It only took him a second to figure out the rest of it. “Holy crap,” he said, “She’s with Daisy! Right now.”
We didn’t have time to react—Lonnie’s phone started buzzing. He picked it up and listened. “What? Wait, back up, what happened? How the hell—? And they just let him? How is that even—? Jesus fucking Christ. Get an APB out on the guy! Full description, armed and dangerous. I don’t care if he is or not! He could have stashed a gun somewhere. Just do it. This fucking island. I don’t believe this shit.”
He ended the call and turned on me. “Jill Phelan died in the ICU ward at Mass General fifteen minutes ago. And your boy Barnaby Toll just walked her father out of the police station. They’re both in the wind.”
After the first punch of shock it made sense. Barnaby Toll had been Jill’s babysitter back in the day, and they had remained close friends. He had access to the holding cells. He and Liam must have been talking, sharing stories, stoking each other’s outrage and hate and despair. Jill’s death had obviously snapped both of them and Barney was smart enough to use our special relationship to bluff his way through the escape. What would he have called it? Some sort of transfer? A plane ride to the Barnstable facility? Or a quick ride to the State Police HQ? That would explain the routine follow-up phone call that set off the alarms. Except—that all was supposed to happen before you let the prisoner out of the building. The NPD was getting careless. This would never have happened in L.A. Time for a crackdown.
But that could wait. Right now I had Liam Phelan and Sue Ann Pelzer to deal with.
And Pell.
“Phelan’s not in the wind,” I said. “I know exactly where he’s going.”
“Tell me! We can chopper in a SWAT team and—”
“No, Lonnie. We’re de-escalating this one. It’s a one-man job.”
“Hold on one minute! That’s totally contrary to the SOP! If you fuck this up—”
But I was already halfway out of the room. Haden put a hand on my shoulder and handed me his Glock. His eyes said, “Just in case.”
Mine said “Thanks.”
And then I was gone. I heard Haden behind me saying, “Alert the Coast Guard.”
He knew where I was headed.
I sprinted to my cruiser, backed out of the State Police driveway spitting gravel and skid-turned down North Liberty Street, calculating the route as I drove. I popped the siren to clear the road and stamped on the gas. I’d have to go silent when I got close to Straight Wharf, but the louder the better for now. North Liberty is twisty and narrow, but everyone pulled over as I passed the Lily Pond, skirted Lily and Hussey streets, and tore down India. It was a straight shot to the bottom of town, and the path was clear.
Then a cat stepped off the sidewalk and sidled across the street in front of me. A black cat, of course. He sauntered across the street, and slipped out of sight behind a parked car. I accelerated again, trying to make up for the lost thirty seconds, hitting the siren at the Centre and Federal intersections, keeping it howling for the turn onto South Water and the jolting traverse of the Main Street cobblestones.
I was maybe twenty seconds from Straight Wharf, and starting to feel confident, when I hit the gridlock of the Harbor Stop&Shop parking lot. How could I have forgotten the summer traffic, here of all places? The siren wouldn’t help me—there was nowhere for anyone to go, no shoulder where they could pull over. I jammed the cruiser into the first restricted parking slot and took off running.
I brushed past some people, I may have knocked someone down. I heard angry shouts behind me as I hooked a left on New Whale Street, and pounded past the open plaza of Harbor Square and the Hy-Line ticket office. In another few seconds I was on the pier, racing over the slats with the low-tide smell of the harbor in my nose. I glimpsed the spires of the Nantucket Grand with a gasp of relief. They were still docked. I might have even beaten Phelan to the ship. People leapt out of my way. I heard a splash—that couldn’t be good—and kept on moving, past the forty-foot boats tied at the pier, then a hard right, through the turnstile to the restricted dock. Past two big yachts, Becky’s Promise and Harpooner.
The Grand was pulling away, churning whitewater from the big twin engines. There was no one visible on deck, no way to stop the ship. I had to jump for it. I slammed through the gate as I made the decision, clattering across the gangway in my heavy shoes. So much for tiptoeing around the deck in your sock-feet. I had the feeling that by the end of the day, scuff marks were going to be the least of Pell’s problems, or mine.
