Presumption of Guilt (28 page)

Dan did his best to avoid Keith, a tactic made easier by the latter's tendency to hum loudly as he walked. Today, however, Dan was too lost in his thoughts, calculating some way to avoid a threat he couldn't even identify. In this, he was at a disadvantage—a man skilled at invading the privacy of others, he was less adapted to receiving such treatment.

“Hey, man,” Keith said loudly from behind, making him whirl around in surprise.

“Got ya, didn't I?” The big man smiled broadly. “You're a hard guy to pin down, the way you drift around like a ghost.”

“Just doin' my job,” Dan said quietly.

“Hell, I do my job,” Keith argued less convincingly. “But people see me doing it, too.” He laid a heavy paw on Dan's shoulder, making Dan shift away gently. “You're like—I don't know—invisible. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean no offense. Everybody says how neat and tidy you are—and a hard worker. I'm not sayin' that.”

“I understand,” Dan tried helping him to the finish line.

“It's just that most people make a big deal about what they do, you know? Not me, of course. I'm no show-off. Some people, you can't shut them up. It's all about them all the time, and before you know it, it's quittin' time and they haven't done a damn thing. You know what I mean?”

“I do.”

“I can't stand people like that—don't have no respect for 'em. People oughta put up and shut up, right? Do your job and don't make people pick up after you. I hate that, worst of all.”

Dan had returned to his mopping, allowing the flow of words to become more of a jumble than something to interpret, until Keith asked, after a pause, “You have a daughter, don't you?”

Dan straightened, the mop forgotten. “Why?”

“I was on Elliot Street, before coming to work. A guy walked up—real nice—and said he was trying to find this girl. He had some good news for her but no address, 'cause she moved. Called her Sally Kravitz, which is why I ask.”

“What did he look like?” Dan asked.

“I don't know—bald, white beard. New to me.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nuthin' to tell. I said I'd seen her around—that she was a local. I didn't tell him I knew you, Dan. I know when to keep my mouth shut. He just said thanks and left, anyhow…”

Keith finally stopped speaking, given that Dan was already halfway down the hallway, moving at a run.

*   *   *

Sally paused before the store window on Elliot, as she'd seen it done in the movies, and pretended to study the display, while actually studying the reflections of pedestrians behind her. She'd had no training in this, admittedly, but she still didn't see anyone who had an obvious interest in her. And this was the third time she'd checked since leaving their nearby hideaway, which added to her self-confidence.

With the passage of time, she'd begun to minimize her father's concerns, in any case. He was perpetually on the alert, after all—wary and compulsive, and she knew that she was his constant source of concern. She'd long ago come to see most of his worrying as baseless.

Plus, she was now on a mission. Occupying herself on the penthouse deck, she'd received a text from Kelly Doane, a friend from years ago, asking for help. Kelly had a propensity for getting jammed up, ever since Sally and she had hung out in junior high. This time, however, the tone of the message had an edge to it that caught even Sally's jaded attention. Stating, “I'm in real trouble and I don't know what to do. Please come,” it both invoked dire need and inspired immediate action—especially when there was no response to Sally's further inquiries.

She'd considered contacting Dan, of course, but ruled it out for several reasons, not the least of which were his own teachings about rendering aid to others, if possible. Also—more petulantly—she was feeling cooped up, however comfortably, and in need of some independence. Besides, Dan's worry that they might have been observed while lurking inside someone's house was hardly the end of the world. They'd worn masks, hadn't they?

She reached Kelly's apartment building, quickly entered the front door, next to a furniture store, and paused in the lobby to watch through the door's glass panel, as a final homage to her father's instructions. As before, no one passing seemed even vaguely curious.

Unburdened, she bounded up the narrow staircase to the third floor.

*   *   *

Dan pulled out his cell phone as he reached the hospital's parking lot.

“Good luck with that, buddy,” a man told him, entering the lobby.

Kravitz stared at him blankly.

“No coverage near the hospital,” the man finished, the sliding doors closing behind him.

Dan stood where he was, staring at the phone. He knew that. Here, as in so many small pockets across Vermont, coverage was thin to non-existent.

He dropped his hands to his sides and stared out into space. This was probably okay, he thought. Keith could hardly be considered reliable, and even if he was, Dan knew his daughter was popular. Why shouldn't someone be asking after her?

But a man in a white beard? Pitching the oldest line in existence—good news but no address? Such a crock. They are after her, probably to get to me. And they have our names.

Dan ran to his car to drive downtown, keeping his phone out for when he'd get reception. Sally always had her cell—he only prayed that she was available to answer him.

*   *   *

Sally traveled the dark and fetid corridor. The building was old and neglected, pockmarked with tiny, cheap apartments. Brattleboro was forever making strides to comb out such beehives of substandard housing, but it was an expensive and cumbersome process, and for the residents of such dives, the allure of price and invisibility overrode the obvious drawbacks. Kelly Doane, with her history of poor choices and worse luck, was a perfect inhabitant.

Sally reached her door and knocked. “Kelly? It's Sally.”

No answer.

She tried again.

This time, she heard a scraping, as from a chair being shifted. “Yes?”

“It's Sally,” she said, speaking louder, slightly irritated. “You said you needed help.”

“Come in.”

Sally raised her eyebrows. Well, by all means, don't open the door or anything.

She twisted the doorknob and stepped inside. Kelly was sitting at a table facing the far wall, her back to the door. “Hey,” Sally said. “What's up?”

Kelly's shoulders flinched slightly, but she didn't turn around.

Sally took two more steps. “Kelly, are you—?”

That's all she managed. In the same instant that she sensed a movement behind her, a large hand clapped across her mouth as a man told her softly, “Move and I slice your stomach open. Understand?”

