by Jon Loomis
“The second note,” Coffin said, eye twitching madly. “What second note?”
Stavros pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket.
“This was left in my mailbox when I was out of town. My wife brought it in with the mail yesterday. Naturally, when I got home today, she wanted an explanation. I didn’t have a very good one, I’m afraid.”
“So she left?” Lola said.
“First she threw a very valuable pre-Columbian figurine at my head. Then she packed her bag and drove off in the Ferrari.”
Good for her, Coffin wanted to say. He unfolded the paper. Unlike the first note, it had been printed on a laser or ink-jet printer. It was a detailed set of instructions that began “If you want your identity on spycamdomme.com to be kept secret, you will bring fifty thousand dollars in cash to Herring Cove tomorrow night.”
“I can see how this would be problematic for your wife,” Coffin said.
“Tomorrow night?” Lola said. “Your wife got the note yesterday?”
“Right,” Stavros said. “So tonight.”
“Is that feasible? Could you raise fifty K overnight?”
“I could, yes,” Stavros said. “I’d call the bank, order the cash, then go in the next day after the Brinks truck came and pick it up. I can’t speak for any of the other gentlemen on that Web site, though.”
“Not the world’s most sophisticated blackmail operation,” Lola said.
“Not if by leaving the note they cause the target’s wife to leave him, no,” Stavros said. “Not exactly.”
“The drop’s tonight,” Coffin said. “At Herring Cove. ‘Leave it in the trash at the far end of the parking lot,’ it says. ‘Exactly 10:30 P.M. Come alone. No cops.’ It’s like every blackmail operation on every bad detective show ever made.”
“Yes.”
Coffin leaned forward, slid a cigarette from Stavros’s pack, and lit it. “You could redeem yourself somewhat, Mr. Stavros,” he said, “if you were willing to help us catch your blackmailer.”
Stavros smiled. His teeth were startlingly white. “Oh, hell yes,” he said. “What do I have to do?”
______
Outside, in the Crown Vic, Lola started the engine, then turned and looked at Coffin. “Dude,” she said. “What’s up with your eye?”
“You can see it?” Coffin said. His eyelid twitched twice, then twice again.
“Uh, yeah,” Lola said, “and it’s freaking me out a little.”
Coffin reached up, turned the rearview mirror, and peered at himself. “Jesus. I look like the crazy chief inspector in the old Pink Panther movies.”
“If you say so,” Lola said. “What’s going on, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Coffin said. “Stress, maybe. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”
“Uh-oh. More dreams?”
“You’re pretty smart, you know that?” Coffin said. “Not the same ones, though. These are about the miscarriage. A miscarriage.”
Lola put the Crown Vic into reverse and backed down Stavros’s long, steep driveway. “I’m going to drop you off at your house. Your job is to get a couple hours of sleep. I assume we’re going out to Herring Cove later tonight?”
“Absolutely. I’ll call Tony and see if we can borrow his camper.”
“We’re going in a camper?” Lola said.
Coffin nodded, eyelid still twitching frantically. “Think of it as camouflage,” he said.
Chapter 16
There were two connected parking lots at Herring Cove: one large, more or less square lot that sat between the dunes and Province Lands Road, and one long, narrow lot just north of it that ran between the dunes and the beach. For most locals, the long, narrow lot was “the lot at Herring Cove”—the place they would go to sit in their cars and watch the occasional winter sunset, or to which they might sneak off late at night for an illicit tryst. It was also a popular spot in which to commit suicide, particularly during the long, dark days around the winter solstice, when Provincetown’s population had shrunk to three thousand or so and it was dark by 5:00 P.M. Once or twice in a typical year, some forlorn visitor from off-Cape would drive to the far eastern end of the continent, park in the Herring Cove lot, and, as the sun sank into the blood red waters of Cape Cod Bay, put a pistol into his mouth and pull the trigger. Not that they were always from off-Cape: At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the late eighties, there had been a suicide every couple of months at Herring Cove for a period of several years. Almost all the Herring Cove suicides were clear-cut and routine, and almost all were cleaned up by Park Service rangers, a fact for which Coffin was mightily grateful.
