Last to Die

Roman snorted. “No one here but me.”

“None of the students?”

“No one’s put in enough time. Or had the training.”

“How did you get your training?”

“Taught myself.”

“And you hunt with only a bow? Never a rifle?”

“Don’t like rifles.”

“Why not? Seems like a rifle would be a lot easier when you’re hunting deer.”

Sansone cut in: “I think Mr. Roman’s told you what you wanted to know.”

“It’s a simple question. Why won’t he use a rifle?” The detective stared at Roman, waiting for a response.

“You don’t need to answer any more questions, Roman,” said Sansone. “Not without a lawyer.”

Roman sighed. “No, I’ll answer it. Seems to me he already knows about me, anyway.” He met the cop’s gaze head-on. “Twenty-five years ago, I killed a man.”

In that silence, Maura’s sharp intake of breath made the cop finally look at her. “Dr. Isles, would you mind stepping outside? I’d like to continue this interview in private.”

“Let her stay, I don’t care,” said Roman. “Better to have it all out right now, so there’s no secrets. Never wanted to keep it a secret anyway.” He looked at Sansone. “Even though you thought it best.”

“You know about this, Mr. Sansone?” the cop asked. “And you employ him here anyway?”

“Let Roman tell you the circumstances,” said Sansone. “He deserves to be heard, in his own words.”

“Okay. Let’s hear it, Mr. Roman.”

The forester crossed to the window and pointed at the hills. “I grew up there, just a few miles past that ridge. My grandfather was the caretaker here, looked after the castle since way back, before it became a school. No one was living here then, just an empty building, waiting for a buyer. Naturally, there were trespassers. Some of ’em just come in to hunt and leave. They’d bag their deer and go. But some of ’em, they came to make trouble. Smash windows, set the porch on fire. Or worse. You run into ’em, you didn’t know which kind you were dealing with …”

He took a breath. “I ran into him over there, coming out of the woods. There was no moon that night. He just suddenly appeared. Big fella, carrying a rifle. We saw each other and he raised his gun. I don’t know what he was thinking. I’ll never know. All I can tell you is, I reacted on pure instinct. Shot him in the chest.”

“With a gun.”

“Yes, sir. Shotgun. Took him right down. He was probably dead within five breaths.” Roman sat down, looking a decade older, his hands resting on his knees. “I’d just turned eighteen. But I guess you knew that.”

“I called in a background check.”

Roman nodded. “No secret around these parts. Thing is, he was no saint, even if he was a doctor’s kid. But I killed him, so I went to jail. Four years, manslaughter.” Roman looked down at his hands, scarred from years of outdoor labors. “I never picked up a shotgun again. That’s how I got so good with a bow.”

“Gottfried Baum hired him straight out of prison,” said Sansone. “There’s no better man.”

“He still has to come into town to sign a statement.” The cop turned to the forester. “Let’s go, Mr. Roman.”

“Headmaster Baum will make some calls, Roman,” said Sansone. “He’ll meet you in town. Don’t say a word, not until he gets there with an attorney.”

Roman followed the cop to the door and suddenly stopped to look at Sansone. “I don’t think I’ll be making it back here tonight. So I want to warn you that you’ve got a big problem here, Mr. Sansone. I know I didn’t kill that man. Which means you better find out who did.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

 

SUMMER FOG CLOAKED THE HIGHWAY TO PROVIDENCE, AND JANE craned forward, peering from behind the wheel at cars and trucks that glided ahead of them like ghosts in the mist. Today she and Frost were chasing yet another ghost, she thought, as the wiper swept the gray film from her windshield. The ghost of Nicholas Clock, Teddy’s father. Born in Virginia, graduate of West Point with a degree in economics, avid outdoorsman and sailor. Married with three children. Worked as a financial consultant at Jarvis and McCrane, a job that required frequent travel abroad. No arrests, no traffic tickets, no outstanding debts.

At least that was what Nicholas Clock looked like on paper. Solid citizen. Family man.

The mist swirled on the road ahead of them. There was nothing solid, nothing real. Nicholas Clock, like Olivia Yablonski, was a ghost, flitting quietly from country to country. And what did that mean, exactly, financial consultant? It was one of those vague job descriptions that conjured up businessmen in suits carrying briefcases, speaking the language of dollar signs. Ask a man what he does, and those two words, financial consultant, could make your eyes glaze over.

The same way medical supply sales rep could.

Beside her in the passenger seat, Frost answered his ringing cell phone. Jane glanced at him when he said, a moment later: “You’re kidding me. How the hell did that happen?”

“What?” she said.

He waved her off, kept his focus on the phone call. “So you never finished the analysis? There’s nothing else you can tell us?”

“Who is that?” she asked.

At last he hung up and turned to her, a stunned expression on his face. “You know that GPS tracker we pulled off the rental car? It’s vanished.”

“That was the lab calling?”

“They said it disappeared from the lab sometime last night. They got only a preliminary look at it. There was no manufacturer’s stamp, totally untraceable. State-of-the-art equipment.”

“Jesus. Obviously too state-of-the-art to stay in Boston PD’s hands.”

Frost shook his head. “Now I’m getting seriously freaked out.”

She stared at the spectral swirls of mist on the highway. “I’ll tell you who else is freaked out,” she said, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “Gabriel. Last night he was ready to tie me up and throw me in the closet.” She paused. “I sent Regina to stay with my mom this week. Just to be safe.”

“Can I hide with your mom, too?”

She laughed. “That’s what I like about you. You’re not afraid to admit you’re afraid.”

“So you’re not scared? Is that what you’re saying?”

She drove for a moment without answering, the wipers sweeping back and forth as she peered at a highway as misty as the future. She thought about planes falling from the sky, bullets shattering skulls, and sharks feeding on bodies. “Even if we are freaked out,” she said, “what choice do we have? When you’re already in neck-deep, the way out is to forge ahead and get to the end of this.”

By the time they reached the outskirts of Providence, the mist had thickened to drizzle. The address for Jarvis and McCrane was in the southeast corner of town, near the industrial waterfront, a bleak neighborhood of abandoned buildings and deserted streets. When they arrived at the address, Jane was already prepared for what they would find.

The two-story brick warehouse was flanked by vacant parking lots. She eyed faded swoops of graffiti and boarded-over first-floor windows and knew that this building had been vacant for months, if not years.

Frost surveyed the broken glass on the sidewalk. “Nicholas Clock financed a seventy-five-foot yacht working here?”

“Obviously this was not his primary place of business.” She pushed open her door. “Let’s take a look, anyway.”

They stepped out of the car, into a drizzle that made Jane zip her jacket and turn up her collar. The clouds hung so low, it seemed as if the sky itself was pressing down, trapping them in gloom. They crossed the street, broken glass crunching beneath their shoes, and found the entrance locked.