Undue Influence (25 page)

Waving arms and flailing hands trying to shake free. “Are you crazy?”

Another crack through the air, no more than an inch from my chest, and something buries itself in the grass near her left foot. With this, her eyes go wide, twin saucers. For a single beat she’s frozen in place. A few tentative steps, then she breaks into full flight. Sandals flying from her feet, she leaves me kneeling on the grass. In two seconds I overtake her. We are now running, stride for stride.

From the corner of my eye I can see the guy setting up over the windowframe of his car door for another shot. Behind the banyan tree, Lindbergh’s grave between us, I can hear the guy swear, fifty yards away, a list of expletives to make a sailor blush. Movement in my peripheral vision as he raises the muzzle of the gun and starts to move parallel to our flight. He’s crouching behind a low stone wall, looking for one more opening. A flash. Something nicks my cheek. Sparks off stone as he squeezes off several rounds, the gunman spraying and spraying. They ricochet off tombstones like pinballs in a machine. Off the grass, Kathy Merlow is hopping gingerly, barefooted, over the sharp lava pebbles on the path. We run through a fusillade of bullets, targets in a penny arcade, until finally we are covered by the shrubbery surrounding the church. Behind the building we stop. She is down on one knee, wincing, picking a rock from the bottom of her bare foot. “Are you okay?”

She nods. Winded but not wounded.

“Where’s your car?”

But before she can answer I put a finger to my lips. The crunch of gravel, footsteps at the front of the church. The slide and click of precision metal. Our man is reloaded. The wonders of modern methodical murder. She points away from the back of the church to a fence overgrown with vegetation, a small gate leading away. She moves toward it, then looks for me to follow. I shake my head, then point emphatically for her to go.

She waves me on. I shake my head one more time. Left with no choice, she disappears through the jungle of vines that cover the gate. I see it open. Her form disappears and the gate closes. I will think, somewhere in the graveyard along the side of the church. Dead silence.

I am braced against the wall by the door, standing upright. I don’t know if it is the shadow of a tree limb on the window, but something moves. draw cover. One woman is already dead because I pursued my questions. Without a sound, I am back behind the altar, on hands and knees, I am alone now at the back of the church, my only companion a weathered wooden door. I suspect that this leads to the sacristy, the area behind the small wooden altar inside.

More footsteps. This time they come from the area around the side of the church. He is working his way through the graveyard toward where I am crouched.

I try the door. The knob turns, but I look at the rusty hinges and think twice about noise.

An engine starts in the distance. Kathy Merlow has reached her car. The footfalls on the gravel turn to a run. By my estimation he is no more than a dozen feet from the back corner of the church, coming fast. No time to think. Running, I reach for the door, and suddenly I’m inside, enveloped by the cool shadows of the church, the door closed behind me.

I move quickly to a position behind the wooden altar, lost in its shadows.

Outside I can hear a vehicle moving on gravel, toward the church. More epithets from the man with the gun as he races for the gate in the fence. I grab the only object in reach, a candle and its holder on a shelf behind the altar, and fling it hard against the interior wall of the church.

It clunks, heavy metal on wood, and lands on the floor.

The footfalls outside suddenly stop. The sound of wheels as they veer in gravel, turning away from the church. The acceleration of the engine, and Kathy Merlow’s car is gone, the growl of its engirle receding down some unseen road.

Hesitation. The noise from inside the church has cost the killer his quarry. And now he looks for other game.

On the door, behind me, there is a hook for a lock, halfway up.

Quickly I move, in a whisper of sound I slip the hook through the eye in the door, and before I can move back to the altar someone grips the knob from the outside and jerks. The door rattles in its frame but does not open. I am pressed against the wall next to it, the hook jiggling in the eye. I stop breathing. Another tug. Several seconds pass. I can visualize an ear to the wood of the door, an eye to the keyhole, then finally, after several seconds, receding footfalls.

As quickly as they started, they stop. Maybe he walked onto grass, I cold sweat of fear seeping through my shirt.

