Final Settlement (33 page)

Darby smiled. Privately she’d begun to call Miles’s delightfully odd expressions “Briticisms.” “By that do you mean that I’m tired?”

He chuckled. “The word I was going for is exhausted, actually.”

She yawned, as if proving his point. “I’m knackered all right, but I’m also relieved to have this little box.” She touched the silk of the
obi
and bit her lip, overcome with gratitude. “I almost feel as if my mother were watching over me.”

“Perhaps she is.” Miles’s voice was soft. He waited a second, before telling her he loved her, and then added gently, “Now go to sleep.”

_____

Not even the prescription painkillers could keep Darby from having nightmares about her recent ordeal. She dreamt she was on a snow-capped peak resembling Mount Fuji. On her feet were enormous snowshoes. Behind her, a man in a ski mask and silk
obi
was fast approaching, but she could not lift even one of her legs …

She awoke in a cold sweat. Lying under the comforter, her heart racing, she took deep breaths and thought about the events on Juniper Ridge.

Kenji Miyazaki, wearing a ski mask, had hunted her down because he could not locate the lacquered red box. He’d had nothing to do with Lorraine’s death, and yet Kenji had worn the very item of clothing Alison Dyer had seen through her scope. Had it been a coincidence, and nothing more?

Darby pushed herself up with her good shoulder. She reached for the glass of water she kept on the nightstand and took a sip. Dave Robichaud had confessed to pushing Lorraine to her death, but he had not given any reason why.
Robichaud shot Kenji
, Darby recalled.
Not to protect me, but to give himself an alibi. If he had succeeded in breaking my neck on the ridge, he would have blamed Kenji for my death, and no one would have known the truth.

Darby swallowed. There was absolutely no sleeping for her now. Slowly she climbed out of bed and pulled on her robe. The bedside clock read three-thirty in the morning, but Darby was wide awake.

She picked up the lacquered jewelry box and cradled it carefully as she walked downstairs. In a few minutes she had a small fire going in the hearth, and she’d put on a pot of water to boil. The familiar routines of tending the fire and preparing tea soothed her jangled nerves, and soon the haunting ski-masked man of her nightmare was forgotten.

Once the water had boiled and her tea was ready, Darby glanced out the kitchen window, toward the cove. The winter sky sparkled with stars, and out of habit she looked for the constellation of her youth.

There he was: King Cepheus, the promise breaker, sitting on his throne with his pointy crown. She imagined her father retelling the story, heard him describing heroic Perseus, and felt a warm rush of gratitude.
I have wonderful memories,
she realized.
If I let myself recall them, I keep the people I love alive
.

Tearing herself from the array of bright stars, Darby settled on the faded couch with her Constant Comment and the red box. She sipped the hot beverage and opened the brass clasp, pulling out the jewelry box’s treasures. Now the presence of Jada Farr was with her, both in the contents of the box and in the scent and taste of her mother’s favorite tea. She smiled. Here was the dark blue
obi
that her mother might have worn fastened around a kimono that had no doubt been exquisite. She gazed at the photo of her mother as a child and then fingered the wisps of straw from some faraway temple. What was it Eric Thompson at the Westerly Art Museum had called them?
Shimenawa.
She smiled at her recall of the Japanese word.
Lorraine Delvecchio’s got nothing on my memory,
she thought.

Abruptly she pushed the lacquered box aside. Her off-handed statement cut to the core of the dead woman’s murder. What had she “had” on the mysterious ‘CR’? Was that the person who had persuaded Detective Robichaud to take action?

I need a link between the detective and people from Lorraine’s past,
she thought. But how could she find anything on Lorraine, when she’d had so few friends, no family, and few admirers?

Darby grabbed her computer and found the website for the
Manatuck Gazette
. Perhaps a search of Lorraine’s name would yield something interesting.

Only one news entry surfaced, an announcement of Lorraine’s appointment to the staff of the Manatuck Police Department. Had she been blackmailing someone there, Darby wondered? Had she encountered something that would have embarrassed Detective Robichaud, and prompted him to take her life?

She took a sip of the soothing tea, tasting the spicy scented orange flavor, and tried to think. Someone had hated Lorraine enough to want her dead, and had arranged for a dirty cop to do the deed. Who?

Frustrated, she pushed the computer aside and picked up the jewelry box again. Now that the notebook was in the hands of the FBI, the only item remaining was the little metal Buddha. Darby picked him up and looked into his placid, plump face. Her mother had acquired him at a tourist site—or at least that had been Eric Thompson’s explanation.

Darby held the chubby deity in her hand, remembering the curator’s comment that today’s versions were made of plastic. They were undoubtedly quite a bit lighter, Darby thought, although it was surprising that this one, made of solid metal, should not feel heavier in her grasp.

She pulled the little Buddha closer and scrutinized its image. A grinning face with a wide body smiled back at her. The Buddha wore a flowing robe and little sandals. She flipped him over. A belt encircled the Buddha’s waist, upon which appeared to be a small crack in the metal.

Darby inspected the crack.
A coin slot
? How had she not seen this before? Why hadn’t Eric Thompson noticed it? She peered at the opening, realizing that the little man was actually a piggy bank. She rattled the Buddha, but there were no coins inside.

And yet … there was something inside of the opening.
Perhaps a bill
, Darby thought. She went into the kitchen for something long and skinny, but found only a toothpick.
Tweezers
. She had a set in her makeup bag upstairs.

The tweezers pinched the piece of paper and gingerly Darby started pulling it out. Once it fell back inside the bank, but she managed to grab it again and move it slowly toward the slot. At last the item was free, and Darby saw that it was not currency, but a piece of white paper that had been intricately folded to fit inside the Buddha.

