Forty-Seven

Peyton was outside the Hampton Inn at 5:45 p.m. Monday night when Stone Gibson, wearing Oakley wrap-around sunglasses, jeans, and a dark T-shirt, slid onto the passenger’s seat and closed the door.

“It’s nice to work with a federal employee,” he said. “A Toyota? You guys get undercover vehicles?”

“This is my mother’s Camry. And I’m not getting overtime pay for this.”

“Well, state police would never have gotten the warrant for the wire taps.”

“Woe is me,” she said. “You know that’s not true.”

“Well, we wouldn’t have gotten it same day.”

She didn’t deny that.

“Our situations aren’t so different,” she said. “A team of Homeland Security Investigations agents are on the way. Once they get here, I’m probably back on border patrols. Field agents are a dime a dozen.”

“Ever read the play Death of a Salesman?”

“I think so.”

“This guy Willy Loman says he’s not a dime a dozen.”

“No one is,” she said. “It’s kind of why I’m here.”

“For Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall?”

“And all of them. But, yeah, because, if I’m being honest, I do think she got a raw deal—not just on this, but in life in general. Her father sexually abused her. She spent her youth trying to prove to him she was good. Then she spent her adulthood trying to excel. But she couldn’t because she was broken from the start.”

“I respect your compassion,” he said, “but it’s dangerous.”

“I thought you never went to college. How do you know who Willy Loman is?”

“Changing the subject? Okay. I read a lot. So you say Sherry tried to prove stuff. Maybe I do, too.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m not illiterate. You don’t need a school to be educated.”

“How much do you read?”

“Eighty books last year.”

“Jesus Christ,” she said.

“So what’s the plan?”

“There’s the green Ford Escape,” she said. “Both of the hotel rooms face the other side of the building. So why don’t you move the car near the door, and if Chip or Kvido come out, let me know.”

“Got it,” he said.

Peyton got out, and Stone did the same and moved to the driver’s side. As the car pulled away, she did her best Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall impression—wearing sunglasses, pulling a Red Sox cap low, and raising the hood on her University of Maine Black Bears sweatshirt over her head. She went to the Escape and removed the Slim Jim she had pressed to her side inside her sweatshirt. She jimmied the bar back and forth inside the driver’s-side window and unlocked the door. Once the door was open, she planted the tap. Finished, she walked back to the Camry.

“I’m going inside to make sure both rooms are still being used and to see if both men are home.”

“I’ll watch the lobby,” Stone said.

“I’m surprised to see you,” Chip Duvall said, when he answered the door of room 210 at the Hampton Inn.

“I was in the neighborhood,” she said, “and I thought I’d drop by.” She knew she’d used that line the last time she’d been at this hotel room.

Apparently, Chip didn’t know it had been rehearsed previously.

“I’m not doing very well. I came here to help Sherry bury her parents. Now I’m”—his voice cracked, and he looked down, shoulders trembling—“burying her beside them.”

The weight of his statement hit Peyton. She knew what he said was true, of course; but at the same time, she’d not thought of it. She’d been working the case and thinking of Sherry’s plight. The irony of Chip Duvall’s situation was evident by the pain on his face.

“May I come in, Chip?”

“Gee, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

She looked at him. Could this be the same idiot who’d made several passes at her? Why the change? A show of respect for his late wife? If so, she wanted to hit him in the throat again—make him consider where that respect for Sherry had been a week ago.

“I have a few questions I need to ask you.”

“You sound formal.”

“The investigation is still ongoing.”

“What investigation?”

“The murder of Simon Pink.”

“Oh, that,” he said and held the door. “Yeah, come in.”

His suitcase was open, clothing strewn on the floor around it. “Excuse the mess.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Not well.”

“Do you have family?”

“My parents and my sister and her husband are coming tomorrow to help me.”

“And your kids are coming here?”

He nodded.

“How are they?”

“My sister is very good with them. She has two teenagers. She told them about Sherry. They are, of course, devastated.”

“They’ll live with you?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?” He looked genuinely confused.

“Both children?”

“Of course. Why?”

“What if Kvido wants Sam? Doesn’t he have a legal right to take him to the Czech Republic, if he wants?”

“I adopted Sam. What are you talking about, Peyton?”

“How did you keep your home when you filed for bankruptcy?”

“Why would Kvido want Sam?”

“How did you keep your home when you filed for bankruptcy?” she said again.

“It’s common. That’s one of the reasons to file.”

“But you and Sherry paid off her parents’ back taxes, which allowed them to keep the farm. How could you afford to give them a hundred grand if you lost your business?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sherry received two hundred thousand dollars from Kvido, Chip.”

“I know nothing about that.”

“How old was Sam when you adopted him?”

“Two. I’ve raised him as I have Marie—like he’s my flesh and blood.”

“And that’s why Sherry hired Kvido? So he could see his son?”

“His son?”

“What is your relationship with Kvido like?”

“Relationship? With him? My wife left me for him, Peyton.”

“But you drove to the diner to meet him.”

“No.”

“Yes. He ran outside and stopped you before you came inside. What did you two need to talk about?”

He didn’t speak. She saw perspiration on his forehead.

“And why couldn’t you just meet here, Chip? What reason would you have for meeting somewhere else?”

“I think it’s time for you to leave, Peyton.”

“Me, too,” she said.

Peyton took the elevator to the lobby. She didn’t return to the Camry. Instead, she sat in an overstuffed chair near a glass end table.

In a chair near the elevator, a man wearing Oakley shades, a dark T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes sat reading Crime and Punishment. On the other side of the lobby, at the bar, a man drank coffee and sat with his back to the far wall. He wore glasses frames and a Bass Pro Shops hat. She expected to see those two men.

The man she didn’t expect to see walked by her without recognizing her. Once again, he had traded the leather New York Yankees jacket and snake-skin cowboy boots for a suit—this time it was a conservative gray with a navy-blue tie—and he had a neck tattoo she’d seen only on inmates in federal prison.

It was Tom Dickinson—the man in witness protection who had worried that his chat with Sara Gibson in Tip of the Hat might lead to his anonymity being lost.

He was carrying a briefcase and walked to the elevator. He didn’t press either arrow. Just stood, waiting.

Finally, the elevator doors opened, and Kvido nodded to him. Dickinson joined Kvido on the elevator, and it went up again.

Peyton moved quickly across the lobby and hit the arrow pointing up.

The man seated next to the elevator set down his copy of Crime and Punishment and ran toward the stairs. The man at the bar wearing glasses frames followed him.