Time to Kill (21 page)

‘I meant what I said,' announced David, suddenly. ‘I won't lay back on my school work. I'll go on getting straight As, I promise.'

‘I know you will,' said Slater. ‘We never got around to that camping trip, did we?'

‘A lot came up.'

‘Maybe we can fit it in when things settle down.'

‘Don't you think it would be an idea to surprise Mom at the exhibition?' David suggested.

‘No,' said Slater, positively. ‘I think it would be a good idea to do the work you brought home, go over to Brad's to hang out for an hour and then be back in time to hear all about what's happened at the gallery from Mom when she gets back.'

‘She going to be there all the time this week? Nights as well as days?'

‘I guess so.'

‘Why don't we both surprise her one night, go over together?'

‘That's what we'll do,' agreed Slater. ‘One night towards the end of the show.' When all the media had finally gone, he thought.

‘I won't be late back,' said David.

‘Ride carefully.'

‘I always do.'

Mason had wondered how he would feel at his first sight of Daniel Slater, whom he still instinctively thought of as Dimitri Sobell, but he hadn't expected it to be like this, sick to his stomach, so bad in the first few minutes that he'd actually, physically, retched. He still felt sick at the missed opportunities, taking a long time to calm down and rationalize that there was no way he could have prepared as carefully as it was essential to prepare, not snatching at the first unexpected possibility.

He'd set off that day with little positive intention beyond timing the drive from Chesapeake to Frederick. It was only when he got to the town that he decided to watch the gallery, sure of his concealment in a car park just off Main Street. He'd watched for quite a long time, seeing the arrival of the television vans, suddenly jerking forward when he identified the man he hated enough to kill. Mason fought against his need to vomit, swallowing and coughing against throwing up, forcing the control into himself.

The feeling went beyond being physical. Mason would have recognized Sobell of course:
had
recognized him, at once. But the Russian had changed. Got bigger, fatter: more American. The hair was much thinner and the whole ambience was relaxed, laid back, none of the quick-moving jerkiness of their remembered encounters. Mason wasn't immediately aware of starting the hire car, only realizing he was moving when he began edging the car out on to a surprisingly busy Main Street. The delay was sufficient to get two cars between him and Slater and he should have obviously turned off as soon as he could, at the next intersection, but he didn't. Using the traffic build-up for further protection and managing to stay amongst it all the way back to Hill Avenue, he was able to stop with Slater's house in view and see the boy at the basketball hoop. He stayed there watching the kid practise in front of his father and continue on when Slater went inside the house. Mason finally turned into the avenue and was actually passing the house when the boy came out of the garage with a bicycle, which he put up on its rest. Sure of his geography, Mason looped back in a square, returning close to where he'd first stopped, looking at the waiting bicycle. It was more than an hour, completely dark, before the boy re-emerged, got on the bicycle and passed within a yard of where Mason sat, unseen.

When would there be such another easy chance? wondered Mason, as he picked up the road back to Chesapeake. Whenever it came he'd be well and truly ready.

Sixteen

A
nn had worked as hard as she knew how to make the exhibition a success and Slater had done everything he could think of to support her and make it happen, but neither of them imagined in their wildest dreams that it would turn out quite as it did.

The New York Times
and the
Washington Post
both carried stories beyond their arts sections, each declaring the exhibition the best ever of Andre Worlack's unique work. Each carried photographs of Ann with the artist. So did every television station, as well as separate interviews with Ann, which brought more television coverage. NBC were filming when a New York based, Emmy-nominated star of a TV rate-topping soap made an unannounced visit on the second day and spent $50,000 on one miniature canvas and the publicity from that sale prompted a procession of
People-featured
celebrities. CBS vacillated before deciding to film the following week, on condition that Worlack would be there. In several interviews Worlack described Ann's gallery as the most important provincial venue he had encountered and announced it would be the location of his next try-out exhibition. The
Frederick News-Post
carried daily stories concluding with an editorial asserting that Ann Slater had put the town on the national arts culture map.

And Ann's concern at the publicity potentially identifying them grew to encompass Slater, as well as herself. On the first full day after the opening reception, Ann called the exhibition a terrible mistake she should never have contemplated and positively refused three approaches, one from a local television station, for personalized features about her and her family. The University of Maryland confirmed their approach to David, obviously leaked by the school, which brought fresh approaches from the local media, but they still refused to do any personality profiles; they were now being referred to as ‘the golden family'. Jeb Stout was quoted that David was going to be a major sports star of the future. The photograph of David was a bad one, making him look ungainly.

The day that the golden family description was first used Ann said, ‘What are we going to do?'

‘Front it out,' said Slater. He wished it hadn't happened – the first advice given them upon going into the Witness Protection Programme had been never, ever, to attract attention to themselves – but they couldn't reverse it now.

‘I'm sorry. So very, very sorry. It's a nightmare,' apologized Ann.

‘There's nothing to be sorry for,' refused Slater. ‘And it's not a nightmare. It's your success story.' Which it was and should have infused her with the confidence she'd never had, not further despair.

‘I won't agree to other exhibitions, of course.'

‘There's no reason to refuse anything. It won't be like this next time. The next time we'll know what to expect, if they turn out like this one has. Know how to handle it.'

‘I'm frightened, Dan.'

‘The personality stuff is local and it's about you and David. I haven't been photographed or identified, called nothing more than a businessman. The week after next it'll all be forgotten.' He wouldn't go as far as admitting to being frightened, Slater decided, but he was definitely uncomfortable. But it had to be kept in perspective. It was unthinkable that he would be remembered after fifteen years; more than fifteen years if he included the trial and he hadn't been photographed giving evidence there, either. The photograph of him that had been used had been blurred and out of focus, from a Russian embassy reception.

