Joey Warnecki - Eight Days Page 5

Chapter 5

  The phone rang and Charles Adams was still somewhat drunk. Muddleheaded, he opened his eyes halfway to peer at the luminous numerals of his bedside alarm clock. It read 5:55 and, without really being able to determine what they signified, he reached out reflexively with an arm to shut of the alarm. The button moved to the off position and the ringing continued.

  "It's the phone, Charlie," came a voice from the adjacent pillow. "Get the phone."

  With one foot yet mired in the world of the unconscious, one struggling to reach the shore of wakefulness, he found the phone handset and held it to his ear, by chance, right side up. "Yeah?" he answered.

  "Wake up, Charlie. How the fuck are you, asshole?" The voice managed to be cheery and menacing at the same time.

  Charles wasn't sure if he was dreaming this scene. "Who's this?" he asked, trying to force his eyes open. The lids were gummed together and his mouth was a ball of cotton.

  "You know who this is, fucker. Wake up." The voice was more forceful, and loud enough to carry to the ears of Charles' wife, now fully awake beside him.

  "Where are you?" Charles' eyes had popped open and the shadowy light of predawn placed him firmly in his bedroom at home.

  "Why, I'm with the fishies, where I'm supposed to be. Where else could I be, Charlie? Did you think I might be in your house? Maybe right outside your bedroom door?" Mockery rose ascendant in the voice, adding to the menace.

  Letitia Adams came up on one elbow, alarmed. "Who is that, Charles? What's going on?" Charles said nothing, but he picked his head from his pillow to look at the bedroom door, open to the hallway.

  "Ha, ha. No, Charlie, I'm not with you right now, but I will be, someday soon. Keep watching for me, Charlie." Click.

  Letitia sat upright. "Charles, who was that? What did he mean?"

  Charles was staring at the dead phone. "Huh?" He realized that his wife was speaking to him. "Crank call," he said. "Go back to sleep." He put the receiver down in its cradle and sat on the edge of the bed, hands to his temples, trying to force his emerging headache away.

  Charles did not look his best this morning. At his best, perhaps ten years past, he cut the robust figure of a man in his prime. A distinguished touch of gray at the temples of what was otherwise a full head of black hair. A man made to wear a tailored suit to perfection, broad shouldered, and narrow hipped. A man seemingly chosen by the gods to succeed in life. And a man who could persuade others into endorsing his far-reaching plans, to loan him money, invest in his projects.

  The man now sitting on the edge of his bed, clad in rumpled blue pajamas, carried more weight in his belly, and less in his shoulders. The hair was fully gray, and thinning. Time and alcohol had creased his face, dulled the once fierce glint of his eyes, and compromised his posture. The promise of his youth had taken a severe beating by time and by his own fecklessness, a double whammy.

  Charles pushed himself to a standing position and shuffled into the master bathroom, closing the door softly behind him in the face of his wife, who had risen with him and followed him to the bathroom, entreating him for an explanation of the disturbing phone call. Through the door he only said, "Go back to bed." He did not turn on a light in the bath, preferring not to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the multitude of mirrors that spanned the double vanity to his left. Instead, he shucked his pajamas and stepped into the tiled shower area to bathe himself sober.

  Letitia stepped away from the door when she heard the shower running and stood before the windows that, on that side of the house, offered a broad view of town and harbor. The view from here was about the best available, second only perhaps to the one from the house on Frenchman's Hill. The Adams family had a lock on good views. This morning, though, Letitia barely noticed the glow of dawn beginning to lighten the eastern horizon. Nor the lights beginning to move in the harbor as fishing craft began preparing for their work day. The argument with Charles of the evening before, his subsequent drinking, and the threatening voice she'd heard from her pillow combined to cause her to look inward to a less pleasant vista than was offered by the window to the external world.

  She leaned forward, putting her hands and her slight weight on the heavy cast-iron radiator before the window, drawing its heat into her chilled hands. Her fine hair, loose only at night while she rested, fell forward over the shoulders of her pale blue nightgown. She considered her mental state. Overall, she thought, she felt depressed. She separated her depression into elements. Anger at Charlie for not getting her agreement before offering their home as security on a loan. Sadness at his drunken dissipation. Fear from the early morning call. Perplexity about the source of the funds put down for his construction loan.

  She straightened. Time to come to some conclusions about her present life. Time to make some decisions. She began pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail before her morning run. The more disciplined bun would be assembled after breakfast and a shower. She moved away from the window after finally taking good note of the view it offered and gathered her running gear.

  .

  Joey dropped off the Suburban in its usual parking space beside the restaurant. He left the keys under the mat and the windows open, hoping the odor would dissipate before Emily or Doris needed to use it. Arriving home near four a.m., he entered his own home, locked the door behind him, drew all the shades, and crawled into his own bed for the first time since Sunday night. Being there was comfort enough to allow him to drift into a sound sleep, despite the turmoil of his mind. He slept for four hours and was awakened by a dream in which Sloan and Adams were sitting at the end of his bed, counting dollar bills into stacks which eventually covered the bed and began to suffocate him. He sat upright, throwing off the covers, surprised to not see a flurry of cash. Startled into full wakefulness, he got out of bed and showered.

  The day promised to be sunny and warm. He would repair his windows and shovel Joe's walk. But first, breakfast. Since the only place he could eat without paying money he didn't have was Emily's, he walked there, looking over his shoulder occasionally for signs of danger. Feeling threatened was a new sensation for him, and one he did not like.

  Breakfast was great, as usual, and he outdid himself in putting away an exceptional amount of food. Emily and Doris behaved no differently toward him than on days prior to this past week, for which he was thankful. The only discordant note of the occasion was Doris' chiding of him for the slight, odd odor in the Chevy. He pretended not to know what she was talking about.

  "What do you mean, you don't know? Go out there and take a whiff. Smells like rotten shellfish. What'd you do, haul Molly's garbage to the dump?"

  Her hitting so close to the mark caused him to stammer. "Ah, oh, ah, well, ..."

  Doris didn't have time to wait for a coherent explanation. "Forget it. Just don't ask to borrow it again." She returned to the kitchen to catch up on the waiting orders and Joey left as soon as his plates were scraped clean.

  .

  Charles Adams was out the door before his wife returned from her run, not desirous of another confrontation with her and anxious to meet with Sloan to discuss the unexpected continuing existence of Elwood Trott, the major fly in his ointment today. He drove a newish Lincoln Town Car, midnight blue, as befitted his perceived place in society and his age, sixty-one, too mature for a Beemer. He wore a gray herringbone jacket over a lighter gray cashmere sweater and pressed khaki trousers. The casual man-about-town wore Bean boots with molded-rubber bottoms.

  He had called Sloan from his cell phone in the car without announcing the reason for his visit and arrived in front of Sloan's house to see him standing on his front porch, contemplating what appeared to be a pair of boots on a plastic sheet. Sloan glanced up at his arrival, but offered no welcoming gesture as Adams joined him on the small porch landing. Adams recognized the boots. He related the phone call he had gotten as they both watched the boots. Both messages seemed clear. Elwood Trott presented a more or less immediate threat to their plans and even, perhaps,
to their continued existence.

