Five

The next morning I got up before Tracy and put on some clothes before going downstairs. I padded around the condo for a bit, just checking it out. I hadn’t seen much of it when we had both arrived last night. There was a nice kitchen area right off the front door, which expanded into a living room. Upstairs was a bathroom, the bedroom, and another bedroom converted into an office.

I poked around the kitchen and at some point Tracy came down, yawning. She had on a nice thigh-length shiny red robe with a dragon emblazoned on the back, like it was made for hot samurai warriors.

“You’re up early,” she said. “I’m not sure if I like you anymore.”

“I made breakfast,” I said.

“All right,” she said. “You’ve got a reprieve.”

Along with coffee and orange juice, there were fresh blueberry pancakes and bacon. Both the bacon and the blueberries had been frozen but I had adapted and overcome those particular challenges. There was a breakfast nook off the kitchen with a nice view of the condominium’s common forest. She sat down and said, “This is a pleasant change.”

“Thanks.”

She poured some maple syrup on her pancakes. “In more ways than one.” Tracy looked up at me, winked. “Last night … well done, sir.”

“Gosh, I think I’m blushing.”

“You should, you brute. And another thing … breakfast. Most men I’ve dated in the past have all lied about their professions.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “They told me they were lawyers or salesmen or doctors … and when their sweet O had passed on, they all transformed themselves into farmers.”

“How did they do that?”

“They all said they had to leave right away because they had to get up early the next day.”

“Then they missed seeing you in the morning, and sharing the most important meal of the day.”

“Very funny,” she said, and we both continued to break our morning fast. But when she moved around in her seat, the robe opened some, and opened some more, and then I took her hand, led her into the living room and decided to make a close inspection of the couch.

Tracy was on her side, catching her breath, the robe still on but failing in its duty to cover her curvy body. I brought over our breakfast beverages and she eagerly drank the orange juice, and then lay back down on the couch with a sigh, holding a coffee cup.

I sat across from her on a round padded footstool, also holding a coffee cup.

“I’m going to be late for work.”

“I thought you worked for yourself,” I said.

“I do. And my boss is a bitch on wheels.”

I smiled at her, put the coffee cup down on a—wait for it—coffee table. “I need to check something out with you.”

“What, lunch plans?”

“No, not that. I need to know who was in that house three days ago, the one on Timberswamp Road.”

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” Tracy said. “Nobody was in that house three days ago.”

“Correction,” I said. “I was there. With a coworker. Meeting with a man and a woman. The man shot my coworker and killed him. An upstairs window was also destroyed, bullets were discharged in the second-floor office, and a body was left there was well.”

Tracy’s face paled with fear and she quickly rearranged her robe, covering her impressive breasts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “And I don’t mean to threaten you, but I’d like to point out that you’re about three feet away from me, and I don’t see a Taser or firearm in sight.”

She shot back, “And all I see is a naked, well-muscled man sitting across from me with some interesting scars.”

“I’m not armed in the usual sense,” I said. “Keep that in mind.”

“Did you call the police three days ago?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not? Jesus Christ, if something like that had happened to me, dialing 911 would have been the first thing I would have done.”

“If I had done that, the second thing that would have been done would be me getting arrested. And number three would be me dying in a holding cell, by something made to look like suicide.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Tracy said, voice light. “I’d like for you to leave.”

“You got it,” I said. “You never have to fear me, at any time.”

She sat up on the couch. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

I stood up, picked up my coffee cup. “I mean that something happened at that house. Gunfire, body removed, window replaced, house tidied up. Somebody chose that house for its purpose that day. That means someone did some research, located the house, found out it was uninhabited, and got keys for the place. This same someone also did a quick and efficient repair in under a day, to put everything back in its place, so it looked untouched.”

I went to the breakfast nook, picked up our breakfast dishes. “That means money being exchanged, work being done, somebody eventually noticing. Maybe somebody in the neighborhood, or somebody in your real estate company. In any event, did you tell anybody about our meeting?”

“Just Patrick, the office manager,” she said. “I told him I was meeting a potential buyer for the property.”

“Did you tell anybody afterwards?”

“No.”

“Good,” I said. “Keep it that way. You tell Patrick that the license plate you ran yesterday was a mistake, it was some dumb lost tourist. The buyer never showed up. Do the usual bitching and moaning.”

“You’re scaring me,” she said from the couch.

“Good,” I said. “So be careful out there.”

