Stone Quarry (25 page)

No lists, no ledgers, no maps to the pirate gold.

Okay, the hell with it. What had I expected, a signed confession? "I killed Wally Gould and I've been trying to frame Jimmy Antonelli for it. I did it because he was an ugly little creep and he got on my nerves. I'm writing this because the guilt is too much to bear. Yours truly, Frank Grice."

I was wasting time.

I left. Down the way I'd come, out the rear door this time, around the side of the building. Out of habit, I surveyed the parking lot before heading across it to my car. It was almost empty, and I didn't see any bad guys.

The only thing I saw that I wasn't expecting was Lydia.

Chapter 18

She was sitting in her rented car, parked next to mine in the condo lot. As I stepped from the shadow of the building she flashed me a smile, opened the door, got out. The smile turned down the voltage on the jolt that had gone through me when I saw she was alone, but I still covered the lot in fast strides and I still called, "What's wrong? Where's Eve?"

"No, she's all right," Lydia answered as I reached her. "She's at the hospital, with Tony. There's a cop there and everything. She won't leave until I come back. It's just that I called Velez right after we talked to you, and he gave me something Eve and I thought you should have right away."

Velez. I'd forgotten about Velez; but that had been a grudge match anyway, what I'd hired him for.

"Eve and you thought, huh?" I said to Lydia.

"Uh-huh. I told Eve where Grice lived and she told me how to get here after I dropped her at the hospital. I was afraid I'd miss you, but I found your car. I figured I'd give you time to toss the place if that's what you were doing. If you'd been much longer I'd have come up to see if you were okay."

"I appreciate that, I really do. As it turns out, it was what I was doing. No one's home, and I didn't find a thing. Well, almost not a thing." I lit a cigarette
, leaned next
to her
on the car.

"What did you find?"

"You first. What's Velez's big news?"

"He says to tell you first it's not dirt," she said. "He hasn't found anything illegal, which is what he thinks you wanted."

"That was what I wanted, but I'm flexible."

"Good. Now, you know for a couple of years Appleseed's been buying farms all over the county?"

I nodded.

"Well, one thing is, Velez says they've been consistently paying more than the land is appraised at."

"How much more?" I interrupted.

"Not a fortune. Ten or fifteen percent."

"Hmm. Not enough to ring any alarms, but enough to make a seller grab it before Appleseed comes to its senses."

"I guess," she said. "The other thing is, it's not really Appleseed."

"Oh?" I said. "Do tell."

"Velez says he needs more time to work on it, but it looks as though it's Appleseed's money that's making the purchases, but the title to the land is actually put in the name of a thing called Appleseed Holdings, not Appleseed Baby Foods. It's a whole different company, a partnership with two partners."

"And the partners are . . . ?"

"That's the good part," Lydia said. "Mark Sanderson owns forty percent. The other sixty is in the name of Frank Grice."

Lydia looked at me for a moment, then laughed. "Boy," she said, "that's an expression I don't see on you very often. I'll have to tell Velez."

"Son of a bitch," I said. I dropped the cigarette, crushed it underfoot. "Are you real busy right now?"

"I could probably make some time. What did you have in mind?"

"How about we go see Mark Sanderson?"

"Sounds lovely."

We left her car in the condo lot, rode to Appleseed in mine. In the car, Lydia went on. "Velez says to tell you Sanderson's wife disappeared about four years ago."

"I knew that. Did Velez find her?"

"No, and he looked. Her credit cards haven't been used since the day she left. Her social security number hasn't either. There were no unusual withdrawals from their joint bank accounts in the couple of months before she left. Since then all the activity has been Sanderson's." She added, "She supposedly ran away with some guy, but Velez couldn't find anyone."

I nodded. "MacGregor said she had a reputation. He said everyone but Sanderson knew it." We passed the state college campus, turned onto the spur road to the Appleseed plant. "Were her credit cards canceled?"

"Lena Sanderson's? They weren't renewed when they expired, but they weren't canceled. She could have gone on using them for a couple of months."

"Except that would have made her easier to find."

"She must have really wanted to stay lost."

"You don't know Sanderson. It's a natural reaction."

Mark Sanderson didn't keep us waiting long this time. We didn't even have time to sit and enjoy the vegetables.

