by Parker Riggs
Rose settled back in the chair. She was enjoying the familiar high that came with the job. It kept her centered. “Refresh my memory,” she said. “Where’d you work before you retired?”
Chad opened his mouth, then closed it. “I don’t understand what my former profession has to do with anything.” He looked like a petulant child about to throw a tantrum. “I’d like to know what all these questions are about.”
Rocky pointed his pen at Chad. “Boston University Art Department, am I right?”
Chad pulled his legs up under him. “If you already know, why ask?”
“Teach there a long time?” A toilet flushed upstairs.
Chad glanced up at the ceiling, then back to Rocky. “Many years,” he said. “I’d be happy to give you the art department phone number so you can verify my background.”
Rocky raised his bushy eyebrows. “That’d be helpful.”
“Excuse me.” Chad unfolded himself from the chair like a cat, and Rose watched him walk through a swinging door, beyond which she glimpsed an empty wine bottle and some dirty plates. As soon the door shut behind him, Rocky came over to Rose and said quietly, “What’d you think?”
“I think Chad was surprised to see me,” Rose said, “but he was expecting you. I wonder if someone tipped him off.”
Rocky wrinkled his nose as if he’d gotten a whiff of something foul. “Thorne,” he said, tapping his pen on the notebook. “He gave me Amber’s alibi. He must have told Chad so he’d get his story right.”
Rose nodded. “That’s a disturbing possibility.”
Rocky grunted. “Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past him to come up with an alibi for Amber so I’d drop her as a suspect.”
Suddenly a young man with white-blond hair appeared at the top of the landing and sauntered down the staircase. He was very tan, and Rose thought of the bumper sticker outside about surfing. “Well, hello,” he said, waving the fingers of one hand at them and then walking past them through the swinging door to the kitchen. So it wasn’t just women who were attracted to Chad. She looked at Rocky.
“That must be the owner of that piece of shit in the driveway,” he said.
Behind the door, they heard the man say something, but he was interrupted mid-sentence, and everything hushed. Rocky went to the window. Rose watched him jot down the license plate numbers.
When Chad returned a minute later, he handed a slip of paper to Rocky. “Here’s the information.” He didn’t sit back down.
Rocky slipped the paper into his notebook. “You got company?”
“A friend from Boston.”
“Uh huh,” Rocky said.
“Did you ever meet Hal Cappodecci?” Rose asked.
Chad tilted his head. “Now, why do I know that name?” There was the lisp again.
“He was murdered at Solitude,” Rose said.
“Oh, I remember now. You talked about him at the barbeque. He was looking for a missing woman.” Chad laughed a little, showing that dazzling white smile. “He was murdered on the solstice.”
Rocky stepped forward. “You think it’s funny a man was killed?”
Chad’s hand flew to his mouth. “No, of course not! It’s just now I know why you’re asking me all these questions about that night.” His gaze strayed to Rose. “I’m sure I never met the man.” He leaned forward, his eyes rodent-like. “Surely, you don’t suspect me …”
“We’re just asking questions.” Rose made a point of looking around the room. “Seems like a man with this kind of taste would find Haven a little …” She pretended to search for a word. “… boring. Will you be moving back to Boston?”
Chad flashed a look of irritation at her. “That’s not very welcoming of you, I must say.”
The lisp was so exaggerated, Rose almost laughed. “No offense,” she said. “You just seem like a city person and, well, Haven is generally for the quiet type.”
Chad crossed his arms over his chest. “Are we finished?”
Rocky slammed his notebook closed. “Yep,” he said, “at least for now.”
Rocky drove fast down the winding road to town. Used coffee cups and old takeout containers from Table Talk slid across the back seat. Rose wanted to ask him to slow down, but then he might want to know why. Keeping secrets from Cameron, keeping secrets from Rocky and Em, no one knew the truth about her past. To distract herself, she checked her phone. Still nothing from Daniel. “Obviously Chad didn’t know Haven, or he wouldn’t have picked this side of town to live in.” She looked out the window at the rusted cars on cinderblocks, the abused, worn-out houses. “If he is part of Thorne’s scheme,” she said, “I wonder how he got involved with the FBI.”
