TThe eyes of Judge McCarthy’s secretary snapped to attention as the handsome young lawyer breezed in. He was tall, with crystal blue eyes and wavy gold hair. “Tyler Waddill?” When he nodded, she handed him the message. “You can use the library phone.”
Lugging his briefcase into the library, Tyler closed the door and placed his call. Mayson was certainly in the air by now. There’d been no news flashes. Bilbro’s secretary now answered. “Heather,” he said. “I’m returning Ed’s call.”
“He’s in a meeting, Tyler. Can he call you back?”
“This message says he wanted to catch me before the prelim. You’d better see if he needs to tell me something.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Hold on...”
An undefined fear crept into the drifting silence. Had Duke’s suspicion over the black 911 already trickled down to Poster Boy? Bilbro now came on the line. “All set for the prelim? I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
His tone was much too casual. He was hiding something. “Your call wasn’t about Breckinridge?”
“No,” Bilbro replied. “There’s some Back Bay litigation I’ve just gotten involved in. I wanted you to pick up a copy of the case record at the state courthouse.”
It was just around the corner. He’d seen it on the ride in from Logan. “What’s the case name?”
“Ah, just forget it,” Bilbro now dismissed the project. “I’ll have Heather arrange for a copy to be shipped. You don’t want to lug a heavy box of records back to New York.”
No, but since when did Poster Boy, or any other partner, give a shit about the traveling convenience of a first year associate? Did he need the records or not?
“Say Tyler, I guess you put your flight on your personal credit card, huh? Damn, I wish I’d thought to lend you my firm card. Give me your account number and I’ll have Heather transfer the expense.”
Was someone eavesdropping? Duke, maybe? Had they been discussing his 911? Without hesitation, he provided the number of an account he didn’t have with American Express.
“Heather said to get your other accounts, too, in case this happens again,” Bilbro added.
It won’t, Poster Boy, don’t worry. He relayed the names of three banks he’d never done business with.
“Tyler, which airline are you flying - for the expense adjustment? American?”
Bingo. “Atlantic Coastal. Listen, McCarthy’s secretary is calling me into the conference.”
“Okay. Just call before you leave, all right?”
Count on it, dickhead, he thought, and hung up.
“Wow!” McCarthy’s secretary grinned in the doorway. “How did you know I was calling you?”
“ESP,” he smiled. “Is the Judge ready?”
“He’s winding up a call now.”
As she left, he gazed at his briefcase, then quietly slipped out the side door. A man rushing down the hall stopped just in time to avoid a collision. “My fault,” Tyler smiled at the balding man in the expensive dark suit. A lawyer, obviously. There were so many in the world, especially courthouses.
The man stopped him before he could get away. “Are you here for the Breckinridge prelim?”
“No, I’m not.” He caught two more men approaching. Ducking out the hall door, he flew down the stairs, and slipping out of the courthouse, grabbed the first taxi.
Minutes later, he was dropped off at Copley Square and hurried towards the Prudential Center. He’d used a bank there once to pay for an expensive sailing weekend with Betsy Fairgate, who now practiced law in her father’s Boston firm - here in Copley Square, for all he knew. Using the bank’s ATM, he made his last cash withdrawal of the many made this past week; the accumulated sum would most likely have to last for a very long time. By noon his accounts would be frozen.
He checked his watch. By now, his vanishing act had been reported to Bilbro in New York, which meant he was officially a fugitive. Loosening his tie, he grabbed a cab back to Logan.
He hurried through the crowded airport, his eyes bouncing from the flight monitors to the TV screens. He’d yet to see a news flash, which hopefully meant Mayson was in Atlanta, waiting for her Naples connection. If lucky, they’d be watching a Gulf Coast sunset a few hours from now. He bought a paper and started down the American concourse. The monitor indicated his flight was boarding at Gate 12J. Quickening his pace, he saw a Fed suddenly emerge from the men’s room and start in the opposite direction. They were here! Just in this concourse or others?
