Flight of the Scarlet Tanager

by Bevill, C. L.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do or say to convince you to change your mind,” asked Teddy politely.

  Gower examined her with speculative interest. She resisted an involuntary shudder of fear because that intent regard that was focused upon her. His brilliant blue eyes fixed upon hers and. He said softly, “I find a great many things stimulating. You never know what I might find convincing, Theodora.”

  Fitch was methodically scanning the library, attempting to see what there was that was available that could help them out. Teddy was unwaveringly ignoring him. She held her hand firmly on Bob’s wound and used her brain for a change. Dammit, Teds, you’re smarter than him. You know you are. So figure it out before your darling uncle comes back and starts blowing holes in Fitch. No one is going to save your butt, no matter how cute he says it is.

  “How about I double what my uncle’s paying you. It’s not like I’m going to spend it this way.” Teddy studied the man as she spoke, resisting the full-fledged urge she had to turn away and flee. His handsome face was calmly neutral as he actively considered the proposal.

  Finally, Gower shrugged noncommittally. “Tempting, of course, but you know what they say: The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

  “I’m the devil?” she asked surprised. “Now that’s the kettle calling the pot black.”

  “Perhaps not the devil. But certainly as clever as Satan. As quick as any criminal, as canny as a con artist. You would say anything you could to achieve the ends. You want to live. You want your friend here to live.” The Glock tipped briefly to one side to indicate Fitch. “How could I be sure you wouldn’t turn around and shoot me in the back, five times, just like Burke?”

  “I didn’t shoot him in the back,” she retorted icily. “I shot him in the front and I was glad to do it, considering the circumstances. Besides, you have a particular need to leave the country quickly. The longer you delay here, the higher probability it is that you’ll be caught. Money from my uncle or not. Who’s going to jail first? Not my uncle. No, he’ll be out until they manage to track down a judge who has enough brass balls to listen to the evidence being compiled against him, and by that time, you’ll be the only one swinging by the neck in the wind.”

  Gower studied the young woman he still thought of as the scarlet tanager. Then a little smile curved his handsome lips. In another light, Teddy might have found him as compelling as a movie star, but she’d already seen his dark inclination, the blackness underneath his facade that was as frightening as any shadow. “That’s part of why I like you so much, Theodora. You’re as sharp as any person I’ve ever met. Not greedy. It’s not your father’s billions that makes you tick. You’ve made the adaptation to survival singularly. Only interested in saving yourself. Not a bad strategy for staying alive, until you met your young man here.”

  “Except I think I’ve pissed her off,” said Fitch with the alacrity of a man who knew when it was time to speak quickly. “That would be a problem.”

  Bob was breathing heavily, bleeding and unconscious. The wound was high on his chest, only a little blood was coming out and Teddy thought that a lung might have been punctured. She’d taken a few classes in pre-med before switching over to sociology. It was called a sucking chest wound. She glanced around. There was a small trashcan next to the desk with a plastic liner. It was intricate, inlayed ceramic over tin, dating from the early twenties. Decorative and whimsical, with fanciful, multi-colored birds fluttering across its sides, it had been a gift from her mother to her father. “Fitch, hand me the bag out of the trash can. Empty it out first.”

  Without regard to himself or hesitation Fitch raised himself up and moved over to her father’s desk. Gower seemed more amused while he watched the young man picking up the trashcan. He did as requested and handed the bag to Teddy. She used it to cover the wound and set about binding it with parts of Bob’s T-shirt. She looked up once and saw that Gower was watching her intently. She knew they were all going to be dead shortly, but she insisted on performing this little deed on the dying man, and the action piqued him.

  Fitch moved his body in front of hers and blocked her from Gower’s view. She deftly removed the tiny recording device from Bob’s waistband where it had been clipped and slid it into her jeans pocket. Then she completed tying parts of his own T-shirt around the makeshift bandage and patted him on the forehead.

  “He got it right, you know,” said Fitch. He put two fingers to Bob’s throat and checked his pulse. It was thready, and he couldn’t help looking back at the towering man with the gun.