“Maybe he needs the money.” Rocky waved his hand at an abandoned warehouse with boarded-up windows. “He’s renting on the outskirts of town on a dumpy street.”
“But his house is so clean you could eat off the floor,” Rose said. “It looks like an art gallery in there.” She pulled her hair away from her neck. “I wonder if the Bureau rented that place for him.” The car felt like an oven. “I don’t believe he came here to retire. And what’s up with the friend?”
“Yeah, his friend from Boston with New Hampshire plates.” He passed his notebook to Rose. “I wrote the plate numbers down.” He punched a button on his computer. “Let’s type them in.”
“One of the cars is registered to Chad,” she said. She was trying to ignore that old instinct for survival, but it was ingrained in her and sharpened as Rocky increased his speed. She could almost feel the weight of a gun in her hand, but she focused on the information lighting up the screen. “The other one belongs to a Bjorn Toorun with an address in Nashua.” She wrote it down in Rocky’s book and pressed a few more buttons on the computer. “Well, well, looks like Toorun’s an ex-con. Did time in jail for burglary.” She could feel the rush of a hot flash, the first of the day. It flamed her cheeks, then spread like fire down her neck and arms. “I wish we could talk to Amber.”
“Yeah, except her transfer order from the FBI hit my desk before I went home last night.”
“That was fast.” Rose reached over and turned the air conditioner on high.
“The FBI’s the only government agency that’s got its act together.” He scratched his wide nose. It always reminded Rose of a bull’s nose. A friendly bull. “I’m gonna try to delay it so I can find a way to talk to her.”
“Really?” She’d be impressed if he could. Her own experience with the Bureau made her doubt it was possible.
“I’m not just a cop.” Rocky took a sip of his old hot chocolate, which Rose realized must be cold by now. “I’m a professional bureaucrat. Chief Tuttle doesn’t want me to rile the feds, but Thorne made it clear that once she’s out of here we’ll never see her again.”
“I went through Hal’s phone yesterday,” she said. Rocky had slowed down a little as they approached Haven town proper, but not much. A harrowing chase along the coastal road from Monaco to Nice flashed through her mind. She flexed her trigger finger. Stop it, you’re safe, you’re not in danger. “The only call that stood out was to Artsy Phartsy, the art gallery where Jessica worked when Barrington met her.” Out the window the mountains were dark against the backdrop of a brilliantly blue morning sky. She looked over her shoulder, an old habit, but the road behind them was empty. “The gallery owner told me Hal asked for Jessica’s employment application from thirty years ago.”
“Fat chance,” Rocky said.
Rose pushed her hair back from her shoulders. Oh, God, please slow down. “Actually, he’s a packrat.” Her heart was beating fast. “He was able to tell him about Jessica’s first job as a cigarette girl at Swan’s Song.”
“Swan’s Song still around?”
“It’s had different lives over the last thirty years,” she said. “Right now it’s a pub.” Finally she could see Haven, a white church steeple keeping watch at one end, and the Hillside Resort, where Daniel had stayed last night, standing like an elegant standard-bearer on
the other. Rocky slowed way down. Thank God. “I looked through his computer history, too. Two days before he died, he’d read an article in The New York Times archives about Swan’s Song. When Jessica worked there, the club was a front for a money laundering operation run by Beach, and the feds didn’t shut it down until ‘87.” Rose thought of going through Hal’s things before she’d met his sisters, how it had seemed as though he were there with her, urging her on, telling her what files to look in.
Rocky shot her a quick look. “What happened to Beach when the feds closed in?”
“Nothing,” Rose said. “His underboss went to prison. The government didn’t have enough evidence to convict him.”
Rocky turned onto Main Street.
“Hal must have figured Jessica had a connection to Beach,” Rocky said. “So, maybe you’re right, maybe he found out Amber was working for him and talked to her about it. Then Beach could’ve ordered a hit on him, not wanting that news to get around.” His cell phone chimed, and he looked down at it. “Damn,” he said. “That was Sergeant Lewis at the detention center.” He balled his hand into a fist. “Thorne won. He’s taking Amber away.”
