He nodded. Slowly he shredded the document between his fingers, tearing it into long ragged strips.
“So he was your son,” she said quietly. “The night I told you my story—that’s when you knew.”
“That’s right, kiddo.”
“But you didn’t kick me out. Or kill me.”
“Should I have?”
She shrugged. “I did kill him, didn’t I?”
“You had a good reason,” Frank said, his gaze distant.
The document that had been reduced to curling ribbons by his tremulous fingers had consisted of only a few lines of text. It said that Frank Hatch, wanted for murder in the state of Ohio, had changed his name to Frank Kershaw and relocated to Philadelphia, where he ran a hardware store that doubled as a credit clinic. His farmhouse in Buckington, Ohio, was abandoned and, after sitting empty for years, eventually sold. There was no information about his retirement; apparently the file hadn’t been kept up to date, which was hardly surprising, since Frank Kershaw was not an important man. He was merely a random and insignificant scrap of data, preserved in the files in the unlikely event that he could ever prove useful to the people who mattered.
There was nothing in the document about his son Lucas. But Bonnie knew. She knew when she saw Frank’s last name and the reference to a farmhouse in Buckington. The farmhouse that had served as a hideout for the three men who’d killed her parents—a convenient hideout, since they knew the owner wasn’t coming back. The farmhouse where those three men had died, shot down by a fourteen-year-old girl with vengeance in mind.
“So you didn’t know till I told you?” Bonnie asked. “You weren’t looking for me?”
“I wasn’t looking. I knew Lucas was dead, of course—him and the other two. Word had reached me about that. But I had no clue who’d done it or why. Certainly didn’t think it was some shivering tomcat of a girl who I’d found in an alley behind my shop. I hardly could believe it even after you told me about Ohio.”
“And you let me stay. Despite that.”
“Not despite. Because of that. My son made you an orphan. I felt a certain responsibility. And the way I found you—well, I’m not religious, but it did give me pause. As if maybe I’d been offered a chance at, I don’t know, redemption.”
“You didn’t hate me?” But even as she asked it, she knew he had hated her, at least a little. He couldn’t help it. And yet he’d felt he was under an obligation. And so he’d maintained that mystifying balance of endearment and remoteness. He’d helped her in all the ways that he could, while never able to forget that his son’s blood was on her hands.
“How I felt,” Frank said as he looked at her through narrowed eyes, “was immaterial. Still is. I had to make it right. I’d done a bad thing once, but only once. Lucas—he made a habit of it. You remember me saying how it gets easier to cross those lines? Lucas crossed too many of them. So many, there was no coming back.” He sighed. “If you hadn’t done him in, someone else would have.”
“I’m sorry, Frank.”
“Don’t be. You did what you did, and you were right to do it. Some men get to be like wild animals, and then they’ve got to be put down. It’s hard, though—hard when it’s your boy.” His voice trembled just slightly. “But it had to be done. Hell, if I’d had the chance, I’d have done it myself.”
She doubted it, but she didn’t say so.
“As for you, kiddo,” he added softly, “I felt there was a debt to be paid. I tried to pay it.”
“It’s paid,” she told him. “In full.”
He nodded, but she knew he wasn’t listening. He was thinking of the farmhouse, and the body of Lucas Hatch on the bloody floor.
She left him after that, waving once from the front steps. He didn’t wave back. Maybe he just didn’t see.
Back in the Saturn, she set out for the law office of Chase Benedict. Time was running short, and there was still a lot left to do.
42
From Pilgrim Grove, she went to Maritime. She spent an hour talking to Chase Benedict in his office. After that, she was really dragging. He let her crash on his sofa. She only had time for a catnap, but it did the trick. By the time she and Benedict pulled up to the Maritime police station in the attorney’s Infiniti, she was wide awake.
Benedict parked in the lot at the rear of the building, a procedure he’d arranged in a phone call to the authorities while she slept. A small crowd waited there. Cops, all of them. The story had been kept out of the press so far.
