“Hey,” he said.
“Officer,” Robert Covey said. They warmly shook hands. Tal hesitated for a moment in greeting Mac but then thought, hell with it, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. This seemed unprofessional on several levels — his as well as hers — but she didn’t seem to care; he knew he certainly didn’t have a problem with the lapse.
Tal proceeded to explain to Covey that since he was the only victim who’d survived the Lotus Foundation scam the police needed a signed and notarized copy of his statement.
“In case I croak when I’m under the knife you’ll still have the evidence to put the pricks away.”
That was it exactly. Tal shrugged. “Well...”
“Don’tcha worry,” the old man said. “I’m happy to.”
Tal handed him the statement. “Look it over, make any changes you want. I’ll print out a final version and we’ll get it notarized.”
“Will do.” Covey skimmed it and then looked up. “How ‘bout something to drink? There’s a bar—”
“Coffee, tea or soda,” Mac said ominously. “It’s not even noon yet.”
“She claims she negotiates,” Covey muttered to Tal. “But she don’t.”
The old man pointed toward the park’s concession stand at the top of a hill some distance away. “Coffee’s not bad there — for an outfit that’s not named for a whaler.”
“I’ll get it.”
“I’ll have a large with cream.”
“He’ll have a medium, skim milk,” Mac said. “Tea for me, please. Sugar.” She fired a crooked smile Tal’s way.
About a hundred yards from the bench where the old man sat chatting away with his friend, a young woman walked along the park path. The redhead was short, busty, attractive, wearing a beautiful tennis bracelet and a diamond/emerald ring, off which the sunlight glinted fiercely.
She kept her eyes down as she walked, so nobody could see her abundant tears.
Margaret Ludlum had been crying on and off for several days. Ever since her boss and lover, Dr. Anthony Sheldon, had been arrested.
Margaret had greeted the news of his arrest — and Farley’s too — with horror, knowing that she’d probably be the next to be picked up. After all, she’d been the one that Sheldon and Farley had sent as a representative of the Lotus Research Foundation to the couples who were planning to kill themselves. It was she who’d slipped them plenty of Luminux during their last few weeks on earth, then suggested they buy the blueprint for their deaths — the suicide books — and coerced them into killing themselves and afterwards cleaned up any evidence linking them to the Foundation or its two principals.
But the police had taken her statement — denying everything, of course — and let her go. It was clear they suspected Sheldon and Farley had an accomplice but seemed to think that it was one of Farley’s research assistants. Maybe they thought that only a man was capable of killing defenseless people.
Wrong. Margaret had been completely comfortable with assisted suicide. And more: She’d been only a minute away from murdering Robert Covey the other day as he walked down the street after leaving the Lotus Research Foundation. But just as she started toward him a van stopped nearby and two men jumped out, pulling him to safety. Other officers had raided the foundation. She’d veered down a side street and called Sheldon to warn him. But it was too late. They got him outside his office at the hospital as he’d tried to flee.
Oh, yes, she’d been perfectly willing to kill Covey then.
And was perfectly willing to kill him now.
She watched that detective who’d initially come to interview Tony Sheldon walk away from the bench and up the path toward the refreshment stand. It didn’t matter that he was leaving; he wasn’t her target.
Only Covey. With the old man gone it would be much harder to get a conviction, Sheldon explained. He might get off altogether or serve only a few years — that’s what they doled out in most cases of assisted suicides. The cardiologist promised he’d finally get divorced and he and Margaret would move to Europe... They’d taken some great trips to the south of France and the weeks there had been wonderful. Oh, how she missed him.
Missed the money too, of course. That was the other reason she had to get Tony out of jail, of course. The doctor had been meaning to set up an account for her but hadn’t gotten around to it. She’d let it slide for too long and the paperwork never materialized.
In her purse, banging against her hip, she felt the heavy pistol, the one she’d been planning to use on Covey several days ago. She was familiar with guns — she’d helped several of the other foundation clients “transition” by shooting themselves. And though she’d never actually pulled the trigger and murdered someone, she knew she could do it.
The tears were gone now. She was thinking of how best to handle the shooting. Studying the old man and that woman — who’d have to die too, of course; she’d be a witness against Margaret herself for the murder today. Anyway, the double murder would make the scenario more realistic. It would look like a mugging. Margaret would demand the wallet and the woman’s purse and when they handed the items over, she’d shoot them both in the head.
Pausing now, next to a tree, Margaret looked over the park. A few passersby, but no one was near Covey and the woman. The detective — Simms, she recalled — was still hiking up the hill to the concession stand. He was two hundred yards from the bench; she could kill them both and be in her car speeding away before he could sprint back to the bench.
She waited until he disappeared into a stand of trees then reached into her purse, cocking the pistol. Margaret stepped out from behind the tree and moved quickly down the path that led to the bench. A glance around her. Nobody was present.
Closer now, closer. Along the asphalt path, damp from an earlier rain and the humid spring air.
She was twenty feet away... ten...
She stepped quickly up behind them. They looked up. The woman gave a faint smile in greeting — a smile that faded as she noted Margaret’s cold eyes.
“Who are you?” the woman asked, alarm in her voice.
Margaret Ludlum said nothing. She pulled the gun from her purse.
“Wallet!” Pointing the pistol directly at the old man’s face.
“What?”
“Give me your wallet!” Then turning to the woman, “And the purse! Now!”
“You want—?”
They were confused, being mugged by someone outfitted by Neiman Marcus.
“Now!” Margaret screamed.
The woman thrust the purse forward and stood, holding her hands out. “Look, just calm down.”
The old man was frantically pulling his wallet from his pocket and holding it out unsteadily.
Margaret grabbed the items and shoved them into her shoulder bag. Then she looked at the man’s eyes and — rather than feel any sympathy, she felt that stillness she always did when slipping someone drugs or showing them how to grip the gun or seal the garage with duct tape to make the most efficient use of the carbon monoxide.
The woman was saying, “Please, don’t do anything stupid. Just take everything and leave!”
Then Robert Covey squinted. He was looking at Margaret with certain understanding. He knew what this was about. “Leave her alone,” he said. “Me, it’s okay. It’s all right. Just let her go.”
But she thrust the gun forward at Covey as the woman with him screamed and dropped to the ground. Margaret began to pull the trigger, whispering the phrase she always did when helping transition the foundation’s clients, offering a prayer for a safe journey. “God be with—”
A flash of muddy light filled her vision as she felt, for a tiny fragment of a second, a fist or rock slam into her chest.