Except for the Bones (28 page)

After careful calculation, Kane spoke cautiously: “That’s
if
I give Bernhardt a name. But suppose I don’t.”

“He still knows where the body’s buried. He can take that to the state attorney.”

A silence fell as they stared at each other, each searching, each probing. Finally Kane spoke: “You know where it’s buried, too—don’t you?”

Farnsworth smiled, but made no reply.

“If you think Carolyn was murdered,” Kane said, “why aren’t you digging for the body?”

Still smiling, mock-playfully, Farnsworth continued to eye the other man. Finally he spoke softly, gently:

“Can’t you guess why, Kane? You’re a smart guy. You’ve been around. You’ve even had a little trouble with the law, I understand. Can’t you guess why I’m not looking?”

No reply. Only Kane’s eyes, boring into his.

As if to prompt a reluctant student, Farnsworth said, “You got well paid, I’m sure, for killing Jeff Weston and trying to kill Diane Cutler.” He let the words linger between them for a final moment. Then: “And if you’re smart, you’re still getting paid—to keep your mouth shut.”

“Jesus …” Incredulously, Kane shook his head. “You, too?”

“There’s so much money there,” Farnsworth said. “What’s a million or two, compared to Daniels’s neck? He pays that much every year just to keep up his goddamn yacht. I read that in one of those magazines. You know, the ones on the checkout stands, at the supermarket.”

“Jesus …” Contemptuously, Kane snorted. “I should’ve known.”

“Well,” Farnsworth answered, speaking more briskly. “Well, now you
do
know. So let’s get on with this.”

“Yeah …” Another incredulous shake of the head. Then, more assertively, partners now: “Yeah. Right.”

“You’re the cutout,” Farnsworth said. “The messenger boy, in other words. You go to Daniels, and you tell him that I want a million dollars to keep quiet.”

“A million dollars?
Are you serious?”

As if he hadn’t heard, Farnsworth said, “It’ll be in two parts. A half-million now, up front, and a half-million exactly a year from now, when there’s no chance of anything going wrong. Daniels and I don’t see each other from now on. That’s important. You carry the money. You take messages back and forth. Got that?”

Silently, Kane nodded.

“There’s also the problem with Bernhardt.” He waited for Kane to nod again. Then: “As far as I know, Bernhardt and I are the only two people who know where Carolyn Estes is buried. Maybe Jeff Weston left a letter, or something, but if he did, I haven’t heard about it.” Kane frowned. “Is Bernhardt a one-man operation?”

“I think so. He hires people, probably. But he’s the principal.”

“What if Bernhardt goes to the state attorney? What then?”

“Ah.” As if he were encouraging a promising student, Farnsworth nodded. “You’ve put your finger on it, you see. Bernhardt came to me yesterday. I stalled him. Private eyes’re used to that. But sooner or later he’s going to find out Carolyn Estes’s identity. And that’ll be that. He’ll get a missing-persons circular, and he’ll find a dozen people who saw her at Carter’s Landing. And then he’ll start pounding my desk. And if I don’t start looking for the body, then he’s going to go to Boston. And that’ll be the end of everything. Daniels goes to trial, and we lose our meal ticket.”

“So what’ll we do? Bribe Bernhardt?”

Regretfully, Farnsworth shook his head. “I don’t think so. Daniels might try it, if and when Bernhardt talks to him. But, sure as hell, Bernhardt’d take that as an admission of guilt.”

“So what’s the answer?”

“The answer,” Farnsworth said, “is that you’ve got to get rid of Bernhardt. And you’ve got to do it soon. You’ve got to do it tonight.”

“But—Christ—you’re talking like I’m a—a contract killer. I—Christ—I hit that Weston kid too hard, that’s all I’ve done. And now you—”

“So far, Bernhardt hasn’t gone any further than me, and I was able to stall him. But by tomorrow, I figure he’ll be on the phone to Boston. And when that happens, and my phone rings, the first thing I’m going to do is arrest you for the murder of Jeff Weston. Then I’ll start working on Daniels. Hell—” Suddenly Farnsworth guffawed: a wet, clotted laugh that ended in a long, racking cough. Recovering, he said, “Hell, I’ll be a hero. I’ll be on TV. Nationwide. I’ll be famous.
“The straight-arrow cop who arrested Preston Daniels.”
Pleased, Farnsworth nodded. “Yeah, I can dig it, as the kids say.”

“You’re fucking crazy, Farnsworth. You know that?”

Farnsworth shrugged. “Everyone to his own opinion.” He draped a fat arm over the seat back and pointed behind them. “There’s a paper sack on the floor back there. Get it.” He watched Kane obey, saw the other man reach inside the sack, saw him withdraw a blue-steel revolver.

