scott free

by Unknown Author

  Scotti had recognized the verse the first male voice had quoted. It was from a letter John Donne had written to Sir Henry Wotton, obviously intended for Nell Slack.

  Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls—that was how it began ... an unlikely, incongruous bit of poetry to be recorded for someone like Nell Slack.

  Immediately after the messages played, footsteps crossed to the front door, and it slammed.

  That was the moment Mario let go of Scotti.

  Scotti said, “If that’s Nell Slack leaving, don’t let her get away!” “There are two plainclothesmen in front of the middle school. They’ll follow her. How do you fit into his picture, Scotti?”

  “Never mind the cross-examination, Mario! I had enough of that last night! The Lasher child has been kidnapped, hasn’t she? That’s what this is all about.”

  “Yes, she was kidnapped.”

  “You have to tell the police to go to the Karpinski house on Maritime Way. There’s a possibility the child is there.”

  Immediately, Mario used his cell phone to call Detective Abrahams. He handed it to Scotti and said, “Tell him.”

  When she hung up she said, “We’ll meet an Officer Chayka on Maritime Way. First, I want to call my mother. I want to see if word is out about this.” “My van is low on gas,” Mario said. “We’ll take your car.”

  “Always write down whether or not Baba has done his duty!” her mother said when she phoned her. “Do you imagine that he can tell me ‘yes, I made big my two times’?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he could.”

  “Where on earth are you, Scotti? I even called Jessica.”

  “I’m in the village, Mother, but I can’t talk now.”

  “Emma wants Fortune Fanny.”

  “You talked to Emma?”

  “I just told you that I called Jessica. Emma wants Fortune Fanny and she wants you to send it. She doesn’t want you to bring it.”

  “All right. I just wanted you to know I’ll pick up something for dinner tonight.”

  “The poor little tyke. She’s afraid you’ll surprise her when her playmates are there.”

  “I’ll see you later,” Scotti said.

  “I know what all the fuss was about last night, too, in case you’re interested.”

  “Of course I am, Mother.”

  “It’s top secret and I promised Delroy that I wouldn’t breathe a word. The Lasher child has been kidnapped, and her father had a heart attack and died.”

  “You don’t miss a trick, do you, Mother?”

  Her mother said, “And you never react. You always act as though you already know anything I have to tell you.”

  “I have to go now, Mother,” Scotti said.

  On their way to the Karpinskis’ Mario said to tell the police that her mother had told her about the kidnapping. “Otherwise they’ll think I told you.” He chuckled. “I think at one point Detective Abrahams even suspected you,” he said.

  “Did you, Mario?”

  “It crossed my mind, particularly when you showed up at Nell and Liam’s apartment on Newtown Lane. By that time I had a few plain -clothesmen keeping an eye on me.”

  “I wonder about you myself.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly. Anyone could be involved in this, couldn’t they? How did you get in Nell and Liam’s place?”

  “When no one answered the bell there, I remembered there was an extra key to the back door. Nell kept it under the stone cat on the front steps. Once when I chauffered her from Islip Airport, she’d let herself in with that key. She’d lost hers.”

  “What were you looking for? Not the child.”

  “I was worried. Nell’s car was there in the driveway, but there was no one inside. I looked around to see what I could find there when suddenly I saw a figure getting out of a Pinto out front. She was wearing the disguise she’d worn the day before in Northwest Woods, only then I never dreamed it was Nell under that white wig.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “Say to her?” he said with a surprised tone. “I hid from her. I slipped into the pantry. I didn’t want a confrontation with her. I wanted her to leave, maybe lead the plainclothesmen outside to Deanie.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She was bent on retrieving the messages from the answering machine. Then she was in a hurry to go. That was the moment you suddenly came sneaking through the kitchen door and I grabbed you.

  Silence for a moment, and then he said, “You’re still mad at me because of last night, hmm?”

  “Did you really think I could be involved in something so despicable?” “I’m having trouble believing Nell could be.”

  “But you could believe it about me?”

