“I wouldn’t dream of involving anybody local,” Alexa told him.
Manseur frowned.
“Anybody else, I mean.”
32
Because of the headache, Leland Ticholet was chewing up one aspirin tablet after another as he piloted the boat toward Doc’s place. He needed his good headache pills and a dark space until the lights in his brain stopped flashing. He was tempted to pull over and lie down on the bench with a burlap bag over his head, but he needed his pills bad. It had been a while since he’d had a migraine, because he had pills to take every day to keep them away. They had worked until he forgot to take one due to all the excitement of thumping that man for Doc and all.
As he turned into the channel toward the little house, he could barely focus his eyes ahead because the sunlight hitting the water shot right into his brain like a nail.
He spotted the car Doc drove parked alongside Leland’s father’s old panel truck. He hoped Doc didn’t yell at him or make fun of him in that smart-ass way, because Leland didn’t want to hurt him. But if he did holler, then what happened to him was not going to be Leland’s fault. Most of the time he didn’t even remember the stuff happening that brought the sheriff’s men. He was going along just fine as you please, then somebody did something and the infuriation blast happened and Leland was as surprised as anybody else about it.
Doc was waiting at the back door, looking mad, as usual. “Why didn’t you answer the telephone?” he demanded. “It’s what I gave it to you for. Where is it?”
“I didn’t hear it ring,” Leland said as he pushed easily by the smaller man.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Battery might have died. Little as it is,” Leland said, going through the kitchen cabinet drawers looking for his pill bottle. “And I got a headache on me. Feels like my brain is on fire.”
“You haven’t been taking these, have you, Lee?” Doc asked. Leland looked up and had to squint to see that Doc was holding his brown bottle of headache pills.
“Give me ’em,” Leland said, reaching for the bottle and snatching it out of the little guy’s hand.
“Where is the cellular phone I gave you?” Doc asked.
Leland remembered hurling it into the water, but he wasn’t about to tell Doc that. He threw six capsules into his mouth and chewed before he answered, his teeth slimy from the plastic casings. “I guess maybe it’s in the boat.”
“Well, go get it.”
“I will when I go back to it,” Leland said. “Right now I’m gonna shut my eyes.”
“Unacceptable,” Doc said. “Totally un-ac-ceptable behavior, even for a man without any social filters whatsoever.”
“Who gives a hoot,” Leland said, going into the closet. He slammed the door behind him, which made his vision go bright white and the pain almost put him on his knees. He curled up on the pine floor like a nesting rat. He heard Doc walking around in the kitchen, but he was smart enough not to say anything else. He sure as hell couldn’t go get the man staying at Leland’s camp, because he didn’t even know where it was. And Leland knew Doc wanted that man brought here. He wasn’t sure why he wanted him moved here, and whatever the sombitch was thinking didn’t matter to Leland one little bit.
33
Kenneth Decell hung up and slipped his cell phone into the pocket of his sports jacket. He looked at his employer, who had been staring at him anxiously while he talked to Veronica Malouf. LePointe raised a bushy white eyebrow, waiting.
“Manseur and Keen left satisfied after Malouf told them Danielson was still in the hospital.”
“Took her word?” LePointe asked.
“They didn’t ask to see for themselves. How the media got on this bothers me. Somebody set them up to it; I just can’t imagine who, or why.”
“Pressure,” LePointe said. “It’s obvious that whoever is behind all of this wants to keep pressure on me until I pay them off.”
“I’m not sure that’s the smartest way to deal with them.”
“It’s your job to deal with this, Ken,” LePointe snapped.
“Keen makes it a lot more complicated. She’s not local. I can’t close her down like I could if it was just Manseur.”
“Casey went behind my back to ask for Keen to be on this because she didn’t trust the police here to be competent.”
“Casey-”
“I don’t blame her, Ken,” LePointe interrupted.
Decell was glad he hadn’t finished his thought because, true or not, it wasn’t a good idea to criticize Casey West in front of her uncle. “He is her husband,” Decell said.
“She loves that little hippie. This Keen person is adept at what she does?”
“Extremely. An almost perfect record of successful case closures. When they’re solvable, her rate rises higher. She doesn’t miss much.”
“Which means what here?”
“For starters, what Veronica thinks Agent Keen believes and what she does believe may be vastly different.”
“If Casey had just left this alone, we wouldn’t have your second front to deal with, but there it is,” Dr. LePointe said. “If she had just left this alone. No second front.” Dr. LePointe had the annoying habit of repeating himself, perhaps just to hear the sound of his own voice, but maybe because he doubted an ex-cop could keep his mind wrapped around the facts LePointe thought worth remembering. “You’re a miracle worker and I need a miracle right about now.”
“I won’t let you down, Dr. LePointe,” Decell promised. “You can count on that.”
“I believe it’s time to let the authorities know about this letter.” LePointe lifted an envelope and then tossed it onto the desk in front of Decell, who removed the letter and read it slowly.
Refolding it, Decell said, “It’s probably better to let Manseur and Keen chase their tails for a few hours, until I can put things in order.”
“Inarguably you are expert at what you do, Decell. Cop-think works well enough situation-by-situation as in working with individual criminal cases. But this game is far bigger than the simple elements you’re concerned with. Dealing with complex situations and looking far into the future is something I have to do with accuracy every day. I intend to hold on to what my ancestors built brick-by-brick over three hundred years of hard work, learning from mistakes, and strategic planning. Naturally they suffered the occasional setback, but without receiving a lethal blow. That’s not going to change on my watch. During my tenure, the worth of the family’s assets has increased dramatically, and not merely due, as some might claim, to the economy’s performance.
“What I do,” LePointe said, opening his hands expansively, “is like playing several chess games at once. It’s a blessing that you don’t have to think on the level I do, Ken.” LePointe spoke in the manner of a patient parent explaining something to his child. “Failure is not an option, whatever the cost. Do we understand each other here?”
Decell stared across the desk at LePointe, knowing the man was just starting his Mr. Superior song and dance. Decell was accustomed to having to sit and be lectured to while trying to seem impressed, interested, and in agreement.
“Naturally, you are the only person I trust to handle this, Ken. And for doing so in a satisfactory manner, you will be rewarded most handsomely.”
“You’ve always been more than generous, Dr. LePointe.”
LePointe took a slip of paper from his desk, for a long ten seconds seemed to be considering what he was going to write down, then scribbled a figure on the paper before pushing it across the desktop.
Decell made a show of leaning forward to read the figure and prepared himself to act astounded by LePointe’s beneficence. LePointe had always paid him well, which considering the mundane nature and low effort level that most of LePointe’s requests required was indeed generous. But the figure Decell saw written there stunned him, because it represented the kind of money you’d expect to pay to have a senator killed.