cell phone with you, but switch it off. Then switch it back on again exactly thirty minutes from now.?
?What? Why thirty minutes??
?Because I'm going to call you back and give you some instructions. I have to make some arrangements first. Don?t forget to switch off your phone. The people who?who hurt Tim?can use that phone to track you down.?
?Oh, God. Oh?I knew it. I told him not to do anything.?
?Julia! Don?t say anything else. Don?t trust anyone Tim didn't mention specifically. And don'?t come home. Don?t even think about it. I'm there now, and the place has been torn to pieces.? I glance at my watch as Julia whimpers incomprehensibly. ?I'?ll call you back at one thirty-five. I'm hanging up now.?
It?s hard to do, but I press END and run for my car. My hand is on the doorknob when two police cars roar around the bend of Maplewood and screech to a stop behind me. A blue-white spotlight hits my face and a harsh voice speaks over the car?s PA system.
?Stop right there! Put your hands up and step away from the vehicle!?
I feel no fear at this order, only anger and impatience. And curiosity. I haven'?t had time to call the chief and tell him that Jessup?s house was broken into. It might make sense that Logan would send
someone to make sure I?d informed the widow?or even to search Jessup?s house?but to see a brace of squad cars wheeling around Maplewood as though responding to a home invasion is more than a little surprising. Yet all I can think about as two cops approach is how I'm going to get Julia to safety.
?Who are you and what are you doing here?? barks the first cop.
?I'm Mayor Penn Cage. I came here to inform Julia Jessup that her husband was killed tonight. Chief Logan can confirm that, and you?d better call him right now. I don'?t have all night to stand out here talking.?
The cop on my left looks closer at me, then taps his partner on the upper arm. ?It?s okay. He?s the mayor.?
?You sure?? asks the second guy.
?What the fuck, am I
? My dad went to school with the guy, dude.?
On another night I would ask the young cop who his father is, but not this time. ?Guys, I?'ve got to go. Somebody took that house apart. You need to lock it down. Don?t let anybody inside.?
?The wife?s not here?? asks the young cop.
I answer him while climbing in to my car. ?Still trying to find her. I'?ll update the chief later.?
I jerk the Saab into gear and head back to Highway 61. I can be at my house on Washington Street in less than five minutes, and I need a plan of action by the time I get there. Julia could come apart in less time than that, and a wrong move on her part could be fatal. But my options are almost nonexistent. All the resources I would normally use in this kind of situation have been placed out of bounds by Tim?s warnings. Last night I wasn'?t sure his caution was warranted, but after seeing the condition of his body and the state of his house, I have no intention of risking the lives of his wife and son on assumptions.
I?'ve called on other, private resources in extraordinary situations, but none are ready to hand tonight. The man I trust most to help me in a crisis is in Afghanistan, working for a security contractor based in Houston. His company may have some operators Stateside who could help protect Julia, but none would be any closer than Houston?seven hours away by car.
Most people who felt they couldn'?t trust local law enforcement
would probably call the FBI, but that option presents problems for me. Seven years ago I forced the resignation of the Bureau?s director, when I proved that he?d been involved in the cover-up of a civil rights murder in Natchez in 1968. That won me few admirers in the Bureau (open ones, anyway) and made me a liability to the field agents I?d befriended during my successful career as an assistant district attorney in Houston.
I shout, pounding the wheel in frustration.
It?s like screaming inside a bell jar, but at least my outburst gives vent to the rage and frustration that have been building since I saw Tim?s body. Closing my right hand into a fist, I pound the passenger seat until my wrist aches. When the national park at Melrose Plantation flashes by, I realize I'm driving eighty?forty miles an hour over the speed limit.
I tell myself, remembering my father, who becomes calmer the more dire the medical emergency. When everything is at risk, good judgment, not haste, makes the difference between life and death.
My decision to run every stop sign on Washington Street is perfectly rational. They are four-way stops, and unless someone else is doing the same thing I am at exactly the same place and time, I have enough visual clearance to safely jump the intersections.
I park on the street, exit my car, and move toward the house in continuous motion, my mind in flux. Taking the porch steps at a near run, I notice that the cast-iron lamp hanging above me is out. Mom must have inadvertently switched it off. That isn?t like her, but I don'?t have time to worry about personal inconsistencies tonight. I'm slipping my key into the lock when a man?s voice speaks from the shadows to my right.
?That?ll do, Mr. Cage. Stand easy where you are. No need to disturb the women.?
I fight the urge to whirl toward the sound. I?'ve tried too many cases where people were shot because they saw the face of someone who didn't want to be remembered. Yet from the voice alone, I'm almost certain that the man in the shadows is Seamus Quinn, the security chief on the
I?'ve never heard an Irish accent like Quinn?s outside the movies, and even then only in Irish-made films.
?What do you want me to do?? I ask.
?I want you to listen. It?s all right to turn. I
you to see.?
By now my eyes have adapted to the darkness, so when I turn, I see enough to register how wrong I was: The face staring at me out of the shadows belongs not to Seamus Quinn, but to his boss, Jonathan Sands.
I think,
Gone is the refined English accent of the
?s general manager, replaced by a coarse, working-class Irish accent identical to that possessed by Quinn. Then it hits me: I'm looking at Sands, but it was Quinn who spoke.
I glance past Sands, but all I register is something low and pale in the blackness behind him, like a crouching animal.
Sands moves his hand slightly, which pulls my eyes back to him, and then I see his gun, a small but efficient- looking automatic held at waist level.
?Easy now, darlin?,? he says. ?I only brought this wee pipe so I don'?t have to lay hands on you.?
With a start I realize it was Sands who spoke the first time. He?s simply speaking with Seamus Quinn?s voice rather than the cultured English accent he doles out for public consumption. I only know about British accents because my sister, Jenny, lives in England. She went to Britain as a visiting professor of literature at Trinity College, dated a Dubliner for several years, then married an Englishman and settled in Bath. For this reason, what would sound like a British accent to most other Southerners sounds like Belfast to me, and it tells me I know a lot less about Jonathan Sands than I thought I did. Tonight he sounds like a cross between Bono and the lead singer of the Pogues.
?You?re not English,? I murmur, trying to get my mind around it. ?You?re
?
?As Paddy?s goat, Your Honor,? he says, chuckling softly. ?But let?s keep that between us, eh??
