Текст книги "The Forgotten"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER

37

THE SWEAT TRICKLED DOWN his neck.

At eight in the morning he’d already been hard at work for an hour. It was eighty-two degrees with a projected high of nearly a hundred today.

He was at the same house. He had been told that the grounds here were so extensive that they required a landscaping crew every day. He had taken steps to make sure that he would get the assignment. It had involved payments and promises to people who didn’t give a damn why he wanted to be here. For them it was just an exchange of something for something else. And when you were dealing with folks who had little money, bartering became a way of life. For all they knew he was trying to case the mansion in hopes of robbing it. They did not care about folks stealing from the rich. The rich had everything. They would just print more money.

He was simply one man working for others. He was paid a wage that could barely keep him alive. And he was one injury away from being homeless.

As he looked around at the workers next to him, he was actually describing their state of affairs, not his. Money meant nothing to him. He was here for his own purposes and no other. When he was done he would leave.

Unless he was dead. Then he would stay in Paradise for eternity.

He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and commenced clipping a hedge for owners who demanded a precisely trimmed bush. But he also focused on what he had seen the previous night on the beach.

Those people were lost forever. As soon as they had been taken, it was over. On the boat. On the truck. It didn’t matter. Nothing could break the long chain of ownership, for that’s what it was.

Chattel.

The sixteenth century or the twenty-first century, it didn’t really matter. People with power and means would always take advantage of those without them.

He clipped and thought about his next move.

He ran his eye along the top of the hedge and at the same time skirted his gaze along the perimeter of the mansion. The same Maserati was parked in the front cobblestone circular drive. He assumed that the young couple had stayed over. Why leave this place if one didn’t have to? He had learned, by asking subtle questions of a house servant who had come out to retrieve the mail, that the interior staff consisted of ten people. These included maids, a chef, someone playing the role of a butler, and various others who worked cheap and were able to live in the servants’ quarters of the grandest home on the Emerald Coast.

The family who lived here consisted of four people:

The cash machine husband.

The pampered second wife.

The even more pampered son.

The mother-in-law.

The cash machine was in his mid-forties, relatively young for having amassed such great wealth. He had not asked the maid how the money had been made.

He already knew.

The second wife used to be a runway model, was in her early thirties, and spent most of her time shopping.

The cash machine’s son—the second wife’s stepson—was seventeen and attended a private boarding school in Connecticut. He had already been accepted at an Ivy League school based more on his father’s largesse to the university than his academic performance. He was now home for the summer playing polo, driving his Porsche, and sowing his wild oats among the available local young women, who were unabashedly competing to one day live in grand houses filled with servants. This he had also found out before coming here.

The second wife’s mother lived in the lavish guesthouse and was, at least by most accounts, a bitch of massive proportions.

As he watched, the same woman he had seen by the pool the day before strolled out of the mansion’s rear French doors. She had on a white skirt that showed off her bare, tanned legs, a light blue shirt, and spike backless heels. Her hair fell around her shoulders. Her appearance was quite dressy for this early in the morning. Perhaps she had an appointment.

He watched as she crossed over to the guesthouse and went inside, perhaps to pay her respects to the resident mother-in-law.

The rear door to the mansion opened once more and a man stepped out.

He studied him. About five-eleven, trim, fit, dressed in white shorts that showed off his tanned, muscular calves. He had on leather loafers that looked expensive and no doubt were, and a pale blue patterned long-sleeved Bugatchi shirt. He had left the shirt untucked, no doubt to show that despite his immense wealth he was a casual yet hip man. His hair was brown and wavy with just a touch of gray around the temples.

The man crossed the grounds and entered the guesthouse.

He knew who the man was. He was the cash machine. The man owned this estate and everything in it.

His name was Peter J. Lampert.

He’d made and lost most of a multibillion-dollar fortune as a hedge fund manager, along with most of the money entrusted to him by his clients. Then he had made another enormous fortune to pay for this place and other assorted toys of the rich. But he had not bothered to recoup his clients’ money.

That was what bankruptcy was for, he’d responded, when someone asked him if he felt remorse at all for destroying the lives of so many people.

Lampert, he knew, also had his own private jet, a Dassault Falcon 900LX that was parked at a private airport about thirty minutes from here. Its maximum cabin height was six feet two inches, which meant Lampert could stand up straight inside it, but he couldn’t. Yet he never expected to be on it. Private jets were not meant for the hired help.