  Sloan looked Adams up and down. He himself was dressed in fisherman-casual: gray hooded sweatshirt, stained and saggy Dicky work-pants, and rubber boots. "Complicates matters, don't it?" he said. "Gonna have to watch our backs, be ready to take him out, opportunity presents itself."

  Adams was more upset by the turn of events than Sloan. "You're going to have to do a better job than you've been doing. Shit, you've screwed it up twice in one week." His usually deep, well-modulated voice almost rose to a squeak at the end.

  Sloan narrowed his eyes at him, deepening the lines on his face. His face looked like an old, brown apple, framed by the tightly draw-stringed hood of his sweatshirt. He fingered the fabric of Adams' sweater. "Nice," he said, "Wouldn't want to dirty it up, do any of the messy work yourself, would you?"

  Adams pulled back from his touch. "I'll do what has to be done," he said defensively.

  Sloan smiled cunningly. "You did once, didn't you?" Something was left unsaid. Adams looked about him, as though someone else might be within hearing range. Sloan chuckled, apparently having made some point. "Don't you worry, Mr. Upstanding Citizen, we're in this together, you and me. You go on home. Attend to your business. I got two pieces of unfinished business to work on now."

  "You're not going to try again for Warnecki, are you? Too many people are watching. He's not believable now, anyway. Trott's the dangerous one. You've got to take care of him." Adams' apprehension was palpable.

  "Calm yourself down. I'll do what's best. And Trott, well, he's definitely gonna come to a bad end. Knew it the first time I laid eyes on that boy, a bad end."

  Unfortunately for Elwood, the shadow he cast that day over the lives of Adams and Sloan would be his last to ever darken any portion of Rock Harbor. A scant hour after his early wake-up call to Adams, he fell asleep on his bike and rode it into a swamp in New Jersey. Neither he, nor his bike would be discovered until springtime, when the rising water in the swamp from the spring melt carried his corpse close to a roadside rest stop. There it was found by a birder, making a spring count of waterfowl for the Audubon Society. So, effectively anyway, Sloan had screwed up only once this week, though he didn't realize it.

  .

  When Louis noticed that Joey's garage workshop doors were open, he pulled on a jacket and went out immediately. Joey worked at a scarred bench, heating the putty that held the remnants of broken glass to his window sash. One hand played a propane torch along the putty while the other chiseled the softened stuff away with a putty knife. The air in the shop smelled of burning paint. Pieces of glass tinked to the concrete floor as he worked.

  "Joey, hey, where you been?" Louis asked.

  Joey glanced up from his work and smiled at his old friend. "Hey, Louis. How you doing?"

  "Fine, fine." Louis waved the question away. "Listen, I thought you were gonna keep in touch, let me know what's going on with you. I learned some stuff you ought to hear. Regarding your predicament."

  "Yeah? Well, I've got some story to tell you, too. Story you're not gonna believe." The last shard fell to the bench and Joey twisted the knob to shut off the flow of gas and watched as the blue flame shrank and died. "You busy this morning?"

  Louis shrugged. "Nothing pressing. I want to know what going on."

  "You want to drive me and my truck to the dump and the building supply, empty that load and pick up some glass? I'll tell you what happened yesterday and you can tell me your news."

  Louis looked down at his feet. He was wearing his slippers. "Yeah, sure. Let me grab my wallet and my shoes and we'll go."

  Louis told of Soukup's visit on the way to the dump, and listened as Joey emptied the truck's load into the burn pile at the dump and spoke of his yesterday.

  "You left the boots on the porch?" Louis asked, at the end of the tale. He paid no attention to the smoke from the smoldering pile when the breeze changed to blow it towards them.

  "Yeah, I did. You think that was a bad idea?" He screwed his face up into a look of uncertainty and squinted against the smoke that was stinging his eyes.

  Louis frowned at the ground, squinting also. "Shit. I dunno." He looked up at Joey. "Might take their attention off you, some, if they think Elwood might be lurking around. Not much chance of him telling what happened to the police, is there?"

  "No way. He'd go to jail himself. He's out of it, entirely, far as my problems are concerned." The increasingly heavy, dark smoke arising from the pile burst into sudden flame, making their present position uncomfortably hot.

  Louis leaned away from the blaze. "Let's get out of here before the truck catches fire." They got in and drove away to their next stop. On the way, they discussed Joey's options. Louis thought he should tell all to Sims. Joey was doubtful. Louis said that, by god, if Joey didn't, then he would. Joey didn't respond to that and they continued their mission in silence, except for Joey asking Louis to sport for the cost of the glass, the building supply operator having heard too much of Joey's history and refusing to continue his credit account. Louis paid, glaring at the man and giving him a short lecture on loyalty to old friends. The man, knowing that he owned the only building supply in town, glared right back at Louis and suggested where he might shove his loyalty. Joey seemed only embarrassed by the whole scene, apparently reserving his outrage for Elwood's stinking boots. A truce settled on Joey and Louis on their way home, the terms of the truce remaining undetermined, Louis firm in his resolve, Joey anything but.

  .

  Tina Bronki, on the make for an advancement in her stalled career, smelled a story. Every instinct of her t.v., nose-for-news soul cried out for her to follow up on the Joey Warnecki Story. There had to be something big hidden beneath what seemed to her news director and the other station bigwigs to be small town trivia. She had pushed for leeway in digging up the real deal, and they had given her an assignment to cover the bumper potato crop, inland. She had threatened to take her considerable talent to another station, and they had pointed out the numerous applicants for her job. At that, she had backed off, heading to the potato fields and muddying her shoes and producing a report that her director called 'uninspired'. "What the hell did you expect," she yelled back at him, "the Pentagon Papers?! They're goddam potatoes, for shit's sake!" He responded by putting her on job probation for insubordination and she stalked out of the newsroom.

  On her way out of the station, she resolved to dig up the story on her own time. Maybe she'd move to the print media and get a Pulitzer. But her writing skills were on the weak side and she had the face and personality for television, big-time television. She was going to be a Caucasian Connie Chung, not a Minor Media Mainer. She chuckled at her own impromptu alliteration. Maybe she could make it in the print media. She decided to swing by and take another chance at finding Joey at home on her way to her own home. It was only a half-hour out of her way. This, she thought, was the difference between a hack and a star on the way up, the willingness to go out of your way for a chance at a big story.

  Joey had replaced the broken sash at his home and had worked his way across the twenty-four feet of packed-down snow of Joe's front walk by high noon. The sun was strong and Joey was working in his shirtsleeves, working up a good sweat, halfway to Joe's front steps. He knew the old man was aware of his presence. Nothing escaped Joe's notice within sight of his dirty windows, but the old man hadn't put his head out to say hello. Joey knew that Joe wouldn't want to pay for the time spent in a greeting. Joey had to chuckle at Soucup's penny-pinching ways. For a dollar-an-hour, he thought, can't waste any time talking. He heard the car coming down his street and stopping at the curb close to him. For a fleet instant, he thought someone was stopping to shoot him, and he flinched, ready to toss the shovel and dive for cover. The familiar face of the driver, though not entirely welcome to him, at least now, relieved his anxiety enough that he smiled her way and waved hello.

  Tina leaped the snow at the curb and was in his face, smiling back at him, before he could prepare himself m
entally for her presence, or even compose a greeting, so he said, "Shit, Tina, what the hell?"