Bonnie scanned the crowd. Dan was there, of course, an ugly leer riding on his mouth and making him look stupider than usual. Brad had not made an appearance. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Nobody slapped cuffs on her. That was something, at least. A lieutenant named Van Zile, who introduced himself as the head of Maritime’s detective division, led her into a conference room with pale green walls. Everybody took a seat at a long mahogany table under a fluorescent panel. Dan and the other cops sat on one side; she and her mouthpiece sat on the other.
Danny Boy just couldn’t stop staring at her and grinning savagely. She’d never really understood the old expression about the cat who swallowed the canary, but she got it now. She could practically see the tail feathers sticking out of his mouth.
“Miss Parker,” Van Zile said, “you and your counsel need to know that the allegations against you are very serious. We have a sworn statement from Joy Krauss. We’ve also recovered her late husband’s wristwatch from the scene of a multiple homicide, and we have reason to believe you had something to do with that.”
“Why? Just because of a watch on Streinikov’s wrist?”
Dan leaned forward. “No one said anything about Streinikov. You’re the first one to mention his name.”
“Yeah, I know. I heard myself. I was here.” She took out a cigarette and lit it. “I was also there. I planted the watch on him to back up Joy’s bullshit story about the Russian mob.”
Van Zile glanced at Chase Benedict, who sat mute and expressionless. “That’s an interesting admission.”
“I figured you’d think so.”
“You can’t smoke in here, by the way.”
“Who made you the tobacco czar?” She exhaled a long plume of smoke. “You notice anything else about Streinikov?”
“We noticed he was dead.”
“Very perceptive. I made him that way.”
“And the top joint of his right index finger had been removed postmortem. With pruning shears.”
“I did that too.” She blew out another breath of smoke, aiming it in Dan’s direction. She was gratified to hear him cough.
Chase Benedict still hadn’t said anything. Van Zile’s eyes kept ticking to him, then sliding away.
“You’ve just confessed to a homicide, Miss Parker. Are you prepared to make a formal statement?”
“My statement is that whatever Joy told you is true. Plus, I killed Streinikov and the other guys you found on his property. I counted eight goons plus the boss man. Oh, and a couple other stiffs they were storing in the garage. I took care of them earlier.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“I like to stay active.”
“I suppose you’ll say it was self-defense,” Van Zile said with another glance at the lawyer.
“The two in the garage were self-defense. The other ones were more like a revenge thing. I mean, I had to bump ’em off in order to stay alive in the long run. But technically, you know, I should’ve gone to the cops or something.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“I don’t like cops.” She sucked down another long line of smoke. “No offense.”
“So you took it upon yourself to murder eleven people?”
“Yep.”
“All by yourself? Just you against Anton Streinikov and his whole crew?”
“Admit it. You’re impressed.”
“She’s a sociopath,” Dan said. “I’ve been saying it for years. Who knows how many people she’s killed?”
“Have there been others?” Van Zile asked.
Bonnie blew a smoke ring. “No comment.”
“Suddenly you’re clamming up? Isn’t it a little late for that?”
“Nah, I think it’s just the right time. Counselor?”
Benedict snapped open his briefcase and removed a thick sheaf of photocopied pages. He plopped it down on the table.
“These are Xeroxes,” Bonnie said. “The originals are someplace safe.”
Blinking, Van Zile flipped through the sheets, casually at first, then with greater urgency. The muscles of his face did not move, but she heard a thick swallowing sound in time with a jerk of his Adam’s apple.
Bonnie finished the cig and stabbed it out on the tabletop, leaving a burn mark. She leaned back in her chair, hands behind her head.
“Let’s deal,” she said.
* * *
At the end, she had found Streinikov in the greenhouse, shirtless in a chair by his potting bench, his side heavily bandaged. His face was flushed with fever, but he seemed strangely calm.
“My men?” he asked indifferently.
“They’re dead,” she told him. “Everybody’s dead. It’s just you and me now.”