On a Tuesday night in May, the lot was almost completely deserted; a few early tourists had parked their RVs near its midpoint, intending to do a bit of surf-casting at land’s end (the water was still too cold for swimming, except for the hardiest of souls). Their campfires—for which they were required to have permits—wavered in the bay breeze. Twenty feet away, the small waves sloshed in the dark.
The far northern end of the lot was deserted and very dark. There was only one way out by car—back through the long, narrow lot and out the main entrance. It was a terrible place for a drop, Coffin knew. He tapped his fingers on the wheel of the battered motor home he’d borrowed from his cousin Tony: a boxy twenty-foot Travelcraft, circa 1977—the cabin still done up in the original sunflower yellow and avocado green. Lola sat next to him, fiddling with the night-vision binoculars she’d brought.
“Cavalo’s a danger to himself and others,” Coffin said. “This is the worst drop site ever.”
“Assuming it’s Cavalo,” Lola said.
Coffin nodded. “Could be somebody else that has access to the video. Or somebody pretending they do.”
“Either way,” Lola said. “You’d have to be an idiot to set up a drop with only one exit. It’s like they want to get caught.”
Coffin looked at her. “Interesting thought,” he said. “We’ll see.”
“How’s your eye?”
“Fine,” Coffin said, covering his eye with his hand.
“Move your hand.”
“No.”
Lola grinned, then looked at her watch. It was a chunky men’s TAG Heuer, bought at an army PX in Germany. “T minus two minutes,” she said.
A car turned at the parking kiosk and pulled into the lot, rolling slowly over the speed bumps and past the half-dozen RVs and campers. It was a dark blue Porsche convertible.
“There’s Stavros,” Coffin said. “Right on cue.”
Lola scanned the beach and dunes with the night-vision binoculars. “Still no sign of anybody lurking in the dunes. Bet you they just drive in and make the pickup.”
“If they’re idiots,” Coffin said.
“I think we’ve already established that,” Lola said.
Coffin picked up the handheld radio. “Jeff?” he said.
Officer Jeff Skillings was waiting just off the bike path, about ten yards into the dunes. He was dressed in bike shorts and a helmet; his mountain bike lay next to him. “Frank,” he said, voice a low whisper.
“Anything?”
“Nope. Not a soul.”
“We’ve got the drop,” Coffin said, watching as Stavros parked the Porsche next to the trash can, removed the lid, placed a plastic grocery bag stuffed with what could very well have been cash inside, replaced the lid, got back into his car, and drove slowly away.
“Okeydoke,” Skillings said.
“Frank?” Another voice crackled over the radio. It was Coffin’s cousin Tony, stationed in the bushes on the far side of the outer lot. “We got a car coming in. Looks like a Range Rover.”
“Got it,” Coffin said as a pair of headlights swung into view at the entrance to the north lot.
Coffin and Lola scrunched down in their seats as the Range Rover passed behind them, slowed for the three big speed bumps, then rolled to a stop at the far end of the lot.
“Jeff,” Coffin said, “I’ll need you
in about twenty seconds. I’m going to let him get back in the vehicle before we move.”
“On my way,” Skillings said.
A man climbed out of the Range Rover, walked five steps to the trash can, lifted the lid, and removed the stuffed grocery bag. The man looked over his shoulder, paused, then climbed back into the Range Rover and started the engine.
Coffin turned the key in the RV’s ignition. The starter ground; the engine coughed but failed to catch. “Fuck,” Coffin said. “Come on.” He pumped the gas, turned the key again, and the engine rumbled to life before stalling out.
Skillings appeared on his bike at the mouth of the trail and paused for a second, not sure what to do. The Range Rover was turning around at the end of the lot.
“Frank?” Lola said.
“Fucking Tony,” Coffin said, eye twitching furiously as he turned the key again. This time the engine roared to life, and Coffin backed out, the RV’s nose pointing north. The Range Rover was coming at them, taking the speed bumps effortlessly at about twenty-five miles per hour. Coffin dropped the RV into drive and goosed the accelerator a bit harder than he wanted to, closing the distance to a hundred yards in a hurry. Skillings was back on his bike, pedaling toward them.