  Her eyebrows went up. "Nice talk, Joey. And how the hell are you?" Tina was a close talker, probably to ensure that she would share the frame with any interviewee.

  Joey stepped back a pace, backed up even with the line of uncleared snow between himself and Joe's front steps. "I'm doing okay, I guess, how about yourself?"

  Tina didn't answer. She tilted her head to one side, looking at him quizzically. "How long have you known me, Joey?"

  Joey pursed his lips and thought. "Since about fourth grade, when you punched me on the playground for trying to kiss you. I'd have to say that was the moment."

  "Well, anyways, we grew up together, known each other forever. You've been avoiding me, holding out on me. I want to know why. What have you got against me?"

  "Nothing at all, Tina. I've just been trying to keep my life private. Anything wrong with that?"

  "No, nothing wrong with that. Hasn't worked too good, though, has it? Look. The way I see it, if the whole world is going to take a look at you anyway, then why not give me a break. I could use a break." She halved the distance between them and raised her voice. "Joey, give me a break. They've got me doing potato reports. I'm dying out there."

  Joey looked behind himself. No where to go without stepping into the snow and, anyway, he didn't want to appear to be intimidated by a woman who barely reached the level of his chin, even if he had been leery of her since the fourth grade. "There really isn't much to tell you, Tina."

  "No? Well, how about where you've been since you left the hospital? How about why the DEA was hanging around? How about what you know about the police report of a shooting in the harbor?" She held one hand clenched in a fist at chest level. Joey didn't know if she thought she was holding a microphone or if she was going to punch him again. She saw that a softer approach was called for. "Listen," she said, "Not only could you do me some good, but by confiding in someone you know and can trust, you can make sure that the story shows you in the best possible light. I know you're a good guy. I know you're not a crook or a doper. Do you think that when the whole story comes out, and it will come out, the other guys are going to cut you a break? Uh, uh, don't believe it. I'm your best bet, Joey, count on it." She finished by tapping him on the chest with her fist, lightly, just for emphasis.

  He smiled. "I was wondering if you were going to hit me, and you did." He waited until she relaxed her determined expression and smiled in return. "I'll make a promise to you," he said. "When the time comes that I think I need to say anything, I'll come to you. There's really nothing I can tell you now without making more trouble for myself."

  Tina grew thoughtful. "Tell me this, Joey. Is there a chance someone might still be out to shoot you?"

  Joey's eyes wavered. "Maybe. I don't know."

  She waited a beat. "Don't wait too long, Joey. Much as I want the story, I don't want to see you killed." With that, she whirled away from him and was driving away before he could react to her last statement. Tina had never been much for small talk.

  Since Joe didn't own a car, Joey shoveled a walkway along the driveway to the rear of the house and cleared a space around the trash cans. With the last shovelful removed from the steps, Joe opened the door and appeared with two one-dollar bills in his hand. "There's a little extra here for you, since it didn't take you two full hours," he said.

  Joey grinned at him and took the money from his hand. "Well, that's mighty kind of you, Joe. Thank you very much." If there was an ironic note in Joey's voice, it didn't appear to reach Joe's ears. "Hey, Joe!" Joey yelled, "Screw in your ears!" He pointed to the earpieces, dangling on either side of Joe's head. The waxy earpieces were speckled with bits of hair and grit, but Joe screwed them in. They whined with feedback until they were seated.

  "Don't have to yell," Joe said, "What do you want?" If he was at all relieved that Joey had returned home, nothing in his manner showed a trace of it. If anything, he was more brusque with Joey than usual.

  "Louis told me what you saw on Monday night."

  "Yeah? What of it?" Joe spit into the snow, most of the tobacco juice clearing his lip.

  "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell that story to the police, would you?"

  "Not a chance. You think I want them bastards coming after me, too? That information stays between me and you, so's you know who to watch out for, next time." With that, the old man turned and reentered his house, closing his door without a good-bye. He was, like Tina, not much for small talk.

  .

  Knowles and Sims both had this Saturday off. Sims spent the morning cleaning his home while his wife was out showing a property. Knowles had taken it upon himself to drive out to Elwood Trott's apartment to see if he was there and then stopped at Sims' home to relate his findings.

  "You went in without a warrant?" was Sims' first reaction. The two men were sitting in Sims' kitchen, drinking reheated coffee, left over from breakfast.

  "What warrant? The back door was wide open, I knocked like a proper visitor and went in. You would not believe that place, the mess. Garage-slash-flophouse." Knowles took another sip. It wasn't any better than the previous one. "How old is this coffee, anyways?"

  Sims ignored the question. "Are you going to report the visit?" he asked.

  "Nah. I'm off-duty. I'm on tomorrow. I'll drop by again, see if he's come home. Looks of the place, though, I'd say he's not coming back."

  "Talk to any neighbors?"

  "Yeah. Guy next door heard the bike start up, take off. Looked out the window and saw a man leave in a dark Chevy Suburban. No description, except he was tall and skinny. Said there was writing on the door, but he couldn't make it out. Wasn't much interested, anyway. Used to hearing that motorcycle come and go late at night.

  "Hey, speaking of which. I saw LeBeau this morning, that's what gave me the idea to see Trott. One of his guys found a black leather motorcycle jacket snagged on a piling after the last high tide, out by the pound. Red silk lining, zippers and chrome studs all over, hadn't been in the water too long. And get this, it had a hole in the right shoulder, through and through, like from a bullet hole."

  Sims stared into his cup. A slick of oil floated on the top of the black liquid. "LeBeau going to do anything with the jacket?" he asked.

  "He sent it up to the state lab, see if they can make anything on it. Probably any residue would have been lost, though, it being in the water for a while." He pushed the half-full cup to the table's center. "You know," he commented, "you're gonna have to do better than this, company comes to visit."

  "I don't want to get used to the good stuff on the weekend," Sims said, deadpan. "Makes it too hard to adjust to the department coffee." He took another sip, staring at Knowles over the cup's rim.

  Knowles stared back. "So what's your take on all this? What do you think about that meeting, Monday evening, if Trott was there, or if he wasn't?"

  Sims pushed his cup to join Knowles' in the middle of the table top. It was half-full. "I'm going to keep my mind open, and my eyes," he answered. He was wary of letting his feelings about Sloan push him into any premature conclusions. "But my gut's telling me that something's wrong, and it's not just the coffee."

  June chose that moment to bang the kitchen door open, startling the two men. She saw them jump at her sudden appearance, entering with two full grocery bags. "What are you two so jumpy about?" she asked, grinning. "Did I catch you planning a revolt or something? Should I call a cop?"

  Knowles raised an eyebrow at her perceptiveness. Sims rose to assist her in setting the bags on the counter. "Can't get away with anything around you," he said.

  "Bet your ass," she countered. "How're you doing, Charlie?" She brushed some dust from her black, tailored suit. Her working clothes.

  "I'm good, June," he answered. "Gotta go." He stood up. "No sense planning insurrection with you around, anyway."

  When he'd gone, June hefted the glass coffee pot and swirled the
contents, peering at it to assess its drinkability. She poured it into the sink and set about making a fresh pot. Scrubbing out the pot, her back to her husband, she asked, "House all in order?"

  "Tolerable," he answered. "How did it go with the showing?"

  "Not great. They're qualified for less than the houses they want to buy. I think they're going to waste a lot of my time before they realize what they can or can't have."

