Zeitgeist

by Grace Jelsnik

  They all whirled on her. “What do you mean?”

  “Those are Jimmy Choo winter boots. Linda left here in Louis Vuittons. Look at the ankle strap and the higher heel.”

  And they’d finally known. For verification, they’d had Claire identify the boots on the woman who’d boarded the plane. She’d realized then the effect of her words, and her eyes had widened in horror before rolling upward. Charlie had sprung up to grab the coffee pot before she could drop it; Brandon had jumped up to grab his wife before she could fall; Kevin had leapt to his feet and exited the room at a trot.

  Once he’d felt able to speak clearly, Charlie had left a voice mail on Linda’s phone, now in the possession of what could only be Fiona Delaney. The woman had run. She’d gone underground. Had she run because she’d learned she’d been the target, or had she run because she’d been responsible for the bombing? They’d argued this point countless times, but it wasn’t until after they’d interviewed Whitley Delaney that they’d reached a tentative ceasefire, all of them agreeing he’d been the one to contract the hit.

  Still, suspicion lingered. If Fiona Delaney was innocent, why hadn’t she responded to his voice mail?

  Then he’d seen Chad Farley’s corpse, and all traces of suspicion evaporated. Kevin had performed his magic, learning Farley had been a person of interest in a half-dozen murders, all of people who had in some way interfered with the operations of the NSO.

  Although doubtful she’d held onto the phone he’d kept active for three years, Charlie had left another message for Fiona, and the four of them had broken out a bottle of Glenfiddich when the text message came in last night. Everyone but Brandon, their resident pilot, had made a toast to Fiona Delaney. She’d said she’d text the location, but they knew it had to be Saint Paul, if not Saint Paul, somewhere in the vicinity, and before sunrise, they’d left Boston, Massachusetts, for Saint Paul, Minnesota.

  Fiona Delaney was coming home, and, based upon the message left, she was a woman with a plan.

  A bomb expert. Who or what did her brother plan to blow up this time?

  “You need to sleep,” Claire remarked while stepping into the suite’s communal living area. “It’s been three days now. You’ll be no good to anyone if you’re sleep deprived.”

  “I’ll sleep once I see Fiona using the Nisman charge cards. I need to see her. I need to know she’s the one with Linda’s phone.”

  “She shouldn’t need to use the charge cards,” Brandon said, following his wife into the room. Brandon, an ex-Marine, was the last member he and Linda had recruited, having married Claire after their first case. “Linda had a hundred thousand in cash in her case. I packed it myself.”

  “The Delaney woman has been on the run for over three years,” Claire countered. “That money’s long gone.”

  “No,” Charlie contributed, “Brandon’s right. She won’t have been living it up, not while on the run, and the rental house in South Dakota wasn’t much larger than a postage stamp. She doesn’t need to use the charge cards. She’s giving us a message. Either we’re part of a master plan or—”

  Brandon interrupted. “We’re Plan B, the backup in case whatever she has planned fails. That’s what I think. I think she wanted to give us a location, to bring us here within easy reach in case we’re needed. Asking for a bomb expert tells the true story.”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to dismantle it?”

  “Yes, if it’s not too complicated.”

  “And if it’s too complicated?” his wife asked.

  He grinned down at her. “If it’s too complicated, I’ll revert to my Plan B, which involves running like hell.”

  Kevin poked his head in the door. “Thought I’d let you know we have a location: The Kmart store in West Saint Paul.”

  Charlie stood. “A retail store?”

  Kevin nodded and left. They followed, forming a semicircle around their tech expert. He spoke without looking up from the monitor. “I’m hacking into the surveillance feed right now. Once I get that, I’ll hack into the store’s computer and see what she bought. There she is.” He glanced at the second monitor. “That’s her entering the store.”

  “Big store,” Brandon commented. “Are you sure that’s her?”

  “It’s her,” Charlie replied, his voice strained. “Those are Linda’s sunglasses.”

  “And that’s Linda’s purse,” Claire added. “Kevin, can you freeze that image? No, go back two or three frames. Yes! That one. Can you enlarge the purse?”

