McCauliffe lowered his voice and spoke earnestly, nearly soberly. “Now, listen, John, you’re getting into things that shouldn’t concern you, and I suppose it’s my fault, telling you stories and sending you up to the Kellys‘, so I want to give you the best advice I can muster. Go up to that cabin and write your book, and then go back to Atlanta. Stay away from the Kellys and don’t tell anyone else about that seance nonsense of yours, and for Christ’s sake, don’t go blundering around asking a lot of stupid questions about maps and before the lake and all that. It doesn’t concern you – it doesn’t concern anybody, anymore. Just leave it alone, all right?”
Howell was stunned for a moment. “It seems to me you had a different attitude about all this before Eric Sutherland became your client,” he was finally able to say.
A flash of anger crossed Enda McCauliffe’s face, then passed. He put his hand on How-ell’s arm and squeezed. “John, you’re a good fellow and a bright one, and I’ve enjoyed your company. But I’ve no more to say to you.” The lawyer turned and walked into the house, upending his glass on the way.
Howell looked after him, puzzled, and worse, intrigued. He thought himself good at reading people, and he had read McCauliffe as tough, stubborn, and unlikely to yield to pressure, let alone money. If the lawyer had suddenly got into bed with Eric Sutherland, there must be a better reason than Howell knew about. Mac, he thought, if you wanted me to forget this, you couldn’t have gone about it in a worse way. He walked down the steps to the grass and strolled down the hill toward the lake.
He had gone only about halfway to the water, fifty yards or so, when he noticed a small building to his right, in the trees. It looked like a guest house, and Howell wandered in its direction. He stopped outside a set of french doors and put his hands up to shield his eyes from the reflection in the glass. There was one large room, and it was furnished as an office, with a steel desk and furniture and, in a corner, a drawing table. He tried the door; it was locked.
“You’re wandering very far afield, Mr. Howell,” a voice said, from a few yards behind him.
Howell started, then turned. Eric Sutherland was standing on the grass, holding a bottle of champagne.
“Come, let me fill your glass, and join me in a stroll down to the lake.”
Howell joined him, and began the stroll down the hill, but his mind was on what else he had seen in the office. The wall behind the desk had been covered with maps.
17
Howell told Scotty about his conversation with Enda McCauliffe. They had finished dinner and were on coffee and brandy, having never entirely sobered up since their afternoon of drinking at Eric Sutherland’s.
“I’m damned if I know what’s going on around here, but I’m going to find out,” Howell said.
“The investigative reporter rears his ugly head,” she grinned.
“Yeah, I guess so. I think the whole thing that drove me when I was reporting was I couldn’t stand it when somebody knew something I didn’t. Now, I get the impression that everybody knows something I don’t. And I don’t like it.” He took a healthy swig of the brandy. “The funny thing is, I think I know something, and yet I can’t seem to figure out what it is.”
“You wanna run that by me again?”
“You got any department store charge cards?”
“Huh?”
“Not Mastercharge or any of those; department store cards.”
“Sure. A wallet full of them. You need some jockey shorts, or something?”
Howell got up and started toward the kitchen. “Dig ‘em out, let’s have a look at them.” He found a large flashlight, switched it on to see if the batteries were fresh, and dug a roll of black electrical tape from a drawer.
Scotty found her purse and plucked her credit cards from her wallet. Howell rummaged through them and chose one. “Neiman-Marcus, huh? They must be paying green newsies better these days.”
“Daddy helps out with clothes. And who’s green? What do you want with that, anyway?”
Howell picked up her American Express card and thumbed it. “Stiff as a board, right?” He did the same to the store card. “Nice and flexible.”
Scotty watched as Howell began winding black tape over the lens of the flashlight. She placed a hand on his forehead. “You running a fever?”
He pulled off his necktie and began to unbutton his white shirt. “Get changed. Put on some jeans and a dark sweater.”
“This is beginning to sound like some sort of commando raid.”
“It is.”
Howell throttled the engine back to an idle and let the boat glide toward the trees. There was a breeze from the shore; that was good, he reckoned; some of the noise would go with it. A few yards out, he cut the engine and let the boat drift until it touched bottom. He threw a leg over the side and eased into the water, which was knee deep, then pulled at the boat until it was held firmly on the bottom.
He turned to Scotty. “Now, listen. I shouldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes. If I’m not back in twenty, start the engine and head slowly back to the cabin at the same speed as we came. If you hear any sort of commotion, go like hell, but not toward the cabin. Head down the lake toward Taylor’s Fish Camp, and when you’re halfway or so down there, cut toward shore and work your way back to the cabin at low speed, okay?”
“I want to go with you.”
“Godammit, do as I tell you. There’s no need of both of us taking the risk, and anyway, you’ve got to take care of the boat. We can’t get close enough to shore to tie up here, and we’re sure as hell not going to drive up to Eric Sutherland’s dock.”
Howell turned away without another word and waded ashore. Well into the trees, he cut toward Sutherland’s place and emerged a couple of minutes later at the edge of the long lawn. He walked up the slight hill, keeping just into the fringe of trees, until he came to the small building. No lights were on. Up at the house only an upstairs light, apparently Eric Sutherland’s bedroom, and a ground floor light, probably the kitchen, still burned. Howell looked at his watch; just past two. He’d reckoned Sutherland and the servants would have been asleep by now. There must have been a lot of cleaning up to do after the party.
Howell switched on his masked flashlight. He stepped onto the little raised porch, approached the french doors, and slipped on a pair of driving gloves. In the dim beam he had a closer look at the doors. He had been right; the lock was in the knob. The bolt would be spring-loaded. He fished Scotty’s charge card from his pocket, inserted it into the crack between the french doors, and felt for the bolt. He pressed the strong, flexible plastic card hard against it. Nothing. He pressed harder. The bolt gave and slipped back. The door opened an inch..
Then, behind him, there was the soft scrape of a footstep on the concrete steps. Howell froze, clenched his teeth. He didn’t want to jerk around and invite nervous gunfire. He slowly opened his hands, held them away from his body, and turned around.
“Hi,” she whispered.
He resisted a heartfelt urge to strangle her. “What did you do with the goddamned boat?” he asked her through teeth still clenched.
“It’s okay, don’t worry. It’s stuck on the mud; it won’t move.”
“If it’s not there when we get back, I’ll drown you, I swear.”
“Let’s get on with it, okay?”
“Wipe your feet,” he said, pointing at the doormat. He wiped his own feet, then entered the office. He went immediately to the wall covered with maps, and played his light over them.
“This is a larger scale version of the map I saw at the courthouse,” he said. There was a date in the corner: 1969. He turned the flashlight to the other maps. There was one of the state, one of the county, both recent – nothing else on the walls.