One bad thing, p.15
One Bad Thing, page 15
The detective went up to the bow, and McKenna waited in the cockpit.
After a few minutes, the man said, “Mr. McKenna? Can I ask you what this is?”
McKenna leaned in. “What’s that?”
“In here?” the man said. “Can I show you?”
McKenna hesitated.
He didn’t want to go down there.
Not into the cabin where he had killed Gleason and Cain. Not when it was all too possible the man simply wanted to extract answers by force.
Luckily for McKenna, Swan came down the finger pier at that moment.
“Gotta move you back to the ghetto, Rob,” he said. “The Eastons are coming back and want their slip. You get her lines off, and I’ll bring the workboat around, give you a tow.”
McKenna turned in Cross’s direction and apologized. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m in a gypsy position here, and I have to move the boat now.”
Cross came up the cabinway, reluctantly. McKenna made a point of introducing Cross to Swan. The two men shook hands. McKenna noticed Swan looking at Cross carefully.
Then Swan went off for the workboat, his prosthetic leg moving stiffly.
McKenna stepped down to the finger pier and quickly began untying the lines. “I’m going to be a bit busy for a while,” he said. “I’ve told you all I know about Cain anyway.”
Cross nodded. “And your wife? Perhaps she can help me?”
“She can’t,” McKenna said, flatly. “She never met the man. He wouldn’t have been on board if she were sailing back with me.”
“I see,” Cross said. “I’d hate to bother her …”
“Then don’t,” McKenna said. The man looked at him, his eyes cold and blue.
Langdon said, “I’d like to come back if I think of any more questions.”
“I’ve told you all I know,” McKenna said. He put his hand out to the dock, gesturing politely, but firmly, that it was time for Cross to leave.
Cross simply smiled and stepped off the boat.
McKenna smiled right back. Two, friendly, helpful guys. McKenna pushed the Wanderer out of the slip. Once she was moving, he climbed back on board while Swan puttered up in the gray workboat.
He could feel Cross’s eyes on him all the way to the next dock. But when at last the boat was tied down in its new berth, McKenna turned to find the man was gone.
CHAPTER 22
CAROLINE CALLED SOPHIA BENCHLEY AROUND TWO THE NEXT AFTERNOON to say she definitely wanted the apartment and, if it was at all possible, could she move in that afternoon?
Sophia sounded surprised, but agreed when Caroline explained that this was her day off from the store. Caroline didn’t reveal exactly what was motivating her, but she suspected Sophia would have understood if she had. After her telephone conversation with Rob that morning, Caroline had a sudden but definite need to start her own life.
Luckily, soon after Sophia agreed, Elliott came home for a late lunch. She asked him to drive her over.
“Sure,” he said, looking surprised. “Didn’t know you’d be moving on so soon,”
I need a car, Caroline thought. This week I’ll pick up a car, something cheap, something that will get me around town. No, the hell with that. I’ll get something I like. Used Volkswagen convertible, maybe a Saab. Pick up a new apartment, a car this week. Next week, a new life altogether.
Elliott helped Caroline with her two bags and a small box of books and cookware that she’d bought since returning from the voyage. She looked at her things in the trunk of Elliott’s old Volvo and decided that, including the boxes and few pieces of furniture still in storage, she had fewer possessions than when she and Rob were first married.
She and Elliott were quiet on the drive over. Caroline sat in the front seat feeling as if her insides were in danger of shattering like broken glass. Thinking how quickly she had become dependent upon the kindness of strangers. The Blanche Dubois of Newburyport, she told herself.
Or nearly strangers, anyhow. A few weeks ago, she hadn’t even known Elliott, and now he was transporting her off to her first home alone since … ever.
She’d gone from her parent’s home to college to marriage.
When they reached Sophia’s house, Elliott turned off the car and looked at her directly. “Mariel will be all over me if I don’t ask. And I’m naturally nosy anyhow. What’s the big rush?”
Elliott’s brown eyes were calm and steady. Caroline knew he had been through a divorce himself and had an estranged son somewhere on the West Coast. That Mariel and Elliott apparently loved each other, but in their year of being together, marriage was not a consideration.
“I might as well go,” Caroline said, lightly. “Talked to my ex this morning and nothing’s happening there. Might as well get on with my new life, such as it is.”
“He’s not really your ex yet, is he?”
“Not technically,” she said. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “And I had hoped not at all. But I figure it’s time to look out for myself.”
“Mmmmm,” Elliott said.
She kept on, feeling as if she was blathering, but he was a good listener: “Said he needed more time. Wanted to keep his distance for a while.”
Elliott made a face. “That kind of talk typical of him?”
“No.” Caroline shook her head. “Not at all. But it’s what he’s saying now. How do I answer that?”
“Hard to know.”
“Damn straight,” Caroline said.
She’d just been so stunned. Certainly, it had been awkward when she’d left Rob at the hotel. But in thinking it over later, she had decided it was more important that he’d wanted to make love to her than that they’d actually had a wonderful, rousing time. That the stress had messed him up, and his pride was wounded. But obviously, the affection had been there. The passion.
