“You can’t stay here,” Claire said. “Not if she knows what you look like.”
“I know,” he said. “We’ve got to get this over with.”
There was a low flower-pattern settee in the corner of Mrs. Bartlett’s office, and Sandra Loscalzo was seated on it, looking at local maps and brochures from a display rack mounted on the wall. Mrs. Bartlett was at her desk doing puzzles in a crossword book, and Parker stopped to say to her, “We wondered if you could give us some advice.”
“If I can,” she said, putting down her pencil.
“We thought,” he said, “we’d like to look at the countryside from a height somewhere that we could get a sense of the whole area.”
“Oh, I know just the place,” Mrs. Bartlett said, and took one of the maps from the display rack near Sandra, who did not look up from her own researches. “It was a Revolutionary War battle site. Just wonderful views. Rutledge Ridge.”
With a red pen, she drew the route on the map, naming off the roads as she went. They thanked her and took the map out to the Toyota.
Sandra drove up to the lookout five minutes after they arrived. Seemingly unbroken forest fell away on three sides in clumps and clusters of bright color, rising only in the north. A few other tourists were up here, but the parking and observation area was large enough for everybody to have as much privacy as they wanted.
Sandra got out of the Honda and came over to the low stone wall that girdled the view, Claire seated on the wall, Parker standing next to her. “You know that cop,” she said, as a greeting.
“She knows me,” Parker said.
“I get that.” To Claire, Sandra said, “Very smooth, with the newspaper.”
“You noticed.”
“Well, I take an interest.” To Parker, she said, “You looked the place over last night. Can we go and get it? How much longer do we wait?”
“I don’t want to wait at all, with that detective around,” Parker told her. “But if she’s still here, that means we’ve still got a lot of law to deal with. The law is looking for a lot of heavy boxes of cash. You rent a truck around here right now, somebody’s gonna stop you just to see who you are.”
“What about three or four cars? You, me, Claire, and McWhitney.”
“Four strangers, all going off the tourist trails, getting together, making a little convoy.”
Sandra frowned out at the view, not seeming to see it. “If I knew where this goddamn stash was—”
“In a church,” he said.
She looked at him, wanting to be sure he was serious. “A church?”
Nick Dalesia found it. Long time abandoned. Water and electricity switched off but still there. The idea was to just hole up overnight, but the heat was too intense, we had to leave the cash behind.”
“In boxes.”
“Up in the choir loft. Already church boxes up there, hymns and things.”
“That’s nice.” Sandra paced, rubbing the knuckles of her right hand into her left palm. “I know you don’t want to tell me where this church is, not yet, but that’s okay. The time comes, we’ll go there together.”
“That’s right,” Parker said.
“Unless,” Claire said, “you just can’t stay here any more.”
“Well, he can’t stay here any more,” Sandra said.
“If I go away and come back when the law is gone,” Parker said, “a lot of things can happen.”
Sandra paced, rubbing those knuckles, then stopped to say, “I tell you what. You and me, we drive down to Long Island, six, seven hours, we talk it over with McWhitney.”
Parker looked at her. “You want to see McWhitney?”
Sandra shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’m no Roy Keenan, I won’t turn my back on him. But we’ll tell him, you and me, we got an understanding, right?”
“Half of Nick.”
“We’ll go now,” Sandra said. “Get there in daylight. Claire can hold the fort, let Mrs. Muskrat know we’re coming back. Right?”
“Sure,” Claire said. “But why do you want to do the driving?”
“Because you are,” Sandra told her. “And you are because he isn’t sure his license would play nice with cop computers. Me, I’m so clean they give me a gold medal every time they see me.” She cocked a brow at Parker. “Ready?”
Parker looked at his watch. Nearly ten. He said to Claire, “I’ll be back late tonight.”
She nodded. “I’ll be here.”
12
Sandra was not so much a speeder as permanently aggressive, taking what small openings the road and the traffic gave her. It wasn’t yet three-thirty in the afternoon when she parked diagonally across the street from McWhitney’s bar, named in neon in the front window MCW. “Surprise,” she said, and gave Parker a twisted smile.
“Not too many surprises,” Parker said.
Three-thirty on a Friday afternoon McW was a lot livelier than last time, about half full but with the clear sense that a greater crowd was on its way. McWhitney had a second bartender working, though he didn’t really need him quite yet. McWhitney was busy, eyes and hands in constant motion, but he saw Parker and Sandra come in and immediately turned away, saying something to his assistant. Stripping off his apron, walking away, he pointed leftward at an empty booth and came down around the bar to join them at it.
“The lion lies down with the lamb,” he said, not smiling.
Sandra grinned at him. “Which is which?”
“You got your Harbin,” McWhitney told her, not hiding his dislike. “We got no more specials.”
Sandra turned to Parker. “Tell him.”
“She’s in on the church with us,” Parker said. “For half of Nick.”
“In on the church?” McWhitney was offended. “She’s been there?”
“Don’t know where it is,” Sandra said. “He won’t tell me. But I think I can help you get the money out.”
McWhitney frowned at Parker. “I don’t like this.”
“It isn’t what any of us had in mind,” Parker agreed. “But that neighborhood up there is still a hornet’s nest, and the hornets are still out.”
“There’s a cop up there can make him,” Sandra said, “And almost did.”
McWhitney looked at Parker. “The woman cop?”
“Her.”
McWhitney leaned back as his assistant bartender brought three beers, then left without a word. Taking a short sip, McWhitney said, “So we all just gotta go away for a while.”
“Until what?” Parker asked him. “Until they get Nick again? Until Nick gets in there on his own and cleans it out? Until some kids fool around in there one night and find it?”
McWhitney nodded, but pointed a thumb at Sandra. “So what’s she doing in it? She just happens to be this place, that place, and every time we see her we give her money? Half of Nick? What if Nick shows up?”
“You’ll kill him,” Sandra said.
McWhitney shook his head. “I still don’t see what you’re doing in here.”
“I’ll help dig,” Sandra said, and nodded at the floor. “Probably in that basement of yours.”
“Never mind my basement.”
“Also,” Sandra said, “I have a way to get your money.”
Parker said, “You didn’t say that before.”
“I wanted to see how this meeting was gonna go, do I want to go through the trouble, or just screw you people and score it on my own.”
“Listen to this,” McWhitney said.
Parker said, “You’ve figured out a way to get the money out.”
“I think so.” To McWhitney she said, “You pretty well know the business operations around this neighborhood.”
“Pretty well.”