Seventh Enemy (23 page)

Was there anybody else I could think of who’d want to shoot me?

I tried to make a joke of it. I mentioned Gloria.

The cop looked up and frowned at me.

I told him I was kidding.

He said he supposed they’d go outside and look around.

I suggested that he should contact Lieutenant Horowitz at 1010 Commonwealth Avenue.

The cop looked at me sharply.

I told him Horowitz was a friend of mine. He shrugged and asked how he could get ahold of me in case they needed to talk to me again.

I gave him my card.

The two cops left.

Diana and I sipped coffee at her kitchen table. “Are you all right?” she said.

“Yes. How about you?”

She shrugged.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Then she said, “I was thinking…

“Howard?”

She looked at me and nodded. “First Walter, now you. You were with me.”

“Where does he live?”

“Out in Westwood.”

“Why don’t you call him?”

“What will I say?”

“It’s about a forty-five-minute drive from here. If he’s there…”

She nodded. She stood up and picked up the kitchen phone. She pecked out a number from memory, then shifted with the telephone wedged against her ear and gazed at the ceiling. After a long minute she hung up. She looked at me. “No answer.” she said.

I shrugged. “All it means is that he’s not home.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I just can’t believe it.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “It just means he’s not home.”

I finished my coffee. Diana walked me to the door. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. I kissed her forehead. “Wally once mentioned to me that you knew Senator Swift.”

“Chip Swift? Sure. I worked with him on a bill he was sponsoring. It was pretty exciting, actually At the time, it helped me get my mind off Howard. We got the bill passed and Chip had a big party for all of us who had worked on it at his place down in Marshfield.” She looked up at me and frowned. “Why? Why are you asking about Chip?”

I touched her arm and smiled quickly. “Nothing, really. I just wondered.”

I took a cab back to my apartment. Alex had left a message on my machine. She said, “Oh well. Guess you’ve got a date tonight. Too bad.”

I poured myself two fingers of Daniel’s, no ice, and took it out onto my balcony.

Wally had been shot once, not fatally. He could have been killed, but all the other shots had missed him. A wounded man lying on the ground would make an unmissable target for an assassin bent on murder.

Marlon Swift hadn’t been hit at all.

Neither had I.

Whoever had fired at me had stood somewhere across the street, no more than fifty feel from me. He had shot the window out of a ear, missing me by several feet. He was either the world’s worst marksman, or his intention was not to kill me. And if it wasn’t murder—then what was it?

No answers came to me out there in the night air.

Maybe my turn had come and gone. He hadn’t tried to finish off Wally. As far as I knew, he hadn’t taken another crack at Chip Swift. Maybe no murders would happen. Maybe this man with the gun was just working his way down the SAFE list trying to scare the shit out of his enemies.

In that case, the shooter had achieved his goal. He
had
scared the shit out of me.

I went inside and called Horowitz’s number. He wasn’t there. I asked to be patched through to him and was told he was unavailable, would I like to leave a message. “Tell Lieutenant Horowitz that Brady Coyne called,” I said. “Tell him that the guy who shot Walt Kinnick took a crack at me and missed.”

I disconnected, then called Alex. It rang several times before her muffled voice said, “H’lo?”

“It’s me. You were sleeping.”

I heard her yawn. “Yup. You okay?”

“Sure. I’m fine.”

“Miss me?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow, ’kay?”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said. “Sleep tight.”

“You, too, sweetie.”

M
Y DREAMS WERE JUMBLED
and vivid and continuous. When I awakened on Sunday morning, though, I could only remember one of them. I was wrestling in the woods with Bobby Farraday. It was night and the ground was muddy and a flock of crows perched on the low limbs above us. The crows didn’t make any noises. They had their heads cocked down and they watched us with their shiny black eyes. Bobby seemed much stronger than me, and I didn’t fight back. I just lay there and let him twist my arms and legs. It didn’t hurt me at all. I kept wanting to ask him why he was trying to hurt me, but I couldn’t seem to speak. Bobby didn’t say anything at all in my dream.

