my mother, too.”

  Shayna bent and scooped up two balls on her side of the net. “We can keep going if you want.”

  “No, we can be done.”

  They walked to one end of the net. Lesley picked up the plastic tube for the balls and held it out so Shayna could deposit the ones she was holding.

  “I was hoping this would clear my head,” Lesley said, “help me figure out what to do.”

  “Did it?”

  Lesley picked up a towel and put it around the back of her neck like a scarf.

  “Not really.”

  The two of them started walking off the courts.

  “Basically you got to decide whether to hang on or let go,” Shayna said.

  “To Rob, you mean.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I thought I already let go.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “I gave the ring back.”

  Shayna made a shooing gesture. “That doesn’t mean anything. You’re hanging on inside, where it counts.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it,” Lesley said. “Feels like he’s gone.”

  They reached Lesley’s Toyota.

  “You want him to be?” Shayna said.

  Lesley had a chance to think about that while she opened her door, got in, unlocked Shayna’s door and waited for her friend to get in.

  “I don’t know what I want,” Lesley said.

  “Yeah, you do. You’re just not ready to admit it to yourself.”

  “Sometimes you’re full of it, you know that?”

  Shayna smiled and shrugged impassively.

  “What can I say? I’m no good at this Dr. Phil crap. Now when you need some help from an audio-visual technician, you just let me know.”

  Lesley started the car, looked back over her shoulder and pulled into the street.

  “What I can’t get by,” she said, “is how I could ever trust him again.”

  “Don’t know. Got to be something left for you to figure out.”

  “Oh, you mean after you’re done revealing all the secrets hidden deep down in my soul?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, try this on for size. Tim came over to my place last night. He told me he was talking with Rob, and Rob wanted to figure out who he could put the blame on for attacking the bank.”

  Shayna raised one quizzical eyebrow. “You’re seeing a lot of Tim lately.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe you have something else to grab onto if you let go of Rob.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Lesley said. “We’re both close to Rob, that’s all. Tim is shaken up about what’s going on too.”

  “You dated Tim in high school, right?”

  “Briefly.”

  “You telling me you’d never consider a rematch if Rob was out of the picture?”

  Lesley risked a sideways glance before returning her attention to the street ahead.

  “Don’t you have any easy questions?”

  Shayna flashed her a wide grin. “That’s not in my contract.”

  * * *

  Rob tried to look in every direction at once as he walked to Kirsten’s car outside Tim’s place. The street was lined with cars parked on both sides. He saw nothing unusual.

  His heart hammered as he unlocked the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. Rob grimaced as he lifted his left leg into the car and pain flared in his swollen knee. He pulled out of the parking spot with his eyes glued to the rearview mirror, hardly taking the time to scan the street ahead. His breath caught when a green Volvo station wagon that had been parked halfway down the block pulled out behind him and started heading in his direction.

  Rob swallowed hard and tried to tell himself it was just a coincidence. He barely slowed for the stop sign at the end of the block, rolling through a right turn and then zipping away as fast as the Saturn could manage. The Volvo mimicked his right turn and showed up in his rearview mirror again, several car lengths back. Three right turns later, Rob had completed what amounted to a full circle. The Volvo was still with him.

  Rob’s hands were slick on the steering wheel. Was it the police? Or the guy who had kidnapped him? Could it be someone else? Rob hoped it was the police but didn’t want to get close enough to find out.

  No way did the little Saturn have the power to outrun a Volvo. Besides, the stop-and-go city traffic made that idea a bit laughable. Rob decided his only chance was to try something crazy. With that in mind, he slowed as he
approached a green light at the intersection with Washington Street. The car directly behind him blared his horn, then swung into the left lane to blast through the light. The next car followed suit. When the light turned red, Rob ended up first in line with the Volvo directly behind him. He nervously checked that his car doors were locked. Rob tried to make out the driver’s face in his mirror, but the sun reflected on the Volvo’s windshield so he couldn’t see inside.

