“I would like you to come,” he said.
She waited a moment for an explanation, then shrugged and walked back to the car.
“He called about fifteen minutes ago,” Nick said as he drove. He lowered his voice to a harsh growl. “‘Bring Tess to the plant. Right now.’”
She smiled at the uncanny imitation. “What if you’d said no?”
“Interesting question. I’m basically his employee at this point, on the payroll, you might say. So I follow orders.”
“But he can’t very well fire you for insubordination.”
“No, but he can rein me in even further.” The jocularity had gone out of his voice.
“Rein you in?”
“Cut my allowance.” Nick made a left onto Route 24, heading away from the Devil’s Ravine.
“How would he do that without hurting Tess?”
“Ah, my one and only trump card! I have something he needs more than anything. An heir.”
He sounded glib, almost calculating, yet his face looked uncertain, even worried.
“I doubt he’d cut your food allowance,” she said.
He smiled and his face, in profile, became nearly perfect again.
“No, food isn’t the problem. But he could make things difficult for me in other ways.”
“How?”
He looked at her for a moment. “He could seek custody.”
“But you’re her father. He’s seventy, for God’s sake. And Maxine’s not exactly…maternal.”
“Maxine,” he said, shaking his head. “Priscilla used to speak of her like she was a talking monkey, like it was a miracle she could even form words. She learned that from the old man—never marry somebody you respect, you’ll only compromise your own position.” He raised his chin.
“Why did you marry Priscilla, then, if you knew how she felt?”
He waited before answering, driving at a moderate speed on the two-lane road.
“Maybe I didn’t think I merited respect,” he said quietly. He glanced at her, saw her watching him, and conferred a dazzling smile. “Or maybe, just maybe, I liked her money.”
She shivered and looked away. Suddenly he braked the car, glancing in the rearview mirror. She turned and saw a police car behind them.
“You weren’t speeding,” she said. In fact, he was a rather cautious driver.
“No? I think I might have been a bit over the limit.”
The police car passed them on the left and sped on ahead. He let out a long sigh.
“The Sohegan police would like nothing more than to embarrass anyone connected to the Cunninghams,” he said. “They hate us, you know. The old man thinks they’re dragging their heels on the investigation, the locals and the FBI. He may have a point.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because we didn’t call them in when Tess was kidnapped. I begged Russell to notify the authorities, you know. He refused. Now, as far as the police and FBI are concerned, it’s not really their case. They’re going through the motions, they have no choice, but without any real enthusiasm.”
He turned left into a large parking lot. A sign near the road read SOHEGAN TACK & HARDWARE.
T & H occupied an enormous one-story building that had obviously been constructed in stages over the years, creating a massive, ugly patchwork of corrugated steel, cinder block, and brick. Nick drove to the visitors’ lot, past acres of cars parked in neat rows.
The whole place had a grimly utilitarian feel, from the unassuming sign out front—thick black letters on a white background, no logo or decoration of any kind—to the meager strip of brown lawn surrounding the plant. Several groups of employees were picnicking under a mild July sun.
No wonder the first Russell Cunningham had built a high wall around Penaquoit. If the workers ever got a load of the luxury their toil supported there’d be class warfare. Nothing they imagined as they ate lunch on the treeless lawn by the bunkerlike plant could rival the actual splendor of the Cunningham estate.
Tess woke up as Gwen lifted her from the car seat. She was warm and sweaty from her nap, so Gwen let her walk the twenty yards to the visitors’ entrance, Nick holding one hand as they crossed the lot, she the other. A few of the picnicking workers looked up and watched the happy family make their slow progress. Just inside the visitors’ entrance, a middle-aged woman behind a metal desk greeted them with a chilly smile.
“Mr. Cunningham is expecting you,” she said. She pointedly avoided eye contact with Gwen or Nick, fixing her eyes mournfully on Tess as they walked across the unadorned reception area. Gwen picked her up and followed Nick down a long hallway lined with small offices. Each square room contained an identical desk and chair, a puny window, and a male employee in white shirt and tie. The men glanced up as they passed. At the end of the corridor Nick stopped and knocked on the one closed door, opening it before receiving a response. Gwen put Tess down and let her enter her future office under her own steam.
Russell Cunningham’s office was large and unremarkable, though compared to his employees’ digs it was positively opulent. The walls were covered with dark paneling, the floors with a flat, textureless brown carpet. The old man’s desk was a major piece of work: polished mahogany, probably his grandfather’s originally, as big and solid as a pool table. On the walls were black-and-white photographs of various men shaking hands with various other men—she spotted Russell in a few of them, smiling next to a former New York governor in one, shaking hands with a congressman in another.
And behind the desk was Russell himself, a cigarette in one hand. He glanced up when they entered, his expression poised for admonishment. It relaxed a bit when he saw Tess toddling over.
“Took you long enough,” he growled to Nick as he stubbed out the cigarette. He hefted his granddaughter onto his lap, glanced at Gwen with a puzzled expression, then turned back to his son-in-law. “Did you get lost?”
“I’ve been here before,” Nick said.
“Once before.” The old man turned to Gwen. “Grubby commerce—what would Ludwig van Beethoven think?”