Reaching his gate, he quickly joined the boarding line. In a few minutes he’d be in the friendly southern skies. By evening... He froze as a Fed stepped from behind a column. Scanning the crowd, the man’s eyes quickly found him. The paper slipped from his fingers as the Fed whispered sharply into his wireless. Nope, he wouldn’t be flying today. Spinning, he streaked out of the concourse.
“Stop that man!” the Fed barked over the crowd’s rumble.
Alertly, he caught the next Fed as he reached the mouth of the concourse. Spotting him at the same time, the Fed reached for his gun and gave chase. Turning suddenly, Tyler charged, slamming him against the upper level railing. The gun slipped from the Fed’s hand as he crumpled to the floor. Gunfire shattered glass overhead. Diving to the floor, Tyler quickly crawled for the escalator as the first Fed, joined by several airport guards, exploded into the terminal. As the guards checked on his associate, the Fed caught Tyler’s head rise above the railing. “The escalator!” he shouted as Tyler flew down the steps. Now spotting two associates racing for the landing below, he yelled, “Olsen, he’s coming down now!”
The Feds rushed to cut Tyler off as the guards filed onto the escalator above. He was trapped — or was he? As the Feds reached the landing, he suddenly dove, his powerful body crashing into them. Like their associate before, they too crumpled to the floor, their guns sliding away.
Jumping up, Tyler caught two more Feds racing towards him, followed by several airport guards. Above, the escalator thundered with pursuers. He had but one option now, and ducking against more gunfire, he took it, exploding through the plate glass. Heads snapped around as shards sprayed the pavement. Women screamed at the madman with desperate blue eyes and sparkling glass in his hair.
Surveying the chaos of people, cars, baggage and dollies, he plunged decisively into it as his pursuers rushed out. “Stop that man!” they shrieked as he dashed across the congested traffic lanes. Shots were fired into the air; people screamed all around him. The bedlam soon faded as he reached the last lane. There he spotted a party of nuns leaving their cab and dashed for it. “Get me out of here!” he yelled as he dove into the back seat.
The black cabbie studied him gasping on the floor, then saw the quick, hard glances of his pursuers working through the crowd. “Sneakin’ off without paying your fare, huh? Well if you ride with ole’ Jake here, you payin’. Otherwise we’re sittin.’ “
“I’ll pay! Now get me the fuck outta here!”
“Ummm, ummm,” Jake glanced in the mirror at his passenger, brushing glass from his hair. “I’m glad them ladies I just let off can’t hear the filth that’s coming from your mouth.” Scooting into the traffic now, he asked, “So where to?”
Breathing easier, he slumped back to study the thick traffic flowing from Logan. “The bus station.”
“Which one?”
He glared at the cabbie strangely. “The closest.”
“That’d be South Station.”
“Fine. Just hurry.”
“We’re almost there,” Jake nodded, taking the next exit, which deposited them in a district of ancient gray buildings huddled along shabby streets. “So what’d you do?”
“Not a goddamned thing - nothing illegal, anyway. Stupid maybe, but not illegal.”
“Right,” Jake smiled. Turning onto Atlantic Avenue, he pulled in front of South Station, two blocks later. “I hope things work out. But if not, don’t worry about me.” He grinned as Tyler greased his palm with two crisp hundred-dollar bills. “No sir, a crowbar couldn’t pry these lips apart.”
As the cab slipped back into the traffic, Tyler entered the dingy station, empty except for an old couple huddled in a corner with their shabby suitcases and a businessman browsing at the magazine rack. He glanced at the clock. His plane was now well into the southern skies and he was a fugitive who counted his freedom by the seconds, ones he must stretch into minutes, then hours, until reaching the frightened young woman a thousand miles away.
Smiling, he approached the clerk behind the counter. “I’d like a ticket on your next bus south.”
“South where?” she asked. Her teased red hair, helmet-shaped, framed a sharp, suspicious face.
“Anything south will do.” He reached for his wallet.
Annoyed by his vagueness, she keyed into her computer. “The sixty-seven to St. Louis leaves in ten minutes.”
“Too far west.”
“You just said south.” She keyed back into the computer. “The eighty-six to Atlanta leaves in twenty minutes.”