  Traffic moved through the intersection in front of Rob from both the left and right. He could tell that the line of cars from his left would clear out first. Looking to his right, he saw a U-Haul truck lumber to a slower start than the cars ahead of it. Sensing his chance, Rob waited until the truck was almost in the intersection, then bolted through the red light and shot into the gap in front of the truck. The truck jolted to a stop and emitted a long, angry horn blast. Once clear of the intersection, Rob risked a glance in the mirror. He saw the Volvo attempt to follow him, but the intersection was jammed with traffic again. Then the truck moved forward and blocked Rob’s view of the Volvo.

  He drove like a maniac for the next five minutes, putting as much distance and as many turns as he could between himself and his pursuer. Finally he was convinced he had eluded the Volvo. He was also starting to think it was time to let someone help.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  IF NEAL PETTIGREW was annoyed about meeting with Rob on a Saturday morning, he showed no sign of it. The lawyer looked resplendent in a thick burgundy crewneck sweater and black dress pants. His bald head gleamed with ebony richness as he sat behind the broad expanse of his desk and listened with rapt attention to Rob’s story. The expression on Pettigrew’s face remained impassive throughout. A yellow legal pad sat on the desk, half covered with notes that Pettigrew had scribbled while Rob spoke.

  Rob’s hand shook slightly as he raised the crystal tumbler to his lips and took another sip of water before continuing.

  “The final straw for me,” he said, “was when I called Kirsten to see how she was doing, and the FBI had been there. She was a total wreck. It’s one thing when they drag me through this crap, but I don’t want it to happen to my friends. I need you to help me sort out what’s going on.”

  “From what you’ve told me,” Pettigrew said, “you should have called for help long before this. How you can be abducted and beaten like that and not report it is beyond me.”

  “I’ve had my fill of the police lately, and there wasn’t much they could do for me after the fact.”

  “No? How about they might catch the guy and put him away so he doesn’t do it again.”

  “Based on the tiny glimpse I had of the guy after he lost the wig and mustache? I figured they’d have me looking at mug shots for hours and it would turn out to be a waste of time. I was too exhausted to face that.”

  “Someone might have seen you on your way to or from that garage. There could be prints at the place. The garage owners might know something. I’ve seen cases cracked on less.”

  Rob’s head felt heavy. It sounded so obvious when Pettigrew said it.

  “I never thought of that,” he said.

  “We need to talk to Steeves. He might refer us to Boston PD on the abduction charge, but we need to find out why the FBI is looking for you, so we might as well start with him. Have you violated the terms of your bail in any way?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “This thing with Kirsten could be a tactic on their part to spook you, try to flush out information. Same with whoever was following you. If it is, it’s harassment and we’ll put a stop to it, I can assure you of that.”

  Rob felt a surge of relief at the confidence in Pettigrew’s voice.

  “There is also this matter of your friend Tim.” Pettigrew paused and seemed to consider how he should say what was on his mind. “You don’t sound convinced that he had anything to do with the attacks on the bank.”

  “I’m not. But it had to be someone I work with, so when I started hearing all this stuff about Tim, it really made me stop and think.”

  “And what do you propose we do about it?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Pettigrew tapped his pen on the legal pad and gazed thoughtfully at Rob.

  “The obvious thing,” Pettigrew said, “would be to mention to Agent Steeves that we have suspicions about your friend. The problem, though, is that all you have is suspicion and innuendo.”

  “I tried to find Tim this morning but he wasn’t home.”

  “Steeves has undoubtedly already interviewed Tim. I doubt your information will be enough to convince him to do anything more.”

  “But it’s not just me,” Rob said. “Kirsten could tell Steeves what Tim said to her.”

  “Which would prove nothing. He made some angry comment while they were in the midst of breaking up. That’s hardly a smoking gun, is it?”

  A bleak, wintry feeling settled over Rob. He took another sip of water, a bigger one this time. There didn’t seem to be anything else worth doing.

  * * *

  Lesley swayed to the left in unison with the other dozen or so passengers as the subway car jolted and rumbled its way downtown. Three Oriental girls in their late teens sat across the aisle, laughing and speaking animatedly about something. The silky black ponytail of the girl in the middle swung back and forth as she looked at each of her companions in turn. Lesley couldn’t hear what they were saying, couldn’t even tell if they were speaking English, but she envied their exuberance. They looked so carefree. Lesley felt like her life was being swept along toward a train wreck by events that were completely beyond her control.

