A String of Beads

by Thomas Perry

  In a moment Jane was out the automatic doors and making her way across the short-term lot to the Passat. As she walked, she took out her phone and called the cell phone she had left with Jimmy Sanders. She heard his “hello.”

  “Hi, it’s me. She’s on a plane to Albany, so she’ll probably get to Manchester quite a bit later than we expected.”

  “We’ll check to see what flights there are, and be there.”

  “Is everything still okay?” Jane asked.

  “We’re fine.”

  “Good. Try hard to stay that way. Got to go.” She hung up, got into the Passat, and drove to the exit from the lot. As she paid the parking fee, she looked into the rearview mirrors and verified that no car was following her.

  22

  Daniel Crane sat at his desk in the storage office feeling miserable. He wasn’t entirely confident in his lawyer, Richard Brannigan, now that he’d hired him, but he was supposed to be one of the best. At first he had said that Crane had done the right thing by calling him in right away, because once a suspect retained a lawyer, the cops usually didn’t even bother to question him. It hadn’t worked out that way this time. They had taken him and his lawyer into a little room with cameras mounted on the ceiling and fired questions at him, and each one had felt like a puncture wound.

  Brannigan had kept repeating, “Don’t answer that,” or “My client won’t answer that,” until it became annoying, but the cops had not relented.

  The whole thing had been a disaster. The lead cop, a burly man with a bald head and piercing eyes said, “You gave that girl GHB and raped her. Want to tell us anything about that?” Of course it was a trap to make him give specific reasons why he was innocent, so he would contradict himself. Then there was: “You know, she has permanent brain damage, and you did that to her.” He was aware that it was perfectly legal for them to lie to him in an interrogation. “We’re talking to every woman you ever met, and a lot of them are giving us an earful.” It was all lies. Crane had never used the powder before Chelsea. They never mentioned the brain damage again, because they hadn’t fooled him.

  He had drugged her because he loved her, and now he had lost her. The emergency operator had told the police that Verna Machak had come into the house, seen Chelsea, and called them, and the ambulance EMTs had brought one of the envelopes of powder from his house with them to the hospital. What right had EMTs had to do that, to search his house for drugs?

  The emergency room doctors had called the cops, and then told Chelsea she had been drugged. Maybe if he’d had a chance to talk to her that morning he could have explained. He could have said he used it himself to help him sleep, and that she’d accidentally drunk from his glass that night while he was getting ready to drive her home. Or something. But he couldn’t stay and talk to her because he’d had to drive to Box Farm and wait for Salamone, who hadn’t even shown up, and then been taken to the police station and wasted the whole day while they tried to rattle and terrify him. He had wanted to get to the hospital and talk to her alone, but the cops had kept him until late in the day and then warned him not to try to see her, and his own lawyer had repeated it, so here he was.

  Now she was gone. She had checked herself out of the hospital somehow, and she wasn’t at her house and she wasn’t answering her cell phone. He had sent men she knew to look for her at the hospital, and others to watch the airport, and others to talk to friends of hers to get them to call when she turned up. Nobody had accomplished anything. Thompson and Harriman had thought they’d seen her trying to fly to New York, but when they’d gotten closer, the woman had turned out to be somebody else.

  Crane looked at his watch. It was only nine in the morning, and he felt like he’d worked a whole day already. He got up from his desk and went to stare out the window at the complex of storage bays. He had worked and struggled to get where he was. He had taken risks that other men would never have been brave enough to take. And then he had fallen in love.

  He had never been able to understand women, never known how to get women to like him. He had never understood why they ignored him and picked dumber, poorer, less ambitious men.

  He had suspected Chelsea was one of those women he’d heard and read about who liked a bit of an edge to her love life. Maybe she had liked a big strong dope like Nick Bauermeister because he overpowered her. He’d heard many women say they liked a man who was confident and in charge. A lot of women seemed to have a fantasy about being taken, so they didn’t have to make any decisions, just acquiesce, and let the man’s desires sweep them away. He thought about it and realized that he hadn’t heard any actual women say that in person. They had mostly been in magazine articles written by women. But they’d said it. When he had given Chelsea the powder that first time he’d been trying to give her that freedom from having to ­decide—the freedom from fears about the propriety of having a relationship right after her boyfriend died, or her own shyness about being with a new man.

  And it had worked. She had practically forced him the next time. After that she had been his girlfriend, as though they’d been together for years. She had gone out with him every evening and gotten used to coming home with him and staying the night. And then everything had soured in one evening. He had felt desperate, taken the last chance he had to keep her, and that desperation had wrecked every­thing. He had not planned to give her the powder again, and so he hadn’t been prepared. He had to work quickly, to give all his attention to pouring it into her drink without getting caught, and had probably given her too much. Now she would never understand that he had only loved her too much to let her go.

  He thought about killing himself. The police had been in his house, so they had probably taken his pistol out of his desk, but he had others in his personal storage space out there beyond the window in row A. They had been taken in burglaries, and he’d stored them in case he needed to have some available that weren’t registered to anyone but some guy whose house had been robbed. If he shot himself in the head with one of those, what were the police going to do—dig him up and put him in jail?

