‘That’s where I found him . . .’
Her voice faltered for a second before the strength returned to it, hardened by twenty years of pain and anger and guilt. She let go of the chair, pointed at the wall, her bright red fingernail an accusation aimed at a man long since beyond caring.
‘After he blew his brains all over that wall.’
Chapter 50
THE STILLNESS IN THE ROOM was as profound as the aftermath of a gunshot. Eva Rivera’s arm remained pointing rigidly at the wall, taut as a bowstring, as the silence stretched between them. Then it dropped like a stone, her palm hitting her thigh with an audible slap. She lowered herself carefully onto the chair.
Evan felt as if the slap had been to his face, felt his cheek stinging. How had he been so wrong about Jake Kincade? He’d been convinced he was about to reappear when everybody least expected it. Except he was the only one who was expecting anything since everyone else knew he’d been dead twenty years. It was no comfort that everybody had lied to him from the get go.
It made sense now in a perverse sort of way. If somebody killed your wife, you’d want to kill them. He sure as hell would. Jake Kincade thought he was responsible for his wife’s death, so he killed himself. It was the kind of self-destructive logic that would appeal to a man in his situation.
‘Now you know what my brother meant when he said I don’t always know best. I’ve had to live with it for twenty years. Knowing that if I hadn’t agreed with Kristina, Jake wouldn’t have either. And Kristina would still be alive.’
Evan listened to the words, to the self-loathing in her voice, and felt like a man with a big needle come to prick twenty-year-old blisters of hurt, releasing the memories festering within, leaving behind nothing but an open sore.
‘That’s why I kept that photograph . . .’
She pushed herself up from the chair again, marched down the hallway. She picked up the photograph, held it in both hands. She studied it for a long moment then raised it above her head, smashed it against the corner of the table that sat along the wall. A scream erupted from her mouth that was heard two blocks away, the horror and pain of Arturo’s murder and mutilation finally finding release. Over and over, until the glass was shattered and lay on the floor at her feet, the photograph ripped, hanging from the frame by its corner. She stood staring at the remains in her hands for a few seconds then threw it at the front door.
Evan wondered if he was supposed to go with it.
‘I was saying,’ she said as if nothing had happened, ‘I kept that photograph all these years so that I wouldn’t forget what I’d done. A burning martyr, that’s what Arturo called me. He was right. God, I feel better now that I’ve done that.’
She had a celebratory cigarette to mark the occasion. The enjoyment Evan saw in her face nearly made him ask for one, except he saw from the watering in her eyes that the smoke would be too strong for him.
‘You made up a story for Lauren,’ he said.
She half closed one eye and gave him a look.
Is he serious?
‘Lauren was ten years old. We thought it was better than telling her that her mother was thrown from an airplane and her father blew his brains all over the wall. The wall she looked at while eating her breakfast every day. That’s not a good way to start your day, wondering if that’s a bit of daddy’s blood showing through the new paint job.’
‘I know you had to tell her the truth about her mother—’
‘We had to tell her about her father too. Not immediately. But then, after we’d told her what happened to her mother, and she’d said I can’t believe my dad ran away for the thousandth time, we knew it wasn’t going to wash. She’d have tried to find him, like she was going to find the non-existent drunk driver. You don’t know her, you don’t know what she’s like.’
It struck him he wasn’t the only one. His head was reeling from it all. He couldn’t imagine how Levi was going to take it.
Let me tell you about the perfect stranger you thought you knew . . .
The mention of the drunk driver was nagging at the back of his mind. The fact that Lauren was all set to go to the police over a non-existent case. This was the opposite. There would be an investigation into her father’s suicide, the house full of cops, all while they were trying to tell her he simply ran away.
‘You didn’t report Jake’s suicide, did you?’
Eva shook her head slowly, her eyes on the floor.
‘Did your brother have anything to do with getting rid of the body?’