“If we are going to trade insults,” Nick said, “I’m leaving.”
Gwen had noticed Nick’s clothes earlier that day; she always did: white T-shirt, loose gray sweatpants, white sneakers. The casual, athletic look usually suited him. But here, at the plant, the outfit all but shouted son-in-law.
“I made it clear to him from the beginning that there was a place for him here,” Russell said, facing Nick but talking, obviously, to her. “Priscilla had a head for business, but no interest. My son did…” He sighed as he absently stroked Tess’s hair.
“I have no head for business, as you put it,” Nick said. “You’re better off without me.”
“Oh, he has a head for business, all right,” the old man said, still looking straight at Nick. “He knows the value of a buck all right. I never doubted that for a moment.”
“I’ll wait out front,” Gwen said, turning to leave.
“No, stop,” Russell said. “I want to show Tess around. You’ll come with us. You too,” he said sharply to Nick. “Let’s go.”
He picked up Tess and led them out into the corridor, at the end of which were two swinging metal doors. He pushed one open and they entered a vast factory floor, acres of machinery and conveyor belts and employees, men and women, most of them wearing plastic goggles.
“I tripled output within two years of taking over,” Russell shouted as he led them down a central aisle. The noise level was astounding, a low but insistent hum that vibrated right through the body. As they walked briskly, turning corners every ten yards or so, workers would look up from their lathes and stamping machines, goggled eyes curious, suspicious, above all eager for distraction. Russell showed them a series of machines that stamped out switch plates, another group of equipment that produced metal bathroom fixtures—towel racks, toothbrush holders, soap dishes. They stopped and watched a young man stamp out four-inch-long tubes with gently tapered ends. Russell
dropped the cigarette to the cement floor and ground it out with his foot.
“What’s he making?” she shouted.
“Doorstops,” Russell said, surmounting the din without shouting. She saw Nick smirk behind his father-in-law’s back. “We sell five million a year at fifty cents apiece,” Russell growled over his shoulder. “Nothing to sneer at.”
Gwen was dizzy and disoriented from the noise and the activity and the curious stares. The place struck her as absurdly, grotesquely large, given the triviality of what it manufactured. It seemed more suited to producing airplanes or missiles or farm machinery. Anything but doorstops.
Tess began to fuss soon after they entered the factory floor, and within five minutes she was in the throes of a full-fledged tantrum, kicking at her horrified grandfather’s midsection as he attempted to explain to her the intricacies of manufacturing decorative hardware. Her screams were muffled by the ambient cacophony, but she was clearly unnerving the old man, who finally thrust her into Gwen’s arms and stormed off ahead of them. Nick threw up his hands and followed.
Gwen waited a moment, trying to calm Tess. A lathe operator working nearby, a thin young man in overalls with dark hollows in his cheeks, said something to her.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you!” she shouted over the din.
“One big happy family!” he said.
She wasn’t sure how to interpret his words. Then she noticed a dozen other workers staring, grinning.
“You gonna adopt the little girl?” someone yelled. “You and Nick Lawrence?”
Gwen ran after Russell and Nick, barging through the swinging doors to the office area. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath, dizzy from the sudden silence and trembling with anger. The old man charged into his office, emerging a moment later, eyes blazing, his right index finger pointing shakily at Nick.
“I’m having you investigated,” he said. “My man is looking under every rock you ever hid beneath.”
“Don’t blame me because Tess is not fascinated by your…your empire here. She’s not even a year old.”
“This is where she belongs.” Russell Cunningham stomped a foot on the floor. “Right here. You try to take her away, I’ll destroy you.”
“You mean you’ll cut me off,” Nick said.
“I mean I’ll destroy you.” He barreled into his office and slammed the door behind him.
Even Tess was nonplussed by the old man’s rage, staring openmouthed at the closed door.
“Let’s go,” Nick said after a few moments. As he squeezed past her in the narrow corridor she saw that his hands were trembling. Her own hands weren’t much steadier.
You gonna adopt the little girl? You and Nick Lawrence?
Chapter 23
Dwight Hawkins drove into the Tack & Hardware visitors’ lot just as Nick Lawrence, Gwen Amiel, and the little girl were leaving the building. They made an attractive…unit, he thought as he watched them get into the green Range Rover, Gwen buckling the girl into the infant’s seat in the back, then sitting up front next to Nick. Priscilla Cunningham had probably sat in that very seat on her way to the ravine.
Something was going on between those two, he’d bet his life on it. He sensed it just watching them walk, the way she kept just a little too far away from him, and slightly back. Gwen Amiel was no geisha; she stayed back because to walk side by side would be to acknowledge something, something real between them.
He waited until they drove away, then got out of his car and headed for the visitors’ entrance. A warm front was moving in from the Ohio Valley, promising thunderstorms tomorrow night or early the following morning. People liked to complain about the inaccuracy of weather forecasts, but in Dwight’s experience the weather was one of the more predictable things in life, certainly more predictable than human behavior.
He asked the receptionist for Russell Cunningham and wasn’t surprised when, after making a call, she gave him the go-ahead. The old man was desperate for information.