I landed the last step and hurled myself over the gap. A horrible moment of suspension caught over the water, and then my chest hit the chrome guard rail and smacked the breath out of my lungs. I flipped over the metal tubing and landed flat on my back on the deck.
Welcome aboard.
I took a second to catch my breath, then scrambled to my feet and eased myself over beside the big sliding glass doors. The wharf slipped farther and farther behind us. I could feel the big engines vibrating smoothly under my feet, a giant cat purring.
I risked a glance inside the doors.
Sue Ann had a gun at Daisy’s head, Pell had a girl I’d never seen before in the same position, using her as a shield against Liam, who was pointing a FNP Tactical autoloader in their direction. The detective, Berman, stood off to the side in front of an upright Steinway piano. Liam’s hand was shaking. This situation could explode at any second. No more time for skulking around.
I slid open the doors, pulled Haden’s gun out of my pants, and stepped inside.
Maybe I’d seen too many movies, but I had the surreal sensation of stepping into the overheated last reel of a Tarantino film. This crazy Mexican standoff was real, and it was my job to defuse it.
“All right everyone,” I said. “Put the guns down.”
“I don’t think so, Chief,” Pell said. The girl squirmed under his arm, the gun jabbed up under her chin. “Or I should say…not everyone. Just you and my chief engineer. Take their guns, Mr. Berman.”
“Yeah, sure. What the hell.” He stepped toward me, extended his hand.
Pell said, “Let me clarify the situation, Kennis. You two are armed but neither one of you is willing to kill another human being in cold blood. Your weapons are a bluff, and I’m calling it. You know I’ll kill this girl. I was planning to fire her anyway. She can’t even do proper hospital corners when she makes a bed. Think of the money I’ll save in unemployment payments.”
I gave Berman my gun. I had to keep the situation fluid. My opportunity would come. When he took Phelan’s weapon, I turned to Sue Ann.
“Why?”
“He’s my boss. It’s my job.”
“And you like it.”
She grinned. “Are you kidding? I love it.”
“Especially when Doug Blount takes the fall for everything you do.” I looked back at Pell. “How does that work, anyway?”
Pell shrugged. “Doug owes me everything. I made sure he got the life insurance payout after his wife died. I’m putting his boy through school—Hotchkiss—at the moment. Some Ivy League school later. I’ll make sure of it. I’m the boy’s new father now. Just as well, Doug was never really happy out of jail. Did you see the way he lived at the LoGran cottage? He managed to turn it into monk’s cell…or a lifer’s. Doug is my creature, leave it at that.”
Daisy looked terrified. Phelan was unreadable. I expected to see fear and despair on his face. I saw nothing but tension and resolve.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Pell continued. “Daisy here is going to have an unfortunate accident…a bit too much to drink, bad habits reasserting themselves, and then she’s going to fall overboard, the old Natalie Wood trick. Tragic. Even worse, the heroic police chief is going to die trying to save her. On the off-chance that your bodies might turn up we’re going to waterboard you before we throw you overboard. Well, perhaps that’s s
omewhat inaccurate. Waterboarding only simulates drowning. But you get the idea. And don’t worry, we use only good clean Atlantic brine. We wouldn’t want a coroner to find fresh water in your lungs! As for Phelan here—alas, he went postal…or should I say ‘aquatic’? Too many lonely weeks at sea. He always was unstable. Then his daughter’s death pushed him over the edge. Terrible business. Very traumatic. But I’ll recover, don’t worry. I’m quite resilient. And I have a mission to pursue. I have a dream.”
“And what is that?” I said. “What was worth killing Oscar Graham and Andrew Thayer and Todd Macy for?”
“And you two. Don’t forget you two! You’re as good as dead already.”
“So why? It can’t only be about scoring some big real estate deal.”