  A woman’s purse filled the screen. “What’s that sticking out the front pocket?”

  “See the thistle? That’s the gift box I used for Robert Burns’ Kilmarnock Volume,” Charlie responded, exhaustion hitting him in a wave. When Kevin zoomed back out, he dropped into a chair, whispering, “Take off the sunglasses, Fiona. I want to see your face.”

  As though she could hear him, the woman removed Linda’s sunglasses, slid them into the purse, and began scanning the ceilings, her chin raised, a slight frown knitting her eyebrows. “What’s she doing?” Brandon asked.

  Kevin leaned back in his chair, a broad grin creasing his tan face. “She’s looking for the cameras.”

  “To hide from us?”

  “To show us who she is. She’s not much of a criminal. She still hasn’t found them, and they’re—there she goes! She found one, and she’s looking right at us.”

  Charlie studied the face that had haunted him for three years, the face of the woman who possessed the answers to Linda’s death. Fiona Delaney had the same copper skin as he and Linda, but her features lacked Linda’s character. With the exception of a slight upward tilt at the corners of her eyes and an overly wide mouth, the woman’s face was flawless, bland. “She doesn’t look anything like Linda.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Claire concurred. “I can’t imagine how the two women pulled off the switch.”

  “It was the argument that made it possible, the one Fiona had with her father. She made quite the scene, scaring all the others. No one even looked at Linda while they boarded. No one wanted to take a chance on setting Fiona off again.” And Linda was able to walk without incident to her death. Charlie knew, they all knew, the switch must have been Linda’s idea. The difference in ages, the difference in purposes, and the difference in levels of education—only Linda could have devised a scheme like this one, not only devised it, but made it work. If there was one thing Linda knew well, it was people. A life spent studying their ways had concluded in death at the hands of a racist.

  “She’s on the move,” Kevin stated, grabbing the mouse and subjecting it to a rapid series of clicks. “I need to switch cameras to follow her.”

  The three of them watched Kevin track the woman’s progress through the store. Claire was the first to speak. “That’s a list. She’s shopping from a list. She’s not alone.”

  “How do you get that from a shopping list?” Charlie asked. “When I grocery shop, I make a list.”

  “She didn’t make this list. Two segments back, she handed the list to a store employee and then followed him to the electronics section, watching him while he pointed out different items. You don’t make a list of items you know nothing about.”

  “She’s right,” Kevin agreed. “I got the same impression. Someone else wrote the list.”

  “I guess we know now what happened to the novelist we couldn’t find on Monday morning,” Claire stated. “And I’ll bet that was his blood on the kitchen floor in her house. He’s injured, so she’s the one who has to do the shopping.”

  “No, she’s shopping to let us know she’s back in Saint Paul and will need our help tomorrow,” Charlie countered. “But I do agree someone else wrote the list. She’s not alone, and Brandon’s right: she probably took the novelist with her.”

  “A boyfriend?”

  “No,” Claire stated, her voice emphatic. “Based on what the gym owner said, she didn’t socialize, but she did say she had a stalker. She went on the run with her s
talker. That’s interesting.”

  Charlie turned to Kevin. “What did she buy?”

  “I’ve got it here. Hold on a second. There.” Kevin flicked on a third monitor. “You can read it for yourself.”

  “Two wireless baby monitors, a laptop speaker, three voice-activated recorders, batteries, a hand drill, duct tape, electrician’s tape, wire, a screwdriver, a box of screws, WD-40, a backpack, a DVD, and two books. What’s she up to? Is there any way you can find the titles of the DVD and the books?”

  “Let me switch to the checkout cameras at the time of the receipt.”

  Charlie waited, watching Kevin flash through register after register. The man was a giant when it came to technology, his and Linda’s first recruit when they’d begun their elite group. “There. That was her. She’s leaving, though. Can you rewind, slowly?”

