The thought didn’t hit him, his mind didn’t light up and play “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was just there, leaving him wondering why it had taken him so long to think of it. He’d started to when he’d gotten his first look at the house and thought not just dangerous, but it flashed past too fast for him even to find words for. He had the words now—she could. She’d done it for Ken Nevins, she’d do it for Adam. It was important for the electricity to be on because they might need light when he found her, brought her here, made her stand under the pulley and tell him the seminal event (his version of genesis) that had taken place in the kitchen. Then he’d kill her.
“S. Klein,” said the woman behind the counter of Raven Lake Ski and Sport. It must have just opened recently for the season and some of the shelves were empty, waiting for deliveries.
“It was just eleven days ago,” Adam said.
“I can see the date,” she said coolly.
Easy, he thought. Don’t annoy her, don’t arouse her suspicion.
She said, “I just don’t remember. I probably didn’t wait on them and I don’t know who did. Maybe one of the part-time girls.”
“The customer rented the house at three hundred Lakeshore.”
“I’m sorry. We don’t ask for addresses unless we’re going to deliver. But whoever this was took it with him and paid cash.”
“Him?”
“Probably. The item’s a man’s sweater. But women sometimes buy men’s sizes in cashmere because it runs smaller.” She frowned, then said, “Why don’t you call Mrs. Rodney? She owns three hundred Lakeshore. Her son comes up here to fish, even in winter. They build a shack on the lake and cut a hole in the ice. Some men are insane about fishing.”
“Where can I find Mrs. Rodney?”
“Glens Falls... maybe Glenvale. Just a second. Nan,” she called to the back.
“Naaan...”
“Yeah?” a woman’s voice answered.
“Where do the Rodneys live?”
A woman appeared in a curtained doorway holding a bunch of blouses she must have just unpacked and said, “Glenvale.”
Adam saw the blue Escort again on the south ramp to the Northway. He thought he’d seen it behind him on 128 before, on Main Street when he’d parked in front of Raven Lake Ski and Sport... and there it was again.
He pulled into the center lane and pegged himself at fifty-five. Wouldn’t do to get pulled over with the Python in the glove compartment. The Escort also shifted lanes, staying a few cars back. Adam stayed at fifty-five in the travel lane until they approached the War-rensburg exit, then he swerved into the slow lane and dropped to forty.
The other car slowed fast, a horn honked, brakes squealed, and it pulled into the slow lane and let the distance open up again.
It couldn’t be Latovsky, he wouldn’t be this inept.
Adam speeded up a little; so did the Escort, and an hour later Adam took the first Glenvale exit. He didn’t see the Escort on the ramp or on Cannon Road and he dropped back to forty through the outskirts of town, along King George to Rusty Pond.
No Escort.
A few yards from his street, he floored it and the big Ford leaped forward as the needle swung to seventy. He tromped the brake, screeched into Rusty Pond, then floored it again, screamed into his driveway, and came to a shuddering stop a few inches from the garage door.
He killed the motor, slumped in the seat so his head was invisible through the rear window, then angled the rearview mirror to reflect the street. A minute passed, part of another... and the little blue Escort tooled by heading tor the turnaround at the end of the cul de sac.
Adam was shaking and sweating and had an almost overwhelming urge to urinate but he made himself stay where he was, trying with all his might not to wet his pants.
A minute later, the little car made the turnaround and tooled back to King George.
They were following him.
“Then?” Latovsky asked Dillworthy.
“Then, he pulled over to the side of the road just past three hundred, and went through the woods to... someplace.”
“Someplace?”
“He’d’ve made me in the woods if I followed.”
Bullshit, Latovsky screamed inwardly. That house was ringed with trees and Dillworthy could’ve followed without getting made if he’d been a little careful. But it was cold and damp, the woods were buggy, and he knew Dillworthy had stayed in the car, cycling the heater on and off and reading the sports section.
In the supersoft voice the men had learned to fear, Latovsky said, “Did it occur to you there was a house up there and the doctor did not have a key... but might have gone in anyway, and we’d have him for B and E and get a warrant to search his house to see what else he’d stolen?”
“Stolen! He’s a doctor, for Christ’s sake, he didn’t steal—”
“Oh, shit!” Latovsky clutched the sides of his head. “You stupid, lazy, shit-kicking rube. We had a chance for a warrant and you blew it.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Dillworthy said quietly. “It never occurred to me a doctor’d break into some crum-bum summer house. And you never said he might. Maybe I’d’ve thought of it on my own fifteen years ago, but that was then, this is now—and this is Glenvale, nor Boston. Most of us haven’t done anything since the academy but break up bar fights and pick up the pieces after some son of a bitch takes a baseball bat to his old lady. You want a bunch of supersleuths, Latovsky? Call the Feds, call the fuckin’ marines, but don’t expect me or anyone else to turn into Sherlock Holmes because you got a bug up your ass. We’ll try because you got a lotta currency with us, but you’re gonna spend it real fast if you start calling us names.”
Dillworthy ran out of breath, then stared at the wall behind Latovsky. Latovsky waited a moment, then ran his hand down his face and said quietly, “You’re right, Dill, and I am truly sorry.” Dillworthy blushed and stammered, “Yeah... well...” Latovsky’s apologies were like snow in June: rare but not unheard of. They were also heartfelt.
“Where’d you leave him?” Latovsky asked.
“In his driveway. I didn’t know that street’s a cul de sac and I bumbled in, then had to bumble back out again, passing him twice.” Latovsky had known and hadn’t told his men. He was as bad as they were, one more rube who couldn’t find dogshit on his shoe.
“So he went home,” Latovsky said.
“Now who’s being dumb? He was in the car, lying in wait to watch me blow whatever cover I had left.”
“Then?”
“Then I finally got my brains outta my anus and I pulled around on King George into another driveway. This time, I lay in wait and sure enough out he comes a few minutes later and heads for the hospital.”
“Then?”
“Then I tagged him there and called Frawley from the lot to take over. I came here when Frawley showed up.”
“And Fuller?”
“Still there. Frawley called a few minutes ago to say he was in the doctors’ lounge using the phone.”
They had followed him, they could have tapped the phones in his house and office, and Adam used the pay phone in the lounge. He was in the booth a while, his hand and ear were damp, and he was glad to push open the door and come out into the empty lounge.