  She glanced to her left at her mom. The two of them were on their way downtown for some lunch and a bit of mother-daughter time.

  Lesley thought her mother looked small and vulnerable. Her face was drawn and pale with dark circles under her eyes.

  “You sure got me thinking yesterday,” Rose said.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

  Rose shook her head.

  “You didn’t. It just felt like unfinished business. That’s why I called in sick today and drove back here.”

  A resolute calm emanated from her that Lesley was not used to seeing.

  “Not a day goes by,” Rose said, “that I don’t ask myself whether there was something I could have done differently with your father. He used to promise to give up the gambling, but money kept disappearing from our bank account. Sometimes I said nothing. Other times I waved the account statement in his face and we’d fight about it. He always ended up promising it would never happen again. But of course it did.”

  “Mom, you don’t have to go into all this.”

  “I know, but …” Rose sighed. “You know what the worst part was?”

  “What?”

  “Seeing what your father’s death did to you. It was hard on Michael, too, but you disappeared inside a shell for the first year or so. That was the main reason we moved to Worcester. Your therapist said a change might do you good, and it did to some extent. But even after you got back to being yourself there was still this … I don’t know, this distance between us.”

  Lesley thought her mother’s hand trembled as Rose rubbed her own cheek, but then again, the train made everything tremble.

  “You and I used to do all sorts of things together before your father died,” Rose said. “You liked me to read to you at bedtime. We played duets on the piano, even after you stopped taking lessons. And every day at dinnertime you told me what happened to you at school. I knew about every boy you had a crush on. But all that went away when your father died. You wouldn’t let me back in. I kept telling myself that if I gave you some space it would work itself out, that things would gradually get back to normal. But after a while the distance got to be normal. And then you went away to college and …” She shrugged.

  “I spent a lot of time blaming Bruce,” Rose went on, “asking how he could have done this to us. There were times I thin
k I would have strangled him if he had shown up again.”

  Rose stared up in the general direction of the advertisements that lined the top of the wall opposite them. “But mostly I kept trying to figure out what I had done wrong.”

  “Me too,” Lesley said.

  The words were out before Lesley knew they were coming.

  Small lines of concern formed between Rose’s eyebrows.

  “What do you mean?” Rose said.

  “I always thought he must have been really sad to do what he did,” Lesley said. She clamped her hands between her knees. “And I wondered if I was part of the reason he was unhappy.”

  A look of horror spread on Rose’s face.

  “That’s not true. Your father loved you more than anything.”

  “You don’t remember him yelling at me? How I wanted to stay out late with my friends and he didn’t want me to?”

  “You were fourteen years old. Everybody tests their limits at that age.”

  “Still, it was a problem for Dad.”

  “Any problems he had were his, not yours.”

  “I remember what he told me after he was arrested,” Lesley said. “He said none of the charges were true. ‘I didn’t do anything, Lesley.’ That’s what he kept telling me. Then he’d say, ‘You believe me, don’t you?’ Of course I believed him. In my eyes he was big and strong and perfect. He could have told me the sun was made of melted butter and I would have believed him.”

  Lesley felt the familiar sting behind her eyes, the hurt inside trying to come out into the sunshine, to make itself real and painful. She blinked the feeling away.

  “How could he do that, Mom? How could he love me and at the same time look me right in the eye and lie to me?”

  “I don’t know, except we all have our weaknesses and your father certainly had his share.”

  Lesley grimaced. “And now I have to figure out if Rob is lying to me.”

  Rose nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sorry you two are having troubles. I always liked Rob.”

  “Until now.”

  “No, that’s not really true.”

  “You said I’d be better off without him.”

  “So I’m an overprotective mother, but something occurred to me last night when I was driving home. Despite all the problems your Dad and I had, not once did I ever consider leaving him. All I wanted to do was help him, to work it out. So who am I to suggest you should abandon Rob now.”