‘I'd like to believe it but I don't,' refuted Ann. ‘I had two more exhibition approaches today, after what Andre said about the importance of the gallery. I wasn't even going to bother to tell you because I'm going to turn them both down.'

‘Don't!' urged Slater. ‘This is what you want to do. What you wanted the gallery to be recognized as. And it's worked.'

‘It's not what I want to do, not put everything we have at risk!'

‘We'll just ride it out,' persisted Slater. ‘No harm's been done.'

‘You don't know that! You won't know that until it's too late!'

‘The Cold War's over. Has been for years. Everything's changed.'

‘Jack's out, that's what's changed!'

‘And he can't find us.'

‘You don't know that, either!' She should have told him about the man so much like Jack on the CCTV!

‘I
do
know!'

‘What you don't …' Ann began, stopping in time.

‘What?'

‘Nothing.' He'd think she was paranoid or hysterical if she announced it this late; making it up to support her argument.

Slater looked at her curiously across the breakfast table. ‘You were going to say something?'

‘It's not important … doesn't mean anything.'

‘You sure?'

‘I'm sure. Like I'm sure it was a mistake to get into the whole damned thing in the first place.'

‘It's too late to do anything about it now. And I don't want you turning down other things, either.'

Ann looked into her coffee cup, saying nothing.

‘You sorry you took the chance?'

‘What?'

‘Took the chance of marrying me?' elaborated Slater.

Yes, thought Ann, and at once wished she hadn't, because it wasn't true. She was sorry she'd staged the exhibition, although deep down – unaware of Slater's thinking – she'd seen it as something to establish herself, prove herself capable of doing after being told for so long and so violently by Jack that she wasn't capable of anything. But she didn't regret committing herself to being with Daniel Slater. ‘No, darling. I'm not sorry now and haven't been since the moment I said yes.' Why had she thought, even for a second, the opposite?

‘You going to go back to the others who approached you?' asked Slater.

‘We'll see.'

‘What's to see?'

‘This one has got a long way to go yet. Let's continue on taking it a step at a time.'

The following day the insurance assessor called Slater and asked to meet him on-site in Washington DC with another client staging a jewellery exhibition. The only day available was the following Wednesday.

By the third day of the exhibition Jack Mason had established a regular commute, which was to confirm David's routine as much as he could. He knew precisely the time the boy left for the school bus pick-up, not going directly to the stop but calling first at a house two streets away to collect a friend, an overweight, fair-haired boy Mason guessed to be in David's class. He'd learned the name of Slater's son was David, and of the sports scholarship, from the local newspaper profile, and discovered from the reporting of other media coverage of the exhibition's national success. For David there seemed to be no positive homecoming pattern; sometimes he went directly to Hill Avenue to practise baskets, as he had the first time Mason had followed him, but on other afternoons he stopped at the home of his fair-haired friend, although never staying longer than fifteen minutes. On the days David came directly home from the school-drop he bicycled back to his friend's house, although on one occasion the overweight boy rode to Hill Avenue. On the Wednesday of the first week David didn't come home on the school bus but arrived in Slater's blue Honda two hours later than normal carrying a sports bag, from which Mason assumed he'd stayed on, presumably at school, for after-hours training.

Mason's mind blocked when he searched for a method more likely to succeed in killing David than an apparent traffic accident. Mason recognized that his only chance would be on one of David's evening bicycle trips to the friend's house. But these were unpredictable, almost invariably in daylight – barely dusk at the very best – covered a distance of just two streets of mostly occupied houses and allowed him virtually no time to prepare, once he realized that the boy was on the move.

Compounding all these problems was the obvious need for the intended crash vehicle to be stolen, exposing him to detection and arrest throughout the time he was at the wheel until he could dispose of it. On the first evening of his resumed surveillance, before establishing as much as he finally did of David's movements, Mason began his search for a potential vehicle, starting almost casually in the shopping precinct car park from which he waited for the arrival of the homecoming school bus. There was an obvious familiarity in the way the battered, mud-splattered green Cherokee 4x4 was driven into the lot and headed for an expected space by a far wall. The driver, a young Latino, emerged with a briefcase and a rolled up newspaper, locked the off-road car and went out through the car park exit, not going in to any of the store rear entrances. Mason guessed that a second vehicle, a Volkswagen whose driver left the same way, was another regular overnight parker. When the bus arrived, Mason followed the boy as he had on the first occasion and watched from his established vantage point for more than an hour. Both cars remained where they had been left when he drove by, on his way back to Chesapeake. The following evening both were parked again, in precisely the same places, fifteen minutes before the arrival of the bus, and were there when he checked on his way back to the cottage.

Mason maintained the protection of switching identifiable cars, choosing a Hertz outlet in Annapolis and staying in the town long enough to locate a hardware store to buy a two inch length of hollow piping and some latex gloves at a supermarket before continuing on to Frederick. That was the day he read in the
Frederick News-Post
of David's scholarship. The Cherokee and the Beetle arrived with clockwork timing that afternoon and were still in their regular slots when he passed on his way back to the cottage. He decided he didn't need to look elsewhere. When he made his regular computer checks that night Mason discovered the Pennsylvania State prison authority's reply to Patrick Bell's exploratory letter and realized the following day was going to be very busy, although he had no way then of knowing just how busy.

‘It was the assessor,' identified Slater, returning to the dinner table. ‘Tomorrow's meeting is postponed until five.'

‘What about picking David up from practice?' demanded Ann, at once. It was the first night she'd got back in time to eat with them since the exhibition opened.