“In the trade,” Farnsworth said, “that’s called a cold gun. Meaning that it can’t be traced. Use that. Use it tonight. Bernhardt’s staying at The Gulls, that’s a motel out on Twenty-eight. Unless I miss my guess, you won’t have to go looking for Bernhardt. He’ll come looking for you. That could be your chance, if you handle it right.”

“Jesus …” As if in utter disbelief, Kane shook his head. “Jesus, this is unreal. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“By the way, before I forget—” Farnsworth pointed to the sack. “There’s a pair of surgical gloves in there. Be damn sure you wear them. You’ve been arrested. Your prints are on file.”

Mechanically nodding, Kane said, “How many times’ve you done this?”

“Three, maybe four times, over the years. But this is the first chance I’ve had to really score.”

“I mean murder. Having someone killed.”

Sunk deep in the glowing pink flesh of his cheeks, Farnsworth’s small mouth curved in a prim Cupid’s smile. “No comment.”

“I’m going to talk to Daniels first. I’m not going to do anything until I talk to Daniels.”

“No problem.” Farnsworth smiled again, his china-blue eyes sparkling. “We’re the Three Musketeers. Right?”

In silence, Kane returned the revolver to the brown paper sack. It was a large sack, allowing him to fold it over the gun twice, for safety. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you’ve got any idea how I’m supposed to pull this off.”

“I’ve got the whole thing figured out,” Farnsworth answered promptly. “I bet I didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours last night. But I’ve got it all laid out for you. Everything.”

K
ANE DIALED THE PAY
phone, waited through four rings.

“Yes?” Daniels’s voice. Abrasive. Plainly irritated.

“This is Bruce again. I know you don’t want me to call until ten-thirty. But something’s come up. I’ve got to talk to you. Now. Right now.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Definitely, there’s a problem. A big problem.”

“All right. I’ll meet you—” A moment’s calculation. “On the Bridge Road, north of Miller’s Pond. You know where I mean. At eight forty-five, let’s say.”

“It’s got to be sooner than that. It’s got to be now.”

“We’re just sitting down to dinner.”

“I promise you—you’ll be sorry, every minute you put this off.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No. Not me.”

Not me …
The two words, ominously suspended, echoed. Not Kane. Someone else.

“All right. I’ll leave as soon as I can.”

“Good.” He broke the connection.

B
ERNHARDT FOUND THE TELEPHONE
number Cutler had given him, touch-toned the number on the motel phone. “Daniels residence.”

“Yes—my name is Alan Bernhardt. I’d like to speak to Mrs. Daniels. Millicent Daniels.”

“Can I tell her what it’s about?” Accented with a regional twang, the woman’s voice sounded weary, washed-out.

“You can tell her that it concerns her daughter. Tell her I’ve just come from San Francisco.”

“Just a minute, please.” In the background, Bernhardt heard low voices. Finally another voice came on the line: a cool, precisely calibrated voice. Millicent Daniels, without doubt.

“Mr. Bernstein?” It was a clipped, aloof question.

“Bernhardt. Alan Bernhardt.”

“Sorry.” The apology, too, was aloof.

“I hate to bother you, Mrs. Daniels. But I was wondering whether I could talk to you this evening. It’s about your daughter.”

“My daughter?” It was a closed, cautious question.

“I’m based in San Francisco, Mrs. Daniels. When Diane came to town a few weeks ago, Carley Hanks hired me to help Diane. Then—later—Mr. Cutler hired me.”

“I—I don’t understand.” The calmly calculated cadence of her voice had roughened, lost its assurance. “You say Paul hired you. Why?”

“Mrs. Daniels, is there any way we could talk about this face to face? I talked to Diane several times. I was one of the last people to see her before she died. She told me some pretty devastating things. I want to talk to you, tell you what Diane told me. But these aren’t things we should talk about over the phone. Believe me.”

A silence. Then: “There’s a place called The Compass Rose, in Carter’s Landing. It’s a restaurant, but there’s a small bar in the rear. I’ll meet you there at eight-thirty.”

“Good. Thank you. Eight-thirty.”

“How’ll I know you?” she asked.

“I’ll know you. I saw you at the funeral.”

“You were at the funeral?”

“Yes, Mrs. Daniels. I was at the funeral.”

“D
IANE TOLD BERNHARDT WHERE
you buried the body,” Kane was saying. “And Bernhardt told Farnsworth. And now Farnsworth wants a million dollars, or he’ll start digging.”

