“The green Merc two cars back?” Gus asked. “I saw him get in line behind us when we left home. Some coincidence that he’s still back there after your meeting.”
“That’s the car, and it’s no coincidence,” I said.
“He’s not being very careful. Jumping out right behind us when we left was kinda obvious. Must think we’re idiots.”
“He, or she, is an amateur.” Marilena nodded, acknowledging the reference to our tail as a possible “she.”
Gus asked, “Ya want me to lose him.”
“Just the opposite. Make it easy for him to stay with us.”
“Are you planning something, Thomas?” she asked.
“I think I should meet our new friend.” I pulled the Beretta out of its holster and checked the safety. I looked up and to my complete surprise, I saw the Glock in her hands, her high-heels slipping off of her feet.
“We should do it at the next light,” she calmly stated.
I don’t know why this came as a surprise. She was an agent with the nation’s most respected police organization. She had been trained to deal with situations involving violence and wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines. My personal feelings notwithstanding, I couldn’t make some scene about her staying out of the way in the middle of a developing action. The opportunity to park her out of harm’s way for the trip to the Marklin ended when we got in the car at the house.
“It’s a one-way street. When we go out, cross to the far side and use the parked cars as cover. Stay low and move fast.”
She nodded her agreement. At least she would take orders from me while in a tactical situation.
“Gus, we’re going to rush the car following us. No matter what, don’t let it get past you. Use the car as a ram if you have to.”
He put aside any issue with his baby getting smashed and said, “He ain’t getting by me.” He wouldn’t.
The Beemer braked, and we popped the doors simultaneously. I was low and running back to the Mercury. Marilena had made it to the other side of the street, was moving in parallel and a little behind me. I made myself accept the fact that she was an asset for me to use, had to use. I had to keep personal concern out of my mind. Having both of us confront the car at the same instant, weapons drawn, would have the greatest effect. If the driver was armed and started shooting at one of us, the other could return fire. As we were separated, running us both down was not possible. I just hoped that Marilena would do her part from behind some protective cover.
I still couldn’t make out the driver of the Mercury. Between tinted windows and the large sunglasses, I could just barely see that the driver appeared to be female — no surprise there. Whoever it was, she had seen us and was panicked — the gearshift jammed into reverse, the accelerator stomped on. Tires squealed, smoked, and finally grabbed. Backing up and rapidly accelerating, the once pursuing, though now fleeing, automobile was out of control. It careened off of cars parked on both sides of the street as it over-corrected in an effort to escape. Backing up at high speed is an acquired talent. Stunt drivers in the movies make it seem effortless, especially when they execute the fish-tailing one-hundred eighty degree sliding turn, off and on the brakes at just the right moment causing the tires to lose adhesion and then retake it. From the way this driver was coping, there wouldn’t be any fancy Hollywood maneuvers.
She emerged from the crowded street and into the intersection at well over sixty miles per hour. Her speed did not give the driver of the large dump truck crossing at right angles with a green light the opportunity to stop. Although he was traveling at less than half of her velocity, he had more momentum due to the weight of his load. To the truck’s driver, her car appeared out of nowhere. His left front fender struck the left rear fender of her car. Her motion was instantaneously slowed to zero as her car oil-canned into the heavier vehicle and spun ninety degrees ending up in line with and in front of the truck. The truck’s speed didn’t reduce by a single mile per hour — he just was too heavy. Momentum is the product of mass and velocity. It doesn’t take a lot of speed when you have that much weight on your side. The truck continued over the car, crushing it underfoot with little effort, the truck driver doing his best to stop the onslaught without success.
I was the first to reach her, not that she could notice. She’d never notice anything again. Marilena ran up next to me, stocking feet having served her well. It was just becoming dark enough in the evening twilight that seeing through the front window into the car was difficult. I pulled out the 9-volt light and flicked it on.
There she was, or rather, there it was. The airbag had been no match for the crushing weight of the truck as it tried to prevent the steering wheel from dividing her into two unequal parts, her neck the line of division. Her decapitated head, now illuminated in the light, had been separated from her body and was pushed forward, still upright, onto the dash, her blood pooling around the neck, a sticky red lake hiding the torn flesh and bone while supporting a pale face under a tangled forest of obscenely red hair. Her eyes were still open, attacking, and accusing the world at large, her style in life following her into her death, though now, unfocused, no one accosted. Margaret Townsend was dead, Chicken Woman no more.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Slightly winded, Gus arrived next to me having abandoned his beloved Beemer and run the length of the block to the intersection where Margaret Townsend had died. Still, I’d bet that the doors on the car had been locked and the alarm set before he left. A man has to have priorities.
After noting that we were unharmed, Gus looked at the detached head on the car’s dash like he saw this every day. Having quickly gotten his breathing back to normal, he calmly asked, “Who lost her head?”
“She was a senior staff member where Ron worked,” I replied, emphasizing the word “was.”
“Not anymore,” he observed, matter-of-factly.
“What should we tell the local law when they arrive?” I asked Marilena, the sirens already in earshot.