“Perfect,” he smiled. Paying for his ticket, he ducked into the waiting room crammed with travelers, their baggage and restless children clogging the aisles. A TV blared overhead. Avoiding the chaos, he drifted out to the boarding area. The St. Louis southbound soon left, taking a large chunk of the waiting room crowd. Through the glass he watched it fill again. How long until the Feds arrived?
Finally a patrol car drifted into the terminal. Turning towards the glass, he watched the two cops get out and talk with attendants. Were they looking for him or some local hood? One cop went inside to question the ticket clerk, returning a few minutes later to huddle with his partner. Then quickly they left.
The minutes crawled. Twenty were piled up and then added to. The waiting room overflowed again, the TV airing an ancient Leave it to Beaver. How long until a special news flash interrupted it? Tyler Waddill, Fugitive, complete with firm photo. His family would be horrified.
The eighty-six finally rumbled into the terminal. Passengers trickled off; their replacements scooped up baggage and straggled outside. Climbing aboard, he grabbed a window seat in back. Another ancient rerun played inside the empty waiting room. A wistful smile settled over his face as Sheriff Andy debated one of life’s infinite dilemmas with Deputy Barney, his homespun grin a classic contrast to Barney’s agitated strutting. There was something something safe and warm about Mayberry — and Castlewood. Home, that place which had slipped away so long ago, leaving him lost and drifting like a tumbleweed. Would he ever find his way back? He ached so badly for it now as the noisy terminal melted away...
Tyler, it’s time!
Lavinny’s baking project, he remembered now.
Come on, Tyler! Missing the beginning spoils the rest.
She meant their show, Andy Griffith.
Just remember it from last time.
It’s not the same. She jumped up, quickly disappearing down the tree house ladder.
She met him with a broad, Opie Taylor grin as he descended seconds later. Race ya? She nodded at the distant mansion.
She’d been there from the beginning, like the massive oak, the fading autumn sun, the mighty James River that sparkled in the east, like Castlewood looming before them. Come on, Tyler. Are ya chicken?
Her lilted voice had been there, too, skipping over the river breeze. He’d assumed it would always be there. ‘Course not. One... two... three. Go!
She won as always. But the margin was getting thinner. “Soon you’ll be flying past me,” she consoled him.
The race was forgotten as he remembered their mission. Come on! Dashing across the terrace, they burst through the French doors. The sweetly delicious scent greeted them as they flew down the broad hall and skidded finally into the kitchen. Lavinia, the Queen of Castlewood’s kitchen, was just pulling her cookies from the oven. Setting them on the counter, she glanced at their eager faces. Figgered you two’d be showin’ up about now. I guess you’ll be wantin’ to sample a few cookies ‘fore supper?
Just a dozen. He reached for the pan.
Dozen shucks! She swatted his hand. That many’d spoil your appetite and then your Mama would give me the dickens.
Then half a dozen. Please Lavinny! You’re the best damn cook in the world!
Damn nothing! She shook her finger at him. Where’d you be pickin’ up a word like that? Has Davis been ‘a cussin’ around you?
No, Lavinny... Schuyler. He says it all the time.
Don’t be callin’ your pappy ‘Schuyler.’ It’s disrespectful.
Like calling Mama Hunter Leigh?
Same thing, she nodded. It ain’t right.
He turned to his blond, blue-eyed companion. Lavinny is the best cook in the world, isn’t she, Kara?
The little girl nodded, The very, very, very... very best cook in the world!
Lavinny shook her head, You chilluns’ ain’t known no cook ‘cept me and Fannie Johnson over at the Randolph’s place. And Fannie tells me, Miss Kara, that when you two’s over there, you be tellin’ her the same fib every time she pulls one of her pecan pies out of the oven: Gosh, Fannie, you’re the best cook in the whole world! Her eyes narrowed, Only Master Tyler better not be sayin’ that cuss word over at your place.
Oh no, Lavinny, Kara shook her head. Never.
And I’m supposed to believe that? You two’d lie for each other on a stack of Bibles, high as Castlewood itself. A couple of hellions I been stuck with, while your mammies are playin’ Bridge over at that fancy club. Don’t hardly seem fair... Her hands dropped to her hips as a smile spread across her broad black face. Then came the rumble, next the quake, until finally her entire body shook with laughter. Lavinny was the fattest, jolliest, blackest woman he’d ever seen.
