One-Way Ticket

by William G. Tapply

  “How has Robert seemed to you lately?” I said.

  She blinked at me. “Well, he got beat up, you know.”

  I nodded. “Did he say who did it?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t want to talk about it. I wondered if it was Ozzie. Him and his buddies.”

  “Your ex-boyfriend?”

  “I felt so bad, Mr. Coyne. It wasn’t Robert who, like, stole me from Ozzie. It was me. I just didn’t want to be with Ozzie.”

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t make me happy. Oh, he never did anything bad. He was always sweet with me. It’s just, Ozzie’s dark, you know?”

  “Dark,” I said.

  “He seems like he’s angry all the time. Mad at the world. Just an unhappy person. I don’t need that. I’m depressed enough all by myself.”

  “And Robert’s different?”

  “Oh, sure. Robert’s cute and nice and fun and, you know, deep. The opposite of Ozzie.”

  “But Ozzie and Robert are friends.”

  “That’s how I met Robert. He’s Ozzie’s friend. We all hung out together. We still do.”

  “So did you talk to Ozzie when you got worried about Robert?”

  “Oh, sure. He said he hasn’t seen Robert for a couple days, and he told me it wasn’t him who beat him up, and I’m worried, Mr. Coyne. That’s all. I thought maybe you knew something that would make me feel better.”

  “You believe Ozzie?”

  She smiled. “He’s a terrible liar. That was one thing I always liked about Ozzie. A couple times he tried to lie to me about something, and he couldn’t look me in the eye, and I’d say, ‘Don’t lie to me, Ozzie.’ And he’d say, ‘I’m sorry. I hate to lie to you.’”

  “Did Robert ever mention money problems to you?”

  She shook her head. “Is that what’s going on with him? Because he hasn’t been himself. Like the other day when he met with you? He was a wreck. He’s usually carefree and fun. But not lately.”

  “Since when? Can you pinpoint it?”

  She nodded. “Actually, I can. It happened all at once. It was one particular night week before last. Tuesday, I think. I was with him when he got a call from his father. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but after that he’s been all broody and paranoid. And then he had this meeting with you. I mean, a lawyer? So, see, I know something’s going on, and now when I can’t find him for three days, you can understand why I’d be worried.” She arched her eyebrows at me. “You gonna make me feel better, I hope?”

  Mentioning Paulie Russo wasn’t likely to make Becca feel better, so I didn’t. “There are dozens of explanations,” I said. “The fact that Robert didn’t tell you or me what he’s up to doesn’t mean something happened to him.”

  She blew out a breath, then nodded. “I guess you’re right. I’d like to think he tells me everything. But it’s not like we’re married or something.”

  I smiled. “Married people have secrets from each other, too, you know.”

  “Oh, believe me, I know that.” She rolled her eyes. “Just take my parents, for example.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “If I hear from Robert before you do, I’ll call you. You do the same. Okay?”

  “Okay, Mr. Coyne. You got a deal.”

  “You’ve got my number,” I said.

  She nodded, then reached down into her backpack, dug out a pen, found a scrap of paper, and wrote her number on it. “That’s my cell,” she said. “I always have it with me.”

  “Try not to worry,” I said. “It’ll work out.”

  “I know,” she said. “Thanks. I feel better.”

  Not me, I thought. I feel worse.

  Eleven

  WHEN I WOKE UP Sunday morning, Henry was licking my face and birdsong and sunshine were pouring through my open bedroom window. It was the kind of cheerful June morning that makes it impossible to think gloomy thoughts. Evie was in California doing exactly what she should be doing, and the Lancaster family were perfectly capable of working out their problems, and I was going fishing.

  I fried some bacon and eggs, made some toast, poured a tall glass of orange juice, and ate my fisherman’s breakfast out on my picnic table. It would keep me going all day. Then I loaded my trout-fishing gear and my dog into my car and drove out to the Swift River where it exits the Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown. The fly-fishing-only mile at the outflow of the dam was mobbed as usual, so I followed the dirt road downstream for a mile or so and found some empty water.