She froze, feeling him pressed against her back, and something sharp poking her abdomen. Not a submissive person by instinct, she'd heard a self-confidence in that voice that scared her, and made her believe in the threat.

“I asked if you understood.”

She nodded.

“Good. Then let's get started.”

*   *   *

Linda Lucas entered her kitchen carrying a bag of groceries, mostly filled with canned soups and microwavable items. Recent events had ruined her appetite almost completely.

A man was sitting at her breakfast table, a steaming cup of coffee before him. He was about Johnny's age, but rougher in appearance—a little paunchy, and balding with a comb-over.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Hope you don't mind,” he said, indicating the cup.

She opened her mouth to no effect, and quickly looked around the room, like a bird searching for an open window.

The man stood up, took the bag, and placed it on the counter beside the sink. “Walter's my name. Johnny ever talk about me? From the old days?”

“What're you doing in my house?” she finally asked in a higher-than-usual voice.

“C'mon, Linda,” he said pleasantly. “I'm lookin' for Johnny.”

“He's not here.”

Walter smiled. “Yeah. I got that.”

“I don't know where he is. The police want to find him, too.”

“I bet.” Walter glanced around the kitchen. “You got a living room? Let's go there and talk.”

Linda tucked her chin in a little. “No. You need to leave.”

Walter approached her, standing too close for comfort. His voice remained at a soothing pitch. “What I need is to talk. In the living room. Now.”

She blinked. “All right, but then you should leave.”

He gestured politely for her to precede him through the door. “That I will.”

They entered the living room, where Walter directed her toward an armchair, into which she settled uneasily. He sat on the coffee table directly opposite her, his knees almost touching hers.

“Linda,” he began. “Listen carefully. Johnny's been up to things that could get him into hot water. I think you know that.”

He waited for her to nod, which she did after a slight hesitation.

“Good. Then your options are simple. You tell me how to find him, and I move him off the hot seat, or you keep playing dumb and he ends up dead. In the latter instance, by the way, you don't turn out that good, either. Just so you know.”

“You don't scare me.”

He smiled again. “Of course I do. And I should. Johnny really never told you about me?”

“No,” she said, sounding forlorn.

“That's okay,” he said softly. “You should be the one talking anyhow.”

*   *   *

Dan had taken a personal pledge long ago, which he'd thought he'd never break. When it came down to it, however, he barely gave its violation a second's thought. When he'd purchased Sally's smartphone, he'd created a clone of it for himself. He'd never accessed it—out of a paradoxical respect for her privacy—but his peculiarly driven psychosis had demanded that he keep such a back door available into his daughter's life and activities.

Now, standing in their empty borrowed penthouse, her cell not answering his repeated efforts to reach her, he didn't hesitate to open up his copy of her phone in order to read any messages received or sent that might tell him of her whereabouts.

Within moments, he was taking two steps at a time, running back downstairs, headed for Kelly Doane's apartment, two blocks over.

*   *   *

“What do you want?” Sally asked the man behind her.

“That's
my
question,” Johnny Lucas said, placing one hand on her throat and angling his knife so that she could see it aimed at her face. “You and your old man were in my house a few nights ago. I want to know why.”

Sally's heart tripped a beat as she tried to calculate what might be coming. “We're thieves,” she said. “We steal stuff.”

The hand on her throat tightened a bit. “Nice try. You were after information.”

“If you already know the answer, why ask the question?” she challenged him, her fear mixing with anger.

His hand slipped a little lower on her torso, pushing her closer to losing self-control. She opened her mouth slightly in an effort to pace her breathing and heartbeat. Keep cool, she repeated to herself. Keep cool.

“Feisty, aren't ya?” he said in her ear. “I can deal with that, too. It's your choice. Now … tell me why you broke into my house.”

“We work with the police,” she tried hopefully. “They need a reason to get into people's homes. We don't. If we find a smoking gun and they don't explain how they got it, it's a win–win situation.”

She wasn't sure how her mention of the police would go over, but she hoped that he'd find it intimidating enough to back off.

Of course, he didn't. “Did you find this smoking gun?”

At that moment, Sally sensed more than felt a minute change in the atmosphere around them, causing Lucas to swing her around in an awkward dance step so that the now silently opened door was to their left, while the still-frozen Kelly Doane remained seated on the right.

In the doorway, as still as the dim light behind him, stood her father.

“Let her go,” he said quietly.

Sally didn't wait for more. She'd been fighting her rising fear by inventorying every detail about Lucas—how he was pressed against her, the placement of his hands, his flat-footed stance—and contrasting those with her own array of escape options.

Her missing ingredient had been any element of surprise, possibly combined with a weapon, or even an ally. With Dan's arrival, she suddenly had two out of three. She wasn't about to hesitate now.

Trusting to her father's perpetual readiness—as exhibited by the care and stealth with which he'd opened Kelly's door—Sally enacted the moves she'd been rehearsing since Lucas seized her. She went limp at the knees, slipped from Lucas's distracted grip like a burst balloon, and turned her collapse at his feet to her advantage by twisting around in one powerful movement and catching both his knees in her outstretched arms like a linebacker.

The surprise of her attack combined with its abrupt low center of gravity caught Lucas off guard and brought him down to the floor with the force of a dropped tree.

His knife skittered across the floor, and Dan was beside them inside of a second.

But no more action was needed.

Lucas was out cold.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ron Klesczewski was head of the Brattleboro Police Department's detective squad, which had recently begun calling itself the Criminal Investigation Division, perhaps to keep up with lofty titles like the VBI's, which hadn't been around all that long, either. Ron had risen through the ranks, been mentored by Joe Gunther when he was chief of the unit, and still occasionally wandered upstairs from his office on the ground floor to compare notes with his old colleagues, who included Sam and Willy.