She opened it up. Japanese writing, with a string of numbers, met her eyes.

Darby bit her lip and leaned back on the sofa. In her hands she felt sure was the key to preparing one of the world’s worst biotoxins, a strain of bubonic plague capable of contaminating fresh water sources around the globe. She swallowed, her hands gripping the paper.

The missing piece of the formula.

SIXTEEN

T
HE WHIR OF THE
helicopter blocked out all other noise at the Merewether estate, its blades once again creating a blinding storm of snow. From the warmth of her vehicle, Darby watched Ed Landis emerge from the cockpit and run toward the car.

He opened the door and climbed in beside her, pulling off a thick glove so that he could shake her hand.

“Good morning! Boy, it’s cold up here. How do you all take it?” He shivered inside his thick survival coat. “What have you got for me, Darby?”

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a plastic zipper bag with the folded paper inside it. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s what Kenji Miyazaki was after when he attacked me on the ridge.” She handed him the bag.

“Christ, that’s right! How are you doing?” Landis’s handsome face showed concern.

“My shoulder was dislocated and I have some lovely bruising on my face, but nothing a little foundation can’t cover,” she said.

“Bet you’re glad Miyazaki’s dead,” the FBI agent said bluntly.

“I’m relieved, put it that way. You probably heard about the other guy that tried to kill me.”

“Robichaud, right? Sounds like one of law enforcement’s finest. Why was he after you?”

Darby thought a moment. “You know, I’m not exactly sure. Obviously he felt threatened by something having to do with a local murder, but I don’t know what that something is.”

“You were getting too close to the truth.”

“I suppose, but it’s all still a puzzle.” She pointed at the plastic bag. “What about the formula Kenji tore from the journal? Do you know where it is?”

Ed Landis raised his eyebrows. “We think we have it. Keep in mind it isn’t much good without this missing piece.”

Darby nodded. “So what happens now?”

“I take this back to Washington and it gets locked away where no one can get to it.”

Darby thought about the little Buddha. The metal bank had kept the secret safe for decades. “I guess I’ll never know why my grandfather put that slip of paper in a separate place.”

“I think I know why,” Landis said, tucking the plastic bag into the large pocket of his survival coat and zipping it securely shut. “Your grandfather understood human nature. He was afraid that someone would get their hands on the formula, and if that happened, he wanted a failsafe.” He pulled on his gloves and regarded the real estate agent. “Take it easy for a while. No more encounters with maniacs, alright?”

Ed Landis opened the car door, slammed it shut with a little wave, and trotted across the snow to the waiting chopper.

_____

“So what is the latest news from Maine?” The smooth voice of ET was like a warm hug cutting through the chilly late-morning air as Darby walked to the Hurricane Harbor Café.

“Oh, this and that,” Darby said, not wanting to alarm her assistant with the story of her near escape at the hands of two deadly men. “I’m helping Tina with a few properties, and still working on my own house when I can.”

“Why is it I feel you’re not telling me everything?” His voice was concerned.

“What, do you think you’re clairvoyant or something?” Darby tried to sound irritated, when actually she was asking herself whether her associate truly was psychic. “I’ll be back in San Diego next week, don’t worry. Meanwhile, what’s happening there?”

“I’m extremely impressed with Claudia. She’s managing to get some deals underway, even though it’s the dead of winter.”

Darby smiled. The “dead of winter” in San Diego meant seventy degree temperatures, the return of the whales, and fields of wildflowers, not heaps of crusted snow like she was climbing around now on her way to the Café.

“That’s great. Please tell Claudia that I appreciate her hard work and that I’m looking forward to catching up.” Claudia Jones was a new member of Darby’s team, working as a sales agent while raising several young children. “And ET? I hope you know how grateful I am for all that you do.”

“I know. Now you’d better let me get ready for work, or that boss of mine will have my head.”

She laughed. “Goodbye, and thanks.”

He hung up with a chuckle and Darby pulled open the door of the restaurant, ready to sit by the woodstove with a big bowl of chowder.

_____

Donny Pease swiveled on his barstool and spotted Darby Farr entering the Café. She sunk gratefully into a chair by the woodstove, and began unzipping her red coat, wincing a little in pain.

In an instant he was by her side.

“Whaddya trying to do, Darby, dislocate that shoulder again?” Donny reached over, gently easing off her puffy coat. He draped it on an empty chair, his face crinkling into a look of fatherly concern. “Are you supposed to be up and gallivanting around?”

“A girl needs to eat lunch, Donny,” she smiled. “Care to join me?”

The older man considered her invitation. “Only if it’s my treat,” he said. “I insist.”

“Okay, then. Grab a chair.”

They both ordered bowls of chowder—Donny the haddock, and Darby the clam—and sat back and waited for them to arrive. Darby asked him whether he’d purchased flights for Mexico, and Donny gave a shy grin.

“I bought them an hour or so ago,” he said. “We head right out of Portland.”

“Where exactly are you going?”

“The Yucatan peninsula, to a little village near Tulum.” He pointed at the mounds of snow piled outside the Café’s window. “Sure won’t miss shoveling the white stuff for a few weeks.”

“I’ll bet you won’t,” said Darby, taking a sip of water. “I know I’m not going to miss it, either.”

“When are you flying back to California?”

“Sometime next week. First I have to get a little more work done on that house of mine.”

“Like what?”

“Get some cracked windows fixed, paint the upstairs bedroom, replace the old dishwasher—that type of thing.”

“Make a list,” Donny advised, as their bowls of steaming soup arrived, “and leave it for me. You do recall I’ve been a caretaker for close to forty years, right?”