Still giggling, she waddled to the cupboard. You two chilluns! Your mammies brought you into this world the same weekend and you ain’t been pried apart since. You might as well be Siamese twins. Pouring milk into two glasses, she piled a plate high with cookies. I ‘spect one day you’ll get married and have your own chilluns; wouldn’t surprise no one, least of all me. Now shoo! She waved them out with their snack.
They ducked into the study where Davis, the King of Castlewood’s grounds, had started a fire to cut the autumn chill. Grabbing sofa pillows, they curled up on the carpet to watch Andy Griffith.
Do you think Lavinny’s right? Kara sipped her milk. About us getting married, I mean?
Heck, I don’t know. If keeping her around meant marrying her, he guessed he’d do it when the time came. After all this wasn’t his world. They’d discovered it together — Randolph Estates, the James, and Castlewood with its tree house, where they shared their most intimate thoughts.
Mary Glenn and Sally Hylton said that having a boyfriend is stupid, Kara confessed one day, her feet laced in new tennis shoes dangling next to his out the tree house door. He said, that’s because they’re pains in the asses. He’d heard the expression in a recent movie and felt it described irritating people better than any other he’d found. They’re just jealous because you can throw the football farther.
Tyler, they don’t care about that stuff.
He shrugged. Then what?
Dolls and things. Girl stuff.
You have dolls, he nodded at the pine chest.
No! They mean I should take my dolls to their houses and play dress- up.
Is that what you want? he asked.
No, silly, I just hate them being so snotty.
Weeks later, he confessed that John Giles and Mark Harrison had been disgusted to learn she could throw the football farther. Don’t worry, she consoled him. Remember when I said you’d soon win the race from the tree house? You win all the time now. The same thing will happen with football.
The low point of the second grade came when he bloodied Tommy Bradshaw’s nose and was sent home. He hadn’t told anyone the reason for his outburst, nor did it seem he’d tell her. Please, Tyler, she demanded again as they sat, legs dangling out the tree house door. Why did you hit Tommy?
Scowling, he ripped another acorn across the knoll. Because he’s a pain in the ass, that’s why!
The new spring leaves shivered as he crawled recklessly out onto the limb. Tyler, you’re scaring me, she shouted. What if you fell and died? Then what would I do?
As she began crying he quickly shimmied back across the limb. Kara, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I swear.
You also swore you’d never keep a secret. You broke that promise, too, by not telling me why you hit Tommy.
He returned inside the tree house. She joined him at the window, where they quietly surveyed their empire of forests, meadows and the sparkling James. Finally he turned: Tommy said a guy would never have a girl as his best friend unless she was a whore. He meant you, so I punched him.
She asked, What’s a whore?
I’m not sure. But the way Tommy said it, it must be bad.
This crisis had passed along with the others and they grew stronger, like trees in the forest, their vines weaving ever more securely around each other. Third grade slipped by; fourth came and then was gone, too. Summer rain beat again on the tree house roof as Kara spread her growing collection of colored glass across the floor. It had doubled with the recent finds at Nags Head, York and the James. And the Disney World trip still remained. Florida was full of beaches. Orlando must have a dozen, they’d decided.
He inspected the new glass, all sizes and shapes, their edges worn smooth from the sea’s gentle erosion. They’d drifted for years, he guessed, until the capricious tide had finally washed them ashore for Kara to find. Reds, greens, yellows, browns and the sparkling blues she prized most. We’ll get some off Hawaii’s beaches one day, he predicted. I bet they have the bluest glass in the world.
And Bermuda, she said as the rain pelted overhead. Only I bet the glass there is emerald-green, like the water. There’d been so many places to go and time was flying by. Fifth grade was added to the scrapbook, then the second Disney World trip. There’d been no beaches but so many other things it hadn’t mattered. Tyler, she said again. You bring those posters back from everywhere we go. Instead of stuffing them in that old footlocker, why not put them in nice frames and hang them on the wall?