Chapter Eighteen
As soon as Agent Marcus Thorne got into the surveillance room, he turned up the sound on the speakers. The room’s four hidden cameras gave him a panoramic view of the interview room on a large monitor.
He could hear the girl loud and clear, but it was hard to concentrate, because she was such a looker. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” she was saying. She was the kind of heartbreaker Thorne’s mother had always warned him about. “That FBI guy is crazy.” She plucked at the collar of her state-issued jumpsuit. She looked like she was drowning in it. Thorne had never seen such a petite woman in custody before. “He thinks I’m involved in some sort of stolen art ring. If you would just tell him I’m innocent, maybe he’d believe you.”
Rhodes had convinced Chief Tuttle they might be able to make Amber admit something if they could talk to her one last time, and of course, Franklin approved it, all in the name of interagency cooperation. Still, Thorne had told them they were not to bring up the murder. This was an FBI investigation. They couldn’t be doing two investigations at once.
“They have compelling evidence that you’re guilty,” Rose Chandler said. She was a looker, too, but the kind Thorne hated. The bitchy kind. It irritated him that she was in the room at all.
Amber’s mouth opened in surprise. “Oh.” Her eyes went wide. The girl was so childlike and pretty, it was hard to imagine she was a criminal. Thorne was sure Sandy Beach had bamboozled her, and he intended to nail him for that and everything else. He watched a flush of color spread across the girl’s cheeks and down her neck. “Does that mean you’re not here to help me?”
The big detective cleared his throat. He was wearing an ugly green tie with little brown moose marching across it. Jesus, Thorne thought, straightening his own tie, none of these country hayseeds knows how to dress. “Sandy Beach is a mobster,” Detective Rhodes said. “The FBI thinks he’s running stolen paintings across the border, and you might have been using Rose’s gallery to help him.”
When the girl didn’t answer, Rose slid to the edge of her chair. “Did Hal find out? Did he confront you? Because if you had something to do with his murder …”
Thorne threw up his hands; he’d specifically told them not to mention the murder.
“I never talked to Hal.” Tears swelled in the girl’s eyes. She licked her lips. “And I didn’t steal any paintings.” Thorne thought her blonde hair looked luminescent in the afternoon light coming through the windows.
“Then tell us what you’re doing for Beach,” Rose said.
Thorne turned up the microphone.
“I’m not doing anything for Beach.” Amber sat up taller, her shoulders squared as though posing for a photograph. She looked like Grace Kelly in Rear Window. Thorne loved that movie and must have seen it a hundred times with his mother.
Rhodes leaned toward her. From the way his chair was creaking, Thorne wondered if it was going to break. “How long have you known him?”
Thorne zeroed in the camera. A thin ribbon of sweat had broken out on the girl’s top lip, and when she spoke her voice sounded high-pitched, like a child’s. “Sandy was a friend of my mother’s, okay? I’ve known him my whole life. He cares more about me than my mother ever did. She was an addict, a drunk.” She said the words as though getting rid of a bad taste in her mouth. “From the time I was a little girl, I’d lie awake at night and dream of the day I’d be free of her.” She paused and took a deep breath, and when she spoke again she sounded defensive, as though they had admonished her for hating her mother. “You have no idea how much work it was, taking care of her day after day, making up excuses, lying for her. If it hadn’t been for Sandy …” Amber looked away, her eyes fixed on the camera in the ceiling. As if she knew Thorne was watching her, she arranged her blonde hair over her shoulders like a shawl. “He helped me after she died, gave me a job and a new identity to start a new life. He promised I wouldn’t have any trouble.”
“And he gave you a new identity,” Rose said.
Thorne couldn’t believe the girl was so naïve.
“We’re talking crimes at the state and federal levels,” Rhodes told her. “Beach is a criminal. He got you a new identity with official government documents he buys and sells on the black market.”
“He’s also stealing paintings,” Rose said, “and somehow you’re helping him.”