They were sitting in the Cherokee, parked facing Nantucket Sound. The night sky was overcast; the surf line was fading into the mist, and would soon disappear. Seated behind the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the water, Daniels was conscious of an irrational calm. Was it possible that even death—even murder—came down to the balance sheet, his stock in trade? Emotion was unpredictable, the wild card. But greed was a constant. Greed was quantifiable, therefore negotiable. Money couldn’t buy love. But people had their price.

His voice, therefore, was steady as he said, “I’ve got to pay him. There’s no other way. For either of us.”

“If you pay Farnsworth that much,” Kane said, “then you’ve got to do the same for me.”

Amused, Daniels smiled, looked at the other man quizzically. “You figured that out, did you?”

“Three people dead. How much is that worth?”

“It’s like everything else, Bruce. It’s what the market can bear. But then there’s a certain market risk factor. You want a million dollars plus what I’ve already given you. That makes you a source of capital drain. You and Farnsworth, you’ll cost me more than two million dollars, cash. Meaning that, if I paid someone—a real pro, not an amateur—to eliminate one or both of you, why, I’d save a lot of money. Let’s say I paid someone a hundred thousand dollars to kill you, no questions asked. I’d be saving myself a bundle. And the same thing applies to Joe Farnsworth, obviously.”

“If you think you can—”

“Another thing—” Daniels raised his hand, for silence. “Farnsworth knows something that, in fact, is worth a lot of money to me.”

“The location of the body, you mean.”

As if he were pleased, Daniels nodded deeply. “Exactly. That information, plus his badge, is a combination that could cause me real trouble. But in comparison, you really don’t have much, Bruce. All you’ve got is that when I told you Jeff Weston was bothering me, and you undertook to rough him up a little, teach him some manners, you hit him too hard, and killed him. You might say I paid you to do it, but there’s no proof. Then, when I sent you to San Francisco to talk some sense into Diane, get her to come back home, why, you tried to attack her, for unexplained reasons.” He smiled. “Does that sound like a million dollars to you?”

Kane came back instantly: “You’re forgetting about Bernhardt, aren’t you? He’s been looking for me all over town. He’s trying to find out Carolyn’s identity. Suppose I give it to him? Then suppose I tell him you hired me to rough up Weston—and hired me to kill your own stepdaughter? Imagine what Millicent would say, come to that.”

Now Daniels’s smile was contemptuously tolerant. “You’d be incriminating yourself, not me. I’d just deny everything.”

“Farnsworth says we’ve got to kill Bernhardt. Now. Tonight, before he goes to the state attorney and tells him where the body’s buried. What’s that worth to you, to have Bernhardt killed?” As he spoke, Kane produced a blue-steel revolver. “He even gave me the gun. It’s untraceable.”

“If you kill Bernhardt, I’ll pay you a half-million. That’s in addition to what I’ve already given you.”

Contemptuously, Kane shook his head. “You’re a cheap bastard, aren’t you? What’re you worth? How many billions?”

“Most rich men are tight with money, you’ll find. That’s how they got to be rich.”

“If I don’t kill Bernhardt, and he goes to Boston over Farnsworth’s head, you’re fucked. I might go to jail for aggravated assault, or manslaughter—a fight that went wrong. But you killed Carolyn, and you buried the body. That’s as good as admitting you killed her. So when Bernhardt starts talking you’re fucked.”

Daniels spoke abstractly, speculatively: “It’s an interesting situation. The chief of police is soliciting you to kill a man. Meaning that you’ll be acting with complete safety, complete impunity. In Carter’s Landing, Farnsworth is the law. The whole process starts with him.”

“It’s still risky. If something goes wrong, you can bet Farnsworth’ll turn on us. I’ve seen people like him before. They don’t play unless they’ve got all the cards.”

“I deal with people like Farnsworth every day.” As he spoke, Daniels studied the other man’s face, searching for something. Finally he returned his gaze to the ocean, and the line of surf beneath the lowering mists. “All right, it’s a deal. A million. Same terms as Farnsworth gets. You can tell Farnsworth. A half-million for each of you by next Friday.”

Kane’s scarred mouth twisted into a smile. “Cash?”

“Naturally.”

S
EATED ACROSS A SMALL
oak table, her glass of white wine untasted, Millicent Daniels shook her head incredulously. “I can’t believe it. I—I just can’t. I know he’s had women on the side, but—” She broke off, stared down at the table. Then: “He lives like a king, you know. There’s always someone in attendance, some flunky, someone to take orders. And the telephone. It’s like he’s the center of some gigantic electronic web that’s spread out over the whole world. Push a button, and someone somewhere comes to attention. Push another button, and he’s made a million dollars. Limos—airplanes—they’re all there, waiting. So—” She shook her head again. “So the idea of him digging a hole in the ground and rolling a girl’s body into it—I just can’t conceive of it.”