Then, for the first time, the man driving the Range Rover seemed to realize he’d made a mistake. He swerved hard to his left, swung the Range Rover into a fast 180-degree turn, and then floored it, heading north again toward the beach—narrowly missing Skillings as he went by. Skillings went down in a heap, and Lola grabbed the radio.
“Tony Tony Tony!” she yelled. “Jeff’s down! Call rescue and backup and get your ass over here! We’ve got a Range Rover heading north on the beach! Jeff, you okay?”
“Fucking shit,” Skillings said, scrambling back onto his bike. “I’m okay, but did you see that? The fucking guy almost killed me.”
“Done,” Tony said. He sounded out of breath, hoofing it to the cruiser concealed in the beach rose bushes at the edge of the south lot. “They’re on their way. Fuck—I was taking a leak!”
“Fucking fuck!” Coffin said, stomping on the gas, hitting the speed bumps at forty-five, his head nearly banging the ceiling as the RV jounced and rattled over them, stowed pots and pans clanging in the small galley. “He had to be driving a fucking Range Rover!”
The Range Rover slowed a bit at the end of the parking lot, climbed a concrete curb as though it weren’t there, then accelerated again down the beach, heading toward Hatch’s Harbor. The tide was up; there were only about ten feet of beach between the water and the steep, loose rise of the dunes. Coffin slowed to a near stop, hoping the RV wouldn’t bottom out as it waddled over the curb, frame groaning. When the back wheels cleared he punched the gas again, already two hundred yards behind the Range Rover with little hope of catching up.
“He’s going to run out of beach pretty soon,” Lola said. “Once he gets to Hatch’s Harbor there’s no place to go but into the dunes.”
“If he can drive that thing he might be able to make it out to the road,” Coffin said, his voice coming out quavery and strange as the camper jounced over the rutted beach.
“Doubtful,” Lola said, hanging on to the armrest, left arm braced on the dash. “Most people can’t drive for shit.”
The Range Rover’s brake lights glowed suddenly red, and then brake lights, taillights, and all vanished abruptly.
“There go his lights,” Lola said. “Think he turned them off?”
“If he’s a moron,” Coffin said, hoping the top-heavy camper wouldn’t bog down or roll.
“Idiot. Moron,” Lola said. “Same thing, right?”
“Here we go,” Coffin said. The camper’s weak headlights had picked up the Range Rover: It lay half in the water on its side, wheels still spinning. The man was trying to climb out of the passenger door but was having trouble levering himself up and out with the grocery bag clutched in one hand.
Coffin tromped on the brake, and Lola jumped out as the camper slid to a clattering stop. She had her .38 pointed at the man’s head and the safety thumbed off before Coffin’s boots hit the sand.
“Police,” Coffin said. “If you try to run away again, Sergeant Winters will shoot you.”
“Oh, thank God,” the man said, dropping the bag and putting his hands up. He was slender and very blond. “I thought you were that fucking maniac Duckworth.”
“You’re Jordan?” Coffin said when the man was sitting cross-legged in the sand, hands cuffed behind his back. “Cavalo’s boyfriend?” He clicked off Tony’s flashlight and tucked the man’s ID back into his wallet.
Tony was still bent over, trying to catch his breath. He’d bogged the cruiser in the sand just north of the parking lot and run the half mile or so to the edge of Hatch’s Harbor. Skillings and Lola were searching the inside of the Range Rover.
“I don’t care who the fuck he is,” Tony said, wheezing a little. “I’d like to kick his ass for making me run all the fucking way out here in the sand. My calves are killing me.”
“We’ve got a gun!” Lola said. “Big-ass Colt in the glove compartment.”
“What were you doing with a gun, Jordan?” Coffin said.
Jordan sniffled faintly. “I told you—I was worried that lunatic Duckworth would show up. God. I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”
“Oh, yeah,” Coffin said. “Big-time.”