  “What?” she muttered, her mind racing.

  “Bob and I concocted a plan. Sure we’ll get your disk,” he glanced over his shoulder at Gower again, who stared firmly at them. “But what if that wasn’t enough? What if we could catch them red-handed? It would have fixed every rumor you ever had to listen to, every bit of innuendo that you were ever subjected to.” There was a terse hesitation while he attempted to find the right words to convince her of his intent. “It would made things right.”

  “So you and Bob put your heads together and came out with this?” she whispered back, veiled fury evident in her tone.

  “That’s enough,” said Gower, hardly stupid. “You, Mr. Lee, back to the couch.”

  Fitch rose up and went back to the couch. He perched on the edge and kept his hands at his sides, ready to do whatever it was that he needed to do. Looking up he saw a dozen empty decorative birdcages lining the top shelves of the library, an extension of Teddy’s father’s fascination with the species. Then there were the huge cages that hung from the vaulted ceiling of the library. Nothing traditional about this library.

  And that scum sucking, dirtwad is standing right underneath the heaviest one. Fitch almost bit the inside of his cheek. It must weigh a hundred pounds. It was an embellished golden affair that appeared to be Asian. Delicately wrought flowers of some kind of gold tinted metal curled over its frame, climbing up the sides and ending in petals with encrusted jewelry. Heavy rods would prevent a fair-sized bird from escaping. It would be a real shame to ruin that gaudy piece of crap by dropping it on someone’s head, but...how is it attached?

  Teddy coughed into her hand and Gower kept his attention on her, although both Teddy and Fitch were in his range of vision and within range of his weapon. “Perhaps you could tell me how you tracked me from Idaho to San Francisco?” she asked politely. “The day before I pulled the kid out of the bay I called back and one of Sam Loyal’s workers said someone had suddenly been asking questions about Mary Lynn, the name I went by there.”

  Gower wasn’t fooled. He gazed solemnly at her and then at Fitch. Finally, he said, “One of the field hands at the potato farm remembered that you had an affinity for the ocean, and that you’d mentioned wanting to visit Alcatraz Island.”

  “Yeah,” Teddy agreed. “I never did get out to the Rock. Sam kept us as busy as a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest.”

  Fitch let his eyes follow the wire support of the giant birdcage up to the ceiling where it threaded into a cross member that was larger around than Marlon Brando’s waist. But he knew that it would have to be lowered somehow for cleaning purposes, and the support traversed through its cross member’s support, through a simple, if large, eyelet, to the far wall, where it met with several of its compadres. There was what he needed. A simple pulley system was situated there so that the cleaning staff could periodically lower the cages for dusting, cleaning, dropping on the heads of sworn enemies, and the like. If he simply cut the wires the cage would drop like a cannon on Wile E. Coyote’s proverbial head. Of course, how am I going to cut the wire?

  When his eyes went back to Teddy’s he found that she had followed his glance and made the same connections. She followed the wires in reverse and came to the large birdcage hanging over Gower’s head and she almost jerked.

  Gower was speaking about how he’d tracked down several sweatshops in the San Francisco area. “It wasn’t difficult. T
here are limited places where people are hired off the books. One simply has to know where to look and to have perseverance. White women in some of the professions you chose are rare. Especially young pretty ones.”

  “There are some,” Teddy admitted. “Runaways, like me. Maybe their families didn’t want to slit their throats because they wanted to inherit the money, but runaways all the same without access to legal documents and not willing to work on their knees somewhere else.”

  Gower made a noise, pure, guttural enjoyment. “If you hadn’t come back here, you would have won. I knew you’d come out on top. Mr. Loyal was almost that to you, loyal, that is. He didn’t really want to tell me about you. I think he was rather concerned that you had vanished without so much as a single goodbye. I had the impression that he even liked you.”