“The biggest real estate deal, Kennis. But no, you’re right. It’s a vision, my vision. It started with this ship. The Nantucket Grand. That’s where the epiphany struck me. Nantucket is a ship, too. A giant ship, permanently anchored, thirty miles out at sea. Do you understand?”
I stared at him. “No.”
“Of course not. You’re nothing but a pedestrian little bureaucrat.”
“So enlighten me.”
“We’re taking back this island, Kennis.”
“Taking it back? To what?”
“Not to what. From who.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Blue Heron is just the beginning. This island is going to become what it was always meant to be—a haven for the leaders, the job creators, the true royalty of the capitalist world.”
“The one percent.”
“The one-tenth of one percent. The people who make this world function. The drivers, the makers, the masters.”
“The Pharaohs.”
“But the Pharaohs were parasites.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not going to argue political science and macro-economics with a local cop. I suppose you think it’s the eight-fifty-an-hour worker bees who make the world go round.”
“At least they pay their taxes. Unlike General Electric. And LoGran Corporation.”
“America achieved its greatness in the era before income tax. And not just in business. Have you ever taken a trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boson? Lovely place. The art in that extraordinary building constitutes her private collection. She could never have accumulated such a spectacular array of art in the age of income tax.”
I didn’t want to get sucked into his laissez-faire philosophy. “None of this matters,” I said. “Your plan is impossible. It could never work.”
“It’s already working! We’re well underway. That’s the real work we’re doing at ProACKtive.”
“What about your slogan? ‘New People, New Money, New Spirit’?”
“You have quite a memory.”
“Well?”
“That’s just for the rubes, Chief. ‘This way to the egress,’ as P.T. Barnum would say.”
“There’s a sucker born every minute.”
“Exactly. They thought they were going to see the eagle and they wound up outside the tent.”
“And that’s where you want everyone else. Outside the tent.”
“Well put. The governor’s commission has put together the necessary eminent domain takings, and a majority of your Selectmen are ready to sign off on them. We’ll be clearing out every ugly patch of commerce and squalor—the ‘mid-island’ merchants, the developments at Friendship Lane and Essex Road, the hideous public housing off Miacomet Avenue. In ten years they’ll be moorlands again. We’re coordinating that with sweeps by the INS—comprehensive raids that will clear every non-documented worker off the island. We’ll rake them up and bag them like autumn leaves.”
“And who’ll do all the work in your Capitalist utopia?”
“Every homeowner will handle his own staffing needs.”
So that was what Franny had been talking about. This stuff was coming from the highest levels of government. Pell must have extraordinary connections. But why wouldn’t he? They all knew each other. The world of real power was a small one, much smaller than Nantucket. He didn’t have to “buy” the politicians. They were all members of the same tiny community, all dining together at the Yacht Club, dividing up the world over drinks and raw oysters.
“What about the regular homeowners?” I said. “Middle-class people, upper-middle-class people? How are you going to get rid of them?”
“We’re buying them out, Kennis. Most of them are dying to cash in on their property here, anyway. They’ve been fleeing in droves for years, taking their big house sale money and buying land in North Carolina and Vermont. Half the native Vermonters come from Nantucket by now!”
“And the ones who don’t want to sell?”
“We can exert pressure on them.”
“Like the pressure you exerted on Andrew Thayer?”
“Well, not quite so extreme, I would hope. Most people get the message.”
“Then what happens to all those empty houses?”
“That’s the best part! We buy them at market value, but once phase one of the Blue Heron project is complete, we resell those homes at an unimaginable profit to the richest individuals in the world. This island will become, over the next decade the most exclusive, elite, desirable community on the planet. Some will buy just to shelter their money. Others will come for the unparalleled privacy and the company of their equals. Price no object.”
“And you’ll make hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“I refuse to audit the value of paradise, Chief Kennis. But, yes, Blue Heron stands to make a substantial sum of money in the next few years. A very substantial sum of money.”
