Very Bad Men (55 page)

He let the smoke run out between his lips and said, “Is the boy all right?”

“That's a hell of a question,” I said. “I guess he is, for now.”

“He's under the impression I paid to have his brother killed.”

“There's a lot of people under that impression. Walter Delacorte kept notes. Made a recording too.”

He nodded slowly. “I should have known. Delacorte was shrewd.”

“You knew him through Harlan Spencer?”

He puffed on the cigar again, taking his time.

“Harlan Spencer had nothing to do with this.”

“I'm surprised you arranged things with Delacorte directly,” I said. “It would have been smarter to use an intermediary.”

“It's hard to find someone to trust.”

“What about Alan Beckett?”

He turned the cigar sideways so he could ponder it. “You've got the wrong idea about Al. He draws lines, even if they're not in the same places where other people draw them.” An idea occurred to him. “You don't have a bottle with you, do you?”

I showed him my palms. “I'm afraid not.”

“It'd be a nice night for a drink,” he said on a sigh.

“A drink's not going to do your head any good.”

“I told you, it's nothing.”

“What happened to the gun, after Nick hit you with it?”

“He threw it. Off that way, down by the water.”

I looked where he was pointing. In the loose sand around us, it was difficult to make out footprints. But it appeared as if someone might have walked down to the water and back.

As I turned to face the senator again, my cell phone rang. Elizabeth.

“Nick's here with me,” she said. “I found him walking on the beach.”

“It figures,” I said. “I asked him to stay put.”

“Did you find the senator?”

“I'm with him now.”

“Is everything all right? I'm on my way.”

“Everything's fine. You should take Nick back to the cabin.”

She answered after a pause. “Are you sure?”

“We're just sitting and talking here. Does Nick's mother know you've got him?”

“I called her on her cell.”

“Drop him at the cabin, then. The senator and I will be here when you get back.”

Another pause. “You're sure everything's under control?”

“Trust me.”

“Okay. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

I closed the phone and returned it to my pocket. The senator was watching me through a haze of smoke.

“Elizabeth's taking Nick to his mother,” I said.

“Good.”

“It's been a rough night for the kid. What did you tell him?”

He tapped the ash from his cigar. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “He said you admitted having his brother killed. He must have wanted to know why. You didn't tell him the truth, did you? About Matthew Kenneally?”

If he was surprised I knew about Kenneally, he covered it well.

“I told him it was revenge,” he said. “For what Dawtrey did to Harlan Spencer.”

I nodded. It made a certain sense.

“I think he was convinced,” the senator added.

“Maybe,” I said. “But give him some time to think about it. How did you explain how you knew that Terry Dawtrey would try to escape?”

He drew on the cigar before he answered. “I told him the truth. I have a source at Kinross Prison.”

“I wonder if he believed you,” I said, picking up a shell from the sand. “Elizabeth and I talked to him this afternoon about the escape plan. It was his idea—did you know that? He handled it cleverly. He couldn't have a conversation with Terry about it, because someone might overhear. So he wrote everything down: about the handcuff key beside the vase of roses at the cemetery, the getaway car that would be waiting. He fit it all on a playing card, the ace of diamonds. Then he got his mother to take him to visit Terry at Kinross.

“He snuck the card into the visitation room, hidden in his shirt. He and Terry used to play poker during their visits, so all he had to do was make sure Terry got the ace of diamonds.”

I rubbed the shell between my fingers. “At the end of the visit, Nick took the card back out with him. He still has it in a dresser drawer at home—he showed it to us this afternoon. So I guess someone in the visitation room must have seen it. A guard or an inmate.”

“Right,” the senator said.

“Someone who happened to be looking over Terry Dawtrey's shoulder.”

He waved his cigar in the air. “There are other ways it could have happened. Suppose Dawtrey talked to a friend or a cell mate. Someone he thought he could trust.”

“Sure,” I said. “That makes a lot more sense. And I really wouldn't want to consider the alternative—that it wasn't a guard or an inmate. That it was someone else in the visitation room, someone who sat next to Nick the whole time. Someone who caught a glimpse of the ace of diamonds—and then, later on, dug it out of Nick's dresser drawer.”

The senator made a pained face. “I don't care for that idea. I wouldn't want the boy to hear it. I don't think it would be good for him.”

“It's late in the game for you to be worried about what's good for him.”

He found a speck of ash on his sleeve and flicked it away, saying nothing.

“I guess it was a simple calculation for Madelyn to make,” I said. “Terry Dawtrey wasn't her son. Matthew Kenneally was. Dawtrey posed a threat to Kenneally. It would be rough on Nick, losing his brother. But in the end, Dawtrey was expendable.”

“I think you should leave Madelyn out of this.”

“Sure. I'm more interested in you anyway. You never struck me as a callous man. But you were willing to condemn Terry Dawtrey to death.”

He flicked again at his sleeve, even though there was no more ash. “That's not something I care to talk about.”

“How did you justify it?” I asked him. “Did you tell yourself that Dawtrey could have been shot trying to escape anyway, whether you paid to make it happen or not?”

I waited for his answer, but just then he discovered that his cigar had gone out. He took his time relighting it. The spent match went into the sand. He started to return the matchbox to his pocket, reconsidered, and flipped it into the sand as well.

“Did you ever wonder why Dawtrey decided to run?” I said. “He must have known he was risking his life. How bad must it have been in that prison, for him to take the chance?”

“Don't ask me to feel sorry for a convict,” the senator said, through an angry cloud of smoke. “Terry Dawtrey was in prison for a reason.”

“Sure he was. He tried to rob a bank. Just like your son.”

“Don't pretend they're the same. My son made a mistake. He got drawn in by Floyd Lambeau.”

“So did Dawtrey.”