Another year passed. The summer rain pelted the tree house roof again. I guess Lavinny was right, he said, watching her lay the new glass out. We’ll get married, only no kids. I’d like a golden retriever, though.
We’ll discuss children later. She’d always said that when she disagreed. And he could count on the subject slipping into a future conversation.
Seventh grade arrived and, as usual, she was right. Now he could throw the football farther, and run faster than anyone in their academy class. Told you so, she grinned with her new braces.
Kara, I have a new dream.
Don’t tell me until we reach the tree house. It’ll break the spell otherwise. Climbing the ladder, she dropped to the floor. Now let’s hear it.
I want to be a college quarterback like Uncle Frank.
Then you need to practice like him, too. You just remember the glory from his Thanksgiving stories. I remember the hard work.
Will you help me, Kara?
She hadn’t heard her, mind already fixed on how she would.
Eighth grade arrived. Tyler, I want to take piano lessons. Do you think that’s stupid?
He had until now, when he saw how much she wanted to. Of course not. Some of the smartest people in the world play the piano. And look, he held her hands up. You have great fingers. Only you’ll need more than talent and fingers. Hard work, I mean. Have Blair call Mrs. Harwood for the lessons. And tell her not to worry about you sticking to them. I’ll take care of that myself.
Tyler. Her eyes teared. I...
Yeah, he grinned. Me too.
Eighth, then ninth grade, were added to the scrapbook. Tyler, you really should hang those posters. I want people to see them. They’re pictures of our life together.
Tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades whizzed by in quick succession. He became a record-setting quarterback whose worst butterflies were on the nights of Kara’s piano recitals. She became an accomplished Tidewater pianist, who read music almost as well as the academy’s offensive game plans.
At some point in these hectic years, puberty quietly arrived to add yet another sweet dimension to their world. They’d been best friends, soul mates and on one moonlit Saturday night, finally lovers. Kara had been his first; the only one he’d ever wanted. Graduation arrived and they said good-bye to the academy without fanfare. There’d been no time to waste on misty-eyed reflection. College loomed next on the horizon — William and Mary. Tyler, should I try out for cheerleader?
Cheerleader, Hell. I need you focusing on the game.
But you’ll have coaches in the booth to follow the plays. This isn’t the academy. It’s the big-time.
Big-time or not, all those coaches together don’t have your eye for weaknesses in zone coverage.
He became the starting quarterback his sophomore year. Kara slipped away from their families to meet him as the team emerged from the locker room that first Saturday afternoon. We did it! Her eyes glowed proudly.
Thank you, he smiled back through his helmet bars.
Are you nervous? She asked.
Almost as much as that night you packed 500 people into the James River Art Center. You didn’t miss a note.
I missed several, she laughed. And I only packed 200. Tyler, watch the Blue Hens’ corners. They looked quick in warm ups. And number forty-one reads the play action very well.
Got it, he nodded. But not well enough, it turned out. Forty-one picked off his first pass that afternoon, a play action, and returned it for a touchdown. He’d done well, however, after that shaky start, finishing the year as the Conference’s second leading passer. William and Mary’s rebuilding year had proven a winning one that exceeded everyone’s expectations. They’d toasted it with champagne in their tree house, where the dream had been born. In all the years the spell had never been broken. There was no reason to believe it ever would be.
Life was sailing along like the James on a breezy day. Are we certain it’s law? she asked one summer afternoon at Castlewood. With two years of college behind him, it was time to choose a career.
Definitely he said, although it was anything but. He knew only that he didn’t want to work for his family’s shipbuilding company. People would look at him as royalty. He didn’t want that.
We have the summer to decide, she said.
I thought we just did. Law.
It’ll take hard work.
He smiled. You mean like piano and football?
They strolled along the riverbank as the sun faded in the crystal sky. This was their world, and this afternoon, the sweetest slice it had to offer. They couldn’t walk fifty feet without kissing or laughing. She chased him, then he chased her. Finally their shoes came off and the sandy shore snuck up, like cool marble, between their toes. Memories, their most special ones, spilled into the gentle breeze, her voice skipping beside him as always. Tyler, I’m so happy I could cuss! You’ve made my life one big, happy summer day...