The shake turned into a nod. Evan remembered Ivanovsky telling him how unclaimed bodies were cremated. He supposed it wouldn’t be too difficult to slip an extra one in if you worked in the system. Palm the morgue attendant a few dollars to look the other way if necessary. Then Eckert’s words came back to him.
‘What happened to Jake’s ashes?’ he asked.
Eva looked up at him then, a sad smile on her lips. It made him swallow, his throat so dry the effort made it ache.
‘I’m sure you can guess.’
‘You threw them out of the exit door of the jump plane. Jake’s in the wind. Literally.’
‘Yes. Everybody agreed it had a nice, poetic touch to it. It’s what Jake would have wanted. David Eckert reckoned if Jake hadn’t been cuffed to the grab rail when they threw Kristina out, he’d have gone out after her then and there. Saved himself all the heartache that came afterwards.’
Evan watched Eva as she took one last drag on her cigarette, then ground it out in a glass ashtray. Her expression looked as if it was somebody’s face she saw on the table as she did it, not an ashtray. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out whose face it was.
‘Do you know Spencer Waits?’ he said.
She looked up sharply.
‘Of course.’
‘Why didn’t you take him in when you took in Lauren?’
Something passed behind her eyes. She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, swallowed hard.
‘I should have.’ Twenty years’ worth of regret were crammed into those three words. ‘But I didn’t want anything to do with Valentine Waits and Spencer is his son at the end of the day.’
‘And your sister’s.’
No prisoners, Buckley, no prisoners.
Guilt rolled off her like a fog. The look she gave him, the way her mouth twisted and the hardness in her eyes, thanked him for pointing out something that had eaten at her for twenty years. She opened her mouth to say something. For a brief moment he thought she was about to ask him if he had any regrets about things he’d done in his life that they could pick over with the benefit of hindsight. If she had, he’d have asked her how long did she have? Thankfully for them both she pursed her lips instead, trapping inside her whatever venom she’d been about to set loose on him.
‘Sorry. It’s just they’ve become very close.’
Close enough to kill one man and plan another’s murder?
Eva didn’t say anything, waited for him to get to what he really wanted to say.
‘Did Lauren kill Garrett Waits?’
‘You’ll have to ask her that when you find her.’
There’s unhelpful and there’s unhelpful, he thought to himself as he left her to her cigarettes, stepping over the broken photograph of a broken family on his way out.
Chapter 51
EVAN HADN’T SPOKEN to him since Sunday, but you’d have thought Levi was a dog he’d left alone for a two-week vacation, the way he leapt at him as he got out of his car in the office parking lot.
‘Why don’t you ever answer your phone?’ Levi yelled. ‘I’ve been calling you all morning.’
Evan slapped at his pocket to find it, see if maybe it was turned off. He tried the other one then remembered dropping it on the bed after talking to Guillory. He smiled to himself as he thought about the cop she was planning on giving his number to, ringing it and not being able to get hold of him. He didn’t feel quite so pleased with himself when he realized she w
ould think it was a deliberate ploy on his part. He felt the back of his head smarting already.
‘It’s not funny,’ Levi yelled louder. ‘I’ve been sitting here waiting for you all morning.’
Evan patted the air with his palms. It was an exaggeration, it was still only a quarter after ten, thanks to Guillory’s now-regular early morning call.
‘I left it—’
‘I got an email back from Lauren.’
Evan’s gut turned over, his pulse picking up.
‘When was this?’
‘What’s that matter? She’s agreed to meet up.’
It mattered as far as Evan was concerned. Was it just a coincidence that they should hear back from her—or someone pretending to be her—immediately after the events of last night? For the second time he was sorry he’d shared their plan with Spencer. He still didn’t know what had happened inside the cabin. Tomás might have got the better of Spencer and Eckert. If he had, it wouldn’t have been long before he knew the plan too.
‘Just tell me.’
Levi shook his head in frustration, an angry sigh on his lips.