At the end of the estate’s main dock, one hundred feet out to sea in deep water, sat Lampert’s mega-yacht, named Lady Lucky. Lampert had named that after his second wife, whose name was Lucille, but whom everyone called Lucky, because she apparently had been as the second wife of Peter J. Lampert.

Lucky was currently away, he had been told by the same maid. A shopping trip to Paris and London. Well, the rich had to spend their money on something.

As he thought about it, it was quite likely that her mother was traveling with her too. If so there would be no reason for anyone to visit the guesthouse.

Except perhaps for one.

He worked his way over to the left side of the structure. There were bushes there that required trimming. He managed to look like he was clipping but actually made no noise with his tool. He edged closer to the window. The drapes were partially up. He heard it before he saw them.

Moans and groans.

He looked around for security. They did not seem to be in this sector.

He grew closer to the window, squatting down, trying to shrink his great height.

He took a peek through the window.

The woman was now wearing only her shirt. Her skirt was on the bed along with her spike heels. Her panties were down around her bare feet. On her tiptoes, she gripped one of the bed’s four posters, her body bent forward at a forty-five-degree angle.

Lampert was behind her. He had not bothered to take off his clothes. Apparently he could only be bothered to slide his zipper down. She arched her neck back and was making suitable noises designed to urge on her lover.

Lampert pushed into her violently, grunted heavily one last time, and then bent forward, supporting himself on her back, totally spent. Panting, he freed himself from her and zipped up his shorts. She turned and kissed him. He fondled and then slapped her bare buttocks.

Lampert said something that he couldn’t hear, but the woman laughed. A few moments later Lampert was gone. He apparently had other appointments.

He watched as the woman lay back on the bed, slipped a pill bottle from her shirt pocket, tongued a capsule, and swallowed it. She took off her shirt, walked naked into the bathroom, and emerged about a minute later, her face looking scrubbed.

He continued observing as she quickly dressed, smoothing out her shirt and zipping up her skirt before slipping on her heels. When she left the room, he came around the corner of the building, stooped down, and started to weed the lawn.

She stepped from the guesthouse, looked to the right and saw him there. Her features grew brighter when she saw him. She smiled. The smell of sex was all over her. He wondered if she realized that, despite her freshening up. He wondered what the young man she had driven up with in the Maserati would say if he detected evidence of the morning tryst.

“Hello,” she said.

He nodded at her, keeping his gaze partially downcast but still watching her.

“You were here yesterday. What’s your name?” she asked.

“Mecho.”

“Mecho? I’ve never heard that name before.”

“In my country it means ‘bear.’ I am as big as one, you see. I was a big baby, you see, so my father decided to make it official.” He stopped and smiled shyly.

His English was much better than that, and he was not by nature a shy man, but he did not want her to know that. Mecho was not his given name, but it had been his nickname, precisely because of his great size.

“What is your country?” she asked.

“Far away from here. But I like this place. My country is often too cold.”

She smiled and waved away a fly with her hand. Her smile was radiant, her cheeks slightly reddened.

Sex agreed with her, he thought.

“It’s always warm in Paradise,” she said.

“Hey!”

They both looked over to see a burly security guard heading their way. Mecho hastily stood and moved away from her.

“Hey!” the guard said again as he came up to Mecho. It was the same guard as yesterday. “You’re really trying my patience, bud.”

The woman said, “I was talking to him. He was doing his work. I asked him a question.”

The guard looked at her like she was on drugs. “You asked him a question. Why?”

“Because I wanted to hear his answer,” she said, scowling. “So you can just leave him alone.”

The man was about to say something, but seemed to think better of it. “Right, Ms. Murdoch. I was just making sure everything was okay. Just doing my job.”

“Everything is very okay,” she said sternly.

After the guard retreated Murdoch said, “My name is Christina, Mecho. My friends call me Chrissy. It was nice talking to you.”

As she walked away he watched her. She glanced back once, saw him, and smiled again, tacking on a little wave.

In that knowing smile he saw something interesting. He was almost certain that she knew he had been watching Lampert and her have sex. And she didn’t seem concerned by it in the least. In fact, she seemed uplifted by it.

A singularly remarkable woman of great beauty.

A part of him hoped he would not have to kill her.

CHAPTER

38

THE TRIP TO EGLIN Air Force Base took about thirty minutes. The duffel was where it was supposed to be and Puller signed the necessary paperwork, loaded it into his rental, and drove back to Paradise. Along the way he passed through Destin and eyed Landry’s high-rise.

That made him remember he needed a new place to stay.

He arrived back in Paradise around noon.

