A man’s voice: “Dr. Turnbull?”
“Who is this? Where’s Karen?” In his panic, Nat imbued the man’s words with a heavy accent and the worst of intentions.
“This is Sergeant Wilcox, Wightman Police. Your daughter’s fine, and the suspect is in custody. Would you like to speak to her?”
“Yes.” The clouds lifted. The storm passed. Nat exhaled with something between a laugh and a sob. “Put her on, please.”
He sank with relief onto the narrow bed. For the moment, history had decided to give him a pass.
TWENTY-SIX
Nat didn’t calm down until two hours into his flight across the Atlantic. A call from Holland an hour after the break-in hadn’t exactly helped matters.
“Where were your men?” Nat asked right away.
“We had just canceled the detail. When a week passed and no one came poking around, we figured they must not be interested. If it’s any comfort, it was your papers they wanted. They weren’t after Karen.”
“I guess that’s why he came through the window, chasing her.”
“He thought she was a nosy neighbor. He didn’t even know anyone was home.”
“What are you, his attorney?”
“Look, I’m sorry. We screwed up, but it worked out. We even got your phone back. Any way you look at it, it’s another player off the board.”
“But how many are still on it?”
Silence.
Nat hung up before Holland could ask for an update. The news of his trip to Florida could wait. Holland’s German surrogates were probably still following him anyway.
Karen, at least, was now safely accounted for. Nat had asked Viv Wolfe to take her in for the rest of the evening, and Viv had seemed grateful to have someone else’s needs to attend to.
“Just keep her away from Gordon’s cognac,” he said. “On second thought, maybe she could use a shot. I’ve talked to her mom. She’ll come by for her at noon.”
“Susan, you mean? As in, your ex-wife and the woman I’ve known for twenty years?”
“Yes, Susan. Karen will be staying with her in Pittsburgh till I’m back for good. Hopefully with some better goddamn security.”
“You never should have relied on those people, Nat. Not that they’ve stopped keeping an eye on me, of course. Every time I go to the bank it’s like a presidential motorcade.”
Karen, for her part, tried to act like the whole thing had been some wacky summer adventure. But Nat wasn’t fooled. She was even too flustered to come up with an appropriate verse-although not for lack of trying. As she spoke by phone from the back of a police cruiser, Nat was amazed to hear her turning pages of a book.
“Did you actually take The Complete Poems with you when you left the house?”
“It’s the one thing I had time to grab before I jumped out the window.”
“Next time try for a butcher knife.”
He finally mastered his own emotions about the time the stewardess brought his second complimentary drink-he had upgraded to business class, figuring the FBI owed him at least that much. But his day never quite got back on track. When he landed in Miami he discovered that his connection was canceled and another flight wasn’t available for hours. He didn’t pull into the parking lot of the Sea Breeze Motor Lodge in Daytona until almost midnight. Jet-lagged, he then slept until 10 a.m.
He awoke to realize that the room was a bit more depressing than he’d bargained for, with rust spots and torn wallpaper. At least there was a balcony with a sliding door to let in the salt breeze and the sound of the breakers, and when he flipped back the curtains there were no lurking Iranians or prying lawmen. Just him, alone with his rattled nerves and a lingering sense of foreboding.
Or so he thought until he left for breakfast.
Standing on the breezeway was Berta Heinkel, smoking a cigarette and wearing an unseasonable sweater. She spoke before Nat could recover from the shock.
“What time are you going to see him?” she asked.
“How long have you been here?”
“Since seven. Answer my question. When is your appointment with Murray Kaplan?”
“How in the hell do you know that name? When did you fly over? How’d you even know where to find me?”
“Like you said, I am a woman of many talents. I simply put one of them to use. Haven’t you wondered why your laptop is so sluggish?”
It took him a few seconds to add it up.
“Jesus, what did you do, put something on that farewell e-mail?”
“A spyware program that sent me your keystrokes. But at least I have the decency to tell you. I’ll even clean it out for you. Interested in breakfast?”
Amazing. She was better than either the FBI or the ham-handed Iranians. And as he watched her trying to maintain her coolness, he couldn’t help but have mixed emotions. Sure, he was angry. But he also pitied her. She looked tired, beleaguered. The cloud of cigarette smoke lent her features the wispy grayness of an apparition, some Euro ghost far removed from its usual haunts. He was beginning to understand why, now that he knew more about her background as a zealous teen. She had been duped by the state into believing that snooping was not just okay but a civic duty. Then her grandmother had died before she could apologize, or maybe even before she realized that she
“Well? Are you hungry or not? And I really will fix your laptop for you. But only if I’m allowed to sit in on your talk with Kaplan. I’m following you out there, either way, so you might as well let me.”
Nat shook his head, half in amazement, half in exasperation.
“C’mon, then. The appointment’s at noon. We’ll talk about it while we eat.”
The best they could do was a Denny’s, but at least it wasn’t crowded. And was it his imagination or was the fellow at the next table the same guy he had just seen back at the Sea Breeze? At least he wasn’t Middle Eastern, and there was certainly no law against eating at the same place as another motel guest. Maybe he was an FBI tail. Or maybe Nat was just getting paranoid.
Berta left to use the washroom, and Nat took the opportunity to phone Willis Turner for an update. He got a recording instead, and when he started to leave a message the tape ran out. Typical, he supposed, but it left him a little unsettled. Mickey Mouse town or not, Turner didn’t seem like the type who went very long without checking in.
“Hand me your laptop,” Berta said as she slid back into their booth. He hesitated. For all he knew, she would install something even more intrusive. “You can watch, if you like. Maybe you’ll even learn something.”
He took her up on the offer and moved to her side of the booth, looking over her shoulder as she worked. He was mildly unsettled to find that he still found it arousing to be this close, bunched up against the softness beneath her sweater.
She tutted at the state of his security software.
“You’re about three years overdue for an update. You made it way too easy for some snoop to get in.”
You should know, he thought, wondering again what must be in her Stasi file. Their eggs arrived just as she finished, and he moved back to his side of the table with a sense of relief.
“Tell me the background on Kaplan,” she said.
“Don’t you already know?”
“All I learned from your keystrokes was that you Googled his name and made travel arrangements to come see him. In that sense, I suppose I am still at your mercy.”