  Henry was an experienced and competent fishing dog. While I waded in the river, he prowled the banks, always close enough to come to the water’s edge if I whistled.

  Now and then I took a break and sat on a boulder or a fallen log beside the river, and Henry came over and lay down beside me. We watched the water for rising trout while my thoughts flipped back to Evie. I wasn’t used to this.

  I’d lived alone for many years. Being alone had never bothered me. I liked solitude.

  I guessed I could get used to it again, but right then it didn’t feel like solitude. It felt like loneliness.

  It would’ve been worse without Henry.

  I quit around four in the afternoon and got home a little after six. I stowed my gear, then checked my voice mail for messages. Maybe Evie had called.

  I had three messages. According to the little digital window on the phone, all were from the same “unknown caller.” I didn’t recognize the phone number.

  The first call had come at 11:16 that morning, about two hours after I’d left to go fishing. “Brady, it’s Dalt. I’m home. I need to talk to you. It’s really important. Please get back to me right away.”

  The second one came at 12:27. “Oh, fuck,” Dalt said. “You’re still not there. Call me, dammit.”

  The third call came at 4:42. “It’s me again,” he said. “Now we’re at my mother’s house. I’ve got my cell with me, or you can call her house phone. First chance you get. This is really urgent. We need you.” He recited both numbers.

  I wrote down the numbers and dialed the one for Dalt’s cell phone.

  He answered on the first ring. “Brady? That you?”

  “It’s me,” I said. “Sorry I wasn’t here. What’s up?”

  “They’ve got Robert.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “He’s—they kidnapped him. I got a—”

  “Who?” I said. “Who kidnapped him? Is it—?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Listen. They put a CD in my Sunday Globe this morning. And a cell phone, too, and… Brady, listen. You’ve got to see this. I need you here. You’re involved. I’m here at my mother’s. Can you come?”

  “What do you mean, I’m involved?”

  “You’ll see. Just come. You know where she lives, right?”

  “I do. Okay. I’m on my way.”

  Henry was sitting there on the kitchen floor watching me expectantly. I gave him his supper, told him I’d be back, got in my car, and headed for Belmont.

  Two cars were parked in the circular driveway in front of Judge Lancaster’s house on Belmont Hill. I left mine behind them, went up onto the porch, and rang the bell, and a minute later Mike Warner opened the door.

  “Hey, Brady,” he said. “Thanks for coming.” He stuck out his hand to me.

  I shook it. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  He shrugged. “Dalt called us. Kimmie—my wife—she’s Jess’s sister, you know, not to mention her best friend. This is a family thing. We’re just all holding hands here waiting for you.” He stepped away from the door. “Come on in. Dalt’s a mess, and everybody else isn’t much better.”

  I followed Warner into the judge’s living room. Dalt and his wife, Jessica, and a woman I didn’t recognize were sitting side by side on one of the two sofas, Jess in the middle. Three empty highball glasses were on the coffee table in front of them. They all looked up at me.

  I shook hands with Dalt and said hello to Jess.


  “This is Kimmie,” said Jess. “My sister. Mike’s wife.”

  Kimmie and Jess, I noticed, were holding hands. You could see the resemblance. They were both attractive women—well-defined cheekbones, wide-spaced blue eyes, generous mouths. Kimmie was a little older and a little blonder and a little heavier than Jess.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said to Kimmie, “despite the circumstances.”

  Seated in a wingback chair beside the sofa was a pretty dark-haired woman. I recognized Teresa, Dalt’s former wife. Robert’s mother. I hadn’t seen her since the divorce twelve years earlier. She hadn’t changed much. She reminded me of the young Sophia Loren. I went over and held my hand out to her. “Teresa,” I said. “I’m Brady Coyne.”

  She looked up at me, then took my hand. Her dark eyes glistened, but she managed a small smile. “I know,” she said. “I remember you from the divorce.”

