He heard simultaneously Kylie’s voice and a muffled shout from behind the door.
Kylie said, “Hi, baby,” as Caroline shouted, “Let me out, you bastard!”
He stepped into the hallway and shut the door as he said, “Hi, honey. What’s up?”
“What’s up over there?”
“Nothing. I got back really late last night and I’ve been asleep.”
“I heard somebody.”
“It’s just one of the maids yelling out the back door at the gardeners. This place can be really nuts sometimes. It’s a big place, and there are always people running machines or yelling. Sometimes I wonder.”
“Poor thing,” she said. “So when are you going to pick me up so I can make you feel better?”
“Oh, how I would love to go get you right now. But I just can’t. Caroline is home today and, well, you know.”
“I know. Maybe when I’m older, things will be better.”
“I promise. Now, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when I can. I love you.
“I love you,” she said. “‘Bye.”
Forrest cut the connection, and then looked at his watch. He had been surprised to hear Kylie’s voice, but it was three forty already. She was already out of school. He tried to calculate. He had called Hobart at around four A.M. Hobart had said he was nearly done with Emily Kramer. He would have needed to get rid of her body and probably take care of a few incidentals. Give him two hours for that. Then he would have to spend an hour showering and packing and checking out of wherever he had been staying. That would make it seven A.M. If Hobart drove up here it would take him at least six hours, and with stops, much longer. Make it four in the afternoon at the earliest. If Hobart arrived at four or five, he would want to check into a hotel, change his clothes, probably rent a different car, have dinner somewhere. He would not arrive here at the house until early evening, just as he had said on the phone.
And Forrest was all ready for him.
Forrest walked through the house examining doors and windows, then revisited the pantry door where the police would decide Hobart had broken in. He placed the two bags of money in two downstairs closets. That way he could produce the one for the already-completed job on Emily Kramer when Hobart arrived, and save the other to induce him to kill Caroline. The sight of so much money would blind Hobart to any little signs that something was out of place.
Forrest spent an hour rehearsing in front of the full-length mirror in the downstairs cloakroom off the foyer. He spoke to an imaginary Hobart, searching his own face for a furtive expression, listening to his voice for a false tone. Finally he devised and memorized a sentence he could say at the very moment when he was pulling out his gun: “I don’t know how to thank you for taking care of this for me.”
37
Ted Forrest saw the car coming up the dark highway when it was still a half mile away, even before it passed the riverbed that was the western boundary of the Forrest estate. There had been no water in the river for years, but it was still easy to see from a distance because ancient trees still ran in a line along the banks.
He wondered at first how he knew it was Hobart, but in this flat country, headlights could be seen for miles, and he had noticed the purposeful quality of the car’s motion, then saw it slow slightly as the driver saw his house. The car nosed along the tall iron fence until it found the open gate, and then turned into the long driveway.
The car came up to the circle at the front door and stopped, and its lights went out. Hobart got out of the car and stepped to the front door quickly. He didn’t have to knock because Ted Forrest was already holding the door open, standing back from the entrance so Hobart could step inside. Forrest had kept the light in the foyer dim, and it was the only one turned on in the front of the house. Hobart’s arrival would be difficult to see from the road.
Things were going well. Hobart had brought a full-size black car of some American make, something that looked enough like one of Forrest’s from a distance to be unremarkable to passersby. Forrest closed the door.
Hobart wore a short-sleeved shirt and carried a sport jacket that he had picked up from where it lay on the passenger seat while he was driving. Hobart was bigger, taller, and more formidable than Forrest had remembered. Forrest was athletic and had always kept himself in good physical condition, but the sight of Hobart’s bare arms reminded him that there were people who weren’t in his circle of golfand-tennis friends. In prison men spent their time lifting weights and fighting. “Hi,” he said. “Have any trouble?” He held out his hand to shake Hobart’s.
Hobart chose that moment to put on his sport coat, and didn’t seem to see the hand. “Not much,” Hobart said. “Got my money?”
“She’s dead?”
“Sure.”
“The money is right here.” Forrest went to a door that Hobart had not seen before, cut into the decorated wood that rose seven feet from the marble floor of the big open room. He opened it and Hobart saw it was a closet. Forrest came back with a satchel like a gym bag and handed it to Hobart.
Hobart took it with his left hand, squatted to set it on the floor, and unzipped it.
For Forrest, Hobart’s movements were bad news. He was keeping Forrest in his line of sight, keeping his right hand free and unencumbered. Hobart was clearly aware that this was the perfect time for Forrest to alter the terms of their deal.
Of course, Forrest thought. Hobart did this routinely, for a living. He knew every aspect of his business, including the twinge of buyer’s remorse a client might have after the person who had been threatening his happiness was dead and buried. From the moment when Hobart completed a job until he took the money and got out of sight and out of reach, he was in danger, and he knew it.
Hobart finished assuring himself that the whole bag was filled with stacks of hundreds. He zipped the bag and stood up with it in his left hand. “Good enough,” he said.
Forrest held out his right hand again to shake Hobart’s, but Hobart ignored it. Forrest felt uneasy. Hobart had already realized that if he shook, both of his hands would be full, but only one of Forrest’s would. Even that, thought Forrest. Hobart was absolutely unblinking. There was no overconfidence, no forgetfulness.
Forrest said, “Was getting Emily Kramer hard?”
“You and I agreed on a price, and you just paid it. The time and trouble I had to put into it is my problem.” Hobart started to move toward the front door. Forrest noticed that as he stepped in that direction, he didn’t move his eyes from Forrest’s.
“Don’t go,” Forrest said. “When we were on the phone, I mentioned I had another job.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll put this in the car, and then we’ll talk about it.”
Forrest could tell there was no point in saying, “You can leave your money here in the foyer,” or trying to dissuade or distract him from his intention. He was the expert at this. Hobart’s money wasn’t safe until it was in his trunk, and he had the only key. Car trunks could be popped or their locks hammered in, but not without Hobart’s knowledge.
But Hobart was back already. He came in and shut the door. “All right. Tell me about it.”
“It’s my wife, Caroline.”
“You want me to kill your wife? Why?”
“It’s a long story. I offered to provide for her in a breakup, but she would rather destroy me.”
“She could do that?”
“It doesn’t matter, really. Leaving somebody around who wants to do that to me would be insane.”