‘About three a.m. this morning.’
It fitted with Evan’s suspicions even if it didn’t actually prove anything.
‘She wants to meet tonight,’ Levi said, practically bouncing on his toes.
Call him selfish, but the first thing to go through Evan’s mind was that Guillory couldn’t have made it anyway. She’d told him straight off that today was no good for her. It was also odds-on that the guy she wanted to saddle him with wouldn’t be able to make it at such short notice. He checked his watch, an automatic gesture, because he already knew what time it was. If he set off now he had plenty of time. He’d have to get a rental first though, didn’t want to risk the Corvette.
‘What time?’
Levi got his phone out and opened his email. He found the one he wanted, held the phone out towards Evan. Lauren didn’t believe in wasting words:
Today 2230
‘She’ll be there at ten thirty tonight,’ Levi said in case Evan hadn’t got to grips with the twenty-four-hour clock. ‘If we leave now—’
‘You’re not coming.’
The tone of his voice stopped Levi dead. His head jerked backwards, mouth dropping open. He grabbed Evan’s arm, all the fear and tension of the past week giving his fingers the strength of a hydraulic press. He shook it like he wanted to rip it off and use it to beat some sense into Evan’s head.
‘What do you mean I’m not coming? It’s my wife we’re talking about.’
Evan wrenched his arm out of Levi’s grip, felt like doing the same back to him.
‘Exactly. You’re too close. The last five years have got you wound up so tight, I don’t want to think what you’ll do the minute you see her.’
Levi’s face slumped, his shoulders sagging as he recognized the truth in Evan’s words. He looked as if Evan had pricked him with a pin, most of his enthusiasm going pop and what was left slowly leaching out of him.
‘I can’t stop you going there, but you’re not coming with me,’ Evan said, jabbing a thumb at his chest. ‘Besides, my car has only got two seats. We don’t know how she’s getting there. I may end up driving her back.’
There was no reason why Levi needed to know that the second stop after collecting his phone from home would be at the car rental office.
For some inexplicable reason Levi thrust out his hand. Evan took it and Levi clamped the other one over the top. It had more of the feeling of a final farewell than an encouraging send-off.
‘Wish me luck,’ Evan said when Levi didn’t.
Levi shook his head.
‘If you need luck,’ he said, his voice a whisper, ‘you’re already dead.’
***
EVAN HAD BEEN ON the road for two hours in his rental Hyundai when his phone rang. It was either going to be Guillory or the guy she was sicking on him. He wasn’t sure he wanted the ear roasting he was going to get from either of them.
‘Mrs Bad News here,’ Guillory said with a trying-too-hard lightness to her voice. ‘At least it is if your name’s Spencer Waits.’
Evan’s gut twisted, his chest suddenly tight. He buzzed the window up to shut the wind noise out—to make it easier to hear and in an attempt to stop her from hearing the road noise, asking where he was driving to.
‘We found what was left of him at the cabin. He had a hole in his leg you could put your fist through. One of the guys said it must be something like an Ithaca Mag-10. Probably the Roadblocker version. Severed the femoral artery. Poor guy bled out.’
Evan hadn’t seen the gun, but he’d heard it, seen the whole cabin rock on its foundations when Spencer almost came through the front door. He felt Spencer’s 9mm Smith & Wesson heavy in his pocket. Would things have turned out differently if he hadn’t given it to him? They would for him. He’d have been choked to death or into unconsciousness by Henry.
But had Spencer given up the plan before he died?
‘What about Eckert?’
‘The place was deserted apart from Waits. Looked like there’d been a riot inside the house but Waits was the only casualty.’
Tomás must have taken Eckert alive. People like Tomás and Valentine Waits only keep other people alive if they’re of some use to them. Eckert had been useful to Valentine Waits in the past, transporting illegal substances or people around in his plane. Evan didn’t want to think about the implications of why Eckert was suddenly useful to him again, why he needed a man with a plane. The same plane Lauren’s mother had been thrown out of.
