The Kipling, Sal's precious Kipling.
"Did Sal ever tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"What the children saw on Butchers Hill the night Donnie was killed? Why they had to lie, never mention the car, or the other gunshots?"
Pearson looked at her with something almost like pity, except he didn't like her enough to truly feel sorry for her. "Miss Monaghan, give it a rest. Yes, the Nelsons and I had a mutually advantageous financial arrangement, not that you'll ever be able to prove it. That doesn't mean Luther Beale didn't kill Donnie Moore or the twins. Face facts. A man who fires a gun at a group of children is capable of anything."
"Why don't you call Penfield and tell them we're headed there to talk to Sal? Maybe if I threaten to send his benefactor away to prison, Sal's memory will get a lot better."
"If I do this for you-if I convince Sal to tell the truth, whatever it is, you'll leave us alone?"
"Yes." Tess figured it wasn't a binding promise. Chase Pearson's fate could be decided later. "You can put him on the speaker phone, if you like, right now, and I'll be out of your life sooner rather than later."
Pearson reached for the phone and dialed.
"Chase Pearson. Would you find Sal and ask him to speak to me? I know it's the last day of classes, but it's terribly urgent."
Several minutes passed. Tess thought of Jackie's shoe store analogy-the longer someone had to look for something, the less chance there is they'll find it. Finally, there was a torrent of mumbling on the other end, rushed and high-pitched.
"Are you sure?" Pearson asked. "Are you absolutely sure? Well, how long has it been since anyone has seen him? What happened to the body guard? How inept can you possibly be?" The last question must have been rhetorical, for he hung up the phone without waiting for an answer.
"He's missing. Along with one of the groundkeeper's trucks. Apparently he ducked into the lavatory about thirty minutes ago and never came out. They found his school uniform in a stall, so he must have planned this, changing into a worker's clothes. He even left a note, telling them not to worry, that he had to leave in order to be safe, that he would travel faster if he went alone."
"Jesus."
"I bet I know where he's gone." Pearson looked up excitedly. "There's a place, a place he always goes back to when he's troubled or unhappy-"
"Tell me."
He narrowed his eyes. "No. I'll go find him on my own."
"You mean you want to get to him first, get your stories straight, convince him to keep lying, as he has all these years." Tess allowed the flap of her knapsack to fall open, so Pearson could see the gun inside. "Where's Sal?"
"He'll run from you, if you go there alone. He doesn't trust anyone but me."
"Fine. Then we'll go together." Pearson started to object, and Tess flipped her knapsack again, showing her gun one more time. "I'd just follow you anyway, so you might as well take me along."
Chapter 28
They took Pearson's car, the sleek little 911 Porsche of which Sal had spoken so longingly. Tess had planned to take the wheel anyway, but seeing the Porsche cinched the deal. Was it bought with kickbacks from the foster child trade? She could ask Pearson later.
"So you going to tell me where we're going?"
"Not yet. Not until we're a little closer."
She drove on. The Porsche was a dream to drive. Eighty felt like fifty-five, and the usual twenty-five minutes from Annapolis to the Baltimore Beltway sped by in fifteen.
"Now?" she said, turning on to Interstate 95.
"Not yet." She wondered what Pearson was trying to pull, if he still thought he might get to Sal first. If so, he was underestimating her. "It's in the old neighborhood, I'll tell you that much."
"Good." She zipped past the exits for downtown.
"Why are you taking the McHenry Tunnel?" Pearson asked suspiciously.
"I think we can make better time going in Eastern Avenue," she lied, as they dipped into the belly of the tunnel. Suddenly, she took her foot off the accelerator and let the car drift forward of its own momentum, its speed plummeting. Horns sounded behind them, echoing harshly off the tile walls.
"You'll get us killed," Pearson yelled, grabbing for the steering wheel, so the car slithered to the left, and then back into the right lane.
"Possibly. I'm more likely to cause a horrible traffic jam, and we won't get out of here for hours, and by then it will be too late to find Sal. Now tell me where I'm going. Exactly."
"Only if you start driving again."
Tess tapped the accelerator. The car was up to thirty now, still a little slow for the tunnel, but fast enough to avoid being rear-ended.
"The Kipling is the key," Pearson said.
"Kipling?"
"Sal made an allusion to one of his poems in his note. He travels fastest who travels alone. It reminded me of another poem he liked, one he taught the other children."
"So?"
"‘By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea / There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; / For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say: / Come back, you British soldier, come back to Mandalay.'"
"Very nice. But what does it have to do with Sal?"
"The pagoda. He'll be at the Patterson Park pagoda."
There's a Burma girl a-settin'. Hadn't Treasure said Destiny had gone to Burma? The pagoda must be the safe place of which Sal had spoken. Not so safe for Destiny, though, she had died at its feet. The porsche began the slow gradual climb out of the tunnel. Good, the toll lines weren't too long. Tess picked the one on the far right, and flicked a switch to lower the power window.
What if someone was going to kill Sal? What if he had been summoned to the pagoda just as Destiny was, to meet a murderer?
"Hand me my phone," she said to Pearson. "It's in the side pocket of my knapsack."
"Why do you need a phone?"
"I think Sal's in danger. Destiny died at the pagoda, Treasure wasn't far from it. Maybe the police can get there faster than we can."
Or what if Sal had been the one to summon Destiny? What if Sal was the killer? Then who was he planning to kill this time?
Pearson pulled out her phone, lowered his window, then flung it backward in the path of a car that had just emerged from the tunnel.
"You son of a bitch."
"No police," Pearson said calmly. "That was our deal."
Tess wanted to argue, but it was her turn to roll up to the toll booth. She looked over at the far right lane, where a transit cop was parked, surveying the traffic.
"That'll be one dollar, ma'am," the attendant said.
Tess gave her an ear-splitting scream instead. "He's car-jacking me! Oh my God, call the police, he's carjacking me, he's going to kill me!" She rammed the gate, which was slightly harder to break than she had anticipated. Well, Pearson probably had insurance. Not that you could ever really fix body damage. But it was only fair. An eye for an eye, a Porsche for a portable phone.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Getting us a police escort. There's a killer in Patterson Park, and it's either Sal or the person he's gone to meet. I'm afraid your political future has to take a back seat to such considerations."
"You're an idiot," Pearson shouted back at her, holding onto the handle above the door. "Sal will never tell you what you want to know, I'll see to that."
Technically, Baltimore police had a policy forbidding high-speed pursuits in the city, so the flashing lights Tess saw in the rearview mirror hung back, slowing at intersections. Luckily for her, the lights on Eastern Avenue, maddening under normal circumstances, proved to be perfectly synched when a driver was going ninety mph. She reached the southeast corner of the park in less than five minutes, but the pagoda was in the northwest corner. She zipped along its southern border, then turned north, running up on the sidewalk and scattering a few dog walkers as the car came to rest fifty yards from the pagoda.