He entered the big office and walked over to the desk.
“I appreciate your seeing me, Mr. Cunningham. I didn’t—”
“You got my five million?” Russell didn’t look up from a pile of papers on his desk, probably hated the sight of the man he blamed for chasing his son off an embankment twenty years earlier. A cigarette burned in the huge glass ashtray on his desk. “Is that why you’re here, to bring me my money and tell me the killer’s in custody?”
“The FBI has alerted all the banks in the country to be on the lookout for unusually large deposits of hundred-dollar bills. But the Feds figure the money is already out of the country. Could have been smuggled in ordinary luggage to some place like Switzerland, Panama, maybe the Caymans.”
Cunningham growled, still not looking at him.
“Actually, I was hoping you could answer a few questions.”
Now he looked up. Dwight cringed at the toll the man’s daughter’s death had taken. Over the past twenty years he’d caught fleeting glimpses of the old man around town, always surprised at his vigor, the strength he radiated. Now that vigor and strength were mostly gone, leaving a still handsome but diminished man, the face drawn and pale, the eyes watery and tired.
“The FBI is handling this,” Cunningham said. “And my own people.”
Dwight sat in one of the two chairs facing the desk. “Every lead’s turned up cold. The case is still open, of course, and always will be until you daughter’s killer is found. But I don’t think the FBI is working overtime anymore.”
Cunningham considered him for a few beats, his chest heaving with every breath.
“If the FBI can’t do anything, what makes you think you can?”
A memory: twenty years ago, on the crest of Pattatee Mountain, the old man standing at the edge of the road, his face swaddled in smoke from the wreck sixty feet below that had claimed his son and namesake. Suddenly, he’d let out a roar that reverberated off the neighboring hills in that freezing January dawn.
“My gut tells me the answer is here, in Sohegan,” Dwight said.
“Your gut?” His eyes finished the sentence: Your “gut” chased my son off a cliff two decades ago.
“The Van Slykes, for instance, they ever give you any trouble since the accident?”
“Not since I paid them off,” he grumbled. “Any other theories?” Russell lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old one, which he flattened in the ashtray with his index finger.
The Van Slykes had never told a soul how much Cunningham paid them after their daughter died in the accident with his son. But the boy’s alcohol level was 8.2, plenty high enough to warrant a major contribution.
“So you never had anything to do with Henry or Meg Van Slyke since…”
The old man shook his head, and Dwight decided to change tack. He’d never put much stock in the Van Slyke angle, anyway: they’d continued to live quietly after the accident, though Meg had resigned her position as payroll clerk at T & H. Neither she nor Henry seemed interested in revenge. And both had alibis for the kidnapping and Devil’s Ravine incident.
“Whose decision was it not to involve the police, once you realized your granddaughter was missing?”
“I’ve been over this with the FBI, the county police.”
Dwight waited him out.
“It was my decision,” Cunningham said. “And I don’t regret it, no, I do not.” He stared right into Dwight’s eyes.
“Did anyone protest that decision?”
A pause, then a firm “No.”
“Not one word of protest? Your daughter, your son-in-law?” Your wife—but everyone in town knew Maxine Cunningham wouldn’t stand up to a scarecrow.
“What’s your point?”
“Just trying to reconstruct the—”
“I’ve had my son-in-law thoroughly investigated,” Cunningham said. “I still have a man on him. But he didn’t do this.”
“How about the baby-sitter, Gwen Amiel? She claims she learned about the ki
dnapping from listening to a baby monitor. She heard you discussing the arrangements, right after the final phone call from the kidnapper.”
“So?”
“Did you in fact discuss the plans, the three of you?”
“Of course we—wait a minute, you say she heard us through the monitor?”
“The baby monitor.”
“We were in Priscilla’s—what the hell was the monitor doing in the master bedroom?”
“Someone must have brought it there.”
“But Tess wasn’t in the house; what would be the point? Do you think she was listening out in the hallway? Or on the phone?”
“It’s possible. But the Feds have looked her over pretty closely, and she’s come up clean. Thinking back to the crime scene, do you recall seeing Gwen and the kidnapper together?”
“They were nearby,” Cunningham said. His face had flushed, dramatically improving his appearance. “About twenty feet apart, I’d say.”
“Think—did you see them at the same time?”
The old man squinted as the color drained from his face.
“I don’t know,” he said in a faint voice. “I was running down that hill to the ravine…my daughter…I think I saw two people on the other side, but I’m not really sure.”
“Where did your daughter go that morning, the morning she was killed?”
Russell’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell difference does that make?”
“She disappeared for two hours on the morning she was murdered. I’d like to know where she went.”
“For a drive,” the old man said without much conviction. “She liked to drive.”
“And the flower she had with her. What was that about?”
“My daughter was murdered and you’re asking me about flowers?”
“I take it then you don’t know why she had that flower with her.”
The old man looked away and nodded.
He knows something, Dwight thought as he stood up. “Well, thanks for your time, Mr. Cunningham. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything further.” He turned to leave.
“Should I fire her?” the old man asked. “The baby-sitter.”
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