Shadow of Death (13 page)

Authors: William G. Tapply

Tags: #Suspense

BOOK: Shadow of Death

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Another way to look at it was: Being considerate took a conscious effort. It didn't come naturally to me.

Evie knew me pretty well, and she tolerated me better than I deserved. Still, after a while she'd probably start worrying, and worry had a funny way of evolving into anger.

I started looking for a telephone. Along that hilly stretch of Route 101 there wasn't much of anything except fields and trees, and it was another fifteen minutes before I spotted a pay phone outside a darkened gas station.

I pulled in. Henry, who'd been snoozing on the backseat, sprang to attention when the car came to a stop. It was way past his suppertime, too.

“Sit tight,” I told him. “I'll be right back.”

I dialed all the required numbers to charge the call to my card. The phone that Evie and I shared at our home on Mt. Vernon Street rang five times before her recorded voice answered. “You've reached Brady and Evie's house,” she said. “We're sorry we can't get to the phone right now, but we do want to talk with you. Please leave your name and number
and we'll get right back to you, we promise.”

After the beep, I said, “Hi, honey. It's about eight, and I'm on the road somewhere in New Hampshire. Sorry about this. I got tied up. I've still got close to two hours before I get there. You better eat without me, if you haven't already. I'm a bad boy. Probably deserve a spanking.”

I thought about telling her how I'd been assaulted and was lucky to be alive. But that would be a cheap play for sympathy, and it would serve no purpose except to make her anxious every time I went anywhere.

Besides, I didn't want to talk to her about the case.

So I said, “Henry sends kisses. Me, too.” Then I hung up the phone and got back into my car.

Where the hell was she?

Okay, so she got the message I'd left at noontime, guessed I'd be home late, and decided to put in some extra time at the office. Evie's job was demanding and stressful, and she often worked late. But she always called, and when she said she'd be home by seven, or seven-thirty, or whatever, she always was.

It was more than she could say for me.

Sharing a house and a life with another person was turning out to be more complicated than I remembered.

Well, I had that spanking to look forward to.

I decided to retrace the route I'd taken in the afternoon, the route that Gordon Cahill had taken the night his car went off the road and exploded in flames.

It looked a lot different in the dark. No streetlights lit the way, and the trees arching over the road formed a black tunnel that blocked the starlight and moonlight from the sky. The road seemed darker and narrower and twistier and
spookier than it had in the sunshine, and I found myself checking my rearview mirror frequently.

Horowitz said that Cahill was a cautious man, and that's how I knew him, too. Gordon Cahill liked to be in control. He'd never drive too fast for the conditions, and he'd drink coffee if that's what he needed to stay alert behind the wheel at night.

I imagined him driving his little Corolla where I was now driving my BMW through the darkness, working on a new pun, maybe, or thinking about the case he was working on, or maybe just looking forward to getting home and crawling in bed with his wife, and then the headlights suddenly appearing in his mirror from around the bend, coming up fast behind him, and Cahill cursing, probably, at this impatient asshole who was now tailgating him on this narrow, winding two-lane road, and slowing down a little and easing to the side, inviting the bastard to pass him, and the vehicle, accepting the invitation, pulling out and easing up alongside â¦ and then a shotgun poking out the window, and the explosion of the shot, and Gordie realizing that his front tire had been blown out, the steering wheel leaping in his hands, the little Corolla swerving off the pavement, out of control now, and Gordie standing hard on the brake pedal, his tires skidding and slewing through the sandy shoulder, and then the big tree trunk looming suddenly in his headlights, and the sudden hard, jolting collision â¦

No headlights came up fast behind me, and it wasn't until I emerged on the other side of the state forest into the village of West Townsend that I realized I'd been gripping my steering wheel so hard that my hands ached.

THIRTEEN

I
pulled into my slot in the parking garage on Charles Street a little after ten. I had a headache. My chest hurt when I breathed, and a pain shot up my leg from my ankle when I stepped out of the car. I was hungry.

Otherwise I felt fine.

