“It’s what had to be done.”
“I still don’t-I can’t …”
“You don’t like it? Fine. At least you’re still here to not like it and I’m still here to deal with that.”
“Did that man follow us here?”
“He must have. I kept a pretty close watch this morning as we left town, and didn’t spot anyone. But they could have used multiple cars phoning back and forth, falling away and replacing each other.”
“I feel sick.”
“Do what you have to do and let’s get out of here.”
“Aren’t you going to call the police?”
“No.”
“But we have to.”
“If we do, I’ll spend the next twelve hours at some police station, trying to explain this to a county sheriff or state trooper. Now that David is-gone, I have to think of another way to get Jenn. I need to stay out and moving.”
“We can’t just leave him here.”
“We have to.”
Her eyes filled with tears and the muddy streaks grew darker. “It’s his body, Jonah. It has to be prepared the proper way.”
“We’ll call from the road, okay? First pay phone we see.”
“I have my cell.”
“They can trace that. We’ll call from the road and the authorities will find him and contact his parents. He will have a proper burial, the Orthodox way. They’ll wash him and wrap him and they’ll sit over him until his father gets here. Now you have to stand up and walk with me to the car. Drive back to Boston and help me with one more thing.”
“What help have I been so far? Other than leading that man right to David?”
“I need to get close to Marc McConnell.”
“The congressman? Why?”
“To show him a picture.”
“Of what?”
I didn’t say. She’d only hate me more. I walked her back through the house and into the car and then hurried back to the dunes with my camera.
CHAPTER 27
Whatever hope I had felt on the drive up was gone, replaced by crashing waves of shock and anxiety as powerful as those that had hammered the ocean shore. David Fine was dead. My one lifeline to Jenn had been cut. Shana looked like she was going into shock, huddled in her seat as we sped back across the causeway that connected the island to the mainland.
His father had hired me to find David. To bring him back safely if I could. Instead, it seemed, I had led a killer right to him. And the head that had housed his beautiful mind, his stirring ambition, had been blown apart in front of me.
I called Ryan as soon as we were back on the turnpike going south. He was in the same cafe we’d been in the day before, watching the entrance to Williams Wharf. On his fourth coffee and about to take his third piss, he was saying, when I cut him off and told him about David’s murder.
“Christ, are you okay?”
“I’m hanging in. Barely. He was my best hope for finding Jenn.”
“We’ll find her, Geller. You and me.”
“Did you hear from your guy about reinforcements?”
“He’s working on it.”
“That’s it?”
“This isn’t a guy I can push around. He has status. And he has to be careful he doesn’t piss off all the Irish and start a war over this.”
“Tell him no war. Just one guy.”
“Let me see what he says when he calls back. And first chance you get, check under your car. Maybe it was more than a tail that found you.”
I hung up. Shana was turned away from me, her head against her window with her hands beneath her cheek. I don’t know if she was trying to fall asleep or just didn’t want me to see her grieving. Or didn’t want to see me at all.
The first gas station we came to had a full-size market attached. I parked at the far end of its lot and checked the bottom of the car. Within arm’s length past the left rear wheel was a transponder the size of a cassette, held to the chassis by a firm magnet. Ryan had told me if I found one, to note the make and model before ditching it. I did. Then I used a pay phone on the wall outside to call 911 and report possible gunfire on Plum Island. I refused to give my name, just said I was a resident who didn’t want trouble with his neighbours. “Might just have been backfire, or out-of-season hunting, but I thought you should check out around the Cooper house. Damned if it didn’t sound like it was coming from the beach.”
I hung up, keeping my back to the security cameras over the door, and went back to the car. The silence between Shana and me hung there like a makeshift curtain. I pulled up to the pumps and topped up our gas, scanning the pavement around the pumps for large oil stains. “Hey, buddy,” I said to a guy filling a minivan with New Hampshire plates. He had on neat slacks and a blazer, looked like he was going to church or a family dinner. “Looks like you might be leaking oil.”
He looked at the dark stain under his car and said, “Darn it.” He hiked his slacks above the ankles and started to get down on one knee to check and I said, “You know what? Let me. My jeans are already wrecked.”
He looked at the wet marks on my knees from when I’d searched my own car.
“You sure?” he said. “Thanks.”
“You want to grab me one of those paper towels?” I asked.
He turned to the pump, where a roll of paper towels hung in a dispenser above a bucket of grimy windshield-washer fluid. As soon as his back was to me I slipped the transponder in roughly the same spot on his chassis as it had been on mine. When he came back with the towel, I stood up, brushed myself off and used the towel to wipe my hands.
“Don’t see anything,” I said. “Probably from some guy before you.”
Back on the highway, I wondered how long it would take for David’s death to become official. Once his identity was confirmed, the news would quickly make its way to Gianelli. Same with Betts and Simenko in Boston. It being Sunday, they’d be off duty, but as soon as they heard of his murder, they’d contact whatever local enforcement, state or county, was in charge of the investigation. And they’d start looking for me. I had no desire to spend time in Brookline right now. The worst part for me was that Gianelli would have to be the one to break the news to David’s parents. I felt I ought to do it, but I couldn’t without admitting I’d been there. Someday I’d tell them, but not now. Not while I needed to stay free looking for Jenn.
We got back to the Sam Adams around nine-thirty. Shana went into the bathroom to wash her face. I scanned the TV news channels for first reports on David’s shooting. But there was nothing about the roar of guns disturbing quiet Plum Island.
Someone was going to pay for killing David. And for using me to find him. Maybe I couldn’t have stopped it. But I also could have been more careful. Daggett had fooled me but good. I had been so sure he still wanted David alive, at least until Monday, to assist in another surgery. I hadn’t expected anything to happen today. The Beretta was all that had saved us.
Was my head still clouded from the concussion? Had I been too distracted to consider all the possibilities?
I called Gianelli from the hotel phone, knowing it would go to his voice mail on a Sunday morning. After the