“Yeah, what ya want me to say?” Gus followed up.
I looked at Marilena; it was her call. We had been passing ourselves off in not one, but two states, as representatives of an officially sanctioned, multi-jurisdictional investigation, and I didn’t want to cause her any intramural problems — the FBI and local law enforcement didn’t always get along.
She answered simply, “The truth. I’ve handled the interdepartmental issues already.” I should have known.
The driver of the truck, a young black man with a baseball cap on backwards, had finally come down from the cab. He stared open-mouthed at Townsend’s head, the object of our discussion. Then he turned, stumbled away, bent over, and puked in the gutter. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, turned to look back at me, and said, “The city don’t pay me enough for this shit.” He was right.
*
I was worried that the next several hours would be full of hurry-up-and-wait, good cop, bad cop, holding cells, summoning lawyers, and frustrating interrogation. Marilena identified herself to uniforms first to arrive on the scene and immediately started giving orders. Fifteen minutes later, a precinct lieutenant arrived, certainly because of the FBI involvement and the fact that Marilena had taken charge. He and Marilena spoke while Gus and I waited off to one side. Their conversation seemed amicable. After about ten minutes, she signaled us to join them.
“Thomas, Gus, would you both please give this officer your driver’s licenses so that he can make note of your identification.”
We pulled out the plastic IDs showing us to be local citizens entitled to operate motor vehicles and to be willing organ donors upon death. It became obvious that the precinct lieutenant who was supervising had already been informed by Marilena who and what I was. He was especially polite.
“Colonel Briggs, thanks for waiting and for your cooperation.”
I had waited only a little and had not cooperated with anyone or anything, at least not yet. It didn’t seem wise to point that out, so instead I
offered, “No problem. Anything we can do to help.” I was still a little concerned. It didn’t matter that he was being a nice guy right now — that could change quickly. My concern quickly vanished when he addressed Gus.
“And you, you drunken, low-rent, Greek reprobate? What ya got to say for yourself?”
“This one wasn’t my fault, Kev. Honest! I figured that it was just another crazy broad trying to get my eye! You know, like always!” They each laughed and shook hands — friends from some part of Gus’s life that I knew nothing about. My personal relief coefficient was climbing steadily.
The lieutenant looked back at me while shaking his head sadly and said, “Colonel, you should be careful about who you associate with. This guy is trouble. A word to the wise: Never let him keep score when you’re bowling!”
“I’ll keep that in mind, lieutenant. He’s shifty, eh?”
“Let’s just say that his arithmetic is frequently faulty, though consistently favorable to him. He says it’s age!” Gus assumed a wounded expression that wasn’t fooling anyone.
Marilena smiled and spoke, employing her diplomatic skill set, “Lieutenant O’Shanlon has offered to let you both come to the station tomorrow to make your statements. I have assured him that you will both do so. Because of his consideration, we can leave now. Thank you again, Kevin.” She smiled sweetly in his direction, and he turned a shade of pink that I am sure was unnatural for him. Whatever she had said to him, and whatever she had done back channel, had worked. My worry that this was going to become an all-night tangle in local law enforcement bureaucracy ended in short order. That is exactly what would have happened if I had been on my own. Sherpa Marilena had come through again.
*
Gus had kept the household staff informed of our slightly delayed arrival time. He told us that a special dinner was being prepared to celebrate my homecoming, and that for the first time ever, I had brought home an attractive dinner date worthy of the staff’s combined efforts.
Marilena, once again comfortably ensconced in the back of the Beemer, and looking for a way to lighten the mood, perked up at this. She spoke loudly enough for Gus to hear, “Very nice, Thomas. Beautiful car, talented, intelligent and handsome chauffeur, wonderful people who are cooking a ‘special dinner’ for you. Very nice, indeed.”
“Did you hear that, Tommy? Talented, intelligent, and handsome — B’YOOTIFUL!”
“Oh God,” my only response.
“Marilena, keep reminding him about how lucky he is. OK?” Gus was really enjoying this. “The Marine Corps must be some amazing place to be. Even better than his life here at home in Boston among the talented, intelligent, and handsome!”
“Or the company of an attractive dinner date, Gus. He hurts my feelings all of the time,” she said and then stuck her lower lip out slightly for his inspection in the rear view mirror.
“Do I need to straighten him out, Miss? It would be a privilege!” Gus volunteered.
“Would you do that for me?” She asked hopefully. “It might become necessary,” her voice emphasizing the false gravity of the situation. Then the two conspirators laughed. It was going to be a long visit.
Arriving back at the compound, I was pleased to see that the formal receiving line was nowhere in sight. We walked inside, and while I cleaned up in one of the first floor bathrooms, excuse me, powder rooms, Marilena went directly to the kitchen. I heard complimentary and happy women sounds as I came out of the washroom, or whatever it’s called. Somewhere after the salad and before the entree, I turned the conversation away from the meal we were enjoying and back to our case.
“Well, I’m turning out to be a pretty poor detective.”
