The Investigators Part 87

He reached across Susan a final time, turned off the radio, put the microphone in the glove compartment, and slammed the door.

"Satisfied?" Susan asked.

"Now I know I can call the cops-or at least the sheriff-if I need to."

"What's the administrative channel?"

"Beats the h.e.l.l out of me," Matt confessed. "But whatever it is, that operator can talk to other people."

Two or three minutes later, he saw what he thought must be the Crossroads Diner up ahead on the left.

"That it?"

"That's it."

"I've been in there," he said. "I once took Penny to a gambling h.e.l.l in the Poconos and we stopped in there on the way back."

"A gambling h.e.l.l?"

"A mob-run joint outside Stroudsburg."

"What for?"

He didn't reply as he turned into the parking lot of the Crossroads Diner. He drove slowly through the complex. Susan showed him where the telephones were. He stopped the car, told Susan to wait, and went inside the restaurant. He took a good look around, found three places from which he could see the bank of telephones, and then left. He got back in the car and started up.

"Okay, show me the house," he said.

She gave him directions.

Twenty minutes later, they were almost there. "About a hundred yards ahead is the driveway," she said. "The house is a couple of hundred yards down the drive. If you go in, they're liable to see you."

He drove past the driveway, around the next curve in the road, and then stopped.

"What I want you to do," he said, "is slide over and drive. When we're fifty yards from that driveway, stop. I'll get out. Then you drive down the road, turn around again, go back where I turned around, wait until"-he stopped and looked at his watch-"quarter after five, and then come back to where you dropped me off. I'll get in the back, and you head down the road."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to walk through the woods and take a look at the house."

"If Bryan sees you sneaking through the woods, he'll shoot you."

"I don't intend to let him see me," Matt said, and got from behind the wheel and walked around the front of the car.

Susan had not moved.

"Slide over," he said. "I have to do this."

"Oh, G.o.d!" she said, but she moved.

"Not to worry, fair maiden, I am a graduate-summa c.u.m laude-of the U.S. Marine Corps how-to-sneak-through-the-woods course offered by the Camp LeJeune School for Boys."

"I don't want you to get hurt," she said.

"Neither do I," Matt said. "And I don't intend to. Drive, please, Susan."

She started up.

He opened the glove compartment again and turned on the radio.

"However," he said as they neared the drop-off point, "to cover every possible eventuality, if you hear gunshots, or I do not come out of the woods by twenty after five, you pick up the microphone and push the thing on the side, and say-pay attention: 'Officer needs a.s.sistance. 4.4 miles East on Bucks County 19 from intersection of Bucks County 24.' If you hear shots, say: 'Shots fired.' If they come on and ask you who you are, say you are a civilian in Philadelphia Special Operations, car William Eleven."

"Matt, I can't remember all that," Susan wailed. "Please don't do this!"

"Do your best," he said. "If you have to. I don't think you will."

"Don't do this!"

"Stop the G.o.dd.a.m.ned car!" he said.

She looked at him, then slammed on the brakes. "Start back down the road to pick me up at quarter after five," Matt said, and got out of the car.

He ran across the street into the woods.

Susan didn't move the car for a long time. He was on the verge of running back toward it when she finally started off. He could see that there were tears on her cheeks.

What's going to happen now is that this a.s.shole Chenowith is going to spot me out here, fill me full of holes, then take off for parts unknown. And I will have seen the love of my life for the last time, without even thinking to kiss her good-bye!

It didn't happen that way.

Aside from tearing the pocket of his suit jacket on a protruding limb, he made it through the woods to the house, got a good look at it-it was an ancient, run-down, fieldstone farmhouse with diapers and underwear drying on a line on the narrow front porch; and an old Ford station wagon and a battered Volkswagen parked next to it-saw that it would not only be fairly easy to surround without being detected but that the woods would offer all the cover the FBI would need, and made it back to the road with plenty of time to spare before Susan, on schedule, came down the road.

He jumped in the car and she drove off.

"I think I hate you," Susan said. "G.o.d, that was stupid!"

"Nothing happened. I saw what I had to see, and everything's all right."

"You're as bad as Bryan," she said, on the edge of hysterics. "He's playing revolutionary, and you're playing heroic policeman."