  The surveillance video had Fiona walking backward to the register, setting down her bag, pulling out her charge card, swiping it, putting it back in her purse, standing to the side while the clerk pulled items from the bag and scanned them before placing them on a backward-moving counter. “Stop. Zoom in on the DVD.”

  The angle wasn’t optimal. “What does it say? Garfield?”

  “Gaslight,” Brandon said, nodding as though in satisfaction. “It says ‘Gaslight.’ Great movie. Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. A kid breaks up a burglary at her aunt’s house. The aunt is killed, but the perp gets away. He didn’t get what he came for, though—I think it was jewelry—so later, once the kid grows up, he woos her, marries her, and talks her into reopening her aunt’s house. Now, he needs to find the jewelry, which he knows is hidden away in this house, and the only way he can cover up the noises he makes while searching is to convince her she’s imagining them because she’s going crazy. Little things. She almost snaps. A sterling performance, one of Bergman’s best. Haunting, the kind of movie that stays with you.” He stopped speaking, his ebony face darkening at the expressions on his friends’ and wife’s faces. “What? It’s a classic, like Casablanca.”

  Claire patted his arm. “I’m sure it is, dear.”

  Charlie turned back to Kevin. He’d never have taken Brandon for a classic movies buff, but stranger things had happened. “How about the books?”

  “It’s up there on the monitor. The titles on these are as clear as a bell. The first one is Friends, Enemies, and a Dog Named Boo, by Hester Stanhope—”

  “That’s the novelist’s nom de plume,” Brandon interrupted. “Friends, Enemies, and a Dog Named Boo was his first novel, not up to the caliber of his later work, interlarded with clichés and a tad wordy, but a decent plot, fascinating setting, and in-depth characterization.”

  Charlie stared at him in stupefaction. “Where do you come up with these things?”

  The big man seemed offended. “You try being a Marine on assignment with time to kill. I didn’t drink or do drugs; I didn’t tomcat around; I didn’t gamble. I watched movies and read.”

  Charlie shook his head before looking back at the monitor. “The other book is Win Friends by Saying Less: How to Avoid the Know-It-All Stigma in Today’s Know-It-All World. I think it’s a self-help book. She buys all this recording and speaking equipment, but she also buys a book on how to talk less? What are you up to, Fiona Delaney?”

  Chapter 23

  Despite her reluctance to credit Grant with good taste in anything, movies included, Fiona found herself caught up in Gaslight, stiffening when the female lead backed away and, her voice querulous, protested she hadn’t taken the painting from the wall. Her husband, a smug bastard whose cold eyes reminded her of Whitley, was unrelenting, telling her to put the painting back.

  Beside her on the bed, Grant thrust a hand into the bag, extracting another hamburger and peeling back the paper before taking a disgustingly large bite. “This is where it really gets good. The maid—”

  “I will kneecap you where you sit if you complete your sentence.”

  He paused in the middle of mastication, cocking his head to the side as though considering the threat and, perhaps finding it credible, continued chewing in relative silence.

  “How many of those are you planning on eating?” she asked without taking her eyes from the television.

  “How many did you buy?”

  “Four.”

  “Three. Good manners prevent me from eating all of them. Unless, of course, you’re not planning on finishing that one.” He gave the half-eaten burger in her hand a longing glance.

  “You are despicable,” she commented, staring at the screen.

  “Me or the husband?”

  “Both. Shush. This part’s good. I hate this man. He and Whitley belong in the same prison block, maybe the same cell.” Fiona tried to concentrate on the movie, but Grant’s constant activity, loudly slurping soda through a straw, digging French fries from another bag, savaging chunks of burger with his teeth, made concentration all but impossible.

  “Did you remember to look into the cameras?”

  Frustrated, Fiona stopped the film and turned to him. “That’s the third time you’ve asked me. Yes, I looked into the cameras. Several times. I waved once. The employee in automotive tried to sell me a convertible festooned with tissue-paper roses.”

  He laughed, and she fought a reflexive smile. He had an infectious laugh.

  “Read your book,” she suggested, picking up the remote control.

