Specifically, I draft owners’ manuals for various tools and appliances. A degree in Creative Writing doesn’t guarantee a living wage, as I found out when I plastered the walls in my old bedroom in my parents’ house with rejections. About that same time I figured out how to set the clock on my first VCR—after throwing away the instructions—and it struck me that the people who write them may know how to assemble a complex mechanism, but can’t put together a coherent sentence. So I sent letters to the manufacturers of every appliance I could think of, offering to write manuals in return for free use of their products while I figured out how they work.
That led to more rejections; but it only takes one acceptance to get a career started. After a year, Miracle Deck bought my clear and concise instructions regarding the operation of its top-of-the-line pressure-washer. More sales followed.
Give me a doohickey, any sort of doohickey. Don’t tell me what it does, hold the corporate instructions, and give me forty-eight hours to figure it out on my own. I’ll write you a users’ guide any five-year-old could follow.
But not today.
I keep writing and rewriting the same paragraph. When I read it back, it seems like worse gibberish than those manuals translated from Japanese by a Swiss national into English. I push back from the keyboard and reach for the phone for the third time in fifteen minutes. I hit redial, and listen once again to the purring on the Moores’ end of the line until the recording comes on asking if I want to leave a message. I don’t.
The first time, I cut the connection and got halfway through Kevin’s cell number before I remembered it would be ringing in an empty house.
I hang up again, but I let my hand rest on the handset. Is it too early to call Cam Howard? If I make a pest of myself, it might annoy him enough to let the investigation hang for pure spite.
Once can’t hurt. He didn’t strike me as a soulless bureaucrat—quite the opposite, in fact—and anyway a man should get something from his taxes.
“Ray, I’m glad you called.”
My heart does a happy flip. “You’ve found them?”
“No, but there’s a man here who wants to talk to you. Can you come down to the station right away?”
My heart drops back into its hollow recess. “I told you everything I know. How many people do I have to talk to before the system goes into action?”
“This one’s got information to trade.”
“A witness? He saw something?”
“I’ll let him tell you in person.”
It’s a ten-minute drive downtown. I make it in six. Cam is standing behind the desk when I enter his office for the second time that day. The man in the chair where I sat earlier is even more substantial than the chief, with huge shoulders and a big head. His suit is institutional gray, his hair also, and chopped so close to the scalp I can make out the features of his skull.
“Ray Gillett, this is Dale Mercer. Mercer’s a US marshal.”
He rises just enough to grasp my hand quickly and let go. Gray eyes take me in from head to toe. “How well do you know Kevin Moore?” His voice is thin, but not weak; a guitar string tightened almost to the breaking point.
“Almost twenty years. I was best man at his wedding.”
“Know anything about his business?”
“It provides all the maintenance for the university over in Sackville. He’s chief financial officer. But what’s that got to do—?”
“Maybe everything. Know who owns it?”
“Some corporation.”
“Jeremy Adder’s majority stockholder. Ever hear of him?”
“Rings a bell.”
“Clear to Las Vegas. He uses his legit operation here to launder cash from gambling, hooking, and drug dealing. The FBI’s been trying to get something on him for years.”
“You’re telling me Kevin works for the mob?”
“He says he didn’t know. For now the Bureau’s deciding to believe him, but that’s not my problem. My problem is keeping him alive long enough to tell a grand jury everything he does know.”
“You talked to him? When?”
“Easy, Ray.” Cam tilts a palm toward another chair. I hesitate, then take it. He lowers himself into his. “Mercer heard what I put out on the radio and came in to offer assistance.”
“The witness protection program is our baby,” Mercer says. “The Marshals’. We’ve offered Moore, his wife, and their son and daughter relocation and a new identity in return for his testimony.”
“This is like something in a movie,” I say. “What would Kevin know about gambling and prostitution and dope?”
“The FBI will settle for putting Adder away on those charges. It’s his other activities that put us in the picture as babysitters.”
“What kind of activities?”
Mercer rolls his big shoulders. “Murder. For starters.”
Chapter 4
“Adder’s a throwback to gangland’s golden age,” Mercer continues. “His first reaction, when he suspects a leak, is to plug it with a corpse. He’s believed to have ordered at least sixteen hits. If he learns we’ve made contact with Kevin Moore, he’ll try to make it an even twenty.”
Cam says, “Isn’t there some kind of underworld code about not touching civilians?”
“With all due respect, Chief, your experience is limited to your garden-variety crook. Whatever romantic guff you’ve heard about the Mafia, its members are as cavalier about the so-called rules as they are about the laws of the land. This one wouldn’t take the chance of assuming Kevin hasn’t confided in his family. He won’t bother with the tedious business of obtaining proof.”
“This gets more ridiculous by the minute,” I say. “Whatever his boss is up to, Kevin isn’t part of it.”
Mercer’s face draws as tight as his guitar-string voice. Everything about this man is drawn so thin he could snap at any time.
“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. But as chief financial officer, he has access to the books, which are what Justice needs to indict Adder. If Moore can’t provide the actual records, he can tell what he knows on the stand. What’s in his head is US property.”
