Pulse (22 page)

He arranged the papers back the way they were, locked the drawer, the door, and crept back to bed. Kathleen still slept, her back to him. He wanted to shake her awake with bellowed recriminations, reasonable explanations, and pleas for remission of sins unmentioned on her misleading and damning list. He took deep breaths and he tried to think clearly. He had to get through the night first, then find a lawyer, a damn good lawyer, in the morning. How could this happen now? Time was running out, he had none for a court battle trying to prove himself competent, a battle he might initially lose. He had more urgent priorities, what he owed to the man in the photograph. Follow the trail, find the answers now, something told him, or no one will ever know the truth.

What if they came for him in the morning? He could be led off in restraints, in pajamas, in front of his daughters and his neighbors. But no, had the order been signed, he thought, they would have come already. The hearing must be set for this morning. He still had a few hours.

He was drinking coffee in the kitchen when Kathleencame down. “What are you doing today?” He smiled, afraid that she would see what he knew in his eyes.

“Early meeting, the museum board.” She smiled ruefully. “What are your plans?”

“That real estate proposal, probably spend the day in the office on the phone. It looks good.”

Kathleen dressed in an elegant business suit, then went into her study. She emerged snapping the locks on her slim leather briefcase. He noticed she had taken great pains with her makeup this morning. Even wore mascara. Did she hope to impress the judge, or Phillip Grayson?

Shandi hugged him tightly before leaving for class. “Love you, Daddy.”

He read it in her eyes. She knew.

He kissed Casey when the van from school honked outside. “ ‘Bye, punkin,” he whispered. “Be good.”

“ ‘Bye, Dad.”

She ran down the driveway without looking back. She didn’t know.

“Kathleen?”

She turned, her face a mask.

“Why don’t we just both take off, the hell with everything else. Spend the day together. How about it? You and me.”

She paused. “Tempting, sweetheart, but no can do. This meeting is important.”

They walked out to their cars together. She kissed his cheek. He followed her Catera out to the causeway and tooted his horn as she turned west, toward the city. He turned east toward the Beach and his office. The moment she was out of sight he braked, made a U-turn and doubled back to the house. Upstairs, he dragged a duffel bag from the back of the guest room closet where they stored the luggage. He movedswiftly through their bedroom and bath like a thief, sweeping toiletries, his toothbrush, underwear, shirts and socks into the bag. He wanted to take sweaters and a warm jacket, but that would leave a clue. He could buy garments as he needed them. Nobody could stop him now.

He left the house in a hurry, stowed the bag in the trunk and stopped for a moment in the driveway to drink in the bougainvillea and the sweet scent of the island, a blend of salt air, flowers and fresh-cut grass. He wondered when he would see it again, then got in his car and drove out the gate.

He went to the bank first, carried his briefcase inside and filled out a withdrawal slip for twenty-five thousand dollars. While he waited for the teller to bring the money, it occurred to him that he and Daniel Alexander were becoming more and more alike. Both bought guns, both made love to Rory, and both walked out of banks with cash-filled briefcases. To where? That was the question.

“Sir?” The teller looked troubled, nervously adjusting his glasses. “Could you step this way?”

“Look, I’m in a hurry,” Frank said sharply. He checked his watch. “I just want to make this withdrawal.”

“That’s what the manager would like to speak to you about. There’s a problem.”

The manager, a woman he had done business with for twenty years, was embarrassed. His accounts, she said, both business and personal, had been temporarily frozen by order of the probate court, pending a competency hearing. The papers were on her desk.

She threw up her hands. “I don’t know what to tell you, Frank. I’m sure you’ll straighten this out. I’m sorry.”

He felt light-headed as he walked out of the bank. He called the pharmacy on Alton Road, then drove there. “Did a stupid thing,” he told the pharmacist, who had a two-month supply of his medication ready. “Lost the bag I carry my pills in. Thought I’d stock up. We may do a little traveling this month.”

He had to stock up, here, now. His prescription could be traced.

“You don’t want to run out of this stuff,” the pharmacist said cheerfully. “Gotta tell ya, you look great. Nobody would ever know.”

