The Skeleton's Knee (36 page)

I approached the chain-link fence that barred the archway and was met by a dark form separating itself from the shadows.

“You Gunther?”

“Yes.”

“ID?”

I pulled out my identification and handed it over. A flashlight beam suddenly blinded me as the man compared my battered, bandaged face with the one pictured next to the badge. Satisfied, he unlocked the padlock on the gate and let me through.

“Walk to the back.”

The “back” was actually another building like the first, only gaudier, with fancier towers and a pitched slate roof. It straddled the far end of the pier, a half mile away. It was dark also, but visible in the reflected glow from the city behind me, looking like a lost piece of castle that had floated out to sea.

I walked down the center of the wide concrete pier, as broad and as long as a runway. My footsteps clattered loudly across the cracked, potholed cement. Aside from the guard at the gate, I’d seen no one, nor had I heard any sounds from behind the compressors, generators, bulldozers, and other equipment that littered the pier’s length. But I sensed them nevertheless, watching me, watching out for Bonatto, as silent and lethal as high-strung Dobermans.

I had no idea if the money originally had belonged to the mob, or to Shattuck, or someone else entirely. I didn’t know if Pendergast, Fuller, and their mysterious friend had fled to Vermont as victims running for cover or as criminals on the lam. And who had killed Tommy Salierno? Pendergast, Fuller, the third guy, or Shattuck…? Or had he been knocked off by his own people, whose interest now was in shutting up the witnesses?

I rubbed my tender forehead, the far pavilion getting much closer now. Whatever the truth, both my competitors and I had avenues to follow, none of us knowing which of the others would get to the prize first, and all of us relying in part on one another to give one of us the advantage.

At least that’s how I was hoping it would turn out after tonight’s meeting.

A second shadowy figure appeared from out of the dark and asked me to spread my legs and arms, a procedure they’d bypassed the first time. He checked me thoroughly and jerked his thumb toward the glass door leading into the pavilion. “The door on the left.”

I entered a semicircular lobby, veered off to the left, and went through the indicated door.

What I entered was an enormous vaulted room, its hemispherical ceiling buttressed by a converging latticework of curved steel I-beams that met at its apex high overhead. Strung along the lower edge of each of the beams, from the polished hardwood floor to where they all came together like a single muted burst of fireworks, were lines of tiny low-wattage bulbs. It was a concert hall, perched at the end of the pier, its floor-level row of windows looking out onto a cement promenade and the vast emptiness of the lake beyond. In the distance, to the right, the slow, red, rhythmic flashing of a lighthouse reminded me of a dying pulse.

“Over here.”

I turned at the familiar voice. Alfredo Bonatto was sitting alone on a metal folding chair in the center of the stage, between the door I had entered and its mate on the other side.

I walked up to the stage, my footsteps loud on the polished floor.

“Did the police department candid-camera crew follow you here?”

“Why is that a concern of yours?”

“My poking around has gotten a fellow cop in trouble. It would be better for him if his colleagues didn’t know you and I were meeting.”

Bonatto’s heavy, sad face lifted slightly in a small smile. “You needn’t worry. How are you coming with your little mystery?”

“What’ve you heard?”

He raised his eyebrows. “It means nothing to us. I was merely being polite.”

I let him know what I thought of that. “I hear your boys were pretty polite to Penny Nivens—a little scary maybe.”

He rose from his chair slowly, steadying himself by resting his hand on its back for a moment. Then he motioned to the stairs at the end of the stage and began walking toward them. “Let’s step outside. It’s a beautiful night.”

I followed him through one of the double glass doors leading out to the promenade. The air was fresh and cool and clean, filled with the sound of lapping water and the occasional deep-throated bleat of a foghorn. The city, doubled in size by the mirror-smooth reflection, shimmered like a diamond-dusted cloud on the horizon. Not for the first time, I was struck by the absence of a sea’s briny odor—the fundamental paradox of all the Great Lakes.

“I’d heard you ran into some trouble. You look as though you did.”

I unconsciously touched the bandage on my forehead, which had been extended down the side of my face to cover the burns there. “That’s part of the reason I wanted to meet with you.”

