“Two men,” he said. “One tall, thin, blond. The other stocky, dark. Both midthirties.”
“Benning and Dougherty,” I said. “What were they doing?”
“Watching television, eating popcorn. Very domestic.”
“See any surveillance monitors?”
“Nothing.”
I wiped rainwater from my eyes. “For a man fanatical about his privacy, Wellington’s awfully slack with security.”
“He’s been hiding out here for six years,” Schanno said. “Maybe at some point, rigorous security no longer became necessary. He’s established a reputation. Substitutes virtual dogs for real dogs. Pares down his security force to a gay couple who don’t mind the isolation. Saves a lot of money that way.”
“And with a greeting committee like Morrissey, not many people want to take the chance of coming here unannounced. It fits, but…” I shook my head.
“You don’t like the feel of it?”
“Do you?”
“Why don’t we get inside and ask the man himself. Got a plan for how to do that?”
As a matter fact, I did.
FORTY
Several red maples had been planted in the clearing long ago, probably to provide shade for the mansion. They were magnificent things that in the fall would be on fire. Now they were thick with dark green summer leaves, and their wet branches flailed in the wind.
Schanno and Meloux followed me to the nearest tree.
“I need to cut a limb,” I said, pointing up at the wealth of branches above us. “Give me a boost, Wally.”
“Give you a boost?”
“You know.” I intertwined my fingers and made a stirrup.
“How about you do the boosting for me?” he suggested.
Meloux said, “You could both lift me. A sparrow weighs more.”
“You sure you’d be okay climbing this tree, Henry?”
He looked at me as if I was a hopeless idiot. “I am old, not feeble. You treat me like thin ice that will break. I will not break, Corcoran O’Connor.”
“All right, Henry.”
I took the sheathed knife from the knapsack and handed it to him.
“We need a branch strong enough to break a window. And it can’t look as if it’s been cut from the tree. It needs to look like the wind tore it loose.”
“I understand,” the old man said.
We stirruped our hands, Schanno and I, and lifted Meloux so that he could grasp the lower branches and pull himself into the maple. He spent a few minutes lost in the foliage, then a good stout branch, thick as my wrist, dropped to the ground.
“Will that do?” he called.
“Great, Henry. Come on down.”
We helped him from the tree. He handed me the knife. I put it in the knapsack and gave the little pack to Schanno.
“You two get back to the cover of the pines,” I told them. “I’ll join you in a minute.”
They slipped out of the clearing and I turned to the house. I knew the window I wanted: ground floor, above the patio in back, out of sight of the guesthouse. It was odd that the security on the estate was so lax, but I couldn’t believe that there wouldn’t be some sort of security system for the house itself. We’d see.
The patio was large and edged with a knee-high stone wall. There were stone benches and a couple of flower beds of irregular shape. The beds had been long in need of tending. I stepped over the wall and came at the window quickly with the “broken” end of the branch aimed at the center of the frame. The glass shattered and an alarm sounded inside. I left the branch stuck in the window among the shards of glass that jutted out from the frame and I leaped over the wall. As I hightailed it toward the pines, floodlights kicked on, illuminating the outside of the house in a blaze of white. Inside the mansion, all the lights seemed to come on, too, as if the whole household had been roused by the intrusion. From the direction of the guesthouse came the vicious barking of a pack of dogs.
I stood in the trees with Meloux and Schanno. I hoped Schanno’s speculation about the virtual nature of the guard dogs was right, and we weren’t simply waiting for them to attack and tear us apart.
In a couple of minutes, Benning and Dougherty appeared, nosing around the house. Each held a handgun and a flashlight whose feeble beams were consumed by the blaze of the floodlights. They were alone. No dogs. They found the offending branch and stood a few minutes in discussion. Benning looked around. His gaze settled on the nearest maple. He pointed toward it and said something to his partner. They studied the window some more. Finally Dougherty reached up and pulled the branch out of the window frame. Some of the remaining glass must have come with it because they both danced back. Dougherty stayed while Benning went back to the guesthouse.
After his partner had gone, Dougherty began examining the branch. He took a close look at the white wood where the “break” had occurred. He studied the patio under the window, crossed the wall, and walked to the maple tree, which was outside the glare of the lights. He shined his flashlight up among the branches, then dropped the beam and scanned the wet ground. Finally he shot the light toward the woods. Schanno, Meloux, and I each cozied up to the nearest tree trunk.
“Hey!”
I held my breath and wondered if Dougherty would actually use his firearm, and if he did, whether he would be any good.
“Hey, get back here, give me a hand with this window. I’m getting soaked, damn it.”
The light swung away. A few moments later I risked a peek. Dougherty was walking back to the patio where Benning waited with a roll of opaque sheet plastic, a red toolbox, and an aluminum stepladder. The men spent a few minutes cutting a piece of the plastic and fitting it over the window. They used a staple gun to affix it to the frame. When they were finished, they gathered up their tools and materials and hurried back toward the guesthouse.
Schanno, Meloux, and I joined forces and waited a bit before approaching the house again.
“You notice anything strange?” I said.
Schanno kept his eyes on the corner of the mansion where Benning and Dougherty had disappeared. “Like what?”
“Wellington didn’t come down to check the damage.”
“That’s what he has security for. Besides, he’s an odd one. Rabid about germs. Probably doesn’t want all that dirty fresh air and rain getting on him. Could be he’s hiding in a safe room somewhere.”
A safe room. I hadn’t thought about that. Terrific. Just terrific. The floodlights died. The dogs fell silent. The dark and the quiet that followed were a great relief. Inside the house, the lights that had blazed on with the alarm shut off all at the same time, but the rooms upstairs and down that had been lit before stayed lit. On the second floor, the slow progression of lights resumed.
Wellington was out and about again, restless as ever. So much for a safe room.
“Once more, dear friends, into the breach,” Schanno said.
“You do that just to impress us?” I asked.
Schanno smiled sheepishly. “It’s what happens when you live your whole life with a smart schoolteacher.”
“Ready, Henry?” I said.
The old man nodded and we left the woods. On the patio, I took the knife from my knapsack and handed it to Henry.