“Well, get on with it.”
“Not so fast, buckaroo. You told me you’ve got the goods on everybody who matters in Jersey. Was that true?”
“Da.”
“Where’s your stash?”
“A bargain, is it? If I tell you, you will spare my life?” He was smirking.
“We both know it doesn’t play out that way. No quid pro quo. You’re a dead man.”
“Then why should I give you the keys to my kingdom?”
“’Cause if you don’t, I’ll burn this fucking hothouse to the ground.”
“You think I hold my lovelies so dear?”
“Let’s find out.”
She flicked her cigarette lighter and touched the flame to a leafless orchid with a single bright pink-purple flower. The bloom caught. It burned slowly, shriveling, depositing a thin layer of ash on the bench.
“What do you call this thing, anyway?” she asked.
“Equisetum telmateia. Colloquially, Dragon’s Mouth.”
“Oh. Like your boat.”
“Indeed.”
“Is it rare?”
“Extremely.”
The petal was gone now, the stem burning down like a candle wick.
“Burns real good,” she said.
Streinikov’s mouth twitched. “You really are a malicious, dirty-minded little bitch.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Now—spill.”
Still he hesitated. Apparently more persuasion was required.
“Who’s next in line? How about this little darling?” She pointed at another plant, one with complicated tiger-striped petals.
“That is a Rothschild’s Slipper,” Streinikov said, his mouth barely moving. “It takes fifteen years to grow.”
“Really? How long will it take to burn?” She thumbed the lighter and held it threateningly close to the plant. “Let’s find out.”
“Nyet!” In his agitation he lifted himself half out of his chair. With a wheeze he sank down. “Don’t,” he added in a whisper.
“So talk already. Or I’ll burn ’em all, asshole. Every last one.”
He took a long moment to raise his head, but when he spoke, his voice was steady. “In the main house, in the den, there is a sliding panel on the left side of the fireplace, level with the mantelpiece. The items are in a fireproof lockbox within.”
“What’s the combination?”
“The lock is paired to the index finger of my right hand.”
Her gaze slid to the pruning shears on the bench.
“Then it looks like you’re giving me the finger, Anton.” She aimed the gun at him. “Last words?”
“Fuck you, pizda.”
There were worse epitaphs.
She shot him. Then she picked up the shears and went to work.
Before leaving the greenhouse, she removed Gil Krauss’s wristwatch from the backpack and placed it on Streinikov’s arm. Not exactly subtle, but she wanted to make it easy for the boys in blue.
There was a small chance Streinikov had lied about the safe. She wasn’t completely sure until she retracted the panel in the den and released the lock. Inside, revealed in the glow of her cigarette lighter, was an attaché case, and in the case was a pile of papers, along with assorted flash drives, DVDs, and even some old-fashioned audiotapes. The labels bore a lot of familiar and semi-familiar names. She didn’t follow politics much, but even she knew who some of these people were.
It was one hell of an insurance policy. And since she wasn’t a hundred percent sure the wristwatch ploy would get her and Joy out of deep water, she felt the need for an insurance policy right now.
Skimming the labels, she saw one name that shouldn’t—couldn’t—be there. She took out that file—it was just one page—and put it in her pocket. She would read it later, when she had time. Right now she had to book.
She stuffed the contents of the attaché case into her backpack, locked the safe and closed the panel. She left the room, taking care to avoid tripping on the bodies she’d dropped in the ambush. She felt no particular emotion in their presence. They meant nothing to her. They were not even people, really, just pieces on a game board. Toppled pieces, victims of her superior skill. Had the game played out differently, she would have been on the floor, and they would still be upright. That was all. Different outcomes, but the same game.
Always the same game.