  But Crane knew he wasn’t going to kill himself. As long as there was any chance of getting through his trouble he wouldn’t quit. He didn’t feel a strong enough urge.

  “Cars coming in.”

  Crane turned to look at the monitors on the wall. “Salamone. I’ll talk to him alone.” He watched Thompson get up and go down the stairs.

  Crane longed to go with him. The sight of Salamone’s car changed everything. Crane felt as though he had fallen into ice water. He wasn’t feeling dreamy and bereft anymore; he was frightened. Did Salamone know already? Crane’s lungs couldn’t bring in enough air, and when he tried to make them he felt dizzy. He was aware of the sound of Thompson at the bottom of the stairs, and then he heard the back door swing open and shut.

  He sat down at his desk and looked at the monitors. The big car came to the gate and the driver’s arm came out and took a ticket. The gate opened and the hand released the ticket to let it flutter to the ground. The car behind Salamone’s pulled up and the driver did the same. He didn’t recognize the second car, and it irritated him. It was one thing for Salamone to do that, but these were strangers, two men in a dark gray Cadillac. Behind them was a black SUV.

  On the wall monitors he watched Salamone get out of his car, and then his two men. Cantorese had been driving, and he eased his fat body out from behind the wheel and straightened his short legs to stand. Pistore was out in an instant, his sharp young eyes already scanning in every direction.

  Salamone went to the door, and as soon as he was inside he appeared on another monitor. As he climbed the stairs he looked somber. He wore a dark suit that seemed to have been made to fit his body by a talented tailor. Crane envied him.

  Crane looked ahead and Salamone appeared in front of him. Salamone said, “Daniel. Are we alone?”

 
The question struck Crane as insanity. Salamone was never alone. Cantorese and Pistore were at his shoulders. But Crane said, “Yes. I sent Thompson out to the units.”

  Salamone nodded. “We—I mean you and me—have got trouble. Bad trouble, and we’re going to talk about that later. Right now, outside in that Cadillac down there, is Mr. Malconi himself. He would like two storage units. His units won’t be together. And his keys will be the only keys.”

  Crane could tell from his measured tone that if Crane argued, he would regret it. “Sure. How about”—he looked at the clipboard with the roster of units—“C-fifteen and J-nineteen?”

  “Fine. Get the locks.”

  Crane went to the stock room and brought out two brand-new locks, still in their boxes.

  Salamone nodded. “There will be no bill, and no list anywhere with his name on it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Come with me.” The two men went down the stairs.

  Crane stopped at the door. “Are you sure it’s okay? I mean does he mind if I see him?”

  “If he minded, you wouldn’t be able to get within a hundred yards of him.” Salamone pushed open the door with his left hand and pushed Crane out with the right. He walked Crane to the backseat window.

  The tinted window slid down. There he was, Mr. Malconi himself. His hair was surprisingly thick and healthy looking, most of it white and bristly. His face was tanned and marked with deep creases on his forehead, around his mouth and eyes, and even on his cheeks. He looked like a doll made of a dried apple. His shining black eyes were focused on Crane. “Hello, Mr. Crane.”

  “Hello, sir.”

  The old man’s expression was unchanging. “Your friend Mr. Salamone says you’re a smart man. Good head for business and all that. Is it true?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I wanted to get a look at you today, and talk to you in person.” He glanced at Salamone, then back at Crane. “I believe a man should take responsibility for his actions. Do you?”

  “Yes,” said Crane. He wondered if this man ever heard the word “no.”

  “Can I talk freely, or are we going to be overheard?”

  Crane looked around him and saw that Salamone’s two men were on the sides of the little parking area, and that two other men had gotten out of the black SUV, and were also scanning the area. How could anyone overhear? “You can talk freely.”

  “Good. Now, you’ve got yourself in trouble because you wanted one of your men’s girlfriend, so you killed him. Did you ever go to Sunday school, Mr. Crane?”

  “I guess so. Yes.”

  “Does the name Uriah the Hittite mean anything to you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Just curious. It doesn’t matter. We’ve gone to quite a bit of trouble to keep you protected so you won’t be sent away and your business broken up or abandoned. Two nights ago a cop was sneaking around the house of Walter Slawicky. You know him, right?”

  “Yes.” Crane’s mouth was dry, but he managed to say, “He went to the police for me to say that he’d sold the rifle to Jimmy Sanders.”

  “Sanders is the Indian you were trying to pin the shooting on, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I think the cop was looking for the place where Slawicky hid the rifle.”

  “There isn’t supposed to be any such place. He was supposed to take it out in a boat and drop the pieces in Lake Ontario.”

  The old man’s eyes seemed to sharpen. “Do you know for certain that he got rid of the rifle?”

  Crane paused, then said, “I don’t know why he wouldn’t. Having it would get him into trouble, maybe get him charged with murder.”

  “You don’t know why he wouldn’t.” The old man almost smiled. “I guess you just haven’t been in trouble much. When you’ve been in trouble you don’t like it, and you think about stashing away things that you might trade to get out of it next time—information, evidence. Maybe someday the cops will have Slawicky on a big charge. If he has the weapon, maybe he can trade it, and you, for a little slack. And maybe he doesn’t trust you. He knows you killed your other guy, Nick. Why not him?”

