Текст книги "Stranger on the Shore "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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“The hell I am. You could have broken your neck or your back falling through that bridge. I’m not saying that was the intent, but it sure wasn’t anyone’s concern either.” He seemed genuinely disturbed.

“Okay, well, I didn’t know you then,” Griff said. “I didn’t think you were down here actually sawing through planks, but it did go through my mind that maybe you conveniently showed up in time to make sure I didn’t drown.”

Pierce’s jaw dropped. “You think I’m capable of that, but you’re high and mightily pissed off because I dared to do some checking up on you?”

“I’m still pissed off, so I wouldn’t bring that up if I were you.”

Pierce shook his head, still disbelieving. After a moment he picked up his fork and impaled another bite of mushroom and potato. “Letting that go for the moment, here’s as much of the story as Alvin has deigned to share so far. He believes, but isn’t completely sure because his memory has gaps and it was a long time ago, that he climbed out of bed and wandered away the night of the party.”

“Does he remember—” Griff stopped.

“Does he remember what?”

He shook his head. He had nearly asked if Alvin remembered Pierce forcing him to go back to his room, but he wasn’t sure if he had been told that in confidence. Either way it was liable to be a sensitive topic.

Pierce went on. “He says he was struck by a car, and had no idea who he really was until a couple of years ago.”

“Amnesia? Come on. He couldn’t come up with anything better than that?”

Pierce lifted one shoulder disparagingly. “Amnesia. Repressed memory.”

“False memory?”

“Vivid imagination?”

Griff made a disbelieving sound. “There’s no way it could have happened like that. Not given the manhunt that was underway. No Jonnie Doe in the tristate area could have been hospitalized around that time without it sending up flags.”

“Agreed. But his story is vague enough that it’s hard to disprove. He thinks the hospital he was taken to was Sister of Mercy, which has been closed for eighteen years after being gutted by fire. He grew up in foster care, but he’s not ready to talk about it. He’s hinted at horrific abuse.”

“What if it’s true?” Griff said uneasily.

“It’s not true. I don’t buy it for one minute. It’s a carefully calculated cover story. The facts either can’t be corroborated or he’s devised compelling reasons why no one would dare to push for corroboration.” Pierce pushed his empty plate aside. “That was tasty, by the way. You’re a good cook.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I know my way around a frying pan.”

“Have you been on your own a long time?”

Griff said coolly, “Stick to unmasking one imposter at a time, Pierce.”

He was surprised at the disconcerted look Pierce threw him. In fact, just for an instant, Pierce looked hurt. Or maybe that was what Griff wanted to see. Griff said, “Where’s he been living up till now?”

Pierce smiled. “I did manage to get the address out of Jarrett. Alvin claims he’s an artist of some kind working in upstate New York.”

“If he got his memory back a couple of years ago, why didn’t he come forward?”

“I asked the same thing. You should appreciate this. He wasn’t sure he was comfortable with the whole filthy rich lifestyle. He’s an artist, you understand.”

That gave Griff pause. “Like Gemma.”

“You’re being too generous. But he claims to be a free spirit. He needs his space. He needs the right vibrations. He wasn’t sure there was any point introducing himself to his long lost family because if they aren’t the right kind of people, he doesn’t plan on hanging around.”

Griff mulled this over. “Meaning if they’re the kind of people who dare to question his story, he won’t stay? If that isn’t emotional blackmail, I don’t know what is.”

Pierce’s gaze was approving. “That’s my take too. He’s not subtle. In fact, he laid it on with a trowel. For instance, seeing that his family gave up so easily on finding him, he just wasn’t sure he really belonged here anyway.”

“Did he actually say that?”

“He did. He used to cry himself to sleep every night in his little bed at the orphanage wondering why his real parents didn’t come for him.”

Griff swallowed. Pierce’s tone was scathing, but Griff had a sudden awful memory of doing the same thing. Well, not exactly the same thing. But he remembered being haunted by the feeling he didn’t belong, that his real mother and father were out there somewhere. He vividly recalled his mother slapping him—one of the few times she’d struck him—for saying she wasn’t his real mother.

