Death Benefits_ A Novel Part 22

"It's odd," Stillman mused. "Brothers, I can easily take in stride. Somebody comes up with a way of making big money, tells one of them, and asks if there's somebody else he can trust to bring in on it. The one he thinks of is his brother. Fine for us, because we can find a brother. But this business of second cousins twice removed or something, how do we use it? Most likely they'd have different last names, and n.o.body but them would even know they were related. That's no help."

"I suppose not," said Walker. He drove in silence for a while. Stillman's sharp eyes stared, unblinking, into the dark, until Walker said, "Is there something else wrong?"

"I was thinking about all of them: Ellen Snyder, Fred Teller, the two people who got killed in their swimming pool, the guy in that swamp in Florida."

"What about them?"

"I was thinking we're way behind. We still haven't figured out very much about the way these people are doing this, or what they'll do next. I'd say that all we can be sure of is that they always move a little faster than we can, and they don't mind killing people."

"We know a little more than that. We know about James Scully."

"Oh, yeah," said Stillman. "After all this time, we managed to get through all the intentional confusion just once. This time while we were flailing around, we reached in blind and got our hands on a throat. The fellow's dead, but all we can do is keep squeezing."

28.

They drove along the Old Concord Road, following its meanderings around gentle hills that had been cleared two hundred years ago for sheep that would keep the woolen mills along the Ashuelot River spinning. There were no sheep now. As the mills had died a slow death, the land had been turned, acre by acre, into pasture for dairy cattle, but now another change had occurred. At short intervals, the pastures would be interrupted by stands of second-growth forest, the tall trees blocking the dim purple glow that had begun to tinge the horizon beyond the eastern hills, making it full night again.

There were few cars on the road, but as they drove on they began to see houses with dim lights glowing from windows near the back, and Walker decided somebody must be getting ready to make breakfast. Once when Walker coasted to a stop at a blinking traffic light, the silence let him hear birds chirping unseen in a big tree to his left.

A few minutes later Stillman said, "Wait a minute. What was the name of that last town?"

"South Haverley."

Stillman switched on the dome light and studied the map. "That was five or six miles ago, I think. Okay. We should be at Coulter, or almost."

"Could I have driven through it without seeing it?"

"I doubt it," said Stillman. "Keep going, but slowly."

After another mile, there was a crooked stretch of road that traced the bases of two identical hills, and then Walker saw a narrow secondary road that met the highway to the right. On the left was an old, spa.r.s.e apple orchard with rows of low, gnarled trees that looked black in the dim light. At the shoulder was a small blue sign that said COULTER COULTER. He continued on the highway for a mile, but there seemed to be no buildings. "This can't be right."

"Go back," said Stillman.

Walker stopped and turned the Explorer around, then drove until he came to the sign. He decided it was safer to park on the secondary road, so he made the turn. A few yards down the road was a sign that said MAIN ST MAIN ST.

"Well, h.e.l.l," said Stillman. "Here we are, right on Main Street." He glared at his map, then waved it at Walker. "See the dot that says 'Coulter'? It's on the right side of the road, but it never occurred to me that the whole town was off the highway. Go ahead. Let's see what it looks like."

Walker drove on slowly. The narrow road pierced the s.p.a.ce between the two hills. At a narrow curve where the hills edged up to the road on both sides, the tires pa.s.sed over a wide metal grate that gave a hollow, ringing noise.

"Wonder what that was for," Stillman said.

"Must be a cow stile," said Walker. "The cows won't walk over one of those, so it works like a fence. I guess that must be why it goes all the way across from hill to hill."

"Maybe," said Stillman.

As soon as it was out of the pa.s.s between the hills, the road widened. Curbs had been poured, and the pavement was new, black macadam.

"Looks like the Department of Public Works is on the job," said Walker.

"Right," said Stillman. "Odd that they didn't take it the last two hundred yards to the main highway."

"Summer isn't over yet," said Walker. "And cities here must be like everywhere else. They get people to vote for a bond issue, and by the time anything gets built, the price goes up."

"It's possible," said Stillman. The road pa.s.sed into a wooded lot, then curved a bit and there was a sign that said BRIDGE 100 FEET BRIDGE 100 FEET. The road straightened, and before them was an old wooden covered bridge.

