by GC Smith
She smiled, nodded almost imperceptibly, and closed her fingers around the electronic key card that he had placed in her palm.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Moultrie Bay
September 15
At ten minutes past nine that evening, Donal returned to his house. The cat ran past him as he went in, ignoring him, not so much as a meow. Donal had driven Victoria to the airport, on Hilton Head. She told him that her Columbia assignment was close to completion and she would be back in Moultrie Bay soon. Permanently.
Victoria was everything that he could want and still he was uncertain. The cat who had just come in now stood by the front door yowling to get out. Donal let her out and then put a Willie Nelson disk into the CD changer. He knew that the time was coming when he'd have to decide. Blues notes slipped from Willie's battered Martin flat top into the amplifier and out through high end speakers.
Why? Why the uncertainty? Donal asked himself. Because she came from an old South Carolina family and had grown up with every advantage that money combined with a pedigree could buy? Because his own background was far different? His father, of Irish extraction, was a first generation American, had spent his adult life working on the Philadelphia docks. His mother was an immigrant from Venice, Italy.
Donal had been born and raised in a row house, with three sisters. Home to Donal was parents, sisters, grandparents and cousins crowded around the dining room table. An extended family, all tended with affection and understanding by his mother. Loud conversation and laughter.
Hell, he liked it that way. On the few occasions that he had been in the company of Paul and Arabella Summerville, Victoria's parents, the restrained, in fact to Donal chilly, atmosphere of their antebellum bay front home provided a stark contrast to that of his folks home. But, Victoria was nothing like her icy parents.
Still, Donal remained uncertain. Soul searching had not changed the uncertainty. Maybe nothing would. More likely, though he didn't want to face the fact, the difference between their backgrounds had nothing to do with his doubts. Maybe it was that Victoria could get in the way of his career. Maybe it was that marriage just wasn't in the cards.
The phone rang and Tabitha, the silken voice from Donal’s answering service, told him Harry Trent was on the line. Donal made the connection from the Marie Della Porta investigation. “Put him through.”
“John, this is Harry Trent. We met during your
investigation into Joan Wiley-Capers's disappearance.”
“Sure. What can I do for you?”
The cat meowed to be let in.
“I need your help. My client, Claudia Chatrian, has been kidnapped.”
“I saw the story in this morning's Gazette. I’m not equipped to take on a kidnapping case. The Sheriff's Department has the resources, I don't. They can handle it far better than I could.”
The cat's meow had changed to a screech.
“I disagree. I need you. There's more to this than just a kidnapping.”
“Hold on, Mr. Trent, I'm a private investigator.
I'm simply not set up ...
Trent cut in, “The kidnapper is Micah Capers . He gave the story to the press. Does that change your mind?”
Donal's grip on the receiver tightened. “Jesus yes,” he said.
Kidnapping didn't figure. That Capers should surface and grab a celebrity for ransom was deviation from pattern. That Capers should give the story to the press even further deviation.
Capers was dealing from a new deck and Donal’s gut said that finding, much less rescuing, Claudia Chatrian was very likely not in the cards. But he knew that he would try.
Trent continued, “You'll help.”
“Yes. I'll meet you in my office. Half an hour.” He gave Trent the address, made a quick call to Mike, and replaced the receiver.
“Listen to what the blues have to say”, the haunting guitar and saxophone backed refrain of Willie's “Night Life” filled the empty room as Donal pulled the door closed behind him. The cat ran around from the back of the house to the front door. Donal, already in his car, didn't see her run up to the front door nor did he hear her plaintive meows.
Donal leaned back in his leather desk chair, waiting for Mike. As he tried to puzzle out what Capers was up to he reflexively played with a cigarette lighter left over from his long gone smoking days. He repetitively snapped the cover open and closed. Finally, he tossed the dented Zippo onto the desk blotter and banged his fist. “Think man, think like Capers would think,” he said aloud.
Mike arrived and Donal said, “Harry Trent and another fellow, Nick MacAndrews, should be here in a few minutes. You prepared for an all nighter?”
“Why not, I've been burning it at both ends for weeks, what's one more night?”
Donal began to go over the sketchy details of the kidnapping and the Capers/Wiley-Capers connection. “I've talked to Hook. He's already set up a command center with open lines to the F.B.I. and SLED. A.J.'s staked a detail at the house where Joan and Micah Capers's had been living but there's no realistic hope that either of them will show there.
“The only thing the Sheriff's Department has so far is the fact that the Blowfish bus was abandoned in an I-26 rest stop. They found Capers's prints and a set belonging to an ex con named Pete Hammil. Hammil was in South and Central America with Capers, so he figures as an accomplice. None of the other prints on the bus were any help, they were either accountable or the Police couldn't get a make on them.”
“What the hell is he up to? This change of is senseless.”
“Apparently senseless. And that may be the key to what's going on here. It's not too far fetched to believe that Capers has decided to go public with a spectacular event and his ransom demand is a red herring.”
“Why?”