I limped down Charles to Mt. Vernon Street and up the hill to our townhouse. Henry stopped at most of the lampposts and fire hydrants along the way, which was fine by me. I wasn't moving very fast.

The light beside the front door was on, and the windows glowed warm and orange from the inside lights.

I opened the front door. “Honey?” I said. “We're home.”

No answer from Evie.

Henry pushed past me and trotted into the kitchen. I followed him and found him sitting in the middle of the floor looking at me expectantly.

I checked the table. No note from Evie.

I opened a can of Alpo, dumped half of it into Henry's
dish, added a couple scoops of Iams and a dash of water, and set it on the rubber mat beside the sink.

Henry continued to sit there with his ears cocked and his eyes following me.

“Okay,” I said to him.

He leaped up, charged over to his dish, and began gobbling. He usually ate around seven, too.

While Henry was eating I went upstairs. Our bedroom door was ajar and the light was on. I peeked in. Evie's bedtime novel lay on its open pages on her chest. Her reading glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose, and her eyes were closed.

I went over and sat on the edge of the bed beside her. She was breathing softly through her mouth. I picked up her book, closed it on her bookmark, and put it on the bedside table. Then I gently slid her glasses off her nose and set them on top of the book.

I bent down, brushed her hair away from her face, and kissed her forehead.

She moaned softly, and without opening her eyes, she reached up a hand and pushed my face away.

“Hey,” I whispered. “I'm home.”

“I'm sleeping,” she mumbled. “Go 'way.”

I patted the mound of her hip under the blanket, turned off the light, and went back downstairs.

I went into my room, took the page of notes I'd made about the two obituaries out of my shirt pocket, added a couple of details that I remembered, and put it in the top drawer of my desk.

I sat there gazing up at the ceiling. I was trying to make connections.

Two men originally from the Southwick area. Both about
Albert Stoddard's age. The three of them must have all known each other.

Now two of them were dead.

So what?

Someone hadn't wanted me to see those obituaries. He'd beaten me and taken the envelope from me.

It was hard to imagine Albert hitting anybody. Still â¦

One thing, at least, seemed pretty clear: whatever was going on with Albert, it involved something more ominous than some mundane extra-marital affair.

Questions and hypotheses whirled in my poor aching head.

I wondered if Evie had gone to sleep angry. She'd be fully justified.

Living alone had been a lot simpler.

I dialed my voice mail. I had two messages, one from Roger Horowitz and one from Ellen Stoddard. Both wanted me to call them. Neither left a hint about what they wanted.

I didn't know if it was too late, but I called Ellen's cell phone anyway. It rang three or four times before she mumbled, “Yes?”

“It's Brady,” I said. “If you're sleeping, we can talk tomorrow.”

She cleared her throat, and then I heard the rustling of bedcovers. “You woke me up this morning,” she said, “and now you're waking me up tonight. What is it with you?”

“I'm just returning your call.”

“Does that mean you've got nothing to report?”

“I haven't talked to Albert,” I said. “I suppose you haven't heard from him.”

“No.” She paused. “Damn him.”

“Let me run a couple of names by you,” I said.

“Names?”

“What about Oliver Burlingame or Mark Lyman? Ever heard of them?”

She hesitated, then said, “Um, no. Maybe if you gave me a context â¦”

“Men that Albert might have known,” I said. “Maybe from when he was growing up.”

“I don't recall his mentioning either of those names,” she said. “If I'd met them I'd remember.”

“You sure?”

“Jesus, Brady. I was sleeping. Give me a break. Why? What about these names?” Ellen sounded wide awake now.

I told her about the clippings I'd found in Albert's camp and how it appeared that they'd been mailed to him back in June. I left out the part about how Burlingame had died “suddenly” and Lyman had died “accidentally,” and I decided not to mention how I'd been whacked on the head and the clippings had been taken from me. Those details would have only made her anxious.

“Hm,” was all Ellen said.

“None of this rings any bells with you then?”

“No,” she said. “These were not men I knew. If Albert ever mentioned either of them, I don't remember it. They grew up together, you think?”