How could they’ve known that midnight was almost upon them?
We’ll be married in Bruton Parish. She danced along with plans made years ago in the tree house, where dreams were born and spells never broken. The first June Saturday after graduation, Colonial Williamsburg will glitter in evening. The Church bells will ring for us as they did for Blair and Austin. Schuyler and Hunter Leigh. Our marriage will bond the Waddills and Randolphs for an eternity... And, she tugged him along, you agreed to children, don’t forget.
Lavinny’s prophecy, yes. Two, I said.
We’ll discuss it later.
You want more than two?
Ending the discussion with a kiss, she dashed down to wriggle her toes in the surf. Joining her, he caught the sun’s dying glow in her eyes. He’d never seen her more at peace, her smile so content as she gazed at the river. I’m envisioning you in a courtroom one day, she said.
How do I look?
Brilliant; handsome. Honey, are you sure you don’t want the shipyard position with Schuyler?
I’m sure.
Me too, she grinned. I just want you to be happy with the decision and never look back with regret.
Life’s too interesting to look back.
And fast, she added.
He first noticed the black mole on her back one August afternoon when they were out on the river in their Sunfish. At Castlewood later, he’d shown it to her in the mirror. It’s probably nothing, but I’d see Dr. Thomas just to make sure.
He left for football training camp the next day; she went to her dermatologist. The lab report came back Friday. It’s malignant melanoma. She called him with the terrible news. Dr. Thomas is putting me in the hospital... The line cracked with her tears. Tyler, he thinks it might’ve spread!
He left camp that night and stayed with her until Tuesday, when the test results came back. The cancer had spread. Kara was going to die.
I’ll quit school.
You will not! she ordered. Tyler, you’ll make All-Conference this year. I won’t hear another word.
So he played the best damn football of his life — for her. She attended the games as long as she could. Looking back for the first time in his life, he remembered. It was worse than hell, something that couldn’t be described as he drove the dark, desolate road between Williamsburg and Randolph Estates, a thousand times, in a thousand tearful storms.
Do you remember when you bloodied Tommy Bradshaw’s nose? She looked so frail lying on the porch lounge. She’d come home to spend her final days. The autumn afternoon was crisp, the sun wickedly bright. You crawled out on that limb rather than tell me why you hit him. It scared me so bad, I cried. I said if you ever left me...
You never finished that thought.
I will now. She gazed deeply into his eyes. I’d find the strength, no matter how difficult, to go on. I’d do it, because I’d know you wanted me to.
It was a lie and they both knew it. A lazy smile settled over her face now. I’ll never forget our first Barnum and Bailey circus. The instant we went into the arena, your eyes popped out of your head. The lights, the elephants, and of course the clowns. She squeezed his hand with fading strength. You always loved them best — except that first time. Do you remember?
Her hair was like golden silk in his fingers. Of course he remembered. He was drowning in memories. Those pain-in-the-ass clowns, he smiled. They sprayed everyone with seltzer and tripped over their big, floppy shoes. But I never expected their guns to make such a hellacious noise.
She laughed. You dove under the bleachers, your fingers jammed in your ears. A tow truck couldn’t have pulled you out.
But I loved them the next year.
And every one after that. You loved the clowns best, Tyler, you always did.
No, he loved Kara best. Remember the first Redskins game at RFK?
We were twelve, she smiled. And the first Super Bowl? Pasadena, the blimp, the balloons?
And a Redskins championship. He sighed. You knew the name, number, and bio of every player. You loved football more than any girl alive. You loved everything I did.
I loved you. She squeezed his hand. The rest was a piece of cake.
I never thought I’d like the piano, he smiled. But I did — every time you played.
The week before she died, he carried her up Castlewood’s tree house ladder for the last time. It was another sparkling afternoon, the sun’s glow stretching over miles of meadows, forest and the timeless James. Standing quietly at the window, arms folded, she gazed at it all for the last time. The sunlight transformed her hair into flowing honey. It always did. Our empire, she exclaimed. It was a joyous reign. I leave it now in your capable... Turning at his sudden outburst, she rushed to embrace him.
