by Dee Holmes
“A purse snatcher doesn’t know how much is in a pocketbook, either.”
“Flawed comparison. A purse usually has cash, and as you said earlier, a briefcase usually has papers and maybe a ham sandwich.”
She frowned. “I don’t know how you can be so cool and calm.”
“I’m not. I’m just doing what every other businessman with a briefcase in Boston is doing—walking down the street.” When she still looked unconvinced, he said, “I appreciate your worrying about me, but believe me I’m not going to fight to the death over it.”
She looked decidedly unsure, but allowed him to guide her down the sidewalk. Pedestrians flowed toward them and around them. Cabbies honked, trucks rumbled and belched fumes, other vehicles jockeyed for the best position to get them through the city.
“Don’t cops handcuff valuable stuff to their wrists?” At his raised eyebrow, she nodded, “Okay, don’t ex-cops handcuff valuable stuff to their wrists?”
“Not where I worked. If someone made a grab, they’d take my arm with it.”
She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head in resignation. “It just seems as if you should be doing something.”
“I am. I’m walking down the street with a gorgeous brunette who smells like wildflowers. Never did that one time when I worked up here.”
His words disarmed her, and she smiled. “What a sweet thing to say.” After a pause, she asked, “But what about with Kristin? You were never in Boston with her?”
“She hated the city.”
“Oh.”
“Noise, pollution, crime—all the stuff that makes big cities unappealing.”
“Where did you live?”
“Down near Foxboro. We were renting a place. I worked while Kristin looked at land where she wanted to build. She was very particular. She loved woodsy places with lots of ‘nature in the wild,’ as she called it. She wanted to live there but she didn’t want it spoiled by leveling it or cutting down the trees. Her thing was to integrate the house so that it was part of its surroundings. In other words, a house nestled in nature, rather than nature flattened by a house. I used to tease her that if she was going to really go natural, we should have an outhouse, use oil lamps and beat the clothes on a rock.”
“I bet she loved that,” Molly commented, smiling.
“Hmm. I was told lots of nature didn’t mean primitive.”
“She wanted the best of both, which sounds ideal.”
“Yeah.” He felt the melancholy float over him and shook it away. He didn’t have to say anything more, and he wasn’t at all sure why the words suddenly rose to the surface. He’d rarely talked about Kristin since her death; not with Denise, not with Sean, and yet here with Molly the thoughts and emotions stirred restlessly, as if they were searching for release.
“So, did she find the property for the house she wanted built?”
“Kristin had found a piece of land she loved, complete with a small brook, wildflowers and enough birds to keep a bird-watcher enthralled for years. She wanted me to see it. We’d planned to meet after her doctor’s appointment. I knew when I picked her up that something was wrong. She was quiet and pale and shaking so bad she couldn’t get her seat belt buckled.” Hunt swallowed the sudden tightness in his throat.
Closing all his emotions down and reciting the words as if by rote had been his habit in the past. But telling Molly felt different. He sensed she would know the pain and horror in a profound way, because she, too, had experienced having someone she loved torn from her.
Molly gripped his arm tighter as they walked.
Hunt continued. “When I touched her she began to cry, and then she told me. She had cancer and she was going to die. That’s how she said it. No leading up to it, or softening it, or trying to find the words….”
“Oh, Hunt, how awful for both of you.” Then, in a softer voice, she asked, “She had no prior warnings?”
Hunt shivered, a cold chill penetrating to his bones. The street temperature in Boston had to be close to ninety, but this cold was all inside, icy to the marrow of his bones. “She’d found a lump some months before, but the doctor said it wasn’t serious. Naturally she believed him. She was wrapped up in looking for a place to build as well, and with her doctor unconcerned, she stopped thinking about it.”
“And the cancer grew,” Molly added grimly.
Hunt nodded. “She had a mammogram, but it showed the malignancy had already spread. They did radiation, but the bottom line was that it had progressed too far. I think we both suspected more than we were being told. Denial is easier, but that afternoon, Kristin had stepped beyond her own denial, and she knew. When she told me, it was as if she had to get it all out at once. After that she never used the words death or dying again.”
He paused a minute. “I never said them, either. I insisted we buy the land she wanted and begin construction on the house. She lived long enough to see it completed. The builder knew the situation and worked twice as fast as contractors usually do. After the funeral I sold it all. The house and the land symbolized all that Kristin believed about going after what you want, but for me…” He cleared his throat. “It was a ticking time bomb. I knew that once it was finished she would die. I hated the place, because for every part of it that was completed, another part of Kristin’s body grew weaker.”
With the story told, he wanted to abandon the subject for something safe and neutral. The weather, the state of the national debt, the traffic patterns of the Southeast Expressway—anything.
He was relieved Molly didn’t feel compelled to spew out words as so many had after Kristin died. He didn’t want sympathy, or even understanding, for it changed nothing. He’d lived and Kristin had died; it was the worst kind of hell, because he could do nothing but watch and wait. If there had been a way to exchange places with her, he would have done it.
Finally Molly said, “The hardest part must have been facing the futility of events. Rushing to give her the completed house she wanted so badly and knowing she’d never live in it.”