Through a crack in one of the boards I can see a form as it approaches the glass, backlit by the bright afternoon sun. One hand cupped to the window, shading, to peer inside. Hair that bristles in the sunlight, closecropped, the face of the courier who delivered the deadly bomb to Marcie Reed. I pull away from the crack in the boards and press my back to the altar. I am stone-still. Seconds pass without a sound, my breathing almost stopped, my head pounding from lack of oxygen, rivulets of sweat making their way down the sides of my face drip onto the floor.

Time passes, an eternity. I lose track, unwilling to move for fear of casting a shadow on a distant wall. My eye back to the crack in the boards. The figure at the window is gone. I wait, look at my watch.

Several minutes pass. I’m afraid to move. I listen for the sound of his car, tires grinding gravel. But there is nothing. I could go the way of Kathy Merlow, the gate through the overgrown fence behind the church. But my car is in the lot out front.

Then it settles on me. He’s waiting. If he’s followed me, he knows my car. Sooner or later… Then I hear them. Footfalls again. This time at the front of the church, from gravel, to the wooden porch, a hand on the doorknob, and it opens. A shaft of bright sunlight. I press my back harder against the altar. Hard heels on the rough wooden floor, quick steps coming this way. With each I count the seconds left of my life. I think of Sarah. Life as an orphan. 13itter recriminations. I should not have come and left my daughter to pay the price. The irresponsible things parents do. What I would give for one more hug before I leave her…. A long shadow approaching, growing shorter on the wall. In this instant of blind panic, my mind reaches for an out-of-body experience, floating somewhere over this scene, above this altar of death. “May I ask what you’re doing?”

From the corner of my eye, a head of dark hair peers at me over the edge of wood that is the corner of the altar. A lean face, stern in its bearing, middle-aged, a touch of gray at the temples, the face of peace, framed in black and white, a broad clerical collar. “What are you doing back here?” he says. “Oh, God!” I grab my chest, gasping for air. “Are you all right?” The minister looks at me, suddenly solicitous, one of his flock with a coronary. I’m hyperventilating, making up for life’s deficit of lost breath.

“Fine,” I tell him. “I’m fine.” My looks must convey otherwise. He’s around the altar, helping me to my feet, propping me against the altar.

“Do you need a doctor?”

“No, no. Just give me a second.”

Sweat running down my face, my knees trembling. He plies me for my story, some testimony of what I’m doing here, something for a Sunday sermon. Man’s ultimate “come-to-Jesus meeting” behind the altar. “It’s a long story,” I tell him. I look at the windows, the ebbing sun, the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. I fight to find saliva in a dry mouth. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I was praying,” I tell him.

“That’s good,” he says. “This is the right place. But you’re supposed to do it out there.” He points toward the pews. “Somehow, back here,” I tell him, “I felt closer to God.”

He considers this for a moment, then nods as if to say, If it’s right by the Lord, it’s fine by me. “Is there anyone outside?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

“I mean a car… in the parking lot?”

“One driving out when I came in, and another, a small red sedan parked,” he says. “I was coming to look for the owner. I have to lock up.”

“You found him. Where did you come from?” I ask.

“I live across the road. I walk here each afternoon to lock the church and the gate out on the highway. Can I help you to your car?”

“No.

There’s no need.” I’m around the altar, making my amends, telling him I am fine, my shirt dripping with perspiration, more dust and dirt on my pants than a coal miner. He gives me a strange sort of look, a shake of the head, something designed to measure my soul, that says it’s been a long time since anyone in this little church has worked so hard at prayer. On the road back to Hana my eyes are glued to the rearview mirror. If the courier is following me, he’s doing a good job, sans lights, taking the hairpin turns in what is now approaching darkness.

I’m past the turnout to the Seven Pools when a car comes from someplace off a dirt road, a lot of dust, and headlights on high beam, close enough that if I brake, he will be sitting in my trunk. My first thoughts are ones of panic. I goose it and take a turn on skidding wheels. Suddenly there’s the flutter of lights in my mirror, flashing red and blue, followed by a quick siren. Pangs of wondrous relief. I’m about to get a speeding ticket. We stop. The widest spot on the road I can find, a private driveway.