  "Morning wasn't a total loss. At least we have groceries. Get anything good?"

  She measured ground coffee into the filter basket. "If you start putting the stuff away, you'll see that we have two pounds of fresh shrimp, a pound of fresh pasta, fresh garlic, and a nice bottle of white, to cook with and to drink. And I picked up a quarter-pound of fresh gossip, too."

  "Do we have to share any of it with the girls?"

  "They won't be back from Sunday River until late. Did you see the boys that picked them up this morning?"

  "Yeah. Two guys with earrings and snowboards. Made me nervous."

  "Don't worry. Those girls can take care of themselves on the snow and off it. Aren't you going to ask about the gossip?" June's confidence in her daughters was absolute.

  Sims accepted her assessment. "Okay, what juicy tidbit came your way at the grocery store?"

  "At the wine store," she corrected. "I ran into Jayne Mudroe, loan officer at the bank. I asked her about Adams' deal, with his invisible backers. She said they were scrambling to reevaluate the whole thing. They never expected him to be able to come up with the nut, and basically put the thing on the shelf as soon as he proposed it." She kicked off her shoes into a corner and began to pace the kitchen, keeping up with the pace of the now burbling coffee maker. "I know they set the conditions for the loan so high that they assumed he'd never be able to meet them. And I think they're afraid he'll have grounds for a suit if they turn him down now that he has. So now they're scurrying around looking for another reason to deny the loan. Can't blame them, given his history in trying to develop property."

  Sims was attempting to appear barely interested, inspecting the grocery items and stowing them away. He disapproved of gossip, of course. But when she stopped talking, he stopped what he was doing and faced her. "And?" he said too casually.

  She gave him a look that told him she knew what he was doing. "Oh, never mind," she said, "it's just the idle chatter of old fishwives, nothing a manly cop would be interested in. So what's up with Charlie Knowles?"

  Sims pretended to study the label on a can of tunafish. "Charlie was doing a bit of off-duty sleuthing. He pretends to be just putting in his time until retirement, but I think he's worried about turning into a civilian after so many years on the job. How are they thinking they might worm out of granting the loan?"

  "Charlie will be like a fish out of water, after leaving the department. He lives and breathes the job, just like you, pretending to not be interested in Adams' deal. You think I can't see that Adams is on your mind lately? He involved with your case somehow?"

  Sims wondered if he was as transparent to others as he was to his wife. He hoped not. "I give up. Maybe you should be the cop, instead of me. Yes, I am a little curious about what Adams is up to. And he is running a little too close to my case for me to discount his possible involvement. But everything I have is a jumble, and I would be grateful for any little tidbits that might possibly throw a little more light my way." The coffee maker sputtered and hissed to a conclusion as he did.

  "You want any?" June poured herself a cup.

  "No, thank you."

  She took a sip. "Two things: One, Adams insists that the project occupy the footprint of the cannery, using the existing foundation and deck. Even the architect who drew the plans fought over that issue. A luxury condo development does not share the esthetic values of a fish factory. Design-wise, his plan would be a blight on the landscape, and everyone, including his wife, is aware of that fact excepting Charles Adams. And two, all waterfront projects must have a complete environmental audit, especially on sites that formerly accommodated industrial uses. Charles does not yet have that approval, though he's been pulling strings all the way to the state capitol. The bank will use these two issues to stall for enough time to commit, one way or the other."

  "You picked all that up in a few minutes at the grocery store?"

  "Wine shop. And being in real estate is all about having connections and getting information."

  "Sounds like the requirements to be a good cop."

  June considered his remark as she sipped her coffee. "Yes, but in real estate, at least you know it's almost always about money."

  .

  Mary Hartz was working this Saturday, catching up on paperwork in the morning, occasionally calling the number at Warnecki's house to see if he had shown up there yet. If he was at home, he wasn't answering the phone, anyway. By noontime, she'd had enough of the pencil and paper bit and decided to go home to check on her cat and have lunch.

  At home, she shared the last of her mother's Thanksgiving care package with the cat, who preferred dark meat and wasn't big on cranberry sauce or creamed onions. The old tom finished first and purred around her legs, begging for seconds. She set her empty plate on the floor for him to clean up the gravy remnants before the dish went into the washer. "Just like Jack Sprat and his wife, you and me," she told him, "except reversed for the fat and lean part, and the platter gets licked clean just the same, huh?" Mary had the habit of talking to her cat when the house was feeling especially quiet, which seemed to be most of the time. Her world had narrowed, these last several years, to home with her cat and her reading, and to the job, her main window to the world. Outside of it, she had lost touch with most of the friends of her youth, not a rare phenomenon in her profession. She considered calling her mother, but decided to postpone that task until Sunday, their usual day for extended communication. She decided to swing by Warnecki's house to see if he was there. Despite Sloan's order to keep tabs on him, no one had seen him since the previous afternoon. Heaven help him if he was on the run. Or if his assailant had made another try for him. She went upstairs for a peace offering to bring with her, hoping to gain his confidence in her good intentions. Before leaving her home, she stepped into the downstairs half-bath to check her appearance in the sink cabinet mirror. "Officer of the Law can't meet the public with gravy on her chin," she told the cat, who was perched on the toilet tank, cleaning his paws. The mirror was too small and the room to tight to step back and regard much more than her face, but she was satisfied with what she saw, considering her age and frame. "Not too many new lines, not too much fat," she commented, though her cat didn't appear to be listening, attending to his post-meal grooming. A slight odor of ammonia, emanating from the litter-box behind the toilet let her know that another chore was to be added to tomorrow's list. Sunday and Monday were her days off.

  Back in the department vehicle, she radioed her intentions to dispatch and drove the twelve or so blocks to Warnecki's neighborhood. The afternoon sun shone brightly, reducing the curbside piles of snow to dirty remnants that contrasted starkly with the clean stuff that ranged beyond the reach of sand trucks and splashing cars. By and large, the neighborhoods along her route had cleaned up from the storm. Walks shoveled, storm drains and fireplugs cleared, broken branches cut up and stacked at curbside for removal to the town dump burn pile. Kids were playing outside, throwing snowballs and getting wet in the melting snow. It was a nice day to be alive in Rock Harbor, Mary thought, and she wondered if the snow cover would stick, or melt away to bare ground before the next snowfall.

  Warnecki's house on Fourth Street was one of only a few that retained snow on it roof. Most of the others were bare, a result of the mostly elderly homeowners being unable to afford to insulate them adequately. Mary noted that Armstrong's home kept its blanket of snow, also, but Soucup's was bare down to the worn roofing. Soucup's house was a blight on the neighborhood.

  Mary turned in Joey's driveway and backed out to park in front of
his house. She left her uniform jacket and cap in the car and, carrying a plastic grocery bag, walked down his driveway to the rear. His pickup was parked and empty. She noticed as she knocked on the door that the window next to it had been repaired, but the storm window had not been replaced. Fresh putty edged the glass in a neat bevel and the shade was drawn on the inside. Probably a good idea, she thought. Receiving no answer to her summons, she knocked again, louder. Catching a glimpse of movement in her peripheral vision, she looked left to see the cadaverous visage of Joe Soucup gazing from his window at her. The squeak of a hinge behind her turned her all the way around and Joey emerged from the garage, blinking in the sunlight. The hand that he held up to shade his eyes was smeared with some black substance, which had apparently migrated to a spot beside his nose and a streak in his unruly hair as well.