Walker slowed to five miles an hour as they came closer. "That's something, isn't it?" As he was about to drive under the roof, Stillman said, "Stop for a minute."

He got out of the Explorer, and Walker pulled over to the narrow shoulder and got out too. He found Stillman kneeling on the bridge, looking down between two of the thick planks. Walker bent down too. Between the boards he could see a black stream of water. He said, "You afraid it won't hold us?"

"No," said Stillman. "The roof and sides look really old, but the bed has been replaced. If you look down here, you can see they've left the old cross ties in, but they sh.o.r.ed it up by putting concrete piles and steel beams between them. You drive to the end of it, and I'll join you."

Walker went back to the Explorer and drove it slowly across the bridge. In the middle, both sides were left open for a s.p.a.ce of about four feet, where he could look out and see the course of the stream. He revised his a.s.sessment, and promoted it to a river. The current was flowing steadily, but the surface had the untroubled look that deep water had, and it was wider than he had expected. He stopped at the end of the bridge and watched Stillman walking to the open spot. Stillman looked out at the river, then went on.

When he climbed into the Explorer again, Walker asked, "Why are you so interested in the bridge?"

"I don't know what they're supposed to look like," Stillman answered. "I'm not about to drive all over New England looking at covered bridges to compare. If the bridge was out, it would be pretty hard to reach the town by road."

"That's probably why they sh.o.r.ed up the beams with steel supports."

"Right," said Stillman. "Your tax dollars at work."

"Not mine," Walker said.

"Don't be too sure. Any city council that couldn't get federal money to preserve a landmark that also happened to be the bridge to the main highway wouldn't be worth a d.a.m.n."

They drove on for another mile, past open fields that Walker judged must be pasture for cattle that were let out at dawn. There were a couple of old barns, but he didn't see any lights or any vehicles. "This should be about milking time," he said.

Stillman looked at him. "I'll have my secretary free up an appointment. Have you been reading the farmer's almanac, or what?"

"I grew up in Ohio. There's pasture, and there are barns." Walker added, "You said-or implied-that I should be mentioning things that I notice. This is when dairy farmers feed and water their cattle, and milk them. When that's done, they let them out to pasture and clean the barn. But I don't see any signs of life. No lights, no pickup trucks. If the barn's that far from the house, you drive there." He shrugged.

Stillman said, "That's a point. I suppose what it means is there are no cows. If you have to get up this early to shovel cow s.h.i.+t, they were probably murdered."

Beyond the next row of trees that had been left as a windbreak at the end of the field rose the gray roofs of buildings. The little river they had crossed at the covered bridge had looped ahead of them in its meandering. It ran along the edge of town in a stony bed, and the trees were just above the riverbank. There was a short, modern steel bridge with no sidewalks about fifteen feet above the water, and then they were in town.

Walker drove slowly along Main Street, turning his head to take in both sides in alternation. The buildings along Main looked old in the same way as the ones in other towns, the biggest faced with red brick and three stories high, with ornate struts holding the overhangs of the eaves. There were others in wood and clapboard that had pilasters flanking the doors and triangular cornices above the windows that gave them the look of the eighteenth century. Stillman said, "One more nice little town. Everything's squared away and s.h.i.+pshape. Look for Birch Street."

The town was too small for traffic signals, but there were stop signs at each corner. Walker would coast to a stop, look at the street sign on a post to his right, stare up and down the cross street, and then move on. The side streets all appeared to be about four blocks long, disappearing at either end into an empty field or a building or a stand of trees. The names in this part of town were the names he remembered from small towns in Ohio: Was.h.i.+ngton, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, then jumping ahead to Grant. More recent heroes came too late, probably after the town had stopped growing.

They pa.s.sed a two-story brick building, set back on a lawn, that proclaimed itself Coulter Library and looked like one of the thousands built in the era of Andrew Carnegie. Beyond it was a white clapboard church with a tall steeple that looked like all of the others he had seen in the past two days. Ahead he saw a lighted blue sign that said simply POLICE POLICE, so he turned off Main onto Grant and went up the parallel street to his left.