As soon as the secretary's beautiful voice announced us, the door to Sanderson's office flew wide and Sanderson filled the opening.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

"Ask your partner," I said, pushing past him into the corner office, where the windows offered two different views of the same sullen sky. Lydia followed me, looked Sanderson over. He shot her one glance and then ignored her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he barked. "Where's Ginny? That Antonelli punk, his brother was shot last night. What the hell is going on? Where's my daughter?"

"Why didn't you tell me you were still doing business with Frank Grice?"

He stopped dead, his eyes fixed on me as though I'd suddenly mutated into a form of life he'd never seen before. He looked at Lydia again. "Who the hell is this?"

"Lydia Chin," I said. "Lydia, this is Mark Sanderson." Lydia put out her hand. Sanderson didn't move. Lydia shrugged. "Lydia and I are business associates," I told him. "Like you and Grice."

"Smith," he pushed through his teeth, "it's none of your fucking business, but if you mean Appleseed Holdings, that's a completely legitimate operation."

"Yeah," I said. "Seems to be, so far. What I really want to know is why you didn't tell me about it."

"Because it was none of your fucking business!" he said again. "It has nothing to do with my daughter, who is the only reason I let a man like you into my office at all!"

"How about a man like Grice?"

Sanderson forced the muscles in his jaw to relax. He walked around behind his desk, sat down. "Appleseed Holdings is a profit-making venture. Sometimes business decisions get you involved with people you’d otherwise rather not be involved with."

"Profit-making for whom? The money that goes into it is Appleseed's. Yours. But Grice owns a bigger share than you do."

Sanderson smiled a hard, cold smile. "For us both."

"But not yet?"

"No," his smile widened, then flicked off. "Not yet."

"Uh-huh. That's what I thought."

Lydia lifted her eyebrows, waited to be enlightened.

"The gas pipeline," I said to her, but with my eyes on Sanderson. "I'll bet I could map the properties he's bought. North to south down the county, mostly in the valley. When NYSEG starts buying up land for the pipeline, they'll have to come to him. What if it doesn't happen, Sanderson?"

Sanderson practically laughed at me. "It'll happen. You forget," he said. "I have friends who tell me things."

"But I thought they condemned land for things like that," Lydia said. "So you couldn't speculate that way."

Sanderson looked at her as he might at a retarded child with whom he was forced to deal. "They do. But they have to pay a fair market price. And this is very, very productive land. We lease it to Appleseed Baby Foods at very good terms. Appleseed—Appleseed Baby Foods—is making huge profits on the crops we grow on this land."

"Because you pay chickenshit to the people who grow them, the people who used to own that land," I said.

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter why. Profit is profit." "And what about Grice?" "What about him?"

"I could understand if there were strong-arm work involved. But I haven't heard that. People are falling all over themselves to sell their farms to you. So how come you're willing to invest in Grice's future?"

"Smith, let me tell you again: this is none of your business. My daughter's safety should be concerning you. It should be keeping you up nights. Because if anything’s happened to Ginny-" He stopped as the earrings from my pocket skidded, jingling, across his desk. He looked up. "What's this?" "Hers?" Sanderson glanced at them. "No. They're too flashy for her” "Christ, Sanderson, you're a case." I picked up the photograph from his desk, passed it to Lydia, who as usual, was leaning by the window. She studied it, handed it back to me. I offered it to Sanderson. The spun gold of Ginny's hair and the tilt of her head combined to hide all but the tip of one earring, but the amethyst bauble was unmistakable.

He paled, picked up one earring between finger and thumb. He said, "Where did you get them?"

"You really didn't recognize them? That picture's right under your nose every day, Sanderson." He scowled.

"Sanderson," I said, "there's a lot you don’t know, and a lot I don't know. Let's fill each other in." I sat, put a match to a cigarette. Then I had to get up and retrieve the ashtray, as I had two days before. "Your daughter," I told him, "met Jimmy Antonelli in a bar sometime last month." At the word
bar
his eyes flashed and he started to say something, but I went on. "It was Grice who told you they were seeing each other, wasn't it? You're a pawn, Sanderson. Grice couldn't talk me into finding Jimmy for him, so he thought maybe you could. By the way, did he tell you he owns the bar where they met?"

He didn't answer, but the look in his iron eyes told me I wouldn't have liked anything he'd said anyway.

