The minivan and truck traveled up the island, due north. Steere's beach house was in Barnegat Light, and Marta checked the map with her flashlight. The town was at the northernmost tip of the island, where the minivan was heading so fast.
Marta accelerated to keep up. The traffic lights had been turned off. She passed easily through a commercial district and into an area that looked residential. Scrub pines reappeared by the roadside, their needles lined with snow. Evergreens lined the road like Christmas trees on display. Junky beach shops were replaced by houses of different shapes and sizes; saltboxes with weathered siding sat next to spacious modern homes on stilts, with multiple decks and large glass windows. Wooden signs in a snowy divider told Marta the towns she was passing through: NORTH BEACH, HARVEY CEDARS, LOVE-LADIES.
Marta traveled behind the minivan for ten minutes, then twenty. The truck was freezing without a working heater and she wiggled her fingers in her gloves to keep her blood circulating. The windshield wipers had finally met a snow they could handle and pumped madly in pride. Marta stretched her neck, aching from the accident, and felt her goose eggs, sore from Bogosian. She was as beat up as the pickup but somehow her senses felt alive. Urgent.
Marta watched the homes pass on either side of the street, illuminated only by the truck's headlights. They cast little light, and Marta figured she'd crunched a headlight in the accident. The houses loomed large in the darkness and almost all were empty. They were about four and five deep to the beach and fewer than that to the bay. The farther out Marta drove, the larger and emptier the houses.
In ten blocks the houses became mansions and more modern. There were showplaces with whimsical paint jobs, their pinks and yellows bright even in the dark. Stark white contemporary homes sat far from the road, directly on the beachfront. The construction looked new and the homes custom-built. One white one reminded Marta of her glass beach house on Cape Cod, except the lots were bigger here and dotted with snowy vegetation. She sensed she was getting closer. If Steere had a house on the island, it would be in the most exclusive location.
Marta followed the minivan another five blocks, where it turned right onto a cross street and headed toward the ocean. Marta followed it to the street and stopped at the corner. She shined the flashlight up at the street sign. Steere's street; it was the address she remembered from his tax form. Marta had been right. She switched off her headlights so Alix wouldn't see the truck and turned right.
Marta coasted down the street, looking for the minivan. She was almost at the end of the street when red taillights flared on the right, near a snowy curb. Then they went dark. Marta waited in the pickup, slumping low in the beaded seat. A figure got out of the van, black raincoat flapping and dark hair blowing in the light snow. Her face was clearly visible in the light from the open van door. It was Alix Locke for sure.
Marta sank lower in her seat. In the distance stood Steere's house, which was unexpectedly different from the modern houses on the way. The back of the mansion faced the street, but Marta could see it was old and graceful, with Victorian buttresses and cantilevered towers. Three stories tall and covered with dark gray shakes, it sat farther from the main road than any of the other houses. Marta guessed it had been built on a bulge in the island. Pine trees, beach grass, and snow-covered dunes surrounded the mansion, partially concealing it. Marta could understand why Steere loved the house— and why he might use it to hide something important.
She watched Alix climb a dune and head toward the house. When Alix was out of sight, Marta parked the truck a distance from the minivan and cut the ignition. What was Alix up to? Marta grabbed her forge hammer and flashlight and was about to get out of the truck when she remembered the pritchel. She might need more protection than the hammer.
Marta flicked on the flashlight and turned around to root through Christopher's tool chest for the pritchel. After some digging, she pulled out a long pointed spike with a tip as sharp as a dagger. The pritchel, just as Christopher had described it. A crude tool of heavy black iron. "Do you have this in navy?" she said to no salesperson in particular, then pocketed both tools, tugged on her gloves, and climbed out of the pickup.
Marta caught a faceful of snow whipping hard off the ocean and ducked her head. She was unprepared for the wind's force and the depth of the darkness around her. It was pitch black and the stormy sky permitted only the faintest moonglow. She cast the flashlight's beam to the glittery surface of the snow and walked toward the minivan, boot-deep in powder. Marta reached the minivan and shone the flashlight inside to make sure it was empty. It was, so she followed Alix's footsteps to the dune, the snow groaning underfoot.
Marta came to the dune and clambered up it. Her ribs ached with each step, and snow and ice bit her cheeks. The wind blew stronger the higher she went. The sea air smelled of brine and storm. Marta climbed to the pearly crest of the dune and when she reached it ducked to brace herself against the wind buffeting her face and drumming in her ears. She stuck the flashlight in her pocket and peeked over the dune.
Dunes coated with snow rolled in sensuous, milky mounds to Steere's Victorian mansion and to the gray-black sky, horizonless in the storm. Between the dunes dipped a valley of alabaster, crossed by the windswept shadow of a woman. Alix, her hair flying sideways, hurrying to the dark mansion.
Marta crouched on the summit of the dune and her bruised ribs screamed in protest. She waited and forced the pain from her mind. She couldn't risk going yet. She'd be exposed on the open dunes, and if Alix saw her, it would be over. Marta hunkered down in the snow like a soldier in a foxhole. Not that she knew anything about foxholes, but she had a vivid imagination. You had to, in criminal defense.
She watched Alix climb the next dune. As soon as Alix disappeared over the far side, Marta stood up and sprinted down the dune, half tumbling and half sliding. She reached the bottom of the white bowl between the dunes and ran ahead to the next, climbing up, up, up the side, running as fast as she could in Alix's footsteps, spraying snow behind her. When Marta scuttled to the crest, she threw herself down on the elbows until her chest stopped hurting.
Steere's mansion in the dunes stood stately and graceful, especially close up. It had stature, style, and class; qualities Steere could only buy. A vast expanse of incandescent snow encircled it like a warm cloak, and beyond the mansion churned the black Atlantic. Snow sprinkled from the sky like superfine sugar from a spoon and dissolved on contact with the dark, angry ocean. A light snapped on at the back entrance to the mansion, drawing Marta's attention. There was a security light mounted at the house's back entrance and one over a three-car garage. The lights must have been motion-sensitive and they illuminated the entire back of the house.
Marta watched as Alix fumbled with a key chain and let herself in the back door. The back door slammed closed with a sound lost in the roar of wind and surf. Marta stood up and ran toward the beach house, the wind drumming in her ears.
29
Mayor Walker's staff called his private bathroom the Frank L. Rizzo Memorial Can, but not in public. The bathroom had been built with donations from friends of the former mayor, who evidently wanted their hero to dump in style. The walls were covered in white marble veined with gold and the toilet was elevated on a matching pedestal. The counter surrounding the sink was marble, too, and all the fixtures were gold-plated. The total effect was Rome under Nero, a good analogy for Philly under Rizzo.
Mayor Walker hated the bathroom, but detonating the Rizzo head would cost him every vote in South Philly. He closed his eyes to the white marble and washed his face with cold water, trying to stay alert even though it was well past midnight. "Talk to me, Jen," he said between splashes. "What's the latest?"