When he pa.s.sed Sycamore, then Oak, he knew it was coming. There was Maple, then Birch. He paused at the corner, looking at house numbers. There were no lights in any of the windows on this block, but he could see that the dim purple luminescence in the east had begun to make colors distinguishable. He turned up the street. The houses were old, most of them Georgian or early Victorian, but there were modern touches-sidewalks and driveways poured within the past few years, porch lights and fixtures that were s.h.i.+ny and recent. When he braked as he approached 117, Stillman said, "Keep going and park around the corner."

Walker stopped in front of a low fence that separated the street from the beginning of a pasture. He got out and waited while Stillman went to the back of the Explorer and opened his leather bag. Walker could see him putting things into his jacket pockets, and then he appeared at Walker's side. "We'll have to do it efficiently," he said. "We've only got twenty minutes before the sun comes up."

"Maybe we should come back at night."

"No," said Stillman. "This is fine. It's not prime time for burglars, so if somebody sees us, we're not automatically in trouble."

He walked briskly up the block, turned in at 117, then kept going around to the back door, looking up at the eaves of the house, stopping to study windows. When they reached the back door of the house, Walker stood by and waited, but Stillman kept going. There was a sloped wooden cover for a bas.e.m.e.nt entrance a few feet away with a door on it and a padlock.

Stillman knelt on it, put a thin metal object into the padlock, and opened it as though he'd had a key. He lifted the door and went down the narrow concrete steps. Walker came down after him, then pulled the door shut.

As he watched Stillman pull out his pick and tension wrench and insert them into the lower door to the bas.e.m.e.nt, Walker said, "How did you open the padlock?"

"A s.h.i.+m pick. I'll get you enrolled in a cla.s.s on locks sometime, and buy you a set of picks for graduation."

Walker didn't respond. He watched Stillman swing the door open and step inside.

Stillman said, "Or, if we get caught one of these times, we can spend a couple of years on it."

The bas.e.m.e.nt was the sort of place he remembered from his grandparents' house in Ohio. In the summer it had been cool and damp, and had a faint musty smell. Stillman switched on a small flashlight and moved it slowly around the walls.

The walls were bare and the concrete was coa.r.s.e and old. It seemed to have crumbled in places and been patched and painted over with whitewash. There was a hot-water heater in one corner, a work bench with a vise and tools in another, and in the middle an oil furnace with a big storage tank. There were a new washer and dryer along one wall beside a big metal sink.

Stillman switched off the light and quietly climbed the wooden stairs to the landing above. When Walker joined him, Stillman whispered in his ear, "Give me five minutes." He opened a door and disappeared into the first floor of the house.

Walker listened, looking out the back door at the lawn. The sun was beginning to rise, and he felt each second pa.s.sing, taking away a little of the darkness. When Stillman opened the door again, he jerked in nervous surprise.

Stillman said in a normal voice, "He lived alone," then turned and walked across the kitchen. Walker could see a gleaming stove and marble counters, a big side-by-side refrigerator.

"Are you sure?" he whispered. "Look at this kitchen."

"I have. Look in the fridge and you'll see this is just where he came to open his next beer. Anyway, there's no women's stuff anywhere, and no toys or clothes for kids. He slept up there." Stillman pointed up the stairs to the second floor. "He had a sort of den down here. I'm going through that. You go up and do the bedroom." As Walker climbed the stairs, he added, "Remember, we're looking for things that will give us the names and locations of his buddies-address book, phone bill, photo alb.u.m, birthday card."

Walker found the bedroom and did a quick survey, but found no photographs or papers in the open, so he looked for storage places. He had watched Stillman do this enough times that he could dispense with wasted motion. He searched the drawers of the dresser, pulled them out to see if anything was behind them, and looked under the bed and in the closet. He found nothing, so he looked for hiding places. He went into the small bathroom, lifted the tank cover of the toilet, searched the area under the sink, tested the baseboards and tiles to be sure none of them were loose. He moved quickly back to the bedroom, checked the mattress for slits in the fabric on the top and bottom, squeezed the pillows. He moved close to each light fixture to be sure nothing was in it. He tested the carpets to be sure no section had been lifted. Just as he was running out of places to look, he found the gun.

He had noticed that the headboard of the bed seemed thicker than most, so he tapped it in a few places to see if it was hollow. When he tapped the center just above the mattress, a small door opened outward. There was a squat, square-cornered SIG pistol sitting where James Scully could reach it in the night. He closed the little door and kept searching.