  "Hello," he said, recognizing her. "I've been working in the shop, putting my storm back together. Been knocking long?"

  "No, just a half-minute. Sorry to bother you. Stopped by to see if you're alright, had any more trouble." Mary left the steps to join him behind the truck. "Whatever it is you're working with, you got some on your face and in your hair."

  "Oh?" he said, touching his hair and transferring more of the stuff. He looked at his hand and pulled a rag from a rear pocket to wipe at it. "Messy stuff, until it dries. I'm using it to hold the aluminum frame together, should have let the glass guy do it. Next time I will."

  "Next time someone shoots through your window?"

  "Hope not." He grinned ruefully. "Baseball be okay, maybe." She wasn't smiling back and he lost the grin. "I've been okay, though. No major problems have turned up lately."

  "No threats made to you? No strange faces in the window?"

  "No, nothing like that." He wasn't offering her anything new.

  She stepped back a pace, mentally, giving him some breathing space. She sensed he had something hidden behind the closed face he showed her. She smiled a little. "That stuff going to wash off, or do you have to wear it until it flakes away?"

  He smiled in return, ready to change to subject. "It's supposed to wash off with soap and water, if you get it before it dries. Window's done, maybe I should do that now." Letting her know that this might be a good place for her to leave.

  She held up the plastic bag. "Brought you a present," she said, still smiling and tilting her head to the side. "Books you might like."

  "Yeah?" Now he was obliged to invite her in. "You want to come in for a cup of tea?"

  "Tea sounds nice, sure." She was in.

  Joey set a kettle on to boil before retreating to the bathroom to wash. "Back in a minute," he said. "Tea and cups are in the upper cabinet beside the sink."

  Mary found cups and a box of store-brand teabags in the second door she tried. She put a bag into each cup and sat at the table to wait. She considered her approach. Casual, round-about, not too pushy, she thought. Just get what comes easy, keep the door open for another time. The kettle whistled simultaneously with Joey reentering the kitchen. Mary watched him remove the kettle and pour. His hands and face bore a slight remnant of black stain. He'd probably have to cut his hair where a stiff clump feathered out. But then, she thought, there was a head of hair born to wear a hat, anyway. "Guess they lied about the easy clean-up, huh?" she asked.

  "Yeah. It'll wear off, few days. Sugar or milk?"

  "Just black's fine. Did you fix the bathroom mirror, too?"

  "Not yet," he replied, putting the cups on the table and sitting. "Holding the pieces in place with tape until I get around to it. Rug has to go to the cleaner's, see if they can get the blood out." He stared into his cup, dunking the teabag.

  Mary stood for a moment to deposit her teabag in the sink. She preferred her tea on the weak side and he was evidently planning to leave his in the cup. She sat, took a sip and then slid the contents of her plastic bag onto the table top. Five paperbacks. "Paretsky, Wilhelm, and Rosenberg," she said.

  He picked them up in silence, reading the covers and the first paragraph of each. "Haven't read any of these, I don't think. Sometimes I forget a book and don't realize I've read it until I've gone through fifty pages." He smiled. "A bad memory can be a good thing. The old becomes new again. All women authors, huh?"

  "Yes. I happened to notice some gaps in your collection, serious ones, I'm afraid." She spoke with mock seriousness. "Not many women represented there and why is that?"

  "Well, I don't really know, except that I just don't search them out. Christie got me started. Tried Rendell, but she writes over my head. Read some of Highsmith. Her Tom Ripley character disturbs me." He shrugged in embarrassment.

  "He's supposed to be disturbing. I can almost guarantee you'll like these. Good characters, good prose. If you do like them, I can continue your education in a new direction of gender equality."

  "Sure, fine by me. But tell me why you would want to do that." He was curious without sounding suspicious of her motives.

  It was Mary's turn to be slightly embarrassed. "Actually," she explained, "I was hoping you might let me borrow a few from your collection, some I haven't seen before. Isn't your tea getting a little strong?"

  "Stronger the better. Like it to put fur on my tongue. Sure, take anything you like."

  "Thanks." Mary sipped and put her cup down. Time to push a little. "I've tried calling several times, drove by some, wanting to check that nothing's happened to you. You staying somewhere else at night, keeping out of sight?" She watched his eyes and they evaded her gaze. He was clearly uncomfortable with her question. The sound of someone knocking on the back door brought relief to his face. The sound of the outside door opening and closing was followed by the appearance of Armstrong at the kitchen door. Louis entered and nodded in Mary's direction.

  "Hey, Lou. What's up? We were having a cup of tea. Want some?" Joey was talking too fast and Louis frowned.

  "I was going out for some groceries, thought you might like a ride, pick some stuff up." Louis didn't respond to Joey's offer, but sat at the table, wondering what had his friend so uptight. He turned to Mary. "This a social visit?" he asked, "Or official?"

  Mary shrugged. "Social, mostly. And checking to see if Mr. Warnecki has felt any threats to his well-being lately. Chief Sloan asked a few of us to keep up with his condition." At the mention of Sloan, Mary felt a chill from the other two.

  "Sloan, huh? He's concerned about Joey?" Louis' gaze on her was intent, almost hostile.

  Mary held his eyes for a moment and then looked to Joey, who looked into his cup as though the tea might have become too strong for his taste after all. She looked back to Louis. "Is there some reason for you to doubt that the police might be concerned for the safety of Mr. Warnecki?" Her words may have been defensive in nature, but her tone was not. She wanted a reason for the sudden change of atmosphere in the room.

  Louis tilted his head back in thought, searching the ceiling for the right answer. Mary and Joey watched him, as though he were the pivot of the seesaw that would move them up or down. After a long minute, Louis looked down at both of them in turn and then settled his gaze on Mary, leaning forward with his forearms on the table. "Let me ask you something," he said. "What is your personal opinion of Chief Sloan?"

  Mary sat back, brow furrowed, considering his question. The thin blue line was not casually crossed, but there was something going on here that surpassed automatic loyalty to the uniform. "I think he's an asshole," she stated. "Of course, that's only my personal opinion." Her disclaimer brought a slow grin to Louis and a tight smile to Joey, who continued to regard his cup. Nonetheless, the tension in the room seemed to ease. "Why do you ask? What do my feelings about my superior officer have to do with anything?"

  Joey took a deep breath and blew it out between pursed lips, like he was about to dive into an unknown pool and spoke. "Because I think he was the one that shot me, that's why, and I don't know if any other cops might be in on it with him. I don't know who to trust."

  Mary was stunned. He
r face grew red under the eyes of both men. She pulled herself upright. "That's ridiculous," she said. But even as she said it, she felt her automatic defense becoming untenable. She sought refuge in reason. "Why would you say something like that? What evidence do you have?" The two men were silent. "Come on," she challenged, "You can't say a thing like that and not back it up." She glared at Joey. "I've been straight with you from the beginning. Me, Sims, and Knowles have given you every benefit of the doubt, and protected your rights all the way. Now you come straight with me, stop holding back, and I promise you, I'll do the right thing as I see it, damn me if I don't." She thumped the table with her closed fist, startling herself as much as Louis and Joey with her vehemence. Louis yet watched from the verge, unwilling to commit himself totally.