Bobby Farraday was a kid I’d known in grammar school. We hadn’t been friends. He was a frail, somber boy, frequently absent. When the rest of us frolicked on the playground during recess, Bobby would sit and watch us with his round sad eyes. He died of leukemia sometime in the summer after fourth grade. I hadn’t had a conscious thought of Bobby Farraday for more than thirty years.

Sunday was a brilliant May day. It would be wasted if I didn’t take myself fishing. But the Bobby Farraday dream lingered. It was a death dream, of course. One might logically expect to have a death dream or two after hearing a volley of gunshots whiz overhead on a quiet Cambridge street.

And somewhere on the fringe of my consciousness, I was aware that there were other, deeper levels to my dream. I struggled to decipher it. But try as I would, its meaning eluded me. It made me feel edgy and vaguely depressed, and it dampened my enthusiasm for fishing.

Horowitz called a little before eleven. “What the hell happened last night?” he said.

I told him.

“I got a call from the Cambridge cops,” he said. “They called it an alleged shooting.”

“It wasn’t alleged,” I said. “It happened. There were two witnesses.”

“The only thing they came up with was a broken windshield on an old Chevrolet.”

“No empty cartridges?”

“Nope.” He paused, and I heard his bubble gum snap. “Listen, Coyne,” he said. “Your name has been popping up around here lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“For one thing, this goddam Secret Service agent was asking questions.”

“They were following me,” I said. “Not doing a particularly good job of it, either.”

Horowitz laughed. “Yeah, I heard you made one of ’em. Of course, they’d been on your tail for a few days by then. They dropped you.”

“I figured they did. Otherwise they would have witnessed an assassination attempt.”

“On you,” he said. “Right. Anyway. I also got a call from a certain state senator, and—”

“What state senator?”

“I think you know, Coyne.”

“Swift?”

“None other. He told me all about it, on account of you told him I could be trusted, which I can, though I don’t like playing these fucking games. Both Swift and this female agent tell me you suggested they give me a jingle. Then this thing last night.”

“And?”

“And nothing, if you mean do we know who’s taking potshots at SAFE enemies. Far as I know he took a whack at numbers one and two and then moved on to number seven which, as you know, is you. Doesn’t look like he wants to tangle with big-name politicians. You got any ideas?”

I hesitated for a moment, then said, “Well, I can give you the name of someone with a motive to shoot at Walt Kinnick, and maybe at me.”

“But no motive to shoot a state senator, huh?”

I hesitated. “Maybe him, too.”

“Who is it?”

“His name is Howard West. He’s the estranged husband of Walt’s lady friend.”

“A stalker type, huh?”

“Maybe. Yes.”

“Okay,” said Horowitz, “that would certainly explain Kinnick. But why would he shoot at you and Swift?”

“He saw me and Diana having dinner together. And Diana used to work with the senator and went to a party at his house. If West is really crazy jealous…”

“Hm,” said Horowitz. “That’s a motive, I guess. What about means and opportunity?”

“I don’t know. He was in Cambridge last night. He saw me and the lady together.”

“Where’s this guy live, do you know?”

“Westwood. But—”

“But what?”

“But I guess I still think SAFE is behind it.”

“Yeah,” said Horowitz. “Probably. Still, I guess we ought to check this Howard West out.”

“What about protecting other people on that list?”

“On the basis of what?”

“Three of them have been shot at already.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Be nice if we could protect everybody. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. You’re not having any other useful thoughts, are you?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m having thoughts.”

“Well?”

“They’re pretty vague,” I said. I didn’t think Horowitz would place much credence in my dreams. “I haven’t figured out if they’re useful or not yet. When I do I’ll let you know.”

“Make it snappy, Coyne. One of these days this nut might kill somebody.”

“That,” I said, “is certainly one of the thoughts I’ve been having.”

After I hung up with Horowitz, I retrieved the SAFE newsletter with its enemies’ list from the rolltop desk in the corner of my living room. After Wally and Senator Swift, enemies number three through six—the Connecticut governor and the two United Stales senators from Massachusetts and the Congressman from Rhode Island—had apparently been skipped. Brady Coyne, the seventh enemy, had been next.