Bonatto had placed both hands on the railing above the water and was staring at the view. “Ah.”

“The man I was after is a sixties radical named Robert Shattuck. He tortured a Dr. Kevin Shilly to death trying to get information.”

I paused. Bonatto didn’t move for several moments, then looked at me in mock surprise. “I’m sorry—is that supposed to mean something to me?”

I pursed my lips in irritation. “You wouldn’t be here if it didn’t.”

He looked away again. “Why are you telling me about Robert Shattuck?”

“I think you and Shattuck are after the same person, though for different reasons. There’s not much I can do about that, at least not at the moment. But Shattuck’s got a head start, seems to know who he’s after, and now knows that person was last living in Vermont. I thought I’d slant the playing field a little.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Shattuck’s a loose cannon—the one who could cause the most damage. It’s his treatment of Shilly versus your treatment of Penny Nivens, if you want. If I have to have either one of you dogging my heels, I’d just as soon it be you.”

He chuckled softly. “So you want us to handle Shattuck for you? That’s pretty good.”

“He knows you’re interested in all this, and he’s not discriminating.” I pulled Shattuck’s mug shot from my pocket and handed it over.

Bonatto released his grip on the railing, taking the picture without comment. Finally, he turned to face me. “Where did you work before Vermont?”

“I saw action in Korea—did a couple of years of college in California on the way home. That’s it. Why?”

He hitched his shoulders ever so slightly. “You have a peculiar way of doing business. I doubt we’ll meet again.”

He left me then, alone on the pier, to enjoy my last view of Chicago, my mind full of doubt and self-recrimination, my heart longing to get back home. This was not my town, and I had not navigated its waters well. Instinct had filled in where procedure and practice had been wanting, and that was rarely a good basis for sound police work.

I didn’t know how my last chat with the locals would play out in the long run, but it couldn’t be any worse than what Shattuck had done to Shilly. And now, if my guess was right, Shattuck was heading for my turf.

I therefore took comfort in one telling detail—Bonatto had left with Shattuck’s picture in his pocket.

GAIL STOOD ALONE
inside the Keene, New Hampshire airport terminal, looking at me with wide, sad eyes as I limped through the double set of glass doors from the apron.

She reached up and hugged me tightly, without saying a word. I rubbed her thin muscular back with my free hand, enjoying the clean odor of her hair. When she finally stood back, she smiled unconvincingly and touched my cheek with her fingers. “What have you done to yourself?”

I raised my eyebrows, painfully aware of how I looked—bandaged, burned, nicked by dozens of glass cuts. “I think we better find somewhere else to vacation.”

She laughed, if only for a moment. “Are you all right?”

For an instant, I thought back again to Shattuck’s revolver hammer slamming home on an empty shell casing. “Sure. I might end up with a small scar from this one.” I tapped the bandage on my forehead.

Gail took my arm and walked with me toward the exit. “I had such a bad feeling when you left here—almost a premonition. When Tony told me you were in the hospital, it was like hearing the other shoe drop.”

I squeezed her hand and kissed her. “It’s good to be back.”

We left the terminal and stepped into the small parking lot.

“Tony came with me,” she said, pointing.

Brandt came out of her car and greeted me, shaking my hand and staring into my eyes as if checking to make sure everyone was at home. “You look awful.”

“Thanks.”

“Did Shattuck do all that, or did the Chicago PD chip in?”

“That pissed, are they?”

He took my bag, put it into the trunk, and opened the front passenger door for me. “I don’t think I’ll be sending another of our finest over there any time soon.”

We got into the car, with Tony in back. I fished Pendergast’s photo out of my coat pocket and handed it to him, along with the snapshot of him and Fuller at the Marquette fair. “That’s David Pendergast on the left; Fuller on the right.”

He looked at them carefully. “That anthropologist of yours was right on the money—Pendergast’s quite the beautiful boy.”

“Only skin-deep; I hear he was a nasty son of a bitch.”

Gail had pulled into traffic and was headed west toward Vermont and Brattleboro, twenty minutes away. “We got the longitude and latitude on that chart.”