  "You, Sims, and Knowles. Those the three names we should trust?" Louis demanded quietly.

  "For sure. Without a doubt. Two more, Clarkson and Waters. That's a given. I'd trust my life and my soul to any of them. Maybe not my soul."

  "Ain't your life we're worried about," was Louis' rejoinder. He looked at Joey, gaining his silent assent. "Make a deal with you. Gonna put this boy's life in your hands, okay?" Mary stared back at him, not committing to any deal before hearing it. Louis went on. "Gonna tell you everything. You're gonna keep it in that little circle of people you mentioned. Sims I think I know, the others I don't, have to trust you on them. You okay with that?" Mary held her silence, nodded slowly, committing to an agreement she had no right to make on her own. She had jumped in the pool with Joey and the water was soberingly cold. Her instincts and her personal honor overruled her professional misgivings. She stood to lose more than her job if she were wrong, and even if she were right. The ramifications of either were beyond her at this moment. But her eyes held steadily on Louis' until he, too, nodded. "Okay," he said, "Let me tell you first about a visit I had last night from Old Man Soucup, the first and last, I hope, from that old prick."

  Mary sat still, listening to Louis' tale, until he finished and then faced Joey as he related the story of his last twenty-four hours, from dumpster to home kitchen table. His incredible narration was related with a matter-of-fact modulation that lent it the ring of truth. "You left the boots on his porch?" she said, when he had finished.

  "Yeah. You think that was a bad idea?" He asked as though she might have had a better suggestion, given the circumstances and lack of rational alternatives. Those damn boots again, he thought. He may have muttered the words, by the looks that came his way from the other two.

  Mary shook her head. "I don't know," she said, "It just seems a strange thing to do, under the circumstances. Give me a minute to think here." She pressed on her temples, trying and failing to come up with a plan that might confirm Joey's account of events to Sims and the others, especially Clarkson, who could doubt that the sun rose in the east, had he not observed it personally on each and every day. There was no confirmation to be had, apart from Sloan and Adams, which wasn't likely, and Trott, who was neither creditable nor available. That left Joe Soucup, an elderly man with an attitude, and a few circumstantial, difficult to verify miscellanea that were unlikely to add up to a case worth trying to present to any legal entity, grand jury, prosecutor, or judge. She had to get together with Sims first, and then the others and decide where to go from there. "Okay," she said finally. "You have to understand that I can't take your story on face value, own it and act on my own. But I will be discreet, given the possibility that certain members of the department may be involved in illegal activity." Brulick entered her mind as someone not on the need-to-know list. "I'm going to take this to Sims, first. He's principal on the case, anyway. That's as far as I can think at the moment." She waited for a reaction.

  Louis cleared his throat. "Seems that the more people that are involved, the more likely it may be that persons with an interest in shutting Joey up are gonna feel that the problem needs a quick solution. People overhear things, watch if other people are acting different. You know what I mean."

  Mary's forgotten tea had grown cold. She pushed the cup from her. "I hear you," she said. "So, time is a factor. Have to work fast enough and quiet enough to contain things. As far as Mr. Warnecki's safety, two things. One, he keeps in touch so we know where he is and what he's doing." Mary realized that she was speaking as though Joey were not present. "Sorry. You willing to do that?"

  Joey shrugged, and then nodded. "Sure, I guess. Not that I'm going to be doing much, anyway. Can't drive. Can't work. Do my best to let you know what I'm doing, something comes up." He was cradling his cup in both hands as though trying to absorb warmth from the now cool liquid.

  "I'll be back to you by tomorrow at the latest, set up a system. Second thing. Your best course of action is to be alone as little as possible. Witnesses are a good protection from someone who might wish to cause you harm."

  "I can hang with Louis some of the time, he doesn't get sick of me."

  "Joey can sleep at my house, too," Louis said, glad for a chance to keep a closer watch over his neighbor.

  "Plans for the rest of the day?" asked Mary.

  "I think I'll go grocery shopping with Louis, if he can front me the cash." He looked to Louis, who looked back without giving a response to what he considered a given.

  Mary stood and picked up her cap. "I'm going to go, then. One more thing. You're watching the neighborhood for anything out of the ordinary. How about your neighbor on the other side, Soucup. Do you have any confidence in him to cooperate at all with this?"

  Joey shared a look with Louis. "Well, Joe sees everything that goes on around here, but he's not what you might consider a cooperative person," Joey replied. Louis snorted and swung his head at what he apparently considered a more than generous assessment of Joe's character. Mary left at that point. She would see about Joe Soucup another time.

  .

  At seven in the evening, John and June Sims were sitting back in their chairs in the modest dining room of their home. While they would ordinarily have eaten at the kitchen table, June had declared this to be a special meal, worthy of candlelight and the good china. And indeed it had been. Shrimp cooked in butter and white wine with garlic and a hint of lemon zest, served over fresh linguine, finely chopped parsley over all, fresh French bread, and the rest of the crisp white Cote de Beaune. Sims was a contented man, not at all bothered that his hands smelled of shrimp from peeling and de-veining them, small cross to bear given the fruit of his labor and the present good company of his wife. He smiled at her.

  "What are you grinning about?" she asked.

  "Just appreciating you, dear," he answered.

  "You're an easy man to please, John Sims. Fill your belly and you roll over like an old hound dog, waiting for a scratch." She grinned back at him over her wine glass.

  "A scratch might be nice. How about a scratch?" The phone began ringing behind him, in the kitchen. He didn't seem to hear it.

  "Later. You going to get that or are you stupefied from overeating?"

  "Yeah, stupefied is the right word." He groaned to his feet and went to answer the phone, still clutching his napkin as though unwilling to let go of his dining experience. "Yo, Sims here," was the way he answered the call.

  "Yo? What the hell is that?"

  "Nautical expression. What's up, Mary? Clarkson got you working late? Need someone to complain to?" His voice was hearty.

  "You're sounding a little too smug to me, John. I think you need something to bring you back to earth and I've got just the thing."

  "Oh." Sims didn't want to leave his present state of grace. His plans for the evening had included a video and snuggling on the couch, but not police business. As much as he liked Mary Hartz, right now she was an unwelcome intrusion. "This something that can't wait until the morning?" An exaggerated groan came from the dining room, June performing as much as complaining. Busted evenings were par for the course.

  "Sorry," was Mary's simple answer.

  "Do you need me to come down to the de
partment?"

  "No. I just ended my shift and need your ear and your brain. I'll come there."

  "What's it about?"

  "Tell you when I get there. I'm leaving now." She hung up and Sims was left staring at the phone. At least he wouldn't have to leave the house. He was too full to move.

  "Make some coffee," came a voice from the dining room. "I'll clear the table. Mary can share dessert with us before you discuss business."

  "We have dessert?" Sims was still holding the phone.

  "Of course." June appeared with stacked plates.