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
“Let’s see. Item one, I have gone from ‘favorite working hypothesis’ that Caroline Little was our killer only to discover in less than twenty-four hours that she was not. Item two, my fallback position, that it was Margaret Townsend, got shot down when we learned that she had left the building with Little before Ron was killed. I’ll bet that when we check with the cab company, it will confirm Little’s statements. Item three, Townsend’s behavior following us today is a total mystery. If she wasn’t the killer, then what was she doing? See what I mean? I don’t have a clue. Is there a detective school that I can go to? Maybe a correspondence course or something on the Internet?”
“Why does this disappoint you? It should not,” she said, honestly surprised at my personal indictment. “I think that you have done very well. Two prominent figures have been eliminated from suspicion of having killed your brother. One of them, unfortunately only because we can’t question her, is dead and remains as an accessory, possibly before and definitely after the fact. To have accomplished this in the twenty-four hours you speak of is excellent progress. An FBI team with dedicated support staff doing research would be very pleased.”
“We’re doing well?”
“Better than I would have forecast. Tomorrow, we will meet with the police and see what they have learned about Townsend, if she planned to meet someone else here, what was in the car with her and anything else they have learned. If there is anything to follow up on from that, we will do so and then go back to New York. Townsend’s death will be causing someone to be very concerned right now.”
I thought about what she had said. It made sense. It was just a new world to me. Marilena was right that we were quickly eliminating people on the list of suspects. In Townsend’s case, the elimination was permanent although that wasn’t going to keep me up nights.
Marilena continued, “Our working assumption remains unchanged, Ron’s killer is on the suspect list. A suspect list now reduced. We will announce to those remaining on our list that the focus is no longer Boston. The good news for us is the killer’s bad news; the list is shorter, and he or she is still on it. I think that we can further assume that Townsend is, or was, in league with the killer. Her presence here is proof that the killer is incapable of simply doing nothing. Townsend had an assignment; we just don’t know what it was. Townsend’s failure, her death, and the soon to be announced elimination of Dr. Little as a suspect have changed the rules of engagement in a way that will be very disturbing to the killer. This should make you happy — the pressure factor has just increased. Congratulations, not recriminations are in order.”
*
I was in my room upstairs. My bedroom had been updated when I graduated from college. It no longer reflected the likes and dislikes of a teenage boy. The furnishings were contemporary, a decorator’s attempt to make me sophisticated. Like Ron’s, the bedroom had a large, attached workroom area that had originally been designed, though never used, as a sitting room. We had each used this space the same way — it was where we hid from the world’s noise and studied something of interest or something mandatory, each in our own private sanctuary. There were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on each wall everywhere there wasn’t a window. A desk and several worktables were arranged in no particular order. The shelves were full of textbooks from the schools and universities I had attended, course material from a wide variety of military training, and other books that I had acquired in support of outside hobbies and interests. A walk around the room would tell you a lot about me, if you cared to look. Very few had ever done that — none of them had been women. Off to one side was a comfortable, over-stuffed easy chair with a reading lamp next to it. I had planted myself there to read the final documents from the stack I had started on earlier. I heard a soft knock at the door, it opened, and Marilena walked in.
“Thomas, can I come in?”
“Sure.” I didn’t mention that she already had. “I’m finished with this stuff for the night.”
“Learning the family business?” she asked.
“Yeah. Ron sure took care of a lot of things for me. I really had no idea.”
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Yeah, but not about this. It can wait.” I paused and looked intently at her. “I
have only one question.”
“And that is?” she asked softly, knowing that the topic of conversation was about to become more important to her than my family administrivia.
I had considered this carefully. I knew that we had to come to an understanding about us, and we had to do it soon. I needed to get out of this ambiguous world about us that we were in. Whatever course we took, it had to be determined, not accidental.
“I heard what you said earlier, about us. I have only one concern.”
She waited, not interrupting.
“What if, after we start down this road, you change your mind? I mean, what you defined is not the norm for a couple as their relationship grows. What happens if our rules, our rules of engagement, stop working for you? Someday, you might not want to be involved with someone who is gone much of the time, who has a sometimes hazardous job? What if you decide that you want a more conventional life with two point one kids and the white picket fence? You know I can’t do that. What if you change your mind?”
“That’s it? That is your only concern? That I might change the rules — the rules of engagement?” She looked relieved and smiled at the reference.
“Uh, yeah. That’s really it. For me, it’s a big one. The big one.”
“Then, I want you to know, that what I have promised is not just a promise. It is what I want as well. What I want will not change, so I don’t have to worry about going back on my promise because I know myself well. Think about it from my perspective. I don’t want to become involved with someone who wants me to leave the FBI. To give up all of the things that make me who I am. I want three things: Exclusivity, love, and excitement. It’s simple.”
I looked at her standing in front of me. “There are a lot of little things that make up a relationship that you haven’t addressed.”
“We will work them out. There is no guarantee that this will work. But I want to try.” And a little more softly, “Do you?”
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