“I’d like whoever sent this Kiln guy to kill us to think the job got done.”
There was a long pause at Bertram’s end. Then, “I’ll talk to your Duckworth guy. See if you’re on the level. My phone’s beeping now.”
“Take the call,” I said, and handed the phone back to Higgins.
Kiln was being loaded into the ambulance. The officer Higgins had spoken to climbed in with him. I ran over before they closed the doors.
“Where you taking him?” I asked.
“Hyannis,” said the paramedic.
I fixed my gaze on the officer. “Don’t take your eyes off him.”
She looked at me skeptically. “And who are you?”
“Just don’t,” I said, and closed the doors.
The ambulance rolled down the drive, red light flashing but siren off, and sped off once it had reached the road. I’d strolled down the driveway after it and watched it disappear into the distance.
Here, a hundred feet or so away from the charred beach house, things were slightly calmer, and quieter. I got out Kiln’s phone, brought up the number he’d most recently been in touch with, and dialed it.
It rang five times.
“Yeah.” A man’s voice.
Definitely not Madeline.
It was low, almost a whisper, as though someone else was in the room he did not want to wake. One word certainly wasn’t enough for me to recognize the voice, and there was no reason to believe this was someone I’d ever spoken to before, anyway.
I didn’t have the skills to do an impersonation of Gregor Kiln, but maybe it wouldn’t be necessary. I was going to be whispering, too.
“It’s done,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Both of them.”
“Fine. Next week.”
Next week what? Payment? I didn’t want to ask.
“Need a meet sooner,” I said.
“Next week.”
“No,” I pressed. “There was a complication.”
A pause. “What kind of complication.”
I dropped my voice even lower. “Can’t discuss now. In person.”
“Shit.” Another pause. “Ten. Usual place.”
And where was that?
“Ten’s good,” I said. “But not the usual place. Think it’s being watched.”
“What?” His voice went up. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Told you, can’t now. Tomorrow, ten, take a booth at the back of Kelly’s.”
“What the hell is Kelly’s?”
“Diner, Promise Falls.”
“Why the hell do I have to go up there?”
“Just be there. End booth, by the door to the kitchen.”
There was another pause. Had he figured it out? Did he know I wasn’t Kiln? I could feel blood pulsing in my temple.
“You there?” I asked.
Another three seconds passed before he answered. “Fine, I’ll be there.”
He ended the call. I closed my eyes, kept playing his voice back in my head, wondering if I’d heard it before.
Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a woman running up the road toward me. She was waving her arms frantically. She had what looked like short lengths of rope trailing from her wrists.
She screamed: “Help me! Help me!”
As I ran toward her, I thought that Cape Cod was perhaps not the idyllic vacation spot I’d been hearing about all these years.
Sixty
Gloria Pilford rolled over in bed and saw Bob sitting there, hunched over, his back to her. A sliver of light sneaking from the hallway of Madeline Plimpton’s house through the slightly opened doorway was enough to cast shadows.
Bob extended an arm and put his cell phone on the bedside table.
“What’s going on?” Gloria asked. “Is something going on?”
“No,” Bob said. “Go back to sleep.”
“What time is it?”
“Around one,” he said.
“I think I only just got to sleep,” she said. “I was awake for the longest time.” She sat up. “Who were you talking to?”
“Nobody.”
“You were on the phone. I heard you whispering. Were you on the phone?”
Bob turned and looked at her sharply. “For Christ’s sake, just go back to sleep.”
Gloria shifted her body toward the headboard so she could prop herself up against it. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“Nothing!”
Bob stood and walked across the room to the door and disappeared into the hallway. Gloria threw back the covers, grabbed a housecoat that had been draped over a chair, threw it around herself and went in pursuit.
She spotted Bob descending the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he turned in the direction of the kitchen.
“Wait,” she said, scurrying down the steps in her bare feet. “Talk to me.”
Bob kept walking. Once in the kitchen, he went straight to the cupboard where Madeline kept various kinds of liquor. He put his hand around a bottle of Scotch, grabbed a glass, poured himself two fingers’ worth, and knocked it back. He poured more Scotch into the glass and was about to drink it when Gloria reached up and grabbed his arm.
“Careful, goddamn it,” he said. “You’ll spill it.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the one with the drinking problem,” she said.
“I need a little something, is all. Is that a crime?”
“Tell me who that was on the phone.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. He’d freed his arm from Gloria’s grasp and downed the second drink. Before he could reach for the bottle again, Gloria grabbed it, then upended it in the sink.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Bob said wearily. “You think that’s the only thing to drink around here?”
She left the empty bottle in the sink, stood with her back up against the counter and folded her arms across her breasts. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“It’s just work,” he said to her. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“You’re up in the middle of the night, trying to drink yourself blind, and you tell me it’s nothing to worry about. Jesus, Bob, you think I’m not used to worrying about things?” Her face grew suddenly alarmed. “It’s not about Jeremy, is it? Is he okay? Was it him?”
He looked her straight in the eye. “It wasn’t Jeremy.”
“Was it Weaver? Did he call you?”
“No. He didn’t.”
“Then who was it?”
Bob gripped Gloria by the shoulders. “Believe me, it’s... it’s nothing. Just sorting some things out with work.”
“You get work calls at one in the morning?”
He gripped her harder, squeezed. “Let. It. Go.”
Gloria struggled to shake him off. “Get your hands off me, you son of a—”
“What the hell is going on?”
It was Madeline. Also wrapped in a robe, she walked bleary-eyed into the kitchen, blinked several times, then looked fiercely at Gloria and Bob.
“Nothing,” Bob said.
“That’s what he keeps telling me,” Gloria said. “But it’s definitely something.”
“For the love of God, it’s always something with you two,” Madeline said. “Is it Jeremy? Has something happened?”
“No,” Bob said quietly.
“I’ll call him,” Madeline said.
“He doesn’t have a phone,” Gloria said. “Not any more.”
“The detective. Weaver. I’ll call him and see if everything’s okay.”
Bob raised a hand. “Madeline, it’s one in the morning. Let the man — let Jeremy — have some sleep. We can’t go calling them every five seconds to see if they’re okay. You know where they are, you know they’re safe.”
Madeline appeared unconvinced, as did Gloria.
“So what if we wake them up,” Gloria said. “They can go back to sleep after. I need to know that my son is okay.” She stepped away from the counter and approached Madeline. “You’re the only one who has a number for the man. Call him.”