  Mary arrived ten minutes later, in time to enjoy a chocolate cannoli and coffee with the two of them. June disappeared afterwards, picking up on Mary's pensive disposition and not wanting to be party to their discussion. Sims caught it also and lost the lethargy brought on by the meal. "Alright, Mary," he said. "What's on your mind?" He pinched out the candles and wisps of smoke rose to the ceiling as she began laying out the whole scenario as she had put it together in her mind in the intervening hours since she had heard it. She had constructed a coherent whole from all the pieces, strung out along a time line carefully drawn on two sheets of notebook paper, unfolded from her breast pocket and now spread before Sims to follow. She pointed to each item with the point of a yellow pencil as she described them in turn. Sims watched the paper and the tapping pencil point, not interrupting her once throughout her narration. When she had finished, they sat quietly. She, searching her mind for details overlooked, Sims waiting for her to complete that process. Finally, she put the pencil down and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "When you arrived at the department this morning," Sims asked, "was Sloan there and did he say anything about finding a pair of boots on his porch?"

  "Sloan came in around ten o'clock dressed like a fisherman and didn't mention a word about it. He checked the logs from the night before, asked me if I'd been keeping track of Warnecki and left. I haven't seen him since."

  Sims tapped the sheets of paper. "You were there, face to face with Warnecki and Armstrong. Do you buy their story?"

  Mary took a breath and let it out. "I think they believe it, at least. If not, they're better actors than I want to give them credit for. I have to admit that I can't find a piece that doesn't fit, and as much as I hate to admit it, I can picture both Sloan and Adams playing a role in this deal."

  "And Brulick?"

  She shook her head. "Only as a stooge. He couldn't be trusted to be given an active part in something this heavy."

  "What about the heroin? This is the first time anything but cocaine has come up."

  "The chemist working for the DEA, Pym, said nothing about heroin."

  "It fits with something else, though." He told her about the wire transfer that had arrived for Adams at the bank. "A few pounds of cocaine wouldn't bring anywhere near a million dollars. And I have to say it's a stretch to imagine how either Sloan or Adams could come across a connection to that kind of weight."

  "That's a big loose end," Mary said, "not to mention that nothing we have is verifiable." Both Sims and Hartz realized that they were buying into the proposed model and they were both aware of the stakes at risk if they acted on it. That subject did not come up. They would act on it according to its merits, it went without saying.

  "We can't do this on our own, you know," Sims said.

  "No, of course not. We need Knowles, Clarkson and Waters at the get-go. Maybe LeBeau, later. Don't want to involve anyone unnecessarily in a plot to overthrow the constitution, which is what this feels like."

  "I'm not comfortable with it, either. But you're right about the principal players. You have tomorrow and Monday off, right?" She nodded. "Clarkson does, too. At least no one expects him to spend every minute of his off-time at the department. Let me try to set up a meet at his house, early. We'll lay it out and go from there. Good?"

  "That's a start, anyway." Mary slapped the table with both hands and stood. "I'm out of here. Call me in the morning."

  Sims rose with her, holding the papers. "Mind if I hang onto these? Like to go over them on my own."

  "That's fine," Mary answered. "I've got them so high in my brain I can see them like they're imprinted on my retinas." He walked her to the door and then made his calls, reaching Clarkson and Waters, and setting up a meet for eight o'clock in the morning at Clarkson's house. He asked Knowles' wife to have him call when he got in.

  .

  When Letty Adams returned home after her morning run, Charles was gone. She had stretched her run to eleven miles, four more than usual, and the result was that she was sore but clear-headed. She cleaned house, showered, and drove to Freeport, where she spent the afternoon browsing in the outlet stores. Around seven, she returned home and Charles was there, sitting at a newspaper-strewn kitchen table, cleaning and loading a nine-millimeter automatic pistol. She hated guns and the squarish, matte-black weapon looked like death in a box to her. "What are you doing with that? Why do you have it out?" was her greeting to him.

  "What does it look like I'm doing?" His reply was sarcastic, his habitual defensive tactic when he didn't want to account for his actions. He didn't look up at her, but continued to click the bright cartridges into place in the clip.

  "I won't have a loaded gun in the house," she said.

  "Yeah, well." He pushed the clip into the heel of the pistol, not chambering a round.

  "Does this have to do with that phone call?" She backed to a granite-topped counter and crossed her arms over her chest. She wore a navy wool blazer over a white cotton shirt, and blue jeans tucked into black leather cowboy boots. She waited for an answer that was not forthcoming. "Are you going to answer me, Charles?" His answer was to rise and tuck the pistol under his belt behind him, under his jacket. He crumpled the newspaper into a ball and stuffed it into the trash basket under the sink. "Charles?" she asked again.

  He finally glanced at her and then his eyes drifted to the darkness outside the window over the sink. "Yes," he said. "The phone call was a threat. Some nut-case. It probably won't amount to anything, but I don't want to take the chance. You never know."

  "Who was it?" she asked. He shook his head and shrugged, feigning ignorance, but she knew him too well. "We have to talk. We have to talk about a few things and we have to talk now." She hadn't raised her voice, but her tone was clear. Discussion would not be put off until tomorrow.

  He met her eyes full on, but his face was closed. "I can't discuss it with you now. You'll have to trust me."

  "You won't talk about the threat. You won't talk about the money." She wanted to make it clear, what it was that he was unwilling to discuss. He didn't respond. "Are the two connected?" she asked. Still no response. "I'm an officer in the corporation and I'm not to be a part in the business decisions, is that correct? Is Meredith aware of the steps you're taking? Does she approve?" His sister was also a corporate officer, but took little part in the business.

  "You'll just have to trust me," he repeated. "For a while, maybe for a couple of weeks."

  She held his eyes for a long minute, reaching her decision. It surprised her, how easy it was. The conclusion she had been avoiding with dread, with a fear of giving up her investment in a relationship that had endured for so many years, now reached her with the ease of shedding a jacket that no longer fit. "I'm afraid that's not acceptable, Charlie. I can't live with that. I'm moving out to the farm, tonight." His shoulders slumped, just a bit, with resignation or relief, she couldn't tell.

  "Maybe that would be for the best," he said. "If the threat is real, I wouldn't want you to be hurt. The farm is safe. When this is over, everything will get back to normal."

  She shook her head. "No," she said. "If I leave, I won't be coming back. I'll work in the office this week. You'll have to find someone else to take my place there after that." The farm, where she kept her horse, was sixty acres of pasture and woodland an hour to the north and inland. It was in her name only, as this house was in Charles', left to her when
her parents had passed away several years back. They had also established a trust sufficient to maintain it and her, the principal of which was closed to her. Her parents had never had full confidence in their son-in-law and intended that their only daughter would always have the means to live independently, should it become necessary.

  Charles retreated to his study with a bottle and his gun while she packed a few things, and did not offer to help her load them into her car. Closing the hatch on her white, late-model Land Rover, she paused to take a long, last look at the home she was leaving. The only light from the stately, old, colonial house came dimly through drawn curtains in the room where Charles kept his study. The money her parents had left her free of encumbrance had gone into the business and into restoring this house and grounds to make it the nicest in town. She wondered if she would have left it so easily if her parents had not provided her the means. She dismissed that thought. She had stuck it out for many years and would have left in this circumstance, whatever her means.

  .

  Louis had a gun, too. "What the hell are you doing with that?" asked Joey. Louis had removed it from a brown paper bag taken from under the kitchen sink in his house. Another, smaller bag held the bullets. They rattled and rolled onto the table as he poured them out beside the gun that was sitting on folded newspaper. Both men stood by the table, perhaps not anxious to sit down at a table that supported a gun.

