JUICE, COFFEE, TEA, PASTRIESI
MELON
THE HONORABLE ELIZABETH SHALER
ATTORNEY GENERAL NEW YORK STATE
THREE EGG OMELET, CAVIAR, AND CRÈME FRAÎCHE
or
MANGO AND STRAWBERRY BELGIAN WAFFLE
AND YOUR CHOICE OF
NORTH SEA SMOKED SALMON, IRISH BACON, BLOOD SAUSAGE
ROASTED TOMATOES, QUICK-FRIED KELP, CARAMELIZED APPLES
He was amused by Shaler’s listing as part of the menu. She appeared to be the second or third course.
This was not the program he’d been told to expect. Originally, her talk had been scheduled to follow the main course, not precede it. This accelerated schedule affected his planning. He had to arm the explosive now, well ahead of his original plan. He reached down and reassuringly touched the bulge in his coat pocket: the shock collar’s remote control.
“Oh my God,” the woman two seats away gasped. She moved her chair back. “It’s bleeding!”
Trevalian looked. There was indeed blood beneath the dog. His plan unraveling, right before his own blind eyes, he steadied his voice. “She was just spayed. I’ll go check on her.”
“Let me be your eyes,” the woman offered. “I love dogs.”
“I can handle it!” Trevalian said sharply. He excused himself. The dog stood, unbothered by her problem, and Trevalian headed out of the banquet room.
Moving against the crush of incoming guests cost him precious minutes. He worried that the woman was going to spring up behind him. Finally he was in the hall and headed for the men’s room.
As he made it inside, two men were just washing up at the sink. Both caught Trevalian’s reflection in the mirror and both made a point of saying, “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Trevalian returned, leading the dog into the tight stall and closing the door with some difficulty.
He sat down on the toilet, pulled Callie to face him, her tail swishing back and forth outside the stall door, and he waited to hear the two men leave. Another man entered and urinated, but Trevalian had no time to wait. He removed his sunglasses and, holding the dog’s collar tightly, reached into his outside coat pocket and withdrew a pair of tweezers. With no more metal content than a ballpoint pen, the tweezers had passed through security undetected, and he used them now, lowering himself awkwardly to one knee in the cramped space to where he had a good view of Callie’s chest. He spread the dog’s hair until the pink incision appeared-a string of fine-looking hook-and-knot stitches running in a straight line ten inches up her abdomen. Blood seeped from the middle, but he dabbed it with tissue and it seemed to stop.
He carefully guided the tweezers between the second and third stitches, whispering, “Good girl,” into the dog’s ear. She tensed with a quick spark of pain. But it was over quickly as the tweezers bit down onto a length of wire and extracted it from her chest. Eighteen inches in all, extremely thin, aluminum, picture-frame wire. He wiped it clean with a piece of toilet paper. Running it up between her front legs, he opened the shock collar’s battery pack and twisted this wire to a second wire inside the shock collar. With this connection made, the remote device in his coat pocket was now live. Callie was a four-legged bomb.
He pulled her to standing. The wire was all but invisible. He dabbed her slight bleeding one more time. It would have to do.
He heard a tremendous burst of applause from out in the hall. Elizabeth Shaler was being introduced.
He reached into the small of his back, pulled out the bag hidden there, and opened it. He slipped the jogging bra out and held it closely to the dog’s nose.
“Remember this game?” he said, a wan smile forming on his lips.
As he stood off the toilet, the bomb went off. He barked out a gasp of surprise, heat flooding through him. Then he realized it was only the toilet’s automatic flush. And he began laughing. A dry, morbid laugh that resonated and rang out in the small marble stall.
Eight
F iona came into the room behind Walt as he threw the curtains back.
“I told you to wait,” he said.
“And I didn’t listen.”
He inspected the closet. Clear.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s the dog,” he said. “Not now,” when he realized he couldn’t explain.
He tried the bathroom door. It was locked. He knocked and peered beneath the crack with his flashlight. There was no one standing on the bathroom floor. He stood, reared back, and kicked it open. The door bounced off the stop and came back at him. He blocked its return.
Empty. But there was a bloody towel on the floor next to the toilet, and a mess on the counter: a syringe, meds, suture, a bloody razor blade.
“Walt…” She was scared.
“I see it.” He caught sight of the trail of blood leading to the tub. He pulled back the shower curtain, revealing a blond woman, her eyes fixed, her limbs twisted and contorted unnaturally. She was covered in blood.
Fiona tried to speak, but stepped back and threw up on the carpet. She apologized immediately, the vomit still coming from her.
On the floor by the trash can he spotted several bloodied bandages and a pair of bloodied latex gloves. He saw the corner of a cardboard box beneath a bloody towel. The box read: ESS FENCE. Another piece of trash caught his attention: EverTyed Surgical Suture 3.0.
“You all right?”
“Yes, I think.”
“Call downstairs for Chuck Webb. Tell him what we found. Then tell him I’m on my way over to the inn. There’s a shooter at the brunch. A blind guy. He may or may not have a dog. I need backup. His backup. Not the feds. Have you got that? Hey! Fiona!”
“Got it,” she whispered.
“Keep your cell phone free. I may call back here. I may want details.”
“Details…,” she mumbled.
“Hey!” he shouted, to break the trance. “Do you have your cell phone?”
She looked up at him and nodded.
“Okay?” he said.
“Okay.”
Walt hurried down the long hallway to a set of fire stairs. A minute later he was outside and running.
Light and sounds blurred. The art fair. Kids playing. People shopping. Another day in paradise. He heard nothing but his own quickened pulse.
People turned to watch the red-faced sheriff at an all-out run.
He was passing through the outdoor mall when his cell phone rang. “Fleming,” he said.
“Walt.” Fiona’s voice. “It’s not her blood. She’s not cut anywhere I can see. Can you hear me? It’s not her blood.”
“Three-point-oh,” Walt said. “Large-animal suture.”
“The dog? He hurt the dog?”
He pushed himself faster. A teenage kid went by on Rollerblades.
Bursting through the doors, he alarmed the inn’s desk clerk. He turned the corner and ran smack into the security station.
“Sheriff,” he spit out breathlessly.
He walked briskly through the metal detector, tripping the alarm. A meaty hand grabbed him by the upper arm, spinning him around. Walt wrestled to break the grip.
“No weapons inside,” the man said.
“No time,” Walt said, out of breath. “The shooter’s in there. Where’s Dryer?”
“No weapons.” The two men faced each other. Walt knew where this was going. His father had warned him. He removed his gun, held it out, and broke the man’s grip. The gun fell. He took off, an agent close behind him.
Nine
P atrick Cutter watched from behind Elizabeth Shaler, savoring the moment. He saw a room of captivated faces and the unblinking eyes of the five television network news cameras given permission to record.