  “It was a job,” she said. “He wasn’t the worst man I ever worked for. Nor was he the best. He didn’t stick his hands down my pants and he always paid on time. Not like working for my uncle, I suspect.” Then an idea slid across her mind. She didn’t know if it would work, but it would distract him, for enough time for Fitch to do whatever it was that was so apparent in his oddly colored, amber eyes. “What if I show you where the remainder of the disks are?”

  There was an intrinsic aspect to Gower’s face that traversed across his features in a line of neutral disbelief to amused supposition. He simply wanted to know what Theodora was up to now, patently aware that she was using the time without her uncle in the room to her best advantage. “And why then, shouldn’t I kill you, thereafter?”

  “Maybe because you like me,” she said boldly. She stood up, giving Bob a final pat on the forehead. “I think you’d like Bob, too.”

  “Oh, I do. I spent several hours with him on the jet yesterday. Mr. Wren is a wonder of cynical wit and plainly opinionated as they come. A pity that he’s dying.” Gower didn’t spare a glance for the man on the floor of the library. For Gower, the man simply did not exist any longer. He was useless; therefore, he was invisible. He was no longer a threat.

  Teddy took slow steps in the direction that she desired him to look and Gower moved about six inches back to keep her and Fitch within in his scope of sight. She looked hard at Fitch as she passed, jerking her eyes back to indicate the birdcage above. Fitch didn’t dare move, but he blinked twice. She reached her father’s desk and turned back toward the FBI agent expectantly. “I hid it in plain sight. I thought that my uncle might eventually find out about it and search my room from top to bottom.”

  “That was my job,” Gower replied courteously. “It took me three days to find your attic door. A skillful job in concealing it, by the way.”

  “Thanks, I think. But if I gave you the disks then you could use them against my uncle. It would prove some of my sincerity.” Teddy reached for the cd rack handmade of oak, and stained with a golden hue.

  “And how many are there, Theodora?” asked Gower slyly.

  “Three,” she answered without pause. “The one I gave to Edward Morris. The one in this rack, and the one I hid, someplace only I can get to it.”

  “A safety deposit box, perhaps?” challenged Gower. He turned toward Teddy, and his attention was fastened upon her completely. Fitch shifted off the leather couch and inched toward Bob. “Difficult to obtain without a legal driver’s license.” Gower stopped and looked directly at Fitch. Fitch was kneeling by Bob, not looking at Gower, and holding the makeshift bandage in his hand, with his other hand across his forehead. Gower’s attention went back to Teddy.

  Teddy found the seventh cd disk from the top. It was the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, in D-Minor, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. She remembered because her father had taken her and her mother to this symphony twice, emphasizing that the master had completed the amazing piece after he had gone completely deaf. She took the case in her hand and froze. It wobbled in her fingers and she knew it was empty.

  One of the disks that she had hidden in plain sight was gone. They knew.

  •

  Theron was watching the monitor to the main gate of the Howe estate. Having completed his brief conversation with Bishop Lee and John Henry Roque, he availed himself of the elaborate computer system and waited for the pair to make a decision. He watched their faces with no little amount of fascination, trying to determine their purpose.

  Lapeaux studied the monitors and was on his cell phone to a man who was at a post close to the front gate. He pulled the phone away from his face and said to Theron, “There’s two more vehicles behind the shérif, M’su Theron. This man thinks they are government cars, as green as the uniforms they wear. I think they are suspicious like the diable, non?”

  Theron calculated in his mind. He planned on a helicopter picking them up. A privately chartered Bell would be flying in out of Baton Rouge, first thing in the morning. It was possible that he could get what he wanted out of the girl and still have enough time to catch his flight, leaving Gower and Lapeaux to take the blame. He would be at the bank in Baton Rouge at nine AM in the morning with the proper paperwork and the process would be completed before Director Stephen Urban thought to place any kind of restrictions on the Howe fortune. Theron was counting on the speculation that the FBI director, Sheriff Roque, and the general would not have enough time to convince a judge to put that kind of restrictions on the accounts.