  Louis pointed at the pistol. "I won that in a card game from an old chief who won it in a card game from a Marine who supposedly took it off a dead officer on Guadalcanal during the war. World War Two." It was a military issue, Colt forty-five automatic. A small, brown spider was dried up in a dusty web inside the trigger guard. Louis scratched his chin. "I thought it might be useful, you know, if someone came around again." Joey gingerly picked up one of the rounds. The brass casing was green with verdigris. He looked at Louis questioningly. Louis shrugged. "Sink leaked a few years back. Guess they got wet."

  "Assuming these bullets were still live," Joey commented, "which I wouldn't, and assuming that old gun worked, which I doubt, chances are one of us would get killed with it as easy as anybody else. I think you ought to put it away." He picked the gun up by the barrel, holding it like a hammer. "Heavy sucker, though. Might be able to drive spikes with it." He giggled.

  "Gimme that," Louis ordered, taking the gun from Joey's hand and thrusting it back into the bag. Joey watched him with a grin on his face as Louis put everything away and wiped the table top with a damp sponge. Louis was embarrassed, but had to eventually smile back. "I guess it wasn't such a great idea. Sit down. Something else I want to talk about." Joey sat and Louis got two bottles of beer from the refrigerator, opened them, and sat down opposite him. "You know those papers you found in your attic." Joey nodded before bringing the beer to his mouth. "Forgot to tell you before," Louis went on. "I went down to the library to see what those chemicals were. Some are pesticides that they don't use anymore 'cause they're too dangerous. Some of the stuff is cancer-causing chemicals. All the stuff is basically toxic waste." Louis waited for a reaction from Joey.

  "Doesn't seem like stuff you'd expect to see turn up at a fish cannery, does it?" Joey's interest was casual.

  "No, it don't. And it being so odd that your uncle Stan would stash that paper in the attic, and remembering that your lawyer, Drew, used to do, still does, environmental work, I gave him a call yesterday. He thought it was all more than odd. He called me back in an hour and he told me that the trucking company on some of those slips was busted years ago for dumping toxic waste in out-of-the-way places. Said the company was mobbed up. Said we ought to give those papers to the Department of Environmental Protection."

  While Joey appeared to be considering this, Louis' black cat padded into the kitchen, circled the table once and jumped into Joey's lap. He started to pet it and pulled his hand away. "This cat get cleaned up?" he asked.

  "Damn cat," Louis said. "Yeah, I gave her a bath. But not before she snuck in and burrowed down under the covers on my bed. Had to wash everything, mattress pad and all." Louis dismissed the subject with a wave. "Never mind the cat. What about what Drew said?"

  Joey began to pet the cat, whose immediate purring was almost as loud as his speech. "I'm thinking there's enough federal agencies interested in me without adding to the list."

  "I'm thinking that one more won't matter," Louis retorted. "I'm thinking that putting some attention on Adams might take some of his interest away from you, too."

  Joey leaned forward, putting his arms on the table. The cat jumped from his lap and disappeared. "What if it just pisses him off all the more? What if it gives him one more reason to get rid of me?"

  Louis leaned back. "Well," he said, "there is that possibility. But he doesn't have to know right away where the papers came from. And maybe putting some public attention on him would make it harder for him to sneak around behind you. Another thing." He leaned forward and glowered. "Your uncle Stan died just a while after the dates on those papers. My mind's jumping to all kinds of crazy conclusions. What if Stan didn't die by accident? What if Adams acted then like he's acting now? What if he had something to do with your uncle's death?"

  The color leached from Joey's face. He felt a chill run through him as if someone else's ghost had touched the back of his neck. "Whoa, Louis," he said. The voice of reason, maybe. "Let's not get carried away."

  Louis was primed to let himself get carried away. He rose his voice. "Stop bein' Mr. Nice-guy, for a change. Always giving everybody the benefit of the doubt. You the only one in the world got a nice word for that asshole lives other side of you. I'm saying you got to consider the possibility that other people ain't as nice as you. And I'm beginning to wonder if being nice ain't the same as being stupid. If Sloan and Adams are bad enough to be willing to kill you 'cause of what they think you know, then maybe they did the same thing before. And I, suspicious bastard that I am, think that's possible, maybe even likely. So what are you going to do about it?"

  Joey's native response would be to laugh at this as just another of Louis' rants, but something in the man's face told him that he had better not. So he held himself still and forced himself to address Louis' allegation seriously. He did not want to call the DEP. His credibility felt to him to be too vulnerable to do that. Louis expected him to do something, but what? "I've got an idea," he said. It was the only thing he could think of under the pressure of Louis' determined gaze. "I'm going to use your phone."

  .

  Sims had just gotten to sleep after several hours of thinking, using Mary's time line as the center of his study. What was to have been a quiet evening at home with his wife had turned into lone hours of disquieting reflection. The low trill of the phone beside his bed pulled him from the first stage of sleep and he grabbed it with a reflex born of many such late calls. "Yeah," he answered. His wife slept on soundly.

  "You asleep already?" came the voice on the other end.

  "Just barely."

  "My wife said you asked me to call."

  "That's right." Sims looked at the glowing bedside clock. It read twenty past one. "Can you get together with me, Mary, and Waters at Clarkson's house in the morning?"

  "I can do that. Never been there. You?"

  "No, I haven't. Listen, this is sensitive. Keep it under your hat, okay?"

  "Sounds mysterious." Knowles paused a moment. "I went back to Trott's pigpen tonight. Thought I saw something, went back to check it out." He waited for Sims to say something about a search warrant and when none was forthcoming, continued. "Trott had a list of phone numbers scratched into the wall by the phone in the kitchen and guess whose was on the bottom of the list."

  After another silence, Sims said, "I'll bite. Whose?"

  "Harry A. Sloan's, that's whose. Just the number, though. No name next to it. Now what do you suppose those two would have to talk about?"

  "That's what we have to discuss tomorrow." Sims was a go-by-the-rules guy and asked the next que
stion reluctantly. "Anything else?"

  "Yeah. There was a black t-shirt on the floor upstairs with what looked like blood on the right shoulder, right about where that leather jacket had a hole. I left it there for someone with a warrant to find it. And I shut the back door, keep the kids out."

  Sims digested this information. "See you at eight." As he hung up the phone, his daughters entered the house noisily and he got up to welcome them with his parental love and his cop's watchful eye.

  .

  Joey stayed until late at Louis' house, talking, drinking beer, and watching television, but demurred at staying the night. His choices of accommodation there were to sleep on the living room couch or in a recliner in the t.v. room where Louis was presently snoring, one seat away. His own bed called to him and he crept home, surveying the area around his house carefully before quietly entering his rear door. With a flashlight taken from his truck, the truck he wasn't allowed to drive, he skulked throughout his home, checking the shadows for lurking gunmen. None were found, so he locked the doors, pulled the shades, and slipped into his bed, fully dressed. Resentment at having to feel insecure in his own home brought the image of Woody's boots standing outside of Sloan's door. Cold comfort came to him from the possibility that one or two other people might share an uneasy night, wondering if their lives were safe. Joey slept with his old little league bat next to him.

  Both Sloan and Adams took similar precautions before climbing into their beds, with the additional insurance provided by the major league gun each kept under their pillow.