Finch sunk into himself, brought his head down. Said nothing.
“I was seventeen years old, David, and I was alone on the streets of New York. I came to you because you were the only person I knew in the city. The only one. And do you remember what I asked for?”
Finch shook his head but it was clear from his expression that he did.
“I asked for some food, David. I asked for a meal and thirty-one bucks. I didn’t ask for too much because I didn’t want to jeopardize your relationship with my father—I knew he’d get rid of you if you helped me. So I asked for very little.” Jake’s hands hung loosely at his sides and Finch’s eyes kept looking at them, something about the way they hung limply more threatening than if they had been rolled into tattooed fists. “You said no. Do you know what I had to do to eat? Do you, David?”
Finch shook his head slowly, keeping his eyes on Jake’s hands.
“I had to blow some guy, Dave. I know that’s your kind of thing, but it’s not mine. I was seventeen and alone and I had to suck some stranger’s cock so I could get something to eat. Nice, huh? So if you’re thinking about threatening someone, you’re picking on the wrong guy. Not only will you never see another of my father’s paintings, but I may just burn them.”
Finch gasped like he had been kicked in the pills.
“I can use them for fucking target practice.” He pulled out the big stainless revolver and placed it to Finch’s head. “You know what I do for a living, David?” Finch would have looked into it before coming out here—he was the kind of man who liked to cover all his bases.
Finch nodded. It was a frightened, skittish action.
“Then you know I don’t have a squeamish bone in my body.” Jake cocked the hammer on the pistol and pressed the heavy barrel into Finch’s temple, denting the skin. “I could empty your head all over this deck for trespassing and no one would think twice about pressing charges. So don’t you fucking threaten me, you little sack of shit, because I passed don’t-give-a-shit about ten years back and have become comfortably ensconced in don’t-give-a-fuck. Are we clear?”
“What about your wife? Your child?” Finch asked, his voice half an octave from hysteria.
“Was that a threat, David?” Jake’s other hand came up and locked on Finch’s larynx in a Ranger chokehold. “Because if it is, you are a dead man.”
Finch shook his head, coughed, brought his hands up to the tattooed vise fastened to his throat. “No. No. I didn’t—. I—. I—. Let go—!”
Jake pulled his hand away and Finch fell back against the railing. It creaked in protest.
“I think you better leave, David. Before I start getting angry.”
Finch opened his mouth to protest but his jaw froze. There was an instant of indecision as he made whatever calculations he thought necessary, then he turned and walked away.
Jake followed him off the deck, around the house, and watched him open the door to the big silver Bentley GT Continental. He stopped again, turned to face Jake, and said, “Not that it makes a bit of difference, Jakey, but I’m sorry. I always was. About everything. Your father’s drinking. Your mother’s murder. All of it.”
“Don’t ever contact me again, David. You’re dead as far as I’m concerned.”
Finch got into the big sedan, closed the door, and slipped out of the drive onto the Montauk Highway. Jake watched the Bentley until it was out of sight, then turned and walked back to the studio.
30
The wind had picked up considerably over the past few hours and the ocean was hazed over with low-slung blue clouds and the jagged dance of whitecaps kicking up. For a few minutes he stood leaning against the railing, knowing that something was off but not being able to localize it. Something felt odd, eerie—then he realized that the ever-present shorebirds had disappeared; there were no plovers, sandpipers, or gulls milling about the beach or riding the stiff wind coming in off the water. What do they know that I don’t? Jake wondered.
He stood on the deck, sipping what felt like the hundredth coffee of the day, watching the truck pull to a stop in front of the garage, beeping like a gargantuan alarm clock. One of the carriers stood at the truck’s flank, directing the driver with the lazy movements of a man who trusts the guy behind the wheel. He was dressed in gray workman’s Dickies with the telltale bulge of a sidearm pressing the fabric each time he raised his arm.
Jake stepped off the weathered wood planking and walked over to the big Hino. The twenty-four-foot covered flatbed was one of the bureau’s “clean” trucks, a boxed-in van that shielded evidence vehicles from the elements as well as peripheral contamination. The driver was simply that but the second man, the one who had directed the truck with the airfield hand gestures, was a technician, here to make sure that as little evidence as possible was disturbed.
The technician in the Dickies met Jake at the edge of the gravel drive. True to his kind, he was all business. “Special Agent Cole?” he said, extending a hand.
Jake nodded, shook.
“Miles Rafferty.” With the exception of the firearm pressing against the fabric of his coveralls, Rafferty looked like a guy contracted to paint the garage/studio. “I was told that the evidence you are looking for in the vehicle is twenty-eight years old.”
Jake nodded. “Thirty-three, actually.”
Rafferty’s face didn’t change. “The wind’s a little strong here so what I’d like to do is bag the car before we pull it onto the bed.”
“The tires are flat and I’m not sure—”
Rafferty waved it away. “I have a set of wheel dollies that’ll take care of that. Can I see the vehicle?”
Jake asked him to wait outside while he went through the studio; he didn’t want anyone getting a look at the crazy shit his father had painted all over the room. He went into the garage and lifted the old door about three feet and Rafferty crawled under.
Rafferty walked around the car, examining it with professional scrutiny. He scoured the vehicle with a flashlight, occasionally leaning in close to examine something that caught his eye, getting down on the floor, balanced on his gloved palms and the tips of his booted toes, to peer at the undercarriage. It took him five minutes to go around the car. When he was done he stood up, went back outside under the half-closed door, and came back in with a sealed bag the size of a large pillow.
He pulled two static-free plastic jumpsuits out of the bag and handed one to Jake. “Pull this on over your clothes—it won’t pick up any dirt or contaminate the car. Use the hood, it’s not too hot in here so we won’t sweat too much.”
Rafferty pulled on his own, standing on one foot at a time, balancing as the other went through a leg hole that seemed designed for someone a lot shorter and heavier. Jake stepped into his and when he closed his eyes it smelled like he was putting on a new shower curtain.
Rafferty pulled the rest of the contents out of the bag, a folded sheet of polyethylene. They stretched it over the Mercedes and Rafferty taped the corners. When the car was encased in the plastic, he ran a second piece beneath it, protecting the undercarriage.
Jake knew that the plastic would protect it from contamination and losing evidence on the way into the truck.
Jake’s phone rang.
Without being asked, Rafferty said, “I can take care of myself.” And with that he opened the garage door.
“Jake Cole.”
“Jake, it’s Hauser. Two things, I wasn’t able to reach the Farmers, but I spoke to their daughter—she lives in Portland—said her folks rented the house to ‘some nice people’ they met through an online real-estate rental service. There was no computer in the house and the Farmers live in Boston. I’ve asked for a warrant to access their email accounts but that will take until the morning to clear since we’ve only got the daughter’s word on this and it doesn’t look like the Farmers are in any way involved in the murder. I have, however, been able to get to their banking records.