  Theron considered Robert Wren’s ultimate fate. If the former physics professor wasn’t dead, then he was dying, and there would be the body to bring half the federal government down upon Theron’s head. Watching Bishop and John Henry’s faces contort into angry grimaces as they chattered back and forth, he made a decision. “I believe that we should go with the alternate plan. That would eliminate most, if not all of the evidence. You’ve dismissed all the servants?”

  “Yesterday, as we discussed. There is only the security force here, M’su,” replied Lapeaux levelly. A dark man with hazel eyes he regarded Theron with grave purpose. He had known Theron for almost twenty years. Theron was the agent with the FBI who had first arrested Jean Lapeaux for several robberies related to an Army post in Leesville, Louisiana. Simple robberies, some were connected with murders, and Theron was anxious to make an informant for himself. Lapeaux became more than an informant, because he was very much willing to kill in exchange for some of Theron’s good will. Theron had kept him out of jail, he had paid for the education of his two sons, and he continued to pay him a decent salary that supported him and his various habits. Lapeaux reciprocated for those extras by turning a blind eye to Theron’s illegal activities, and he brought other like-minded men to assist him.

  Could the girl be used as a hostage? Theron asked himself. No, but with the general there, I could use the boy. That’s a shame. I was looking forward to finally breaking my headstrong niece via the general’s son. We’ll have to do it some other way. The two men at the exterior gate were still sitting there, periodically pushing the intercom button, but no one was answering. “Call the charter company. Have them send a helicopter immediately. I want a pick up by eleven o’clock. Tell them we’ll pay extra. Whatever it takes. Get them out here. Have them land in the front, but as far away from the gate as possible.”

  “A helicopter for how many, M’su?” asked Lapeaux, slyly curious about how loyal Theron would be to him. It was becoming obvious even to the slow-minded guards that Theron was making his last stand, and that it was going to be very necessary to flee the state soon, if not the country.

  Theron laughed. “For you, my old friend. Myself. Gower. The girl. The boy. Tell your security men at the last minute. They won’t have to worry. They’ll be compensated if they’re arrested. They have nothing to worry about, however. The police only want myself and Gower. So let’s say a ‘copter for five. But we must get rid of Mr. Wren’s corpse. Somewhere they won’t find it immediately. We need to work quickly. They mustn’t have a clue as to where to look.”

  Lapeaux nodded firmly. Then he heard one of his security men yelling
about a disturbance in the library and both men rushed to see what was happening.

  •

  Teddy tried to compose her face but the disappointment was evident.

  Gower laughed out loud. “We looked everywhere, Theodora. I mean, everywhere.” He blinked for a moment and considered, “You had a complete set of writeable cd-rom disks at the time of your disappearance. The housekeeper produced a receipt dated not two weeks before that. Ten in a set. Three were used for other things. One was malfunctioning. One you’d given to a security guard, some game I believe. One was retrieved from your room, from the bathroom vent. Another one was located in the maid’s room in another vent, an air conditioning vent. An ‘A’ for ingenuity, there. It took me six months to find that one. There was the one in the Beethoven sleeve. And that leaves two disks.”

  He didn’t count the one I gave to Eddie Morris, thought Teddy. What had he done with it before they killed him? She dropped the empty case on the desk. It clattered to a stop next to a copy of Routen’s Birds of North America. It had been a favorite of her father’s; he’d often quoted from it as he was birding.

  “So you’re lying to me. Not a very clever thing to do if you want my cooperation.” Gower’s voice became distinctly chilly.

  “You’re not going to help me,” she declared unequivocally. She looked back down at her father’s desk, trying to remember the last time she’d seen him sitting here, binoculars in one hand, thumbing through a revered bird reference book with the other. Her parents had been fairly happy people. Not perfect. They had argued with each other. Sometimes Thomas Howe got over-involved with his corporations and Greer resented it. Sometimes Greer would dig her heels in about some charitable organization or some dinner she was engineering for the people of the area. Sometimes the problems were directed at Teddy herself. Having a child prodigy with an excessively apt intellect was demanding in itself. But they had loved each other. And they had loved her. “It’s really too bad,” she went on, looking out the window. “I would have been more trustworthy than my uncle.”