Frank handed over his American Express card. The man ran it on the machine. Frank fidgeted, checking the time. The pharmacist came back, his expression odd.

“Mister Douglas, there’s a problem with your card.”

“What? It must be a mistake. There shouldn’t be anything wrong.”

“I put it through twice.” He looked uncomfortable. “The company said to confiscate it. There’s been a stop put on it.”

“That can’t be right.”

But it was.

Kathleen was thorough. She and Grayson had been busy. He searched his pockets, but found only a few hundred dollars. It wasn’t enough. “Will you take a check?”

“It’s against store policy,” the pharmacist said slowly, “but hell, I’ve known you all these years. I know you’re good for it.”

This was a man who had once opened his store at midnight to fill a prescription for Casey, then a sick and feverish baby. Frank smiled gratefully and wrote the man a bad check, committing a felony. Under the circumstances, he thought, he could always plead insanity.

He called bank officers he knew personally at two other institutions. His accounts there, too, had been frozen. One told him that it appeared that Kathleen was instituting a procedure to be named sole guardian of their assets.

“It’s a mistake,” he assured them. “It will be straightened out.” Bank machines ate his two remaining credit cards when he attempted to make cash withdrawals.

He called her from a phone booth.

She answered at once. The hearing must have been brief.

“What have you done?”

“Darling, where are you?”

“Kathleen, you know me better.”

She paused. “No, I don’t, sweetheart. But”—her voice took on the soothing tone she so often used lately—“everything is going to be all right. It will just take time. This is for your own good. We’ve got some wonderful doctors, they’re—”

He hung up.

“Good morning,” Sue Ann chirped. She looked relieved to see him.

He brushed by, into his office, then watched the monitor. She picked up the phone immediately. He took the videotape of his conversation with Bowden from his desk, slipped it into a manila envelope, then rummaged without success through the drawers for cash. Unlike other men he knew, he had never kept a secret cash stash or a private credit card. Kathleen and Sue Ann knew everything, had everything.

Sue Ann was off the phone. He hit the intercom. “Would you bring me the McAllister file?”

“McAllister?”

“That shopping center deal we did about five years ago?”

“Right.” He watched the screen as she walked into the small file room. He stepped out into her office, took the petty cash box from her top right-hand drawer and emptied it. Three twenties, a ten, a five and small change.

“Where are you going?” she asked as she returned with the file.

“Just out for a bagel, be right back.”

“I’ll get it for you,” she offered eagerly, but he was already down the hall.

He emerged from the elevator and walked through the lobby toward the parking lot. Two brown-shirted deputies were walking in his direction; one held an official-looking document in his hand. They stopped at his Mercedes; the one with the document checked the tag, then spoke to the other, who nodded.

Frank fought the urge to run. They didn’t know him by sight. Half a dozen other passengers had disembarked from the elevator with him. He turned to a woman a few steps behind him. Plain, in her thirties, slightly overweight, she carried a postal meter, a bulky purse over her shoulder and an armload of oversized envelopes.

“You know,” he said, speaking cheerfully though his stomach churned, “we pass nearly every day and never say hello.”

“That’s true.” She smiled, obviously flattered. “Everybody is always in such a rush.”

“One of these days,” he said, “we should stop to smell the roses and share a cup of coffee or a sandwich. Here, let me take that.” He took the heavy meter from her and pushed open the door.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve noticed you, too.” They walked out, chatting, into the sunny parking lot, a couple. “I’m from Arkansas,” she offered, “a small town where you know everybody and they know you. I was just saying the other day that Miami is the strangest place, everybody is from somewhere else. It’s not a community, it’s just a crowd. Nobody’s friendly.”

He laughed a bit too heartily as they passed the deputies on their way into the building. “Ain’t that the truth.”

He walked her to her Chevette, parked three slots down from his car, and set the meter on the front passenger seat.

“I’m glad we crossed paths today,” he told her, hoping the deputies were aboard the elevator by now.

“See you soon,” she called as he walked away. She waved as he slid into the Mercedes and wheeled out of the lot. There was only one place left to go.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
he dimples deepened as Rory opened the door. “Hey,” she murmured. “I didn’t know if you were ever coming back.”