Something suddenly changed, hardened, in the girl’s eyes. She crossed her arms in front of her. “I’ve told you what I’ve told you, now I’m not saying anything else about Sandy.”
Rose touched her arm. “You don’t seem to realize how much trouble you’re in,” she said. “We’d like to help, but unless you tell us the truth, there’s nothing we can do.”
Amber pulled her arm away. “I’m not worried,” she said. “Sandy will take care of all this.”
Thorne’s eyes rested on Rose as she slowly unbuttoned her sleeves and pushed them up her well-toned arms. She was almost as pretty as the girl. He was trying hard not to stare, but it was impossible. Those two were eye candy, more so than any of the women he’d met at the Bureau or his mother’s house. Even though he wasn’t easily impressed, he’d read Chandler’s file over a dozen times, and he had to admit she’d excelled in her former career. He wondered why she was working as a lowly private investigator.
“Tell us about the lawyer,” Rose said.
Thorne sat forward. This was the first time he’d heard anything about a lawyer.
“I’m not sure how Attorney Keyes found out you were in custody,” Rhodes said, “but he called you about an hour ago, and we know the two of you talked.”
Suddenly Thorne’s stomach cramped. It felt as if someone was twisting his intestines. That hick cop Rhodes hadn’t told him about any phone calls to Amber. The last thing he wanted was for her to have a lawyer. He needed her raw and scared and willing to make a deal with the FBI in exchange for information. He’d make sure Franklin knew about this. He was the one who’d approved this damn interview, and it proved Thorne’s point: there was no such thing as interagency cooperation. Everyone was in it for themselves.
“It’s nobody’s business who I talk to,” Amber said, twisting her long hair around her fingers.
“Oh, you’re wrong about that,” Rose said. The diamond in her right nostril sparkled under the lights. Thorne wondered why such a classy lady would put jewelry in her nose. “We know Don Keyes’ biggest client is Sandy Beach.” Thorne couldn’t believe his luck. Beach’s lawyer was going to represent Amber? It was the kind of connection he’d been hoping for.
Amber didn’t say anything, but she stopped twisting her hair. “Come on, damn it, give me something I can use,” Thorne told the screen.
Amber closed her eyes as if shutting them out. “I told you, Sandy was a friend of my mother’s.” She kept her eyes closed. Thorne wa
s sitting so close to the monitor he was practically kissing it. The girl looked so young and innocent, but he never put anything past the mob, especially Beach. He’d read everything there was to know about him, and he knew the mobster liked to recruit people who could blend into a community without suspicion, someone exactly like Amber.
“What about Don Keyes?” Rocky said. “Was this the first time you ever talked to him?”
Thorne ignored the pain that was flaring up on his left side. He stared at the monitor, willing Amber to say more. “He told me not to talk to the FBI or the police, and he’d see me soon,” she said. “He told me I don’t have to answer your questions.”
“Damn it,” Thorne said aloud.
“Listen,” Chandler said to her. Under the bright lights, Thorne thought he could see the faint trace of a scar across her cheek. It looked to him like a switch blade scar, and he wondered how she’d gotten it. “If your new identity papers can be traced back to Beach, and if he’s paying for your lawyer, it’s obvious his main concern is to keep you quiet. If you do what Keyes tells you to do, there’s a small chance you might walk away from this alive, but the odds aren’t in your favor. First of all, the FBI isn’t going to let you off the hook. You’re being charged with federal crimes, and if you don’t cooperate with the government you’ll probably go to jail for a long time. And when you’re in a real jail, when you hear that cell door slam shut behind you, you’ll start to question your loyalty to Beach. You’ll wonder if living behind bars is worth your silence. And Beach, well, he can’t take the chance you’ll have a change of heart and testify against him. So he’ll order a hit on you in jail, and when he does, you will be killed. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Amber stared straight ahead. Thorne had read in her file that she was twenty-seven years old, never been married. He thought she looked truly lovely. “Mr. Keyes told me not to say anything, and I’ve probably already said too much. So I’m going to take his advice and stop talking.”