  Crane stared down at his feet, and shook his head. Things just kept getting more complicated and awful.

  “Okay,” said the old man. “Enough about him. Time for a sad story. The other night, we had some men watching to learn more about this Slawicky—maybe see if he still has that rifle—and who shows up, but a cop? He’s snooping around Slawicky’s, obviously looking for something. So one of the men shoots him.”

  “Those were your men?”

  “Not my men, just men. One of them, thirty-one years old with a good family, was there. He and his friends didn’t know there wasn’t only one cop. A second cop who had apparently been in the car took out a shotgun and shot him in the chest. He died.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Crane. “That’s terrible.”

  “I’m sorry too. He was a good man. He can’t even be given a decent burial for a long time, because he was connected with a lot of other people the police would like to get at.”

  “No burial?”

  “His friends picked him up so his body wouldn’t be found. You’re going to take a tiny part of the responsibility. He’s in that SUV back there. You’re going to hold on to him for a while until arrangements can be made.”

  “Here? In a storage space?”

  The old man looked at him, the dark eyes bright like the eyes of a predatory bird. “Do you object?”

  Crane said, “No. I don’t object. He can go in J-nineteen.”

  “Go tell the guys back by the SUV. In fact, get in and show them where to go. When you’re finished, come back and give Mr. Salamone the keys.”

  “Yes, sir.” Crane began to walk. His legs felt stiff like stilts, and he had a moment when the pavement rose up in front of him and he felt faint, but then the men from the SUV got in and opened the passenger door for him. He was relieved to sit.

  The driver said, “Where to?”

  “You can go around this way,” Crane said. He pointed at the end of the first row of storage spaces. “J is in the third row, and the bay is number nineteen.”

  When the SUV reached J-19, one man got out and pulled up the door of the storage bay and the other backed the SUV up into the mouth of it. Then the two men got out, opened the hatch, and pulled out a cooler of the sort that Crane had seen at chamber of commerce picnics, about five feet long, two feet wide and deep. He imagined a man crammed in there with his knees bent. Crane moved in a reflex to help carry the cooler to the back of the storage bay and set it down on the concrete surface. He could see the cover was latched and locked, and sealed with duct tape.

  The driver got back in the SUV and pulled it clear, and the other man pulled the door down and slid the bolt in. Crane took one of the locks out of its box and clasped it on the bolt. The man at the door gave the lock a tug to be sure it was fully engaged, and then got in the backseat.

  A WOMAN DROVE UP TO the front gate of the storage facility in a small blue car and took a ticket, then drove in through the open gate. She parked in a space close to the main building a few feet to the right of a gray Cadillac. She had a cell phone pressed against her left ear and she was talking into it. Her window was shut, so Salamone and Mr. Malconi couldn’t hear anything she was saying, and she didn’t look at them. All they could really see was the cell phone and her left hand.

  Mr. Malconi said to Salamone, “I’ve got some places to be. You can handle the rest of this, right?”

  “Sure,” said Salamone. “I’ll bring you the keys in a day or two.”

  “No hurry,” said Mr. Malconi. “Victor isn’t going anywhere, and it will take a while to make arrangements. It’ll have to be a small, quie
t thing. And somebody will have to think up a story for the priest.”

  “I understand.”

  Mr. Malconi’s tinted window rolled up, and his face was gone. Salamone turned and walked to the door, then disappeared inside the building. The dark gray Cadillac pulled back, turned, and went out the gate, then accelerated down the road.

  The woman in the dark blue Volkswagen Passat put her cell phone away, got out of her car, and went into the building. There was a stack of printed price lists for bay rentals on a table just inside, and a stack of blank contract forms beside it. She took one of each and went back out to her car carrying them, making sure that anyone watching her would know what she was doing.

  A moment later, her blue car backed up, turned, and pulled out of the lot. The driver watched to be sure she wasn’t being followed, but only after a few minutes did she feel satisfied that she wasn’t. Coming into the storage facility had been a risk, but while she’d been sitting a few hundred yards away she’d gotten curious about the convoy of three vehicles that had arrived. Now she was glad she had taken the chance. The cell phone pictures were clear and sharp. As she drove, she wondered what was in that big box she’d seen them putting into space J-19.

  23

  In his dream Isaac Lloyd was running. He felt his rhythmic breathing and strong heartbeat, the pleasant pressure of his feet padding along on the deep, spongy layer of leaves and dirt on a forest path. A faint breeze cooled his face as he ran, and the canopy of the tall trees along the path let a dapple of sunlight through.

  There was someone ahead on the path that he couldn’t quite see, but he knew he would catch up before long. Now and then the path ahead would straighten and he would catch a glimpse of a branch just swinging back to its normal position after someone had passed.

  There was a sudden flutter of birds ascending to avoid whoever had disturbed them, and then a female voice. It said, “Ike. Hey, Ike.” He ran harder. As he did, he broke through the fragile barrier of sleep and moved his real leg in the realm of consciousness and felt the sharp pain.