He hadn’t missed it for even a minute.

He made a stop at Bailey’s Funeral Home, where he needed to see his aunt’s body again.

After he was finished there, he drove directly to his aunt’s house. The sun was high, the day was hot, and the humidity had crept so high that simply walking produced rivulets of sweat. But Puller had spent many years of his life in heat even worse than this and it had little effect on him.

He reentered his aunt’s house using the key that the lawyer Mason had given him. Now that he had his duffel he could make a proper investigation.

He unpacked his duffel and spent the next five hours going over the interior room by room.

The only remarkable thing he found was nothing.

The only fingerprints were his aunt’s. That was why he had stopped by the funeral home, to take a set of elimination prints from Betsy Simon.

There was no sign of forced entry, no indication of a struggle.

He found a box of photo albums stuffed in a closet next to the small laundry room. He looked through a few of them and then stuck the box into his duffel. He would look at them later.

He moved his investigation out to the backyard, where he followed his aunt’s presumed path from the house to the fountain area. He got down on his knees and examined the stone surround, the disturbed stones under the water, the holes in the lawn made from the walker. If his aunt’s body had still been here he might have seen something that was not right, but it wasn’t and thus he couldn’t.

He sensed someone watching him and turned and saw Cookie peering over the fence.

“Did you grow?” Puller asked.

“I’m standing on a box. What are you doing?” asked Cookie.

“Just satisfying my curiosity.”

“You really think she was murdered, don’t you?”

“What do you think?”

Cookie seemed alarmed by the question. “I don’t have an opinion. I thought it was an accident, but I wouldn’t know what to look for.”

“Well, I do know what to look for and I’m not finding much.”

“Did you speak to Mason?”

Puller rose and went over to the fence. On the box Cookie and he were close to eye to eye.

“I did. He was helpful. What do you know about him?”

“Like I said, good lawyer. He’s handling my estate too. He does the same for lots of people.”

“You know him beyond that?”

“Some. But we’re not really friends socially.”

“Did you hear about the bodies washing up on the beach?”

Cookie nodded sadly. “The Storrows. I knew them. Nice people. I wonder what the hell happened.”

“The police are checking it out.”

“The paper wasn’t very full of details. Do you know anything?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be at liberty to say.”

“Are you working with the police?” asked Cookie.

“No. I tend to work solo. But I’m just naturally tight-lipped with details like that.”

Cookie glanced over his shoulder at the fountain. “Still gives me the creeps, thinking of her dying there.”

Puller said, “I guess I need to arrange for the funeral service and all.” He didn’t have a clue as to what this entailed.

“Betsy told me that she wanted to be cremated. It should be in her will.”

“Mason didn’t mention that.”

“Did he give you a copy of the will?”

“Yes.”

“You should read it. Betsy was very particular about her funeral arrangements. I’m sure she spelled them out to the letter.”

“Thanks. I guess I should have already done that.”

“You’re young. You don’t think about wills and funeral arrangements.”

“I’m also a soldier. We tend to think about them more than most people.”

Puller left Cookie, went back inside, and packed up his equipment. He took one last look around and hauled his duffel out to the Tahoe. He sat in the driver’s seat and pulled out his aunt’s last will and testament. After skimming over most of the legalese, including the part leaving the house to him, he arrived at the provisions about her final arrangements.

Betsy Simon did indeed want to be cremated. She had prefunded the service with Bailey’s Funeral Home. That included an urn for the ashes and a request that they be spread over the Pennsylvania countryside where she had grown up.

He tucked the will back into his pocket. He would speak with Bailey’s about this. He figured they were probably very experienced with cremating folks down here.

He was starving and he had no place to stay. He would take care of the food first, the lodgings next. He also had to check in at the police department. He figured Landry would soon require his sworn allegations to process the eight idiots who had come after him last night.

He checked his phone and was surprised that there was no text from her.

Or Bullock.

He wondered if the moron Hooper had stopped puking yet.

And then he stopped wondering about Hooper.

He put the keys in the ignition, pulled his M11, and hit the gas, pointing the Tahoe straight at the car.

Sometimes the direct way was the best.

CHAPTER

39

PULLER SLID THE NOSE of his Tahoe to within an inch of the passenger door of the other car. The man seated there stared at him in surprise. The driver was trying to back the car up. Puller eased the nose forward until his hood was touching the car’s passenger door. If the driver backed up any more, he was going to seriously damage his vehicle.