I allowed myself a disgusted grunt. “And the hilarious part is—when you build this gigantic gated subdivision—call it what it is, Pell—when you build it and create your perfect Utopian community, you’ll be ruining the island! The beauty of this place is your best selling point, those moors are the heart of Nantucket, and you’re going to destroy them, like a little kid smashing his favorite toy. Because smashing things is the real fun for people like you.”
“Bravo, Chief Kennis. Bravo. But I have no intention of ‘destroying’ this island, as you put it. The acres in question are nothing but bogs and shrubs and scrub pine.”
“They’re moorland! They’re thistle and heather and high bush blueberries and wild grapes—those moors are unique. They’re a bird habitat and—”
“They’re a tick habitat, Chief. Another nuisance we will be eliminating. Along with the poison ivy.”
“Good luck with that. And what happens when someone blows a fuse or their toilet backs up?”
“We’ve considered those eventualities. Some of the tradespeople will stay on—the crew, as it were. Every ship needs a crackerjack crew. Isn’t that right, Mr. Phelan?”
“Fuck you.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. The electricians and plumbers will have their own separate little community, Chief—their own quarters. Everyone else we’ll fly in, as necessary. The school will become a private academy for those who wish to live here year round and raise their children on-island. The hospital expansion plans will be scrapped, of course. The current facility is sufficient for a small, elite population. We’ll upgrade all the equipment, naturally. Only the best, Kennis, only the best. The finest stores and restaurants will remain, we’ll make sure the staff housing is luxurious but…inconspicuous. The rest of the business clutter? We’ll turn it into…museums, reading rooms. We’ll tear some of the uglier buildings down for vest-pocket parks, Bocce courts, croquet lawns. It’s a long-term project. But the goal is nothing less than Arcadia.”
I thought back to the ProACKtive fundraiser, the night we found Oscar Graham’s body in the salt marsh, the innocent boy this creature had killed for convenience. I had been so impressed wi
th Pell’s charisma! Well, this was the flip side of it—a raging narcissism that had sucked him to the edge of madness.
“You’re insane.”
“Am I?”
“You’ll never get any of this past Town Meeting.”
“Town Meeting? Really? That’s your answer? First of all, hardly anyone even bothers to attend Town Meeting anymore. What did Oscar Wilde say about democracy? It will never survive—it takes up too many evenings.”
“You’ll get a quorum on this one, believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter. Eminent domain is not adjudicated by Town Meeting. The voters have nothing to say about it. And individual home sales are a private matter. Everything is poised to begin, Kennis. Blue Heron is fully subscribed, and when the last deed is registered, phase two will begin: the next round of sales, the INS action, the eminent domain takings. All we have to do is sign our deal with the Land Bank. And that happens…let me see…twenty hours from now. Set your watch.”
I studied him, smug and comfortable with a gun pushing into a young girl’s jaw. “You’re like some absurd James Bond villain, planning to take over the world. All you need is a Siamese cat in your lap.”
“You misunderstand me, Chief. I have no interest in taking over the world. Just my little corner of it.”
“But it’s not yours.”
“Not yet.”
“And if someone gets in the way, they die.”
“Preston Lomax used to say I was reckless. A liability because of my…impulsive nature. I remember once he yelled at me—‘Do you plan an accident? Do you? Do you plan an accident?’ I took his words to heart, Kennis. I’ve been planning my accidents ever since.”
“Here’s one you missed,” Phelan said quietly. Then he shouted, “Now!”
Chapter Thirty-four
Fifteen Fathoms
A torrent of events—the bo’sun who had ushered me onto the boat last time leapt out of the shadows that led to the galley and wrenched Pell’s gun hand away from the girl’s jaw. The gun went off with a deafening bang and punched a hole in the ceiling. At the same moment, Daisy reared her head back and hammered Sue Ann’s nose with her skull. The compact little assassin reeled backward as the bo’sun punched awkwardly at Pell’s face, hitting his neck and shoulders. Pell tried a counter punch but the movement opened him up and the bo’sun landed a solid blow to his solar plexus.
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