“Please do.”
We stood there quietly, listening to the hiss and whir of the ventilation system doing its work, the beeps and buzzes coming from a number of monitors. Kara said, “What are you up to, Lewis?”
“Just visiting a friend, that’s all.”
She squeezed my arm. “You don’t think Diane has told me tales about you over the years? And this is the first time you’ve been by in days? Which means you’ve been busy. And if you’ve been busy, you’ve been up to something.”
“I’ve been working.”
“What kind of work?”
“The work that leads me to Curt Chesak, who did this to Diane.”
She squeezed my arm again. “Hold on. I’ve got something to give you. I’ll be right back.”
Kara bustled her way out, and I was alone with Diane. I stepped forward and rubbed the top of her hand, took in her injuries, her medical support, the whole dreary mess.
I bent over, kissed her cool and dry forehead, then I moved my mouth down to her right ear. “Diane… I’m doing everything I can to make it right. You can count on me. And whatever happens…” and something dry and hard seemed to catch in my throat “… I’ll look after Kara. I promise.”
I stood there, wiped at my eyes, and turned around as Kara came back into the room. We both walked out into the hallway.
“Here, this is for you,” she said, handing over a white business envelope to me. “A state police detective came by and told me to give this to you.”
“Did he leave a name?”
“No, but he said you’d know who it was from.”
“Really?”
“He said unless you’ve had a lot of experience with state police detectives lately, you’d know.”
Of course I’d know. Detective Pete Renzi of the New Hampshire State Police had been the lead investigator in the assassination of Bronson Toles last week, the anti-nuclear activist who had been murdered by his stepson to prevent him from giving away thousands of hours of old tape recordings that could have made millions for Toles, his wife, and his stepson. Instead, Toles wanted to give all the money away, and that charitable thinking had led to his death.
And irony of ironies, most of the tapes had been destroyed in a fire intentionally set by a former columnist for Shoreline magazine.
Renzi had also been the detective who had clued me in to Professor Knowlton and his connection with Curt Chesak of the Nuclear Freedom Front.
I tore open the envelope. Inside was a white sheet of paper, no letterhead, just one line of type, centered in the middle:
Lewis, trust me on this, leave it alone.
Really?
I folded up the sheet of paper, put it back into the envelope, shoved it in my rear pocket.
“Everything okay?” Kara asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
She smiled. “You’re a damn slab of granite, Lewis, aren’t you? Able to do everything.”
“Some days more than others. Look, can I ask a favor?”
Her eyes filled up. “Absolutely.”
“Wondering if I could borrow your car. And maybe your condo.”
She stared at me for a moment, retrieved her purse, and came back with a set of keys. She tugged free two keys and passed them over. “Use both as long as you want. I don’t expect to be moving far from here.”
“Thanks.”
Kara took my hand and led me back to the small room we had been in earlier. She turned and said, “You’re still working, right? Still looking for that Curt Chesak?”
“That I am.”
“And what do you plan to do once you find him?”
I let a second or two pass. “I really don’t want to tell you, Kara.”
She nodded in understanding. She kissed me one more time, whispered, “You get him, Lewis. You get him.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
At the parking lot of the Lafayette House on Tyler Beach, I easily found an empty parking spot and maneuvered Kara’s Subaru to a halt. It was mid-morning and clouds had roared in from the west, making the day both look and feel gray and cold. The Lafayette House is one of the few surviving New Hampshire grand hotels from the end of the nineteenth century, multi-story with a number of Victorian-style turrets and a long wrap-around porch, and a perfect lawn with a view of the slate-colored churning Atlantic.
I sat for a long while, staring out at the ocean, thinking and juggling things. Before me was Atlantic Avenue, also known as U.S. Route 1-A, and on the other side of the road was a large yet narrow parking lot. Being off-season, the lot was mostly empty. I considered that a good sign. I swung around and saw no one on the porch, no one sitting in the white Adirondack chairs on the perfect lawn.
I got out of the car, zipped up my coat. The wind was steady, biting. I walked briskly down the driveway, jogged across Atlantic Avenue, and then started walking north, on a very narrow sidewalk. I looked to my left and then my right, like I was a tourist from Omaha seeing the ocean for the very first time. After striding about fifty yards or so, I made a quick descent to the right, stepping onto the Lafayette House parking lot. At this end, there were a number of large boulders, blocking the end of the lot, save for one area where a rough dirt lane was visible.
My own driveway.
I walked down the bumpy, not-very-well-maintained road, as my home came into view. It was about a hundred and fifty years old, and it started out as a lifeboat station for the U.S. Lifesaving Service, then junior officers’ quarters for the Samson Point Artillery Station — now a state park — and, before it came into my possession, belonged for a number of years to the Department of the Interior.
For the past several years, the old house with the weathered siding and nearby sagging garage had been more than a home to me: it’d been my safe harbor, and I was so very, very happy to be back.
This wonderful feeling would last about another thirty seconds.
When I unlocked the sturdy front door and stepped in, it was all wrong. Hard to describe, but walking into my house quickly reminded me of a movie I had seen last summer with Diane Woods. At first the movie had seemed fine, but after just a few seconds, it was quickly obvious that the projectionist needed to slightly focus the film.
That’s what was going on here. When I stopped and looked around, everything seemed to be in its correct place, but no, everything was just slightly askew. The old Oriental rug in the center of my living room. The position of the couch, two chairs, and the coffee table. All had been moved and put back in their places, but not exactly.
My house had been tossed, and tossed by experts.
I trotted upstairs to my office and my bedroom, saw the same evidence of my safe harbor being violated. I quickly gathered up a few things and ran downstairs. I ran outside, closed and locked the door, glanced back at my home, and started up the driveway.
Then I stopped.
The driveway was the quick and safe way back up to the parking lot and Atlantic Avenue.
Instead, I turned around, started scrambling over boulders the size of a Mini Cooper, taking the long and rough way back.
It was a good choice.
Walking back toward the Lafayette House but from a different direction, I saw one and then two dark-blue Chevrolet Suburbans roar up Atlantic Avenue and then turn into the once-empty parking lot of the Lafayette House. One Suburban went bounding down my driveway, and the other one veered and blocked the driveway entrance. I kept on walking, head down, hands in pockets, trying to look like some guy out for a mid-morning walk, not having much of a care in the world.
I came up to Kara’s rusting Subaru, once again smiling inside at the peace signs, anti-nuclear stickers, and one sticker that said something like IT WILL BE A GREAT DAY WHEN SCHOOLS HAVE ALL THE FUNDS THEY NEED AND THE AIR FORCE HAS A BAKE SALE TO BUY A BOMBER. Sure. Tell that to Air Force pilots working lumbering bombers on patrol to defend their nation, said bombers having been built when their grandparents had been dating.