She wouldn’t even let herself think the word love, even though she believed it was there, too.
But then, this morning, she had gotten tired of waiting for him to call. At noon, she finally gave in and picked up the phone. Rob’s cell phone was apparently turned off, so she called the marina. Swan answered. He seemed shy, but pleased to hear from her. And he was happy to go down and get Rob, had asked Caroline to wait.
She did just that.
But when Rob got on the phone, she knew in an instant it was going to be awful. She could hear the restraint in his voice.
The distance.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said when she offered to get together. “I’ve got to work out some things.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing to discuss,” he said. But his voice wasn’t just cool. More like tense. More like guilty. She thought again about the look on his face when she had asked if he had a girl in another port. Surprised. As if he hadn’t even considered it. As if that would’ve been the least of his problems.
Although Caroline could try to read the tea leaves to figure out what his pauses and inflections might really mean, there was no mistaking his words: “Caroline, I don’t think we should see each other for a while.”
Elliott opened his door and started to get out. Then he looked back at Caroline and said, “You think he’s started up with somebody else? I see it all the time. No law says you got to take him back.”
“That’s what you do?” Caroline said. “Follow people, take pictures?”
Elliott nodded. “It’s not pretty. But that’s what I do when I can’t get something really satisfying, like an insurance contract to catch some guy dancing without his crutches.”
Caroline thought about it. Wondered if this was what she was meant to do. Riding in this old Volvo, getting ready to hire a private detective to find out what her ex-husband was up to.
But broken glass inside her or not, she knew better. “No,” she said. “Not that way.”
Elliott nodded. “Good enough. Help you up the stairs with these boxes?”
CHAPTER 23
LANGDON CAME BACK TO THE MARINA JUST AFTER TWO IN THE MORNING. The moon had gone down and the docks were only faintly illuminated by a few lights.
He parked his car several blocks away, then walked across the shell-covered parking lot as if he had a simple and obvious purpose.
He had stopped in briefly twice before that night, at ten and midnight. He didn’t think there was a night watchman. It appeared as if the one-legged man had a small apartment back near the workshop.
Langdon figured if he couldn’t handle a middle-aged man with one leg, he was truly losing his touch.
He felt he would make much better progress tonight than he had with Vincent. And even that hadn’t turned out so badly. Had gotten him where he was now.
Langdon was fairly certain McKenna was lying. About what, he wasn’t sure. It seemed hard to imagine that Tom Cain would share his story willingly. But McKenna knew something more, and Langdon wanted to know what it was.
Mostly it was McKenna’s manner. Just a tad too casual. Accepted the dying father bit without any questions even though his eyes were skeptical. Then there was the cracked wooden door. The one heading toward the bow of the boat. Plus the vee berth cushions usually in a boat like this one were gone. Maybe they were out getting washed, but the blue ones in the main cabin were still there. Langdon had covered up more than his share of crime scenes in the past, and he recognized a subtle but identifiable sense of something being cleaned over, something being hidden.
There was also that stock denial that cops the world over had heard, and Langdon had said himself more than once… . “I’ve told you everything I know.” That and the flash of fear when Langdon had mentioned visiting the man’s wife.
Caroline McKenna.
You’re lying, Mr. McKenna, Langdon thought as he stepped onto the dock beside McKenna’s boat. He drew his gun and held it against his leg.
Langdon felt, rather than saw movement behind him. He was halfway onto the boat, one foot on the rail, the other still on the dock.
In other words, in an awkward-as-hell position to deal with the sudden movement behind him. The sudden movement from the cockpit of the sailboat beside the Wanderer.
Nevertheless, Langdon almost made it. He shoved himself backward, and was bringing the gun around when something hit his arm. Something black and hard, and then that something whistled and he took a staggering blow to his left temple. Damned if he didn’t feel his grip loosen on the gun.
The man drove Langdon against the sailboat and grabbed at the gun. Since Langdon couldn’t seem to make himself work properly, he simply dropped the gun behind himself into the water. He shoved off the sailboat once more, but his knees were weak and the man backed away and hit him again and again.
Langdon took in that it was McKenna—the amateur, the sailor, Langdon’s next victim for Christ’s sakes—swinging the big club.
And then McKenna got Langdon on the head one too many times, and he passed out altogether.
* * *
When Langdon awoke, he was inside the sailboat. McKenna was shining a flashlight into Langdon’s eyes. Langdon supposed that’s what he had been using to hit him, one of those big police flashlights.
McKenna was still breathing heavily. Langdon expected he had just finished slinging him down the stairs.
“Mind if I feel around to see what damage you’ve done?” Langdon asked.
McKenna waved the flashlight at him. “What’re you doing here, Cross? Why’d you come down to my boat with a gun?”
His voice sounded hoarse and shaky.
That made Langdon feel a bit of relief. The man was scared.
Langdon’s right wrist felt very sore, but he could move it. He felt his face and there was blood there and a pulpy feel to his left side of his forehead. “Mind if I sit up?”