Eight was the senator from Vermont, and nine was a United States congresswoman from Maine. If Horowitz was right, the next target of the assassin would be Wilson Bailey, enemy number ten.

I didn’t want to underestimate this shooter. He
had
shot Wally, and it almost killed him. Senator Swift had saved himself by his reflexes. I had been plain lucky, although, as I remembered it, I must have heard or sensed something, because I had flinched and ducked behind a car an instant before the first shot was fired. Otherwise, maybe I’d have been killed.

That’s what my Bobby Farraday dream was all about.

I dialed Wilson Bailey’s number. His answering machine picked it up. “Hi,” came the woman’s cheery voice. “You’ve reached the Bailey household. I guess no one’s home right now. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you.”

I swallowed hard before I responded to the dead Mrs. Bailey’s invitation. “Mr. Bailey, it’s Brady Coyne again,” I said, “if you’re there please call me right back. It’s very important.” I left my phone number.

I skimmed through the Sunday
Globe
while I waited for Bailey to return my call. There was a long piece by Alex comparing safety procedures and evacuation contingencies at the Seabrook and Plymouth nuclear power stations. It was strong, frightening journalism. I told myself I should call and congratulate her. But I didn’t want to tie up the phone in case Wilson Bailey tried to reach me.

I remembered the man’s testimony. His wife and daughter and unborn child had been murdered in an utterly random act of violence in a small-town library, I tried to imagine being Wilson Bailey, the horror of it. I found it unthinkable.

Two o’clock came and went. No call from Bailey.

I found a map and located the town of Harlow, where Bailey lived. It was near the Ware River, a decent trout stream in the middle of the state that I fished occasionally. It looked as if it would take about an hour and a half to drive from Boston to Harlow.

I went to the phone and dialed Alex’s number. Her answering machine invited me to leave a message. “Good article,” I said. “You’re a helluva reporter, lady. I’m going fishing. I’ll call if I don’t get in too late. I’m feeling a bit hug-deprived.”

I gathered together my fishing gear. I found myself wanting very much to talk to Wilson Bailey. After that, maybe I’d feel more like trying to catch a trout.

I
PONDERED MY BOBBY
Farraday dream all the way out to Harlow. The more I thought about it, the more ominous it seemed. I knew enough about dream interpretation to understand why I’d had that dream. But that didn’t help me to figure it out.

The SAFE enemies’ list told me that Wilson Bailey lived at 78 Aldrich Street. The kid at the 7-Eleven store in Harlow had never heard of Aldrich Street. But he had a town map, and together we located it. I bought a can of Pepsi, thanked the kid, and followed the directions I had written down from the map.

Harlow appeared to be a typical old New England mill town whose mill had long since been closed down and which now survived as a bedroom community halfway between Springfield and Worcester. It was a reasonable commute to either city, and as I navigated the streets I saw considerable evidence that optimistic real estate developers had targeted Harlow during the boom of the seventies and abandoned it in the collapse of the eighties. There were many building lots that had been cleared but not built on and unoccupied homes with piles of raw dirt and For Sale signs in front.

The dwellings on Aldrich Street were small and neat and of the same vintage, all cut from the same half-dozen architectural plans. They were set back from the road among tall pines on large lots. I drove slowly, checking the mailboxes out front for street numbers. Kids pedaled their bikes in the street and played basketball in the driveways. Men rode mowers back and forth across their front lawns. Young matrons wearing cotton gloves and T-shirts and shorts knelt on the edges of flower gardens.

It was a pleasant residential street, the kind of place where the neighbors got together for barbecues on summer Saturday evenings, and the kids swam in each other’s pools, and the grown-ups pitched horseshoes and played volleyball. A nice street for raising a young family.

Aldrich Street was a dead end. Number 78 was the last house on the right. Number 76 next door had a For Sale sign out front. The house appeared empty. On the dead-end side of Bailey’s house lay undeveloped woodland.

A Plymouth station wagon was parked in his driveway. His lawn had been mowed within the past few days. The gardens were neatly edged and mulched. The foundation plantings of azaleas and rhododendrons rioted in full pink and red bloom.