He had no idea what to say. He closed his eyes as she hugged him.

She stepped back after a moment and studied his face. Her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t trust her. But without her, he was lost.

“I’m in so much trouble.”

“You? What?”

He told her what Kathleen had done. Her reaction was shock and indignation.

“Froze your bank accounts! Cut off your credit cards! Is she crazy! Let me call Kathleen right now,” she demanded.“I’ll explain. Tell her it was all my fault.” She hesitated. “She doesn’t know, does she? That we …”

He shook his head hopelessly. She surely suspected.

“You were only helping me. I’ll give back the twenty-five thousand dollars right now! I wanted to give back the money!”

“It wouldn’t change anything.” He paced the room as she sank into a chair watching him. “It’s only a small part of the picture. This is turning ugly, fast.”

“Hire a good lawyer and we’ll stop it all before it happens.”

“There’s no time to do that now. There’s something else I have to do first.”

“What could be more important? You can’t—”

“I’m close to the truth, Rory.” He stopped in front of her. “Remember that puzzle we talked about? It’s real and I’m this close to solving it.” He watched her eyes, bewildered and innocent.

“Do you remember a woman named Denise Watson?”

She denied it.

He explained who Denise was, then opened his briefcase and spread out the pictures. “You remember her now?”

She studied them intently, then shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. I ‘member that the person who came out to dust for fingerprints was a woman detective, or whatever, and she was talkin’ to Daniel ‘bout security and alarm systems. Fallin’ all over him, but that wasn’t unusual. Women always found him attractive. She wore a badge and a police ID hangin’ from her belt. But I was so upset and bumfuzzled that day, comin’ home from vacation and everythin’ gone, they coulda sent Charlie Manson out and I wouldn’t've noticed.”

“Daniel is alive,” Frank said, “and I’m sure she’s the key.”

She caught his hand as he replaced the photos in his briefcase. “You are so wrong about Daniel. If you were right, you wouldn’t be here right now. He’s dead,” she said sadly. “He’s gone. You may have some cockamamie theory, but you are no mental case. You’re the sanest, most levelheaded member of the opposite sex that I know.” Her voice sounded wistful.

She got to her feet and leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. Her hair tangled in his fingers. It was soft and fragrant, her body warm.

“What do we do now?” she murmured.

Her use of the word
we
made him weak with relief, despite his suspicions.

“I have to go find Denise, prove to you and everyone else that he’s alive, then come back and straighten out my own life. But I’ve only got about two hundred and seventy-five dollars cash.” He stepped back to watch her face. “I need a loan.”

“So you can find Denise?”

He nodded.

“Where is she?”

He tensed. “In another city.”

“How did you find that out?”

“It wasn’t easy.”

He could see her react to his evasive answers.

“How long will it take?”

“It could be just a few days, maybe a lot longer depending on my luck.”

She went to the phone and punched in a number. What was she doing? He edged closer. Would he have to yank the cord from the wall?

“Mother Alexander? Hi, it’s me. Sorry to bother you. But I’m running like crazy here ‘cuz I’m gonna have to be out of town for”—her eyes darted back to Frank—“two weeks or so.”

He frowned and shook his head. “No, no,” he mouthed. She ignored him.

“You’ve been wantin’ to spend some time with Billy. Would you take him? It’s …” She turned to Frank, who signaled for her to hang up. “It’s family business. I’ll explain it all later. Right away, this afternoon. Okay, I’m sorry you can’t. He’ll be so disappointed, but I can send him up to his other grandma. Oh, then you can? Wonderful. I’ll bring him over right after school.”

“What are you doing?” he demanded when she hung up.

“You said you didn’t know how long it would take us.”

“I never said ‘us.’ You can’t come with me.”

“I say we follow the yellow brick road, find the wizard and ask for answers. I know it isn’t true, Daniel’s not alive, but I have to go, to see it through just like you do. If nothin’ else, just to be there when you see what an ass you’ve made of yourself.”

“I have to go alone.”

“You don’t trust me? After everythin', why?”

