Final Settlement (25 page)

Darby thought about the dinner and dancing night she’d arranged for Donny and Tina in Mexico. “It is.”

“Okay, then.” Tina sounded mollified. “What are you and Miles planning to do today?”

Darby told Tina about Leonard Marcus and their intended trip to the jail.

“Only one problem with that,” Tina said thoughtfully. “The initials in Lorraine’s little ledger were ‘ML’, weren’t they? Not ‘LM’ .”

“You’re right.”

“Maybe they are all turned around, you know, like another encryption? The ‘BA’ is really ‘AB’, or Alcott. That would mean there’s a ‘CR’, and a ‘BA’ .”

“Who might be Bart Anderson,” Darby interjected.

“No way! The lawyer?”

Darby described Miles’s subterfuge and the attorney’s reaction. “We aren’t sure how they knew each other …”

“Oh, there’s millions of ways that woman could have known him, especially if she never forgot anything! She worked for Doc Hotchkiss for all those years, and he could have been a patient. Then there’s her job with Chief Dupont or the Manatuck police. She was on a few committees here and there, and she walked that darn Breakwater. Heck, I suppose he could have been her lawyer, right?”

“Right. This initials idea of yours is interesting. Miles and I will work on it while we sit on the ferry.” She paused. “If you’re okay with visiting Bitsy with Donny, I’m thinking Miles and I could go across now.”

“Sure, ditch your best buddy for the good-looking English guy. See if I care.” She chuckled. “Nah, I can handle Bitsy by myself. Good luck at the jail, and let me know what you find out.”

“I will,” Darby promised.

_____

Donny was glad to see Tina back to her old self. The shock of the tragic death had lessened, and now, as she marched across Chief Dupont’s frozen driveway, a pound cake held in her outstretched hands, he recognized her trademark determination, grim as it was. She was once again the Tina who took charge.

“Let’s plan to stay about an hour, huh honey?” Tina’s eyebrows were raised with the question.

He felt himself blushing. He wasn’t used to being called “honey,” but he sure did enjoy it. “Sounds about right,” he said. He reached up and used the Chief’s door knocker, let it thunk down, and then opened the door.

Bitsy was on the living room couch, a puppy frolicking at her feet. A young woman—Chief Dupont’s daughter, most likely—stood sniffing the diaper of a rosy-cheeked toddler, and somewhere a television blared out a sitcom with a canned laugh track.

“Donny, Tina, come in,” Bitsy called out. “Do you know Alana? And this is little Jonas. And this …” she scooped up the puppy, “Is Rosie. Charles and I picked her up on Sunday, just before …” her voice trailed off.

Tina thrust down the pound cake and rushed to Bitsy’s side, wrapping the woman in her arms. They hugged silently for a long time, with only the little boy’s repeated “doggie, doggie,” breaking the quiet. Donny felt his throat tightening at the scene. He glanced at the Chief’s daughter, sobbing silently while the toddler struggled to get down.

“I’m sorry, Alana,” Donny said haltingly. “Your dad—he was a good man.”

She nodded and wiped her face with the back of a hand. “Can I get you both a cup of coffee?”

Tina and Bitsy separated. “Sure,” Tina said. “Cream and two sugars.”

“I’m set,” Donny said. He watched Alana carry the toddler into the next room, the puppy careening along behind them.

“Sit down,” said Bitsy, waving at the living room furniture. Her face brightened. “How was your trip to Nova Scotia?”

Tina told her about the inn in Halifax, and the wonderful bedroom with the nice, fluffy comforters. “We had tea in the afternoon with these flaky scones,” she said. “They were just wonderful. Good thing they don’t sell them at the Café, or I’d weigh twenty pounds more.”

Bitsy managed a small chuckle. “Speaking of food, how about we have a little piece of your pound cake? It looks delicious.”

“Sure. You sit a minute. I’ll go and cut it up.” Tina strode out of the living room, pound cake in hand.

“She’s an awfully nice girl,” Bitsy observed, watching as Tina disappeared. “I’m glad for you, Donny.”

“Thanks.” He looked down at the floor, unsure of what to say. “What do you think you’ll do now, Bitsy? Will you stay in Hurricane Harbor?”

