4.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE MOVING UPSTAIRS?” BARBARA was not even pretending to be happy for me.

“They’ve got a project they want me to work on.”

“Let me get this straight.” She rose from her chair and stared at me over her computer screen. She did not look particularly alluring. Of course, she had not known I was coming back today. “Ten days ago you went off to Hawaii because some people planted an idea in your head that Mitch tried to cover up the Telford murder in order to protect the Gregorys.”

I dumped all the contents of one of my desk drawers into a cardboard box without trying to sort things out.

“And you didn’t want to see the Gregorys get away with that kind of thing anymore, wasn’t that it?”

I was surprised to see how many pennies came out of that drawer. Pennies mixed with business cards, pencils, rulers, receipts, unused tax forms, explanations by insurance companies as to why they were denying benefits.

She was standing stalk still.

I poured the contents of another drawer into the same box, covering the detritus that was already there. The stuff in this drawer looked more promising. Some brochures from places I once thought I would like to visit, records of my pension plan. Bizarrely, a picture of Marion floated out and landed faceup. In it she was posed, with one knee raised, her elbow on the knee, her fingers pointing down. She was smiling broadly, almost laughing, as if thinking of a big joke.

“Hey, George, I’m trying to talk to you.”

“And I’ve got nothing to say to you, Barbara.”

“George, why are you doing this?” Her shoulders curled, her hands clenched. “Have you sold out, George?”

“You, of course, wouldn’t have to sell out, would you, Barbara?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why don’t you ask your husband?”

“Hey,” she said sharply, “is that what this is all about?”

I was getting out a third drawer, jerking it from the desk. “Is that what what is all about?”

“You coming in here like you have this morning, acting like I’m the enemy or something. I don’t know what anybody said to you, but there’s only one reason Tyler and I are not divorced, and that’s because he won’t sign the damn papers.”

“I guess you haven’t talked to him lately,” I said to Barbara while looking at the face of Marion.

“Of course I haven’t. He’s still out on the ocean somewhere.”

“Yes, he is, isn’t he? Sailing in one of the biggest races in America. One that takes six months to prepare for. Sailing with Peter Martin, as a matter of fact.”

“So?”

“So it was going to be awful hard for Tyler to hook me up with Peter when he was going to be hundreds of miles out to sea.”

“I didn’t know that—”

“But he would have. Tyler would have said Peter wouldn’t be there if you actually told him I was coming to meet him.”

I dumped the third drawer into the cardboard box. One of the staff had gotten me a two-level push cart and I shoved the box onto the lower level.

“Remember all those arrangements you made for me, Barbara? All those directions and everything that were supposed to lead to Tyler, but actually led right to his pal Billy?”

She grabbed my arm. She had made it all the way across the room while I was busy not looking at her. “I didn’t know anything about Peter being in any race,” she said. “Ty told me he would be there. And who the hell is Billy?”

“Billy knew you, Barbara. Why, his cute little elfin face lit up like a Christmas tree when I said I had a message from you. Almost like it was code. Oh, yeah, Tyler was gone, Peter was gone, but wouldn’t I really like to go to Costa Rica, see Jason Stockover? Only, guess what? When I get there, a woman named Leanne Sullivan, who just so happened to be Jason’s date on the night Heidi Telford was killed, had me kidnapped and handcuffed and stuck a fucking knife in my throat.”

I grabbed Barbara’s hand and jerked it to my neck. “See this? Feel this? I was about one half-second away from being dead.”

She fought me at first, tried to hold her fingers back, then let them touch the ridge that had formed. “Oh, my God, George.”

“Yeah, ‘my God, George’ is right.” I pulled away from her and went back to jamming books and files onto the cart.

She watched me until I could no longer think what to gather up.

“You believe I planned to send you to Costa Rica to get you killed?”

Her voice, I noticed, had gotten very soft. Her legal training was coming through, asking me a question I could not answer without either backing down from what I had said before or making something up to justify it.

“No, I don’t believe that’s the way the Gregorys work. They don’t kill people, they control them with their wealth, power, influence. Only, things are spinning out of control on this particular nine-year effort because they never really did control a key guy, the Barnstable police detective who was in charge of the case. They relied on Leanne Sullivan to do that and Leanne has turned out to be a loose cannon.”

“The Leanne who stabbed you?” Barbara looked like she was gamely trying to follow me.

“The Leanne who, like I said, was at the Gregorys’ that night as Jason’s pickup date. The Leanne they got to move to Hawaii and the Leanne that got Detective Landry off the case by convincing him to move to Hawaii with her. And finally, Barbara, the Leanne who left Landry a broken-down old drunk in Kauai and returned to Jason Stockover in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.”

“And?” She took a stand. “So what’s my connection in all of this?”

“Your connection, Barbara, is that there are only two people on the planet who knew I was going to Costa Rica, you and that little boat rat, Billy, who seemed to be waiting for me to show up in Sausalito and mention your name. Your connection is that your family and the Gregorys have been intertwined since birth. And so when the Gregorys found out that Chief DiMasi had told me about Landry living in Kauai, they realized there wasn’t anything they could do to keep me from talking to him.”

I looked directly into her eyes for the first time. “So, Barbara, that’s when you came into the picture. Showing up at my house, telling me to right the wrongs, do whatever is noble, go to Hawaii and talk to Landry—the very thing the Gregorys knew I was going to do anyhow. But your role, Barbara, was to make sure I stopped off in California on my way home so I could be directed down to where Jason and Leanne were.”

She was confused. That was what her expression was meant to show. “If the Gregorys really were involved in a murder, why would they send you someplace where two people who aren’t part of the family could tell you what actually happened?”

“Well, there are a number of possibilities, Barbara. One is that they knew Jason and Leanne wouldn’t tell me the truth because they’ve made good lives for themselves off the Gregorys’ largesse. But given the fact that Jason wasn’t there when I arrived, I’m not thinking that’s the most likely answer. I think it’s entirely possible that his absence means I’m supposed to suspect him.”

“You’re not making sense, George.” Now Barbara’s expression was sad. It said she was concerned for me, that maybe she should get me an aspirin and a blanket and have me lie down.

“Oh, I’m making perfect sense,” I assured her. “The noose is closing on the Gregorys and somebody’s head has to be stuck in it so that Peter Martin’s isn’t. Whether it’s mine or Jason Stockover’s, it really doesn’t make any difference, as long as it’s not Peter’s.”

She continued to look concerned. “George, don’t you think you’re being paranoid?”

“Oh, I am, I absolutely am. In the past couple of months I’ve been shot at and knifed and learned that my wife was a plant. I also found out that I’ve been followed for twelve years, so don’t you think I have a right to be paranoid, Barbara?”

“Who …” The hands came up, the fingers stayed together. Like me, she was finding it hard to keep this conversation on a civil level. “Who’s been following you?”

“The father of the girl down in Florida. And his minions. Or at least one black-belt, Green Beret, Special Forces, show-up-anytime-anywhere minion.”

“So … couldn’t he have … you know, down in Costa Rica?”

“He wants me to prove the Gregorys’ guilt, not steer me to someone else.”

“And you think that’s what’s been going on, that you’re being steered—”

“What would anybody think in my position? First I’m told not to do anything, then, when I do it anyway, when I start learning things that I wasn’t supposed to learn, all of a sudden my job is changed and I’m put in full-time charge of the investigation. Find the real killer, George. And, hey, make sure it’s Jason now, okay?” I pointed to the ceiling. “Mitch White practically directed me back to Tamarindo a few minutes ago.”

“Well,” Barbara Belbonnet said, and then she waited a moment. “Good luck, George.”