Chapter 17
Cigarette?” Coffin said when they’d installed Jordan in the PPD’s only interrogation room: a windowless, fluorescent-lit space slightly bigger than a closet, with scuffed green linoleum on the floor and just enough room for a steel-legged table and three chairs.
“Oh, God yes,” Jordan said. Lola had just removed his handcuffs; his wrists were chafed and red.
Coffin slid a pack of Camel Lights across the table. Jordan tapped one out, and Coffin lit it for him.
“Thanks,” Jordan said. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cocktail to go with it?” He had a soft, slow accent that was half Deep South, half Brooklyn. New Orleans, Coffin thought.
Coffin took a pint of vodka from his jacket pocket and set it on the table. “We’ll see,” he said. “If you’re good.”
“Oh, I’m good,” Jordan said, exhaling a blue stream of smoke. “I’m very, very good.” He was five foot six or so, very slender. His hair was dyed yellow-blond. The Range Rover’s air bag had blackened his left eye and bruised his cheek when it deployed.
Coffin put his elbows on the table. He watched Jordan for a long minute. “Why are you so afraid of Duckworth?” he said finally.
“Well, sweet baby Jesus,” Jordan said, hand shaking a bit as he took a long drag from his cigarette. “Have you seen him? Have you actually looked into his eyes? That mofo’s one extra crispy bucket of crazy, and that’s no joke.”
“That’s it? His eyes?”
“That and that pig-sticker of his. It wasn’t just me: Bobby was scared of him, too. Real scared.”
“Was?” Lola said. “Past tense?”
Jordan’s unblackened eye widened a bit. The unbruised side of his face went pale.
“Has something happened to Bobby?” Coffin said.
Jordan’s face crumpled; he started to cry. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Lola said.
Coffin twisted the cap off of the pint of vodka and slid it across the table. “Tell us the part you do know, Jordan.”
“Right,” Jordan said. “Good idea.” He took a swallow of vodka. “I saw Bobby and Duckworth together. Last night, in Bobby’s apartment.”
“What were they doing?”
“Dancing.”
Lola frowned. “Dancing? That’s what you saw?”
“Yeah—some kind of Latin dancing. Salsa or something. I saw them through the window.”
Coffin frowned. “Dancing?” he said. “You saw dancing and immediately suspected foul play? What—you never saw Bobby dance before?”
Jordan nodde
d rapidly, then shook his head. “No. Right. Exactly.”
Coffin and Lola both raised their eyebrows.
“Never?” Coffin said.
Jordan frowned. “What is that, like a stereotype? All gay men just live to disco?”
“Sorry,” Lola said.
“Bobby hated dancing,” Jordan said. “You couldn’t get him out on the dance floor if you held a gun to his head—I don’t care how drunk he was. No way, no how. That’s how I knew something weird was going on.”
“So, what, you went to his apartment—”
“I went looking for him—he wasn’t picking up his phone, so yeah, I went to his apartment. Thinking maybe we’d go out for a nightcap or something. I was on his front porch, about to open the door. There was music on inside, loud—like, Latin music. That was weird, too. So I looked in the window.”
“And Bobby and Duckworth were dancing?”
“Well, sort of. Part dancing, part Bobby getting tossed around like a rag doll. Part Bobby looking miserable—and scared. I never saw him look scared before, really. It made me scared.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I ran. Ran down that fucking hill to my bike—in flip-flops! I almost killed myself! I rode back into town as fast as my little legs would pedal. I was spooked, I don’t mind telling you.”
“And then?”
“Well, I didn’t know what to do. Call the cops? Tell them what? I decided I should get the hell out of Dodge, but I didn’t have any money. Like, none, practically.” Jordan shook his head. “God. I suck at blackmail.”
“Probably a good thing to know about yourself,” Lola said.
“Let’s back up a minute,” Coffin said. “You were ready to skip town because of what, exactly?”
Jordan took another drink. “I got mixed up with a bent cop in New Orleans, when I was a teenager. He beat me up a few times, raped me. Then he turned me out. I tricked from one end of the Quarter to the other for almost a year; damn near killed me.”