“Jane?”
Woman’s voice. Not Trevor.
“Yes? This is Jane.” Like I said.
“This is Moira Lassiter. Do you know where my husband is?”
34
“Where the hell are we? What time is it?”
From her vantage point in the backseat of the campaign’s SUV, Kenna Wilkes saw Owen Lassiter’s head jerk awake. He looked across the front seat at Rory, driving, then back at her, then squinted ahead into the blackness of the Mass Pike unspooling in front of them. Seat-belted into the darkness of the backseat, she didn’t have to hide her smile. This could be interesting.
“Ah, Governor, you’re awake,” Rory said.
“How long was I sleeping?” Owen rubbed his face with both hands, then blinked, looking at his watch. Three cars, high beams switched on, zoomed by. Passing them going east toward Boston, one eighteen-wheeler, lights dotting its double-long trailer. They had a long way to go. “It’s almost two in the morning?”
The glow from the dashboard readouts spotted Owen’s face with flickering shadows. A car went by, and for an instant, its headlights illuminated him, full view. He looked confused. Exhausted. Older.
“Kenna. Mrs. Wilkes. You’re okay?” Owen said.
Kenna raised a hand. “Just fine, Governor. How about you? You’ve really been sleeping.”
“Rory? What’s the deal here?” Owen looked around, a baffled owl in pinstripes. He peered at his watch again. “Two? How’d it get to be two?”
Rory kept his eyes on the road. “Well, you fell asleep soon after we left Springfield. Perhaps that scotch you-”
“Damn. That rally. Any word from the brain trust at the hotel?”
“Nope. Told them we’d call in the morning.” Rory flipped a hand. “But let’s write it off, Governor. What are we gonna do, sue? Farther away that whole fiasco gets, the better. At least Boston TV wasn’t there.”
“That Jane Ryland was, though. From the newspaper.” The governor leaned back in his bucket seat, propped one foot on the dashboard. “But I guess she’s-”
“Yeah,” Rory said.
Jane Ryland. Reporter. Kenna tucked that name away.
“Anyway, I fell asleep? We should have been home hours ago.”
“Well, you were so peaceful, and frankly I was a little tired myself, so we pulled over at a rest stop, Kenna got us some coffee, and I worked on some campaign stuff, lost track of time, I guess till the caffeine kicked in. All we need, the next senator from Massachusetts in a car accident because his driver fell asleep. Right? So we’re running a little behind, timewise.”
“Moira will think-,” the governor began.
She sure will, Kenna thought.
“No, she won’t,” Rory interrupted. “If she picked up my message, it only confirms you’re in Springfield. If she didn’t get the message, she’d check your schedule and find out you were in Springfield. And after-what happened, it was too late to call and tell her about your, uh, change of plans. It’s not like there’s anything she could do.”
“She might have seen it on the news, Rory. She’ll be a basket case, worrying. Why’d you let me fall asleep before calling her?”
“Governor, listen. You know she doesn’t stay up for the news anymore. She’ll sleep blissfully until tomorrow-when you’ll surprise her by arriving so early. She’ll be delighted. What does it matter if you were sleeping in a hotel in Springfield or in a car on the Mass Pike?”
Owen patted his pockets. “I’m going to call her now. Tell her what’s going on.”
“Sure, do that,” Rory said. “But you’ll scare the hell out of her when the phone rings and wakes her up.”
Owen stopped his search. “I suppose that’s true.”
Rory drove a few moments, then yawned. Hugely. He put one hand over his face, and gave his head a quick shake.
Owen put a hand on his arm. “Want me to drive?”
“Lord no, you’re more tired than I am.” Rory yawned again. “I’ll be fine.”
“Dammit, Rory, this is dangerous. Silly. We’re scheduled to be out of town, so let’s find the next reasonable place and catch some sleep. You’re exhausted. I’m exhausted. Here’s a Worcester exit. There’s got to be a, whatever. Hotel. Motel. Mrs. Wilkes? What say you? You’re certainly having an adventure.”
Kenna yawned, eyes wide over the prayerlike hands that covered her mouth. “Whatever you say, Governor.” She lowered her hands. “I must admit, the idea of bed is very, very tempting.”
Maybe Arthur Vick killed Sellica, Amaryllis Roldan, and “Longfellow” merely as practice. As a setup. All to get ready for his real goal-to kill his wife.
To get her to stop talking.
Jake managed a straight face as he watched Patti Vick-Patricia Auriello Vick, age fifty-three, born Charlestown, Massachusetts, housewife, married to A. Vick for thirty-three years, no living children, no registered pets, according to Sergeant Nguyen in the Records Department-tuck into her second supersized single malt. It was the only thing that interrupted her blow-by-blow recitation of the years of “blissful” marriage to the “self-made” “wonderfully generous” guy who was her “first love” and “best friend.”
DeLuca hadn’t been cool with the “let’s chat with Pat” program as they knocked on the Vicks’ front door, warning, “It’s so late, she’ll probably shoot first and we won’t be alive to ask questions later.” Mrs. Vick had at first gone pale, asking if there was anything wrong. After they assured her they were only night-shift detectives who needed to ask her a couple questions, Patti “with an i” had acted as if the late-night arrival of two cops on her almost-suburban doorstep was exactly what she’d been waiting for. “I never sleep,” she told them. Now, here the two of them were, facing a tracksuit-wearing fireplug on a triple-wide sectional. Listening to Patti Vick tell all.
Not that she was saying anything relevant. But Jake took another sip of his second water on the rocks. The enough-rope theory. Let them talk. Sometimes they talked too much.
And, Jake reminded himself, he believed-because Jane had sworn it under oath on the witness stand-this woman’s husband had been paying Sellica Darden for sex. And a few days ago, probably killed her. And probably killed Amaryllis Roldan before that.
Mrs. Vick was living in some kind of dreamworld. Or she was a pretty good liar. Or a drunk. Or all three. He’d let her talk.
“Interesting,” DeLuca was saying. Not that Patti-with-an-i needed encouragement.
It did seem that she worshipped at the altar of Arthur. After Jake’s initial foray into Sellica Darden territory-which Patti had dismissed as “all lies and televisional sensational stuff” from “that horrible girl on Channel Eleven,” Mrs. Vick’s commentary about her husband had been all positive. He could do no wrong. Anything she ever wanted, she got. Yes, he was busy, but there were rewards. Now she was showing off the huge and incomprehensible oil-painted canvases hanging frame-to-frame on the living room’s too-crowded walls.
“All mine,” she said, jabbing her chest with a manicured finger. Her husband let her “do her art.” She was an insomniac, she revealed. But he let her “have an atelier” so she could “find herself.”
“Yes, I know, there’s a bit too much of myself to ‘find’ these days.” Patti poked one dark red fingernail into an ample thigh. “But that’s what happens when your husband owns a grocery store, right? Artie always told me, even in high school, he liked that I was big-boned. ‘Not some little fairy girl,’ he’d say. ‘You’re my real woman.’ He’d say.”
DeLuca took a dramatic sip of water, waving the floor to Jake.