Apparently it was a perfectly ordinary thing for kids to say when they were unhappy or angry, but his mother had been devastated. She had quirks like that. She was so independent, so self-reliant, but then some totally offbeat thing could knock her flat, literally send her rocking herself in a corner.

“You listening?” Pierce asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s got Jarrett’s psychological composite down cold. The funny thing is even five years ago Jarrett would have insisted on confirmation, corroboration. Hell, even three years ago he’d have demanded proof.”

“Maybe he senses Brian is telling the truth.”

“He’s not telling the truth. On top of all that, he was shrewd enough to contact Jarrett directly rather than go through me.”

“You can’t blame him for that. If I’d been able to figure out a way to reach Jarrett without going through you, I’d have done the same thing.”

This seemed to sting Pierce. He laid his pen down. “If you’ll notice, I did pass your information on to Jarrett. If I was the complete bastard you seem to think I am, I wouldn’t have done that.”

“True. I guess. You didn’t think there was a chance in a million Jarrett would consider talking to me.”

Pierce’s grin was reluctant. “True.”

“So that’s only partial credit.” Griff pushed his plate away and finished typing in his notes. “Okay. I’m going to get out of here early tomorrow before anyone can officially ask me to leave. I’ll drive up to...” He checked his notes “Ilion. Wherever that is.”

“It’s a village in Herkimer County. In the Mohawk Valley. I’ve driven through it a couple of times. It’s fairly rural and not affluent.”

“Does ‘not affluent’ mean poor?”

“In this case, yes.”

“Okay, I’ll use tomorrow to see what I can find out about Alvin.”

“If we have a better idea of who we’re dealing with, we can figure out our next move.”

Our? But Pierce was right. At least for now they were allies.

Allies and...? Not friends. Friends did not hire private eyes to investigate each other, but there was no question he still found Pierce sexy. Sexy and interesting. Very. Also alien. But maybe that was part of what made Pierce so interesting. There was nobody like Pierce in Janesville.

“All right then.” Pierce slid a business card across the table. “This is all my contact info. If you can’t get through on my cell, try one of these other numbers.”

Griff glanced at the card. Phone numbers, email, even snail mail. Lots of ways to get hold of Pierce if he needed to. Practically an invitation, in fact.

He looked up. Pierce was watching him. Griff remembered what Diana had said about having to make the next move. Because Pierce had trust issues. And according to Levi, Griff had intimacy issues. But that was all moot anyway because in a few days he’d be back home and in all likelihood he’d never see or hear from Pierce again.

Pierce smiled. It was that assured, consciously charming smile of his. He still held Griff’s gaze, still looked at him as though waiting for Griff to say something. Pierce was being about as subtle as an elbow in the ribs, although he seemed touchingly oblivious of the fact. Maybe he didn’t technically make the second moves, but it looked to Griff like Pierce didn’t hesitate to orchestrate a repeat performance if he was interested.

And, to be honest, Griff was tempted to take that prompt. But Pierce had been kind of a jerk in bed and he had been kind of a jerk out of bed, so further exposure to Pierce was probably a bad idea. Things were complicated enough. Plus Pierce probably viewed their previous night together as slumming.

“Thanks,” Griff said. “I will.”

Pierce looked disappointed. At least Griff thought so, but the next instant Pierce was on his feet, slipping on his beautifully tailored suit jacket. He picked up his trench coat—also beautifully tailored—and headed for the door of the cottage.

“Watch your back tomorrow,” he said. “Let’s make sure to stay in communication.”

On the front stoop he hesitated again. It was starting to rain once more. He smiled at Griff, still charming but with a lot less certainty this time.

Screw it. It wasn’t like he didn’t want Pierce. Griff almost reached out. But maybe he was misreading this entirely, and it would be embarrassing—not to mention painful—to be wrong.

“Good night then,” said Pierce.

Too late. Too late now. Griff said, “Good night.”

Pierce turned and walked briskly across the bridge. Rain pattered on the grass and flowers. The solid thump of his footsteps melted away into the shadows.

Chapter Nineteen

Griff slowly closed the door.

As he returned to the kitchen table and his laptop he was digesting Pierce’s advice to “watch his back.” Fraud and Criminal Impersonation were nonviolent crimes, but there was a lot of money at stake. A fortune. By timing his return when he had, “Brian” was set to inherit at the very least a quarter of the entire Arlington estate. Pierce had a point. They needed to proceed with caution.