“I have a reason.”

“Such as?”

“A witness who puts you here, who says you were here in the house that day at noon, when the shot was fired.”

“That’s a lie!” she said furiously. “Who told you such a thing?”

He shook his head.

“If that was true,” she demanded, “why would I beg the police, you, everybody, to keep investigatin'?”

“Double indemnity?”

She looked stunned for an instant, then slapped his face.a sudden, stinging blow that brought tears to his eyes. “How can you say that?”

He knew she would never give him the money now. “Where were you,” he asked calmly, “when Harrington was murdered?”

“You think I had something to do with that?” Her face reddened and her voice broke. “The police came here, to ask me about you. You were the suspect, not me.”

“A woman may be involved.”

“If you knew Ron,” she said, her voice cold, “you’d know a woman was always involved. He even made moves on me when Daniel’s back was turned.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. Did you?”

“No.” They stared each other down. “I wish I could trust you, Rory.” The hell of it was, he thought, that he believed her. Was it because he wanted to, because his gut instinct told him she was truthful or because she was so good? If she was lying, this was an Academy Award-winning performance.

“You can.” A tear skidded down her cheek.

The man who spied on her could be the liar, or mistaken.

“You must know I wouldn’t lie to you.” Her lips parted slightly, her eyes locked on his. She had backed him into a corner, literally.

He waited nervously outside the bank and watched her emerge carrying the briefcase, her graceful long-legged stride, bright hair lifting in the breeze. She slipped into the car and kissed his cheek. “I got fifty instead of twenty-five,” she said. “Just in case. And we have my credit cards, too.”

“No cards,” he said, pulling out of the parking lot into traffic. “When I disappear, Kathleen and her lawyer willprobably report me missing, deranged and dangerous. The police may really start to look for me. Either way, she’ll hire an expensive private detective to track me down. Your place will be their first stop,” he said, thinking aloud. “If you’re with me, you can’t leave a trail either. We probably have only a couple of hours to work with here. I don’t know how long it will take when we get to … where we’re going. Damn! They’ll check the airport, and I can’t buy a ticket under a phony name because of the security procedures. They want picture ID before you board.” He sighed in exasperation. “We can slow them down temporarily by leaving from Fort Lauderdale Airport. They’ll check Miami first.”

“No need,” she said coolly. “They’ll look for your name on a manifest, not Daniel’s. You can use his driver’s license.” She studied his profile. “Wear your shades, comb your hair over to the left and you can pass for him. The check-in guys at the curb are too busy to check IDs that close.”

Using Daniel’s identification had never occurred to him. “Good! Then we leave from Miami. Bring some pictures of Daniel, and his passport, just in case.”

“His passport?”

“Just in case.”

“Daniel had an American Express card. We can use it for the tickets,” she said. “It hasn’t been used since … but it hasn’t expired. We can’t pay cash.”

“Why?”

“The profile. The airlines use it to identify terrorists, hijackers and drug smugglers. Cash raises a red flag. We don’t want airport cops pulling us aside for a closer look at your picture ID.”

Despite his reservations, sharing almost everything brought him immense relief and helped him think. Whatwould he have done, he wondered, if she, too, had thought him crazy?

Billy was due home soon.

“I don’t think I should be there,” he said, as they approached her street. “Billy might say something to the wrong person. It’s too risky.”

“You’re right,” she said, “he’s so talky. Don’t know where he gets it from. What—Hey, you missed the turn.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He’d glimpsed a green and white Metro patrol car parked on the swale at Twin Palms, a uniformed deputy halfway up the walk.

Kathleen and Grayson were thorough, and quicker than he thought.

He drove to a shopping center in the heart of the Grove, into a towering parking garage behind a multiplex theater, and found a slot near the elevator in the gloomy half darkness of the fifth level. There was a cab stand at street level. He scribbled his car phone number on a slip of paper.

“If the deputies are still there, have the cabbie make a U-turn like he’s looking for an address, get out around the block and walk up on foot. I don’t want them nosing around here after asking him where he picked you up. Call me with the credit card number and I’ll make the reservations. Meet me back here at the car in two hours.”