I went on: "Ginny dropped Jimmy about a week ago. She told him she'd met someone else. Someone tougher than he was, she said. There are probably a lot of men in this county tougher than Jimmy, but I found those earrings in Frank Grice's apartment."

Suddenly a pencil broke in Sanderson's grip. He looked at the yellow splinters, then at me. "This is crap!"

"There's more. Last Friday someone broke into a house near Central Bridge and stole some valuable things. Your daughter has been fencing those things."

"What the hell are you trying—"

"There's at least one witness who can identify her, and if I have to I'll find more. But here's where what you want and what I want may come together. The stuff from that burglary that's already been sold we'll forget about. But there was a crate with some paintings in it. Six of them. They haven't surfaced yet. The police don't know about this. If I get the paintings back, they never will."

Sanderson was livid, his jaw clamped shut in his round face until he found enough control to speak. "You stupid bastard," he hissed. "You think you're smart enough to set Ginny up and blackmail me? You don't know what league you're playing in, Smith. Where did you get these? Where is my daughter?" He crushed the earrings in his shaking hand.

"Ask Grice," I said. "Get my paintings back. And who knows? Maybe you can talk your daughter into coming home."

"You bastard," he repeated. His eyes shone with a molten rage.

"Sanderson," I said softly, tapped my finger on Ginny's picture, "you threw it away."

"Get out of here!" Sanderson screamed, apoplectic. Lydia looked at me. I nodded. She straightened up, walked unhurriedly before me out Sanderson's office door.

"That was exciting," Lydia said as we left the plant. "But you didn't tell him you'd seen her."

"It wouldn't have helped. Actually, I think it would have made things worse. That I was so close, but I didn't bring her home."

Lydia nodded. "There's something peculiar."

"All of this is peculiar. What do you have in mind?"

"Well, Jimmy said Grice didn't want anything to do with Ginny. Why wouldn't he? And if Jimmy was right, what made Grice change his mind?"

"Maybe he didn't. There are lots of guys tougher than Jimmy."

"But the earrings—?"

"I'm not sure. But this should loosen things up."

"You think Sanderson will go straight to Grice?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"I don't know. I've never been anyone's father." She looked up at me quickly, said, "God, Bill, I'm sorry."

I didn't look at her, shook my head. "You don't have to tiptoe."

"I'm sorry," she said again.

Now I met her gaze. Usually, Lydia's eyes are a hard, pure black, like polished ebony or basalt; but sometimes, unpredictably, they soften to an infinite liquid depth. They were that way now, and I thought of the quarry, Jimmy's shack next to the wide black water deep with secrets, like Lydia's eyes.

I said nothing, and she understood.

We'd reached the car. I'd put it close to the building, in a "Reserved" space in the Executive Parking area around the back. I unlocked her side, went around to mine; but I didn't get a chance to get in.

A big blue Ford was parked nose to nose with my Acura. Three of its four doors sprang open together, three figures jumped out, and in three hands guns glinted, even in the dullness of the day.

Lydia, halfway into the car, froze. I did the same. "Tell her to get out!" Otis snarled. "And to keep her hands where I can see em!"

"She speaks English," I said evenly. Lydia stepped out of the car, her hands raised. "Lydia," I said, "this is Otis and Arnold and Ted. They're creeps." To Arnold I said, "You guys must be running out of cars. You used that one already." It was the one they’d been in Monday night at Antonelli's, Grice and Arnold and Wally Gould, and I should have spotted it the minute we walked into this lot.

"Shut up!" Otis ordered. Ted came over and frisked me. "This time he ain't even got a holster, Otis," he complained. "Do the girl," Otis said in disgust. Ted crossed to Lydia's side of the car. Otis jerked his head at Arnold, who came and went over me again, more expertly and roughly than Ted had. Arnold stepped away, shook his head. Ted, meanwhile, pocketed Lydia's .38. He didn't bother to search my car, so he didn't even come close to the .22 I'd strapped back under the dash between the visit to Grice's place, where I'd thought I might need it, and here, where I hadn't.

"Who's the gook?" Otis demanded. Lydia's cheeks flared hotly but she said nothing.

"She's a friend of mine."

"Your friends all carry guns?"

"Yours do."

"Yeah? And where's your goddamn rod this time?"

"This time the sheriff has it. Can you really shoot lefty?"