“Because none of what Capers has done stands the test of reason, so we have to consider the unreasonable. He doesn't care that it was obvious who kidnapped her. And, he doesn't give a damn about the money. He's after publicity.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a perverted game. A key is that he gave the press the story. Boils down to a media event being staged by a mad man. It's not a kidnapping for ransom; it's a prelude to murder. He's flouting all the rules of civilization. He wants to tell the world that Micah Capers is the boss, that he can murder with impunity.”
“He's delusional.”
“You got it.”
“Where does his wife fit into this?”
“She's part of it.” Donal paused, then added, “Unless Capers killed her.”
“Why would he kill her?”
“Instances of psychotics working together are extremely rare. The only case I ever ran across was a father and son who killed together. And, before he was caught, the father murdered the son. With psychopaths it seems that one has to dominate.”
“You think the ransom demand is a publicity ploy?”
“I do. He'll ignore the ransom.”
“Then how can we find him? He'd have no reason to reveal himself.”
“We can hope that I'm wrong. He may still be working with his wife and they may want the money. We'll have to assume so and devise a game plan to follow the money trail. It's the longest of long shots, but, hell, till we work out something else it’s the only option.”
Trent and MacAndrews arrived and the four men sat late into the night, Donal listening, asking occasional questions.
Coffee cups littered the conference table. It was nearly one in the morning. Donal closed his eyes, and massaged his temples with the thumb and little finger of his broad left hand. He silently reviewed the facts. Dropping his hand to his thigh Donal looked at MacAndrews and then at Trent. “Long, long odds, gentlemen. What we know about Micah and Joan Capers lengthens those odds. Maybe we have until Wednesday morning when the ransom's transferred. If we're lucky.” Donal stopped for a moment and then asked, “Is there anything that you can think of, Mr. MacAndrews, anything at all that Capers said to you, that could give me an idea
of where he would have taken Miss Chatrian?”
“No. I talked with him when I interviewed him and for a couple of minutes the next morning. I never saw him again. My administrative assistant took care of the hiring and orientation details. The Sheriff's deputies questioned her, of course, but she couldn't remember Capers saying or doing anything that would be helpful.”
Donal said, “Then, that's it, gentlemen. Nothing more
that any of us can do tonight. Where will you be staying?”
Trent looked to MacAndrews and said, “In town. My house.” MacAndrews nodded wearily.
Donal said to Trent, “Give me numbers were I can reach you.”
After the two men and Mike had left Donal sat in his silent office. He had spent the hours listening to Trent and MacAndrews and questioning every detail that they could provide. Details which were damn near nothing.
During those hours he had become even more convinced that the ransom demand was a blind. Capers had kidnapped Claudia Chatrian for murder.
But why the change in his mode of operating? What made Capers change?
Donal crossed his office to the wall of windows and looked down at the deserted streets. Almost two a.m. Nothing further that he could do at this ungodly hour. Time to go home.
The cat, pissed with waiting on the porch for hours, let Donal know it. She gave him her trademark sharp claw to the ankle when he walked up the front porch steps.
“Ow, you little bitch,” Donal said, but he smiled and let her into the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Moultrie Bay, SC
September 16, A.M.
The Sheriff's Department was pandemonium. Uniformed and plain clothes cops, in groups of three and four, moved in and out of the command center that Hook had set up. Members of the fourth estate crawled all over the place, getting in the lawmen's way, asking the same stupid questions again and again. The County Executive and the Sheriff rang the phone incessantly.
The morning wore on with no developments. Nothing. Nothing to indicate if Claudia Chatrian was alive or dead.
Hook was exhausted, normally unflappable demeanor shot. He bellowed orders at his men and became short with the press. He barely stopped himself from telling the County Executive to shove her phone calls where the sun doesn't shine. Pissed by their cocky attitudes, he tossed two wet-behind-the-ears Federal agents out of the government center and caught verbal hell over the phone from the Charleston Agent in Charge.
Donal spent most of the morning on the phone with Trent trying to keep the man calm, convincing him that no one could do anything more until Capers made a move.
Donal learned that Trent was much more than Claudia Chatrian's career manager and attorney. Claudia, as he had known, had been orphaned as an infant. Olivia Chatrian, Claudia’s aunt and legal guardian, had moved to Moultrie Bay from Hilton Head when Claudia was only months old. The child's guardian had had enormous success with a construction company she founded that specialized in antebellum restorations. Then, while on a job, the thirty seven year old woman was stricken by a heart attack. She never made it to the hospital.
Trent had had been engaged to marry Olivia and he virtually raised Claudia. The close relationship that had existed between Olivia Chatrian and Trent and the fact that he had acted as foster father to Claudia explained the man's state of near panic.
Donal and Mike huddled, brainstorming, developing deployment plans for any contingency that they could envision, knowing that Capers could throw a curve ball that could render useless any plans they devised. Worse, knowing that the Capers may have already done away with Claudia Chatrian.
Shortly after two P.M., Donal pulled Hook aside and said, “Turn it over to Smallsmith for an hour. We're going somewhere to talk in peace.