‘You okay?’ Guillory said. ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’
‘Yeah. Wondering why they didn’t kill Eckert.’
‘Maybe the gun jammed, who knows.’
He shook his head, a wasted gesture since she couldn’t see him.
‘No. Tomás doesn’t need a gun to kill someone. And I get the impression he kills people by default unless he’s been specifically told not to.’
She was quiet herself as the implications fell into place in her mind. He knew she wouldn’t be quiet for much longer when she found out where he was going.
‘Valentine Waits needs Eckert alive,’ she said, ‘needs him to do something for him.’
‘Like fly a plane.’
A plane with a great big exit door.
She hadn’t forgotten their conversation over breakfast when he’d told her what happened to Kristina Kincade.
‘We’ll get some people over to the airfield, watch Eckert’s place in case they show up.’
He had a feeling it was already too late for that.
‘What are you up to?’ she asked.
She had this way of asking him, making it sound like it was an innocent question. She did it all the time. She wouldn’t recognize an innocent question if it bit her on the ass. She also had a very low tolerance for hesitation before answering one of those innocent questions.
‘Iverson said he couldn’t get hold of you,’ she said.
The Hyundai rocked as something red and shiny with an Italian name blatted past doing about a hundred and ten. Its engine roar made him think of a tiger with its tail caught in a trap. It distracted him to the point where he didn’t put his brain in gear before engaging his tongue.
‘Who’s Iverson?’
There was the slightest gotcha pause. The calm before the storm.
‘Exactly.’
Too late he realized Iverson was most likely the guy he was supposed to have sitting next to him in the passenger seat, babysitting him. He’d seen a number of missed calls, some from Levi, the others all from the same number he didn’t recognize, when he went back to collect his phone. In his rush to get on the road, he’d omitted to call him back. These things happen.
‘I left my phone at home,’ he said lamely, very pleased to have two hours’ driving time between the two of them.
‘Really?’
He opened his mouth to say it was her fault for calling him so earl
y, then did himself a favor and bit his tongue.
‘You didn’t say what you’re up to,’ she said, her voice all sweetness and light.
It was the sort of voice a cat would use as it offered a tempting piece of cheese to a mouse. His scalp tingled. He pushed down harder on the gas pedal in case she thought of calling out the police helicopter.
‘Jesus, Evan. I give up.’
He gave an aw-shucks smile, the sort of thing that would’ve got him a good slap if she’d seen it.
‘I only found out an hour ago, myself. It’s tonight. We may not get another chance. There’s no way Ibbotson could have made it in time.’
‘Iverson.’
‘Him too. And you wouldn’t have been able to make it either, so don’t feel bad about cancelling.’
‘I don’t feel bad at all. And don’t change the subject. You said we. Who else is with you?’
Silence is a wonderful thing. It even answers awkward questions for you when your tongue has decided to cut its losses and heads back down your throat. She managed to squeeze out a strangled laugh. He pictured her face, eyes tightly shut, shaking her head as she tried to stay calm, telling herself I do not believe this over and over. Except she did.
‘Tonto got the day off?’
He laughed, a release of tension. He buzzed the window down again to let in some fresh air, maybe cool his ear down.
‘Why aren’t I surprised?’ she said, familiar resignation replacing the anger and frustration in her voice.
‘Don’t worry about it. Nobody’s following me. Just check out Eckert’s plane. I guarantee Tomás will turn up with Eckert, maybe even old man Waits himself and his son. I get the feeling they’ve got some kind of big, happy reunion in mind.’
She wanted to argue some more, but there was nothing she could do. She could hardly call up the Baltimore PD and ask them to look out for him on account of a potential disaster waiting to happen. If she did that she’d have to call ahead everywhere he went. It didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.
‘You end up dead, Buckley, I’m definitely putting Teardrop on your headstone.’
Resurrection Blues Page 29