There was a hard knock on the cottage entrance.

Griff’s heart jumped. He sprang to answer the door.

To his disappointment Michaela, wearing jeans and a rain-darkened hoodie, stood on the stoop. “Can I come in?”

“Uh, sure.” Griff stepped back, gesturing for her to enter, and Michaela stepped through the door.

“I take it my daughter is not here?”

“Huh? No.”

“I didn’t think so. I just passed Pierce on his way up to the house.”

That must have given Pierce an awkward moment. Griff said, “He dropped by for dinner.”

Michaela’s dark brows shot up. “Really? I have to say, I didn’t see that coming.” She moved past him, surveying the cottage living room. “This is so strange. I haven’t been here in years.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Chloe was conceived on that sofa.”

Griff glanced automatically and uneasily at the sofa. He remembered Gemma’s journal was still concealed beneath the faded silk cushions. Along with another guilty secret or two.

Michaela circled the room, lifting up various objects. Was she making sure he hadn’t stuck any cloisonné vases in his suitcase before she delivered the bad news that he was being kicked out?

She murmured, “So you’re...? You and Pierce are...?”

Where did people get the idea they had the right to ask that question? How was it ever anyone else’s business? Or at least anyone who wasn’t hoping to sleep with you themselves.

“It was just dinner. It was kind of a weird day for both of us.”

At that she turned, fists jammed in her leather jacket. She studied Griff. “But an exciting day, right?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“It did seem to knock you off your feet for a minute.” Michaela’s gaze was curious.

“Low blood sugar,” Griff said. “But yeah, certainly not something I saw coming.”

“None of us did. He just showed up this morning. Right before lunch. No warning. Nothing. Just boom. I’m here. I was afraid Daddy was going to have a stroke.”

“Johnson always swore he didn’t take Brian.”

“Odell.” She seemed to be looking inward. “Yes. He always swore he was innocent. I didn’t believe him. No one did.” Her expression tightened. “Pierce should be concentrating on getting Odell out of prison, not trying to prove Brian is a fake.”

“You believe him then? Brian?”

She looked startled. “Of course I believe him. Who would make up a lame story like that? Of course it’s true. Of course he’s Brian. You only have to look at him to see it. He looks exactly like Marcus did at his age. Like Matthew. Like all the Arlingtons. He could have sat for any of the portraits in the main hall.”

“And then there’s Tiny Teddy.”

“Yes,” she said eagerly. “Where the hell would he have gotten that bear? It’s the same bear. I knew it the minute I picked it up. I’m the one who found the black button for Gemma. And it isn’t just Tiny Teddy. He remembers all kinds of things. Things only Brian could know.”

What kind of things could only a four-year-old know? “You mean like who everyone was? Where the nursery is located? That kind of thing?”

“No. I know what you’re thinking. If he did his homework, he’d know what we all look like. He’d know the floor plan of the house. But he was talking about things no one outside of this family would remember. He recognized Mrs. Truscott. He remembered the name of his dog, for God’s sake.”

“Brian had a dog?”

“Yes. Well, Matthew had a dog. Brian naturally thought it was his dog.”

“Corky,” Griff said slowly.

“Yes. Corky. Brian remembered Corky. He remembered the bird clock in the library. He remembered Muriel’s Toshikane bracelet with the little ceramic faces of Japanese gods. Those aren’t things anyone else would know about. Most of them are things even an adult wouldn’t remember. I didn’t remember that bracelet of Muriel’s until Brian mentioned it.”

“So you don’t have any doubts? None of you have any doubts?”

“No. No.” The earnest tone was not what he expected from her, but she seemed sincere. “This is the first good news this family has had in twenty years. Don’t get sucked into Pierce’s cynicism. You have a happy ending for your book. Be glad. You’ll sell a million copies.”

“Am I still writing the book? Brian sounded pretty adamant.”

Michaela gave him a level look. “Oh, you’re writing the book. I don’t have any doubt about that. I don’t think Brian will be a contributor, but I don’t think that’s going to stop you.”