  “How are you doing?”

  She shrugged and shook her head. “Not that good.”

  Judge Adrienne Lancaster was standing by the front window, peering out through the curtains as if she were expecting somebody. She was wearing baggy blue jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers, as if she’d just come in from pruning her roses. She turned, scowled at me, and nodded once. “Attorney Coyne,” she said. “Good of you to come.”

  I nodded. “Hello, Judge.”

  “Dalton,” she said, “pour Mr. Coyne a glass of port.” The judge, I saw, was holding a wineglass in her hand.

  I held up my hand. “No thanks. I want to hear about what’s happened to Robert.”

  Dalt straightened up. On the coffee table in front of him, a compact disc in its plastic case and a cell phone were sitting beside a laptop computer. He picked up the CD and held it out to me. “I found this stuck in the Metro section of the Globe this morning when I fetched it from my front steps,” he said. “This, too.” He handed the cell phone to me. “This is yours.”

  “What do you mean, mine?” I said.

  “It’s all on the disc.”

  I looked at the CD. On the plastic case someone had used a black indelible pen to print the words: WATCH ME NOW. NO COPS. The disc inside the case had no markings on it. It was the kind you could burn in a computer.

  The cell phone was a cheap flip-open Motorola model. I flipped it open. The little screen was blank. I snapped it shut. “Okay,” I said, “I want to see what’s on this disc.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Mike Warner.

  I handed the disc to him, then sat in a wing chair beside the sofa.

  Judge Lancaster stayed where she was across the room, gazing out the window and sipping from her wineglass.

  Warner opened the laptop, slid in the disc, and poked a couple of keys. A few seconds later Robert Lancaster’s head and shoulders appeared. He was squinting into a harsh artificial light that cast sharp shadows in the rest of the room. You could see the old yellowish bruises around his left eye. There was a new cut on the right side of his face, a jagged, scabbed-over gash, and the swollen redness of a fresh bruise on his cheekbone.

  A tiny microphone with a wire running from it was clipped to his shirt pocket. He looked into the camera for an instant, then his eyes dropped. “I am reading this to you,” he said. “They have written it, and if I don’t read it word for word they say they will kill me. I am reading it so that you can see that I am alive.” His voice was a monotone, and he read slowly, pronouncing each word separately, as if he were afraid of inflecting something incorrectly.

  Robert paused, and the camera pulled back so that his entire body could be seen. He was sitting in a wooden armchair. He wore a dirty white T-shirt and a pair of rumpled blue jeans. Several bands of silver-gray duct tape encircled his chest, binding him to the back of the chair. His ankles were taped to the chair legs, and his wrists were taped together. His feet were bare. He was holding a sheet of paper in his hands.

  “I am fine,” he read. “They are treating me well. I am comfortable. They promise not to hurt me if you follow their instructions.” He looked at the camera for a moment, then his eyes went back to the paper he was holding. “They want two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in used twenty- and fifty- and hundred-dollar bills. They will give details at another time. They expect my grandmother to get it. It is now Sunday. They will give you until Tuesday at six o’clock to get the money. If you don’t have it by then, they will know you are not cooperating, and they will kill me.”

  Robert paused, swallowed, licked his lips. He looked young and frightened. “If you don’t do everything they say, exactly the way they say it, they promise they will kill me. I believe them. If you involve the police, they will kill me. They will know if you involve the police. Please. Don’t talk to the police.”

  He lifted his eyes from the paper and peered into the camera as if he wanted to speak from his own heart. I read fear, embarrassment, and apology in his dark eyes. After a few seconds, he looked back at the paper he was reading from. “The cell phone is for Brady Coyne. He should turn it on at six on Tuesday and have it with him at all times after that. He is the only one they will talk to.” Robert looked up at the camera again, blinked a couple of times, then looked down at the paper in his hands. “Don’t contact any police. Do exactly as they say. Please. Just get the money. If you don’t, they will kill me.” He raised his head and looked at something, or somebody, to the side of the camera that was recording him. He arched his eyebrows, then nodded.