“That gives me barely enough time to pack a few things and get Billy to his grandma,” she complained.

He reached for the briefcase as she jerked it out of his reach.

“No way!” she said. “How do I know you’ll be here when I come back? Enough a this
Mission Impossible
shit. The briefcase goes with me. I’m holdin’ the money. I never trustedcar phones anyhow, they’re not all that private. I’ll call the airline and book us on the next flight out.” She studied him in the shadowy interior of the car. “But to do that”—her voice dropped—“and to know what in God’s name to pack, you have to tell me where we’re going.”

He thought about snatching the briefcase and pushing her out of the car. “How do I know you’ll be back?”

“Because I’m tellin’ you so. You can bet your ass on it.”

“I am.” Was he making a huge mistake? “Don’t tell anybody, don’t even promise Billy a postcard from Seattle.”

“Seattle.” He couldn’t read her eyes in the dim light. “Make it two and a half hours,” she said.

She left the Mercedes and walked toward the elevator, swinging the briefcase. He could have stopped her, could have taken the money. What’s another felony when you are certifiably crazy? Instead, he clung to hope, that she was someone he could trust, that she was innocent. He sat frozen in place. The elevator opened, she stepped inside and turned to face him, holding the briefcase in front of her. She blew a kiss as the doors closed.

Fifteen minutes dragged like an hour. He walked into the adjoining mall, used the men’s room, bought a soft drink and sat on a bench in the shadow of a two-story escalator, eyeing the crowd, trying to think, hoping not to see anyone he knew. He considered buying a movie ticket, taking refuge in a darkened theater, but another story unreeling on the screen would be torture when he was so obsessed with his own. If she did not come back, he thought, he could pawn his watch. He had not been in a pawnshop since his father’s death, but he could find one. He didn’t have the papers on the Mercedes. Criminals ship hundreds of stolen cars out of the country through the Port of Miami every day. One of them might buyit, but how do you find people like that? His experience had all been in legitimate business. Why had he told Rory about Seattle? He pictured her calling Kathleen, Sue Ann or the cops so they could stop him, for “his own good.”

Could Rory betray him after the intimacy they had shared? Kathleen had, and he had loved her for half his life.

Not too late to find a phone and call a lawyer for help. But who would help when he had no proof? He tossed the empty drink can into a trash bin and checked his watch. She was not due back for more than thirty minutes. If she did not come, somebody would. Somebody he would not be happy to see. He walked briskly back to the parking garage to move the Mercedes. He would conceal it on a nearby street, then watch for her on foot. That way, if things went wrong, he could get lost in the crowded mall. As he stepped off the elevator, his car in sight, he saw Rory’s Sable cruising slowly. She appeared to be alone.

The station wagon disappeared, then circled back, as he watched. She leaned forward, searching the shadows, as the car moved at a crawl. He sprinted up beside it and rapped on her window.

She cried out, startled, then lowered the window.

“You scared the hell outa me! Where the blazes were you?”

“You said two and a half hours.”

“So shoot me, I’m early. Next flight leaves at eight-ten p.m. We’ve gotta be at the airport in an hour. I got Billy’s grandma to come stay at the house, so I didn’t have to drive him all the way out to her place.”

“Were the deputies there?”

“Had been, left a card stuck in the door with a number to call. I did. They wanted to know if I’d seen you. Said no, didn’t plan to, didn’t want to. When I asked what it wasabout, they said they had some papers to serve. I promised if I heard from you, I’d give ‘em a call.”

He loaded his bag into the Sable.

“Follow me,” he said. “I’m gonna get rid of my car.”

“Why not just leave it here?”

“Too close to your neighborhood. What did you tell your mother-in-law and Billy?”

“As little as possible. Told her there was trouble in the family, my favorite cousin up in Tallahassee. Said I was drivin’ up there. Said I’d ‘splain it all later. Promised Billy we’d go to Disney World when I git back.”

“Good. Didn’t know you had a cousin in Tallahassee.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re good.”

“Yeah, I think I’m gettin’ the hang a this. Startin’ to like it. We’da made great fugitives.”