Griff acknowledged that with a faint smile. “Maybe not.”

“That’s what I thought. Look, I have to tell you something.” She took another restless turn around the room. “I’m not particularly proud of this.” Her lip curled. “But then I’ve done a lot of things I’m not particularly proud of.”

“What?”

It took her a few seconds to work herself up to it. “When Brian disappeared, I was a different person. I was, let’s say, unreliable. Irresponsible. Hell, I was a goddamned mess. Half the time I was stoned. The rest of the time I was thinking about how I could get stoned.”

He nodded.

“I hurt people.”

“I know you had a relationship with Odell Johnson.”

Michaela looked startled. “You have been doing some digging. I did. That’s true. It was...stupid. For a lot of reasons. But I didn’t have any inhibitions. No boundaries back then. So I couldn’t be sure. I could never be sure.”

“Sure of what?” Then he realized what. “You thought you might have had something to do with Brian’s disappearance?”

Astonishingly, tears glittered in her eyes. Astonishing because she did not look like someone who cried. Ever. Certainly not easily. Michaela wiped her arm across her face. “I don’t know. Yes. I wasn’t sure. I could never be sure. I didn’t want to believe it, but Odell wouldn’t have killed Brian. He was a lot of things, but not that. He wasn’t a good man, but he wasn’t a bad man.”

“But you thought you were that bad?”

“Like I said, half the time I didn’t know what I was doing. The other half, I didn’t care. I’ve been living with the fear that I might have...I don’t know...for two decades. So when you came snooping, I panicked. Until you, Daddy always refused to cooperate with anyone poking into our past, but he believed you were somehow going to get to the bottom of Brian’s disappearance. And...I lost it.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

She took a deep breath and then expelled it. “I told Ring what I was afraid of. All of it. Everything. And he promised to take care of it.”

“Take care of it? Or take care of me?”

At that Michaela looked exasperated. “Oh please. Whatever bullshit Chloe told you is just that. Bullshit. Ring was only trying to scare you off. Period. He weakened the bridge. He thought you’d put your foot through a board. He didn’t intend for the center section to give way.”

Griff gaped at her. “He deliberately sabotaged the bridge?” It was one thing to theorize and another to be confronted with the fact.

“Yes.” Her expression grew sheepish. “And there’s more. He’s the one who’s been phoning you during the night. Except you didn’t answer last night.”

“I wasn’t here.” He was still trying to comprehend what she was telling him. Could they have honestly believed he would be scared away by such heavy-handed tactics? On what TV channel did they live?

“That’s it. That’s all.” Michaela seemed relaxed now. Relieved. Her conscience unburdened of all sins. “I wanted to tell you so you didn’t have to worry whether someone was stalking you. It was me. I was afraid you’d find out that I had done something to Brian.” She smiled, looking years younger. “But Brian’s home now and everything is good again.”

* * *

After Michaela left, it took Griff a while to settle down enough to be able to work. He felt keyed up, restless, and as ever, anxious.

He tried calling May Chung’s, but reached the answering machine again, and hung up without leaving a message. The person you should be talking to is Nels Newland. What had she meant?

The Nassau police had discovered that Newland played the ponies—and that he was not particularly lucky. Bad debts? A gambling addiction? Even if both were true, that was still a long way from masterminding a kidnapping. Nels Newland did not seem to Griff like a man who would turn to crime to fund his gambling habit. Not that you could go by personality types. Especially not twenty years later. Age had a way of blurring, softening the jagged edges of character.

Which didn’t change the fact that it was one thing to investigate someone on paper and another to meet the person, talk to the person. Sometimes the chain of evidence, whether direct or indirect, led in the wrong direction. And sometimes it didn’t matter what portrait the evidence painted. Griff had never met anyone who didn’t believe they were a good judge of character. And he’d observed all too many trials where the verdict had ultimately been decided by the jury’s feelings about such things as whether the defendant smiled too much or not enough. He had seen juries be wrong time and time again in such assessments.

You could instruct, you could even train people to ignore their biases, but that didn’t erase the existence of those biases. Everyone had their prejudices, their “natural inclinations.” They persisted like the faded stain of mineral deposits, even after education and experience raised the waterline.