  “That damn book. The Master Key. Then the doll. I thought: Why would she have a doll? And finally the fucking, excuse me, the secret!”

  “My secret love, Delroy,” Scotti said.

  Mario laughed weakly. He said, “Delroy told us you were smashed one night and he drove you home. I thought someone who hung out in discos when she was a kid wOuld know how to handle her liquor.”

  “When she was a kid, she did.”

  “That’s some nowhere secret! Why didn’t you just tell us you were drunk and he drove you from Hampton Bays?”

  “Mario, I didn’t like the way the famous author interrogated me. I could not believe his arrogance.”

  “Now you know what was going on.”

  “What’s still going on,” she said. “When I told Abrahams about the calls 011 the answering machine, I don’t think he even wrote down the information.”

  “I wouldn’t play detective anymore, Scotti . This isn’t like one of your ex’s insurance frauds . . . although ...”

  “Although what?”

  “The ransom they want—and this is between you and me, okay?” “Okay.”

  “The ransom is a ring worth millions. Jewelry instead of money. So I suppose an insurance investigator could be called in.”

  They were turning onto Old Stone Highway.

  Scotti said, “Even if the ring is insured, it’s not covered once it’s turned over for ransom.”

  “How' come? Isn’t that a form of robbery?”

  “Not if it’s handed over in exchange for something or someone. That’s barter, not robbery.”

  “But it’s like being held up, isn’t it?”

  “There’s no weapon, no confrontation. It amounts to bargaining.” “All the more reason for you to stay out of it,” said Mario. “Let the police do their thing. And they’ve liaised with the FBI. Liaised. I don’t even think that’s a real word.”

  “The police have their own vocabulary.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Do you mind if I smoke in your car?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I feel to blame for the whole damn thing,” he said, shaking up a cigarette from his pack. He went through it all again: how Nell had used him to get information about the Lashers, how quickly the abduction had been accomplished, how he hadn’t suspected anything until he was pulled over by one of the kidnappers disguised as a cop. Then Deanie was in another car and the crime was in progress.

  “Mea culpa, mea culpa,” he said.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Mario.”

  “I made Delroy breakfast this morning, but I couldn’t swallow anything besides coffee. And speaking of coffee, we ran out at the Lashers, but Delroy had a can hidden away up in his nook. A kind your mother likes, he claimed. Some Spanish or Italian brand he says is hard to find out here.” “Vassilaros.”

  “Right! What’s his big attachment to your mother?”

  “Maybe he likes older women.”

  “Seriously. He wasn’t going to part with the coffee. We had to beg him!” “Really?” She tried to sound surprised. She didn’t tell him that Myrna House only drank tea, or that Delroy’s fascination was with her and not her mother. Scotti didn’t want Mario wondering why driving a drunken woman home would cause Delroy to get
fixated on her. No need for Mario to explore that one.

  She said, “Why would anyone choose Delroy as the go-between?” “My fault again. I told Nell how he did everything for Mr. Lasher— what a reliable gofer he is. Yet I didn’t play down his nerd aspects. He’s the perfect combination of obedience and gullibility. He follows orders without question. He was Len Lasher’s faithful dog.”

  Mario exhaled a cloud of smoke and said woefully, “Yeah, I shot my mouth off big-time! They couldn’t have done this without me.”

  “But if it wasn’t for you telling me about Pisheresse, I might never have picked up on the fact it was Nell in the cemetery,” Scotti said. “That started my mind working. So there’s a good side to your mouth.”

  “What do you think Nell was doing at Green River Cemetery?”

  “I know' what I saw her doing. She was staring down at Len Lasher’s grave. Did you know Detective Abrahams thought that’s where the kidnappers might have put Deanie? He went over there to look at it.”

  “So Nell was just standing there in the snow, alone?”

  “Yes. I never would have made a connection without that scarf. She looked very different. She’d done something to her face. It was incredible.” “Well that’s the business she’s in: makeup, cosmetics.”