The walk-in closet was another proof of James Scully's neatness, but the clothes surprised him. Walker counted twenty-two suits and sport coats hanging neatly side by side, all facing to the left. His s.h.i.+rts were all, likewise, hanging with their fronts to the left on another pole. His shoes were in a cupboard, four pairs to a row with the toes outward.

Walker stood on a chair to look at the top shelf. There were hats-mostly baseball caps with the bills facing forward and the logos of heavy-machinery companies on their crowns, and a short-barreled shotgun with a box of deer slugs beside it. Walker patted each pocket of the coats and pants, looked inside the shoes, then knelt and was checking whether anything was taped to the bottom of each shelf when Stillman appeared in the doorway.

"Find anything?"

"A shotgun up on that shelf, and a pistol in a compartment in the headboard of the bed."

"No paper, huh?" said Stillman. "We'd better go."

Walker got to his feet and walked to the stairs with him. "What about you?"

"Not a lot of surprises. He had quite a bit of money. You can see that from the furniture, the way his house has been remodeled. d.a.m.ned if I know where a dime of it is, though. He didn't leave anything that we could use to find it. His little den has a desk in it, but he seems to have used the place mostly to read magazines, watch TV, and talk on the phone."

"You mean there's no paper around at all?"

"Sure there is. Birth certificate, deed to the house, pink slip for his car, bills-water, power, heating-oil company, credit cards. That was a disappointment, because he hasn't been using them on his travels. He's got another set somewhere besides the one he had on him in Florida. The phone bills don't have any long-distance calls on them. I don't think I missed much. I even found his spare set of keys."

They were at the cellar stairs. Stillman started down, but Walker said, "We can't give up like this."

"We're not. I plugged bugs into the phone jacks upstairs and down. And, of course, I took the keys," said Stillman. "I'm looking forward to the luxury of opening a lock with the actual key."

"But we can't come back. Pretty soon the cops in Miami or the FBI will identify him and announce it. His buddies will come and clean this place out."

"Then we'll pick it up on the bugs. That's another luxury I'm looking forward to," Stillman said. "The minute they get started I pick up the phone and call the cops to come get them. And you know what? Whoever comes in to look for incriminating evidence about themselves will experience a moment of intense pleasure just before they hear the sirens. Because this guy didn't have any."

29.

Walker could already see his shadow on the pavement, a fantastic elongation of his silhouette that stretched across the road, stepping into the shadow of the Explorer that was nearly a square. He started the engine as soon as he could get inside.

Stillman said, "Very slowly, just the way we came."

Walker eased the transmission into gear and rolled off the shoulder to get the Explorer moving, then very gradually accelerated in the direction it had been aimed when he had parked. He concentrated on keeping the engine running just above idle and the speed low enough so he could coast to a stop at each corner.

Stillman said, "Go down this street, turn onto Main just before the river, then head for the highway. I think we'll have breakfast in that last town we went through on the way."

"South Haverley? Why South Haverley?"

"It looked a little bigger and livelier than Coulter, even an hour ago. I'd rather not hang around here doing nothing while we wait for something to open up."

Walker turned onto Main and headed out of town. This time, when he came to an intersection, he stopped only long enough to be sure he wouldn't be accused of running the stop sign. Now there were lights on in a few of the houses, and twice he saw police cars. One was cruising along a parallel street in the same direction he was going, and the other had stationed itself on a quiet block just off Main, in the time-honored way of traffic cops waiting for speeders.

When he had crossed the bridge across the river and was driving between the open fields again, he kept staring into his rearview mirror.

"What are you looking for?" asked Stillman. "Cops?"

Walker glanced at him. "It's not entirely out of the question, is it? We did just pull off one of our many unsuccessful burglaries."

"Relax," said Stillman. "I saw two patrol cars on the way out, and if anybody had reported anything, they would have collared us then. And it wasn't entirely unsuccessful."

"No?"

"No. We know James Scully was one of them, and we know he wasn't the one who's been moving all those insurance claims from your company."

"You could tell that?"

"I told you he wasn't in the habit of making long-distance phone calls-none at all last month, when there might have been a lot of conversation with people who were getting started on scams in Pasadena, Miami, and G.o.d knows where else. After seeing his place, we know he had plenty of spending money, but it was the sort of money that a guy who does high-risk work might get as pay. And he didn't have the kinds of things that the money guy will have."