“Mystery solved,” says Cam. “I’ll cancel the search.”
“I wouldn’t do that just yet.”
We stare at Mercer. The tension in his face—in his whole being—is contagious.
“I cleared this meeting with Washington when we caught the squeal. We hoped to keep this under wraps, but we can’t be working at cross purposes with local law enforcement. Whether your friend’s an innocent dupe or in it up to his chin, we won’t know till we find him and talk to him.”
“Hold on!” Cam leans forward, resting his forearms on the desk. “You just said the Marshals’ office has relocated the Moores. How could you have lost Kevin?”
“I didn’t say that. I said we talked to him. It was in his home, with his family present. Two agents from the Bureau told them everything I just told you, and I assured them of the Marshals’ successful track record in protecting citizens from retribution. Since the couple’s mothers and fathers are deceased and there are no other close relatives, the provision against maintaining contact wasn’t the problem it usually is in these cases. When Mr. or Mrs. Joe Blow turns up sealed in concrete at some construction site, it’s usually because they couldn’t bear to spend Thanksgiving away from Aunt Tilly.”
His bluntness freezes my spine. I don’t like Dale Mercer. But I play the game. I need all the experienced help I can get, and so do the Moores.
“They were open to the idea; Kevin seemed genuinely shocked when we trotted out Adder’s record, and everyone was nervous, the boy especially. They went into another room for a family meeting. Imagine how surprised we were when they came back in and turned us down flat.”
“They must have had a reason,” I say. “I’ve known Kevin longer than Margo. I was with him in the waiting room when their kids were born. He’d do anything to protect his family. So would she.”
Cam is more dir
ect. “Did they give an explanation?”
“We asked. The agents threatened to book Kevin as a material witness, but he called their bluff. ‘I could tell you everything I know, and you wouldn’t be any closer to what you want than you are now. I saw nothing wrong with the figures in the books.’ Well, even the FBI can’t arrest a man without probable cause. In order to hold him, they’d need the very evidence they hope he can provide.”
“I thought you people pushed congress to pass a law to get around that little problem.” Cam’s tone is bitter.
“RICO: The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The Supreme Court’s divided on that point. The justices may look the other way when we swing it against a Don or Hells Angels or a smuggling ring, but one more appeal on behalf of Ozzie and Harriet could strike it down, and we’d lose the only effective weapon we have against organized crime. Their lawyers know the rule of law front to back.”
“I’ve managed to operate inside it.”
“Once again, Chief, you haven’t had the same disadvantages we have on our level.”
I definitely don’t like Mercer. “I’m with Kevin. Why should a man agree to uproot his family from their home and everything they know when he has nothing to offer?”
Mercer’s face now is as flat as a plank. “Then why did he do it on his own? Generally speaking, when someone refuses witpro, it means they have something to hide.”
I look at Cam. “You know Kevin. Talk some sense into this guy, will you?”
“Ray.” The chief is sitting back again, forted up behind the desk with his name and title block-lettered on its steel trivet. “You can afford to give your friend the benefit of the doubt. We can’t. When I’m in a marked car and I stop at a red light beside a motorist who’s putting just a little too much effort into looking innocent, I give him a block, then pull him over. Nine times out of ten he blows over zero-eight-percent on the Breathalyzer or has something interesting in the trunk.”
“What are you getting at—Chief?” Hard to believe I ever called him by his first name.
“Has it ever struck you the Moores are just a little too perfect?”
I spring to my feet, and this time I won’t be ordered to sit back down.
“I’m not a cop,” I say. “I can afford to believe in my friends. If both of you are going to treat them like Public Enemy Number One, it’s up to me to rescue them.”
And for the first time in my sedate life I slam a door behind me.
Chapter 5
Any satisfaction I might have gotten from that childish gesture doesn’t last as far as my car in the municipal lot. I’m as qualified to perform a one-man rescue operation as Mr. Magoo.
Thriller fiction is full of private citizens who go off on personal crusades. They’re former employees of the CIA, or play poker with plucky investigative journalists, or their girlfriend’s a police stenographer.
I bat zero in all three areas.
But if I’ve learned anything from watching too many episodes of Law & Order, it’s that all answers can be found at the scene of the crime.
A local police prowler painted green and white is parked in front of the Steiner house next door. Apart from that, nothing about the neighborhood suggests it’s the focus of anything official. Mercer wasn’t kidding when he said the Marshals prefer to keep the situation secret.
The Moores’ well-kept brick house is free of barricades and yellow police tape. All it lacks from the usual Saturday-afternoon routine is Kevin out front, pruning the hedges with the sample Wonder-Cut electric clippers I gave him last Christmas. Nevertheless I cruise past, park around the corner, and stroll back around to the front door—trying not to look furtively past my shoulder to the Steiners’ house, where one of Cam Howard’s officers has stopped in his rounds, asking neighbors if they’ve seen anything unusual. No doubt my elaborate show of normal behavior is just as suspicious as if I were creeping through the hedge in a fedora and trench coat.