  Then the screen went blank.

  “Play it again,” I said.

  Mike Warner hit a few keys, and the recording played again. I listened for sounds other than Robert’s voice and heard none. I tried to distinguish features of the background behind him, but all I saw was dark shadows and indistinct shapes.

  An expert at that sort of thing might be able to isolate a sound that I couldn’t hear, or he might zoom in on some shape in the background, enlarge and clarify it, and turn it into a clue. But my ears and eyes noticed nothing that might help me figure out where Robert was or who had hit him on the cheek and taped him to a chair and threatened his life.

  When it was over, I said, “You’ve got to go to the police.”

  Teresa shook her head. “No. They’ll know. You heard what he said. They’ll kill him.”

  “I agree,” said Dalt. “We’ve got to do it their way.”

  “They always say that,” I said. “That’s because they know that if we bring in the authorities, they won’t get away with it.”

  Dalt shook his head. “We can’t take the chance. We’ve got to do what they say.”

  “It’s your decision,” I said. “But I don’t agree with it. Our odds of getting Robert back are better if we bring in the professionals. The FBI are trained to handle this sort of thing. Let me call them.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not worth the risk.”

  “I agree with Brady,” said Mike Warner. “We should let the pros handle it. It’s the only way.”

  From the other side of the room, Judge Adrienne Lancaster said, “No.” She came over and looked down at us. “No police. No FBI. My son is right, for once. The police are incompetent, and the FBI are worse. I think it’s apparent that these people who have my grandson are quite competent. I will get the money. We will pay them. We’ll do it their way.” She fixed me with her famous glare. “Are you on board, Mr. Coyne?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve registered my opinion. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “You have no obligation, of course.”

  “I said I’d do it.”

  “Aren’t you afraid they’ll kill you?” said the judge.

  “I’m afraid they’ll kill Robert,” I said.

  She nodded. “Okay, then. You must do exactly what these—these criminals tell you to do. We will all do as we’re told. When we get Robert back, then we’ll go after the bastards. Agreed?” She looked around the room.

  Dalt and Jess and Kimmie and Mike all nodded.

  “Teresa?” said Adrienne. “What about you
?”

  Teresa was crying. She looked up at her former mother-in-law. “I don’t know. I guess so. Whatever you think. I just want my boy back.”

  “Nobody will breathe a word of this to anybody,” said the judge.

  Everybody nodded.

  “Robert is not missing,” she said. “Nothing has happened.” She looked straight at Dalt. “This is a family matter. We will all keep it in the family. Right, Dalton?”

  “Yes, Mother,” Dalt said. “Right.”

  “Teresa?”

  Teresa mumbled “Yes.”

  “Jessica? Michael? Kimberly?”

  They all nodded.

  She arched her eyebrows at me.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “All right, good,” the judge said. “Now I need to talk to Attorney Coyne privately.” She jerked her head at me. “This way, please.”

  Twelve

  I GOT UP AND FOLLOWED Judge Lancaster down a hallway and into a large book-lined office.

  She sat behind a big oak desk. “Close that door behind you, please.”

  I shut the door, then sat in a leather chair across from her. The judge’s office featured dark woodwork, oxblood leather furniture, glass-fronted built-in bookcases, a fieldstone fireplace, and paintings of clipper ships and pointing dogs. The room was utterly masculine, and I guessed that it had previously been the domain of Frederick Billings Lancaster, Adrienne’s husband and Dalt’s father, when he was alive.

  But Judge Adrienne Lancaster did not seem at all out of place in this office.

  “I recused myself from that case,” she said. “As you suggested. I announced it at a press conference. I refused to give a reason. It was humiliating and unprofessional, but I did it on your advice.”

  “I hoped that would take care of this situation,” I said.

  “You were wrong.”

  “Evidently,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s clear that this—this kidnapping—is related to that. I need to know what you know.”