Kara, I can’t imagine one minute without you! He cried. How can I face an hour, a day...
Tyler, promise me you’ll find the strength to go on, that you’ll be happy again and never, ever, look back. Night was finally falling over their happy summer day. He buried his face in her perfume-scented hair. L’Air Du Temps. He’d never want to smell it again.
Tyler, if I’m to leave this world, and it seems that I am very soon, then I have to know that the part of me remaining behind will try to be happy. Now please, promise me.
He did, knowing it would be impossible.
Days later, at the hospital, she faded away in his arms. Her mother, Blair, gave him the note she’d written the night before. It was crisp, sweet, like Kara:
Tyler,
Just remember we were great together and that I always loved you. No matter where I am, please remember that. And your promise, too... Oh, and if the Redskins ever win another Super Bowl, drink a toast for me. I’ll be watching. All my love, Honey. Your Kara, Forever.
Not his Kara, but his world. And she died November 12th, six years ago, yesterday. He’d died the same day, his soul left behind in her hospital room. The man who’d walked out may have looked and talked the same, but he was an imposter. Then how did he explain the new thoughts clanking in his head, this fresh trickle of feeling? Why did he care suddenly if the next minute came, and even more, what it might hold? But he did, as the bus’s engine now roared to life. Glancing back through the glass, he froze at the special news flash, not the one expected but another. Its ominous specter gripped him as the bus crept away: President Thomas Longbridge, with his new Supreme Court nominee, a beaming Greg Lamp.
He was left with hours on the road to consider the announcement’s implications. Lamp would join Mann and Falkingham on the nation’s highest court, after weathering the storm of a bitter Senate confirmation. And it would be bitter; the liberals would see to that. But Lamp’s friends’ confirmations had been bitter, too, and they’d survived. There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t as well.
He’d be on the Court in time for the spring’s explosive cases. Never had so many critical issues been presented in one term. The Court could literally rewrite the Constitution. It was all there: abortion, church and state, gun control, censorship, the death penalty. The Bill of Rights from A to Z. What could conceivably emerge were the blueprints of a new Christian State. A document once hailed as revolutionary in its championing of liberty could quickly become a manual for the good Christian soldier. Longbridge wanted it as did his alter ego, Harrington, and the millions of people and dollars backing the CMA. And with Lamp creating the majority it needed, the Court could deliver. Wasn’t that the plan? If so, what had it cost? And what had threatened it — Morris Mendelsohn? Had his death eliminated the threat? Or would someone else have to be eliminated?
He stopped before asking the next question. He’d much rather watch the Connecticut countryside slip by. The motion was satisfying, the sense of direction. Each mile carried him closer to Mayson. Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport all passed and suddenly he was back in New York, where the day from hell had begun. His stomach lurched. Boston had been a camp; New York was headquarters.
A small battalion of Blues and Dark Suits was waiting when the bus arrived at the Manhattan station. He spotted them in the crowd, their hard glares focused on the departing passengers, the arrivals ignored. No fugitive returned to the place he escaped from. How about passing through?
Grabbing their bags, passengers shuffled off the bus. Others soon herded up the aisle to replace them, throwing baggage into overhead compartments and filling the vacated seats. Finally the bus continued its journey south. The Holland Tunnel was passed before he realized he’d never been to Brooklyn. Never seen it, except as part of an infinite gray skyline. He wasn’t much on sights, unless they were connected with people. And Mayson had grown up there. Castlewood, Brooklyn - two different worlds. But how different?
The bus reached I-95. Newark loomed. And then... “This lawyer’s nomination was a real shocker, huh?” The voice belonged to the burly man in front of him, as did the neck pimples and pocked oily skin. It wasn’t a pretty inventory.
“Not being a judge may be the best thing going for him,” his blond, fair-skinned companion mused, his nose in the Times. “Lamp knows his way around the legal world, though. National Bar President. Lieber Allen partner.”
Despite their contrasting appearances, the pair wore matching red windbreakers and crisp new Yankees caps. Vacationers, he decided.