  As miffed as she was with him for his behavior the night before, Scotti heard the dejection in his voice and she felt pity for him. “I’m sorry, Mario. I know how you feel about her.”

  “Felt,” he said.

  Deanie Lasher was wearing a ski mask backward when he pushed her up the attic stairs. She had no notion where she was. He was too tall to stand. Crouching, he whisked off her ski mask. She had lost her scarf. Probably it was back in the house where she had spent the night.

  “You better eat,” he said. “This might be your last hot meal for a while.”

  Deanie didn’t tell him she hated tomato soup. She didn’t say things to Al she would have said to Rona. She didn’t even ask Al where they were.

  Al sat at the head of the stairs near the lightbulb he had to twist once to turn on.

  Deanie sat on the blanket he put on the floor for her.

  There were no windows.

  He sipped a cup of the soup and ate a roast beef sandwich on a roll.

  She tried to make it look like she was eating because she was afraid of his temper. She forced herself to swallow a spoonful of the soup. She knew it was out of a can. She had had canned soup once before, at a summer camp her mother regretted ever sending her to. And last night she had tasted bread sold in wrappers, the cottony kind Camp Kwapa also served.

  But she didn’t hold that sandwich against Rona. She almost liked Rona, who had tried to be kind to her. She wanted to ask Al when Rona would come to wherever they were, but he did not like questions. He had told her questions made him nervous, that they made him want to take his knife out of his pocket and cut off things: ears, noses, toes—anything goes, he said, and then he had said, “I like to rhyme things, do you?”

  “Sometimes,” she had answered, trying hard not to cry, thinking of her father and how he never cried, no matter what happened to him.

  “You know what rhymes with runV Al had asked.

  “Nun?”

  “I was thinking of gun. If you run, I shoot my gun. Get it?”

  She got it.

  After he finished the soup and sandwich he said, “I have some work to do before I leave to meet your pal, Delroy. You’ll hear me hammering. If you’re good and promise to eat your lunch, I’ll think about keeping the light on when I leave here. But if you don’t feel like obeying, I’ll take the lightbulb with me.”

  “I’ll be good.” Why was he meeting Delroy, of all people? Delroy didn’t always know how to do things. He had spelled Pecheresse wrong on the scarf he’d knitted for her. You couldn’t count on him.

  “No crying. No hollering. No one can hear you anyway but me. But I don’t like sounds when I’m working. I don’t like to be distracted. So shut up, kid!”

  He crouched over to go down the wooden stairs. Then the stairs sprang back and lay flat, as the trapdoor swung shut with a heavy thud.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Dr. Virginia Loeper spent every noon hour online exchanging information with other scientists interested in polymorphism.

  It was a very agreeable work situation, for she could enjoy her view of Washington Square Park and lounge about in one of her various robes, this morning’s a zip-front turquoise chenille robe with patch pockets containing her notes on the driver ant, Eciton.

  Most of her clothes came from catalogues; the robe was from a favorite source, Chico’s.

  As soon as she had found the data she needed, she treated herself to a few minutes in her favorite talk room: “Tranny Treats,” for transsexuals and transgendered.

  Someone had just asked the question: “How do you say transsexual in Ebonics?”

  Ginny waited for the answer. A lot of times there was boring vulgarity' in the chat room, but that was usually at night.

  “Susan B. Anthony” came the answer, and it took Ginny a moment to get it. Then she laughed aloud, just as the downstairs buzzer sounded.

  She went across to the wall receiver and asked who it was.

  “A Ms. Nell Slack to see you, Dr. Loeper.”

  “Well, hooray! Send her up, Donald.”

  But Dr. Loeper’s excitement was decimated by the look of her old friend the moment she emerged from the elevator. What had she done to herself? She could have been some off-off-Broadway actress who had come direcdy from the stage, in full makeup, playing the role of Hecuba or Medea. Her countenance was wrinkled with tear-stained powder. No wig. Just this fringe of red hair: the kind of cut female collaborators were given in wartime.

