“I’ve been told,” Atkins said, “that you spent some time with the kid.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought his father down.”
“He brought himself down.”
“What? Oh, sure. Sure. The thing is, you know, it seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, right? Like father like son and all that? You pick whatever cliche you want, because they all apply here.”
“I wouldn’t rush to that judgment.”
“What rush? He’s been adrift for damn near a decade now, floating all over the country without a job but with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cash.”
The supply was exhaustible—probably getting close to exhausted by now, actually—and Grady was well aware of its source. Frank’s father had been clever with his banking, setting up some hidden trusts and offshore accounts that his son could use. Frank, though, actually told Grady about their existence. Explained his father’s final conversation with him, which included information on the money. By the time the kid disclosed this, Grady was beginning to feel overwhelmed by his guilt, and the sort of trust Frank was showing made it worse. So instead of shutting the money down, as he should have, Grady merely warned Frank that he ought to separate himself from a bloody slush fund like that.
“I spent some time with him,” Grady said into the phone, “and he seemed to have his head on right.”
“Did you not hear me say I’ve got one dead up here already?”
“I heard that, and I understand what you’re looking at. But let’s not start painting Frank as the same as his father right away, all right? Not right away.”
The disbelief, tinged with disgust, was clear in Atkins’s voice as he said, “Yeah, when a contract killer’s son floats into town, wearing a gun and leaving bodies in his wake, I suppose he really could just be on a fishing trip.”
“He was wearing a gun?”
“Uh-huh. Smith & Wesson with his father’s initials engraved on the stock.”
Grady pressed his eyes shut. That was the suicide gun. “Tell me what you know, Atkins.”
“These guys from Miami, they showed up yesterday and attacked a woman who owns a body shop here. The same body shop where Temple’s car ended up after an accident a few miles north of town. Temple interceded—and I’ll admit that the woman hasn’t claimed any sense of familiarity between Temple and the pricks who went after her. But by the end of the day the cops somehow lost both of these guys, which takes some doing.”
“Why attack the body shop owner?”
“I’m getting to that. They went after her yesterday, then killed one of her employees today. Hung him off the front end of a car and cut his throat. Nasty scene. The way it looks is that they’ve lost track of Temple and figured the people at the body shop were the last who’d seen him, you know, the best chance of finding out where he went. There’s a guy named Vaughn Duncan involved, too, and supposedly these guys are interested in his car.”
“Who is Duncan?”
“A prison guard from Florida, part of this whole shit storm that’s come up north.”
“Frank’s not from Florida.”
“Maybe not, but his old man certainly had some ties down there. Duncan’s car was the one that had the tracking device. Allegedly.”
“And he’s a prison guard in Florida.”
“Was. Evidently he called in and quit a few days ago, no warning, no two-weeks notice, hasn’t even filled out the paperwork or met any of the usual requirements. The people down there are less than happy with Mr. Duncan. Seems he came into some serious cash about a year ago, too, source unknown. Guy’s working as a prison guard and driving a Lexus, you know something’s wrong.”
“What prison?”
“Coleman.”
“Which part of Coleman? It’s a big complex.”
There was a rustle of papers and then Atkins said, “Phase One. That mean something to you?”
Yes, it certainly did. Manuel DeCaster was locked up in Coleman Phase One. He was the big boss, the ruthless bastard who’d employed Frank’s father, probably still employed Devin Matteson. This was not good news.
“Well,” Atkins said. “You got any ideas? Anything I should be checking out?”
As an FBI agent, as a law enforcement officer, Grady had to tell him. Had to drop that Matteson name and news of the recent shooting, fill Atkins in on the back story. He needed to draw connections for Atkins, get the investigation rolling in the direction it clearly needed to go in. But he couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not without talking to Frank. So for the second time in his Bureau career—and the second time involving Frank Temple III—Grady ignored those professional obligations, ignored his oath. In the end, he settled for a cop-out. Not a bold-faced lie, but a delay.
“I’m not sure,” he told Atkins, “but I know some people I can ask. Let me call around a bit and get back to you.”
Atkins seemed satisfied with that. Probably more so than he would have been if he’d known the first person Grady was going to call was Frank himself.
He still had the number, but when he called, all he got was an error message saying it had been disconnected. One perk of working for the FBI, though—if the kid had a number, Grady could find it.
He called Helen next, canceled the date with what he hoped she knew was a sincere apology, and then headed for the office. Another perk of working for the FBI—when you told a woman a work emergency had come up, she tended to believe you.
He thought about Devin Matteson as he drove, about that blood debt he’d chosen not to mention to Atkins. Grady could remember a day, maybe two months after the suicide, when young Frank told him quite emphatically that his father had never killed a good man.
Grady had argued with him that day, told Frank that no one was entitled to make a character judgment that ended another man’s life—but what had he told himself, not long after that conversation, to justify the misconception he was allowing to flourish?
Devin Matteson was a bad man. That’s what he told himself. Devin Matteson was an evil bastard of the first order, a killer and drug runner and thief, as corrupt as they got. So who cared if the kid thought Devin was the one who’d given up his father? Who cared if he thought Devin was the one who had, essentially, put the gun barrel into his father’s mouth?
Nobody cared. Allowing him to think those things couldn’t do any harm, really, so long as Frank knew better than to take action, seek retribution.
For a long time, Grady had been sure he knew better.
It was a good thing, Ezra Ballard decided as he looked at the clock for the fifth time in ten minutes, that he’d never had children. He wouldn’t have done well with the constant worry.
He’d left the note on Frank’s door at two that afternoon, stopping by the cabin to find that Frank was missing, which wasn’t a surprise until Ezra noticed the boat was on the beach. If he wasn’t fishing and he had no car, where’d he gone? A walk, maybe. That was the only answer. Ezra scrawled a note and used a fishhook to fasten it to the door, then left expecting to hear from his friend’s son within a few hours.
It was dark now, had been for thirty minutes at least, and the phone hadn’t rung. Ezra actually lifted it from its handset a few times, just to check the dial tone. He wished the kid would call. There was something riding the air today that Ezra didn’t like, something that had taken his mind for most of the day, left him distracted, answering questions only after they’d been repeated. The woman had been in the water again this morning, that beautiful woman swimming alone in the cold lake. No sign of the gray-haired companion, no movement from the car hidden in the trees. Maybe that was good. Maybe they were nobodies, nothing to worry about.
He couldn’t believe that anymore, though. Not after hearing Frank’s story about the attack on Nora Stafford, two men with guns arriving in pursuit of a car whose driver had now joined that woman.
Whoever this gray-haired son of a bitch on the island was, he couldn’t be anyone Ezra wanted around. Now Temple’s boy was at risk, and that sweetheart of a girl who’d taken over Bud Stafford’s shop, and none of that was