“Lieber Allen,” Pimple nodded. “Isn’t that the Jew lawyer’s firm? You know, the one murdered by the pretty WOP girl? I’m sure it’s the same. She’s still on the run.”
“So is another young lawyer in the firm.” The blond flipped the page. “I caught the report while you were getting your Snickers. He disappeared in Boston this morning.”
“No kidding? Another WOP, I bet.”
“Not this one. A big blond kid, and rich, they said.”
“What’s the kid rich from?” Pimple asked.
“Shipbuilding, they said.”
“Lotta money in shipbuilding. Damn Cawthorn, you got one head for details.”
Tyler watched Cawthorn’s eyes lift to the window. How good was he with faces? He’d find out the first time the man turned around.
“Longbridge shut those reporters up when they asked Lamp about the murder case,” Cawthorn said.
“Yeah?” Pimple munched on his second Snickers. “Well, he won’t be able to shut up those bleeding heart Senators.”
“Lamp’s certainly one of those card-carrying CMA freaks. Longbridge wouldn’t have appointed him otherwise.”
“Harrington, that self-righteous prick,” Pimple announced. “He’s got Longbridge by the balls.’”
They soon reached the Baltimore station, the pair’s stop. His eyes dropped as they rose, chattering about their Chesapeake Bay fishing trip. Pimple grabbed his suitcase from the overhead; Cawthorn stretched, then grabbed his bag too as they joined the straggling exodus. He counted a dozen seconds before looking up, right into Cawthorn’s eyes. The blond froze, then grabbing his forgotten Times, hurried down the aisle.
Tyler spotted the pair seconds later in the boarding area as Cawthorn pointed at the bus’s rear windows. He’d made the connection. Pimple’s dismissing paw explained that he hadn’t. Scowling, Cawthorn started through the crowd. Was he safe or not, Tyler wondered, as the bus crept from the station?
Washington, then Richmond were eclipsed on I-95’s fast track. The North Carolina border slipped by with his thoughts still in Virginia, at Castlewood, where his family had learned the shocking news and were floundering in a darkness his note would do little to illuminate. Six o’clock arrived and he envisioned Mayson beginning to wonder if the only person she trusted had let her down. Intending to call first in Raleigh, then Charlotte, he found both stations crawling with police and didn’t dare use his cell phone.
At ten, the bus rumbled finally into the Columbia, South Carolina station which looked like all the others, except for the absence of cops. Leaving the bus, he went inside, first to the rest-room, then the coffee shop where he bought a sandwich and coke. Returning to the boarding area, he spotted a phone booth and quickly slipped inside.
“Tyler Waddill, for the third time! New York issued a fugitive warrant for him this afternoon. The reason you haven’t heard is because you’ve been driving all day.”
Glancing across the platform, Tyler found the trooper on the Atlanta southbound’s steps, a second pacing the aisle inside. At the wheel the driver muttered something to which the trooper replied, “This is the Eighty-six, right? And you just said you stopped in Boston this morning where Waddill disappeared. What time did you arrive?” As the driver offered another inaudible reply, the trooper accommodated with a translation. “Eleven? Then that means Waddill had time to board your bus, the same ridden by Cawthorn and his companion. Cawthorn identified Waddill as the passenger sitting behind them.” Again the driver shrugged, muttered. To which the trooper snapped, “The report didn’t say what they were wearing, but being from New York it’s not surprising they’d have on Yankees caps. Then you do remember them?”
Frowning, Tyler put the phone back as the trooper’s voice sharpened, “Yes ladies, then you’re sure? And you, sir?” He caught something now being passed up the aisle: a picture. Had he just been identified?
The second trooper got off the bus and quickly started across the crowded platform. “Steve, make it a dozen units!” his partner shouted. “If Waddill did get off, he couldn’t have gotten far, but I’d sure hate to screw this one up.”
Watching the trooper enter the terminal, Tyler grabbed his dinner and slipped from the booth. Drifting along the crowd’s edge, he quickly vanished into the shadows. Patrol cars streaked past on the dark street, then minutes later, the Atlanta southbound, minus one passenger. Midnight and he was stranded in Columbia, South Carolina, closer to... No, Naples was closer. No place was further away than Castlewood now.