Hunt felt a jolt somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. She was exactly right. “You know, at one point I even believed that Kristin would be magically healed when the house was finished. That some kind of nature-spawned energy would seep into her body and make her healthy again.”
“You wanted her to live and have the future you’d planned together,” Molly said with vehemence. “We all grasp for those threads of hope.”
He stopped a moment, looked at her, and then gently laced their fingers together. “You know about those threads of hope, don’t you? Because of the separation from Vern.”
“I felt very guilty for years because I was taken and he wasn’t. I used to have terrible dreams about him being alone and no one wanting him. It just seemed so unfair.”
“It is unfair, and worst of all, it’s wrong. Siblings shouldn’t be separated. Kids have enough to deal with. They shouldn’t have to cope with being forced apart.”
“Their intention was good,” she said rushing to the McCullochs’ defense. “They adopted one child, which was better than none, and they were very good to me.”
“Look, I don’t know the McCullochs. Maybe they were great parents, but how they could have decided not to take Vern on such a knee-jerk decision just blows my mind. I’m sure there were support groups and agencies that could have assisted them. And Vern’s antics with that knife seemed such an obvious ploy, I can’t believe the state or the McCullochs didn’t see through them.”
“I didn’t, Hunt, and I knew him better than anyone.”
“Sweetheart, you were a kid. They were the experts. They should have seen Vern for what he was. A brother trying desperately to make sure his sister had a family.”
Molly glanced at him, her eyes glazed with sudden tears. “Oh, Hunt, I love you for saying that.”
Hunt swung around and stared at her. “Love me?”
“Yes, for forgetting who you claim Vern was and realizing that he was a
real person with real feelings and a tender heart.”
“I never said I didn’t think he had feelings or a tender heart for you. It’s—”
She pressed her hand against his mouth. “Don’t spoil it. For just a little while I’d like to think you and I can agree on one positive thing about my brother.”
He took her wrist, kissed her palm and folded her fingers around the damp impression. “All right. Your brother sacrificed himself for you because he loved you. I can agree about that.”
Her eyes glistened. “Thank you.” She pressed her lips together. “It’s vital to me that I find out all I can when we get to Fernwood. I’m sure his friends and neighbors will be at the funeral, and they’ll be a good starting point for me to sort out the pieces of who Vern really was.”
It occurred to Hunt that her life had been so wrapped up in the search for her brother that even now that he was dead, she couldn’t stop.
Hunt hated being the negative voice here, but he felt compelled to say, “Probing the past doesn’t always result in happy discoveries.”
“But there are discoveries. I can deal with the negatives.”
Can you, Molly? Hunt wondered, but said nothing.
“And I know there are good things. There have to be.” Then, as if she feared an argument from him, she added, “I want you to help me.”
“We’re only going to be there a few days.”
“This time. I can always go back. Don’t forget, I searched for years without any idea where Vern lived, and piece by piece I made progress. Now I have a starting point and some people who will know him.”
Hunt sighed. He had no doubt Sean would be thrilled by any information he could get on Wallace.
“Let’s wait and see how things shake out,” he said vaguely. He wasn’t sure which Molly was safest to deal with. The angry Molly who’d thrown him out of her apartment when he’d said Wallace was a hit man, or this more gutsy Molly. If she hoped for information from Vern’s pals, she could find herself on his successor’s hit list. It was a thought that turned Hunt’s blood to ice.
A HALF HOUR LATER, Molly and Hunt were in Sean’s office. The glass walls allowed a view of the squad room and all the rush and hustle of the detectives. While Hunt and Sean talked—the briefcase was being checked for prints and the gun examined—Molly sat nursing a cup of coffee and wondering what she would learn about her brother.
“Phone number?”
Molly glanced up, shaking away her thoughts. “Were you speaking to me?”
“Do you know Vern’s phone number?”
“Uh, yes.” She opened her purse and took out a small notebook. After riffling through the pages, she read. “It’s 555-4903.”
“So much for that idea,” Hunt said.
“What idea?”
“The 827 BOS note. We’re trying to pin down what the 827 means. I thought it might be part of Vern’s phone number.”
“And there aren’t any 827 exchanges in the Boston area.” Sean leaned back in his chair, his expression frustrated. His black curly hair and vivid blue eyes proclaimed his Irish heritage. Molly watched him for a few moments, picturing Hunt in this scene. Whether it was reasonable or not, she liked the idea that Hunt was no longer a cop. She wondered how Kristin had dealt with all the worry and stress.
Sean said, “We checked locker numbers, flight numbers—there was a flight 827 going to Houston, but that was days ago. The date idea seems to be a dead end, too, at least so far. We’re still working on it.”
Hunt sprawled in a wooden chair, legs stretched out in front of him, fingers steepled in front of his mouth. Molly thought he looked as if he wanted to abandon the whole plan. In a way she felt responsible for his involvement. If it weren’t for the briefcase, she’d be in Fernwood for the funeral and Hunt would be working on his lecture series back in his apartment.
Sean reached for a manila envelope. “Here are the directions and the key to the house. Use a pay phone if you need to call me. Place has been swept, but I don’t want to take any chances. You know about the risk of cell phones.”