Donal and Hook took a corner table and ordered sweet tea and sandwiches. No wisecracks from Nikko, who had read the lurid account of the kidnapping in the morning paper.
Capers had what he wanted; the front page splashed with photographs and detailed speculation on the probable murder of Claudia Chatrian, junk journalism at its worse. The razor killings were rehashed with hyperbolic hysteria. The lead editorial stridently whipped the County Executive and the Sheriff's Department, dwelling on incompetence and the upcoming election.
“We’re stymied until he surfaces,” Hook said. “The money trail is our only bet.”
“We wait and she's dead. I told Mike to get together with Smallsmith and go over the Capers case files one more time. Told him, search for anything that might clue us as to where they are.”
“My guys tore those files apart. Mike won't find anything.”
“Maybe not. I've also been on the phone to SLED trying to get anything they have on Capers. Jack Faulkner is out of the office on TDY. Couldn't get his boss, Ellerby, either. He's in the hospital.”
“Call the damn hospital.”
“I did. Son of a bitch was on the operating table.
Appendectomy. He was supposed to have had surgery a week ago but there were some complications so they had to postpone until today. No way I can talk to him until late this evening at the earliest, probably not until tomorrow. I have another source in SLED who's trying to get into Capers personnel files for me, but he has to move cautiously. The files are classified need to know. So far my source hasn't been able to gain access without calling attention to himself. It would be better if I could get to Faulkner or Ellerby and pressure them.”
Donal dropped Hook at police headquarters and continued on to his office. Mike arrived ten minutes later and handed Donal a photo copy of a scrap of paper with numbers doodled on it. “Alphonsos picked this up when they tossed the Capers's home.
“The 9/14 hit me,” Mike said. Saturday's date. Alphonsos probably saw it a dozen times, but the date had no significance until now. I'm still not sure it does. The other letters and numbers are a puzzle. Make anything of them?”
Donal studied the paper for a couple of minutes, then said, “Yeah, yeah, I think I have it. Directions. The numbers are route and mileage designations. The R's and L's threw me for a minute. With directions I usually think in terms of compass points, not right and left. Hand me the Rand McNally.”
Donal studied the map of South Carolina, particularly the western and northern reaches of the State along with the abutting States of Tennessee and North Carolina concentrating on the areas that extended out from where the bus had been abandoned. He figured that Capers, having abandoned the bus there, would want to get to his planned destination as soon as possible.
As Mike watched, Donal traced his index finger down a highway stretching west and north from I-26. “Got it. The route leads into the Blue Ridge. Get on the horn to Al McReney and tell him to gas up the Suburban and get over here fast. We're going out there.”
“You sure that's where Capers took her?”
“Hell, no, but we're not gaining a damn thing sitting here, waiting for something to happen.”
“You better call Hook.”
“No time. A.J. will have to coordinate with the SLED and the Feds. We can move a lot faster.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Blue Ridge Mountains
September 16
Early fall sun lowering on the western horizon sent golden slashes through dense foliage. The sunlight cut through bathroom window panes to where Claudia applied makeup. Her reserves were worn thin from a sleepless night and an exhausting day of mentally turning over her situation and trying to figure out what, if anything, she could do to escape.
She couldn't get a handle on the blond man who had told her his name was Micah Capers and who was different from the others. It was he who had provided her the bag of clothing and makeup, he who brought her meals, and he who escorted her when she had to use the bathroom. He was her jailer but he treated her courteously, respectfully. He was polite and cheerful when in her presence. Still, he watched her carefully. Watched as a captor or, just possibly, she considered, as a man intrigued by her? She knew that mo
st men were.
Claudia, near despair, was uncertain, but if Capers could be won over she might begin to hope. Convince him, she said to herself. Make him help you. Plead. Use your body. Do whatever it takes.
She inspected her image. She opened her oxford cloth shirt three buttons from the throat, adjusted her lace push-up for maximum effect, and stepped out into the hall.
Capers rose from the top step where he had been sitting, waiting for her. “You must be tired of being cooped up in that bedroom. Want to go down stairs for a while?”
“Oh, yes. Could we sit outside?”
“No, not outside. But it's cool in the living room.
There's a breeze through the windows.”
Claudia preceded him down the steps. Like the bedroom, the living area of the open floor plan was decorated with simple maple furniture of colonial design. A field stone fire place took up three quarters of one wall; grouped in front of the fireplace were a maple and chintz sofa and two matching chairs. A countertop, with chintz upholstered stools, separated the kitchen from the living area. Claudia gazed through the windows to the surrounding forest. Tall Loblolly pines crept close to the cabin, the sinking westward sun turned their topmost branches to burnished bronze.
“Like a drink?”
“Yes, thank you, I would.”
When he returned from the kitchen area with two glasses on a tray along with a 750 liter bottle of Jack Daniels black label, a pitcher of water, and a small clear acrylic bucket of ice, she said, “Why are you involved in this? You don't seem like the others.” She leaned forward for the glass that he had placed on the table, insuring him a glimpse of lace cupped breast. Glancing up from beneath exquisite lashes, she saw his eyes slide downward before he looked away.