“You’re kidding.” My incredulity was instinctive and immediately regretted. Gail turned and gave me a steely look. “I told you it would work—you never believed in it from the start.”

Brandt, ever the politician, steered for a middle course. “So tell him the bad news.” Her expression turned rueful. “It’s near New York City.”

“Somewhere around White Plains/Mount Vernon,” Tony added.

“Not exactly the boonies,” I muttered doubtfully. I was having difficulty believing a fanciful, color-coded, hand-drawn chart of someone’s stars could accurately yield up something as concrete as birthplace coordinates.

Brandt was much more accepting—or diplomatic. “No, it’s not, but it is worth a look. By the way, I told your people to be at the station for an informational meeting as soon as we get there.”

“There is something I ought to warn you about, Tony. I have a feeling Robert Shattuck will be showing up here, sooner than later.”

I heard the stillness in the car.

“What does that mean?” Gail finally asked. “Who’s he after? You?”

“Not specifically, although I think he sees me as the someone who can lead him to the person he’s after. The three people who came here in ’69 or ’70 with those famous hundred-dollar bills did Shattuck some damage he never recovered from. Stole the money he was pinning his future on and ruined his dreams. He’s been nursing that ever since—I think it’s fair to say he’s after blood.”

“Where did the money come from?” Brandt asked.

“I still don’t know.”

“He knows who this third person is?”

“I’m sure he does. His problem isn’t who; it’s where. I think that’s where he hopes I’ll come in—by leading the way—and his ego has it that he’ll succeed even if I don’t want him to.”

“Maybe,” Tony said thoughtfully, “or Shattuck could try forcing you to cooperate.”

I saw him looking at Gail, who immediately grasped his point. After a few seconds’ silence, she pulled off to the side of the road and put the brake on. She sat staring at the instrument panel before her. Her voice was neutral, almost cold, in an obvious effort to keep her emotions at bay. “Do you agree with Tony?”

“He does have a point,” I admitted. “If Shattuck does come to Vermont, he’ll be a complete outsider. He knows we’ll be watching for him, and he doesn’t have the connections or the hiding places he has in Chicago. He’ll have to work hard just to keep out of sight—and try to make every shot count. If he finds out about the two of us…”

She nodded silently.

“I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable giving you around-the-clock protection,” Brandt said to Gail, “or suggesting you take a small vacation.”

She stunned me with her own alternative. “If I stayed in town, and the police protection was discreet, I could be useful getting this guy out into the open.”

“I disagree,” I blurted out, horrified at the idea.

“Why not? It’s perfectly logical.”

“This guy’s not sane, Gail—”

Tony interrupted. “She does have a point, Joe. And we could control it so she wouldn’t really be exposed.”

“This is dumb, and it misses the point. What we need to focus on is the identity and location of the third man.”

“From what you’ve told me, Shattuck’ll do anything to gain an edge; it might pay to take advantage of that.” Brandt turned to Gail. “You have call forwarding on your office phone?”

“Office and home both.”

“So you could work out of your home?” She shrugged. “For a while, I suppose. I do need to get out—show properties, that sort of thing. Plus, there’s the board and my other activities.”

“But for a few days? We could set you up at home and have the place covered while you posed as bait. You could tell people you had the flu.”

I scowled at him. “Thanks a hell of a lot. One innocent person’s already been killed because of this.”

Gail said quietly, “By killing me, he’d be killing his leverage.”

“That’s rational—he’s not.” I turned from her to Brandt, who merely smiled and raised his eyebrows. The terror I had felt at Shattuck’s hands was mine alone. I could try to impress upon them just how cold-blooded he was, but I knew the end result would be the same, and that only I would feel reduced by the experience.

All that was left, therefore, was to concede to her logic—reluctantly. “I hate this.”

Gail smiled sympathetically, squeezed my hand, and put the car back into gear. “He probably won’t even show up.”

I didn’t bother answering.

“There is another problem,” she said after a while. “You better cook up something for the board explaining what Joe’s been up to this last week. If they find out I knew before them, we’re all going to feel the heat.” She glanced over her shoulder at Brandt. “I don’t know how specific you want to make it, but maybe you could have a little conversation with the town manager, and let him be your messenger.”