  “I already read it. I wrote it. It’s a little difficult to read a book you already wrote, especially a first novel. Fiction-writing is a growth experience. You get better with each book. If you go back and read the old ones, you’ll find yourself cringing. Now that I’ve met you and been gifted with your rare insights, I’ll probably decide I’m too wordy and have a proclivity for clichés.”

  “I meant the other one. Win Friends by Saying Less: How to Avoid the Know-It-All Stigma in Today’s Know-It-All World.”

  “You memorized the complete title?”

  “It’s forever branded on my mind. The instant I saw it, I knew my quest for the perfect reading material was over and I could scratch the item off your two-page list. Here you are, a reader-aholic undergoing withdrawals in a house filled with nothing but hate literature. Here I am, a quiet-aholic undergoing withdrawals in a house filled with the voice of a man who uses twenty words when one would do and seems to possess a suspiciously prodigious knowledge of virtually every subject. I killed two birds with one stone, buying the book.” She dropped the remote on her lap, widening her eyes and clasping her hands to the sides of her face. “My God! It’s contagious! Like yawning, but worse. Yawning will never make you second-guess your decision to get up in the morning. I’m doomed to a life of wordiness and clichés.”

  He looked pleased. “For the rest of our lives together, you’ll remember this moment, Fiona Delaney, the moment when you realized how very much we have in common.”

  “Wordiness and clichés are hardly grounds for a lifelong relationship. In fact, they sound more like grounds for divorce.”

  His eyes sharpened. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  “No! I’m asking you to—I can no longer remember what in the hell we were talking about.”

  “We were talking about book purchases, about how I would have better benefited from a book on gardening so next year’s flowerbed can surpass this year’s.”

  She remembered his flowerbed. If she was honest with herself, she’d admit it hadn’t been pathetic. It had been cute. “You don’t need a book for that. You need taste, and I saw no how-to books on developing taste.”

  “You didn’t like my flower garden?” He looked flabbergasted. “I thought women were crazy for flowers.”

  Now she was the one who was flabbergasted. “You grew flowers as a means of picking up women?”

  He reddened. “No.”

  He had. That pathetic flower bed now struck her as sinister. “Finish your hamburger, stalker boy. Whitley will be home in four hours, and we haven’t even begun to prepare o
ur gaslight.”

  “When did you become so bossy?” he asked before shoving half the burger into his mouth.

  “I’ve always been bossy.”

  He chewed, the expression on his face reflective. “That’s right. You have.”

  “Rethinking your stalking choice, are you?”

  He nodded. After cramming the rest of his burger into his mouth, he swung his legs off the bed and moved to the shopping bags beside the television, chewing morosely while dragging out items and arranging them in neat piles.

  He really did look sad, maybe a little confused, and Fiona was surprised to realize she didn’t want to make him unhappy, to strip the unquenchable optimism from his handsome face. She must have inherited some of Whitley’s crazy genes. “I’ll try to be less bossy.”

  He whirled on her, his face alight with good cheer. “I knew you were starting to warm to me!”

  She fumed. He’d set her up. “Let’s do this,” she said through clenched teeth.

  * * *

  Grant watched Fiona stretch to place the last voice-activated recorder behind Whitley’s headboard. Everything she did, she did with grace and beauty.

  “I need a piece of duct tape,” she said without looking back.

  He tore off a strip and handed it to her. “What’s wrong with growing a flowerbed to better my chances with you?”

  She looked at him while turning and springing off the bed. “I never would have seen it.”

  “I didn’t know that, and as it turned out, you did see it.”

  “Have you ever heard the song ‘High Hopes’?” she asked, making a startling change of topics. She was right. His style of conversing was contagious. Lucky woman.

  “I have.”

  “You’re that ant.”

  “I am. I’m happy you finally realized this. And I did indeed move the rubber tree plant.”

  “By making a telephone call that almost got both of us killed,” she reminded him, stepping into the center of Whitley’s room and glancing at her watch. “That’s like the ant in the song using a gas-operated chainsaw to get the job done. We need to get out of here. He’ll be home from the airport in an hour.”