The cop gets out, blue uniform. In the beam of his spotlight it is all I can see. In this instant it hits me. A courier one moment. How hard would it be? Then his flashlight is in my eyes. He lowers the beam for a brief instant and I can see him. One of the local boys, Hawaiian through and through. “Can I see your driver’s license?”

“How fast was I going, officer?”

No response. I fumble in my wallet.

“Take it out, please.”

I hand it to him.

He looks at the license, then flashes light in my eyes.

“Mr. Madriani. Stay in your vehicle and follow me, please.”

With that he hands me my license and heads back to his car.

I have had roller-coaster rides with less G force than the trip back to Hana behind this guy. Like some Toon-time character with an anvil for a foot, the cop drives as if the road will stretch like ribbon to hold his tires in the turns. We highball through town like a rocket sled, no siren or lights, nothing that might give the odd pedestrian or stray dog an even chance. Two miles on the other side, he turns down a road to the right, onto the flat plain leading to the airstrip. A second right and a few hundred feet up a dirt road he comes to a stop behind another police car and two unmarked vehicles. A small group is gathered, talking in the headlights. I see Dana, and Jessie Opolo. They’re both wearing blue nylon jackets with the letters
FBI
emblazoned on the back. As soon as Dana sees my car, she moves quickly toward me, a tight expression on her face. I kill my lights, and before I can get out she’s posturing at my door.

“Where have you been?”

“Pursuing a lead,” I tell her.

“You had us worried sick,” she says. Dana’s face is a map of fury at this moment, but her voice is restrained. “We didn’t have any idea where you’d gone. Taking off like that.”

“So you sent the troops?” I point to the cop car that brought me in like I was on some kind of tractor beam.

“Jessie had them put out an allpoints for your car,” she says.

“Discreet,” I tell her.

“Well, you should have told us where you were going.”

“What’s happening?”

“Jessie and his men got a lead on the Merlows. One of the mail carriers saw them driving to a house up the road here. We think it’s where they’re holed up.”

“Wonderful. What are they waiting for?”

“Jessie wants to go in carefully. We’re not exactly sure what we’re dealing with.” I’m trying to move toward Jessie and the agents. She’s got her hand on my arm. “What did you find?” she says.

“Nothing. Dead end,” I tell her.

There is little sense telling her about meeting with Kathy Merlow or my close call with the netherworld at the hands of the courier. It would only make her more angry. If they have found the Merlows, Dana will know the story soon enough. We can get them on a plane and I can grill them both for five hours to the drone of jet engines. We’ve made our way to where Opolo and the cops are standing.

“Hey, man, we were worried about you. She chew your ass good?” A big smile on the Hawaiian’s round face. I don’t answer.

“Where’s the house?” I ask.

“Up there. About a hundred yards,” says Opolo.

Just then one of agents comes down the road, a steep incline. He holds his voice until he reaches us. “Lights are on, but no movement. If they’re inside they must be sitting down doing something. We can’t see a thing.”

“Should we go?” Opolo quizzing his men. There’s a debate.

“We don’t have a warrant.” One of the agents is worried.

“Hell, we’re not looking to arrest them,” says Opolo.

“I’d like somebody to hold them,” I break in. “At least until we find out what they know.” I I “No problem,” says Opolo. “We got cause to hold them. To talk to them about the bombing at the post office. If what you say is true, they know something about whoever sent the bomb.”

“Yeah. We just want to talk.” One of the agents chiming in. “If it turns out they’re witnesses, we’ll bag em and ship em,” he says. “We’ll hold em until you can get a subpoena or an order of extradition if they’re involved.”

“Well, let’s do it,” I say.

Opolo looks at me, makes a face like okay.

With the appearance of the courier, the shooting at the cemetery, the longer we wait, the greater the risk that Kathy and George Merlow are going to run. My biggest fear at this moment is that we will find an empty house, the Merlows and their bags gone. A minute later we’re up the road, cars screaming to a halt in front of the house, a small bungalow built off the ground on pilings, a corrugated metal roof. What the locals call a plantation house. The cop cars have their light bars blazing. Opolo and the two agents are up the front steps. One of them is carrying a small battering ram from the trunk of the car. The cops hoof it around the house to cover the back.

Opolo pounds on the door hard enough to cause it to bow in its frame.