I have an excuse, and it may just be boneheaded enough to pass: Margo has given me a key to look after her plants while the family’s away. What, Officer? A geranium doesn’t know why it’s been left alone. It needs water.
Which sounds lame even in my head.
The house now feels like a museum exhibit. It’s no longer a home.
I walk through it like a stranger, my pulse pounding. This visit is worse than my last, disturbing as that was. This time I’m a housebreaker.
The authorities have been here—something about the atmosphere tells me they have, an antiseptic residue of meticulous search by disinterested parties. Uncaring hands have handled all the trophies and treasures like archaeologists sorting out ancient relics.
I commit my second felony in ten minutes. I swipe a cell phone.
Not Kevin’s, or even Margo’s; the pros will be sure to miss those first off. No, Gabby’s pink phone in its pink case. It will be a while before the investigators discover that loss, and a while more before they eliminate all the many bureaucratic slots into which it may have disappeared. By the time they link it to dull old Ray Gillett, he may just have the case all wrapped up in a pretty pink bow.
Well, that’s how it works in thriller fiction.
I’m in a hurry now, with the incriminating evidence on my person. I’m six feet from the front door when a shadow enters the frame of the pebbled glass in its window; a shadow in a peaked cap, the kind police officers wear. A key rattles in the lock.
My heart leaps into my throat; for the first time I realize the meaning of that cliché. I reverse directions, loping first across the carpet away from the front door, then forcing myself to slow down. It may be my imagination, but I can hear the boards creak under the padding.
POLICE SHOOT LOCAL MAN IN BREAK-IN, I think wildly.
The dead bolt makes a grating sound sliding back into its socket. Now I’m taking long steps and landing on my toes like a character in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. A hinge squeaks; it’s unlike Kevin to let one go without oil, but I might be imagining that sound as well. I cross the threshold into the den just as the door opens.
It’s a pleasant little room where the family often huddles close on the worn sofa, watching TV. A sliding door opens onto the side deck.
A thumb-latch yields to pressure with a click that seems to me like an explosion. I grasp the handle and tug.
The door doesn’t budge.
I definitely hear creaking in the living room; that carpet needs replacing. Breath rasping through my mouth, I look down at a three-foot length of dowel lying in the track. Kevin’s too good a family man to trust the safety of the house to a flimsy latch. I reach down, lift out the barricade as noiselessly as possible, and lay it carefully on shag. The door slides open with a horrendous whoosh, but I don’t wait to find out if it’s overheard. I ease it back the other way, look right and left—the old comic-spy turn—and bound off the deck onto grass, running for the side street as I haven’t run since I outgrew playing tag.
Chapter 6
All the way home I divide my attention between the block ahead and the block behind, expecting at any time to see blue and red lights flashing in the rearview mirror or a roadblock cutting off my escape to home and hearth.
Okay, I’m being over-dramatic. But see how you feel when you’re guilty of obstructing justice and the evidence is burning a hole in your pocket like a red-hot coal. Or rather a pink one.
I’m not cut out for a life of crime, that’s for sure. Even if I’d managed to get away from the Moores’ without detection, any rookie officer spotting my posture, crowding the wheel with both hands clenched on it, or my pale glistening face behind the windshield, would pull me over on suspicion of anything.
Everything aches, even the muscles in my jaw. My hair is tense. I force myself to relax, but moments later I’m back where I was, straining against the seat belt with my shoulders up around my ears.
Stopping for a signal, I roll down my window to cool my sweaty brow. I beat my palms against the wheel lik
e a tom-tom. Change!
The driver behind me taps his horn, sending me through the roof. The light is green. I let out my breath and press the accelerator too hard, chirping my tires.
This is agony. How do professional crooks handle it? Pedestrians seem to stare straight at me. I don’t draw another easy breath until I’m in my own living room, with all the doors and windows locked. I’d close the blinds, if it didn’t seem like switching on a neon sign spelling out GUILTY.
Not much relief, even under my own roof. I keep going to the front door, certain I heard someone pounding on it with the meaty fist of authority.
I go into the kitchen and pop open one of the beers I keep for company. It tastes as bitter as a sunburned potato and I pour it out into the sink after one sip.
The landline rings in the living room. This is it!
It isn’t it.
It’s someone running for office, promising me in a recording to cut taxes.
This isn’t worth it. I’d sneak back into the Moores’ house and put the phone back, if I weren’t sure I’d be caught this time. Is there a special law against replacing evidence?
I am so not prepared to play the role of cyber-sleuth.
The desk in my office is a litter of manufacturers’ components, scribbles on yellow sheets, and printouts of my instruction drafts. I have deadlines to meet, and I need the money. The people who pay me couldn’t care less how many unexplained disappearances I solve as long as I serve them first.
That’s the practical priority. But after how I’ve spent my day, what’s practical have to do with anything?
I shove aside my livelihood and direct my attention to my stolen clue. The Home button brings the screen to life, but—oh, no—password. There’s no way she would be as dumb as me, and use her birthday…but I try it anyway. Luckily I remember the date, having been invited to her recent birthday dinner, not to mention her actual birth; and I’m in. That was almost too easy.