“Dawtrey shot Harlan Spencer.”

“Your son killed Scott White.”

“He didn't mean to. He shouldn't have to suffer for that.”

I looked down at the shell on my palm. The surface glowed like a pearl in the moonlight. “I was thinking earlier about all the people who've died because of you and your son,” I said, tossing it away. “The two Dawtreys, Charlie and Terry. Henry Kormoran. Walter Delacorte and Paul Rhiner. And Anthony Lark. A tall price to pay to keep Matthew Kenneally from having to suffer for what he did seventeen years ago. How much taller is it going to get?”

The senator's shoulders lifted and fell. “I don't know what you mean.”

“What kind of game are you playing with Lucy Navarro?”

“It's no game. I didn't like the story she was writing, so I offered her another one.”

“She says you're feeding her national secrets.”

He smiled at the notion. “She's a bright girl, but she doesn't have much experience.”

“So you're lying to her.”

“Some of the things I've told her are true. They're also unclassified and available from published sources.”

“And the rest?”

“I made up.”

“She's going to figure it out in the long run. When she starts checking her facts.”

He shook his head dismissively. “I've already told you about the long run. In the long run I won't remember my own name.”

“Right. And you'll have nurses to dress you and wipe your chin. If you decide to stick around. Where's the gun, Senator?”

At first I thought he wouldn't answer me. He considered the stub of his cigar. Tossed it in the sand between us.

“I told you,” he said. “The boy threw it away. Down by the water.”

I glanced at the footprints around us. “I'm not asking what he did with it. I'm asking where it is right now.”

“You worry far too much for a young man,” the senator said, dropping his left hand over the scrap of linen by his side. “I think you should go on now and leave me be. It's a fine night for a walk on the beach.”

“Let me have the gun.”

He drew the linen aside and picked up Sam Tillman's pistol. Shifted it from his left hand to his right. “Go on,” he said. “Take off your shoes, feel the sand between your toes. Walk down to the water and look around you. Really look. Even in the moonlight you can see the pebbles under the surface along the shore. See how clear their edges are. Put your feet in the water and feel how cold it is. It'll make you gasp. It'll hurt at first, it's so cold. That's to remind you you're alive.”

He gestured with the barrel of the gun. “Go on now. Leave me here to do what I need to do.”

“I can't,” I said.

“Why not? It'll be justice, won't it? For Terry Dawtrey and all those others.”

“I can't let you. Not with that gun.”

I leaned forward, fixing my eyes on his. “That gun belongs to Sam Tillman,” I said. “I don't care much about him, but if you shoot yourself with his gun, there'll be questions. He lives in Sault Sainte Marie. How did his gun get here? How did you get hold of it? The truth'll come out. Nick stole the gun from Tillman's house. He marched you through the woods with it, and when he got you down here he assaulted you with it, gave you that cut on your temple. You want to kill yourself, I'm all for it. But don't drag the kid into it. He deserves better.”

The senator rested the pistol on his knee and said, “I agree with you. But I don't have many options. I'm afraid we're at an impasse.”

“We don't have to be,” I said. I reached behind me and wrapped my fingers around the grip of the revolver. I brought it around where he could see it, taking care to aim it at the ground.

“I got this from a friend a while back,” I told him. “I thought there might be some point in carrying it around, but the truth is I haven't done a damn thing with it. It's been in my glove compartment most of the time. But maybe there's a point after all.”

I lifted the revolver, holding it sideways between us. “It's not registered,” I said. “It won't be connected to me or my friend or anyone I know. I'm pretty sure it was stolen somewhere along the line. It's got my prints on it, and on the bullets too, but I can fix that.” I aimed it at the ground again. “So what do you think?”

His face was hard to read, but then a smile came to him slowly. There was sadness in it, and affection. He said, “I think you're a good man to have around.”

“We'll trade, then?”

He nodded. I broke open the cylinder of the revolver and emptied the bullets into my left hand. They didn't glint; the moonlight seemed to make them darker. I slipped five of them into the pocket of my shirt. Held the sixth between my finger and thumb.

“I imagine one will be enough.”

“I don't expect to miss,” he said.

I pulled a handkerchief from my hip pocket and used it to polish the bullet, wiping away my fingerprints. Still using the handkerchief, I slid the bullet into a chamber of the cylinder. I closed the cylinder and wiped it down, then wiped the grip and the hammer. Then the trigger guard. Then the trigger—gently. I wiped the barrel last and bent forward, offering the gun to the senator grip-first. He held out Sam Tillman's pistol and we made our trade.

Around us, the world went about its business. The water lapped at the shore. Grass swayed on a breeze. Tall pines reached into the sky. The senator held the revolver loosely. He straightened his back and looked up at the stars.

“Shame to do it on a night like this,” he said. “Right now my mind is as clear as it's ever been. Clear as that sky. But it's all going to slip away. Does that seem right to you?”

I tucked the handkerchief in my pocket and didn't answer him.

“When it slips away, that's when I'd like to end it,” he said. “But then I won't be able to. So I have to do it now.”

“You can hold off a little,” I said, Tillman's pistol warm in my left hand. “You've got some time left, before anyone else gets here.”

The senator didn't pay much attention when I stood up. He was still looking at the sky.

I said, “Here's something to think about, while your mind is clear. Terry Dawtrey knew enough about your son to turn him in, but he never told anyone. I don't think he would have told Lucy Navarro either. He said he might, but I think that was just because he liked talking to a pretty girl. He wanted her to visit him again. But he wouldn't have told her.”

The senator looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You can't know that.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But Dawtrey spent sixteen years in Kinross Prison. He kept quiet, even though giving up the fifth man in the Great Lakes robbery might have done him some good. I didn't understand why, until I asked Nick about it. Do you know what he told me?”