“I don't know,” I said. “They both had southwestern New Hampshire connections. Keene and Peterborough, where they were born, are near Southwick. The closest hospitals are in those towns, I'd guess.”

“Hm,” she said again. “So what do you make of it?”

“Just the obvious,” I said. “Some old friend of Albert's, someone who also knew these two guys, mailed the obits to him at Tufts. It's something an old friend might do.”

“And he took that envelope up to his camp with him, and three months later he's using it as a bookmark?” she said. “That's a little weird.”

“I'll look into it,” I said. “Um, you left me a message, asked me to call. Was there something specific?”

“Albert didn't show up for his classes today,” she said.

“I know. I tried to reach him at Tufts.”

“Well, that is emphatically not like him,” said Ellen. “So I called to alert you to the fact that I am now officially worried.”

“I'm sorry,” was all I could think of to say.

“Where the hell is my husband?” I heard a catch in her voice. “This is starting to make me crazy.”

“Maybe it's time to report him missing,” I said.

“I thought of that. Jimmy says no.”

“Jimmy, huh?”

“I know,” she said quickly. “But Jimmy's only thinking about the campaign. How it would look. What would people think. I can't just blow him off. We've got the debates coming up next week, and â¦” Her voice trailed away.

“And?” I said.

She hesitated. “And â¦ Jimmy says, whatever Albert's up to, it's what he's decided to do, and sending out the cavalry isn't going to change how he's feeling. I think Albert's sick of the campaign, that's all. He always hated it. He needs to get away from it. That's how Jimmy reads it, too. If it gets into the papers that Albert has jumped ship, Oakley's people will have a field day with it.”

“Is that really how you read it, Ellen? That he's jumped ship?”

“I don't know,” she said softly. “I guess so. It's the only thing that makes any sense.”

“You
are
officially worried.”

“It's just â¦ I know Albert. Jimmy doesn't.” She hesitated. “Find him for me, will you, Brady? I just want to know he's okay.”

“Sure,” I said. “I'll do what I can.”

“You are a comfort,” she said. “Thank you.”

After I hung up with Ellen, I tried Horowitz, and I was relieved to get his voice mail. “It's Coyne,” I said, “returning your call. It's about ten-thirty, and I haven't had dinner yet, so I'd appreciate it if you'd wait 'til tomorrow to get back to me.”

I took my notes from the desk drawer and looked at them again. The words “suddenly” and “accidentally” kept jumping out at me. Gordon Cahill had also died suddenly, if not, technically, accidentally. I guessed his obit might euphemistically use oneâor bothâof those words to describe his death.

I went out to the kitchen. Henry had finished eating and was standing in the doorway whining. I let him out.

I hadn't eaten since noontime. Two Tupperware containers that hadn't been there in the morning now sat on the top shelf of the refrigerator. I took them out. One contained a chicken-and-vegetable stir-fry, already stirred and fried. The other held a big glob of rice, already cooked.

There was also a bottle of white wine, two-thirds full.

So Evie had not picked up dinner from the deli on her way home. She'd picked up the ingredients and cooked it for us.

Except I never showed up to eat it.

Evie wasn't much of a cook. She was pretty good at it when she decided she felt like doing it, but that only happened about once a month, when she found herself in a creative mood and
envisioned a relaxedâand possibly amorousâevening of domestic togetherness.

I'd picked a bad time to show up three hours late for dinner.

It was close to midnight by the time I slid into bed beside Evie. She was lying curled up on her side facing away from me. She was wearing her long flannel nightgownâthe one she wore to signal her lack of interest in lovemaking.

I hitched myself close to her, pressed my front against her back, hooked my arm around her, cupped her breast, and nuzzled her neck.

She moaned softly.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“You okay?” she mumbled.

“I'm fine,” I said. “Are you?”

“Mm.” She rolled onto her back. “Gimme a kiss.”

Her arms went around my neck. She tasted like peppermint.

“Dinner was great,” I said.

She smiled without opening her eyes.

I moved the flat of my hand over her belly.

She reached down and pushed it away.

“Sorry I was late,” I said.