Even if Odell Johnson had not sent that ransom note, he’d have been the first and foremost suspect in any investigation. That wasn’t just bias, it was also common sense. Had Johnson been exonerated, the police would have turned their attention to the rest of the staff, to Newland.

But Johnson, with his attempt at extortion, had guaranteed that the police had looked no further. Through the years, Jarrett Arlington had hired private detectives—there was even a rumor he had hired a medium—but no one had come up with a better suspect than Johnson. And despite many diligent searches, Brian’s body had never been found.

Griff rubbed his forehead. It felt like he was going in circles.

If Pierce was correct, and a member of the family was behind Brian’s reappearance, didn’t it follow that person was behind the real Brian’s disappearance? If that was the case, then that really only left two viable suspects. Marcus and Muriel.

Griff believed Michaela’s relief and happiness were genuine. She had lived with the fear that she was responsible for Brian’s disappearance, and now that guilt, that fear, had been lifted. For that relief and happiness to be genuine, Michaela could not have anything to do with Leland Alvin showing up. She needed to believe he was the real thing.

But what about her psycho husband? What about Ring Shelton, the ex-con, ex-biker restaurateur? If he’d been willing to make creepy anonymous phone calls and sabotage a bridge in the hope of scaring Griff off Michaela’s trail, who was to say he wasn’t devoted enough to produce a fake Brian? The one foolproof means of ending any and all investigation was to have Brian show up at long last and claim it had all been a mistake.

Ring could have hired an actor. A quarter of the Arlington pie was a pretty nice commission. A lot of people would jump at the opportunity. And with an accomplice on the inside, the possibility of pulling off the charade was much higher. Only a family member could possibly know that this time Jarrett wouldn’t demand a DNA test. That Jarrett was either feeling his mortality or was unhappy enough with his remaining children to take a chance on a complete outsider.

Yes, the more that Griff considered this theory, the better it looked.

He signed back onto his laptop and began to search the web for information on Ring Shelton.

He quickly discovered that there was no real intelligence on Ring previous to his marriage to Michaela. In fact, almost all information on him was post factum Michaela. You had to expect some revisionist history there.

Knowing how and where to search, Griff was able to locate the original story of the bar fight where Ring had killed another biker. It was bare-bones reporting. A brawl had erupted between rival biker gangs at a remote canyon lodge in Southern California. Ring had originally been convicted of manslaughter. He had appealed and eventually he’d got a second trial and the charges reduced to self-defense. All told, he had done slightly less than three years in prison.

Since that time he seemed to have stayed out of trouble. About the most serious criticism anyone had leveled at him in recent times was the San Francisco Chronicle dropping his restaurants from their Top 100 list.

Ring liked his flashy cars, flashy clothes and flashy backstory, but reading between the lines, his wild man days were behind him. When interviewed, he invariably discussed food, cooking and his wife’s art. His language was peppered with biker slang like “big slab,” “caning it,” “skid lid” and “hammer down,” but he admitted in one article that he didn’t even own a “sled” anymore.

There was no indication whatsoever that he and Michaela had known each other before they met at her show at the McLoughlin Gallery on Geary Street. Ring claimed it had been love at first sight. Michaela? Michaela did not give interviews. No surprise there.

It looked to Griff as though Michaela had supplied the original funding for Ring’s first restaurant, but things had taken off from there.

Going by appearances, Ring seemed like a reformed man and a devoted husband. Devoted enough to ease his wife’s troubled conscience by coming up with a fake Brian? It wasn’t impossible, but it did seem unlikely. Even to an imagination as vivid as Griff’s.

He stretched, glanced at the time at the bottom of his laptop screen, surprised to find it was after midnight. He signed off, closed the lid and went upstairs to bed.

He woke much later to moonlight and the odd feeling someone was in the cottage. He sat up, listening.

The clock beside the bed ticktocked in peaceful rhythm. Outside, the rain shushed against the window. The climbing roses nestled against the glass.

No squeaking floorboards. Not even the settling of joints and beams. Nothing. There was not another sound in the house. Not another sound in all the world. And yet he had been sure someone had been talking to him. That he had heard music playing nearby.

He could still hear the echo of “Stranger on the Shore.”