Bitsy cocked her head. “Yes, I think I will. At least that’s my plan. I might do some work with the hospice organization, use my nursing training. I’m not sure. But I do know that it feels good to be here. Even if I don’t have Charles …” She started to cry softly. “I’ll still have his memory, and be around people who cared about him.” She wiped her nose. “They had a vigil last night. Right in front of the house. Alana said it was beautiful to see all the flickering candles.”

Donny shifted his weight from one leg to another. He wondered if he should go to Bitsy and comfort her.
I could rub her back or something,
he thought
.

Tina returned with the coffee and cake, took in the weeping widow, and glared at Donny. She plunked down the plates and wrapped an arm around Bitsy’s shoulders. “Aw, honey, I know it’s hard. Donny and I are so, so, sorry.”

Bitsy lifted a mascara-streaked face toward Tina. “You know the worst thing? Detective Robichaud told me this morning that Charles knew that guy who shot him.”

“The drug dealer?” Tina’s eyes narrowed. “Who was it?”

“Ross. Denny Ross. Did you know him?”

Tina shook her head. “Nope.” She glanced at Donny. “Did you?”

He gave a slow nod. “Denny was Carlene and Lester’s brother.” He pictured Denny, a ne’er-do-well who’d been living for years in Rhode Island. He’d just come back to Maine at New Year’s, and hadn’t wasted any time in becoming a major family embarrassment. Now he was dead, killed during the shootout.

“Crazy Carlene? The one you were with when you found Lorraine’s body?” Tina’s voice squeaked. “Well, I’ll be. And Lester! He was in our wedding …”

“Lester is a good man,” Donny said firmly. “And Carlene … she’s just kinda odd.” Denny, however, had been another story—the rottenest apple in a family where several bore bruises.

He reached for his pound cake, determined to change the subject. “You need anything at all, Bitsy, you call Tina and me,” he said. “Charles was our friend, and now you are, too.”

To his surprise, Tina reached out and patted Bitsy’s hand. “We mean it,” she said softly. “We’re here to help.”

Bitsy gave a sad, brave smile. “I can’t tell you how good it feels,” she said, her voice breaking, “to finally have friends.”

Tina gave a sympathetic smile, squeezed Bitsy’s shoulder, and handed her a piece of pound cake. Donny watched the exchange, his heart swelling with love, thankful for the redheaded angel who was now his wife.

_____

Darby and Miles were about to enter Manatuck County Correctional Facility when Darby’s cell phone rang. She looked down at the display. “Miles, it’s Ed Landis.” She pushed a button. “Hello?”

“Darby, Ed Landis here, FBI. Are you somewhere we can talk?”

“Sure.” She clicked the phone on speaker so that Miles could hear. “I’m listening, and so is Miles.”

“Okay. I’ve got some bad news.”

Darby glanced at Miles, whose face was grave. “What is it?” Darby asked.

“There is a formula here, for a highly toxic substance. This substance, if created in the lab, would be responsible for wide-ranging disease and death on a scale we can’t even imagine.”

Darby swallowed. Had her grandfather known of this formula? Worse still, had he tried to steal it? For what use?

She flicked her eyes to Miles. “What is it, Ed?”

“
Yersinia Pestis
, otherwise known as the Black Death.”

“Bubonic plague?” Miles’s voice was incredulous. “As in the disease that ravaged medieval Europe?”

“I’m afraid so.” Ed Landis exhaled and continued. “The Japanese knew that the bacterium had three forms: bubonic, spread by fleas or other parasites; pneumonic, contracted by inhalation of the bacteria; and septicemic, caused by contact with a sick person’s open sore or blood. I’m afraid that the scientists of Unit 731 succeeded in creating a fourth, synthetic form of this bacterium, one that would no doubt prove the deadliest of all.”

Darby felt her skin grow clammy. She didn’t want to know, but she had to ask. “What is it?”

“Waterborne,” Ed Landis said, his voice grave. “They created a strain of the plague that would live in fresh water, contaminating aquifers, reservoirs, ponds, streams, and rivers.”