  Ginny put her arm around her. “It’s all right, dear. It’s all right.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Once they were inside they hugged, a cigarette burned down to the filter threatening Ginny’s graying, chin-length hair. She rushed to the coffee table and took the saucer from under her African violet.

  “Here, dear. It’s been so long since I’ve had a visitor who still smokes.”

  Nell ground out the butt and said, “May I wash up in your bathroom? I’m a wreck.”

  “Of course. You know the way.”

  In the kitchenette, Ginny turned on the kettle and took two Twinings Darjeeling tea bags from their violet package. She got down a blue china plate and cut a blueberry muffin in half.

  Telicare was playing softly on the small television in the bookcase near her desk. She favored that channel for whatever succor it offered— at the moment the sight of a monk in a yellow robe talking to Father Ted. She could not hear the conversation. It never mattered, though sometimes she did turn up the sound when the nuns were featured, singing and playing the violin.

  She thought that whatever this visit from Nell was all about, it would probably be some no-account taking advantage of her again, a Jimmy Rainbow type dragging Nell down to his level.

  She carried the tea and muffin into the living area, set it down by the violet, and sat on the couch waiting for the bad news.

  Soon Nell appeared, her face washed, her eyes bloodshot, reaching into her pants pocket for one of those long, brown cigarettes she smoked. “I may have to stay with you for a while, Ginny? Could you put me up?”

  Ginny pushed the saucer toward her, thinking, How can I live with a smoker? saying, “Of course I’ll put you up. What’s going on, Nell?”

  “Ginny, did something tell you to get in touch with me, some feeling that I was in trouble? You don’t know what a godsend it was to hear your voice on the answering machine!”

  “I met your friend from East Hampton at Elliot’s Full Circle.”

  “My friend? What friend?”

  “Scotti.”

  “Scotti House? She’s not a friend.”

  “All right, an acquaintance then.”

  “Is that how you got my number?”

  �
��I called Information.”

  “Did she know Liam’s name?”

  “Yes. Liam Yeats.”

  “Oh damn! Damn! I knew she was one of you!”

  “What does that mean, Nell?”

  “She transitioned. I could tell because of the FTM I saw her with last New Year’s Day. That boyish face they all have.”

  “I think you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

  Then Ginny heard the sordid story from the beginning.

  At the end, Ginny said, “What are we going to do immediately about this little girl? Where is she now?”

  “Probably in one of the houses Liam watches. I never knew his clients. When I went to our house, hoping he’d be there, I played back messages on our machine. There was a man named Ryan with a falling gutter, but no last name, no address. I don’t know where the child is. When I heard your message, it seemed like fate offering me a way out. I got in my car and drove straight here. I should have called first but I didn’t remember your number, so I finally just rang your bell.” She began to sob again.

  Ginny stood and marched across to her desk, bringing back her white Princess phone, setting it before Nell.

  “Don’t waste another minute! Call the police! The child is in danger!” “Liam swore to me he’d never hurt her.”

  “And you believe that?” A flicker of anger flashed in the doctor’s light blue eyes. “Call the police, Nell! Now!”

  “How can I tell them what I know without saying where I am?” “Just call them or I will!”

  Nell Slack had no sooner finished saying, “I won’t go back to prison!” when the downstairs buzzer proved her wrong.

  SIXTY

  The view from Ryan Simon’s roof on Cranberry Road was breathtaking. The early afternoon sun lent the bay waters a deep blue color, not a ripple on this almost windless, cold day.

  Liam could see the ocean lapping the shore in the distance, and just ahead of him Napeague, then Montauk.

  He had his cell phone with him as he went over and over the project revisions (now with Nell gone), deciding on the tone of two more calls he would make to the Lashers. They would have the cars and the maps ready, waiting for his instructions. He wanted them to imagine there was some elaborate plan, instead of the simple one he’d devised for a rendezvous with Davenport on a lonely trail near another Homesafe house. He wanted them to think others were working with him. If there were police involved, which he doubted, they would be spread out and ready with cars all over the South Fork.