Brennan is, as we speak, en route to Winwood Farm, and this time, you may be sure he will arrive there.”
Herbie felt enormously relieved. “I can’t thank you enough, Mike.”
“Tell you what, Herbie,” Freeman said, “since we were able to wrap this up so quickly, I won’t bill Woodman and Weld for our services. Why don’t you call Bill Eggers and give him the good news? Use the phone over there.” He pointed to a coffee table.
Herbie went to the phone and called Eggers.
“Hello, Herbert,” Eggers said. “This had better be good news.”
“Bill,” Herbie replied, “Dink Brennan is on his way back to Winwood Farm.”
“Well, that is good news! How did you manage it?”
“I don’t think I need to go into the details, Bill. Suffice it to say that everything you asked me to do has been done, and in very short order. And I have to tell you, I don’t appreciate the threat implicit in your earlier statement.”
There was dead silence at the other end of the line.
“Goodbye, Bill. I won’t be coming back to the office today.” Herbie hung up.
Mike Freeman was laughing. “Something else I like about you, Herbie-you have an enormous set of brass balls.”
9
Stone and Dino met at P.J. Clarke’s bar and had their usual drinks, Knob Creek bourbon for Stone and Johnnie Walker Black Label scotch for Dino. Dino looked troubled.
“What’s the matter, pal, are you still grieving for Elaine’s?”
“Well, yes,” Dino replied, “but that’s not what’s bothering me now.”
“What is?”
“I’ve had another call from Shelley Bach,” Dino said.
“What did she have to say for herself?”
“She has nothing to say for herself,” Dino replied. “That’s the problem. She doesn’t seem to think she’s done anything wrong.”
“Even after murdering five people?”
“Even after that.”
“There’s a word for that: sociopath. Someone without a conscience.”
“I know that,” Dino said testily.
“Next time, just hang up on her.”
“Trouble is, I didn’t,” Dino said.
“How long did you talk?”
“Not long. She wanted to come over to my place.”
“She may be a sociopath, but she’s not crazy. Why would she want to risk that?”
“Maybe because she believed I wouldn’t turn her in.”
Stone cleared his throat of the bourbon he had nearly inhaled. “Why would she believe that?”
“Because I didn’t turn her in.”
“Wait a minute, Dino, are you saying that she came to your apartment?”
Dino just nodded.
“And you didn’t call anybody? Nine-one-one, the FBI, anybody?”
Dino shook his head.
“Listen to me, pal, you need to take a hike to the nearest post office and take a look at the ten-most-wanted list. You won’t have any trouble finding her there, she’s right at the top.”
“You think I don’t know that, Stone?”
“I know you, Dino, and I know that you are all cop, that you would turn in your mother if she was wanted for five murders.”
Dino shrugged. “I wasn’t all that crazy about my mother.”
“But you’re crazy about Shelley Bach?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Dino said disconsolately.
“Funny, I never noticed that when we met her in Washington.”
“You didn’t notice, because you were in your room screwing Holly Barker while Shelley and I were in my room, fucking our brains out. We didn’t have all that much opportunity to talk.”
“I suppose that’s so,” Stone agreed. “We were both pretty busy at the time.”
“Busier than I’ve ever been in my whole life,” Dino said. “We were fucking at least twice a day every day we were there.”
“That’s a tough schedule, Dino. You’re in better shape than I thought.”
The headwaiter summoned them for their table, and they followed him into the back room, where they were seated.
“Tell me,” Stone said, “in the moments when you weren’t raping each other, what did you talk about? Did Shelley even mention the murders?”
“Nope. It’s like they never happened. I asked her how she got away so clean, and she said that she had started making arrangements not long after we arrived in D.C. She’s a very smart woman. You know that guy from Boston, Whitey Bulger, that the FBI caught not long ago?”
“Sure, it was all over the TV and the papers.”
“The FBI spent sixteen years hunting him, and she worked on the case for the last couple of years. I think she learned a lot about how fugitives disappear.”
“I guess getting lost is an art,” Stone said.
“You bet your ass it is. Just think about all the ways there are to get caught these days, what with cell phone tracing and security cameras everywhere and the Internet. It doesn’t seem possible that somebody could just get lost, but that’s what she’s done.”
“But now she’s made a mistake,” Stone pointed out. “She’s contacted you.”
Dino shook his head slowly.
“Dino, do I need to point out that abetting a fugitive can end your career and get you some serious time? What are you going to do if she kills somebody else? Then you’re in deep shit.”
“I don’t think she will,” Dino said. “She killed the first one in a rage and the others to cover it up. She doesn’t have to cover up anything anymore.”
“Dino, you’re playing a very dangerous game here.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“How about this: the next time she contacts you, tell her not to get in touch again, because you’ll have to turn her in. That would put you pretty much in the clear.”
“That’s a good idea, Stone. When I get home tonight, I’ll tell her just that.”
“You mean she’s in your apartment right now?”
“I told her I was going out with you, so she ordered a pizza.”
“Dino, promise me you’ll drop-kick her right into the street, first thing in the morning.”
“I will,” Dino said. “If I can.”
10
Herbie was in his cubicle at Woodman amp; Weld at seven-thirty the following morning. He emptied his briefcase of the files he had worked on at home until midnight the night before, then walked up one level to one of the two partners’ floors, to Karla Martin’s office. Karla had a well-deserved reputation as the toughest partner in the firm where the treatment of associates was concerned.