Five minutes later, after getting dressed, I quickly went back downstairs to the kitchen. Tracy was washing the dishes, robe carefully put back into place, and I helped with the drying. She kept quiet and I did the same, but her face seemed calm, not that set face with a permanent frown indicating You Are In The Doghouse.

When the dishes were put away and the wash towels hung up, she turned around and leaned back against the near counter.

“Here it is,” she said. “This has been … an interesting encounter, my nameless friend.”

“Same here.”

“You were telling the truth back there, about the gunshots and your dead friend?”

“Coworker,” I said. “Yes, that was the truth.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“The stuff that takes place in the shadows, between the cracks, outside of the normal arena.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Sometimes. But it’s also well paying.”

I waited, seeing how she would respond. Then she crossed her arms. “What’s it like? Meaning … ninety-nine percent of guys are out there every morning, doing the same stuff, day after day, working out of cubicles and going to budget planning meetings, passing papers back and forth, on the phone, selling or buying. Being a lawyer or a doctor or a manager. Part of the huge cogs that run this gorgeous society.”

“I get to set my own hours, for one,” I said. Then I smiled. “And I meet the most interesting people.”

“And do you kill them?”

It seemed a serious question.

“Only when they’ve been bad and hurt my feelings.”

“And you’re after someone because they killed your friend?”

“No. A coworker.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. If he’s just a coworker, why not go to the police?”

“Because then I couldn’t be what I want to be. If the police ever got interested in me, then my work would be over.”

“But still … a coworker … if he’s not your friend, why are you making the effort to find the killer alone?”

I said, “You ever see that old movie The Maltese Falcon, with Humphrey Bogart?”

“Sure, a long time ago. Sam Spade. The fat guy. Black and white movie. The black falcon.”

“His partner got killed at the very beginning of the movie. Later on, Sam Spade explains it all, why he goes after the killer. I don’t know it by heart, but watch it again. You’ll understand.”

She crossed her arms, kept a hand tight around the collar of her robe. “I’ll be back at work today,” she said. “At some point … you’re right, word might get around. About a window being repaired, some quick work being done at a house. Something being seen on Timberwsamp Road. If I hear that, I want to tell you.”

“No, you don’t,” I said.

“No one’s told me what to do since I divorced the misbegotten man that was my husband for a number of miserable years,” she said. “Give me an email address, a phone number, something so I can safely pass along what I might find out.”

From the refrigerator and among the various magnets and knickknacks was an attached pad of paper. At the top of it said GROCERY LIST. She had written milk OJ eggs carrot stix.

I tore off the sheet, grabbed a pen, and wrote down the number of one of my burner phones reserved for incoming calls that weren’t part of my normal—or what passed for my normal—day-to-day business.

“There you go,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Why do you want to help me out?”

She smiled back. “Part of what I like in the real estate business is also meeting interesting people.” With that, she folded up the piece of memo paper and set it on the counter. “You need to leave now?”

“Well, I was thinking of it,” I said. “Those fields won’t plow themselves.”

Tracy’s smile grew naughtier as she undid the top of her robe. “Funny you should mention plowing.”

Just over an hour later I was back home in Litchfield, having had a quiet drive from Vermont to New Hampshire. I was feeling relaxed, loosey-goosey, and I was happy at what I had achieved. True, it would have been nice to have stormed that motel and settled accounts with George and Beth, but I had some potential leads. My account with Beth was now settled, and I hoped her fingerprints would lead me to George, or at least someone who had hired the two of them, and whoever else was helping them.

In addition, I had an ally back there in enemy territory, willing to be a listening post for me, and by now, the Vermont State Police were no doubt crawling all over the crime scene back at the Chester Motel. If luck swung my way, maybe they could uncover some strands of Beth’s life and make it public, which could lead me to George and a very interesting and final meeting.

I pulled into my driveway, got out, and waved once more to my neighbor Clem Houston, who was diligently trimming the grass around the base of a granite lamppost set up at the end of his own driveway.

I unlocked the door, got in, and after checking all my telltale signs and determining no one or nothing had made its way into my house, I went upstairs to take a shower.

In my bedroom I stripped off my clothes, carefully removed the water glass from the Chester Motel, and put my Sig-Sauer pistol and its accompanying leather holster on top of the bedroom bureau. I switched on the television to the History Channel—sometimes I like background noise in my home and occasionally, the History Channel will stun me and air a program that has something to do with history instead of UFOs and pawn stars—and strolled into the bathroom.

At the sink I retrieved my toothbrush and Colgate toothpaste, and glanced up at the mirror. I saw a tired yet handsome face—prejudiced, I know—that needed a good shave. I also saw the shower curtain behind me.