Puller watched both men for any sudden movements. He raised his gun into view, rolled his window down, and motioned the passenger to do the same.

The man did so. “What the hell are you doing?” he barked.

“Not what I wanted to hear,” replied Puller as he climbed out of the Tahoe and came around to stand next to the car, the M11 held at an angle that would allow him to shoot at his target within a millisecond and not miss.

“What I wanted to hear was why you’ve been tailing me. And I would follow that up by asking who the hell are you.”

All three men turned their heads when they heard the screech of tires, followed by the whoop of a siren. A police cruiser had turned down the street and was advancing on them.

Puller saw the driver first and his heart sank.

It was Hooper.

Next to him was Landry.

Hooper looked excited.

Landry seemed uncertain.

Puller slipped his M11 back into its belt holster as the two cops got out of their car. Hooper had his gun pulled.

Of course you do, thought Puller.

Landry kept her gun holstered, but placed her hand on top of its butt.

Hooper advanced, swiveling his gun back and forth until he finally kept it pointed at Puller. “You just can’t keep out of trouble, buckaroo,” he said gleefully.

“I wasn’t aware I was in trouble,” replied Puller.

Hooper looked at the proximity of the Tahoe to the other car and said, “So you always park this close to other vehicles?”

“If I want to have a private conversation with somebody, yeah,” said Puller.

This comment made Landry snort and Hooper scowl.

“You keep up with the bullshit your ass will be in a lockup so fast you’ll get a nosebleed,” he snapped.

Puller said nothing to this inane comment because there was really nothing to say.

Even the guys in the car looked like they wanted to laugh, and probably would have except Hooper was now pointing his gun at them.

Puller said to Landry, “Can you ask your partner to holster? His finger is past the trigger guard. To me that means you’re going to fire.”

“Hoop,” said Landry in an admonishing tone. “No more accidents, okay?”

More accidents? thought Puller.

“We know he’s armed,” said Hooper, indicating Puller.

“I am armed because I’m required to be by the United States government,” pointed out Puller. “You can take it up with the Pentagon if you want, but I think federal trumps state, at least in this instance.”

He pointed at the two men in the car. “But now they might be armed too. I don’t know for sure.”

Landry’s gaze flicked to the car’s occupants. She stepped forward, her hand still gripping the butt of her sidearm. “Will you gentlemen please step out of the car with your hands where we can see them?”

“I can’t open my door,” said the guy on the passenger side. “His truck is blocking it.”

“Then slide across and out the driver’s side,” said Landry sharply.

With Hooper keeping his aim on them and now ignoring Puller, the two men slid out of the car, their hands held out in front of them.

“Are you armed?” asked Landry again.

Each man looked at the other.

The driver said, “We are not armed.”

“Open your jackets,” said Landry.

The men did so and there was nothing to see except shirts and belts.

Puller said, “Why have you been following me?”

The driver looked at him. He was about six feet tall, broad shoulders tapering to a slim, hard waist. His companion was likewise built. Their buzz cuts matched too. Up close they looked even more military.

“Who says we’ve been following you?”

“I do,” said Puller. “This is the fourth time I’ve seen you. Twice on this street.”

“It’s a small town,” said the man.

Landry said, “Let us see some ID.”

The men pulled out their wallets and handed over driver’s licenses. Landry wrote the info down in her notebook while Puller tried but failed to see the names and addresses on the licenses.

She handed them back.

The first man said, “Unless you have some reason for holding us, I’m assuming we can go now?”

Landry glanced at Puller and then back at the men and said, “Can you tell me what you’re doing in Paradise?”

“Just down here on vacation,” replied the man.

“Have you been following this gentleman?” asked Landry.

“No. I’m thinking about buying a place on this street, actually. Even contacted a Realtor about it.” He flicked out a card to her. “This is her name and contact info. She’ll vouch for me. We were sitting here going over what places we were going to check out when this guy came flying at us. Seems to me that instead of questioning us, you should be arresting him. I thought he was going to ram us with his truck.”

Landry glanced down at the card and then frowned as she glanced once more at Puller. Puller could read all the doubts in that look.

She handed the card back to the man. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.”

Hooper said, “Do you want to press charges against him?” He indicated Puller.

The man eyed Puller, as though trying to absorb every detail of his face.

“Nah. He doesn’t seem worth the trouble.” He smiled at Puller while his friend let out a snort of laughter. “So just move your truck and we’ll be on our way.” He drew closer to Puller. “But you try something like that again, I won’t be as accommodating.”