"There's a difference, Susan," he said, and he fought back the wave of anger he felt growing inside him. "I am a policeman, not a heroic one, but a policeman. I don't know if your f.u.c.king friend is a revolutionary or not, but he kills people, and my job is to put the son of a b.i.t.c.h away."

"I don't want you to die!" she said.

"Look for a telephone," he said. "It's time to call Jack Matthews."

TWENTY-SIX.

At six-thirty-fifteen minutes earlier than Matt had told him to be there-Special Agent John J. Matthews of the FBI walked into the paneled bar of the Doylestown Inn, across the street from the Bucks County courthouse, and saw Detective Matthew Payne sitting at the bar nursing what was probably a scotch and water. Beside him, looking better in the flesh than in the photographs he had seen of her, was Miss Susan Reynolds, a known a.s.sociate of the Chenowith Group.

He walked to them and tapped Detective Payne on the back.

"h.e.l.lo, Matt," he said. "What's going on?"

Matt turned on the swiveled bar stool, smiled, and touched Matthews on the shoulder.

"You're early, buddy. I thought you might be. Tell me right now if you're alone."

"You said come alone, I came alone."

"Good boy! Susan, this is Jack. Jack, Susan."

"h.e.l.lo," Susan said, torn between curiosity and not wanting to look at the FBI agent.

"How do you do, Miss Reynolds?" Matthews said stiffly.

"I think your reputation has preceded you, honey," Matt said. "Jack knows who you are."

"Matt, what the h.e.l.l is going on?" Matthews asked.

"What are you drinking, Jack?" Matt said.

"Nothing, thank you. What I want, Matt, is to know what's going on."

"Have a drink, Jack," Matt said, and waved for the bartender. "Another of these, please, for this gentleman," he said.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I don't want a drink!"

The bartender shrugged and walked away.

"Okay," Matt said. "Let me pay for these, and we'll go someplace where we can talk."

He looked at the cash register tab on the bar, then reached in his pocket and peeled two bills from a wad of currency and laid them on the bar. He picked up his drink and drained it.

Matthews saw that Reynolds's gla.s.s was still full.

"Where's your car, Jack?" Matt asked.

"Out in back."

"Good. So's mine," Matt said.

He politely gestured for Susan to precede him out of the bar.

When they were in the parking lot, Matthews pointed at his car. Matt nodded.

Matt led Matthews to his unmarked Plymouth, unlocked the trunk, opened it, handed the keys to Susan, and then reached inside and came out with a briefcase.

"What's that?" Matthews asked.

"It's a briefcase full of money, Jack," Matt said. "Let's go sit in your car."

Matthews's eyebrows rose high in exasperation.

They walked to his car, a new Chevrolet four-door sedan with Maryland license plates.

"What's with the Maryland plates?" Matt asked.

"My car collapsed," Matthews said. "I borrowed this one."

He unlocked the car, Matt got in the front seat and Susan in back.

"Okay, Matt, now what the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"To answer the question I am sure is foremost in your mind, Jack: Yes, Miss Reynolds and I are emotionally involved."

"Oh, my G.o.d!"

"Keep that in mind. It bears very heavily on all of this."

"Matt, I'm going to have to report that," Matthews said. "Jesus Christ! I can't believe this, even of you!"

"You're going to have a lot to report," Matt said, then pushed the briefcase across the seat to him. "I transfer to your custody, Agent Matthews, preserving the chain of evidence, one leather briefcase."

"What's in that?" Matthews asked, not touching it.

"Said briefcase was given to me by Miss Susan Reynolds," Matt said. "It contains a sum of money given into Miss Reynolds's custody by one Jennifer Ollwood."

Matthews looked over the seat back at Susan.

"On several occasions, Miss Ollwood has told Miss Reynolds that she fears for her life, and for that of her infant son-"

"What infant son?"

"Miss Ollwood has borne a son to Mr. Bryan Chenowith," Matt said. "Mr. Chenowith, of course, is a fleeing felon wanted on charges of murder, so Miss Ollwood takes his threats to her and her child quite seriously."

"What the h.e.l.l are you up to, Matt? What's going on?"

"Miss Ollwood has told Miss Reynolds that the monies she placed in Miss Reynolds's care came into her hands from Mr. Chenowith. Naturally fearing for her own life, Miss Reynolds did nothing about the money until questioned by the authorities-me-whereupon she immediately and unhesitatingly turned the evidence over to me."