The closed shower curtain.

After I finished brushing my teeth and spitting into the sink, I said, “You standing in the bathtub. If you wanted me dead, you would have shot me by now. So let’s stop playing around, and we can talk.”

I turned and waited, and the curtain suddenly flew open, revealing an attractive slim blond woman, several years younger than me, wearing black slacks, a black jacket, and a plain ivory-buttoned blouse. She had a thin gold chain around her neck, and her face was very serious, indeed. I couldn’t see what she had on her feet, but her fingernails were done in a nice bright red polish, nicely offsetting the metallic black of the pistol she was pointing at me, a 9mm Glock.

“You’re naked,” she said.

“You’re quite observant,” I said. “Look, this must be some sort of mistake. If you were hired to jump out of my tub and sing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ while stripping out of that nice up-and-coming business exec suit, then you’ve got the wrong house and the wrong man. My birthday’s not for another three months.”

“I have the right person,” she said, voice cold. “Up with your hands.”

“For sure?” I asked, lifting up my hands.

“For sure.”

“All right, my hands are up. What now?”

She said, “You know Clarence Briggs?”

“I know lots of people.”

“Don’t fuck with me, bud,” she said. “I’m with the FBI, Boston field office.”

“May I have some identification please?” I asked.

“You’ll get it when I’m good and ready.”

“You’ve got one heck of an attitude.”

She said, “I haven’t even started. Now let’s get back to why I’m here. You know Clarence Briggs?”

“I think you already know the answer to that question. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“Humor me.”

I kept quiet, arms still up, still naked, and the FBI woman still in my bathtub. I’ve had some interesting experiences in my life as an independent contractor, but this one was definitely among the top five.

I kept my mouth shut. She was impatient. “All right, humor me and the fact I’m pointing a pistol at you.”

“Yes, I know Clarence Briggs.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

I said, “Ma’am … if I may, I’m getting cold. You might notice a certain appendage of mine is shrinking. Could we adjourn for a moment or two while I get dressed?”

“No.”

“Ma’am, even though you’ve not yet told me your name, I promise that I will answer all of your questions if you allow me to get dressed. Or do you plan to put a bag over my head and send me on a plane to Gitmo?”

“It’s a thought,” she said. The pistol still didn’t waver.

I stayed still.

“All right,” she said. “This is how we’re going to do it. You’re going to keep your arms up. You’re going to slowly back away. I’m going to be right in front of you. Anything funny happens while you wrap a towel around you, I’ll shoot. I promise I’ll do my best to shoot you in a leg or arm. But don’t count on it. Did I make myself clear?”

“As clear as glass,” I said.

“Okay.” A motion with the pistol. “Get moving.”

I slowly rotated so I could back out without hitting the bathroom sink and vanity, and started backing toward the door. I moved slowly and deliberately, and I also moved to the right so I would be out of the FBI agent’s view.

As expected, she didn’t like that, and started to step out of the tub. When her left foot was lifted up and she started to move over the side of the tub, that’s when I leapt forward and shoved her. Off balance, her right foot popped up and she fell back with an emphatic oof! In the tangle and tussle, I grabbed her pistol, stepped away, and for good measure, turned on the shower.

She shrieked as the water struck her. I grabbed a towel and secured it around my waist, and then examined her pistol. It was a Glock all right. I popped the magazine, worked the action, ejected the shell, and scooped it up from the bathroom floor. I replaced the cartridge into the magazine and slipped it back into the Glock.

The FBI agent got to her feet and turned off the shower. She glared at me, her blond hair a tangled mess around her face, her clothes sopping wet.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” she said.

“In some circumstances, yes,” I said. I went to the bathroom closet, opened it up, retrieved a light blue terrycloth robe. I draped it over the bathroom vanity.

“I’m going out to get dressed,” I said. “Feel free to dry yourself off and put on the robe, and then we’ll have a nice open talk. Like two reasonable adults should. How does that sound?”

“Considering you’ve got my fucking gun pointing at me, it doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice.”

I put her pistol on top of the robe, then retrieved my own Sig-Sauer. “There you go. See? No hard feelings.”

That caused her to pause. She rubbed at her soaked arms. “Why the hell are you doing this?”

“Because as one, I admire a bullshit artist. I’ll see you downstairs.”