43
It took three hours to work out an agreement with the Maritime police, but the outcome was never in doubt. There was enough dirt in Streinikov’s files to sink every politician in the Garden State, and a whole passel of media big shots and corporate chieftains to boot. Maybe a fearless hero with a rebel streak would have risked releasing the info—someone like Jimmy Stewart in an old movie—but Bonnie had been willing to wager there weren’t any Jimmy Stewarts in the Maritime PD. There were only jelly-spined paper pushers who would piss their trousers at the thought of even touching a scandal this hot.
Besides, one of the names in the files just happened to be that of Maritime’s chief of police. Married with children, but he kept not one but two girlfriends on the side. One of them was a lap dancer at an establishment called the Boobie Trap.
Basically she had their dice in a vise, and they knew it.
Chase Benedict, silent until the documents were produced, came to life after that. He did all the talking. The upshot was that no charges would be filed against Bonnie Parker in connection with the Gil Krauss shooting, which would be officially explained as the work of the Russian mafia. Nor would any charges be filed against Joy Krauss, whose sworn statement would simply cease to exist. Oh, and of course Miss Parker had nothing whatsoever to do with events at the Edgewater home of the late Anton Streinikov.
Confidentiality was part of the agreement. Not a big stumbling block. The authorities wouldn’t want it known that they’d made this kind of deal, anyway.
“The Jeep,” Bonnie said as negotiations were wrapping up. “Don’t forget the Jeep.”
Right. Miss Parker’s Jeep would be released from the impound lot and driven to Maritime. Any items confiscated from the Jeep, or from her office or home, would be returned, with no questions asked.
When all of this had been guaranteed in writing, the originals of Streinikov’s files, including the audio recordings and flash drives, would be handed over to Lieutenant Van Zile, who could do with them as he wished.
“The material will be destroyed,” Van Zile said grimly. “All of it.”
Bonnie nodded. Some men would have wanted to keep their hands on a trove of incriminating data. Not Van Zile. He didn’t want any trouble. He would keep his head down and retire with a pension.
“You’ll still have to deal with the Russians,” Van Zile added. “They’ll want payback.”
“N
ah. Streinikov was a lone wolf. The other Russkie bosses wanted him dead. I did them a solid.”
“So you had it all worked out.”
“I’m a problem solver. It’s what I do.”
“This ... is ... bullshit.”
The words, long simmering, came from Dan. The smirk on his face was gone, and in its place there was the frozen snarl of a Halloween mask. “Fucking bullshit.”
“Chief Maguire—” Van Zile began.
“Bullshit!” His fist banged the table. His eyes, fixed on Bonnie, appeared to have actually changed color, becoming red—really, for God’s sake, red with rage.
No one in the room wanted to look at him. Well, except for Bonnie. She was a kind of enjoying the view.
“You can’t let her skate on this. You just can’t. She’s a murderer. An assassin for hire. Mrs. Krauss told us. She’s a goddamn hit man, and she’s been getting away with it for years, and she’s in my town.”
“It’s my town too,” Bonnie said mildly.
Dan let out a choked scream and lunged at her across the table. But the table was wide, and he came up short, his clutching hands full of nothing but air.
“Sorry, Danno.” Bonnie lit another cigarette, her sixth of the afternoon. “Better luck next time.”
She thought he might really snap then, might draw his gun and try to shoot her, or shoot himself, or something. She wasn’t worried. He probably wasn’t a very good shot.
But he didn’t do that. Slowly he sank back in his chair, all the anger hissing out of him. He seemed to become physically smaller, a used-up, withered thing. His face sagged. His eyes lost their red glare, lost all color, becoming gray and empty.
“God damn you, Parker,” he whispered, but the words had no force. They were said by rote, a formula without meaning.
Beaten again. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. It had to sting.
At a time like this she almost felt sorry for old Dan. Okay, maybe not. But if she’d been a better person, she would have.
44
The Jeep, delivered to her at the rear exit of the station house, wasn’t much worse for having been pawed over by the police. There might have been a few extra rips in the upholstery, but it was nothing a little duct tape couldn’t fix.
Bad to the Bone (Bonnie Parker, PI Book 3) Page 23