Landry stepped between them. Perhaps she had caught the look from Puller that indicated he was about a millisecond from breaking the man in half.

“That’s enough of that,” she said, pushing them apart. “Puller, move your vehicle. Now. Gentlemen, you have a good day.”

Puller climbed into his truck and backed it up just enough to allow the other car to creep past. Then the driver accelerated, turned the corner, and was gone.

Puller got back out of the truck. “What were their names?” he asked.

“That is none of your damn business,” snapped Hooper.

Puller looked at Landry inquiringly.

She shook her head. “It is none of your business, Puller. And just be glad he didn’t press charges. Now from here on, just stay away from them.”

“Me staying away from them isn’t the problem. They’re following me.”

“So you say,” barked Hooper. “Doesn’t make it true.”

Landry said, “Puller, their story does sound logical. If they’re looking for a house on this street.” She gazed up and down it. “And I see three for-sale signs.”

Puller knew this was bullshit. The guys had their cover story. But Diego had seen them near the Sierra. He didn’t think there was any real estate in that area that would interest the two men. But he kept that to himself.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re probably right.”

Landry clearly didn’t believe him, and Hooper clearly still wanted to arrest him.

He turned to climb back into the Tahoe.

Hooper said, “How do you know we’re done with you yet?”

Puller turned and stared at him expectantly. “Okay. Are you done with me?”

Hooper looked surprised by the question and glanced at Landry. She said, “Hoop, finish the patrol on this street. I want to have a word with Mr. Puller.”

Hooper climbed into the cruiser and hit the rack lights and engaged the crowd control button. The blasting noise caught Landry completely off guard.

“Damn it, Hoop, just go,” she snapped.

He sped off faster than he should have on a residential street.

“How do you stand working with that idiot?” asked Puller.

She ignored the comment and said, “What is going on with you?”

“Come again?”

“Are you getting paranoid?”

“I’m not paranoid. Those guys are following me.”

“You have proof of that?”

“I’ll get it.”

“What you need to get, Puller, is to just leave it alone. Those guys didn’t look like the types to be messed with.”

“And you think I do?”

She looked over his shoulder, her arms folded across her chest.

He said, “I know I need to come down to the station and press charges against the guys from last night.”

“You might not want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“They want to press charges against you.”

“Come again?”

“They said you attacked them.”

“I did. Before they attacked me.”

“You might not want to go around admitting that.”

“They were in my room, waiting to ambush me. Little hard to spin that.”

“They’ve already been released on their own recognizance.”

“Things work that fast in Paradise?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I was told those guys didn’t have gang connections. But someone is apparently pulling strings behind the scene.”

“I’m just a beat cop, Puller. I don’t get into stuff like that.”

“So they’re out on the street waiting to come after me again?”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

“Why?”

“Because I told them you were a super special forces homicidal maniac who could kill them in more ways than they could even imagine. I told them that the next time you would kill all of them and then get your Army buddies to come down here and help kill their families for good measure.”

Puller cracked a smile. “You actually told them that?”

“That was the gist of it. And for the Latinos I said it all in Spanish so they would get the point without having to translate. I said if they left you alone, I could guarantee their safety. Otherwise all bets were off. They all looked scared shitless when they left. And I really don’t think they’re going to press charges. They’re too afraid of you.”

Puller said, “Okay, I appreciate the assist.”

“You’re welcome. Now you can focus on what happened to your aunt.”

Puller smiled. “I wish every local cop I worked with was as cooperative as you.”

“You treat me with respect, I reciprocate. The moment you stop doing that, so do I.”

“I’ve got no problem with that.” He paused, wondering whether he should even venture there. But it would be a good way to ask more questions. And he found he was enjoying Landry’s company. She could be a good asset for him on this case if it turned out his aunt’s death wasn’t an accident.

“You free for dinner?”

She looked surprised and, Puller thought, a bit pleased by the invitation.

“You let me stay at your place rent-free,” he said in a joking manner. “I’d like to do something for you.”

She thought about this for a few seconds. Part of Puller thought she was going to say no.

“I get off duty in two hours. Where do you want to go?”

“Your town. I’ll defer to you.”

“There’s a place called Darby’s on the main drag.”

“Okay. I’ve seen it.”

“Say about eight o’clock?”

“Sounds good.”

He climbed into his truck and drove off. But he was no longer thinking about dinner with Landry.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee in the sedan. He needed to know who they were and whether they were connected just to him somehow or to what had happened to his aunt.

And maybe he had a way to do that.

He picked up his phone.