I got dressed in my adjacent bedroom, putting on blue jeans, a light gray UNH sweatshirt—not that I ever attended, but it’s nice to fit in with the neighborhood—and then went downstairs. I moved around the kitchen some and then my FBI agent came down, hair somewhat dry, wearing my robe, and also wearing one pissed-off expression. She had her pistol in her right hand, and I got the faintest whisper that maybe I had just been too trusting, but she came into the kitchen and made a prominent point of putting the pistol into the right pocket of the robe.

It made that side of the robe sag, but I decided not to comment on this obvious fashion faux pas. As she came in, eyes cold and hard, I said, “It’s past noon, and my body is telling me it’s time for lunch. I have fresh pastrami and sliced turkey, the usual additions if you’re interested in a sandwich. If not, I have a container of fresh soup with tomato, veggies, and noodles. It’s the best I’ve ever had.”

“Did you make it?”

“I’ve many skills, but soup making isn’t one of them. No, I got a couple of containers from the nice French-Canadian couple next door, the one with the white German shepherd on the front lawn.”

“Why?” she said, sitting down on a wooden kitchen stool. “You shoot coyotes in their back yard?”

“No,” I said. “Two years ago, the missus over there went into labor on the proverbial dark and stormy night. Instead of waiting for an ambulance to arrive, I drove her and her husband to the hospital, about twenty minutes before their daughter entered the world.”

“You think doing things like that balances out the other shit you do?”

“I can only hope,” I said. “You ready to place your lunch order?

“No,” she said.

“Okay, let’s try this. You took a mighty tumble back there in my tub. How’s your head and back? You need an Ibuprofen or something?”

“I didn’t take a mighty tumble, you pushed me.”

“Not to sound like we’re both back in grade school, but if you recall, you started it,” I said.

She glared at me. “I want to know what you said back there, about knowing I was a bullshit artist. What the fuck did you mean by that?”

I opened the refrigerator, double-checked my lunch supplies. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Enlighten me,” she said.

I closed the refrigerator door. “Oh, come now. FBI agents never go out on their own to conduct an interview with a possibly dangerous suspect. It’s against procedure. It’s just not done.”

“Did I say you were dangerous?”

“You were in my bathroom, pointing a weapon at me. That’s a pretty good indication of what you were thinking. Plus you were waiting for me there, behind the shower curtain, because if I’m in the bathroom, I’m going to be vulnerable. I’m going to be taking a shower or using the toilet, which gives you a clear advantage. Which meant you planned to come in here by yourself, without backup. So who the hell are you?”

“I’m FBI.”

“Oh, please.”

“My ID’s upstairs, in my slacks, hanging over a shower rod.”

“All right, then. I will admit you’re skilled.” I leaned over my center kitchen counter. “You got in here without me noticing any of my telltales being disturbed. Not bad.”

“It was pretty simple,” she said. “I got in through the front door.”

“Your lock picking skills are pretty good,” I said. “That particular lock was designed by a locksmith who said it was nearly unpickable.”

“And my research into you and the locksmith you used four years back are even better,” she said. “It’s amazing what information and what keys will be made when certain pressures are applied, especially if you’ve invited the IRS to join in the fun.”

That got my attention. I hadn’t thought about that happening, and I don’t like being surprised.

“I try not to be cynical, but ma’am, you are doing your part to keep me cynical,” I said. “Now. Care to tell me your name, even without showing me your ID?”

“Carla Pope,” she said.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Hunh,” she said. “Care to tell me your name?”

“Why should we get into that? You’ve obviously done your research.”

“True,” she said. “Which means you’ve slid through life using a half dozen or so different names. Impressive.”

“Thanks, Carla. Or should I say Special Agent Pope?”

“Call me anything you like, but answer my damn question. Where is Clarence Briggs?”

“And where’s your warrant?”

“Somewhere.”

“I return to my earlier bullshit artist observation. You’re off the reservation for some reason. No warrant, acting on your own, not even letting the local police forces in on your little break-in. So what’s going on?”

“I’m looking for Clarence Briggs. Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

That made me pause for a moment. What kind of game was she playing? I wasn’t sure, but I knew I was currently playing a deadly game out there with George, the partner of the now-dead Beth.

Maybe it was time to expand the playing field.

“Three days ago, in Chester, Vermont.”

She perked up at that.

“What were the two of you doing there?”

“My job.”

“Yeah, your job. You’re some sort of go-between, or negotiator, or some sort of slimy slug that helps people get rid of stolen goods.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“And how did the job go there, in Chester?”

“Lousy,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it ended up getting Clarence Briggs shot and killed.”

Carla froze after I said that.

Something worked in her face, and she sighed. “Tell me again your lunch options?” the FBI woman said.