Hunt nodded and then rose to his feet. “You’d better hope something breaks in the next few days. I don’t want Molly out in the open too long.”
“I cleared this with the chief—you keep your eyes opened and give us a heads-up if you find anything. You’re not official, so don’t be a cowboy.”
“My cowboy days are all over, Sean. Getting this behind me so I can go back to peace and tranquility can’t come too soon.”
Molly put her empty coffee container into the trash.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have met under more pleasant circumstances, Ms. McCulloch,” Sean said, coming around the desk and opening the office door.
Molly nodded as Hunt touched her back and eased her out the door. Then Sean said something that numbed her.
“Chances are, that hit wasn’t made yet, so someone else will get it. That means some dumb bastard out there is contracted to die. If we can intervene and get the shooter and the target, the department will have something to crow about.”
Molly played the words over and over as she and Hunt made their way back to his car.
In one startling moment she realized the truth she’d been denying. Her brother was what Hunt had said he was—a paid killer. Yet following that awful truth was another truth. Vern’s replacement had to be stopped; he couldn’t carry out her brother’s instructions. If she could somehow prevent this one act, there would be one less black mark on his legacy. How she intended to do this, she had no idea.
But there would be a way. There had to be.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE EARLY EVENING, with the sun ruby red on the western horizon, Fernwood, Massachusetts, withered near Interstate 93 like an animal that had crawled away to die. Emaciated grass trapped litter around stumpy buildings. Exhausted houses with rusty TV antennas jutting from sweltering rooftops were crowded together as if seeking solace and support.
Once a prosperous factory town, Fernwood now comprised abandoned brick structures that were smeared with graffiti and dotted with square black holes that had once been shiny lighted windows that showcased buzzing activity.
Despair, Molly thought, was palpable. She’d never before been to Fernwood; she’d wanted to come and visit Vern, but he’d discouraged it. His place wasn’t set up for company, he’d told her. Now, glancing around, she wondered if her brother was ashamed of where he lived, but even more bewildering was why he lived here. It was one more odd piece to the puzzle of Vern’s life, and as the hours passed, she began to dread fitting those pieces together.
Hunt pulled off the road onto a bumpy shoulder with a twisted guardrail that looked as if it had prevented many a car from careening into the ravine below.
Molly opened the car windows, expecting a blast of heat. Instead she was surprised by a refreshing breeze from the trees beyond. Hunt unfolded the map Sean had given him, studying it for a few moments.
Drawing his finger around an area, he said, “Here’s the cemetery in the middle of town. Now that says a lot, doesn’t it? Building a town around a bunch of graves is a dead man’s town. You’d think they’d have built around a town square, or a statue honoring some reformer or the guy who originally settled the area. But a cemetery…No wonder the place looks so depressing.”
“Cemeteries can be quite beautiful and peaceful,” Molly said with a sudden sense of defensiveness for the town where her brother had lived.
“Yeah, that’s always where I go for beauty and peace.”
Molly didn’t miss his sarcasm, and she should have let the issue go right then, but she didn’t. “You don’t have to mock the feelings of others just because you don’t agree.”
He looked at her. “You haven’t said a word since we left Boston. Now I make one comment and you’re spoiling for a fight.”
“I’m not, but I don’t think it’s right to condemn a town that’s obviously struggling with economic hardship.”
“No da
mn wonder. Who would want to live in a place where the cemetery is the focal point?”
“My brother did.”
Hunt swore. “Let’s drop the subject, okay?”
Obviously they were both edgy, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Not only was she adjusting to her brother’s death, but to what he’d become while he was alive. Hunt, on the other hand, had been cool and in charge until his discovery of the cemetery. It. had to be memories of losing Kristin. Still, it was strange that he’d be so touchy when earlier he’d spoken so freely. But wasn’t she doing the same? One moment she could talk about Vern and the next she could barely hold back the tears. Hunt still loved his wife and deeply resented her death. Obviously a cemetery was a too-raw reminder.
Now she regretted her words. “Hunt, I’m sorry. It’s been a long day and—”
“Forget it,” he said abruptly.
She turned away to look out the window, her inner turmoil over Vern returning. Since they’d left Boston, Molly had wrestled with a truth she didn’t like. She had to accept that although she’d found her brother, the intervening years had changed him more than they had her. A sense of chilly numbness had settled deep within her, and she wanted to bury her head and pretend none of this had happened.
On the other hand, the truth had also created a burning responsibility to find and preserve the side of her brother she’d believed in so long. The Vern who’d cared for her when their parents hadn’t, the Vern who gave up a chance for a family so she would have one, the Vern who helped her find four-leaf clovers. She wiped away the tears her memories brought.
Hunt had a whole different agenda. He wanted to prove Vern had been on his way to kill someone, and their opposing goals made for a tenseness that only promised to get worse. And complicating everything further were her unwanted feelings for Hunt. She recalled their conversation at his apartment hours before Vern’s heart attack. She’d commented on how different he was from the professors at Woodbriar College. Then she’d been thinking about her own fascination with him, how attractive he was; she had even contemplated the excitement of a relationship with him. Obviously a hopeless fantasy.