“Don’t do that yet. Be quiet. Act like everything is normal.”
“Normal? Really. We’re going to be flooded with questions because of what that awful Flynn lady has said. We have something in common, Mr. Weir — we both work for manipulators.”
The statement struck Jim with a certain force. “Stand your ground, Marge.”
“I’ve never had any trouble doing that. It just always seems to have been the wrong ground. My letter of resignation is half-written. I shall finish it and mail it.”
“No. If you upset them now, it could be a disaster for you. I’m serious, Marge. They’re serious.”
“It includes a one month’s notice,” she said. “I wouldn’t leave Mr. Cheverton with anything less than that courtesy.”
“Wait a month to send it. Will you do that?”
She sighed. “I’ve stuck it out long enough with Cheverton. Another month won’t hurt.”
“It might save your life.”
Weir was holding open the heavy back door for Marge when Becky came in. The two women stopped and stared at each other for a moment. Weir could hear Marge Buzzard’s breath catch as she raised a hand to the collar of her blouse.
“You are simply egregious,” she said.
“You can call me Becky, Ms...”
“Buzzard with a d, like bazaar.”
Becky offered her hand, with a worried glance to Jim.
Marge let out a wavering breath, and walked past Becky into the dull spring morning.
Becky’s face was dappled with sweat and her hair was sticking to her forehead. “Did you watch it?”
“You’re way ahead of things.”
“Not the press conference, the tape Virginia left.”
“I watched it.”
She looked at him for a moment, then sighed and wiped her hand across her brow. “You didn’t see it, though. Things are now in motion, Jim. You’ve got to see things for what they are.”
“I’ll say they’re in motion. You all but fingered Cantrell out there. We can’t link him with the roses yet — not for sure. We can say he had an affair with Ann, but we can’t prove it yet. We’ve got nothing to put him down at the Back Bay. Nothing. You’re going to blow this if you don’t slow down. You’re going to drive him away.”
A cunning smile came to Becky’s face. “Come with me, Jim. You have to learn to see.”
Back in the big house, Becky pushed the tape into the VCR and stood back. Weir sat down at Virginia’s desk and tried to avoid Becky’s impatient glances. He read his mother’s note again:... view it and watch carefully.
As Cantrell’s image and homilies went past him, Jim searched the pictures for whatever it was he had missed. The first half of the spot was innocuous enough. Then the background switched to the blissful flow of maximum-speed traffic and Cantrell leaned forward onto the railing for his heart-to-heart plea. His sweater shifted with the move, his tie swung forward, then stopped. The camera moved in on his face.
Something tugged at Weir’s brain. What was it?
He stopped the tape, rewound it briefly, then let it play again. Cantrell leaned forward, his sweater shifted, the tie moved and stopped, caught by the tie tack. The tie tack. There was a tiny reflective flash amid the stripes, two-thirds of the way down. The camera came in to his face; the little gleam dropped away off screen. Jim rewound again and stopped the frame just as Cantrell’s necktie caught on the tack chain. The focus wasn’t great. But the shape was right; the size was right.
Jim could feel his skin tighten, his heart speeding up. “We’ve got him. He was there.”
“We’re miles from getting him, but he was there.”
“How did Virginia know about the tack?”
Becky shrugged. “Ways.”
Jim was about to call Robbins when the phone rang.
“Jim Weir?”
“That’s right.”
“My name is David Cantrell.”
Jim said nothing. Cantrell waited a moment. “I think we have some things to talk about.”
“I think you’re right,” said Jim.
“Can you be outside the Balboa theater in half an hour?”
“I’ll be there. Hope you don’t get stuck in traffic.”
Weir hung up.
Becky studied him closely, her dark brown eyes shifting across his face. “Was it him?”
“It was him.”
The smile came to Becky’s face, that cunning little grin that always put him on edge. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then she came to the table and knelt down beside him. “From now on, everything has to be done right. You’ve got to go through Dennison to get to Robbins, and Brian won’t help. What he will do is everything he can to cover Cantrell’s ass. We need the DA, and I can get to the DA. We’re going to nail him Jim. We’re going to hang that guy.”
Weir sat back and stared for a moment up at the ceiling. Hang him? Ray is going to kill him.
“How long until you meet Cantrell?” Becky asked.
“Half an hour.”
Chapter 28
The silver limousine appeared in the fog as if born from it. Weir stood under the theater marquee, back from the gathering mist that hung along the edge, then rolled off in droplets and darkened the sidewalk below.
A tall, crew-cut man in a gray suit stepped from the car, nodded to Jim, offered a tight smile, then reached into his coat and brought out a metal detector, which he ran over Weir’s body — front, then back.
“Smooth operation,” said Weir.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, sir.”
“No piece.” The detector chattered unemphatically.
“We’re more concerned with a wire, sir.”
“No wire, either.”
The man’s eyes went past him, toward the driver, confirming harmlessness. He slid the scanner back into his jacket and opened the door for Jim. “Thank you, sir.”
Weir climbed in and sat. Cantrell reclined in the far corner, the gentle beam of an overhead reading lamp trained on a folded copy of The New York Times that lay across his knee. The coach smelled of leather and cologne and executive decision. He offered Jim a manicured hand. “Dave Cantrell,” he said. His voice was formal and smooth.
“Jim Weir.”
“I’m glad you agreed to come. I’m sure you’re a busy man.”
“Business is a little slow these days, matter of fact.”
“I understand. You’ve had a lot on your mind with everything.”
“I imagine you have, too.”
Cantrell studied him, a wrinkle of surprise crossing his face. “Well, yes I have. Jim, I want you to know how sorry I am about what happened to your sister. She was one of my favorite people at the Whale’s Tale — she could brighten up a whole night. I’m... genuinely, deeply affected by her death — that way.”
Looking into Cantrell’s face, Weir found a perfect correlative to the man’s words: He actually looked crushed. Astonishing, thought Weir. The proposition hit him right then, that Cantrell was crazy enough to write Mr. Night’s letter to Raymond, and mean every word of it. “I’m touched by your depth of feeling, Dave.”
Cantrell nodded and stared at Jim. He was medium height and build, dressed in a navy suit, a pale pink shirt, and a necktie with a bold abstract print. He wore tassled loafers and socks that matched the shirt. His face was tanned, and the smile lines at the corner of his mouth were there even when he wasn’t smiling. Cantrell’s hair was dark brown, wavy, combed back from a high forehead. His eyes were blue, the eyelids just a shade heavy on the outer edges, giving his face an air of understanding and wry humor. His hands were strong and heavily veined; the wedding band thin and simple. He looked like a man used to making decisions that didn’t please everyone, then living with them. The beam from the overhead lamp formed a pale circle on his folded newspaper. To Weir, Cantrell looked just as he did on TV.