“And now …” Darby’s voice was small.

“And now that formula is in the hands of Kenji Miyazaki, and we don’t know why.”

“Do you think he plans to sell the formula?” Darby could hardly bear to ask the question.

“It’s possible that he’s in it for the money.”

Another adrenalin rush
, Darby thought, remembering the athlete’s words.

Ed Landis sighed. “He’s our top priority, Darby. If you hadn’t contacted us, who knows what might have happened.”

Darby felt a mix of emotions—fear, because of what the synthetic bacterium could do; anger, that she had been duped by Kenji and allowed him access to her home and the journal; and sorrow, because her grandfather had been a part of the whole evil mess.

It was Miles who asked the question she could not voice.

“Ed, why do you believe Darby’s grandfather had the formula in his journal?”

Landis grunted. “Sorry—I thought I covered that in the beginning. From the translation of the journal, it’s clear that Tokutaro Sugiyama abhorred what he saw happening. We believe he copied the formula before destroying it in the lab for one critical reason: in the event it was ever produced, he knew the formula could help create an antidote.” He paused. “Hideki Kobayashi has suggested Miyazaki’s motives may be the same.”

Miles glanced at Darby. “And the translated journal?”

“We’re sending a copy to Darby electronically. I’ll warn you—it’s pretty tough to read. The commander who ran that place was truly evil.”

Darby pondered the journal and her grandfather’s covert theft of the formula. She would read his words, maybe not right away, but eventually. “Thank you, Ed. I hope you catch Kenji soon.”

“Don’t worry.” The FBI agent’s voice held a touch of bravado which Darby prayed was well-founded. “We’ll find this guy before he knows what hit him.”

“Good.” A cold breeze lashed her hair against her face. Darby Farr shuddered and clicked off her phone.

_____

Bitsy cleaned up Rosie’s kitchen floor “accident” in a kind of a fog. Detective Robichaud’s words played again and again in her head, skipping like the vinyl records of her youth.
Denny Ross hated your husband, Mrs. Dupont. If I had known, I wouldn’t have asked Charles to come
…

She remembered Denny and the whole Ross family—crazy Carlene who took to the sea as a teen, an older brother named Mitch who set someone’s trailer on fire when he was just a kid. The fact that Denny had ended up a drug dealer was not a surprise. Only Lester, the youngest one in the family, had chosen a stable, normal way of life.

She sprayed ammonia on the linoleum, wiped it clean with paper towels, and carried the whole lot to the garage. Removing the lid from a plastic garbage can, she tossed the trash inside.

She was about to replace the cover when a piece of paper caught her eye. It was lined, ripped from one of the small steno pads Charles kept around the house. She peered at it, noticing a series of initials with scribbled notes next to them. It was Charles’s writing. She recognized the loopy letters and the way he made long crosses on his “Ts.” Her eyes filled up with tears.

She tugged the paper from the rest of the garbage and held it, crying softly, until she heard Rosie’s whimper from the door.

_____

“Everybody wants to see you,” the guard said to the inmate. The prisoner was a lean man in an orange jumpsuit, and he sat on his bed reading a magazine. Hitching his thumb at Darby and Miles, the guard continued, “More visitors. Why is it you’re suddenly hot, Marcus?”

Leonard Marcus lifted his eyes and slid his glance from the guard to Darby. He stroked a trim mustache with one hand. “To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m Darby Farr and this is Miles Porter. We’re here to ask some questions about Chief Dupont’s visit yesterday.”

His face was shrewd. “I hear he’s now dead. Doesn’t bode well for you folks, I’m afraid.” He chuckled softly. His gray hair was cut short and his lined face became pleasant and open. Darby could see why he’d be a successful con artist. Leonard Marcus looked warm and approachable, someone you would trust.
Like Kenji Miyazaki
, she thought.

She cleared her throat.

“Yes, Chief Dupont’s gone.” It was incredibly difficult to say those words, and Darby doubted it would ever get easier. “We’re here to follow up on a conversation he had with you about Lorraine Delvecchio.”

Marcus clenched his teeth. The movement was nearly imperceptible, but Darby spotted it nonetheless.