“You try anything, I’ll go to work on you again,” McKenna said.
Scared. Definitely scared about what he’d done.
Langdon carefully sat up, thinking that if it was a good thing Ronnie wasn’t here to see this. He said, “Avon calling.”
McKenna drew back on the flashlight, and Langdon raised his hand, “Please. Just a joke.”
“What do you want?”
“I think you know.”
“Answer my question!”
Langdon didn’t bother. He said, “I also want Tom Cain.”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
McKenna shrugged. “Just gone. Don’t waste your time.”
“No waste.” Langdon looked at him steadily. But now McKenna had closed down, and Langdon could read nothing. Which was something in itself. Clearly, he was hiding something.
“Let me guess,” Langdon said. “You ripped him off yourself.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” McKenna said. “But I know you’ll get hurt if you keep following me around.
“You got very lucky here, my friend.”
“Don’t come around again.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple. There’s property of mine that’s missing. And my business with Mister Cain is urgent.”
“What property?”
Langdon stared at him. “If you have it, you know.”
McKenna said, “But I don’t.”
Said it a rather too quickly for Langdon’s taste.
Langdon made himself relax. Made himself sit back. Telegraphing that there was nothing to fear in him, that all he wanted to do was to talk.
And then he kicked McKenna in the balls.
At least that was the plan. But the man was quicker than Langdon had expected. McKenna turned slightly, took the blow on his thigh.
From there, he wound up quickly with the heavy flashlight, and Langdon barely made it to his feet before the first blow arrived, crashing against the side of his head, right on the same damned spot.
Lucky, Langdon thought, falling to his knees. The flashlight whistled down again.
Thank God Ronnie wasn’t here to see this.
CHAPTER 24
MCKENNA LOADED LANGDON INTO THE BACK OF SWAN’S PICKUP TRUCK.
Swan had loaned him the spare set of keys to the marina’s pickup truck a few days back and said he was free to use it off hours if anything urgent came up.
McKenna figured three in the morning, as transportation for an unconscious—possibly dying—man qualified.
Cross was still breathing. But when McKenna felt his throat, his pulse was fluttery.
McKenna was shaking. Adrenaline was singing through his veins.
He’d almost killed the man right in the boat. Almost didn’t stop himself.
Now, he threw a tarp over Cross’s body and got behind the wheel of the old truck. It took a while to crank over, and he said aloud, “Stay in bed, Swan. Just stay there.”
Swan’s window remained dark.
McKenna took off out of the parking lot and headed toward town, wondering just what the hell he was going to do next.
God Almighty.
What he should do was clear.
Not clear the way it had been when he made that first mistake with Cain. Back then, “clear” meant doing the right thing. Call the Coast Guard over, let them haul Cain away. Christ, he still had that kind of choice: the police station was all of about two blocks away from the marina.
But McKenna barely considered that.
“Clear” now meant he should kill the man in the back of the truck. Cross, or whatever his name was. Bludgeon him, or stab him, or cut his throat.
Hide his body.
McKenna stopped the truck at a light in Market Square. Thinking about what killing the man entailed. Had the boat’s prop not been damaged the obvious thing to do would have been to motor out to sea and drop the body. Hit him with something, the flashlight, McKenna supposed, until his head was crushed and his heart stopped.
Dump him like his predecessors, Cain and Gleason. Sink him in the black water, and then scrub the boat. Erase him from McKenna’s life before he encroached any further. Before he found his way to Caroline.
Now McKenna’s choice seemed to be to hide the body on land someplace. Or dump him off a bridge. But all the bridges McKenna knew of in Newburyport were too public. Too easy even at three in the morning for someone see him.
A horn honked behind him, and McKenna realized the light had changed. And that now there was someone who may remember a man woolgathering in an old truck at three in the morning.
McKenna accelerated slowly through the town center.
Civilization, under the shroud of darkness.
Buildings where people worked, lived, made love, and struggled through their days. Perhaps some of them did wrong to each other from time to time, but most of them followed the law, followed the tacit agreement of how people behaved toward one another.
McKenna felt alien from them, from the human race as he knew it.
He told himself the man under the tarp would have almost certainly killed him. Tortured him, perhaps. Even though Cain and Gleason had been fully capable of leaving him to drown—this man would have done worse.
McKenna could feel it.
He arrived at his destination without really thinking about it. Saw what he was going to do, saw that it was a stopgap that he would almost certainly live to regret.
“Ah, damn it,” he breathed.
He just couldn’t kill the man in cold blood. McKenna simply didn’t have it in him.
Instead, he turned off High Street and went to the hospital. When he reached the emergency room parking lot, he immediately walked around the truck and dropped the tailgate. The man was still breathing. McKenna hauled Cross off the tailgate, dragged him under the awning, and slung him into a wheelchair. It was as awkward as hell because the chair kept rolling away. McKenna had to bend down to put the man’s feet onto the footplates, and then he spun the chair around and shoved it at the automatic door.
